Robin Houghton

Angst/ 10/03/2013

An acceptance, a talk and workshop news

I haven’t had a poem accepted for a while so it was very nice to hear from Jeremy Page at The Frogmore Papers to say he’d like to take one for issue 82 in the autumn. Hurrah!

(I also had some other good news last week but more about that shortly.)

And now I’d like your thoughts please on a slightly sticky situation. I’m still rather on tenterhooks with Agenda, after a four month wait I thought I would email again to ask very gently if my poems were still being considered (it does say on the website to expect a 12-week wait, and subscribers -of which I am one- are allegedly given some priority in being dealt with, so I didn’t think it unreasonable to ask.) But would you believe it, apparently my (email) submission was never received, but editor Patricia McCarthy was apologetic and invited me to resubmit, which I did, asking for acknowledgement that they had been received. But I’ve heard nothing.

So here’s the issue: do I assume my emails aren’t getting through, and just submit the poems elsewhere? (Email is now the only way to submit to Agenda.) Or do I wait, and for how long? I don’t really want to put these poems away for another 4 months. But I don’t want to put myself in the editor’s bad books by having to tell her the poems have gone elsewhere, if she does want them. I also don’t want to pester her with emails saying ‘can you please tell me you’ve got them’ or whatever. It’s a good magazine and I’ve had work in there before, so I don’t want to give up lightly.

Lordy! The etiquette of submissions. And is it very common for poems to go astray? It seems to have happened to me an inordinate number of times.

Meanwhile on the workshop front I enjoyed hosting Colin Bell’s poetry evening in Pleasant Stores round the corner from me in Lewes, although only 2 people turned up. So with Sara the cafe owner that made four of us. It’s not a workshopping group, but people are invited to bring either their own poetry or someone else’s. I took along a selection of mags and books and read poems by Lewes poet Janet Sutherland which everyone liked, and a couple from Sam Rivere’s 81 Austeries, which I love but I think they were a bit too challenging for those present. (Read the review by Ruth Padel in the Guardian.)

Then yesterday I was at Brighton Library giving a short talk for writers about ‘Building your social web presence’. It was part of New Writing South‘s Publishing Industry Day which was well attended and I sat in on a couple of the other sessions, including one on Arts Council funding which was very interesting. I think I managed to sell a few tickets for the workshops I’m doing there next month and into May, so that’s good.

Workshopping/ 05/03/2013

Every Stanza meeting is different

I turned up to yesterday’s Brighton Poetry Stanza meeting with pretty much a clean sheet regarding how we’d spend the time. Although it was scheduled as a poetry reading and/or workshopping group, everyone was actually wanting to workshop their own poems. So pretty straightforward, and virtually no facilitation required from me at all. Except it had to be one of the more unusual meetings I’ve been to.

First of all there were more men and than women (7:2) – almost unheard of. It was quite a lively and outspoken group (again, slightly unusual – perhaps we were missing the calming influence of Jo or Miriam, our regular facilitators?)

The poems presented were an eclectic mix, including one on a religious theme to accompany an art exhibition and three performance pieces. One poet handed round a series of short zen-like poems handwritten on cards, and we each read ‘ours’, unexpected and quite moving. There was a discussion about the spelling of licorice/liquorish and some heated argument about whether poems written to be read (off the page) and poems written for performance are different, and whether it actually matters what ‘performance’ pieces look like on the page.

As Antony and I ran to catch the train we couldn’t help agreeing that each Stanza meeting is different. On the train, we were discussing various things including the poetry of Ian Duhig and a woman across the aisle reached over and offered Antony a book – “I’m sorry to interrupt but I couldn’t help overhearing what you were talking about and I think you’d find this really interesting” she said. “Good News for a couple of lost souls?” was my first thought but no, it was ‘Be Glad You’re Neurotic’.

Antony was somewhat nonplussed but handled the whole thing very gallantly, including calling the young lady back after she had rushed for the door and left her bag behind. I confess I got the giggles and struggled to hold it together all the way home. You couldn’t make it up, as they say.

(Image: Poets’ Pub by Alexander Moffat, 1980)

Writing/ 04/03/2013

‘Poem a day’ update

I’m about halfway through my mission to write (or at least start) a poem a day. I wish I could say it’s been easy. I started on the 6th February, so by now I should have about 26/27 poems I think. But alas – some days I’ve been unwell or just haven’t fitted in the time, although on a couple of days I’ve managed two. Here’s a summary of what I’ve got so far:

18 complete first drafts.

2 started but nowhere near complete.

1 in outline plan only, nothing written.

3 days gap when I wasn’t well.

Of the eighteen complete first drafts, looking at them now I would say five I am quite pleased with so far even though they still need work (although one of them is a ‘funny’, more for performance than publishing) and another 4 have potential.

On the whole I’m very pleased because I think these kinds of ratios (of useful-to-useless material) are what I produce anyway, but by making myself write more frequently I’ve concertina-d them into a shorter space of time, which was partly the object of the exercise.

(Picture: Surreal Muse on Flickr)

Courses/ 03/03/2013

Forthcoming events

Last week I wasn’t able to get along to the first Pighog poetry night in Brighton as it was Nick’s birthday so we ate out at the Jolly Sportsman in East Chiltington (lush). BUT I’m looking forward to the next one on March 28th as Judith Cair, a lovely poet who I know from various workshopping groups, is launching her pamphlet The Ship’s Eye.

Tomorrow is the meeting of the Brighton Stanza, and we’re combining the reading and workshopping groups into one. Although we had booked our workshopping dates, the pub omitted to ‘put them in the book’ and as a result we were bumped. So we thought we’d combine the 2 groups for this month and next. Anyway, we’ll play it by ear and do whatever people want to do on the night.

Then on Wednesday I’m facilitating the ‘First Wednesday’ poetry group here in Lewes at Pleasant Stores, run by Colin Bell who’s away this week. It’s a new group and I’ve only been to one event myself. It’s mostly a reading group, there’s no workshopping. So I shall take plenty of current magazines and collections to share and read a few things from, and hopefully others will too.

Next Saturday 9th March is the New Writing South Publishing Industry Day at Brighton Library which should be brilliant: many good speakers/writers and industry experts, plenty of opportunities to network with writers, publishers, agents etc. I’m presenting a short session on ‘building your online writer presence’ as a taster for my new course running in April/May. Do come along if you can, and say hello.

Form/ 25/02/2013

Sestinas – your opinion please!

So what do we think of sestinas? A fun exercise? A thankless exercise? A beautiful form best used sparingly? Hackneyed tell-tale sign of creative writing workshop-itis? Should have left it to Dante?

I expect I’m not alone in loving word puzzles so I’m tempted to attempt my first sestina. Yes! A sestina virgin! I confess I read Seamus Heaney’s ‘Two Lorries’ and loved it, not realising it was a sestina (read it here and hear Heaney reading it). I’d like to play with this form, but want to know what you think of it. Have you written some fab sestinas? Would you rather not touch them with a barge pole? Care to point me to a lovely example/exponent? Any tips? Thanks!

(diagram from Wikipedia)

Inspiration/ 25/02/2013

Ted Hughes on ‘the problem with writing directly of recent experiences’

I’ve just finished reading The Letters of Ted Hughes (Faber 2007 edited by Christopher Reid). There is so much in this book that I’ve found illuminating and inspiring. Yes, there were quite a few detailed accounts of fishing trips which I couldn’t quite get into, and I’m sorry to say a fair bit of the erudition of Ted’s letters to fellow writers and his publishers did rather go over my head. But it’s an extraordinary window into his personality. I really felt for him as regards the whole Sylvia Plath ‘fantasia’ as he called it, there’s such a strong sense of him boxing himself into a corner from which there was no escape until he published ‘Birthday Letters’.

Towards the end of the book, Ted writes to his daughter Frieda, who has sent him some of her poems to critique. We don’t get to read his comments on the poems themselves, but his summary comments were, as always, very interesting. In particular, here’s something that really rang a bell for me:

The problem about writing directly of recent experiences is – the memory is simply too unfinished. And the feelings are still too engaged in the real situation. They are too painful and unresolved to say anything about. You can try – but they, those attempts to express those feelings, will always seem shallow, one-sided, exaggerated, false etc.

At the same time, they will find expression through some image that seems to have nothing to do with them – ie where you can deal with them because they are disguised. So your attempts to express the feeling of an experience directly, in the terms of the experience, will be blocked, false, cramped etc and yet if at the same time you wrote a story about witches and demons, or mechanical dogs, it would be full of wild feelings and and you would feel the release. The emotions of a real situation are shy, but if they can find a mask they are shameless exhibitionists. So – look for the right masks. Cast about and experiment. A feeling is always looking for a metaphor of itself in which it can reveal itself unrecognised.

When you find yourself writing directly about something that preoccupies you with rage etc – just remember that. A metaphor provides the escape route.

I love that – “a feeling is always looking for a metaphor.”

Readings/ 21/02/2013

Brighton vs Forest: the result

It was hot stuff last night in the basement of the Poetry Cafe. I was just about ready to pass out in the second half and resorted to fanning myself with the folded remains of my poems.

But quite apart from the heat (maybe it was only me suffering? must be age), a good night was had by all. A good variety of readers and material, some wonderful poems, several laughs and plenty of lovely people come to listen – thank you. And most of all three cheers for Jo for introducing us Brighton lot and coralling us all. Hip hip … For me personally, it felt significant – my first reading in London.

In the photo (not sure we were all ready at that moment but I like the quirkiness of it):

Back: John Taylor, Antony Mair, Cliff Bevan, Andy Williams and John Walsh
Middle: Ruth Wiggins, Jennifer Hall, Hassan Vawda, Sonia Jarema
Front: Dave Brooks, Mike Sims, Jo Grigg and moi

Readings/ 20/02/2013

Reading at the Poetry Cafe this evening

Six of us from the Brighton Stanza are reading this evening alongside six Forest Poets (Waltham Forest) in a ‘Stanza Bonanza’. I don’t think it’s a competition, more like a friendly mingling of Stanzas. Anyway we are definitely the away team. And Paul McGrane of the Poetry Society won’t be there supporting his own Stanza (Forest) because he’ll be at the Orient. Ah! So it takes a bit of footie to find out where people’s priorities really lie!

As a special ‘thank you’ for sitting through yet another poetry night, I’m treating my long suffering husband to drinks in the bar at the top of the Gherkin beforehand. Hurrah!

So now all I need to do is decide whether to read one of my new ‘poem a day’ efforts, or whether it needs a bit of cleaning up first.

Really looking forward to hearing what my fellow Brightonians come up with, and also the Forest Poets who are all new to me. If you’re in London, do come along and give us a cheer – 7pm at the Poetry Cafe, Betterton Street.

Angst/ 18/02/2013

Gut feeling

Confession: my poem-a-day pledge has stuttered. I’ve actually been a bit ill, although there’s little evidence for it, and if I worked a 9 – 5 job I would have gone home happy on Friday evening and turned up fine this morning. So a weekend illness hardly seems to qualify. And yet on Saturday night I was pathetically praying ‘if there is a God, please help me now!’

I’m pretty certain I picked up a Norovirus, and despite the crippling headaches Thursday – Friday it only really got stuck in on Friday evening. But I was a textbook case – 2 days incubation, 2 days of grief and then you feel almost normal (except for my appetite, but I can afford to eat a bit less). If you haven’t experienced the full thrust of this gut-busting bug, all I can say is WASH YOUR HANDS, PEOPLE!

I don’t know if it’s a female thing (the advertisers seem to think so, going by all those ‘friendly bacteria’ ads during ‘This Morning’ or ‘Midsomer Murders’) but I do feel I have a special relationship with my digestive tract. You can’t talk about guts in polite company, and few people want to discuss the details of peristalsis or the production of chyme or whatever in even their own body, let alone others. And yet it’s right there at the centre of us, and its metaphoric links with creativity, freedom from the straightjacket of rational thought and so on are everyday shorthand – gut instinct, gut reaction, a feeling in the pit of the stomach, butterflies in the tummy, etc not to mention all the various uses of the word ‘sick’.

So call me cranky but I do feel some sort of spiritual connection with my guts. I’ve tried writing about it, but the few people I showed my efforts to were unconvinced this was ‘entertainment’. Perhaps the whole point is not to write about it, but to write with it.

I could now really fancy eating a Rich Tea biscuit, if I had one.

Courses/ 15/02/2013

Writers and the fear of social media

When talking to writers I meet at workshops and readings, the question of what I do for a living sometimes gets asked. And no sooner do words like ‘internet’, ‘social media’, ‘communications’ etc start popping out than I get stories about how the kids spend all their time on Facebook or their mobile phones, or comments such as how boring it is to talk about what you had for breakfast and who wants to know all that stuff?

Now I’m used to this. I don’t take offence. (And it’s not just writers, by the way.) I have a lot of sympathy for social media refuseniks, and I know they don’t really mean to rubbish everything I’ve been professionally involved with for the last 15 years. In fact I’ve come to realise, with some gentle questioning, that quite often these are people who would love to know more and hate that feeling of being left behind or mystified by stuff that bears no relation to anything they’ve grown up with. So I have a mission to help them!

I already do one-to-one mentoring with people in business or in jobs where they need to know about social media, but can’t or won’t admit it publicly. And I’ve wanted for a long time to do this for writers, because I do believe having a strong presence on the social web is of huge benefit to both the established and (especially) the aspiring writer.

So – I’m running a few pilot workshops with New Writing South in Brighton in April/May. The first is provisionally entitled ‘Social media – feel the fear and do it anyway’ and is aimed at writers who find the whole social media thang a pain and they wish it would go away. My mission is to convince them that a) it’s not going away, b) knowledge is power, so they need to get with the programme and c) they can do it, and in a way that they feel comfortable with, that works for them. There’s no mystery. And it’s got nothing to do with age.

The three follow-up sessions will be helping people establish and nurture their web presence, with lots of good examples, resources and hand holding. If you know anyone who fits the bill, please let them know! (I know it’s not for you, as you’re already here!)

By the way, if this subject interests you, I’ve always been a big fan of Dan Blank of We Grow Media, who is huge advocate of author platforms and provides not only courses but also a wonderful blog. It’s full of insight and valuable resources for writers looking to establish their online presence. Do take a look.

Image credit: Ad Broad