Blog – Page 22 – Robin Houghton

Blog/ 21/06/2017

A midsummer stock-take

It’s the longest day of the year here, and the hottest. I love these long days and warm evenings and we’ve been making the most of the garden and living by the sea. Somehow blogging seems less appealing!

However, having just been inspired by Marina Sofia’s Fortnightly Round-up, I thought maybe it was time for another quick stock-take.

Submissions

I’ve a few poems I should send out out – somewhere, right now, considering the longer I leave it the slimmer the chance of getting them placed anywhere before 2018. And one of the poems in question will be in my Cinnamon pamphlet, so if I want to see it in a magazine first I need to get a move on before it’s too late.

Currently there are only 5 individual poems out, three to a magazine and two to a competition, or six including the one I sent to Poetry News, but if they’d wanted it I would have heard by now, so I’ll be sending that one out again.

Quite a few poems are forthcoming – Brittle Star recently took a poem for their next issue which launches next week at the Barbican Library in London, I’ve got one in Magma in July, and in August three in Obsessed with Pipework and one in Prole.

I missed the Bridport deadline, not that I ever seem to do much in that, but you just never know. In the recent Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition it was great to see Katy Evans-Bush’s name among the winners. Katy is of course an established poet, but she’s also well-known as a poetry blogger and I wonder if for some people she’s a blogger first, poet second. So it’s good to see her poetry taking centre stage. I assumed my own entry for the comp had sunk without trace but then I had an email from Peter Sansom to say my collection had been shortlisted, which I was genuinely pleased about. I know I tend to dismiss the whole shortlist/longlist thing generally, but when it’s a big prize I can now see why people might put it on their biog. Although I’ve no public evidence for said shortlisting as it’s not published on the website. Oh well! It’ll be our secret!

One good thing about not submitting too much is of course you get fewer rejections. Three poems were returned to me recently by Poetry Review, so no luck there yet. In fact anything with ‘Review’ in the title tends to reject my stuff. Oh well, the challenge continues.

Current projects

I have a project bubbling under at the moment and although my first attempts to tackle it are a little rough around the edges, I’m taking my time. By way of research I’ve been reading The Poetry Cure (Bloodaxe, 2005) an anthology of illness edited by Julia Darling and Cynthia Fuller, as recommended by poet friend Sarah, and Of Mutability (Faber, 2010) by Jo Shapcott, as well as Granta issue 138 on ‘Journeys’.

On a different note, (ha!) in two days’ time I’m taking a Grade 6 singing exam, something I decided six months ago it would be fun to do, and it’s turned into a huge test for me – both to overcome my nerves, and my attitude, which is to expect to sound like Cecilia Bartoli on just a few lessons and the odd bit of practice. I am a fool! Or a glutton for knockbacks!

Great article

I was browsing Wayne Burrows’ website recently and came across this excellent interview he gave a couple of years ago – there’s so much in it I’d like to quote, instead I’ll just recommend it as a great read. His answers to questions about his influences, his writing habits, his regrets, and things such as ‘do you find it irritating when someone misinterprets your work?’ and ‘is poetry a dying art?’ are fascinating and entirely free of any self-importance or sense of ‘lecturing’ his reader.

Events coming up

I’ve got a busy poetry week ahead. This weekend I’m going to Anne-Marie Fyfe’s workshop at the South Downs Poetry Festival in Lewes, and I’m also looking forward to seeing Anne-Marie again at the Troubadour on Monday evening, where I’ll be one of the massed ranks of poets reading at the season finale on the theme of planets, stars, constellations etc. Do come if you’re in spitting distance.

On Thursday 29th June I’ll be going to a Cinnamon pamphleteers reading in London featuring Neil Elder, Tamsin Hopkins and Sarah Watkinson.

Next Friday 30th June I’ll be one of the Hastings Stanza Poets reading at The Bookkeeper bookshop on Kings Rd, St Leonards on the opening night of the St Leonards Festival. Free! Come along!

OK that’s it, I’m off for a dip (OK, maybe a paddle) in the sea!

Blog/ 07/06/201708/06/2017

Poetry magazine windows & comp deadlines coming up

*UPDATED 8-6-17* to include the Prole Pamphlet Competition, deadline 30th June.

Windows

It’s been a while since I checked submissions windows. I realise a few have just closed (e.g. The North – you have to be sharp-eyed to get in there!), but here are some that are currently open…

Agenda – the website says it’s currently open, and you have submit via email, and there are very specific house style rules. They say they aim for a 12-week turnaround, and after that time it’s OK to submit elsewhere.

The Interpreter’s House – open until the end of June. Submit by email. They ‘prefer not to receive simultaneous submissions’ and previous contributors are asked to wait out three issues before submitting again. I rather like this and wish some other magazines would stipulate it, as it would prevent certain people from flooding every issue of some mags with their stuff. Just saying.

Under the Radar – now open until June 30th – via Submittable.

Tears in the Fence – currently open for submissions by email or post.

Long Poem Magazine – open until June 30th for poems that are at least 75 lines long ‘but not book length’. Submit by email.

For a list of some UK magazines which are open to submissions all year, see my post from last year.

A few competition deadlines coming up

All details are provided in good faith, but I can’t guarantee I’ve got them all correct – please go to the competition page to check and to read the rules, cut off dates etc.

Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition – Judge Sinead Morrissey. Prizes £2,000, £400, £200. Entry fee £7 per poem. Deadline 19th June. Is it just me or does the ‘women only’ rule feel a little anachronistic in this age of greater understanding of gender fluidity, cis vs trans women and so forth? Just saying. Mslexia are also holding their annual Pamphlet competition which has the same deadline.

The McLellan Poetry Prize – Judge Maura Dooley. Prize awarded by the Arran Theatre and Arts Trust as part of the annual McLellan Arts Festival – winners are invited up to the Isle of Arran for the prize giving in September. Prizes: £1000, £300, £100, plus 6 commendations of £25. Entry fee: £5 for the first poem, £4 thereafter. Deadline 21st June.

Prole Pamphlet Competition – Judge Fiona Pitt-Kiethley. This is Prole Magazine’s first pamphlet competition, for collections up to 35 pages. The winner will receive £50 and 15 copies of the pamphlet. Entry fee £12. Deadline 30th June.

Live Canon International Poetry Competition – Judge Clare Pollard. One prize of £1,000, plus £100 for a poet ‘living, studying or working in the London Borough of Greenwich’. Shame it can’t be extended to poets born and bred in the (ahem!) Royal Borough of Greenwich, because that would make me eligible. Oh well. Entry fee £6. Deadline 1st July.

Ambit Summer Poetry Competition – Judge George Szirtes. Prizes £500, £250, £100. Entry fee is £6 per poem. Deadline 15th July.

Winchester Poetry Prize – Judge Sarah Howe. Prizes £1,000, £500, £250. Entry fee is £5 for first poem, £4 for subsequent poems. Deadline 31st July.

And with a little more time to prepare…

The Manchester Poetry Prize – judges Adam O’Riordan, Mona Arshi & Pascale Petit. £10,000 prize for the best portfolio of three to five poems (maximum combined length: 120 lines) Entry fee £17.50. Deadline 29th September.

Troubadour International Poetry Prize – Judges Michael Symmons-Roberts and Imtiaz Darker. Prizes £2,000, £1,000, £500, plus a swathe of other prizes (magazine subscriptions, champagne etc). A reduced first prize this year, but still a prestigious one to win. Entry fee £6 for the first, then £4 for each subsequent poem. Deadline 16th October.

Good sources of info re poetry competitions and reading windows are:

Angela T Carr’s A Dreaming Skin – poetry competitions and opportunities

The South Bank Poetry Library – competitions listings, plus details of UK poetry magazines & publishers.

Cathy’s Comps & Calls – monthly blog post detailing a huge ton of writing comps (not just poetry), many free to enter.

As ever, good luck!

Blog/ 04/06/2017

Recipe for Water

Yes that probably sounds familiar, being the title of the 2009 collection by Gillian Clarke. I’ve been thinking a lot about water lately, and flow – great rivers, the mouths of rivers and the place where they become sea. Just riding the ideas at the moment and not rushing it. As Clarke puts it, ‘The sea turns its pages, speaking in tongues’ (‘First Words’)

I’ve been thumbing through some lovely watery poems. This, from Lynne Hjelmgaard’s A Boat Called Annalise: ‘We are in the Ocean’s mouth, / territory unknown’ (‘Night Watch’). Or this, by Philip Gross:

Scroll up the chattering, brief brilliances
and long abradings, sweeping up of everything

that we let slip, the murk-dynamics
that we might mistake for memory.

(‘Reeling in the River’, from A Fold in the River.)

It’s been just over a year since we moved into our flat which is only a few minutes’ walk from the sea (well, not an ocean but the English Channel), and it’s starting to seep into me. Last week we took a trip to the other end of Great Britain, the northernmost tip of Scotland, and stayed in a room that seemed to teeter over the beach and watch over the North Sea beyond.

On the last day we managed to fit in a trip to Loch Ness. But a highlight for me was crossing the Cromarty Firth on a ferry with only room for one car (ours). Like a sort of river taxi! The river here is full of decommissioned oil rigs which have a sort of bleak beauty.

Blog/ 12/05/201712/05/2017

Currently reading (part 1)

Through the letterbox fell two parcels yesterday, one from Germany and one from Wales, although both in English, luckily.
A Bee’s Breakfast is the latest anthology from Beautiful Dragons, a Facebook-based collaboration and the brainchild of Rebecca Bilkau. This is the third ‘Dragons’ anthology I’ve contributed to and I think it has the most beautiful cover art of the series. Previous themes have included the table of elements (my element was Osmium, and I learnt a lot about it in my research!) and constellations. This time it’s all about the counties of the UK, so there are 126 contributors. I’ve only skimmed through so far but already I sense an underlying disquiet – it’s fascinating to see the country through the eyes of others, and particularly now when the burden of Brexit weighs heavy on the nation.

My county was the Isle of Wight, which I have at least visited a few times – I confess if the choice had been between Clackmannanshire and the The Copeland Islands (google it!) I’d have been a tad stumped. I took a traditional tack and thought of Tennyson, but I had a bit of fun by taking his long poem ‘Enoch Arden’, doing a little ‘erasure’ on it and re-creating a new, short poem which I hope is suggestive of both the island itself and Tennyson’s own life. All the words are actually his – hopefully that counts as ‘found’ rather than ‘plagiarism’.

From Wales has come the latest issue of Envoi, from Cinnamon (my publisher!!) – and the excitement at seeing ‘First Salsa in Cusco’ on page 46 was almost eclipsed by getting my name on the cover! Yes! What writer doesn’t love a byline?? ‘First Salsa’ has been a loooong time in the fermentation – the first drafts were written in December 2012. Anyway, it’s out there now, and I actually still like it, so it will probably be the oldest poem in the new pamphlet.

And finally, Granta, which I usually start by reading the photo journalism and poems, although this issue is the latest special featuring the ‘Best of Young American Novelists’. So fiction all the way. I like the fact that Granta is always introducing me to new work often by people whose names are new to me. It feels exotic, feels mind-opening. It also tends to stay by my bedside until the next issue arrives, as a short story is the most I can manage before falling asleep.

Angst/ 26/04/201727/04/2017

A new pamphlet & all the angst of getting there

It’s taken a while coming but I’ve found a home for my second pamphlet, ‘All the Relevant Gods’. Those lovely, hardworking folks at Cinnamon Press (Jan Fortune and team) have offered to publish it, due out early next year.

What I’m feeling right now is a mix of gratitude and relief, and a wonderful sense of calm – now I can move on and focus properly on new writing and maybe even work up some of those projects I’ve started in my mind but not progressed.

I also think the process of getting to this point has made me grow up a bit.

I had no idea it would take so long to herd a bunch of poems into a pamphlet, at least, one that a publisher would take a punt on. I’ve always angsted about what my problem could possibly be. I’ve driven friends mad over a pint, moaning about this and that. Despite the odd shortlisting (which regular readers of this blog know, I – rightly or wrongly – tend not to set much store by), my efforts in pamphlet competitions have always been unsuccessful. But then again I suppose I’ve never believed 100% in my submissions (‘I don’t have a theme!’ ‘I have some themed poems but not enough!’ ‘I don’t have a voice!’).

But three things happened in the last year.

First of all I emailed a publisher I really respect to ask if they would consider reading my pamphlet (apologetically, as I know unsolicited submissions can be a pain) and they agreed to consider it. Although they didn’t take it, the response was kind and included a little feedback. Crucially, I was invited to re-submit once I had worked it up a bit more. This was encouraging – a chink of light at the end of the tunnel. I realised I’d never tried my pamphlet on anyone other than in competitions, and maybe sending it on spec was a gentler, less stressful way in.

Then I sent the same group of poems to a poet/editor and paid for a detailed critique. (I say I paid, but I really want to thank New Writing South here – they have supported me in many ways, not least of all with a modest but crucial grant for mentoring. Huge kudos to them.) The feedback was certainly detailed, and full of suggestions of poets to read and how I might improve the individual poems and the manuscript generally. This was useful – I tried hard to take both good and bad comments on board and forced myself to be grown-up about it, but the report was topped and tailed with phrases like ‘disappointing’ and ‘not the standard required for publication as a pamphlet.’ I couldn’t help feeling knocked-back, and it was several months before I was able to look at the poems again and see what could be improved. It didn’t help that most of them had been published in magazines, which I took to mean they are ‘good’ in some way. But beware – if you also get that feeling when you get a poem published, or it wins something, – ‘it must be good!’ – that feeling is a false friend! I won’t even go into the whole ‘it’s all subjective’ thing here because poets tell ourselves that all the time and it doesn’t always help 🙂

Eventually, after redrafts, and with several pamphlet competition deadlines and reading windows approaching, I asked another poet who I really admire to help me work the manuscript up (paid for with the rest of my NWS grant) . She read the poems. We then spent a long afternoon going through the poems themselves, the ordering, themes, which were weaker, which would work better first or last, and so on. There were criticisms I’d heard before and hadn’t liked (but when you hear the same thing from different sources – hmm!), there were poems I was determined to keep in but ended up removing, there were a few unpublished/new poems that I hadn’t tested on magazines but followed my instinct and included. Being familiar with this poet’s work and meeting face to face made a huge difference.

So something I’ve taken from all this is that I don’t always respond well to the written word alone. This is quite an admission, given my championing of online communication for the last twenty years. And I know that asking for a critique is not asking for praise. You need to know what’s not working. And yet we hear the written word in our heads, and (for me anyway) anything negative -especially if we don’t like the tone of it! – can jump out and take on a far greater significance than anything positive. When the same comments are delivered face to face, with space for all that entails – tone of voice, empathic feedback, the possibility of discussion and clarification, for me this is a marvellous thing.

The reworked pamphlet felt good. I sent it out. It’s going to be published. When I think of all the workshopping groups, magazine editors and poet friends who have encouraged and helped me, and of course you, for reading this blog with its warts and all, I’m truly grateful. There was a huge dollop of luck involved (there always is!) but if any of this sounds familiar, if you’re in the position I was, I would say it is as much to do with perseverance and finding a way to negotiate criticism – in such a way that you make it work for you, without chipping away at your confidence.

Blog/ 19/04/2017

What’s inspired me recently, and a writing/submissions update

I’m not spending a great deal of time at the computer at the moment – can only blame the marvellous good weather! I’m in admiration of those taking part in NaPoWriMo this month, such as Jayne Stanton. I do sometimes do the ‘start a poem a day’ thing, although I tend to do it alone and during months when there’s nothing going on to distract me!

Having said that, I’ve been writing and submitting. Some new work is emerging that feels fresh, and I’m enjoying the process. I think I’d been hitting my head against so many old poems for too long, and making a conscious decision to set them aside feels liberating. So, I’ve got six poems forthcoming in the summer across four publications, plus there are currently 14 more out to magazines and a couple of comps, and 4 pamphlet submissions. If nothing comes of the latter then I think I have enough new material & project ideas coming through to abandon this particular ‘pamphlet.’ I’m using quote marks because it’s possibly not one pamphlet, but the seeds of several. Or just the start of a collection. We shall see.

Meanwhile, I’ve been getting inspiration from a number of sources. I’m not a huge reader of novels, even though I used to belong to a book group and would do so again. But I can’t resist a good recommendation from a trusted source, and two I followed up recently were The Warden by Anthony Trollope and The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing. Poet friend Antony had suggested The Warden as an introduction to Trollope, and I wondered why I’d never read any before. Surprisingly modern themes, sly humour, and copious use of the much-in-vogue present tense. Loved it. And Doris Lessing – a real revelation. I raced through this book, a story and characters that really puts you through the wringer. So agonising it would feel trite to call it ‘tragic’. At times I thought I was reading Steinbeck. Where the heck have I been?

Then there are the websites that regularly get my mind jumping up and down. In a recent Brain Pickings, Maria Popova introduced me to Anne Lamott’s Hallelujah Anyway – “on reclaiming mercy and forgiveness as the root of self-respect in a vengeful world”. It’s the kind of fascinating read that I stumble on first thing and then can’t get out of bed till I’ve finished it.

And then there’s Dan Blank, a big thinker whose weekly email newsletter is probably the only one I actual read right through and have done so for ten years or more. His new book Be the Gateway is currently on my Kindle reader and giving me plenty to think about as regards writing ‘goals’ and refocusing on connecting with readers rather than ticking off ‘achievements’. A lesson I need to learn, but will I?

Other sources of ideas this month came from the Antiques Roadshow on TV, some NHS information booklets and the Wikipedia entry for Eddie Van Halen. Betcha can’t wait!

spring montage — Let’s go out and enjoy Spring!

Angst/ 03/04/2017

Eyewear Anthology launch & a scary flashback

Eyewear - Best New British and Irish Poets anthology

This one is dedicated to my good friend Lucy, who often comes with me to London poetry readings. I’ve taken her to standing-room only upstairs rooms in Victorian pubs, damp basements that turn into saunas in the summer, corners of (yet more) pubs where poets compete with the steady traffic to/from the gents, drunk hilarity from the bar and piped music. She listens, she smiles, she pays her way, she never asks ‘is it nearly over yet?’ and she never complains. And whenever I invite her, she comes along, cheerful as ever! Thank you, Lucy!

Yesterday she and I were at the launch event for Eyewear’s ‘Best New British and Irish Poets 2017’ anthology, at the Windmill in Brixton. I’m very grateful to have a poem in such an anthology, and in such good company. Luke Kennard, thank you for picking it up – I didn’t feel able to elbow my way in to your entourage yesterday to say so, so I’m saying it here. I also want to thank Charles Johnson who originally published the poem in ‘Obsessed with Pipework’.

The Windmill is apparently a legendary music venue – award-winning, longstanding etc. But it had a very strange effect on me. The instructions to find it were to ‘walk along Blenheim Gardens until you think you’ve missed it’ – and I can sort of see why. The road is quiet and residential. The Windmill is slightly set back, and has the appearance of a social club or a school games hut, quite the opposite of the gentrified gastropub one expects in these well-connected, used-to-be-gritty parts of South London. The first thing we noticed was a huge barking/drooling dog on the roof, presumably the one the landlord sends in when punters are reluctant to leave at night.

When I walked inside, I had the most weird sense of deja-vu, or rather being transported back in time to the early eighties, or even earlier. I was hit by a sudden smell – it was as if People Had Been Smoking in there – you know, like in the old days! And no-one had opened any windows since 1986. But wait! I don’t think there were any windows.

The place was dark and deserted but for a chap behind the bar. He was friendly, and sold us two very reasonably priced glasses of wine. I resisted the urge to ask for half a lager & lime, telling myself this is not Lewisham in 1978, I am not a teenager but I was drowning in flashbacks to school discos, freezing cold bus stops, dingy pubs with sticky floors and the acrid taste of snogs with boys who smoked and drank bitter. I tried to laugh it off, thinking it was because I’m currently loving my box set of The Sweeney (“fags, slags, jags and blags”), with all its wonderful shabby London locations and dialogue.

Things got going though, and after sitting outside in the sun for a while we made our way back in for the start and found it packed. Yes, standing room only – although we did find seats at the back for a while, until someone came to ‘fix the air conditioning’ above our heads and we had to move. We heard readings from Eyewear poets, from Luke Kennard (who was the selector for the anthology) and also from contributors, including Jayne Stanton down from the Midlands and Telltale’s own Jess Mookherjee. Todd Swift, Eyewear publisher and compere, was very entertaining and saw us through not one but two power cuts when the fuses went. And Jill Abram was there, at one point working the desk and getting the mic in order – she’s clearly a multi-talented woman.

When it came to my turn to read, I had the usual struggle with the lighting/reading glasses etc, and then when I started speaking I heard this rough-sounding Sarf London accent ricocheting round the room – is that me? I have no idea what was happening, unless it was the trauma of the flashback-stuff and being so close to where I grew up – plus The Sweeney – but I was channelling Denis Waterman (“Ere Guv, isn’t this the boozer where you nicked Fat Charlie in that blag?”) Anyway, I couldn’t do anything about it – if I’d have smartened up my vowels halfway through then it would have sounded weird – like I was putting on a posh poetry voice or something. And I wasn’t imagining this – I mentioned it to Lucy as I sat down and she confirmed it. Ugh! Is there no end to the stressful situations we put ourselves through??!

By that point I was too embarrassed to risk introducing myself to Luke K. So I left feeling rather sheepish about it all. We couldn’t stay to the end as I had to get back to Eastbourne, so I felt a bit guilty about that too. But hey, it was a lovely sunny day. And on the way home I picked up an email to say I’d had a poem accepted for Magma. So that cheered me up. I didn’t watch any of The Sweeney when I got home though.

Angst/ 30/03/201731/03/2017

National Poetry Competition awards night

This is where I open with a statement about the star-studded atmosphere of the Savile Club ballroom last night, where the UK’s biggest poetry single-poem competition reached its climax…but this is my blog after all, so I know you’re expecting something a bit more – um – prosaic? Something about my exchanging some banter with Patience Agbabi while delving into my bag on the cloakroom floor, or trying not to look like an imposter as I anxiously scan the room for canapés. Well, yes, that did happen. And I was nervous walking in. But it was a joy to be there with poet friend Lynne, who shares my trepidation for these things but who always appears to be an oasis of calm and wisdom.

First up was the Ted Hughes Award, a newish prized instigated by Carol Ann Duffy, who generously funds it from her annual stipend for being Poet Laureate. Is she just the most impressive Poet Laureate ever? Like a brilliant Head Girl. Detention for anyone who doesn’t love her! The award “celebrates new work that may fall beyond the conventional realms of poetry, embracing mediums such as music, dance and theatre.” Winner this year was Holly McNish, and I was happy to see Harry Man also on the shortlist, a very talented and modest person who I had the pleasure of encountering on a Jack Underwood course a few years ago.

After a break, in which more schmoozing took place and the wine flowed, and a few people starting wilting for lack of canapés (I told Lynne she should have had the Scotch Egg with Apple Chutney that I’d had in the Running Horse earlier – small but perfectly formed), the big moment arrived. As the seven commended poets in the NPC were named, we realised we were standing in the same area of the room as the prize winners, which amused me no end. Although someone earlier in the evening did say to me “Have you won?” in such a matter-of-fact way I almost said “yes” just to see the reaction.

NPC judges — Jack Underwood and Moniza Alvi, two of the National Poetry Competition judges

I admit I was struggling to concentrate on the third and second placed poems as they were read, but how often does one reading of a poem have an impact? And it was hot and there was a lot of standing. But I genuinely enjoyed hearing Stephen Sexton read his winning poem ‘The Curfew’, and reading it on the way home. Congratulations that man, what a huge pile to rise to the top of.

The whole evening was great fun, and there was a warm atmosphere in the room. I felt able to say hello to many people, unfazed even by the occasional polite but puzzled ‘I can’t quite place who you are’ look. (Although I never assume anyone remembers my name so I always re-introduce myself – good manners I think!) At one point I said to Lynne “Oh, [Poet Name] just said hello to me, that’s good isn’t it?” to which she replied, unimpressed, “Who’s he?” which rather put my stupid name-dropping antics in their place. I enjoyed meeting new people, including Richard Stillman who introduced himself as a Twitter friend, which is always nice, and who proved very useful for finding people in the room as he stood head and shoulders above everyone.

Big thanks to the Poetry Society for all of this. And commiserations to all of us who entered and yet again got nowhere – hey, there’s always next year.

Blog/ 20/03/2017

‘Poems & Pictures’ blog at the Mary Evans Picture Library

mary evans picture library - poems & pictures blog

We’re into our fourth week of dust, clutter and washing up in the bath. The joys of home improvements! We still don’t have a fully working kitchen, one cabinet is ten mils too big for the space, one lot of contractors isn’t returning our calls and may have gone out of business (or ‘done a Brexit’ in the new shorthand) and rellies are coming to stay on Thursday but DON’T PANIC. Our builder is doing a marvellous job and it’s all going to be lovely.

All this is just my way of saying sorry for not blogging lately. I’ve also got a bit of work on, which I slip in between coats of paint and electricians turning off the power.

So what to report? I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been reviving some old poems, all part of a general poetry cleaning up/recycling drive.

One such is ‘London Bridge to Waterloo East’, a poem that did the rounds a few years ago to no avail. Last year I was contacted by Gill at the Mary Evans Picture Library, inviting me to contribute a poem to their Poems and Pictures blog, something inspired by a photo from their vast library (more than half a million images!) I really loved the historic railway photos, and when I came across a bird’s eye view of the massed railway tracks at Waterloo Station in the 1960s, I thought of my poem and got it out. It needed some work, and having the image in front of me helped bring out something new. The resulting poem has just been published and you can see it (and the photo) here.

The picture library is fascinating in its range of topics. It’s the sort of site where you start browsing and it’s difficult to tear yourself away.

Angst/ 03/03/201705/03/2017

News round-up: the good, the bad & the ugly

Facebook blackout – the verdict

It’s now been two months since I stopped checking in with Facebook and I’m enjoying the freedom it’s given me. I’ve been writing, little by little, not an avalanche of new stuff, but a lot of reworking of old material. I’ve also found new possible projects popping into my head, which may or may not happen but I won’t beat myself up if they don’t.

Being Facebook-free did mean I missed the news of two great-nieces being born on the same day, but good old email did bring me a missive after a couple of days. My siblings’ children are procreating so fast I’m finding it hard to keep track of all the new rellies! Above is a photo of my granddaughter Hazel, enjoying herself on the beach a couple of weeks ago 🙂 Nothing to do with poetry but a nice photo I think! She didn’t write her name herself, but rest assured I shall be coaching her in all things poetry asap.

Good things, and a bit of navel-gazing

I’ve had another poem nominated for the Forward Prize this year, the one that came second in the Stanza comp. Thank you to Paul McGrane of the Poetry Society for putting it forward (sic).

The launch event for Eyewear’s ‘Best British & Irish Poets 2017’ is next month and so if I can get myself to London on a Sunday I’ll have an opportunity to read, which will be fun, and I’m very interested to meet some of the other contributors.

The lovely Kay Syrad has taken one of my poems for Envoi, a magazine I’ve just subscribed to again as it’s come round on my magazine subs rolling schedule. Really enjoying the current issue especially work by Abegail Morley and Neil Elder. The poem in question is another oldie that finally came good – the first draft was written in December 2012 and this was the 15th draft. The moral of the story: if you think the premise of a poem is good, keep working on it and hopefully the execution will get there in the end!

New Writing South have always been very supportive of my work and it’s thanks to them that I’ve been able to have some mentoring from a lovely experienced poet, to help me with a pamphlet. The editing, culling, reassessing and reordering of the poems was an inspirational process for me and the result feels strong. Whether or not I can persuade a publisher of that remains to be seen. Anyway, I’m now seeing certain poems in a very different light, I’ve murdered a few darlings, if you like, and brought a few more back from the dead.

Wonderful night at Pighog in Brighton last week, at a new venue that’s really promising. The theme was ‘erotic poetry’ but the red lighting saved anyone’s blushes – although it made it hard to see who was in the room, an essential part of the night! The readers were Catherine Smith and John McCullough, both of whom are always such good value. Funny, moving and absorbing readings. John’s The Frost Fairs (Salt) is one of my all-time favourite collections, and his newest book Spacecraft (Penned in the Margins) is another real gem.

And here’s a funny thing: when I was first on a roll with getting poems in magazines, about four or five years ago, I think I mistook my lack of humility for confidence, whereas now I feel it’s the opposite – being humbled (in the sense of a) not quite achieving what I expected/demanded of myself, b) the more fine poetry I read the more I see realistically where I stand) has somehow helped me become more accepting of my own limitations, and thereby more confident about what I can do.

Less good things (but not really ugly)

Oh woe is me for yet more rejections – or as I like to file them, ‘Declined’ submissions – three poems sent back from The High Window, and not for the first time – so perhaps my work is a poor fit there. Actually no other rejections to report during February, although since the winners in the National have all been notified, clearly I didn’t do anything there. Boo! Quite a few things are still out though, so who knows 🙂

That competition discussion

I was fascinated by the comments after my last blog post, it made me appreciate the range of viewpoints there are on the subject – much food for thought. Thanks so much for the lively discussion; I’m very lucky to have such interesting and engaged people reading this blog.

Category: Blog