Month: March 2019

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Back from Ireland

River Lee, Cork

The rest of my week at the Cork Poetry Festival was brilliant – I want to say that right away as a few people were worried about me after my last blog post – thank you so much for the messages of support/understanding!

I think it took me a day or two to tune into what I’ll call the shape or thread of the place I found myself in. It’s a funny thing to try to make sense of. Finding myself walking a route between venues and remembering it from the day before, thinking ‘oh yes, I noticed that shop yesterday’ and ‘ah, that’s an interesting detail I’m discovering today’. Going down to breakfast and knowing what food there is but trying something different. Getting the feel of each venue and whether to arrive 15 minutes before the start or 5. Realising I do find it hard to concentrate after 10pm and not beating myself up for missing an event if I was too tired. Starting not only to understand the cadences of Cork, and the vernacular of the event in general, but enjoying it too. It was wonderful to meet up with Grainne Tobin, down from Northern Ireland, quick to take me under her wing and a mine of knowledge, ideas and energy. And speaking of energy, I was also lucky to spend time in the company of Abigail Parry: frighteningly talented, generous, modest, funny and one of the hardcore crowd still going strong at 3am on Saturday morning.

And the poetry of course! I heard poets reading in Irish (Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill and Ailbhe Ni Ghearbhuigh), and in Chinese (Jidi Majia) – nothing I’ve experienced before and it felt such a privilege to be there. Both Friday and Saturday nights were corkers: Jonathan Edwards read alongside Abigail Parry, followed by Sasha Dugdale with Theo Dorgan, who stood in for Karen McCarthy Woolf. The third session that night featured Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill and David Harsent who read a series of poems with no titles, and he asked people not to look at him ‘so you don’t know when the next poem is going to begin.’ It created a kind of meditative atmosphere. Saturday night was a sell-out, with Kim Addonizio (btw I think this is the coolest poet webpage photo I’ve ever seen) and Kathryn Maris proving to be an inspired pairing, followed by Leanne O’Sullivan introducing Billy Collins, former US poet laureate and such a pro – his timing and deadpan delivery were perfect, here’s an example.

I’m sorry I seem to have reduced so many fine readings to more or less a list of names. I deliberately didn’t take notes, and now almost a week later it feels like a decade ago. It was an inspirational week for me; I did some good writing while I was there, had some eye-opening conversations and felt I’d glimpsed something of the country/culture in a way that rarely happens when you’re simply a tourist.

I also want to say a huge thank you to the Munster Literature Centre, organisers of the festival, particularly Director Patrick Cotter and Administrator James O’Leary, who appeared to work non-stop and always with an air of calm. Despite a number of readers dropping out through illness, everything was so well organised and on a human-friendly scale. Recommended!

Billy Collins reading at Cork Poetry Festival
Billy Collins

 

A furtive photo taken from the Farmgate Cafe in the English Market…

 

Abigail Parry & Robin Houghton
With Abigail Parry

 

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Day 3 in Cork – turning a corner

Book haul 1 Cork

It’s day 3 and I’m settling into my Cork Poetry Festival experience. Yesterday and today I’ve spent the morning writing and reading. Afternoons I go to hear readings at the library, evenings are in the fine Cork Arts Theatre – a lovely intimate size perfect for poetry.

Highlights for me so far:

Launch event for The Well Review issue 3 on Tuesday at the Music School: a wonderfully thought-out programme that followed the ‘music’ theme of the issue. In between readings by contributors (Sasha Dugdale read Anna Akhmatova both in English and in Russian – I marvelled at the way her voice changes in accommodation) we heard music for cello and piano, by Shostakovich, Britten and Mahler. Editor Sarah Byrne made the introductions and has a manner I want to describe as ‘sweet’ but I don’t mean that in a patronising or sugary way at all. Gentle, thoughtful, informed.

US/Irish poet Thomas Dillon Redshaw reading yesterday at the library, from his collection Mortal (Brighthorse Books) and some new material too – goodness, what moving poems from the experience of losing his mother ‘in her hundredth year’. One of them, ‘Theft’, was published by the Irish Times last Saturday.

Yesterday evening I loved hearing Pat Boran, another name I hadn’t heard of but I bought a copy of his ‘pocket selected’ A Man is Only as Good…(Orange Crate Books) and have already started reading & enjoying it. We also had Jessica Traynor reading from The Quick (Dedalus Press 2018). Great presentation and some wonderful poems. A poet I have heard read before of course is Kim Moore. I’d heard most of her set before and that was a big part of my enjoyment of it. She manages to make each reading (and the links) sound fresh, making me laugh at the funny bits as if hearing them for the first time.

Meanwhile I’ve actually already worked on four ‘archive’ poems (ie one of about 200 I’ve ‘put in the drawer’ over the years) and started a new one. The new one is partly a response to Thomas Dillon Redshaw’s poems about his mother. It’s been six years since my mother died, but just ten lines written this morning and I was crying my eyes out. I would blame it on hormones but I think that’s all done with now.

I won’t deny I’ve struggled a bit since arriving in Cork – people have been so kind on Twitter but by last night I was seriously wondering what sort of dreadful negativity I was giving off in real life! I’m so grateful to Sasha Dugdale for joining me at breakfast yesterday, but then later in the day she endured my moaning on about being a Jonny-no-mates – ugh!  How embarrassing – I owe her a bunch of flowers at least.

I’ve reminded myself of a few truths: that I can’t have it both ways – I like my solitary time, I knew it would be challenge to come here not knowing anyone, I came to hear the work of poets new to me, and to be inspired. I didn’t come here to socialise, or to feel obliged to fit in with others – I am an outsider here so wishing that wasn’t the case is really a bit silly. So I’m over myself. I’m in Ireland for $£@*’s sake! I’m hearing some fantastic poetry! I’m extremely lucky!

Anyway, today’s another day entirely and from my first encounter with the famous Cork friendliness at the health club reception desk this morning (Shane! Thank you! I realise that you probably spell your name Siaorghne or something so please forgive my ignorance) to the brilliantly empty swimming pool, to the wonderful person on reception who offered me a different room, (in which hopefully I won’t be woken three times a night by the bins lorry) I feel encased in a glow of positivity and ready to turn a corner. Off to the library.

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Pre-Cork checklist

banshee magazineAlthough I’m going to miss my writer’s group this week it’s for a good reason, as I’ll be in Ireland for the Cork International Poetry Festival, which sounds rather grand, but so far my impression is that it’s going to be a chilled affair, perhaps not as intimate as Swindon but not as scary as Aldeburgh in its Snape Maltings days. Having booked for all the sessions online it was lovely (and unexpected) to receive the slightly ‘alt’ programme in the post. I’ve been googling various poets so that I’m not entirely in the dark when I go hear them read. I’ve also come across at least one ‘fringe’ or rival event on Thursday night, so perhaps there’ll be a bit of poetry gunslinging. All adding to the good energy no doubt. Anyway, you’ll be the first to hear about what goes on as I’ll certainly be writing the odd blog post… but I’ve promised myself some serious writing time each morning. The weather forecast is rain, so what better than to hole up in the warm and dry, reading fine poetry and writing, um, poetry?

Meanwhile I’ve been dipping my toe in the Irish poetry scene with Banshee, three back issues of which arrived in the post, together with a nifty tote which may well come in handy in the next few days. So far so good – and I’ve been enjoying the essays as much as the poems. I do enjoy creative non-fiction and for me it sits well with poetry, whereas I struggle to switch my attention between poetry and short stories. This hasn’t occurred to me before so it’s an interesting discovery.

A couple of things: Martyn Crucefix asked me to mention his current project Works and Days of Division – basically he is posting 29 new, original poems in which he wrestles with Brexit. The form he’s following is an old one. “The so-called vacana poems originate in the bhakti religious protest movements in 10-12th century India. Through plain language, repetition and refrain, they offer praise to the god, Siva, though they also express personal anger, puzzlement, even despair.” A thoughtful alternative to the current political “debate” and one which dwells more on what Martyn terms the “psychological fallout”.  Here’s today’s poem, ‘O Twitterstorm’.

And surfacing on on Twitter, this gem of a poem by Claire Cox was voted the Poem of the Month on Ink, Sweat & Tears: ‘The card given out at his funeral’. Lovely stuff.

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On #100rejections … (and 2 subscriptions)

The other day on Twitter I saw Penny Shutt mention #100rejections. Intrigued, I followed the hashtag and felt I’d stumbled on some sort of masochistic cult…

“Heard the outcome of a GDC scholarship that I applied for…!
Didn’t get it! All good, another ✔️ for #100rejections.”

“Holy EFF I might make #100rejections in the first month at this rate. I’ve got 11 in two days. Go me?”

“This year was the first year I seriously submitted work to literary journals. My goal: #100rejections”

Can this be true? My first thought was along the lines of ‘duh? I’ve easily got a hundred bad poems right now which I could send to a cluster of fine mags and be guaranteed rejections’. But I guess that’s not the point.

I started thinking of the high octane telesales people who talk about how great it is to get knocked back, because every rejection means you’re closer to making a sale. I can’t really see the logic in it – just feels like statistics gone nuts. But then again there’s no logic in my preferring the word ‘declined’ to ‘rejected’ when poems don’t make the cut with an editor. As someone pointed out to me recently d’you mean as in ‘your credit card has been declined’? All-righty.

Louise Tondeur helpfully pointed me in the direction of this blog post from 2016, by Kim Liao. Here’s an extract:

My ego resists mustering up the courage to submit writing to literary magazines, pitch articles, and apply for grants, residencies, and fellowships. Yet these painful processes are necessary evils if we are ever to climb out of our safe but hermetic cocoons of isolation and share our writing with the world.

[…]

Perhaps aiming for rejection, a far more attainable goal, would take some of the sting out of this ego-bruising exercise—which so often feels like an exercise in futility.

I can see how we all have to play whatever mind games it takes in order to submit our work for outside scrutiny and still retain the confidence and/or determination to keep going. But aiming for rejections feels to me like an ‘exercise in futility’ in itself. I wonder if by trying to ‘protect’ the fragile ego in this way you’re just feeding the problem by elevating the status of a rejection – increasing its significance, rather than allowing yourself to move away and on from it.

There was a good recent discussion of #100rejections on Twitter, starting with this comment by Natalie Ann Holborow (@missholborow) which struck a chord with me:

“Not sure about this #100rejections thing. Surely it’s knocking yourself back before you’ve started? For me, it means more to aim high, work hard & use rejection as a valuable way to improve so that I can be my very best next time. Rejection happens, but I don’t need to seek it.”

Perhaps aiming for 100 submissions a year (on the basis that you may get some acceptances in among the rejections) is one thing, although personally I know my creative brain goes to sleep if I turn the business of writing poetry into a numbers game. I do berate myself for not sending work out, it’s true, but I’d rather not send at all than send for the sake of achieving some numerical goal.

It’s obvious I’ve come late to the #100rejections party – Kim has written about again here, three years later, on ‘What collecting 100 rejections taught me about creative failure‘, during which time various writers and artists have run with it.

I can see how the #100rejections meme works for some people – movements create camaraderie if not community, and Kim Liao’s assertion that ‘since I’ve started aiming for rejections, not acceptances, I no longer dread submitting’ clearly holds good for many. But it’s not really my bag.

 

In other news, as a couple of magazine subscriptions come to an end I’ve just subscribed to The Moth and Stand to take their places. Neither are journals I’m familiar with, but I know them by reputation and am looking forward to seeing what they hold.

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Delighted and amazed to announce that…( just kidding)

I bet you were dead excited for me there for a second or two, weren’t you? No? Oh well…it’s that time of year again, when thousands of us come to accept that we’ve got nowhere (yet again) in the National Poetry Comp, never mind the other comps who promised to inform winners ‘by the end of February’… Whatever. I’ve revised all those poems since entering them, and now they’re far stronger and ready to find a decent home in a lovely magazine somewhere. Onwards!

Meanwhile I’ve been working up various poems for a new pamphlet which I’m actually pleased with (for now anyway – ask me again in 2 years’ time if it hasn’t found a publisher and I may feel differently…)

I’ve also updated my quarterly list of UK poetry magazine submissions windows… if you’re on the list, you should have got your copy by now. If not (or if you’re not on the list but would like to be) please drop me an email – robin at robinhoughtonpoetry dot co dot uk.

If you’ve got something ready to go there’s still time to catch these open windows –

The Stockholm Review closes tomorrow Sunday 3rd March – https://thestockholmreview.org/submissions/

Synaesthesia closes tomorrow Sunday 3rd March –http://www.synaesthesiamagazine.com/submit/

Popshot closes Monday 4th March – https://www.popshotpopshot.com/submit/

Have a grand weekend, folks!