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New Year, new book and other news

margate dereliction

Oof! December was a blur of concerts and all that entailed, then family stuff and various resolutions.  Between Christmas and New Year we managed not one but two mini-breaks: the first was a day in London which included an excellent guided walk of Nine Elms & Battersea with Hilaire. The next day we took off to the north Kent coast, staying in Tankerton and doing a whistle-stop tour of Thanet’s seaside towns. I love a bit of dereliction for its photo opportunities, but it is a shame to see how run-down Margate seems to be. Nevertheless it was my favourite of the places we visited, albeit very briefly. There’s a youthful, arty vibe to it.

Back on the computer, by posting a comment on a Substack a while back I seem to have got a bunch of new followers there, even though I’ve never posted an article there as far I know. I can’t spread my online time any thinner. Blog or Substack..?

Then the Blue Sky experiment. I haven’t been posting regularly there, although I still prefer it to Twitter, and have certainly come across many more interesting folks. However I’ve spent a fair bit of time monitoring new followers and blocking those that appear to be either bots or agents. They invariably present as men in their sixties, straight out of a catalogue, smiling, posing with a boat or car or something outdoorsy, usually without a biog or else it’s an AI one-liner such as ‘Enjoying all that life has to offer!’ or ‘Be kind to me I’m new here!’  They are usually following zillions of people and if they’ve posted at all it’s just vapid photos or re-posts that suggest a political agenda. I suppose a lot of people just follow back when someone follows them, which is why these fake accounts exist – to disseminate crap on an industrial scale. It was one of the things that did for Twitter and I’m sorry (but not surprised) to see it happening on Blue Sky. All we need is for all the trolls, eejits and troublemakers to start posting and feeding the bots. So let’s hope they stay away.

The collection is coming along. First round of edits & comments received from publisher. I’ll be going through them very soon. We’re still hoping to hit a March launch. Let’s see! I’ve got a few readings set up now, but need to arrange some more. First of all I’m reading at Red Door Poets on January 21st in Covent Garden, as the guest of Gillie Robic. I don’t know yet who the other readers are but I’m sure it’ll be a good night, with an open mic too, so please come if you’re in London/willing & able.

One thing I plan to do more of in 2025 is writing poems. Sounds simple, eh? I’ve got an idea for a proto-pamphlet in the pipeline, which I’d like to self-publish in hand-made form and have it to sell alongside the ‘big book’ at readings.

I’m still fully committed to Planet Poetry, despite Peter and I missing out on any ACE funding. On the other hand, we’ve got a small number of people supporting us on buymeacoffee.com for which we are inordinately grateful as it helps to relieve the financial burden. And of course my quarterly poetry submissions spreadsheet, which I wonder how long I can continue with to be honest!

Meanwhile the music continues… two one-day workshops coming up, for which I am the admin. And another unrelated project which starts next month. More on that at a later date.

Happy New Year to you, thanks for reading this blog and I hope your 2025 proves to be a goodie.

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Finding my tribe again on Bluesky

Robin Houghton Bluesky profile week 1

Like many people I’ve been humming and haaing about moving from Twitter/X to Bluesky. This week it finally seemed to be the right time. So I secured my name, thinking that I’d set the account up properly at a later date. But the interface was so familiar, so similar to Twitter, that I jumped right in. I haven’t closed my Twitter account, but I have pinned up a message about having gone to the other place.

A while ago I tried opening a Mastodon account but I couldn’t get used to it and struggled to find any conversations there. Part of the difficulty of moving is that it’s a huge hassle, not to mention the fear of losing all your followers and followees.  Plus Lists – I have always found Twitter’s List facility really useful. Although many of my lists are surely in need of a spring clean, nevertheless I’d be pained to lose them all. Then there are followers and following of course – though I suspect a big chunk of them are no longer relevant. I’ve been on Twitter since 2007 and during my really active years I was following tech types, social experts, futurists, PRs and anyone internet biz-related, clients, competitors etc. These days I have different interests and different reasons for spending time on social media.  The serendipity of social networks has always delighted me, which is one reason I left Facebook about 5 years ago. Facebook just felt like a walled community/echo chamber with no prospect of encountering randomly interesting people or opinions. I remember someone saying years ago that Facebook is where you hang out with the people you went to school with; Twitter is where you meet the people you wished you’d gone to school with. Of course, Twitter has since then been wrecked. I’d given up on ever reliving the joyous early days of Twitter. So imagine my excitement at finding another place where I could start again.

But where to start? My first lifesaver was a nifty Chrome extension called Sky Follower Bridge. When you run it, it will show you which of your Twitter followers, followees or list members are on Bluesky, and an easy way to to follow them. This meant that within a few hours I was following a hundred or so people who otherwise would have taken me ages to find. Then the messages started – people who I thought I’d lost on Twitter, or in real life, old friends welcoming me… it was wonderful. I had become so dissatisfied/disenfranchised from Twitter, and now here was proof that the lovely universe of likeminds and generally interesting people were still out there, no longer blanked out by all the trash and adverts.

I posted a bit about what I was doing, including my updating the submissions spreadsheet. Boom! That got people’s attention. And now I’m looking forward to spending a small amount of time each day nurturing my presence there. Finding new people to follow, reading, replying and reposting. So far, it feels like fun. Fingers crossed the Bluesky momentum carries on building, and may it forever resist the combined devilry of force-fed ads, bots, trolls, paywalls and malicious takeovers. Come on in, the water’s lovely.

 

 

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How the collection is going, and other news

Foyle Young Poets 24

People are asking me about the poetry collection forthcoming from Pindrop Press. Well, it’s a long way off yet. Sharon Black at Pindrop does a marvellous job of publishing and promoting poets, but being an editor as well as a publisher, it’s been a busy time for her. So although The Mayday Diaries is still forthcoming, it won’t be in my hands for a few more months yet. I’ve been fiddling with the manuscript, of course: there are some poems I’d like to drop, others I’d like to insert. Others have changed. I’m playing with different subheadings to the sections. None of this I’ve discussed yet with Sharon, but I’m looking forward to her creative input and editing skills.

Meanwhile, since I sold the last of my limited-edition Foot Wear, I’m now itching to make another mini pamphlet along similar lines, although this time completely handmade. Foot Wear had a printed cover so this time I’ve got something more quirky in mind.

We didn’t get the DYCP grant for Planet Poetry. ‘Other applications preferred.’ Not unexpected, but still a blow. Still, our first two episodes of Season 5 are up – Danez Smith and Isabel Galleymore – both definitely worth a listen if you haven’t already. In the latter, I read a poem by Indy Moon who was one of the Foyle Young Poets winners this year. I went to the awards celebration at the British Library last month and it was a lovely celebratory event.  Indy is one of many names to watch out for in the future. (Pictured here is Judith Palmer of the Poetry Society kicking things off.)

Oh, and I’ve got a poem forthcoming in Flights e-journal, which is part of the publishing arm of Flights of the Dragonfly, a spoken word night in Brighton.

Next up, Christmas? Our Lewes Singers concert on December 22nd has already clocked up 22 ticket sales! OK, let’s not start with the carols just yet.

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On National Poetry Day: getting autumnal, Medieval women, currently reading

medieval women exhibition at the British LIbrary

An blog update for National Poetry Day! To celebrate, not only have I just recorded an interview with the immensely talented Tishani Doshi for Planet Poetry, but this evening I’ll be at Hastings Stanza for some poem sharing and workshopping. All very fitting.

Everything’s cranking up now it’s the autumn: the publicity machine for various Christmas concerts, book projects, the podcast starting its fifth season, the garden to be tidied up (though the tomatoes keep coming)…

A week or two ago I was in Seaford reading poems mostly from the new collection (still forthcoming!), plus a couple from Foot Wear. I took with me the last five copies of Foot Wear and sold four, which means there’s only one left of the limited edition run. Not sure if it’s a left or a right foot, teehee. Perhaps I should auction it??

Meanwhile I was very excited to see there’s a forthcoming exhibition at the British Library called ‘Medieval Women: In their Own Words’ which has started me submitting my novel to another round of agents. Medieval women is a thing! Just look at Janina Ramirez on TV, and her brilliant book Femina. You may have guessed I’m a bit of a fangirl. Come on, lit agents: there’s a lot of interest in strong 14th century women!

In submissions news, I’ve had a bit of a dry summer as regards writing new poems, but I’m very pleased to have one in the new Frogmore Papers and another forthcoming in Black Nore Review on October 17th.

Currently reading: Ellen Cranitch’s new collection Crystal, and Tony Hoagland’s final collection Turn up the Ocean – the latter I picked up in the Poetry Book Shop in Hay on Wye in the summer. Both books are from Bloodaxe.

 

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A finale, a winning poem and some forthcoming readings

Art atop the Lingotto building in Turin

A few hot days of summer are here, yay! We had a dip in the sea this morning at a secret location, keeping well clear of the little seal colony that was basking on the rocks, bellowing to each other now and then, probably annoyed to see humans on their beach!

Then I was just trying to stay cool indoors at my desk, clearing up emails and so on, when I realised I hadn’t blogged here for a while. So what’s been happening? Let me see.

There’s a week or so to go until the DYCP deadline, and Peter and I are going to try for some funding to help us with the Planet Poetry podcast. We’re not hopeful, but I put together an application six months ago only to miss the deadline by a couple of hours. So I’ve nothing to lose in trying now, I suppose (except for a day or two of my life going over it and changing it all of course.) We have a handful of kind supporters who donate, and we’re very grateful to them, but it’s a drop in the ocean. Without funding, I can’t see us being able to produce Planet Poetry indefinitely, alas, but we’re committed to one more series at least and then let’s see. We finished Season Four a couple of weeks ago with an unusual episode in which we interviewed each other for a change, about our own forthcoming publications. It kind of broke our own rule of not talking about our own work. But hey, after four years I think we deserve to be a bit self-indulgent. Here we were when we recorded Episode 13 of Season 4, over by the sunny Seaford beachhuts.

Peter Kenny and Robin Houghton, your Planet Poetry hosts

Although Planet Poetry is now on its holidays, we’ve already got some exciting poets lined up for October onwards when we start Season Five. One interview in the bag and a couple more on the way.

Meanwhile, a wee sonnet of mine which was published in June by Ink Sweat & Tears was voted its ‘poem of the month’ – possibly down to the fact that I petitioned my entire mailing list of poets to place their votes – although I did not ask them to vote for my poem of course! Anyway, if you’d like to read it and hear me reading it, the poem and a recording is here on the I S & T website. I was very touched indeed by the comments the poem received.

Other poetry-related stuff I’ve been up to: writing a review of a collection by Simon Alderwick for the Frogmore Papers, re-reading Ovid’s Heroides for a project I’m working on, and contacting poetry groups and Stanzas to ask if anyone will have me give a reading in early 2025, when I’m hoping my book will be out with Pindrop Press. So far I’m reading at Seaford next month and at the Poets’ Cafe Reading in March, with dates at Chichester and Eastbourne yet to be fixed. Hopefully more to come, if I’m to sell some books!

Now back to some lovely box-filling and wordcount checking. Wish me luck!

PS I took the ‘bench art’ photo in Turin, on the roof of the old Fiat factory that’s now part- shopping mall part-art gallery and part-rooftop garden where the old test track still circles.

 

 

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New poem up at Ink, Sweat & Tears

I’m very pleased that Helen Ivory chose my poem ‘I’m looking through a lattice of magnolia’ for Ink, Sweat & Tears recently. It’s from my collection which is coming out later in the year from Pindrop Press.

The poem began when Nick and I spent the night of our wedding anniversary at Gravetye Manor in Sussex: wonderful, but very expensive. Our room was named ‘Magnolia’, for the lovely old tree outside the window.

I absolutely love the way magnolia is pretty much the first tree to blossom, at a time of the year when we’re all desperate for some life and colour in nature. But being early February we were just a little too early. The surrounding gardens and landscape had that barren, wintry look.

As it happened, my sister had recently died and her funeral was to be a few days later. I think the poem was a contemplation of this strange moment of extravagance, wishfulness and ‘vanitas’.

You can read the poem here.

 

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Keeping track of poetry magazines: getting down and dirty

I’ve just finished trawling through hundreds of poetry magazine websites. It’s my quarterly mission: to update the spreadsheet that I send out to a few thousand poets. Every time it seems to become more challenging: the process of pulling up-to-date information from a magazine’s web presence requires a kind of forensic mindset: never believe the first thing you read, never assume, always try to cross-check. And the first rule of all: ALWAYS SCROLL DOWN.

How it works (in theory)

First of all, as I have often said, I have every respect for poetry magazine editors. Theirs is a thankless task and many have been keeping their magazines going, year-in year-out, on a budget of zero. I have bookmarked the submissions pages of most of the magazines on my list, and about half of them are kept up-to-date with relevant information: we are open for submissions, or we are closed and our next submissions window will be x, that sort of thing. Or, our submissions process has changed, we’re now only open once a year in December, or whatever. Some lovely editors even email me with this information! I’ll stop there before I start welling up!

I try not to be complacent, as even those pages that appear unchanged for years might suddenly throw in some relevant new info down the bottom of the page, such as NOW ON HIATUS and it’s easy to miss it if you don’t, um, scroll down.

On Hiatus

During the pandemic years innumerable zines sprung up. Students on creative writing programmes started shiny new publications called something like “Burnt Toast” or “Crapshoot”. The majority have disappeared: if the domain name is now for sale, that’s a big clue. But often the website is still there, proclaiming ‘Issue 2 coming soon! Send us your poems!’ First of all I ask myself ‘are they open? But then I start to realise the zine is dead, and I feel kind of sorry for what happened to all that enthusiasm and ambition. ON HIATUS has come to be the standard phrase. I used to think it meant ‘we are taking a break but hoping/intending to return’, which it sometimes does. But more often than not it’s a way of saying GONE FOR GOOD. There shouldn’t be any shame in admitting a project has run its course, or real life got in the way. I’ve done that myself quite a few times. But here’s the dilemma: should I drop a publication from my list, and risk not hearing if it returns (because it wasn’t bad and actually it may have been around a while), or keep it on and expect people to trawl through the dead wood to find the magazines that actually exist?

Conflicting info

Consider this. Website says SUBS CLOSED, followed by a long description of what to send and ‘OPEN until [date]’.  Or, SUBS OPEN, followed by a long description of what to send and then SUBS CLOSED. Sometimes it looks open, but when you click onto their Submittable page, or webform, it says they are closed. The social account says CLOSED in the profile, OPEN in the feed.

So I don my detective hat. Are they open for flash but not poetry? Are they open for their annual competition, but not for general subs? Are they open for subs in the Scottish language only? Were they open for 24 hours only, and they haven’t had time to update their Submittable? Have they reached their Submittable limit for that month? Has someone tasked with updating the socials not been able to update the website, or didn’t realise the Profile needed updating or couldn’t figure out how to UNPIN a post? Did someone not SCROLL DOWN? (These are all real examples.)

What year is this again?

Now let’s say the website submissions page says SUBS OPEN UNTIL AUGUST 31st, and I think ‘great…. but I’ll just check they mean 2024.’ So I click around the website to see if there are any dates attached to news or blog posts (often there are not). I peer at various grainy images of ‘our latest launch’ to identify anyone I know – do they look considerably younger? Hmmm.  Or I investigate the ‘LATEST ISSUE: No.4’ for signs of recent life. This might mean checking their social feeds (often there are no link to these, so I have to type into Google [magazine name] +Twitter or whatever.) I get there, and pinned to their feed or in their profile it says SUBS CLOSED. Oh, but doesn’t the website say they’re open? I scroll through the feed and see ‘Issue no. 6 is here! WOOT!’ But that was in February 2023. (Of the mags I trawled though today, I would estimate that 9 out of 10 Twitter feeds have been dead since 2021.) But wait a minute – didn’t [poet name] tell me the other day that she had sometime coming out in this mag? Maybe they moved to Instagram or Medium or maybe they’ve got a LinkTree …? By which time I’m ready for another cup of tea. I might make a note to check the magazine next month, or to email or tweet the editor. I don’t do that very often though, because I tend to not get a reply.

So then I move onto the next mag. And the next. Why do it? I do enjoy the research element, and see it as a bit of a game, that way it doesn’t get too frustrating. The spreadsheet started off as a list for my own reference, although now I suppose it’s become a bit of a ‘thing’. I try subscribing to other magazine alert services but I can’t find anything more granular or up to date or relevant to my needs than this. Plenty of recipients tell me they find it useful, and/or make a donation on my BuyMeaCoffee page. So I’m not writing this as a plea for gratitude or sympathy. I actually enjoy getting my hands dirty in the world of poetry magazines submissions, and I love finding some real gems, even places where I might send my own work. I’ve made friends with editors along the way, but it’s definitely a service for poets rather than editors. I get a kick out of giving away something I’ve created for free. And as I say, I do the legwork, so others don’t have to.

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Subs, poddie, choirs & a greenhouse

Leiden

When you login to your blog and see there are 16 updates required it can only mean one thing  – it’s been a bit neglected! So here’s a somewhat belated update…

The podcast is nearing the end of its fourth season! When it comes to the home stretch Peter and I tend to get a bit exhausted, but the last couple of interviews of the season will be goodies and in July we’re going to try for an ACE DYCP grant. The chances of getting one are probably zero, but we have to try. Running the poddie isn’t cheap – we have two very kind regular supporters but would need about a hundred to cover our costs. Anyway, wish us luck.

I’ve also been doing some editing of the new collection, looking at where there might be holes and what I need to write to fill them. Which has led to more writing, and I’ve been submitting again after a hiatus. Despite a few rejections, I’m delighted to say there’s work forthcoming in The Frogmore Papers and Ink, Sweat & Tears, two of the longest-running poetry zines, still going after many years while so many others crash and burn. If running a magazine is anything like running a podcast I can empathise!

On the novel-writing front my medieval mystery hasn’t yet had any interest from agents, but a second book is in the planning stages and it’s quite different, so it will be fun to get stuck into that when the time feels right.

Meanwhile I’m just back from a short trip to the Netherlands with the Lewes Singers: great singing, very social and lovely to be in Leiden. But the awfulness of airports and flying is so depressing. Yes, we should have gone by train, but last time we did that the journey was a nightmare. It’s all a matter of luck I suppose.

Now I’ve got to finish my end of month submissions alert email. And next there’s the spreadsheet to update. It’s a good time to sign up if you haven’t already. Plus a programme to create for the East Sussex Community Choir’s Haydn concert on June 29th. Oh, and seedlings to pot on, tomatoes to worry over and courgettes to encourage.  Did I mention that Nick and I recently erected a little greenhouse, on the three hottest days of the year? The garden is calling…

robin builds a greenhouse

 

 

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Two new poetry collections I’m enjoying

sunset on Albir beach, Costa Blanca

Look what arrived for me while I was away on a yoga-vegan-retreat in Spain (yup! That’s where I took this photo!) – Snow, the new pamphlet by Peter Kenny (poems) and Palo Almond (art) from Hedgehog Press. It’s a little A6-sized gem, with beautiful endpapers. Just four perfect little tankas accompanying Almond’s dreamy watercolours. Snow is number 6 in Hedgehog’s ‘Little Black Book’ series, and it’s official release date is 22nd May. Peter is of course my Planet Poetry podcast co-host so OK I’m a tad biased but hey, he’s not just a podcaster but a poet, whose work deserves to be more widely known.

Another new release is Rory Waterman’s fourth collection, Come Here to This Gate, published by Carcanet. So far I’ve read the first section, ‘All but forgotten’, a sequence which charts the poet’s relationship with his father in his last year of life. It’s left a big impression on me already, and there’s plenty more in the book to savour. Here’s a video of Rory talking about the collection.

I’ve been neck-deep recently in moving my various websites to a different hosting service, a process that is fraught with potential cock-ups. So if you spot anything weird about this site, or my email, or the sign up for my poetry magazines spreadsheet, please let me know. Speaking of which, I’m currently cooking up some extras to offer on my BuyMeACoffee page. More on that coming soon.

Now, why is so cold? Anyone know?

 

 

 

 

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On performing ekphrastic poems, Poetry Book Fair etc

poetry book fair 2020

I’m not sure I’ve ever really celebrated World Poetry Day, which was apparently adopted by UNESCO in 1999 with the aim of “supporting linguistic diversity through poetic expression and increasing the opportunity for endangered languages to be heard.” It’s held on March 21st each year, and this year in Eastbourne the indefatigable ‘Mister John’ who hosts a monthly poetry open mic is staging a special event on the theme of ekphrasis. The Hastings Stanza will well represented, and I’m taking along poems inspired by contemporary artworks by Anish Kapoor and Jann Haworth.

On ‘Performing’ ekphrastic poems

Reading poems based on artworks is tricky. If they’re famous paintings then at least some of the audience might be familiar with them. If not, do you spend five minutes explaining what it’s a picture of before reading the poem? What if the artwork is a piece of performance art? I’ve written something inspired by The House with the Ocean View by Marina Abramovic, but decided against reading it this week because explaining the artwork is too time consuming. Even with static art, ideally we would have a projector and be able to show it while reading the poem. But what if that’s not possible? I’ve opted for putting a copy of the art next to the poem, printing it out and taking a few ‘pass around’ copies with me. We’ll see how it goes.

The return of the Poetry Book Fair

Although it bears no resemblance to the London Book Fair, London’s Poetry Book Fair (also known as Free Verse) used to be a very jolly and uplifting event, independently organised, until the pandemic years. The great news is that it’s back, to be held on Saturday 20th April. The bad news for me is that I can’t make it. Organised now by The Poetry Society, the fair consists of around 80 small-to-micro poetry publishers crammed into a hall displaying their wares. A great opportunity for editors to meet their readers and potential readers, for poets to meet editors (or check then out incognito!) and sample their books, for tiny indies to rub along with the Fabers of the poetry world. It’s also a good old-fashioned networking event, even if poets don’t tend to use that phrase. Meet poets you’ve always admired and hear them read! Quiz editors about what they’re looking for and make sure they remember your name! Or just run into poet mates you haven’t seen in ages.

I’ve been to three of the Fairs in the past and helped out on a publisher table for a couple of them, and it’s always a fine occasion. This year I happen to be coming back from Spain that very day. I could probably trail my luggage with me straight up to London from Gatwick but it’s unlikely I’ll be there before 4pm, when traditionally things are winding down. Oh well, next year I hope. Do visit this year if you can.