I was doing a bit of editing yesterday and looked back on some of the notes I’d made from various workshops, and then I remember this blog post from 2012. Yes, nearly 8 years ago, a heck of a long time in politics but a few seconds in poetics. Anyway, I thought I’d reblog it, as it still made me think (and laugh):
As you may know, I’m fond of a mini-book, mini poetry books in particular, and I came across these recently among my memorabilia. They’re two little leather-bound books of poetry, ‘Moments with Shakespeare’ and Gems from Shelley’.
They’re both dated 1909, one says it’s from ‘Jack’. One of my parents (I think my Dad) did have an uncle Jack. In fact his daughter who we knew as ‘cousin Joan’ did appear in a poem of mine once. When Joan died some of her effects came to him and then through him to Mum and then to me.
So maybe these booklets belonged to Joan’s mother. I like to think of them being carried around in a concealed pocket, to be brought out for a moment or two of reflection now and then.
Is it the end of June already? I wonder how you’re getting on. Well, I hope. If you need a shot of positivity, I find Wee Granny still helps…
Recently arrived in the post: two anthologies and issue #3 of Finished Creatures magazine. Finished Creatures was having not one but two online launches, so I thought it would be good to have a read of it beforehand and was looking forward to hearing some of the poems in particular … but did I make a note of the launch times?? I had it firmly in my mind that they were in July, but I’ve just checked the invitation email only to find they were last Thursday and Sunday, so I missed them. DUH! How %@**&! annoying. All I can blame it on is Lockdown Head – that thing whereby you only have two things to do all week and you still forget. Or is that just me??
The anthologies were Poetry & All That Jazz which Barry Smith publishes each year – its contributors are generally poets who have a connection to the Chichester poetry events that Barry organises, although anyone is welcome to submit something. There are many familiar names here, some of whom also feature in Frogmore Press Poetry South East 2020 anthology, a collection selected by the press’s editor Jeremy Page. It’s ten years since the last Poetry South East, which happened just before I started writing seriously and submitting poems to magazines. So it’s a great privilege to make this one. According to the cover blurb the Poetry South East anthologies represent ‘a comprehensive survey of poetic activity in the region in the first decades of the 21st century’. I certainly discovered some favourites old and new, including Janet Sutherland’s ‘Hangman’s Acre’, Robert Hamberger’s ‘Sleeping with uncertainty’, Stephen Bone’s ‘Inventory’ and John O’Donoghue’s ‘His Plane’.
I know it sounds unlikely, but actually I’m motoring through Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory (Bennett & Royle, Pearson 2005), as part of my self-education (see below). It’s a lot more interesting than it sounds!
Another rejection from Ambit, on what I think may have been my fifth attempt over eight years, so I think I can safely say my work ain’t a good fit there – oh well, onwards! Then two poems accepted by Prole, which is always good news. So that’s cleared the decks, which means I need to get some more poems out this week.
I’ve been thinking off and on for a few years about what’s going to push my writing on. I’ve thought about finding a mentor, but I’m not sure that’s it. Something that’s been nagging away at me, even though I try not to let it, is that a respected editor who I paid to critique a manuscript, when I’d asked if he would mentor me further, replied that it would be a steep upward curve for me as I have ‘no literary education’. It’s true I have a haphazard approach to reading. If I’m asked to write a review, or judge a poetry competition, I do feel a bit of a fraud (and no it’s not just ‘imposter syndrome’). As writing buddies, I have the Hastings Stanza, a supportive and talented group. I’ve always longed for something else as well, but not been able to define it.
Part of me doesn’t want to go down the Creative Writing MA route, having spoken to people who have. It’s also a huge luxury and not one (especially given the current financial climate) I’m sure I can afford to take. But the prospect of being given directed reading and focus, together with sustained critiquing that develops my writing and helps me situate it in relation to the ‘canon’, is tempting. Interestingly I nearly enrolled for a Creative Writing MA twenty years ago, when I came back from the US and wanted a fresh start. But my head ruled my heart and I took a Digital Media MA instead, which I don’t regret as it set me up for a new career. But it makes me a bit rueful all the same. So, all of this is a longwinded way of saying I’ve decided after all to apply for that CW MA, and see what happens. I’ll let you know how it turns out!
There’s so much bitterness expressed via social media these days, which is unsurprising I suppose, given what the world is going through, and social media is basically seen by many people as their only opportunity to make their opinions heard. Trouble is, we don’t all need or want to be hearing them, especially as the repetition encouraged by ‘sharing’ quickly turns into an endless storm of hate.
I’ve noticed a few people recently announcing their withdrawal from social channels. I took myself off Facebook some years ago and don’t regret it for a moment. I’m not planning to come off Twitter as I still find it entertaining and useful, plus it’s my only regular social media presence these days. I’m proud to be one of its very early adopters and feel a responsibility to keep on using it as it was intended. But oh my, it can be depressing on Twitter these days. I manage my presence there by muting certain people, unfollowing others, encouraging and supporting good (ie social!) behaviour, continuing to share or create what I feel to be informative and/or entertaining things where possible, staying curious and feeling delight when I come across someone new and interesting to follow. Meanwhile I get the news from The Guardian and The Times online, and never, never, never watch any TV news.
I’m still practising my handmade notelets/notebooks. Here are a couple. The cover of the dotty one is made from a Sainsbury’s bottle gift bag!
The garden continues to provide work and endless fascination. I love the strange and curious shapes the courgettes are putting out…
And the small white turnips which are new this year, plus strawberries (when we can get them before the snails etc):
I’m not sure what it’s taken but I’ve started writing again. Not a great outpouring, but something. Maybe it’s been the eclectic reading I’ve been doing.
As well as Mary Jean Chan’s Flèche (Faber, 2019), I’ve read my way through Jean Sprackland’s Green Noise (Cape, 2018), and am enjoying dipping in and out of Darling (Bloodaxe, 2007), Jackie Kay’s selected. I’ve also been intrigued by Adam Nicolson’s exploration of Wilton and the background to Sir Philip Sidney’s ‘Arcadia’, which then got me onto The Elizabethans by A N Wilson which I’d had on the bookshelf for a while. Much to enjoy here, but the author has some angles (shall we say) and turns of phrase that rankled with me. Although I’m on the last chapter I don’t think I’ll finish it as there are just too many references to how Elizabeth had become ‘old and yellow-toothed’ and so forth. A queen who had achieved so much during her reign, being denigrated for the sin of growing old and thereby losing her looks doesn’t sit well with me. Funny, that!
I’m getting very interested in the ‘Sidney circle’ and the whole pre-Shakespeare Renaissance literary scene. In particular I’m starting to dig out more about Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, by all accounts a fine writer, but who tends to be described in terms of a) her more famous brother and b) her generous literary patronage.
Last week I ‘attended’ (should this really still be in inverted commas?) a Poetry Society evening of readings on Zoom, celebrating the Peggy Poole Award and National Poetry Competition. There were an impressive 130 or so attendees, many of us on video – for me, this made it more enjoyable than when we’re all hidden. Some great readings from (amongst others) Michael Symons Roberts and Louisa Adjoa Parker, and an atmospheric filmpoem of Mark Pajak’s ‘Dismantling the largest oil tanker in the world’:
Meanwhile the collaborative project is taking shape. It’s a joy to be working with Peter Kenny on this, poetry pal and Telltale co-founder. This time we’re chewing over ideas on WhatsApp rather than in a coffee shop. I think Telltale is about to rise again, but what shape or form will it take? To be revealed soon!!
It’s out – the latest list of UK & Irish poetry magazines with their URLs, submission windows info and other stuff.
There are now over 120 magazines/journals on the list, and quite a few are open now, so get sending!
If you’re on my email list to receive these quarterly updates, you should have heard from me yesterday.
If you’re not, but would like to be, please sign up here (a new landing page – woohoo!)
PS
Many editors are under pressure right now – homeschooling kids, self-isolating, caring for others and so forth. If you’re able to, please consider subscribing to some of these journals. That gets expensive of course, but you could always subscribe to (say) two journals this year, and then two different ones the next year, etc, in a rotation (which is what I do). Or even ordering a single issue helps both the magazine’s finances and your chances of sending them something they’ll want to publish. Thanks a million.
Greetings from the Sunshine Coast. I can’t remember the last time it rained here, but the water authorities are asking us to be frugal with the watering. I’m doing my best but those courgettes are mighty thirsty.
I haven’t been writing these last few weeks, and reading other people’s blogs I feel I ‘m not alone. However, there’s a Hastings Stanza meeting coming up so that’s a good reason for me to have a dig through the WIP for a poem to workshop. Actually, I’m not beating myself up about not writing, because I’m working through a lot of ideas at the moment and this has meant research, reading and mulling, all nice cerebral activities for when I’m not gardening, or directing my long-suffering other half to repaint the hall or reposition a shelf. Oh and of course doing my best to thrash the rellies at the weekly Zoom quiz.
It’s also perfect walking weather – the other day I got a tip-off about a ‘secret’ beach, and the walk there was glorious – a slowly-descending cliff path, lots of steep steps, very few people about but plenty of birds, butterflies and beautiful views. This part of the coast is all pebbles, but in certain places at low tide there’s sand. It was magical.
A couple of weeks ago I ‘attended’ the launch of Charlotte Gann‘s new collection The Girl Who Cried (HappenStance). It was set up as a ‘webinar’, which meant we could see the readers but not each other, and we had no idea who else was there (it was a secret!) To begin with I was a bit sad about that, and a couple of other things, but I ended up really enjoying the event. Charlotte read a few poems from the book, in between carrying on a conversation with Nell Nelson the publisher. The poems were displayed on the screen as Charlotte read, which for me was a REAL bonus over just hearing them read aloud. The result was a lovely insight into the work, and more intimate than a regular reading. And trust me, Charlotte is the real deal; a real poet. I’ve got the book on order, so something else to look forward to.
Meanwhile there is one poetry project that’s currently bubbling under, an exciting collaboration … announcement coming soon!!!!! Sorry. That’s about as annoying as those tweets that go ‘I’VE HAD SOME AMAZING NEWS AND I’M SICK WITH EXCITEMENT BUT CAN’T TELL YOU ABOUT IT YET’ – huh, whatever. It’s a secret! Like you care!
I’ve had a couple of sad rejections trickle in in the last month, and still have a couple more submissions ‘in progress’, but since I’ve sent nothing out in about three months I predict my name will be absent from the mags this autumn. But at least I have some summer appearances to look forward to in The North, Stand and the Frogmore Papers.
I’ve been compiling and updating my quarterly ‘UK Poetry Magazines Submissions Criteria and Windows’ document for a number of years now, and tomorrow I’ll be finalising the June update, to send on Monday. If you’re not on the list to receive it, you can sign up here.
Life has settled into a gentle daily routine, namely breakfast (in the garden most days until this cold snap), desk work, chores or gardening usually in the morning, salad and cheese/crackers or mackerel pate for lunch, then reading, more gardening, a walk or a run, a bit of yoga, a game of Scrabble at 6-ish, an episode of Spooks,Van Der Valk or whatever in the evening. Having regular punctuation points (and giving thanks daily to all the relevant gods for our fortunate situation) seems to help keep frustration at bay. And if all else fails, cups of tea. It reminds me of the various office jobs I’ve had in the past – it didn’t matter how frequently it happened, every time someone said ‘cup of tea anyone?’ the answer was always ‘LOVE ONE’.
The garden is starting to bloom. This is a marvellous thing.
I finished Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light. I’m still thinking about it. Did I enjoy it more than the first two books? No, but then how reasonable is it to say that Wolf Hall was the best? It was the first, so it had the most impact. When it comes to Mirror, we know it’s the third part of the story of Thomas Cromwell, and it’s hardly a spoiler to say it ends with his death. But how on earth do you write about real people like this, real people, not fictional characters, many of whose lives have been recorded and dissected over the centuries, and weave them into a story that’s original, alive, relevant, thrilling even. As a reader, you know what’s coming but still can’t wait to turn the page. It’s extraordinary.
I’m not a great reader of fiction. Mantel’s trilogy has made me curious about some of the other people who appear as characters her the books and what became of them, such as Rafe Sadler, who went on to serve four monarchs, and William Herbert who has a bit-part in Mirror: he rose to become the first Earl of Pembroke and was given huge swathes of Wiltshire to build a house and start a dynasty. His daughter-in-law Mary was apparently a brilliant woman and her brother was Philip Sidney – a poet whose name I knew but am now getting to know his work…
Poet friend Judith very kindly sent me a copy of Mary Jean Chan’s Flèche (Faber)which I’m looking forward to reading, and I also have a copy of Jackie Kay’s Darling (New & Selected)(Bloodaxe), a collection I’ve been itching to read for some time. And I’m hoping to get hold of Charlotte Gann’s new collection, The Girl Who Cried (Happenstance), for which there’s going to be an online launch on May 21st.
Yes I know, I’ve sworn off entering single-poem comps for this year, but perhaps I can do my bit for mags and organisers by promoting them.
The Frogmore Poetry Competition, judged by Maria Jastrzębska is closing soon, on 31st May – enter here.
The Bridport Prize closes 31st May – poetry judge is Mimi Khalvati.
Live Canon Collection Competition, deadline May 25th – lots of winning chances here, do take a look.
Not poetry, but…writer friend Danielle Sensier has asked me to mention the Chalk Circle Short Story Competition which is now open until 31st August, judged by Vanessa Gebbie…
If you’re on my mailing list you should have received an email last week about magazines whose windows are closing soon.
If you didn’t get this and/or would like to be on the list, please join via the webform on my ‘about’ page:
NB I’d be grateful if you would join via the form, as if you ask me to add you I may not see your request or be able to act on it right away – thanks!
I’ll be compiling the next update to my Poetry Magazines Submissions Windows spreadsheet at the end of this month.
That’s it for now – take care.
I’ve recently had sight of Abegail Morley’s new collection The Unmapped Woman. To read it is to be drawn into a mystery of dream-like sadness and the minutest, extraordinary detail of the processes around loss and grieving. ‘We all start in water’ begins the poem ‘Expected’, and whether that’s amniotic fluid, rockpools or ‘slippers of meltwater’, water seeps its way through the whole collection, as if it couldn’t be stopped. This is emotionally draining material conveyed with great skill and beauty.
The reader has a sense of being ‘on hold’ throughout – waiting is a recurrent theme: sometimes with anticipation, sometimes in desperation, finely balanced, a jangle of nerves, things just holding together.
‘ You’re waiting / for liberation, foetus shaping in liquid until you / come adrift on a crib-shaped island with the map / of life crumpled in the tiniest palm I can imagine’ (‘Imminent’)
‘I wait for melancholy to wake,/snared like a hack of crow/ at the back of my throat. / I wait to weight its grief at daybreak.’ (‘Not Being’).
I found this collection very moving and I think my favourite of Abegail’s books so far. You can order it here at Nine Arches Press. I believe there’s an online launch planned. What a shame that so many good poetry books are having to make do with virtual launches for now.
How are you doing?
Apparently we’re now all feasting on The Repair Shop and reruns of The Vicar of Dibley. The skies are bluer and quieter than ever, all the better to hear birdsong. Stars are brighter, if you have access to outdoor space at night time. I realise these are terrible times for so many people and I’m one of the fortunate ones. I’m not facing financial ruin, I’m ‘locked down’ in the company of my best friend and I have a garden. I’m able to appreciate Spring and watch things grow. Just the word grow makes me slow down. So what if I haven’t written any stonking new poems lately. I have a few ideas, but they need time to grow. SloPo seems to have come into its own.
I planted some basil seeds on 6th March, and another lot on 20th April. What a difference six weeks makes.
The problem is I have plenty of poems at the pre-germination stage and I want them to look more like that 6-week young basil!
I enjoyed reading an interview with Julia Cameron in the Sunday Times last week, (apologies if this is behind a paywall) on dealing with social isolation (“As westerners, we have a hard time sitting and doing nothing”). I remember reading The Artist’s Way and struggled to follow its advice. There’s something about ‘free writing’ that feels to me like the opposite: I feel restricted, I regress to cliche, old reminiscences, boring language and prosaic nonsense. An advocate might say ‘yes that’s the idea – not to think, just write’. But sadly it doesn’t free me up. I guess I could adapt the daily free writing to something else: word games around a theme or something that at least begins with a structure.
Next month I’m going to be following Adriene Mishler’s monthly calendar which will have a meditation element to it alongside the yoga. Meditation isn’t something I’ve ever got into, but these days I’m suitably chilled to give it a try.
So far I’ve managed to stick to my resolve of not entering any single-poem competitions. (Although I did try the Poetry Business Pamphlet competition again.) Having had nothing really appear in magazines for months, I’m paying the price for submitting very little in the second half of 2019. I did have a poem long listed in the National this year, which I was chuffed about (once I’d got over the initial BWWAAA how did I manage to miss out on the money?) I’m very pleased to have a poem forthcoming in The North in the summer, and one in Stand. I’m currently awaiting responses to nine poems from three magazines. That’s it for now.
Wishing you love, health and slo-po.
Having just enjoyed reading through my Monday morning digest of other people’s blogs, I can see quite a few people are blogging more often, and I’m wondering why that doesn’t seem to be the case for me. I haven’t even updated my ‘Eastbourne Diary’ blog since the lockdown, and yet there’s plenty to report about the garden, and the moving around of furniture and other household tales. I think maybe I’m trying to do more individual reaching out, and consequently the blogging has slipped down the ‘to-do’ list.
A couple of weeks ago I had the thought of writing to friends, to ask how they are and tell them what’s going on in our little world-bubble. But I confess my handwriting is poor, and after 20 years of RSI it hurts to write longhand. Then I remembered how much I’d enjoyed making ‘Foot Wear’, my little A6 sized pamphlet, and thought I would revive the quaint art of the ‘notelet’ – a sort of cross between a card and a letter. I have a large stock of good quality A5 paper, so I started painting sheets of them, just random background paint, the more sloshed-on the better. When they were dry, I flattened them between the pages of my OED, then set about trimming and pamphlet-binding two sheets together into little A6 booklets. But what to put in them? I decided on a kind of mini-magazine – there was space for one poem (something I liked and/or felt was appropriate, but not one of mine), one ‘topical’ prose extract or flash fiction, a recipe and a knot instructional (I’m big into knots at the moment). It seemed a bit dry, so I got out my copy of the fascinating British Poetry Magazines 1914 – 2000 and photocopied a few of the poetry magazine covers from times past. And added a postcard. The notelets were all slightly different – I tried to choose the elements according to the person I was sending to.
When it came to writing in the notelets and sending them out, I wondered if I’d gone a bit crazy. I could picture some of the recipients opening and thinking ‘oh no, Robin’s lost it’. But in a good way I hoped! In actual fact I’ve had some really lovely responses, including a handwritten card and letter, and no-one seems to have been weirded-out. One friend said, ‘it’s fascinating to see what people get up to during a lockdown!’ I’ll take that!
