Blog – Page 23 – Robin Houghton

Blog/ 26/02/2017

Reasons to enter (or not) poetry competitions

Do you send poems off to competitions? If not, why not? OK we all know it’s ‘a lottery’. Nevertheless most of us would admit it’s exciting to actually win something. Or is it?

I often debate this with poet friends and in particular the reasons not to enter comps. Let me know if you agree or disagree in the comments!

Reasons to submit to competitions

1) A competition win gives you instant visibility and credibility as a poet
2) Winning a competition is a terrific confidence-boost
3) There’s good money to be won
4) Pamphlet (or book) competitions are the only way to get published
5) It’s supporting a poetry publication or organisation that I like

Reasons NOT to submit to competitions

1) It’s expensive / I can’t afford it

Actually these are two separate arguments.

For some, it’s the principle of paying to enter a competition that grates. The fact that it takes hours and hours of work to even put a competition together, let alone promote/ judge and deal with all the related admin, is by-the-by. In competition publicity the emphasis is usually on the material benefits of winning, or the prestige to be gained – how much you win, whether it includes publication, who has won it before and what they say about it, etc.

Perhaps if competition organisers were to appeal more to the altruistic side of people’s nature – in how, by entering, they will be supporting the work of the publication or organisation concerned – their might be less grumbling. Rather as charities do – where your money goes, how it’s spent etc.

And nobody should be shy about the fact that the poetry judges get paid – they are poets who are earning a living from their work, and we’re hardly talking Premiership wages. Are they supposed to read 3,000 poems for the love of it? (If indeed they read them of course – see note below on ‘sifters’). And who among us wouldn’t want the same treatment if we were in their position?

Not being able to afford the entry fees is another thing. Any solution to this I suppose requires people to self-identify as being in a very low income bracket, which I imagine not everyone wants to. Organisations like Arvon offer bursaries and there may be the opportunity of an ACE grant for professional development but I don’t know if that extends to competition entry fees.

I don’t know if it’s the case, but I like to think that the competition organisers might offer a few individuals free entry, if they are known to them. Maybe even state this in the ‘where your entry fee is spent’ section on a competition entry form – better still, ask people if they are willing to sponsor an entry by a poet who otherwise wouldn’t be able to enter, by paying some or all of their entry fee. I think there would be takers for that, much the same as buying someone a magazine subscription as a gift. I certainly know there are organisers of poetry readings who sometimes help people attend who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford the entry fee or travel.

2) My poems aren’t good enough

Ooh, are you sure? Maybe there’s more to it than this, but I’m no psychologist, so let’s take it on face value.

You only have to look at previous winning poems to know that there’s no magic formula or identifiable standard which makes a poem a competition winner. Second-guessing if something is ‘good enough’ is an impossible task.

There’s lots of advice on the web about what makes a ‘competition’ poem. Once you start writing them and getting the odd comp success, I think you get a feel for which of your poems are competition poems. But it’s tricky to identify any objective competition-winning DNA.

Standard advice is to research the judges. But that means finding out about their taste, not necessarily what they write themselves. Judges can be quick to spot ‘lookalike’ work, and it doesn’t always pay off. Is reading ‘something I could have written myself’ really going to surprise and delight a judge, send them into raptures? Personally, I doubt it.

So yes, read the judge’s own work, but also check out the results of other competitions they have judged. Read any interviews with them. Ask people who’ve been on their workshops. Or conversely, you might seek out competitions to enter where the judge is someone you have some experience of, as a tutor for example.

Remember too that many competitions employ first-round judges, or sifters. I encountered one competition where the named judge was sent only 30 or so poems, out of all the entries. You may have to read the small print (or ask around) to find this out.

3) What if I don’t win?

Although it feels a bit scary to send off a competition entry, in the early stage of one’s writing career there’s actually very little to lose, in terms of the fragile poet ego. Unlike submitting to magazines, you generally don’t get rejections. If your poem comes nowhere, you’ve no idea how quickly it was sifted out, and you can just forget (or pretend you’ve forgotten) you even entered. Or you can tell yourself your poem was probably in the top 10% of entries, if it makes you feel better.

If you’re an established poet, with a national profile and several collections to your name, entering a comp calls for a thick skin. Imagine appearing on a longlist, but you don’t make the short list. Then you find a CW student with two published poems gets third place. Or wins. WTF!I’m sure competition organisers publish long and short lists as a favour to poets – so they can see how far they got, and feel excited to try again, that sort of thing. Ironically, the more successful the poet, the more this actually becomes a disincentive to enter. Perhaps competition organisers could add a confidentiality checkbox to the entry form which says something like “I do not wish my name to appear on published Long or Short Lists.” It’s never going to happen of course, because having a high profile poet on a long list adds kudos to the comp.

In fact you may even be thinking it’s a bit of a non-reason. If you don’t want to be seen to lose, don’t go in for the comp! I suppose that’s one answer!

4) What if I win?

If this is seriously a reason not to enter a comp (because you’re worried about winning) then I’m not going to persuade you otherwise!

There are potential disadvantages to winning a high profile competition, such as dealing with unwanted attention – people criticising your work or even launching personal attacks in a way that doesn’t happen until you win big or find yourself in the national papers. But I doubt anyone ever got trolled for winning the Kent & Sussex.

So there you are. There’s really no such thing as the perfect poem that everyone agrees is marvellous. Comp organisers and poet-judges need the money. The monstrous poet ego needs the affirmation. Social media needs a constant fuelling of ‘who won what and look at me I won and yay for all the winners’ etc. Let’s go compete, and may the best (ahem!) woman win.

Good places to get info on forthcoming competitions:

Angst/ 16/02/2017

On staying motivated

It’s one of those tricky periods right now. The poetry honeymoon is well and truly over. I’m existing on a handful of acceptances (for which I am humbly grateful). I’m surrounded by talented, prolific poets who all seem to be successful and getting noticed while I seem to be not writing anything that people want to read. I need the Spring the get going, dammit – I know a bit of sunshine would help. I also know this feeling will pass.

One saving grace right now is that I’m not a US citizen. Which must sound monumentally trite, so I must explain that in 1999 I was living in the US and was (I thought) not coming home, ever, to the UK. Just as my lawyers gave me the good news that my Green Card application had progressed to the next stage, and just as I was several thousand dollars the poorer, my job was reorganised. So I was back in the UK quicker than the time it took me to unlearn how to say ‘water’ in such a way that people understood me.

Anyway that’s all by the by, and now I’m thinking of my former colleagues and old friends and feeling embarrassed about comparing the plight of a poet who’s temporarily lost her mojo with a mighty nation living out a disaster movie.

I started the year very positively and I can’t really explain why I’m digging a trough for myself nor why my skin feels so damn thin right now.

However I’m so glad I picked up a copy of Charles Bukowski’s On Writing in the library the other day. I’m only a quarter into it and already it’s making me laugh, and more importantly I’m getting a sense of perspective.

The book is an edited accumulation of extracts from his letters, not a writing manual. This makes it all the more raw, and for me it’s exciting to get such an insight into what we might in a workshop call his ‘writer journey’ – although I can imagine what he’d say to that. It’s also seeing the evidence of a writer losing patience, losing their rag, and basically just losing it. “I’ll be honest with you. You might as well keep those poems for as long as you want to because when you do send them back to me I’ll just throw them away” (to a magazine editor after a long wait).

In a calmer state of mind – “Writing is a damn funny game. Rejection helps because it makes you write better; acceptance helps because it keeps you writing.”

He can be pretty cutting – for example, of the ‘littles’ – editors of magazines who he’s lost patience with for quickly losing interest and folding – “What have they done but camouflage themselves behind the facade of Art, think up the name of a magazine, get it listed and wait for submissions from the same 2 or 3 hundred tired names that seem to think they are the poets of America because some 22 year-old jackass with a bongo drum and a loose 50 dollar bill accepts their worst poetry.” Ouch! But who can read that without smiling?

Bukowski is a popular source of soundbites – there’s even a Pinterest page for them. I think I may need to turn to him on a regular basis.

Blog/ 13/02/201713/02/2017

Both sides now

A smooth drive to London yesterday for Anne-Marie Fyfe’s newest workshop, on the theme of clouds. As in ‘I wandered lonely as…’, or ‘from both sides now..’ And yes, Joni Mitchell did make an appearance, as did Debussy, Django Reinhardt, Billy Collins, Emily Dickinson, John Lennon, The Wizard of Oz and a range of Surrealist art, amongst others.

I’ve said this before, but I really do think these workshops are the best I’ve experienced. With so much stimulation – verbal, visual, musical – the sheer pace of it (although it never feels hurried), and the continuous nature of the exercises, you have no time to lose focus. It doesn’t matter if something doesn’t ‘click’ because there’s another question or exercise coming right up. Nothing seems to distract, not even the relentless traffic and sirens of the Old Brompton Road. You are immersed, coming up for air after two hours and wondering where the time went. Anne-Marie plans these workshops well in advance. Not only are there plenty of materials and handouts but it’s obvious that a huge amount of work and thought has gone into the workshop design.

In the late 1990s I visited the Georgia O’Keeffe museum in Santa Fe and became a fan – I couldn’t afford actual prints but came away with frameable posters of three of her paintings, my favourite of which is one of a series called ‘Sky above Clouds’ (pictured above). Last year the Tate Modern in London ran a Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition (the first in the UK, I think) – I was excited to see on display another Sky above Clouds, and realised I’d forgotten how BIG the canvases are.

I thought of this painting during the workshop, and was also prompted to remember how, as a child, I thought of clouds as 2D objects, decorating the sky, just as O’Keeffe depicts them, which perhaps explains why her painting appeals so much to me. I think I was well into adulthood before I had any appreciation of the scale of clouds, of their 3D shapes, of the distances involved. Seeing them from planes was a shock – how clouds can gather in huge towering columns unseen from below, and how the highest clouds are still way above you even when you’re above the cumulus.

Most of the participants came up with new poems or the beginnings of new writing. I was more moved to get out an old poem which has been on the back burner since 2013 – something in the workshop triggered new ideas about how to revive it. That’s not to say I didn’t also come away with fresh ideas, I certainly did – and twelve pages of notes.

Coffee-House Poetry Classes at the Troubadour on Sunday afternoons – great value for money and highly recommended.

Angst/ 06/02/201706/02/2017

TGI February

January is really my least favourite month – I think it’s the short days and dark evenings that are so depressing. It doesn’t help that the it’s the month of both my father’s death and my late mother’s birthday, so they are always both on my mind. However! Let’s not get gloomy. I did go to a couple of good poetry events and even sent a few poems out. I did a lot of reading. My ‘start a poem a day’ pledge didn’t quite run its course, but I did spend a good amount of time writing and in particular rewriting old poems. I did manage to start eleven new poems. I also revived one that I’ve been fiddling with for four years, and which is shortly going to appear on the Mary Evans Picture Library ‘Poems and Pictures’ blog. Which is a fantastic resource, by the way – more on that in a future post.

Meanwhile the ever-supportive Charles Johnson has taken some poems for Obsessed with Pipework, which I’m really pleased about. They are three of the ‘workplace’ themed poems I’ve been working on for several years now. I really believe in it as a sequence or a pamphlet, even if no pamphlet publisher seems to yet. Finding homes for the individual poems, slow process though it is, reassures me that I’m onto something and shouldn’t give up on it.

Yesterday I hosted a poetry day (or ‘salon’, although I’m slightly squeamish about calling it that!) – four lovely poets came over to talk poetry, read poetry, argue a bit over poetry, do a bit of workshopping and stroll along the somewhat chilly seafront. Not everyone knew each other, which makes it exciting but a bit scary (for me anyhow! Why do I put myself through things that make me nervous? Hmm.) I think everyone enjoyed it, so there will definitely be more. And it energised me to spend the next couple of hours poem-ing.

In case you’re wondering, I’ve not missed Facebook at all – every now and then I hear a bit of poetry news I wasn’t aware of, but that’s the point – anything genuinely interesting or useful to know I either catch on Twitter or can rely on friends to tell me anyway. I would have forgotten about it entirely were it not for the fact that you CANNOT turn off all notifications – trust me, I’ve tried. But overall it’s been a real relief to be no longer experiencing irritation/frustration and the total energy- and confidence-sapping behemoth that is Facebook. Hasta la vista, baby.

Lots to look forward to in the coming weeks including a workshop at the Troubadour, a wedding anniversary (15 years – gulp!), a Telltale Press AGM and Catherine Smith at Pighog poetry night in Brighton. Wishing you a Happy February!

Photo: a sunny & happy January day at Sovereign Harbour in Eastbourne

Blog/ 27/01/2017

Slam Dunk at the Printworks in Hastings

Last night I took the train (yes! there and back! and only slight delays!) to Hastings to Slam Dunk, a regular poetry night at the Printworks, where Hastings Stanza rep Antony Mair was doing a set.

Although it’s not far away, Hastings is still a bit of an unknown quantity for me, but it has an unmistakeably youthful and creative vibe that’s irresistible. There’s an edge to it too – and my first challenge was to find the way in, which turned out to be down a dark alley and without any external signs…a cross between a speakeasy and some sort of squatters’ den – ha! (The experience reminded me of a ‘foreigners only’ bar in Rome about 30 years ago where you had to know the correct (unmarked) door to knock on, and someone slid open the hatch to check you were a) not Italian and b) not male. Men were allowed but only in the company of a woman, and in the proportion one-man-one-woman. I don’t think Rome was ready for any other relationship possibilities in those days. It sounds bizarre but for me as an eighteen-year-old alone in a foreign country it was a ‘safe place’ away from the pests that followed a girl everywhere.)

Anyway, I was rescued by Judith who appeared at what I took for the emergency exit. The room turned out to be one of those cavernous industrial spaces taken over by artists and the hipster crowd – girders/concrete/crittal windows/bar made of chipboard/Edison lightbulbs etc – and buzzing with energy. The Hastings Stanza poets were there in force to support Antony – a few of us for the first time – and in fact the intrepid Roz Balp took part in the open mic with a high degree of panache (that’s her in the featured pic -trust me!)

The format was that open-mic-ers each read one poem, and there was a time limit (two or three minutes – I missed the introduction so not sure) – and after each reader the audience got to give them marks out of ten, with deductions if they went over time. Somebody then did a quick calculation and came up with a number – I couldn’t work out the formula, but there was much cheering as ’24!’ or ’26!’ were announced. Another knockout round followed, with an eventual winner, then a generous break, then the first headliner poet (the previous month’s slam winner – in this case, Antony), then ANOTHER headliner…. and all over by 10pm.

I’m not a huge fan of open mics, but I thought the format worked well, discouraging the bores who only want to go on and on, and keeping the audience engaged with a bit of friendly competition and banter. People paid attention but there wasn’t the reverential hush of your typical poetry reading – the bar was busy and we were kept entertained with blasts from the Dyson hand dryer in the loos behind our table.

The audience was mostly young, creative types, but all ages seemed to be represented – quite a few people even older than me! Several of the readers were young men with beards, fabulously long hair, or both, most of them reminding Steph of her first husband. We had plenty of anti-Trump rhetoric, relationship angst and a surreal poem from Brian Docherty which appeared to be about aliens taking hostage a bloke who tells them Winston Churchill is dead, all taking place on the set of The Only Way is Essex. I may have got that completely wrong, but entertaining as always is Brian. The average age of the poets was significantly lowered by the presence of 15-year-old Ruby, who made it to the read-off with her excellently angry and witty poems. Such confidence! She would have known how to handle those groping Italians back in the 80s.

Antony presented another fine set, although at one point he had to call for the ‘live open fire’ projection to be turned off, in case he had an epileptic fit. It was a teensy bit of a shame though, as the room seemed decidedly chilly once we were no longer looking at the flickering flames.

Final poet of the night was headliner Sally Jenkinson, who was a new name to me – as she said herself it’s great to visit a part of the country you don’t know and to come across new people. In Sally’s case she’s from Doncaster, but has been living in Brighton a couple of years. She gave a strong reading and I liked her style. It’s not easy to go last and she kept us listening to the end.

Then I only had to wait ten minutes for The Train, which actually took me home, and my dear husband surprised me by meeting me at the station. Top night out!

Blog/ 16/01/201716/01/2017

TS Eliot Prize – workshop & readings

Katy Evans-Bush‘s TS Eliot shortlist workshop is fast becoming an institution. Now in its sixth year, it’s a fine precursor to the Prize readings which take place the following day, and the prize giving itself the day after that.

The format is straightforward – Katy reads the ten shortlisted books, chooses from them a number of poems to discuss, and invites poets along to the Poetry School in Lambeth for a day to mull them over. I’ve been to one of these workshops once before and had a wonderful time. This time I had to confess I hadn’t read any of the collections, but in a way that’s part of the excitement – to be introduced to them by someone like Katy. Not only does she offer her thoughts and insights into the works, and invite us all into the discussion, but she also brings to the table her formidable background as a writer, reader and and literary critic. Plus the odd bit of insider gossip, of course.

The TS Eliot Prize is probably the highest profile UK poetry prize and that’s not just because the winner gets £20,000. The annual prize readings are a popular draw. I was fortunate to be there at the South Bank last night. The result will be announced tonight – I won’t be at the award ceremony this year (no invitation!? Boo! – although that didn’t stop me going last year!)

Anyway, here’s a quick round-up of the books, a note or two from the workshop and what I thought of the readings. It’s in the order that they read last night. I can’t presume to review any of the collections, but I’ve included links to interesting reviews of each of them, should you want to find out more. Oh, and a few pics at the end.

Bernard O’Donoghue, The Seasons of Cullen Church (Faber)

In an interesting mix of shortlisted poets, O’Donoghue represents the old guard, if you like – experienced, a Whitbread Prize winner, Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College, writing the sort of assured, Heaney-esque lyric poetry one expects to see on the TSE shortlist. In the time-pressured vipers’ nest of the workshop room the few poems we looked at got short shrift, but to be fair it was near the end of the day and we needed cake.

Bernard’s reading suffered a little from some first-half technical sound issues, plus over-long introductions/explanations. Here’s Paddy Kehoe’s review of The Seasons of Cullen Church.

Ruby Robinson, Every Little Sound (Liverpool University Press)

Born in 1985, Ruby Robinson is clearly this year’s newcomer wild card (but not to be dismissed -look what happened last year). It’s a slim collection of little more than 30 poems, in a very small format (pamphlet sized) and even smaller typeface. This book was also shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, so clearly is a standout. In our workshop, various aspects of the sample poems came under attack (errors in grammar, inexplicable line endings).. could envy have been getting the better of us? Surely not!

At the readings, Ruby stood her ground very successfully and if she was nervous she made a good job of keeping it under control.

Martyn Crucefix reviews Every Little Sound here.

Katharine Towers, The Remedies (Picador)

A collection of mostly short poems, with a section devoted to the Bach Flower Remedies, in which Towers personifies each flower with the qualities it purports to cure. These were clever and entertaining, but workshoppers identified a tendency to sail dangerously close to whimsy.

Katharine came across as a little nervous in the reading. Much as I admire brevity when it comes to introductions, as a member of the audience I found myself feeling supremely uninvolved. It’s a tricky balance.

Here’s a review of The Remedies by Kate Kellaway in The Guardian.

J O Morgan, Interference Pattern (Cape)

In the workshop, none of us knew anything much about J O Morgan, but Katy filled us in on his previous publications and helped us into Interference Pattern, which doesn’t follow any traditional path. There are no titles, and although there are section markers it’s not clear if the sections are meant to be read as individual pieces. There are some recurring threads but it’s not all narrative. ‘Voices jostling… like radio interference’ was how Katy described it. I was intrigued by the idea of it not being ‘one poem’ but then again clearly meant to be taken as a whole.

I travelled up to London with poet friend Charlotte Gann and by the time we arrived I’d been won over by her enthusiasm for J O Morgan. The reading he gave was mesmerising – all without a script, and with an intensity of presence that gripped me utterly. Slightly scary too – which probably helps if you want to keep people’s attention!

Here’s what Kate Kellaway had to say about Interference Pattern.

At the start of the second half of readings, host Ian McMillan announced that a few people had complained that they couldn’t hear people clearly enough – thank god it wasn’t just me then! And the second half sound was noticeably better.

Vahni Capildeo, Measures of Expatriation (Picador)

One of the big guns – this book has already won the Forward Prize for Best Poetry Collection, and it’s clearly a big read. It’s in seven sections and is packed with not just poetry but dense passages of prose. It deals with displacement, leaving, distance, language, identity and many of such topics that are absolutely of the moment. ‘Complex and multifaceted but readable’. One of the workshoppers said she was halfway through and although she thought she’d find it heavy going it absolutely wasn’t.

Last night Vahni was first to read after the break, as a few audience members finished their ice creams and beers. It could have been a challenge but she was confident reader, friendly and fun. My brain struggled however to connect to what she was reading, I felt I’d come to it too ‘cold’ to really get a handle on it. I often find that though, and I also felt it when we read sections of the book in the workshop – I’d rather have the space and clarity of reading it on my own off the page, with time to look up references I don’t understand, that kind of thing.

Read Amanda Merritt’s review of Measures of Expatriation.

Ian Duhig, The Blind Roadmaker (Picador)

Is there anyone who doesn’t love Ian Duhig? He’s such a great combination – a man of the people who’s absolutely grounded in the real world, local communities and politically engaged, generous and humble, but also fiercely intelligent with a masterful grasp of history, the classics and poetry in all forms. AND FUNNY TOO. Yikes! That’s my impression anyway.

It took me a while to adjust to Duhig’s accent in his reading and I wanted him to take the poems more slowly, so we could savour and enjoy. By this point my neighbour was already suggesting that us Southerners were woefully unrepresented – come on, Sarf London! Don’t leave it to Kate Tempest!

Read a review of The Blind Roadmaker by Jeremy Noel-Tod.

Rachael Boast, Void Studies (Picador)

The premise of Void Studies is Rimbaud’s idea of writing series of poems as ‘pure music’ with no discernible message being communicated. He never did it, so here’s Rachael Boast’s version. You have to let the poems ‘wash over you … like listening to Debussy’ was Katy’s explanation. Basically French symbolist poetry, but in English. The poems we looked at struck me as having lovely ethereal language & imagery. Mostly in couplets, short. My kind of poetry, one might think.

Boast has a strong voice, a real pleasure to listen too, although perhaps it was the nature of the poems that they did indeed start to wash over me, without leaving any strong impression.

Here’s John Field’s review of Void Studies, only one of the ten reviews he wrote on the shortlisted books which inexplicably never made it onto the TSE Foundation website, which is a great shame. John is a fine reviewer as evidenced on by his blog Poor Rude Lines, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who would like to have linked to his reviews and help publicise them. Ah well.

Denise Riley, Say Something Back (Picador)

The ‘beating heart of the book’, said Katy, is the central sequence ‘A Part Song’ on the theme of a mother’s grieving for her dead son. We read the whole sequence round the room as part of the workshop and it was certainly moving. ‘A stupendous book’ was Katy’s pronouncement, and Riley was ‘a poet’s poet with a fine reputation.’ Katy pointed out that she’d come a long way, from being last published by Reality Street (‘Reality Street! Not even Shearsman!’) to Picador – a big leap, well deserved though. Indeed at the end of the day most people in the room felt this could be the winner.

The best word I can use to describe Denise Riley’s reading is ‘defiant’ – there was a strength of feeling in her delivery which was compelling, although I struggled with her chosen emphasis at times, and the long pauses between words. We didn’t get to hear ‘A part song’ which I was kind of hoping for.

Read Dave Coates review of Say Something Back.

Jacob Polley, Jackself (Picador)

Surely gets a prize for the most eye-catching cover, and in fact I absolutely LOVED all the Picador covers, and the size/shape of them. Full marks, Picador packaging peeps.

So here’s Jackself – a collection of poems about various Jacks of legend, phrase & fable, of childhood – Jack Sprat, Jack Frost, Jack O’Bedlam… Englishness and a sense of place (Polley’s place – the English/Scottish border country), themes of being trapped, a confrontational, unstable world. Katy says ‘You’re either with him or you’re not’.

In the workshop I was with him, I enjoyed the poems and the handling of the themes. Made me think a bit of Janet Sutherland’s Bone Monkey, or Ted Hughes’s Crow, although less dark than either of those (as far as I could tell from what I read).

Polley’s reading was the penultimate and having to go before Alice Oswald is also a pressure. I remember really enjoying his reading from The Havocs a few years ago. More self-assured now, but a little more mannered in his delivery. I still enjoyed the poems though.

I struggled to find a review of Jackself, but you might be luckier than me!

Alice Oswald, Falling Awake (Cape)

What can I say here? I loved the poems we read in the workshop, including ‘Swan’ which she then read last night. Falling Awake won the Costa prize already and Oswald is a previous winner of the TSE Prize. Her reading was magnificent, all recited from memory which I love but it wasn’t just that. She had such a presence. ‘Commanding presence’ is a cliche but it really was that.

There are loads of reviews of this book but how about this one by Pierre Antoine Zhand.

And so to the result – only a few hours to go. My metaphorical money is still on Alice Oswald, although my fellow workshoppers came down in the Denise Riley camp. With Vahni Capildeo the other in the triumvirate of ‘likely to wins’. Or how about J O Morgan as a dark horse?

TS Eliot Prize shortlisted books — The books…in no specific order

Robin Houghton & Katy Evans-Bush — Me & KEB at the end of the poetry book marathon

And on the way home, what should I pass than Pimlico Plumbers and their amazing Christmas decs – in the middle of January!

But London was as beautiful as ever at 5pm in January…

London from Lambeth Bridge 1-Jan2017 — Maybe it’s because…

Blog/ 11/01/2017

Poem a day writing exercise

This month I’m setting myself the ‘start a poem a day’ challenge. (Not ‘write’ a poem a day, as that presumes each one will be a finished first draft at least. I’ve found that starting a poem a day is a better exercise for me, as I feel freer and less pressured to get to a last line.)

Looking back on my computer I see I’ve done this four times before, the first time in 2012. A quick glance at the poems I wrote then tells me none of them came to fruition. But June 2013 was a good month, with six of the poems subsequently published (albeit over the following three years, so plenty of reworkings there!) And in January 2014 it looks like I ran out of steam after 5 days – but two of the five poems started then have since been published.

So far this month I’ve started nine poems, so I’m only two behind my ‘one a day’ goal. And I’ve bent the rules a bit, to include the working up of old drafts or ideas, so four of my nine fall into that category.

I’m enjoying the discipline, and for me it’s a good method for channelling ideas and getting them down before I forget them. I’m probably at the stage where I need to do some serious re-filing, as I haven’t sent anything out in a while and I’ve rather lost track of what I have that’s ready to send. I’ve got about ten grades of backburner. The system needs streamlining.

One very strange thing: I came across a first draft of a poem that I had no memory of at all – it meant nothing to me, I couldn’t recall what triggered it or what I was wanting to say with it. I couldn’t even make sense of it, not even the title. Then I realised I’d only written it in November 2016 (I date all my drafts). So as it was so recent, why can’t I remember it? And is it worth working on, since I don’t even know why I wrote it? Bizarre. I’m almost tempted to bin it completely in case it’s not my work. Has this ever happened to you?

Angst/ 31/12/2016

Giving up Facebook for at least a month

Today is my last day on Facebook for a while. I was inspired by Dan Blank’s recent blog post about the importance of ‘investing in white space’ in our lives: time for reflection, time to breathe. If you’ve ever craved more time for writing, reading and creating, it’s really worth a read.

I came relatively late to Facebook and have never taken to it in the way I did Twitter. And yet I find it takes me away from Twitter, because it sucks up more time. And when I open Twitter, I have a much more rounded, balanced, exciting and inspiring view of the world. There’s just something about Facebook that seems closed and self-regarding. But then I ask myself, why am I using it? Here’s my pros and cons list:

Positives

I like seeing some of the photos people post – beautiful landscapes, quirky family snaps, cute animals – but not all
I like watching some videos, but not those that make me feel I’ve just wasted two minutes of my life. Trouble is, you never know which it is to be
I like video messaging with my granddaughter and with my stepdaughter who’s travelling in Australia
I like suddenly seeing an update from someone I haven’t seen or heard from in ages
I like telling Nick about the good things I’ve seen or read, as he doesn’t use FB at all

Negatives

Time wasting (which is actually life wasting) – see point 2 above. I know I do my best creative work when I have plenty of ‘daydreaming’ time (something I always struggled to explain to past employers who perhaps didn’t see marketing as creative work). Instead of uploading photos to Facebook I could be blogging them, and if they’re not worth blogging they’re probably not worth posting.
It’s become a mindless habit – always flicking through posts on my phone when I’m idle – on the train, bus, having a cup of tea etc – when I could actually be reading something, thinking about a poem in progress, calling up a friend to ask her over for a coffee, or even doing a Sudoku (which may or may not help ward off dementia – not sure Facebook has any claims to that!)
I find the continual negotiation of the terms of Facebook ‘friendship’ an increasing psychological burden. People often behave differently online, and believe it or not it’s not usually deliberate. But it can be unsettling to see. I’ve had 20 years’ experience of dealing with life online – I recognise the many negative or unsocial behaviours, of individuals and crowds, and understand why much of it occurs. That doesn’t make it any easier to deal with – no matter how easily we brush things off, or laugh about what goes on – everything we see, read and do in a public online forum affects us. Interestingly, I don’t personally find Twitter anything like as stressful. I could explore the reasons, but that would be another university dissertation.

Getting off Facebook is a popular concern. Google it and you’ll see what I mean. This WikiHow article gives a very good overview of how and why to do it. I particularly liked this piece by a self-confessed procrastinator for whom Facebook had ‘the gravitational pull of the Death Star’.

However, leaving Facebook entirely takes some getting used to, so I’m quitting initially just for the month of January, to see how it goes. Habits take a while to break, and you need to help the process along. So I’m uninstalling FB from my phone, logging out and ‘forgetting’ my password. I’m going to encourage my rellies onto Skype, and rediscover the visual sites I love such as Pinterest and Houzz. I’ve never found Facebook interesting for news or debate, I get that from Twitter. But I’ll continue to skim the Guardian online and emails I subscribe to, such as The Brief Daily.

I mentioned in my last post that I want to create more face to face time with other writers, with friends and with family. Get out more, basically.

I’m not leaving social media altogether – I’ve been using Twitter for over ten years and although I’ve been a lazy participant of late I plan to rediscover all that I love about it, but without substituting my Facebook time with Twitter time. I can’t see that happening because I’ve always had an easy and healthy relationship with Twitter.

This isn’t about online vs ‘real life’. I still maintain that actual bona fide friendships can be made and maintained remotely – it used to happen via letters and written correspondence (remember pen friends?), it’s not a new thing. I’m giving myself time to blog, to read blogs and to connect with the people I love and respect and who inspire me online, just not on Facebook.

*cartoon by Nadia Farag

Angst/ 30/12/2016

End of year gratitude & resolutions

Is this the blogging equivalent of the Christmas round robin? If so, I confess I rather like receiving them. I honestly quite like reading about relatives of relatives I’ve never met, who’s had a baby and what they called him/her, where people have been on holiday. I even enjoy the cliches and the interminable ‘filler’ prose (‘as the days are getting shorter…’ etc) that people often resort to, as if not wanting to JUST talk about themselves. Unlike when you’re listening to wedding speeches, you’re not a captive audience, so reading the round robin can always wait until you’re comfy on the sofa with a cup of tea or glass of wine.

I covered submissions stats in my last post, so this one’s more of a round up – good stuff, bad stuff. Favourite blogs. Resolutions. Gratitude. The UK political/economic & cultural climate has been well documented elsewhere, so let’s just call that a given – a backdrop to the tiny, insignificant-in-the-scheme-of-things, day-to-day life of one person.

Two steps forward

I’ve a huge amount to be thankful for this year in particular – I’m very happy in our new home and new town, I have more time with Nick and I’ve absolutely loved summer in the garden. I’ve learnt new skills, tried new things and been to some wonderful places. I’ve made new poet friends, read some excellent collections and enjoyed many poetry readings and events, I’ve had sufficient publication success to keep my spirits up, and at least one ‘dance round the room’ moment. And I was very grateful to have made Matthew Stewart’s annual ‘best of’ poetry blog roundup, despite my blogging being a bit erratic this year.

One step back

Naturally enough there have been plenty of rejections – of individual poems, pamphlets and proposals/applications. I had cancer, and all the reassessment of mortality that it brings. Other niggly health issues. Projects on hold. The misery of train travel with no reliable service, and the plans I had to postpone or cancel because of it. A sump of procrastination.

What next?

First of all, I’m planning to reduce overwhelm. This means getting off Facebook for at least a month. I mean it. More on this shortly.

Other resolutions:

Seek out more time with other poets. Not necessarily workshopping, but going to readings and hosting ‘salons’
Try another ‘start a poem a day’ exercise for a month
Return to reading collections front to back, no ‘dipping’ – as I did when I was doing the Reading List
Create (and keep updated) my blog editorial calendar, for both this blog and my home blog
Enjoy time in the garden and by the sea
Continue to try to order poems into a collection, but listen more to the new material that’s nudging me
Make time to read more about things that excite me, but nothing to do necessarily with poetry – possible futures, art, making. I’ve already started sampling magazines from this wonderful shop in Brighton

Thank you / gratitude

I was going to post this as a list, naming everyone, but it was flawed somehow – so many people to mention, people in different categories (eg is this person a poet friend, poet blogger, editor, or all three??) and then the fear I might have missed out a name – EEK!

So, thank you to:

Readers of, commenters on, and contributors to this blog
My fellow Telltale poets
My many, much valued poet friends & supporters
All at the Hastings Stanza, at the Poetry Society, at New Writing South, at the Needlewriters
Editors and selectors who in 2016 have published me, placed my poems in competitions and/or generously offered advice and feedback, yes even the negative variety!

Plus…. thank you to:

All those tireless & generous people who run poetry events and workshops
*ditto* those who edit magazines and publish poetry
*ditto* those who write blogs
And all non-poets who come to poetry events

Blogs I love

Almost too many to list but delighting me this year as ever are Abegail Morley’s Poetry Shed, John Field’s Poor Rude Lines, Emma Lee’s blog and those by poets Hilaire, Josephine Corcoran and Jayne Stanton.

Some of my favourite blogs are not entirely (or even at all) poetry-focused, but they provide me with endless inspiration:

Jean Tubridy (Social Bridge) – here’s a recent example of Jean’s beautiful and thoughtful posts

Maria Popova (Brainpickings) – hard to know where to start with this encyclopedic site. I’ve been introduced to so many amazing writers & thinkers via her weekly emails, here’s a recent example

Dan Blank (We Grow Media) – I’ve been a huge fan of Dan’s for years. Here’s a typically inspirational piece on ‘investing in white space’ which got me deciding to avoid Facebook for a month

LitHub – more of a full-blown magazine than a blog, but its LitHub Daily is a consistently great read

And if you go in for competitions and/or are looking for new submissions opportunities, I recommend:

Angela T Carr (A Dreaming Skin) – super-generous and useful – here’s an example of her monthly competitions and submissions post

Cathy Bryant (Comps & Calls) – another extremely helpful blogger worth following – here’s an example of her monthly post featuring opportunities and deadlines

So that’s it for the round robin, folks, from a Robin who’s a bit ’rounder’ than she’d like to be right now. I feel another resolution coming on. My good wishes to you for 2017, let’s hope it’s a good one without any tears. Xx

Blog/ 23/12/2016

Quick 2016 submissions stats overview

I have a much longer ‘end of year’ post lined up but for now I thought I’d post a quick subs update for this year.

40 poems submitted to 11 magazines: 33 declined, 7 accepted (17.5%) by 5 magazines.

7 poems entered for competitions: 1 x 2nd place, 6 x ducks.

2 x poems included in anthologies (invitation/non competitive, both new poems).

2 x poems included in anthologies (competitive, both previously published poems).

3 x pamphlet submissions: 1 shortlisted (last 20), 3 declined.

Currently out: 6 to competitions, 7 to magazines (of which 7 are resubs and 5 new).

As I suspected, I’ve sent out significantly fewer poems in 2016 than in previous years. But checking back on 2015 I also see that several of the ‘declined’ or unplaced poems have subsequently been published elsewhere (6 of the 23 poems submitted to competitions and 9 of those declined by magazines).

There are many reasons for the low send rate, not just laziness (although that comes into it): illness, confidence ebbing as certain poems I was sure about have been continually rejected, and not writing enough decent new material. I’m planning to do better in 2017 though – I’ve already lined up for myself a ‘start a poem a day’ in January and am going to permit myself writing time rather than snatch it guiltily when there’s nothing else I ‘ought’ to be doing.

I’m always interested in other people’s stats – I’m aware some people send out MUCH more than me, and others who scarcely send out at all. Do use the comments box to share your own experience if you’d like to.

Oh and MERRY CHRISTMAS of course – thank you for taking the time to read this blog and I wish you joy, health & peace.

Category: Blog