Author: Robin Houghton

Angst/

Poetry & alcohol, contentious essays and more

Ah, December. The month when I may be found stressing over the kerning and leading of some choir’s concert programme, editing singers’ lengthy blogs and updating the Christmas card list. Yes! I am still a Christmas card aficionado, despite every year it becoming yet another soul-search about whether the negative impact on the environment of all that paper, print and roadmiles outweighs the social benefit of sending and receiving something with physical presence handwritten by a human being. I’m sure my parents must have faced similar moral dilemmas but I can’t imagine right now what they were.

Having just emerged from a ‘dry November’ – no, it wasn’t for charity, just for a challenge – I feel just a tad liberated. I mean, to return to alcohol. I wonder if the occasional injection of alcohol actually loosens up my brain in a way that allows me to think poetry – rather like allowing one’s gaze to soften and see those 3D ‘magic eye’ images that had their moment in the 1990s. It feels that way, anyway. I’m sure it’s not a scientific fact, otherwise there would be no teetotal poets. Which I’m sure isn’t the case.

Read this please

I came across this piece by the big-thinking Jon Stone, on how we could be re-thinking the traditional poetry book blurbs and steer clear of the dreaded ‘ceaselessly inventive and original, utilises precise, finely wrought language, deft musicality’ etc etc stuff that we read every day. This appealed to me greatly. I try to suppress the copywriter in me but It’s very hard when yet another claim about ‘clear-eyed poetry that demands to be written’ or whatever makes me want to be sick into a bucket. Although I admit I also fall into this particular bucket from time to time.

Jon’s essay is a fab read on its own, but don’t miss also part 1 in the series, on Prize Culture, sure to quicken a few pulses (“If the Forward or the Eliot mysteriously stopped producing spikes in sales for shortlisted books, a serious reform would be undertaken immediately, as a matter of emergency”). I can’t find parts 3 – 5 of the series, but I’m waiting for them with bated breath. These essays were written in 2014, so why have I only just discovered them? Conspiracy theories on a postcard, please.

Readings, launches

A couple of weeks ago I went over to Chichester to read at Barry Smith’s excellent Chichester Poetry Open Mic. Twas a fairly foul night, but the small audience had a big heart – not only was the open mic element one of the best I’ve experienced, but the lovely people bought a few of my pamphlets as well as my ‘Guide to Getting Published in UK Poetry Magazines’ (yes! another plug! But if I can’t plug it on my own blog then what kind of a marketer would that make me? No need to answer that one.)

A few nights ago I attended the launch of Antony Mair‘s wonderful new collection, Let the Wounded Speak. Antony had invited two other poets to read from his collection, and the whole event had been impeccably planned. Having others read his poems was a bit of a masterstroke. I love hearing Antony read, but giving the poems to another voice meant we got a different slant on the work. I admit I was surprised to find it so moving, although I’m not sure why I was surprised, because I’d been to the launch of his first collection performed partially by the actors of Live Canon, and enjoyed that immensely.

Antony has a theory that my poetry-related doo-dads such as the quarterly windows updates and the ‘how to’ book are displacement activities designed to stop me getting on with the first collection. There could be something in that. But there’s also the pleasure of dipping in and out of diverse projects.

One thing’s for certain, I need the relative quiet of January to get on with thinking about the collection. Music for now. I’m still enjoying laying out the programme and learning the music for our upcoming concert…

Fashion/

Your smile is the only accessory you’ll ever need

Distinctively iterate effective benefits rather than best-of-breed materials. Authoritatively initiate timely portals without team driven convergence. Globally brand scalable testing procedures before market positioning intellectual capital. Objectively utilize e-business sources vis-a-vis just in time customer service. Professionally leverage.

Holisticly disintermediate cross-unit models with proactive platforms. Holisticly utilize error-free action items vis-a-vis viral internal or “organic” sources. Interactively impact interdependent e-services through premier ROI. Proactively e-enable compelling e-commerce via turnkey initiatives. Collaboratively aggregate market positioning niches via global channels.

Unleash your creativity

Quickly facilitate intuitive vortals vis-a-vis client-centric innovation. Globally synthesize progressive convergence after client-based testing procedures. Efficiently enhance user friendly schemas via sticky total linkage. Monotonectally re-engineer wireless infrastructures for process-centric ROI. Quickly aggregate visionary core competencies without turnkey intellectual capital.

Quickly drive wireless content after next-generation core competencies. Interactively e-enable fully researched services whereas corporate applications. Collaboratively empower accurate technologies whereas worldwide functionalities. Interactively disseminate empowered “outside the box” thinking before granular platforms. Competently syndicate quality architectures vis-a-vis.

Blocks are amazing!

Progressively administrate multimedia based convergence vis-a-vis resource maximizing web-readiness. Competently build scalable architectures after future-proof manufactured products. Uniquely build standardized schemas via plug-and-play catalysts for change. Authoritatively integrate adaptive.

You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching, love like you’ll never be hurt, sing like there’s nobody listening, and live like it’s heaven on earth.

William W. Purkey

Dramatically monetize bleeding-edge architectures with user friendly content. Distinctively aggregate timely convergence after holistic opportunities. Enthusiastically disseminate exceptional e-tailers for strategic supply chains. Rapidiously re-engineer cost effective metrics whereas frictionless technologies. Continually disseminate functional customer.

  • One for the money
  • Two for the show
  • Three to get ready
  • Now go, cat, go

Competently create installed base synergy after state of the art testing procedures. Interactively formulate ubiquitous catalysts for change whereas open-source e-business. Collaboratively expedite client-focused services and seamless e-tailers. Energistically.

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Updated – poetry magazine submissions windows

It’s December which means I’m updating the list of magazine submissions windows.

If you ordered A Guide to Getting Published in UK Poetry Magazines then you should have received a version of the list which I updated last month (if you didn’t get the list then I apologise – but this latest version should be coming to you today or tomorrow).

If the last list you received was dated September, then here’s what’s new since then:

The list now contains detail of over 80 journals.

  • NEW journals added: 11
  • Journals with updated information: 26
  • Those with windows open now, some closing quite soon:  15*
  • Those currently closed but opening either later this month or in January:  6 
  • Those which welcome submissions at any time: 32

*I would draw your attention to Popshot which closes tomorrow 4th December, also Magma closing on the 8th and Modern Poetry in Translation on 14th.

Also, Ink Sweat & Tears is once again running a ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ call for submissions which is open NOW but closing on 9th December.

A new magazine launching in the Spring, Finished Creatures, opens for submissions next Monday 10th December.

As ever, I’m grateful to people for telling me about amends, additions and so forth.

I’ll be sending it out shortly, as a PDF with clickable links to the submissions pages of each magazine’s website.

This is a free service. If you’re not on the emailing list for quarterly updates and would like to be, either tell me in the comments below or drop me a line – robin at robinhoughtonpoetry dot co dot uk.

A Guide to Getting Published in UK Poetry Magazines by Robin Houghton

A Guide to Getting Published in UK Poetry Magazines

A great companion to the quarterly updated list. The first print run sold out in ten days!

It’s now back in stock, so visit this page to read all about it, including testimonials, and buy for £5 (postage free within in the UK). 

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Kay Syrad, Josephine Corcoran – short reviews

Inland - Kay Syrad and What Are You After? - Josephine Corcoran

A couple of brief reviews of collections I’ve been reading:

Inland – Kay Syrad  (Cinnamon, 2018) (£8.99)

There’s nothing predictable or familiar in this collection. Just when you feel you’re getting your feet under the table suddenly the table is gone, and the ground beneath, and your feet too. Just two poems in we encounter ‘Transcript’, a testimony with gestures-as-stage-directions which is stranger than the sum of its parts – a characteristic we meet intermittently throughout the book. The poet’s feeling for moss is visited and revisited, from ‘Nomenclature’ (‘bird’s -claw beard-moss / oblique-mouthed beardless-moss’) which ends with the line ‘ah – our fresh fingertips’ through to the last poem ‘Listening to moss’ (‘I take a blindfold, lie down and listen/ to a half-globe of star-green star-moss’). I came away with a sense of yearning, of sadness for something almost grasped but not entirely, almost said but not exactly (‘Situation of Secrecy’, ‘Scatter my bright feathered heart’, ‘Plaint’). The title poem ‘Inland’ takes the reader on a meditation around a few repeated words (gulls, grief, words, speak, heart, ship, inland) coming together and knocking against each other slowly towards a conclusion ‘gulls and men / follow the white island of the heart / all inlaid in the heart / grief in the heart / in white / I find white in the heart / inlaid’. I particularly loved Kay’s poem titles – more often than not intriguing, inventive and quirky. I also warmed to the more surreal poems, maybe because I enjoyed the fun of decoding them (or just scratching my head), much as the poet ‘translates’ a ‘secret message on a long fence’ in ‘Afternoon out’, but it’s also the magical mystery that Kay creates, sometimes as delicate as gossamer – you almost don’t want to pick it up for fear of breaking the magic.

What are you after? – Josephine Corcoran (Nine Arches, 2018) (£9.99)

Josephine Corcoran’s first collection draws upon memories (real, imagined or reimagined) to examine issues of identity, class, family and love. From the grief of miscarriage to a relationship mapped onto a litany of medical interventions (‘In 24 years, we’ve lost count / of all the body parts we’ve seen’ – ‘Love in the time of hospital visits’) the autobiographical content has an quiet honesty. Josephine situates the reader through her use of time-specific references, figures of speech period detail, popular culture and current affairs – the ‘5 o’clock bus’ from school, headrests ‘dimpled from Brylcreemed heads’. Stephen Lawrence, food banks and drones rub along with references to margarine, economy ham and the Three Degrees. Movie scenes and film references proliferate, as do dreams. The poet demonstrates great versatility and range, from the polemic of poems such as “Police Say Sorry” to the quieter lyric pieces and a wonderful pantoum ‘Fallen asleep by a Christmas Tree on New Year’s Eve’. Another trope weaving its way throughout is telephones and phone calls, featuring often as signifiers for communication (or lack of), misunderstanding, cross purposes and the gulfs between different times, ages, cultures and beliefs. Poems have been carefully sequenced, cross-referencing each other neatly. It makes sense, but if anything, I would quite have liked fewer instances of poems obviously following on from the previous one, for example ‘Gavrilo’ following ‘History Lesson’ – to makes things a bit more oblique for the reader. A very small quibble. One of my favourite poems in the collection, ‘In town for a funeral, we drive past our old house and see it is for sale’ is also possibly the longest. It’s a seemingly-simple but complex poem that invites many re-readings, yet still has plenty of secrets to give up. I can imagine Josephine might be already writing more of these longer poems. Watch out for the next collection.

I was fortunate to hear Josephine reading at Swindon Poetry Festival recently. Here is ‘Exquisite Corpse’:

 

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Small milestones

'The Other Foot' by Robin Houghton, from 'Foot Wear' (2017)At the end of October it was my birthday, and over a boozy supper my dear husband suggested we do a ‘dry November’. I couldn’t think of a reason why not – no social events planned, Christmas to look forward to, and I certainly couldn’t face giving up alcohol for January, the most depressing month of the year. So November seemed like a good time to try the Ultimate Detox. I wasn’t fantastically optimistic we’d manage it to be honest. But here we are, 16 days in and holding strong. Fingers crossed!

It may seem like a minor thing, and perhaps a bit sad, but if my willpower keeps going to the end of the month it will feel like a mighty achievement. Other things I’m celebrating other than half a month without a drink: two and a half years so far free of cancer (without having taken the drugs), and my ‘how to get published in UK poetry magazines’ booklet selling out in ten days. This was amazing to me – and I wish I’d had more copies printed in the first place because it would have been so much more cost-effective than having to do a second print run. On the plus side, I’ve tested the market and (so far) have had some wonderful feedback. If you’ve bought it, and if you’re one of the lovely people who’s shared it and endorsed it on social media, thank you so much!

Having had my head down working on ‘the book’ my poetry writing has been a bit inconsistent lately. I received a rejection from Rattle – not entirely unexpected as it would be amazing to have a poem accepted there. Poems I sent to a couple of comps crashed and burned. Meanwhile the Poetry News theme of ‘the abstract space’ had left all of us in the Hastings Stanza a bit bemused. Having said that I did send a couple of poems in the end. I was quite pleased with one of them, so even if doesn’t work for P News I have hopes for it. I also sent three poems to Magma on the theme of ‘work’ – would be ridiculous if I did not, having banged on about my work-themed poems for so many years. An interesting thing: as I bundled these three together I realised there was another unifying theme, and something I’ve spotted elsewhere in my own poems. It’s starting to look hopeful for the much-talked-about first collection. Now that WOULD be a milestone. I almost daren’t say it!

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The new ‘How to’ guide is finally done…

A Guide to Getting Published in UK Poetry Magazines by Robin Houghton

Things have been a bit quiet on this blog for the last month, mainly because I’ve been full-on with the new booklet which arrived from the printers today – hurrah! More about that below… a quick zip through other news:

Workshops, readings etc

Last month I went up to London for a Coffee-House Poetry workshop with Anne-Marie Fyfe over two Sunday afternoons. The subject was ‘snow’ and all its freezing friends. We were asked to write a ‘lyric essay’ as homework, which resulted in my researching the myriad words for snow according to (no, not Inuit – that’s a myth) SKIERS. It took me back to my snowboarding days (sigh) and phrases like ‘crud’, ‘corduroy’ and ‘mash potato’. There were a number of new ones on me too. ‘Sierra Cement’ for starters. Great fun. Did I write anything that could be worked up into anything? Not sure really but at least it got me writing.

I’ve been to some lovely readings this month: at Needlewriters the very talented Liz Bahs read from her pamphlet Greyhound Night Service (Maquette) (which is on my pile to read, together with about ten other books) and announced that very day she’d just heard that Pindrop Press are to publish her first full collection next year. Great news and long-deserved. Then a triple launch for Lewes writers Jeremy Page (London Calling published by Cultured Llama is a book of short and flash fiction and what I’ve read so far has been very funny), Kay Syrad (Inland – Cinnamon Press – and another on my to read list!) and Clare Best. Clare’s memoir, The Missing List (Linen Press), has been many years in the writing. Clare’s beautiful prose, her presentation of the narrative through fragments, lists, descriptions of cine films and the melding of the distant and near-pasts is mesmeric. The slow revealing of the truth painfully mirrors the process of the author as she tries to recall conversations and make sense of what happened. Extraordinary.

On 29th October I read a poem at the Troubadour in London –  we’d been asked to write something especially for the evening so since it was my birthday I went with a little ‘found’ poem gleaned from the Hallmark.com website. I was inspired by knowing that Zaffar Kunial used to work as a copywriter for Hallmark. Anyway, DESPITE my having stumbled on the last line (I believe it was the poetry reading equivalent of ‘stacking it’) I had at least half a dozen people come up to me during the evening to say they enjoyed it. Unprecedented!  Maybe my stumble was still on my mind last Friday when I read alongside Jeremy Page and Peter Philips at Camden Poetry, a regular poetry event to raise money for the London homeless. It was a small audience, and rather quiet – I felt my confidence wavering somewhat, and didn’t sell any books. Perhaps I chose the wrong poems to read.  Later this month I’m off to Chichester Open Mic hosted by Barry Smith, which I’ve been told attracts a warm and full crowd, so I shall look forward to it.

Declined … again

So my carefully (I thought) composed ‘Develop your creative practice’ application to the Arts Council was rejected. I was asking for a modest contribution towards the costs of mentoring, to help me put together a first collection. The judgement was that they ‘preferred other projects’. Poor old page poetry just isn’t exciting enough I guess. It’s a minor setback but of course a bit annoying. Meanwhile I’ve had work rejected from The Poetry Review (am still trying!) and there are poems still on the slush pile at three other journals – one since February. Ho hum!

The Booklet!

Yes I’m calling it that, rather than ‘book’, so as not to raise expectations unreasonably. Although I’m rather proud of its 32 pages. A Guide to Getting Published in UK Poetry Magazines is now published on the Telltale Press imprint and orders are being taken as I type, thanks to some lovely people retweeting it (thanks chaps!). I had a lot of fun compiling it. Asking magazine editors for their thoughts on various things and reading the replies was one of the funnest things. Wrestling with the layout, edits and other tech issues was less fun, BUT I had the eagle-eyed and massively supportive Sarah Barnsley on my side, finding stray spaces and querying dodgy grammar in her thorough but very polite fashion. I hope you like the result!! I’ve got a landing page up here where you can buy it. Please forgive all the ‘about the author’ puffery, but I felt the need to parade my creds, as it were, in order to sell the darn book.

If you’re on my list for the quarterly submissions windows updates, you’ll get an email about it this week. Now for the really tricky bit: selling the bejesus out of it. It’s a groovy stocking filler! Tell your poetry writing friends!

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Home again, and deadlines approaching

Clare Shaw interviews Carrie Etter at Poetry Swindon Festival
Clare Shaw interviews Carrie Etter at Poetry Swindon Festival

The Swindon Poetry Festival over, I’m now catching up with stuff, looking at my book purchases (actually there are a couple of books I still need to buy, not being able to do so because I ran out of cash. Note to self: always take a thick wodge of CASH to poetry events as that will invariably be the only method of payment AND you can be sure there won’t be a cash machine within a mile. Judi Sutherland kindly drove me around the roundabouts of Swindon on Sunday morning as we tried to a) follow the directions given by people in the hotel and petrol station and b) find a cash machine that actually worked.

You can read all my Swindon Festival posts here if you’re interested –  including some audio recordings.

Anyhow, next week is the Needlewriters on Thursday 18th in Lewes which I’m looking forward to very much, then there are a few poetry competition deadlines coming up, such as the Troubadour and the National. Each year I feel less and less optimistic about entering competitions, there seem to be so many brilliant ‘up and coming’ poets on the scene, plus very experienced/successful/professional poets entering (and winning) comps, and who can blame them if the prize money is good? But still. I must remind myself that there is at least an element of luck. And it’s good to support the Poetry Society, Coffee-House Poetry and the many shoestring organisations who rely on income from competitions to stay afloat.

Most importantly I need to finish the ‘how to get published in magazines’ book, before people go off the boil about it. I’ve really enjoyed gathering comments and advice from magazine editors which I think will make very interesting reading. Just when you think it’s all been said, I guess it hasn’t!

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An aside from Swindon

Clare Shaw reading at Swindon Poetry Festival

Although I’m currently officially blogging the Poetry Swindon Festival over at Festival Chronicle, this is my own blog so I thought I’d put any personal asides on here. You know me, don’t you?

On Friday morning some us were lucky enough to be in workshops with either Clare Shaw or Kim Moore. I was with the former. We did a fair bit of free writing, which I’m not sure I’m doing right as my ‘stream of consciousness’ writing is invariably as prosaic as it comes.  When asked to describe a fish, my piece went a bit like this “The fish lives a small pond and often tries to hide under a lily pad although I can still see its tail waving.” Whereas my fellow poets will typically produce “the fish’s silvery backbone strokes the water’s surface like a reflexion of the moon skittering across my lonely eye” which is sightly intimidating. Is it just me?

Now I want to say a few words about Clare Shaw, who I’d not met before, but was curious about after Sarah Dixon the day before had announced herself to be a Clare Shaw Fangirl. When Ms Shaw entered the room there was an undoubted frisson. I immediately thought of James Bond, but then no, more Doctor Who. Forget Jodie Whittaker, Clare Shaw for Doctor. She probably is a doctor for all I know. Anyway: rangy, no-nonsense and a great voice. Clare reminded me a bit of Jeanette Winterson, but taller. The kind of woman who makes me almost forget I’m straight. In Clare’s workshop, Clare’s in control – “Feel free to ignore me (if you dare…)” but she’s playful too. Selima Hill urges us to ‘go naked into the shower of truth’ – “which I’d like to do,” says Clare, “but I’m not inviting you to picture that – I just did! Stop it! Really intrusive!”

At the evening readings even Hilda seemed unable to say Clare’s name without dropping her voice an octave, at one point announcing there was only one copy of Clare’s book Flood left to buy – then proceeded to rub the said book briskly over her chest in a way that only the hilarious Hilda can get away with, before telling the audience the price had gone up twenty quid. Stop it! Inappropriate!!

Notice I’m not saying anything about Clare’s poetry or her reading here, but I’m putting all that in the official report. Speaking of which, l’d better get back to business.

Here’s the link to my report of Friday night’s readings from Clare Shaw, Kim Moore and Wayne Holloway Smith, including audio recording of Clare and Kim reading a couple of poems.

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And so to the Tent Palace…

… of the Delicious Air. This will be the venue from tomorrow until Monday for the Poetry Swindon Festival (or is that the Swindon Poetry Festival? It seems to go by both names – part of its mystery!) I’m looking forward to being the “blogger in residence” for this year’s festival, which is still a true indie – none of the mainstream publishers appear to have discovered it yet – and I’m expecting a good sprinkling of Hilda Sheehan pixie-dust over events.

So, that tent. There’s a lot to unpack here: Tent. Palace. Delicious Air.

Tent: I’m not a great one for camping, and marquees bring up thoughts of wobbly floors, rain pattering on canvas and draughts. Then again, I’ve been in some posh tents in my time – the Charleston Festival tent has always involved potted plants, standard lamps and a range of soft furnishings in Bloomsbury prints, although sadly only on stage.

Palace: only slightly anxious about this one. I don’t have a ball gown or a tiara, but in these Harry-n-Meghan days jeans are probably OK. And thick woollies, of course (palaces are only slightly less draughty than tents).

Delicious Air: hmmm. Could be an ironic reference to a local farmer doing his muck-spreading, or possibly a nearby sewage works. Or maybe it refers to the fresh semi-outdoors ambience (must take woollies!!!). I just hope there are no vases of scented lilies.

But naturally I’ve done my research, and I see it’s a quote from Richard Jefferies’ The Open Air. The festival takes place at the Richard Jefferies Museum (his birthplace) at Coate. I hadn’t heard of Jefferies until I went to the 2014 Swindon Poetry Festival. The Wikipedia entry tells me he’s known for his nature writing, and another little detail jumped out at me – that he lived for a short while in Eltham, in South East London, where I grew up. Small world indeed.

I’ll be blogging about the festival events – workshops I’m going to, readings, the odd interview and maybe even some gossip – at the Festival Chronicle, so please do head on over there if you’d like to read all about it. I’m also hoping to fit in the odd nap (I can’t do the late nights like I used to!), a bit of in-room yoga, and I’ve heard there’s a swimming pool which I’m very happy about. I may well blog a bit here too, let’s see how it goes.

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Forward Prizes, Poetry Book Fair – big poetry week

Free Verse Poetry Book Fair 2018

It’s a good thing it’s pouring with rain today as I have every excuse to stay indoors, write, bake bread and plan this week’s garden tasks. I don’t know about my fellow poets but I’m all for a bit of quiet reflective time after the excitement of the Forward Prizes on Tuesday and then Free Verse the Poetry Book Fair yesterday.

It was my first visit to the Forward Prize readings, at the suggestion of Sarah Barnsley who was cockahoop when Abigail Parry got shortlisted for Best First Collection. They are friends and colleagues at Goldsmith’s, and Abi read with the Telltale poets and also contributed a fine poem to our TRUTHS anthology earlier in the year. Needless to say we cheered her on, and although she missed out on the prize (awarded to Phoebe Power for Shrines of Upper Austria (Carcanet) Abigail gave a confident and fluid reading from her collection Jinx (Bloodaxe). Interestingly this prize is sponsored by the Felix Dennis Trust. You may not know this, but Felix Dennis was an extraordinary person – a publisher, poet, philanthropist and amazing planter of trees – over a million in his lifetime, and many more still to come. When he died in 2014 he left £150 million of his fortune to carry on the planting of a 30,000 acre forest of native English trees not far from Shakespeare’s Stratford. What a guy.

I really enjoyed the evening, especially hearing Tracey K Smith, Danez Smith (eventual winner of the Prize for Best Collection, and an electric performer of his work which clearly has page-appeal not just stage-appeal), Shivanee Ramlochan, Fiona Benson and Liz Berry, who won the Best Single Poem prize.

A bit of schmoozing in the foyer but as usual with evening events in London you’re always on a knife-edge of anticipation as to whether you’re going to make it home without incident, Southern Rail being so unreliable. So we didn’t linger. But then I knew the Poetry Book Fair would be a more leisurely occasion for catching up with poet folk.

So to yesterday, and the Poetry Book Fair (now actually the Poetry Book and Magazine Fair) in its new venue, the Senate House of the University of London. The Poetry Society have taken over the running of the event after its having been established over several years by Chrissy Williams and Joey Connolly. I think the organisational mind behind it this year was Julia Bird, and although I wasn’t able to get to any of the readings taking place during the day the whole thing seemed to run smoothly and attract a huge crowd. It was some sort of Heritage Open Day yesterday so the building was buzzing with visitors anyway – I wonder if a few non-poetry people came into the fair to see what it was about? I hope so – there must have been getting on for a hundred exhibitors/vendors with so much on offer.

At the Poetry Book fair 2018

I was helping to ‘person’ the Frogmore Press half-table, giving publisher Jeremy Page a few breaks. I think I sold one book. Sorry Jeremy! In my defence I can only say that I was next to Joanne Clement of Butcher’s Dog magazine, who turned out to be sales supremo. Respect to that woman!

This is maybe the first year I’ve felt at home at the Book Fair, maybe because I felt I knew more people – and I liked the addition of magazines. I had a chance to catch up with Robert Harper (Bare Fiction), Peter Raynard (Proletarian Poetry and Culture Matters), Tamar Yoseloff (Hercules Editions – I was excited to snap up number 12 of 300 copies of The Practical Visionary by Chris McCabe and Sophie Herxheimer) and Jane Commane (Under the Radar/Nine Arches).  Also lovely to meet Claire Walker of Atrium Poetry and  poet Clare Crowther, who co-edits Long Poem Magazine and who I had a long conversation with before we sort of realised who each other were – typical of these events where it’s noisy, everyone seems to be out of context and it’s not always easy to join up the dots quickly enough, brief ‘hellos’ with Richard Skinner, Jess Mookherjee, Sarah James, Brian Docherty, Mike Sims, Jill Abram, Mike Bartholomew-Briggs & Nancy Mattson…. I think I was a bit lightheaded by the time I spoke with Carrie Etter, as I was on the point of leaving, although hopefully she didn’t think I’d been too long down the pub (I didn’t get there at all, honest!)

I’m a real sucker for beautiful books, pamphlets, bookmarks or anything made of paper, frankly. Yes I know that sounds a bit superficial. But I had a budget, so couldn’t buy every lovely object. I had very nice conversations with publishers I’d not come across before, and it’s great to support them if possible, for example the lovely folk from Boatwhistle Books. Besides, buying books on spec is fun – you never know what you’re going to like, so why not take a punt? One can always pass copies on to friends if you decide it hasn’t earned a place on your bookshelf.

Is it me, or is there often a slightly surreal element to these events? It’s the people-watching thing of course – so these are the people who read/write poetry! Then Jeremy told me we were in the very room where Keeley Hawes as the Home Secretary got murdered in Bodyguard. (Or did she???) Even more mysterious was the odd waft of mothballs as I steered through the hubbub of poetry-browsers. Could it have been emanating from clothing (“It’s the Poetry Book fair luv – I’ll just get my jacket out of mothballs”) or from the books themselves (“here’s that 30 year-old box of copies from the loft – let’s sell them as ‘vintage’ editions”)…?? Anyway, by 4pm someone was resorting to market-stall tactics, yelling GET YER SONNETS HERE! and when Jeremy offered me the chance to slope off I confess I did so. But not without a good haul of new reading and a warm poetry-shaped glow – just what I needed to negotiate the train journey home.