Category: Angst

Angst/

Hello New Year my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again

On paper it’s been a good year. Two non-fiction books written, one published and the second out in March. One poetry pamphlet quietly out the door (even though I had to form a poets’ collective in order to get it published) to modest acclaim, which is the best I hoped for even in my dreams. Several significant new poetry friendships established. Not a lot of poems published in magazines but enough good results to keep my poet-ego going (just about!)

There are lots of positives on the horizon in the next year or so, in many different areas of my life, but one thing I know I must do is make more time to write poems. I absolutely love all the opportunities that poetry offers, whether it’s organising or facilitating events, initiating new projects and seeing them happen, going to readings or giving them, meeting new people, collaborating with others, reading blogs, discovering exciting poets or bloggers who are new to me, trying to analyse the mindsets and workings-out of poetry editors, the highs and lows of poetry submissions … and writing about it all. But I wonder if I spent too much time and energy on all that in 2014?

Social media is another area I need to manage with more discipline. A poet friend recently announced she was leaving Facebook in order to spend more time on writing and with family. She’s since amended that to say that she’ll be checking in very occasionally, but the principle remains. I can understand this entirely, and it’s very tempting. I’ve always found Facebook to be the cruellest and most suffocating of social channels. Sometimes I wonder how it would be to withdraw entirely from social media. Peace, quiet, being oblivious to other people’s lives. I know writers who pretty much stay away from the whole circus, and I envy them in a way. But online communication has been a significant part of my life now for seventeen years, since discovering the internet and joining my first online community. I can’t start to list the wonderful things it’s brought me for risk of sounding trite. It’s also my livelihood.

So, my New Year resolutions are pretty much this:

  1. allocate regular time to write poems, and don’t spend said-allocated time slot mewling over what I’ve already got out and which magazines haven’t replied, or who’s just won a competition and why it’s not me, or whatever.
  2. limit my time on social media – loads of apps and techniques to try here, for example.
  3. don’t stress about how many poetry books, pamphlets and mags are piling up unread. I’m considering ways to tackle this, for example reading books in strict order of acquisition, but I’m not sure that will work as some collections are very much ‘dip in and out’ and others you can’t stop once you start reading. Also, when a magazine comes through the door you want to eat it up there and then. Any ideas?
  4. blog posts – better editorial planning, writing & scheduling in advance as much as possible. I have three blogs I need to update regularly and 2 or 3 others that need occasional attention. I also write a lot of guest blog posts, and manage a stupid number of Facebook Pages, none of which I’m able to give the right amount of attention to. Could be time for a cull or a reorganisation.

I started this post thinking ‘I’m not going to write yet another end of year review’ and I realise it’s gone a bit that way. Sorry. Please do keep reading and commenting, I appreciate it more than you can imagine. Thank you for putting up with my rants and opinions. I wish you every joy, health and happiness in 2015.

 

Angst/

Submissions – to enquire or not to enquire?

Submissions - to enquire or not?

First of all a huge thank you to Matthew Stewart of Rogue Strands who has once again mentioned my blog in his ‘Best UK Poetry Blogs of the Year’ roundup. It’s exciting to be in there with such great company, and always very nice to know this blog is read and enjoyed. I think all bloggers have those days when you’re writing something and you suddenly think “what if no-one reads this, am I just sneezing into the ether?” or whatever.

Now we have those crazy last two weeks before Christmas which, in a musical household, tends to mean every spare moment is taken up with concerts and the myriad jobs they involve. Poetry has to take a secondary role. Having said that, tonight is a last huzzah of the year with the Brighton Stanza having a seasonal evening of readings, magazine-swapping, socialising, celebrating and commiserating. I’ve managed to delegate the compering to two fine poets with big personalities and am looking forward to hearing a wide variety of poetry styles and performances from our eclectic mix of members, Brighton-stylee.

overwhelmed editor
I do sympathise. Honest.

Submissions news: no news (and not necessarily good news). But I did come across a very handy tool put together by Nathaniel Tower on his blog Juggling Writer – it’s a spreadsheet for keeping track of submissions. (The link to it is about halfway through this article.) My own submissions tracking started off very well but has gone a bit scruffy lately, and having inputted my current ‘out’ poems into Nathaniel’s nice clean version, I can see at-a-glance that I have 13 poems that have been out for 34 days, 4 for 50 days, 2 for 61 days, 4 for 89 days and 4 for a whopping 114 days.

I did recently enquire about the four poems that were submitted 114 days ago (August 16th) – a very polite enquiry of the magazine in question, asking where they might be in their reading schedule to give me some idea of how much longer before a response. I was brief, and about as friendly, humble and self-effacing as I could be within the confines of human dignity. But it didn’t surprise me not to get a reply, which in itself makes me sad.

I’m trying very hard to see it from the magazine’s point of view. I’ve read all the articles about how editors are overwhelmed, losing money and hair, besieged by poets who don’t read the magazine or the guidelines, who pester and get shirty if they’re rejected and so forth. The magazine editors I know or have met are nice people with a difficult job. I do understand and generally speaking I know you just have to wait, and when you get a ‘no’, you move on and send it elsewhere. I obey the ‘no simultaneous submissions’ rules and am prepared to tie up poems for months on end, that’s just what poets do.  I rarely enquire – but when I do, I wring my hands and think and think about the wording. I try to be as considerate as possible. But I don’t think it would be unreasonable to submit elsewhere after five months if a gentle query brings no reply.

Do you agree? Do you ever enquire about a submission, and if so, at what point? Do you get a response?

Meanwhile, a quick plug for the next Telltale Press event at the Poetry Cafe in London on Wednesday 7th January at 7pm – please come if you’re anywhere near London. It’s FREE! On the bill are Catherine Smith, Canadian poet Rhona McAdam, Siegfreid Baber plus Peter Kenny and myself. There’s a Facebook event page, let us know if you’re coming and hope to see you there.

Angst/

Stanza Reps & Reading at Keats House

Last Wednesday I spent a good part of the day at Keats House in London – in the afternoon meeting with around 35 or so Stanza Reps from around the country and beyond, then the evening AGM where I’d been invited to read. Even as I write that I find it slightly unreal. But it did actually happen – I know this because although part of me thinks there are some things in my life I may have invented or imagined, in this case I do actually have photos.

Keats House

Things started well. As I got to Keats House a jay flew in and landed on a bush right in front of me, which felt like a good omen. I’ve only seen a jay once before and not exactly up close. It seems just too colourful a bird to be British (and yes I know we have parakeets but they’re just arrivistes – ooh! I is that a half-rhyme?)

Paul McGrane of the Poetry Society had co-ordinated the Reps’ meeting and it was a great chance to meet up with reps I already knew such as Antony Mair (Hastings), Robert Harper (Shrewsbury), Margaret Beston (Tonbridge), Sarah Leavesley (Worcestershire) and Tessa Lang (Clapham), and others I’d never met – although many of the names were familiar.

We had short readings from some of the reps, myself included, and these were interjected through the afternoon rather than all in one go, which I thought was a great idea. There was plenty of discussion about meeting etiquette & procedure, now to put together an anthology, events and so forth. If you’re not familiar with Stanzas – they’re volunteer-run groups, under the auspices of the Poetry Society, although anyone can attend, you don’t have to be a Poetry Society member. I’m the rep for Brighton, although I live about 7 miles away in Lewes, but luckily I have a ‘loose committee’ of helpers and others who help with things like booking venues. It’s quite a lot of work, but enjoyable – even with the occasional ‘difficult’ customer.

Stanza Reps at Keats House

Hurrah for the Stanza reps and the Poetry Society! A very useful and enjoyable afternoon. With half an hour or so between the Reps’ meeting and the AGM, Robert Harper and I went off to a local cafe for a coffee and a chat about his magazine Bare Fiction. It’s a beautiful-looking book and Robert’s done an amazing job building up the readership and dealing with the avalanches of submissions he gets, PLUS running a successful competition, all in its first year.

Robin Houghton poet reading at Keats House

By the time my reading ‘slot’ came along I was nervous but itching to get up there. I’m looking a bit stiff in this photo – but at least my eyes are open! It wasn’t a huge audience, but it included incoming and outgoing trustees, all the key staff and many fine poets. Also reading were  Suzanna Fitzpatrick (who won the Hamish Canham Prize this year) and Daljit Nagra who was great fun, and whose poem about Krishna pleasuring hundreds of new brides at the same time (which is OK apparently, because he’s a god) was very funny indeed.

Suzanna Fitzpatrick, Daljit Nagra & Robin Houghton poetry reading

It just felt like a huge privilege to be there and to have those people even give my two wee poems the time of day. And that’s not me fishing for compliments, believe it or not. I know I’m a novice poet and no number of competition successes or published poems changes that fact. I think whether I make it beyond the novice stage is entirely a matter of time and graft. But I’m learning to be patient!

During the day I even got rid of a number of pamphlets – I won’t say ‘sold’ as I left a pile on the freebies table and… well you can guess what happened!

After all the excitement I had a really lovely time unwinding in the pub with poet friend Lynne – a wise and inspirational person if ever there was one.

Then the reality of the train journey home, carriages packed to the brim with Arsenal fans and people munching smelly food – thankfully I had ‘Gravity’ to watch on my phone, which blotted out all distractions.

(Photos courtesy of Sophie at the Poetry Society)

Angst/

Poetry competitions: ‘do you not know who I think I am?’

Winners & losers roadsign

I laughed out loud at Martin Malone’s editorial in The Interpreter’s House 57 on the subject of poetry competitions.

“What is wrong with us? […] Are we such fragile approval junkies that we need to feel repeatedly validated by our Highly Commended in the East Jokerville 3rd Annual Arts Festival Poetry Competition?” Er, is that a rhetorical question?

He goes on to question what competitions are actually for (“Do they produce some great poetry? Or do they produce great Competition Poetry? Has this notion actually become a poetic sub-genre in itself?”)

Competitions are one of those things that poets are supposed to feel ambiguous about. You know how it is: you shouldn’t appear too bitter if you go in for something and don’t win (the Troubadour winners have already been contacted by the way, and I didn’t get a phone call – PAH!). But then again, if you win something, it doesn’t do to be dismissive in an attempt at modesty (“It’s not as if it were the National!”). And yes, I’m guilty of this – but then a friend pointed out “If you go in for a competition, surely the best possible result is to win?” (ie what the &*$@?* are you moaning about…)

It’s taken me a while but I think I’ve finally learnt my lesson: the best policy is to treat winning in the same way you should treat any compliment – accept it graciously, say thank you but don’t let it go to your head.

Or as Martin says, “A personal rule of thumb with regard to competitions is that they’re all rubbish except the ones I win or do well in. And I’m right: they are all rubbish except those ones. I think I speak for many in the poetry community when I ask the question, ‘Do you not know who you think I am?’ ”  Tee hee!

Angst/

Dealing with Literary Rejections: Six Viewpoints

Dealing with rejections

Rejections - Charlie Brown

I was asked yesterday ‘how’s the writing going?’ which is always an interesting one to answer. First you have to gauge if it’s a genuine enquiry, or a generic ‘how’s things?’ A non-writer friend probably doesn’t want to hear a long moan about rejections. But submissions, and in particular rejections, is one of the unavoidable and recurrent themes of a writer’s (certainly a poet’s) life.

For me, the problem starts with the word ‘submission’. It’s so, well, so passive. To submit is to rollover onto your back like a cat with its claws retracted, begging for attention. It just ain’t dignified.

There are thousands of articles and blog posts about dealing with literary rejections. And can we get enough of them? I don’t think so, judging by the social media indicators. I’m not the only one to be fascinated by how others deal with the rejection game. I’m just as fascinated to know how the rejectors deal with it too. There are two sides to it, but perhaps it’s easy to forget that when you’re the submissive party.

Here are six viewpoints on rejection that I’ve enjoyed. You have to read them to get the full stories, but I’m giving you a flavour.

“No Thank You” – On Rejection and Writing by Chuck Sambuchino in Writers’ Digest.  “You can’t please everyone, and the moment you try, you cease to write anything interesting.” Chuck runs with the idea that all rejections are subjective, and you can rationalise them all you like but ultimately you just have to deal with it and not let it unsettle your writing.

Rejecting Rejection by E Kristin Anderson at The Writing Barn. Rejection slips are just part of the submissions game – there are no acceptances without rejections along the way. “You can’t win if you don’t play.”

“Never Give Up” — or How One Writer Got Published in Poetry Magazine After 12 Rejections at the Bookbaby blog, Chris Robley tells the encouraging tale of poet Todd Ross who was eventually published 15 times in Poetry magazine, despite his previous 12 rejections by same.

Submission, Rejection, Acceptance, Reward by Roy Marshall. Paying attention to the detail of cover letters and appreciating the ‘good’ rejections can bring some comfort. “Once or twice I’ve felt less pleased by an offhand acceptance than by polite and careful rejection.”

Ten Levels of Rejection (and What to Do About Them) – Nathaniel Tower takes a close look at the exact wording of rejections and draws some biting conclusions. “Not all rejection is equal.” Great to see the ‘passive aggressive’ rejection (beloved by certain publications) finally unmasked! (Number 4)

And finally, Robert Peake gives some soothing advice in What Should You Learn from Rejection Letters? at ReadWritePoem. “The very fact of rejection is insufficient grounds to conclude your that poems are terrible, that you are a terrible poet, possibly a terrible person, and that giving up writing for good would be a service to humanity.” Oh we hope not, Bob, we hope not.

 

Comic strip copyright Peanuts.com

Angst/

On keeping the anxiety in check and forthcoming events/plans

Hive Meeting Room
Room awaiting transformation into launch venue for Telltale Press. Note the bars on windows so poets can’t escape.

Yikes, the poetry world can be dangerous place, can’t it? Who’d be one of those poor ‘Next Generation Poets‘? Blimey. I wonder if people forget sometimes that letting rip on Facebook is less like having a bitch down the pub, and more like broadcasting all your inner demons on one of those sheets that get strung out across the motorway with “Happy 40th Birthday BillyBob” writ large.

Anyway – I have just too much else to worry about, thankfully, to get steamed up about Other People’s Success or the heated debates thereon. Even a rejection from Antiphon was filed promptly and with hardly a harrumph. Yes folks, at the risk of going on about it yet again, the Telltale Press launch ‘roadshow’ starts this week! We’re in Lewes on Wednesday, then Brighton & Hove the following Wednesday, then the Poetry Cafe in London on October 1st, which is the public launch. (The first two events are the equivalent of the ‘private view’ – aka two chances to get it right before we take on the world – ha ha!) No need to book in to the last one in London, please just come along, would be lovely to see/meet some Poetgal mates.

We’ve got the de rigueur roller banner, the Waitrose prosecco (on offer – yay!), the hired glasses and the press-ganged helpers.. .we’ve got the lovely poets coming to read (Catherine Smith, John McCullough, Abegail Morley, Anja Konig, man-of-the-moment Rishi Dastidar  – no, not a Next Gen Poet yet, but just been appointed as one of the new Assistant Editors at The Rialto – plus Telltale poet Peter Kenny (launching his pamphlet) and myself.) Do I know yet what I’m going to read? No. Am I terrified? I’d have to break that down into 1) terror of what I’m going to say in front of my peers, many of whom are scarily illustrious poets, 2) terror of nobody turning up, 3) terror of so many people turning up they can’t get into the room and we run out of prosecco, 4) terror of the fridge breaking down and the prosecco being warm… and so on.

But here’s a nice thought to take my mind off it. On Saturday night I’m co-organising and singing in a concert with the super Lewes Singers, and have just learnt I have to sing a teeny (one minute) solo. And THAT my friends is more terrifying that any of it. Last time I had to sing an ‘almost’ solo (there were 3 of us) I had to have an emergency session at the hypnotherapist to get me through it. Gawds.

But … lots more excitement in the coming weeks. Firstly the Swindon Festival of Poetry on October 2nd – 5th. I’m really looking forward to catching up with poet friends from over that way, plus workshops with Jackie Wills and Cliff Yates, walks & readings with Maurice Riordan, Kathryn Maris, David Morley and others, and a class with the mighty Don Share. I wish I could get there on Thursday for the BlueGate Poets reading and Martin Malone and David Caddy on ‘The Editor’s Role’.

Then it’s back to Brighton for an all-day Saturday workshop with writers, on how to improve your social web presence ‘in a day’, at New Writing South. Should be intense but a lot of fun.

As for actual writing, tonight our Brighton Stanza meetings begin again after the summer, and tomorrow I’m starting with an online course at the Poetry School, looking at ‘left for dead’ poems and whether they can be revived. So that will be something to zero in on, and I’ll have deadlines to keep me going. I’ve not tried one of these courses before so it will be interesting to see how it goes, and whether it’s an improvement on the online poetry writing forum experiences I’ve had in the past.

I’ve also got plans for some interesting new features on this blog, including interviews, more about zines and blogs, and more poems from poets I’ve been reading lately, starting with Josh Ekroy – watch this space.

 

 

Angst/

And lo … the teeny window of acceptances doth open

Waiting to hear the results of submissions can be like waiting for the interest rate to change – something could happen today, next month or not for a year or so. You know how I like to moan a bit about it (ahem!)…but come on,  I do seem to have had a fair amount of bad luck  (several lost submissions, poems getting rejected and accepted at the same time, notifications going astray, competition admins not changing the status on Submittable so you’ve no idea if your work has been read, etc etc).

Every acceptance feels like an impossibly stiff window opening an inch further. Rather like my frozen shoulder which six months ago laid me stupidly low, convinced I was surely entering Old Age, and now, little by little, it’s almost back to normal (no handstands as yet, though. No idea why I say that, because I haven’t done a handstand in at least 15 years.) Anyway, what I’m leading up to is that yesterday I had a note from Fiona at The Rialto to say they’d like one of poems for the next issue, which is always wonderful news. It also means the three poems they rejected are now free for me to send elsewhere. That’s a win-win I believe!

I went in for two or three competitions this year and the results of those are all due in the next few weeks, which again means even if I haven’t had any luck there at least I’ll have back a few poems that have been tied up for months. Look on the bright side no matter what!

Angst/

On persistence, or, another submissions stock-take

Broken Giant sculpture

Being back early from our hols due to N spraining his ankle, I found I had a day ‘in hand’ and was strangely at a loss. Until I remembered I’d been waiting for such an opportunity (ie an unallocated day) to sit down and open the ‘poetry’ folder on my computer.

I find it hard to get into writing poetry after a break, until I’ve done all the preliminary activity – checking what I’ve got still out, what’s in the ‘almost ready-needs work’ pile, a quick flick through the ‘rejecteds’ to see if I’m moved to re-work any of them. Then there’s the catching up with all the blogs I’ve not read in a while. I might check on what submission deadlines are coming up, and decide whether to go for them. It feels a bit like circling in a plane before landing – checking the terrain, the wind speed, the ‘big picture’, waiting for the best moment to touchdown.

One blog post that really got me thinking was this from the ever-excellent Jeffrey Levine: On reading and reading fees – how things happen round here.  Jeffrey is the Editor-in-Chief of Tupelo Press, currently accepting pamphlet and full-length collection submissions, and this blog post addresses the issue of why they charge reading fees. Apparently some poets have questioned why a reading fee is charged every time a manuscript is submitted, even though it may be the exact same manuscript as previously sent. Personally I have no issue with this – I think if one expects one’s manuscript to be read and considered then it’s right to pay for the reader’s time, expertise and thoughtfulness. If you send the same manuscript again, you can’t expect it to either be read by the same person (necessarily), or even if it is, for that person to remember it from before.

But the article covers much more than that – Jeffrey goes into a lot of detail about how he reads and responds to manuscripts, and it’s fascinating. Apparently it’s not uncommon for poets to submit the same manuscript again and again – ‘virtually everything we’ve ever published has been submitted to us several times over, even by those you might think of as Tupelo’s “big names.”’ One of the reasons I created my own pamphlet was because I was convinced that submitting the same pamphlet (more or less) to the same publishers again and again (and having it rejected) was a useless exercise, and that if a reader came to recognise the same set of poems it would just reinforce a sense of that poet having nothing fresh to offer.

I guess this just shows how much I have to learn. As Jeffrey says: “Sometimes big revisions make a big difference. Sometimes small revisions make a big difference. Sometimes a fresh reading makes a big difference. Often, even subtle changes in the order of the poems makes a huge difference. And sometimes, between one submission period and the next, a poet has an epiphany about how to make his/her poems or manuscript work—something snaps into place and s/he just gets it…..Moreover, I am not the same reader every time I read a manuscript. My tastes evolve. My reactions aren’t predictable. Being human, my attention span varies. Being human, what makes me want to turn the pages one day may not work for me the next day.”

It got me thinking about my attitude to individual poems. Last year I did a rough stock-take of how many times I’d send out a poem before putting it away in the bottom drawer. It doesn’t show a lot of persistence. I tend to only persist with those I think have something. And yet I know full well that my own appraisal of a poem has no bearing whatsoever on whether it meets the approval of an editor or competition judge. It always puzzles me when editors say on their websites ‘send us your very best work’ – would a poet really send something out if they didn’t think it was good? But then again – and perhaps more to the point – what difference does it make if the poet doesn’t think it’s good?

I’ve stalled a bit this year, in terms of getting poems published, but that’s mostly down to my own lack of temerity (I think) – I just haven’t been sending enough stuff out, because I haven’t been writing much new material, and I’ve lost faith in all the ‘rejecteds’, when what I probably should be doing is looking hard at the rejected poems. Maybe there are some I can improve. Or maybe I just need to try sending them to different publications. Or both. One thing I have been doing this year, even if not writing, is reading. I’ve subscribed to some different magazines to see what’s out there, I’ve enjoyed a lot of readings and acquired a variety of new pamphlets and collections along the way. But I need to make sure that being inspired by or admiring of others’ work doesn’t stop me from sending out. I think this may be what has happened – I’ve just lost a bit of confidence and momentum. But I think I’m in the mood now to tackle that.

N’s ankle is fine, by the way – two days ago he was hobbling into the hospital and now he’s playing the organ and desperate to take off the strapping. That’s confidence for you!

Angst/

What makes you buy (poetry)?

First, a little story about sales.

My first ever job was as a Saturday girl in the Lilley & Skinner shoe shop on London’s Oxford Street. I remember one of my first ‘training’ sessions with the supervisor, in which he told each of us our sales targets for shoes, matching handbags and ‘sundries’ – everything from shoe-trees to spray protector. We were supposed to push them quite aggressively. I asked ‘what if the customer says they’ve already got the spray protector?’ His answer: ‘Tell them it’s new on the market.’ ‘But what if they were here last week and bought this actual same spray protector?’ ‘Tell them it’s new on the market.’

This taught me two things: 1) I was never going to do well in that job and 2) I never, ever wanted to work in sales.

Little did I know that in the 21st century everyone would work in sales, whether we wanted to or not. (Nor did I know that footwear would actually provide the most significant turning point in my life, but that’s another story.)

The problem (still) with ‘sales’ is that we’re bombarded with information about ‘how to sell’. The first question on people’s lips whenever they find out I have a background in marketing is how can I sell my pamphlet/get more people to my readings/increase sales? It sometimes feels as if people are expecting some kind of magic bullet. My answer is invariably that you have to turn the question around.

It’s not a question of what sells, it’s a question of what people buy. And I don’t just mean ‘people buy benefits not features’ – sure they do, but that’s not the whole picture. The real question is, what makes people part with their hard-earned dosh?

Now a sales person will tell you people buy out of fear: fear of missing out (‘buy now before the price increase!’), fear of losing their home/income/possessions/professional standing etc (insurance), fear of feeling inadequate or out of step with peers, fear of their kids feeling inadequate or out of step with peers, fear of feeling left behind/old/different, (probably covers all consumer goods) fear of just about anything that can be painted as negative or threatening to one’s way of life or beliefs, substantiated or not (politics), fear of illness/pain/stress/life – you get the picture.

Of course this is a simplified picture. Fear is the age-old, lazy way to sell.  So what are the other reasons we buy? To get into the head of someone who might consider buying your book/pamphlet/services/whatever, look at any similar things you’ve spent your money on recently and ask yourself what motivated you to buy. For example, here’s where my poetry pennies have gone recently:

1) Two tickets for the Poetry Trust Poetry Prom at Snape Maltings in August. My husband is a musician and had been reading a biography of Benjamin Britten. He’d never been to Suffolk, and fancied a short break there to do the Britten trail.  I’d heard so much about the East Anglian poetry scene so wondered if there was something we could go to – found the August Poetry Prom, saw it was John Hegley and Ian McMillan, knew it would be something we’d both enjoy. The dates worked. Done deal.

Reasons for buying: reputation made me search for events at Snape, it was serendipity/luck that the dates worked, the poets appearing were known to me as being accessible for a non-poetry audience, and good seats were available at a fair price. If the price had been higher we would still have booked, because all the other factors made this event very attractive. Price is often seen as the most decisive factor in determining sales, but sometimes its role is negligible.

2) A copy of Jeremy Page’s new collection Closing Time (Pindrop Press, £9.99).

Reasons for buying: I was at the launch event and know Jeremy (we live in the same town and are both involved in the Needlewriters) – so I suppose you could class that reason as personal connection/loyalty, plus I also know Jo Hemmant of Pindrop Press. All the same, it’s hard to support every writer you know or always buy a copy if you go to a launch – it can get a tad expensive. There were other factors – I enjoyed Jeremy’s reading and was genuinely curious to read the whole collection, the book also looks and feels attractive and I’m a sucker for excellent production quality (more of this later). The price also seemed fair. It’s rare that I find a poetry book over-priced, to be honest, have you?

3) A donation to Cinnamon Press (£10). I wanted to mention this because I think asking for donations is both an under-utilised tactic but also requiring very delicate navigation. You could write an entire blog on the subject but I just want to offer up one example. I was browsing the Cinnamon website and followed a link to ‘Cinnamon Friends.’ You can visit this page to find out more, but basically two Cinnamon authors have got together to help fundraise for the press, so it can ‘stay innovative, independent and sustainable’. How wonderful is that? Not only does it say to me ‘this is a press that clearly values and supports its authors in such a way that they want to give something back’, but the language of the page does not cajole or make the reader feel guilty or anxious.

Too often, we’re told that a poetry press can only survive if we all buy more of its books and help prevent it going under, or the owner of the press has sold their house/children/life for the cause of the press and the least we can do is to buy one damn book... I am sympathetic, truly! But does it feel good to buy out of guilt? Not for me. I’m after that sense of well-being that comes from giving willingly, from helping people who are doing a great (tough) job but not asking me to feel bad that it’s a struggle.  I want to feel my donation (however small) makes a difference – but I need to be shown that, not told it. I want to feel special in some way, not a person on a mailing list. It’s the kind of thing that large charities, for example, can sometimes get wrong.

Reasons for the donation: I was impressed with the initiative, the page oozes a gentle confidence and I was made to feel my donation would be genuinely appreciated, I was offered many different ways to donate/support and it was quick and easy. I was also in a good mood and probably thinking about my own foray into publishing and how nice it would be to get a donation out of the blue. I haven’t been pestered for more, but I did get a personal thank you, all of which makes me inclined to do it again. You could say my reasons were that it felt good, I liked what it said about the press, it was easy to do and the timing was right.

4) A copy of the Little Magazine issue 1110 from Miel. No, I hadn’t heard of Miel either – I followed a link from someone’s tweet – so quickly I can’t remember who it was – singing the praises of something she’d just got in the post from this Belgian outfit and how beautiful it was. The stationery/letterpress geek in me was getting excited as I explored the site, and almost bought a chapbook as well as the mag – until I realised with the shipping costs it was a bit extravagant. So I just went for for little mag, and can’t wait to have it in my hands.

Reasons for buying: the promise as presented on the website appealed to me (lovely production/paper/print), the serendipity of the unknown, I was curious about it and it was fairly low risk (10 euros). It was an impulse, the kind that has often paid off in the past.

This has been a long post – thank you for staying with me. I’m interested to know what makes you part with your poetry money – do you respond to the guilt thing, and how does it make you feel? Do you agree that personal connection is a huge factor? Is it terribly shallow of me to be affected by the production quality of a book? What do you think about asking for donations (a huge area I know)? Do you agree that key to making sales is at least trying to understand people’s motivations for buying?

Angst/

Bit of a regroup after a challenging workshop

Fallen Giant

Ever had a bad day at the poetry workshop coalface? I think I had one yesterday. Here’s what happened and what came from it.

Firstly, I made some mistakes. I haven’t been reading or writing much poetry the last few weeks, as I’ve been consumed with work, research and a very different kind of writing. Tired from a late night, without having decided on a poem to take, I selected something in haste. It was an early draft of a poem in which I was trying something a bit different.  For me, tired can mean ridiculously irritable. I also find reading and commenting meaningfully on other people’s work when seen ‘cold’ one of the hardest things there is, so going at it when tired isn’t a great idea.

Next, my poem came in for much criticism, harsher than usual, or so it seemed. I listened, I made notes. I was surprised to find myself feeling overly sad and disappointed. I could see it had been a bad move to bring something so unfinished, or rather something I was so tentative about. I understood most of the points being made, but I confess not all of them. Maybe I shouldn’t have come at all.

When I had the chance, I couldn’t explain my thinking other than that I’d been ‘trying something new’, which came across as a bit flippant and just fanned the flames even further. Yes, that’s the problem, this poem feels like you’re trying too hard to make it something it’s not. Well, I was taking on board previous comments about my poems being written in ‘neat boxes’ (couplets, tercets, all lines the same length etc) and I wanted to let myself go a bit and be less logical. Logical? What has the correct use of syntax and punctuation got to do with logic?

Dear reader, if you are tempted to say things like ‘I was trying to’ or use the work LOGICAL in a poetry workshop, I urge you to think again. I don’t normally get into ‘discussions’ as I prefer to write down all the comments, say thank you, then weigh it up later in quiet on my own. I’m usually also delighted (yes really) by the frequently insightful and valuable feedback. But  yesterday I conspired against myself. Tetchy, frustrated at my inability to express myself and the pathetic draft of a ‘trying to be’ poem, annoyed that I couldn’t sit quietly and take the criticism gracefully.

And then I disgraced myself even further by not being able to offer useful criticism to another poet, instead just reacting and being picky in a way I hate.

I came home and tried to be grown up about it. At least I didn’t actually cry, even in private. I have so many things to be pleased about, and grateful for, that I shouldn’t let the the odd bad workshop get me down – I know everyone has them. All I can think to do is to read, and remind myself of what good writing is, reassure myself that I can do better, before trying to (sic!) write any poetry.

This morning I picked up and read a little of Sam Willetts’ New Light for the Old Dark – what a wonderful collection that is!  And then, as if by some crazy sense of serendipity, I read a conversation between Troy Jollimore and Allan Fox in the Spring edition of Rattle, in which they discuss poetic process, anxiety and insecurity, getting at truth and philosophy. It’s a gem of a piece – here’s a short extract:

[Poetry] …. makes almost everybody nervous.  [ … ] If you’re trying to write it’s even harder because you’re afraid of writing a bad poem, and if you do you’ll feel bad about yourself. That’s one of the first things I say to students: give yourself permission to write bad poems. Everybody does. You think that the poets you love don’t, because you never see them, because they’re smart enough, they put it in a drawer. They keep it for a while, then they look at it and say, “Is this any good?” I mean, they might know it’s bad right away, that happens too. But if they don’t know if it’s bad right away, they hold onto it for a while to see if it’s bad, they check back again in the few months, and if it’s bad you never see it. And so we walk around thinking, “Oh James Richardson never writes a bad poem.” I’m sure he’s written bad poems, but he hasn’t shown them to anybody. He’s smart that way. And that’s what we need to do.

I’ve subscribed to Rattle for a year or so now and I have to say I’ve really warmed to its content. These extended interviews/conversations are a regular feature and have a marvellously unedited feel, it’s like you’re listening in to an entire interview verbatim, rather than being fed an editor’s cut, and I really like that.