It’s a crazy scene – the vibrancy, the quirkiness, the sheer number of people, Cahal Dallat’s virtuosic keyboard skills (yesterday the background medleys included opera classics and a rumbunctious dose of Mozart, all from memory). Moving amongst the crowd, Anne-Marie greets everyone and the whole place feels like a party. And who’s that sitting at the back? Oh, it’s Van Morrison and Jimmy Page, dropped by for a spot of poetry action. You can’t help but feel you’re on a film set. Love it!
Last night’s first half readers were Mark Huband, Scarlett Sabet, Will Burns & Miranda Peake, after which we had a brief musical interlude when Henry Fajemirokun played and sang a very nice Simon & Garfunkel number. Mark Huband’s background in journalism and travel writing informs his poetry – he read from his book ‘American Road’ and some extracts from a new long work. I loved the start of Scarlett Sabet’s set, a strong first poem full of promise. Towards the end she read some more performance-style poems which I find a bit harder to digest – I suppose I mean the repetition and relentless hard rhymes, which I find distract from the meaning and weaken the power of the words. Miranda Peake admitted she was very nervous, which was a shame, because it dried out her voice – I suspect I would enjoy her poems on the page, they seemed accomplished.
I didn’t take notes, although I noticed a few people around me doing so. I wonder what they write? Maybe the names, for future reference, or perhaps an idea or two that needed capturing. I do sometimes find my mind wandering in a reading, but not in a bad way – it’s usually something I hear that takes seed or gives me a sudden angle on an old issue. As I’m writing now I’m remembering a couple of things I should have written down at the time. Oh well! And the other thing I’m famously pants at is taking photos of well-lit readers in dark spaces. Which is why I only managed one, but the reader is so blanched out it could be anyone – although it is in fact Will Burns:
The second half felt like the big-hitters, with Nigerian poet Inua Ellams (check out his beautiful and stylish website) full of warmth and humour getting things off to a cracking start, Tim Richardson – a big character with an even bigger following in the room, Roisin Tierney – authoritative presence & many Spanish food references and R.A. Villanueva, a vibrant American reader who I wish I could have paid more attention to, but I was a bit tired and thinking about my train at this point.
My favourite reading of the night was by Will Burns and I couldn’t wait to snap up a copy of his pamphlet. Something about his poetry made me sit up. There was nothing exotic about it, but it was extraordinary. The problem with writing about the extraordinary, whether it’s people, experiences, places, is that the writing has a lot to live up to. (See point 7 of Don Paterson’ tips). Plus there’s not always space for the reader. Whereas writing about the ordinary, in an extraordinary way, feels to me like the real work of poetry. It doesn’t just let me in, it reminds me there’s a reason to write and how much there is still to discover both in myself and in others.
On the home page of the website, a quote from Billy Collins declares that the Troubadour has “evolved over its 60 year history from a hidden-away beatnik coffee house to a world famous center for the performance of music and poetry.” Well, it still feels pretty beatnik to me, and nothing wrong with that.
I’m finally getting myself back on track after two weeks of Jury Service. There are blogs to attend to, email updates to send, all manner of poetry admin for Telltale Press, Brighton Stanza and Needlewriters and maybe, just maybe some time to do some actual writing and even sending off. Oh and the small matter of a pending house move. Possibly.
So it’s time for some clearing out and cleaning up. A good friend recently did a massive wardrobe overhaul and I was the happy recipient of a ton of free clothes and ‘accessories’ – not being an accessories kind of gal I’ve now increased the number of scarves and bags I own by about 800%. My husband thinks I’ve been abducted and replaced with someone far more well-heeled. To make space for all this (we still live in a little house … at least for another 6 weeks or so) I now have another huge bag of other stuff to take to the charity shop. And a good clean out of drawers and wardrobe done prior to The Big Move.
What this is all leading up to of course is the fact that SPRING CLEAN MANIA has infected the ‘poetry’ folder (and all its sub-folders) on my computer. I started archiving poems in February and both the ‘archive’ and ‘not for publication’ folders are now bulging. (The latter is important – if anything were to happen to me, it will be very clear to any kind friend or family member going through my poems WHICH ones must never see the light of day. A bit control-freakish? Maybe!)
I am also doing a ruthless cull of outstanding submissions. Yes folks, I’ve taken a unilateral decision – and no doubt some people will find this controversial – to finally consider dead those submissions I’ve been waiting on since August and September last year. Inasmuch as I’m taking them out of the ‘pending’ folder and either resubmitting, editing or shelving them. Here’s how it all ended (an update to a previous post on this topic):
Magazine A: 4 poems submitted by email (£1 paid) August 2014 – that’s 268 days /38 weeks ago. First gentle enquiry sent November 2014, no response. Second enquiry January 2015, no response. Since then, I’ve heard from two poet friends that this particular magazine had never replied to their submissions either, even after a year. It’s a shame, because it was a good publication and I’ve had work in it in the past, but I feel all the goodwill I had for them has been sucked out me and spat back in my face.
Magazine B: 4 poems submitted September 2014. I had included two SAEs – one was purely a receipt, which was kindly sent back to me six weeks later. I provided this because 2 previous submissions had been lost. I didn’t enquire about these poems, because I was reassured by the receipt, plus this is a magazine I have a lot of time for and I didn’t want to hassle the editors. When I did finally enquire recently, after 8 months, I did get a quick response, but it was clear from the many questions and answers we exchanged that the poems couldn’t be located. In the end I told them not to spend any more time looking, and that I would consider them withdrawn.
It was a sad decision to make, but I’ve had that particular editor running round looking for my poems more than once before, and there’s no point annoying editors unnecessarily or giving them extra work. There’s certainly no point flogging a dead horse: I can’t help but think that if there was anything good about the poems they wouldn’t have ended up at the bottom of a filing tray or stuck to the sole of someone’s shoe.
In the meantime, of course, many other publications have read and responded to submissions I’ve sent them, some quickly, some slowly, some acceptances but more rejections – and that’s the natural ebb and flow of poems in and poems out. As I’ve said before, I am sympathetic to overworked editors and in their position I’m sure I’d get fed up with reading bad work and dealing with the odd bit of bad poet behaviour. Although to be honest I don’t know of any poets who bombard magazines with stroppy enquiries or any of the other things we submitters are regularly accused of.
What I do know is that there are magazine editors who are good excellent at:
managing poets’ expectations by keeping instructions on their website accurate – and if this means stating ‘do not enquire until after 6 months have passed’ or even ‘we do not respond to all submissions’ then so be it! (I know of several publications who state these are their policies, and I respect them for that. After all, if I don’t like it, I don’t have to submit, do I?)
responding to polite enquiries received after the ‘expect a reply by’ date. Is it so hard to do?
So – what now to do with the 8 poems now back in circulation? On first glance I think I’ve already revised a couple of them. There are another 3 or 4 I think I will shelve for now. Which leaves 2 or 3 I’m still happy with as is.
Now if I were REALLY serious about Spring cleaning I wouldn’t be archiving the old or bad poems, I’d be deleting them completely – but I just find that very hard to do, stupid as it may sound.
Anyway, that’s now off my chest. There is of course the small matter of the 5 poems submitted to another publication in November 2014 that I’m still waiting on … I’ve had no response to my two enquiries, but I’m giving it until July before writing that one off.
Pighog Press has hosted a poetry night at the Redroaster cafe in Brighton for many years. I’ve attended quite a few times and it’s always an eclectic mix of the familiar, the unusual and the colourful (especially in the famous open mic slots).
The events are organised and hosted by Michaela Ridgway, herself a talented poet and the sort of person you want in a poetry workshop – always rigorous but fair in her criticism. Michaela is also an artist as you can see from her Tumblog. Although Pighog was bought out last year by US publisher Red Hen, the poetry nights continue, and I was delighted when Michaela invited me to read there. I shared the bill with Andreea Stan, a Romanian poet & animator who I duly researched online and found some of her performances. Take a look at this one – a poem called ‘Seven Miles’ which Andreea also performed on Thursday.
We had a good audience and I was so pleased to see so many Stanza friends there, and even one of my schoolfriends came to cheer me on. Thanks, Caroline! I have to say that Michaela’s intro was the best I’ve ever received, especially her talking up of both my blog and Telltale Press. Twas wonderful.
I read a pretty similar set to the one I did at Lauderdale House, although I was a bit spooked by the lighting which I wasn’t expecting to be quite so directly in one’s eyes – is that what it’s like for stage actors, I wonder? I like how it looks from the audience’s point of view, but with eye-contact a key part of my delivery I had to adjust! I made a bit of a slip up by forgetting to do my ‘thankyous’ before the final poem, which meant I had to hang about on stage at the end which rather spoilt the dramatic effect! Ah well!
Fellow Telltale Poets Peter Kenny & Sarah Barnsley were there, and Peter took some pics on his iPhone which I think have a certain blanched-out style, I quite like it actually …
It’s funny how you learn something new every time you do one of these readings. It gets more enjoyable with practice, and it’s tempting to go a little further each time. A few nerves are still important I think. As is taking new risks. There’s a fine line between confident and polished, and slightly smug and a bit ‘phoned in’. And I don’t think I would ever be seen as a ‘performance’ poet, even though I know it doesn’t have to be all rapping, rhyming and ranting. Local to me, Susan Evans and Louise Taylor come to mind as performance poets I love to see and hear – larger than life, brilliant characters in themselves, witty observers. But there are blurred lines in the ‘performance vs page’ debate, which is why I can’t bring myself to think of them as different disciplines. I’m a big admirer of the performances of poets such as John Agard, Daljit Nagra and even Roger McGough. But I wouldn’t call them performance poets, but rather ‘accomplished poets who give compelling performances’. I think that’s what I aspire to.
This is question I’ve been asked (and have asked myself) every since I knew I would be doing jury service these two weeks. Having been given a day off tomorrow (a case finished today) I’ve been thinking about this. It could be an ideal opportunity to observe/experience something new, and comment on it in some interesting way. But in my heart I also know poems don’t really pop up like that, and it’s often the most mundane of encounters – an odd word, a small thing, not a big event – that leads to a poem.
And I know from experience that the really difficult subjects can take years to enter the mind in such as way as to suggest a poem.
I can’t pretend I wasn’t reluctant to do this particular public service, and I anticipated a lot of waiting around, being directed by endless rules and formalities and possibly many hours in a courtroom listening to less-than-scintillating cases. What I didn’t anticipate was quite how much it can get to you, listening to the minutiae of other people’s lives, the dreadful sadness of watching people completely crushed by what they’re going through – people who are total strangers, and yet you can’t help but care. It almost feels like you’re watching a play, because you’re sat there as passive as an audience, and yet this is real life – real people, real consequences.
Jurors aren’t allowed to talk about the cases. Not when they’re ongoing, and not ever. And that can be quite an emotional burden. Will I get a poem out of it? Maybe. But not yet. I could write about it, but I don’t think I’d be able to step back enough from it to craft it up.
Courtroom drama – big business for fiction, but is it a common theme in poetry I wonder?
Well I did it. Yesterday evening at Lauderdale House in Highgate I recited two of my poems from memory. It was actually the perfect set-up – no microphone (which I usually like having, but in this case I was concerned it would prevent me from moving freely), the chairs set out in a semi circle, so I felt like a real story-teller. More about it in a mo.
First of all, I have to say how grateful I am to Shanta Acharya for giving me the opportunity to read at Poetry in the House, which she has been organising for nearly 20 years, without any outside funding. The evening began with an invitation to join Shanta and the other readers for a bite to eat at a nearby restaurant. A very sociable start to the night and one I particularly appreciated, because I knew I wouldn’t have even a moment to socialise at the end, being at the mercy of the 22.47 from Victoria.
The size of the audience was impressive (a lot more chairs had to be added after I took the above photo), and Shanta’s hosting style is wonderfully relaxed – all the readers’s biogs were on the flyers that people had in their hands, so she dispensed with verbal introductions, other than saying our names, and I liked that. It really seemed to put the poems to the fore, rather than the personalities. And what poems – all the sets were very strong.
Richard Skinner was launching his Smokestack pamphlet ‘Terrace’ (more on that shortly – we have pledged to swap pamphlets but will be doing so this evening at the Vanguard Readings) and treated us to ‘a Nebuchadnezzar joke’ and a beautiful poem written for a friend’s wedding which has yet to take place, amongst others. When Richard and I were talking earlier I was interested to learn that he never attended poetry courses or workshops, despite his impressive track record as a poet and the fact that he is Director of the Fiction Programme at Faber Academy. For my part, I replied that although I do go to workshops, I had to concede that the individual poems I’ve had the most success with hadn’t ever been workshopped. Hmm!
I was intrigued by the poetry of Mona Arshi – sometimes surreal, always surprising – who was ‘pre-launching’ her first collection, Small Hands, which she told me at supper beforehand was one of the first poetry books from Liverpool University Press. Another poet I want to read more of is Philip Hancock. I really enjoyed the mix of unselfconscious invention and gently ironic observation which I got from his poems. I’m not very articulate at explaining why particular poet voices resonate me with, but his did. Geraldine Paine‘s thoughtful and touching poems had both humour and beauty and Alan Murray‘s cheery pessimism and clever word-play certainly got the biggest laughs of the evening, but don’t be fooled by that, there was some heavyweight work in there.
I had the opening spot, which I was pleased about, because it meant I could then sit back and enjoy everyone else’s poems. I’d set myself the task last week of memorising a poem. In the end I did two from memory – the opener being a short and relatively easy to remember ‘list’ piece. I took Peter Kenny’s advice about tying in certain movements or gestures – I think that definitely helped to put the phrases in my mind. Being in the centre of a little ‘arena’ was also a bonus. I actually really enjoyed it, especially the silent pauses – the feeling of power, when you can hear a pin drop and you sense that people are waiting for your next words, or perhaps on edge wondering if you’ve lost it – is indescribably heady!
Halfway through the set I read one more from memory, a poem from my pamphlet, called ‘Closure’, which I’ve read often and which was written over a period of many years, so I really felt I ought to be able to remember it. As it happened, I did fluff a couple of words, but I didn’t let it show on my face and I don’t think anyone noticed. I was just a bit disappointed that I said ‘scar’ instead of ‘zipper’, since it’s one of the key moments in the poem!
So, onwards. I think I’ll do pretty much the same set next week at Pighog in Brighton, another great venue to read in, although I will be behind a mic there so I’ll need to prepared for that. If you’re somewhere within reach of Brighton do come! It’s just me and a performance poet / mulitmedia artist called Andreea Stan who I’m not familiar with, but from her Vimeo channel it looks like it could be an intriguing experience. Take a look at this – The Ocean is Almost Seven Miles Deep.
I can thoroughly recommend trying to memorise a poem or two. I opted not to have the book in my hand, because I think that would have made me less confident. Maybe that sounds odd, but not having anything to ‘fall back on’ does mean you commit to it fully, and I think that’s the key – you have to be entirely committed to delivering it from memory, and so practice as much as you need to do that. That would be my advice, anyway. I also think the audience responds to you better if you have nothing in your hands – I’ve certainly felt that as an audience member – there’s an immediacy, an intimacy that’s compelling.
Memorising poems has been much in the news lately. Classrooms recitals for children seem to be making a comeback. Julianne Moore’s character in ‘Still Alice’ is seen reciting Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘One Art’. For the last National Poetry Day theme of ‘Remembering’, Tony Mitton in the Guardian offered his top ten poems for children to learn from memory.
I was always impressed at how many lines of poetry my mother could still remember and recite, nearly 80 years after she learnt them in school. She told me her sister Ivy was better at it – ‘good at spouting’ was her term for it. I liked telling her when I was going to be ‘spouting’ at a poetry reading – although in honesty, I rarely spout, because I’ve never gone to the trouble of learning my own poems from memory, and I although I did learn poems for English exams at school (because we had to quote them) I don’t think I ever recited them, except to myself.
Ted Hughes’s ‘Hawk Roosting’ was one I learned back to front and upside down. In his introduction to By Heart – 101 Poems to Remember (Faber 1997), Hughes gives us an essay on the pleasure of memorising by using imagery and the visceral senses – age-old techniques which he claims were largely eradicated during the Protestantisation of England as being somehow ‘pagan’ or ‘catholic’, to be replaced by ‘rote learning’. I wonder if the loathing of rote learning is one of the factors behind the negative attitude of many people to poetry.
So what about today’s poets? Why are we not performing more of our work from memory? Of course I’m talking about ‘page’ poets here – whatever you think of the distinction, it exists. Perhaps the word ‘performing’ is a clue. Not all poets are performers, or wish to be. And reading without the prop of a book or a sheet of paper does mean answering some scary questions – what do I do with my hands? Where do I look? and not least of all What will happen if I forget the words?
Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of hosting Telltale Poets & Friends here in Lewes, in the warm glow of the (packed) upstairs room of the Lewes Arms, and the first reader was our own Peter Kenny. I’ve heard Peter read quite a few times now, and he has a natural presence and a voice that never fails to pull you in. Last night he gave an outing to a poem I’d not heard before, which he explained had been written thirty years ago or so. It was long, and he recited it from memory. Not just that, but it was a performance – not in the sense that it seemed choreographed or rehearsed, but more that it involved his whole body – in the reciting, in the meaning of the words, in the remembering. It felt powerful, and it seemed to draw in the audience, sharp as a laser. I’ve experienced this before – Cristina Navazo-Eguía Newton is mesmerising when she famously performs her work from memory.
So I’m now inspired to memorise one or two of my own (all pretty short) poems. I’ve a number of readings coming up, the first being Poetry in the House in London next week, at which I’m the first reader. Dare I set myself the goal of performing a poem from memory? Or perhaps start with a more modest goal – having the book in hand in case I get into trouble, but not looking at it? Would that work? I’m not sure. I know when it comes to singing, I’m more able to sing confidently from memory if I don’t have the music available to fall back on.
I’m interested to know other people’s experiences of reciting or performing free verse from memory. Is it in your repertoire? Something you would like to do more, or no inclination? Do you enjoy or prefer it when poets read from memory?
I’m currently in the middle of what the meedja likes to tell us is one of life’s most stressful times – moving house. I’ve managed to weather the others (divorce, bereavement, being fired, Liverpool failing to win their 10th championship in 1978 etc) so it shouldn’t be that bad. Also, I am lucky enough to have a husband to share the experience with. The idea of relocating to another town, albeit in the same county, is exciting, and is making me think a lot about what ‘home’ means, and the process of finding and building a new home after being thirteen years in the same place (easily the longest I’ve lived anywhere).
One of the things I know I will miss is Lewes’s literary scene – I’ve been warned it isn’t quite the same where we’re going, but I guess the answer is to do something about that! Last night it was the quarterly Needlewriters meeting, with poets Jeremy Page and Judith Cair reading, and it reminded me what a privilege it is to live a couple of minutes away. A poet friend was telling about how much she enjoys workshops with Mimi Khalvati, who comes regularly to Lewes, and how wonderful it was to have a poet of her standing coming here, to us. Mark Hewitt’s Lewes Live Lit stages all kinds of workshops and events in the town. And then of course there’s Telltale Press, a Lewes-based project if ever there was one… I can’t take it with me!
It’s still early days and anything could happen, but we’ve found our ideal home and are hoping it will actually be our home within a few months.
And speaking of homes … (crass segue alert) … despite another rejection from Lighthouse this week (boo!), homes have been found for 2 new poems at Brittle Star who are taking one for issue 36 and another for issue 37. And co-editor Martin Parker has invited me to read at the launch of 36 in London in May. Big hurrahs all round!
Just a quick update… I haven’t been blogging as much lately as I am knee-deep in a job, and paid work must be paid attention to! But a few things to report:
Submissions
Those nice chaps at Prole magazine are taking a poem of mine for their April edition, which is fab news, and THANK YOU Brett and Phil for such a prompt response to submissions. The poem I sent them is not quite my usual style, and I hadn’t sent it anywhere else. If Prole hadn’t wanted it then I probably would have tried ‘Obsessed with Pipework’ and failing that ‘Morphrog’ – both of which tend to like off-the-wall stuff. Anyway, the poem is a sort of ballsy paean to Don Paterson, but I’ll probably never read it at a poetry reading, although I’d like to hear it read by someone with more balls than me!
Also delighted that next week (April 6th) my poem ‘Small Horse’ will be up on Ink, Sweat & Tears. Big thanks to Helen Ivory for that.
No other submissions news – currently waiting on:
4 poems, out for 228 days (33 weeks)
4 for 203 days (29 weeks)
5 for 148 days (21 weeks)
6 for 24 days (3 weeks)
5 for 5 days
Readings & Events
I was really looking forward to attending the National Poetry Competition prize giving gala evening tomorrow, but it’s looking like I will have to send my apologies as I have a stinking cold. Boo. Hope I get asked again, I really enjoyed it last year.
Telltale Press is moving up a gear – not only do we have our next reading coming up here in Lewes on Wednesday 15th April (where I’ll be hosting but not reading – I’m leaving that to Martin Malone, Peter Kenny, Ryan Whatley and Helen Fletcher), but we’ve also signed our latest member, Siegfried Baber, who’s launching his pamphlet in at Topping’s Bookshop in Bath on Wednesday 13th May. Whoah! Telltale in Bath – please come if you’re anywhere nearby.
We’re also about to announce our fourth member, and another pamphlet launch – which we’re all very excited about – I’ll keep you posted.
Meanwhile I’m out and about with readings in Highgate (London) on 22nd April, Brighton 30th April, Mayfield on 3rd May, Lewes on 14th June and Camberwell (London) on 22nd June. Yeehah!
There’s a black hole hovering (can a hole hover?) over the end of April and beginning of May, when I’ve been called up for jury service. Fingers crossed it’s over within that time and doesn’t drag on for months – you do hear horror stories. Then by June or July, we should be moving house, if everything goes to plan. So a busy few months. Just need to banish this cold.
Back from a couple of days away at Standen, a National Trust house in the Sussex countryside about 45 minutes from where I live. The idea was for it to be a poetry reading & writing retreat, time away from the internet, work and house moving stuff. I love visiting Standen and it was a treat to be able to stay there, even if just for a short time. I’d like to take my husband there in the summer so we can have private picnics on the lawn after the massed general public has gone home.
I got there on Monday evening and thought I ought to have a plan for how to spend my time, but it didn’t really work out that way. I got up early on the first full day, intending to write – I’d brought a selection of books with me, so I started reading, and the reading took over. I got out Don Paterson’s Landing Light and resolved to read it all the way through – even the long poems which I admit I often avoid – and make notes. This was a really good thing to do as I discovered so many connections between poems and appreciated the ordering and the shape of the collection. Too often I dip in and out of collections and probably miss much of the interesting detail. I then started doing the same with Allison McVety’s Lighthouses, but got distracted (or actually inspired, to put it more positively) by an idea for a poem.
Another book I revisited was Strong Words, edited by W N Herbert and Matthew Hollis (Bloodaxe). It’s a marvellous resource, a collection of essays by ‘modern poets on modern poetry’. I just keep coming back to it, it’s so rich and there are so many poets represented it’s a lot to take in. This time I focused on three very different viewpoints from Eavan Boland, Edwin Morgan and U A Fanthorpe.
But you can’t stay at Standen without taking a tour around the house itself, or one of the many countryside walks from the door.
Not my digs alas – the Drawing Room at StandenIs it New England? No, Olde England – view from the holiday apartment at Standen
I was lucky with the weather, so I walked down to the Weirwood Reservoir yesterday and only encountered one other person en route. But I did hear a woodpecker, enjoyed the songs of chaffinches, robins and blackbirds and caught a glimpse of two deer in the trees.
Standen is an Arts & Crafts house, designed by Philip Webb and built in the last decade of the 19th century. Every aspect of the interior – architecture, layout, furniture and furnishings – is down to him and his Arts & Crafts colleagues (Morris, Voysey et al). Now although I’m partial to a bit of William Morris wallpaper, and once even had curtains made in one of his designs, on closer inspection I think I can say for sure that I would find it hard to live with on this scale. Standen is a family home, but there’s something rather austere about it, which seems slightly odd given the amount of decoration everywhere. It’s tightly controlled. The wallpaper and textile patterns are stylised. Some of the lamps are, quite honestly, ugly. The much-admired Webb fireplaces can verge on the brutalist. There is artisanship everywhere, but not a huge amount of art. Interesting to contrast this with, say, Charleston Farmhouse with its riotous hand-painted decoration to every surface. I realise we’re talking a slightly later period, and the owners of Standen (for all their interest in building a ‘contemporary’ house) were by no means bohemian.
The Garden Room at Charleston in Sussex, home of artists Vanessa and Clive Bell and Duncan Grant from 1916
But back to my little retreat….the holiday apartment I stayed in is on the second floor, up the servants’ staircase, but nothing about it is poky. This is a grand amount of space and the walls, doors and fitted cupboards have a fine solidity about them. The bathroom is the size of a 21st century studio flat. I loved staying there – it was warm, quiet & private, I could look out on the comings and goings of workers and visitors.
I did fondly imagine I would spend time in the main house, sitting in the conservatory or the Morning Room with my notebook, as if I owned the place, taking in the vibes of the house, its history and characters. But that’s for a longer stay. Although people staying in the apartment are free to visit the house during opening hours, and I’m sure no-one would have minded if I’d settled in one of the rooms, I think I would have been a curiosity, and detracted from people’s enjoyment of the atmosphere. I’m not sure how I would answer the questions about what I was doing there, or (worse) questions about the rooms and the place itself (although I might have had fun bluffing). I think I’d also end up writing about the visitors rather than the house. As it was, I worked very well upstairs in my lovely garret.
The second day was more productive, I got into my stride and ideas popped. I rummaged through some of the MANY old poems on my computer and selected a few to revive or rework. I did try going through all the others, archiving and even *shudder* deleting some, but soon became exhausted and had to take a nap. Although I was supposed to be internet-free, I did have my phone and kept up with emails and Twitter – which actually wasn’t all bad because a story I read about via a link posted on Twitter got me into a new poem. In the evening I was going up to London for a memorial event for Dannie Abse, so I had to venture out, but I knew I’d be leaving anyway the next day, so the retreat was kind of over then anyway. This morning when I left it was raining and I could hardly see the fields or the reservoir from my window.
The final takeaways – six new poems started, four old ones revived, some good quality reading and an interesting immersion (well, dip) into Arts & Crafts style. Now to see if I have anything worth sending out…
This blog post has been some weeks in the prep – I realise my ambition to have a Regional Focus every month was a bit, well, ambitious! Anyway, here’s the second in the series (following on from the very popular Leicester Fiesta in January). In this episode I’m taking a virtual nose around that most poetic of regions, the Lake District, or more precisely the county in which it lies, known since 1972 as Cumbria. There are some tricky questions to be answered, such as – Is there more to the poetry scene than ‘those Lakers’? and Where do the present-day poets hang out? and Do waterproof trousers work?
If you’re scratching your head wondering where Cumbria is even at, here’s a clue, courtesy of our friends at Wikipedia:
If like me you grew up in an urban environment and still find the sight of lambs in fields worthy of comment “Ooh look!” then (like me) you probably love Cumbria, or even just the idea of it. All those romantic paintings of Lakeland scenes, the image of Wordsworth and his chums hiking all morning and sighing over their quills all afternoon. It is a shock to drive off the M6 not far north of Preston and suddenly feel like you’re in Switzerland. It’s so gorgeous up there you almost forgive how wet it is, because when the sun does come out – ah well, as a little taster here’s a pic I took last year when we were there for my birthday at the end of October:
But all those lakes and mountains come with a caveat – don’t even think of getting from A to B in a hurry. I speak as someone who once thought she’d take a short cut in an old car over a near-vertical pass, only to have the clutch give out. In the words of one of my correspondents, Kathleen Jones: “Cumbria is a region without a major city and the mountains and lakes make getting around the county very difficult. Because of the geography it can take two and a half hours to get from Carlisle to Barrow.” Andrew Forster of the Wordsworth Trust looks on the bright side: “The Lake District is primarily a rural area with no major cities. I think because of this people tend to travel more than they would in urban areas to support the events that do happen, and that helps develop a much more widespread sense of community.”
But, as Kim Moore puts it, “Although Barrow is only 35 miles or so from the motorway, it is a slow road with only intermittent dual carriageway. Getting to readings or workshops is always a bit of a mission.”
One result of the relative isolation of the different towns is that a good number of them have developed as vibrant centres for poetry and poetry events.
Firstly, allow me to introduce my special correspondents. As ever, I’m very grateful to them all for taking time out of their busy schedules to answer my questions in such detail. I hope I’ve effectively summarised all of their main points. Unsurprisingly, some names and events were mentioned by all.
Writer Kathleen Jones was born in Cumbria, and returned there after spells living abroad. The author of fourteen books including eight biographies, a novel and a collection of poetry, Kathleen is currently Royal Literary Fund Fellow in the Creative Writing Department at Lancaster University. “The Lake District has always been important to me as a writer,” says Kathleen, whose first poetry collection Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21 contains many poems rooted in the landscape. She’s written two biographies centred on the literary history of the area: A Passionate Sisterhood – an account of the lives of the sisters, wives and daughters of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey – and a biography of Cumbrian poet Norman Nicholson.
My second informant is Andrew Forster, Literature Officer at the Wordsworth Trust. “I moved to Cumbria seven years ago to take up my current post as Literature Officer at the Wordsworth Trust. It’s a particularly generous-spirited place, and I have been part of a number of poetry communities. When I took up post a number of poets came to meet and welcome me, and I had several invitations to read and join things, and I now count some of those among my closest friends.”
What Andrew didn’t tell me was that he is a widely published and award-winning poet with two full-length collections to his name. (I found this out on his website!) I should also add that all my correspondents were unstinting in their praise for what Andrew does for literature in the area.
A relatively new name on the poetry scene is Helen Fletcher, reporting for us from Carlisle. Helen’s poetry has been published in a range of journals including Brittle Star, The Frogmore Papers and The Interpreter’s House, and she used to be a costumed interpreter at Wordsworth House in Cockermouth, where there are regular informal talks on poetry and social history. “Cumbria was a superb place to come out as a poet. It is a diverse and unpretentious scene which is very welcoming of new writers.”
Finally, I couldn’t really run a feature on Cumbria without asking Kim Moore for her words of wisdom and insider knowledge. I love her blog and think it may be unique in its style and content – three parts diary, three parts showcase for other poets’ work and one part travelogue (I think Kim spends almost as much time journeying as Ian McMillan). Um, how many parts is that? Kim’s first full collection is out shortly with Seren. Her pamphlet ‘If We Could Speak Like Wolves’ was a winner in The Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition and was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Pamphlet Award and the Lakeland Book of the Year Award. Kim tells me she’s lived in Barrow for 11 years. “It does inspire my writing – although I would say it sneaks in without me noticing a lot of the time. I do like living in Barrow – I’ve found the people really friendly and the Lake District is right on the doorstep. It’s also a really cheap place to live, both renting and buying a house. The only downside is how isolated it is.”
Q1: Are there any specific towns/cities with a vibrant poetry scene?
Andrew Forster (AF): Kendal is the biggest town in the South Lakes. It has the Brewery Arts Centre. Grasmere, where the Wordsworth Trust is based, has been steadily developing as the centre for poetry in the north west.
Helen Fletcher (HF): Ulverston in the south has an annual Victorian festival and is the centre for ‘A Poem and a Pint’ poetry events. Cockermouth also has several modern poetry writing groups and a good arts venue, the Kirkgate. Keswick has an annual literary festival.
Kathleen Jones (KJ): Eden Arts Trust in Penrith has just started to put on some events at The Old Fire Station and it’s going to be interesting to see how it develops.
Kim Moore (KM): Elsewhere in Cumbria, there isn’t one particular place that has a vibrant poetry scene – it is such a large, rural county that there are a few poetry events scattered throughout the county rather than concentrated in one place.
Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal
Q2: Who are the poetry ‘movers and shakers’ ??
AF: Kim Moore is a human dynamo who seems to have more hours in her day than the rest of us. She’s on the committees of ‘A Poem and a Pint’ and Brewery Poets, and also runs an annual workshop with Jennifer Copley in Grange over Sands. (More on these below). Ann Wilson has been at the forefront of a number of spoken word projects and currently runs the Brewery’s monthly open mic night ‘Verbalise’ (See below). Angela Locke runs Mungrisedale Writers out on the west coast, and is also involved with the Maryport Literature festival which has a good poetry presence. Geraldine Green runs poetry workshops with Brantwood and at other places. Mike Barlow is actually based near Lancaster but is a frequent presence in Cumbria and runs the new Wayleave Press, beautifully produced pamphlets of quality poetry from a mix of established and emerging poets.
KM: Andrew Forster at the Wordsworth Trust, Ann Wilson – Spoken Word organiser at The Brewery in Kendal and Katie Hale who works for New Writing Cumbria.
HF: I have most awareness of the North of the county. Cumbrian poet Sam Smith runs the independent international poetry magazine The Journal. Christopher Pilling, Nick Pemberton and Jacci Bulman have done a lot of work for many years locally to support other writers by organising poetry writing groups and events. There is a real wealth of talent in the county but to choose one for me it has to be Emma McGordon, whose pamphlet was published by Tall Lighthouse. I thoroughly recommend attending a live performance of her brilliant writing.
KJ:Andrew Forster at The Wordsworth Trust. The Trust really does look to the future rather than the past – Dove Cottage in Grasmere has always hosted wonderful poetry readings, importing big names like Sharon Olds and Robert Hass, and enabling people living here to see poets that normally only get a hearing in London.
Kim Moore is one of the rising stars of the Cumbrian poetry scene. She’s the reviews editor of Compass, a new poetry magazine just launched, co-edited by Andrew Forster and Lindsey Holland. This looks as though it’s going to be a good magazine to contribute to. Kim also organises workshops and residential courses.
Q3: What regular poetry events are there in the area?
KJ: The Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal has a regular workshop group and organises poetry events, usually with open mic opportunities.
HF:Verbalise is a monthly open mic night at Kendal Brewery Arts Centre. Usually the last Saturday of the month from 7.30pm. Very welcoming, run and deftly compered by Ann Wilson.
KM: ‘A Poem and a Pint’ based in Ulverston but venues change from night to night. A typical audience is anything from 20-60. I’m one of the organisers.
HF: ‘A Poem and a Pint’ hosts impressive poets at its readings, the most recent being Kei Miller. There is usually some live music too.
KM: The Wordsworth Trust holds workshops/readings throughout the year but bi-weekly readings throughout the summer. There’s always something going on at Dove Cottage in Grasmere, either workshops or readings.
AF: The Wordsworth Trust programme is undergoing some changes at the moment after losing its Arts Council funding last summer. There is another application in at the moment which we will get the results of in June, and there will still be events over the summer.
KM: Open Mic at Zefferelli’s in Ambleside – Andrew Forster and the Wordsworth Trust run the open mic.
KJ:The Words by the Water literature festival in Keswick every March has a small poetry element and has become part of the literary life of Cumbria. The Mirehouse poetry competition, run as part of the festival, is now one of the annual national prizes. The Old Fire Station, Penrith, is very new as a venue and I’ll be keeping on eye on events here, as it’s my local! One of the big events is The Winter Droving – a celebration of Penrith’s historic past as a centre for cattle and sheep drovers. There are masked processions and lanterns and music. This year there was a call for tweet poems on the subject of droving and we all contributed tweets that were chalked on boards around the route of the procession.
Winter Droving in Penrith – similarities to Lewes Bonfire, but more animals. Photo by Katie
KJ: Senhouse Roman Museum at Maryport hosts an annual literature festival that includes poetry readings and workshops and a competition.
HF: The Maryport Literary Festival – it has a fresh fringe-style feel.
KJ:Bookcase in Carlisle often hosts poetry readings and Steve and Gwenda Matthews who own the bookshop have also been involved in the setting up of a new festival ‘Borderlines’. The first one was last year, and it was a lovely festival with some fantastic events. The next, in September 2015, will have a more significant poetry element.
Interior of Bookcase in Carlisle
HF: Carlisle Cathedral supports a poet in residence and Bookcase, Castle Street, has been a long-standing host of first poetry collection launches and of readings of established poets such as Jacob Polley. Also in Carlisle, Speakeasy open-mic night meets weekly at a new venue Andalusia, Warwick Rd.
HF: I am always impressed by the numbers that attend workshops in Cumbria. The best I have attended is Jennifer Copley and Kim Moore’s workshops & residential at Kents Bank, Grange. They teach regularly and are running one again this Easter.
Q4: People (especially those outside the poetry world) tend to think that poetry + Cumbria = the Lake Poets, and that’s it really. What do you say to that?
AF: If you’re outside the poetry world it is understandable in some ways. The Lake Poets were at the forefront of the discovery of the Lake District , and it is hard to go anywhere without their poetry in your head telling you they were there first. This is very wide of the mark though. The Trust particularly is viewed as a rite of passage for poets, with almost everyone wanting to come and read here. About ten years ago the poet and translator Chris Pilling edited a New Lakeland Poets’ anthology which went some way towards indicating the wealth of talent that’s still here and a lot of us are engaged in addressing the Lake District in a modern way in our poetry.
I’ve talked about events organisers but there are other poets here too who are quietly getting on with it. Jacob Polley (not living here anymore but still with strong links) Mary Robinson, Chris Pilling, Polly Atkin, Mark Ward to mention just a few.
KJ: The Lakeland poets have been dead for a very long time – but the tradition still lives on. There are a lot of very good, award-winning, poets living in Cumbria. Must be something in the water! The modern Lakeland poets (though not all were born here) are an impressive lot. They include Terry Jones (no relation), Kim Moore, Andrew Forster, Jacob Polley, Chris Pilling, Helen Farish, Josephine Dickinson, Paul Farley, Jennifer Copley, Geraldine Green . . . there are lots of others too.
KJ: A plea for more arts funding for large, rural areas like Cumbria. Poetry and other literary events shouldn’t be concentrated in the big cities. Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool are a very long way from Cumbria and not an option for a night out! One thing I forgot to mention in my area is the Wordsworth Bookshop in Penrith – they are an independent bookshop and marvellous at arranging readings – they supply wine and cupcakes and always have a lovely audience. They don’t have enough money to pay, but if you’re promoting a book it’s a great venue.
Q6: And finally, any interesting factoids for us?
KJ: Cumbria wasn’t a permanent part of England until the mid 14th century – Scotland thought it ought to belong to them. It has the wettest place in England, the deepest lake and the highest mountain.
HF: Ulverston is the birthplace of Stan Laurel (of Laurel & Hardy).
PS: yes, waterproof trousers do work and in my humble opinion are a must when visiting the Lakes. I got a very cheap pair of overtrousers from Blacks and haven’t regretted it. Great for golfing in the rain too.
This is question I’ve been asked (and have asked myself) every since I knew I would be doing jury service these two weeks. Having been given a day off tomorrow (a case finished today) I’ve been thinking about this. It could be an ideal opportunity to observe/experience something new, and comment on it in some interesting way. But in my heart I also know poems don’t really pop up like that, and it’s often the most mundane of encounters – an odd word, a small thing, not a big event – that leads to a poem.
