Category: Courses

Angst/

– and + and so it goes

A teeny bit of a moan

How’s things with you? Well, I hope. During the first lockdown I was happy to enjoy the garden and revel in the novelty of it all. I trusted (more or less) what we were being told. I admit I’m feeling a bit ground down by it all now.

I’ve just deleted an entire paragraph I wrote here, as I deemed it too negative. All the planning and hoping is what keeps me going I think, but it feels exhausting trying to stay glass-half-full while under what feels like the constant attack of glass-half-empty people. I don’t want to add to the negativity with my own angst, so let’s move on.

So now the positive

My booklet on getting published in UK poetry mags is selling even better than the first edition – wowsers! And THANK YOU for buying it, telling your friends/students/social media contacts all about it.

Planet Poetry, the podcast I co-host with Peter Kenny, is generating some lovely comments. Thank you for that too! Working with Peter on the podcast has been one of the things keeping me positive.

There’s so much I’m enjoying about the course I’m doing, not least of all how it’s opening my eyes to so much great poetry and ideas about poetry that I’d never have encountered otherwise. My bookshelf is bulging. There’s enough reading there to keep me going for the rest of my life, I think.

We’re still planning on having a scaled-down Lewes Singers Christmas concert: venues and singers booked, music distributed. It’ll be intimate. But OH HOW MUCH Nick and I want it to happen, even if we’re only singing to ourselves and a handful of friends and family.

Right, I’m off to a Zoom seminar on the poetics of Don Paterson and Ben Lerner (whose novel 10:04 I absolutely loved.)

Have a good weekend, and here’s to the free life that we took so much for granted. May it return.

audio/

New podcast, plus new updated ‘Guide to getting published in UK poetry mags’

Eeek!

I’m trying to fight a sense of overwhelm at the moment even though it’s all good things that are overwhelming me. Keeping my weekly work commitments going and doing all the reading and cogitating required for my course, which this term is a whistle-stop tour of the English Lit canon (week 3: Virgil & Ovid, Week 4: Chaucer and Dante, etc), plus thinking up a topic for my first essay. Finishing up the updated version of my 2018 ‘Guide’ – see below – I KNOW, why do that now? But there you are, it’s done. And of course the Planet Poetry podcast (see below) about to launch on the apparently auspicious date of October 21. Help!

Recent reading

Although I have the latest issues of Poetry, The Poetry Review and The Frogmore Papers to read, sadly they have been scarcely opened.  At the moment I’m tackling Chaucer’s ‘The House of Fame’ – now that’s a great title! – my first bit of Middle English untangling since school, where I think we spent an entire year reading just the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Then there’s Dante’s De Vulgari Eloquentia which I need to be ‘ready to discuss’ on Monday morning. Gawds.

Before the madness really set in I did enjoy Rachel Long‘s My Darling from the Lions (Picador), which is up for the Forward Prize I think. I struggled a bit with Shine, Darling (Oxford Road Books) by Ella Frears, also up for the Forwards and now also on the TS Eliot shortlist, so maybe I should give it another go. Lovely to see Sasha Dugdale on that list too – I haven’t read her latest collection but I really enjoyed Joy (Carcanet 2017).

A Guide to Getting Published in UK Poetry Magazines - 2nd edition

Updated ‘Guide to getting published in UK Poetry Magazines’

It’s been two years since the first edition, which sold out rather quickly, so I felt the time was right for an update. If you didn’t buy it the first time, or missed out, now’s your chance.

If you do have the 2018 book and are wondering whether its worth getting the new one, I can tell you that much of the content is the same, BUT

  • I’ve consulted more magazine editors and have included their insights
  • I’ve updated and expanded the magazine profiles (some have gone, others are in) and the resources section
  • The layout and organisation is (I think) improved and clearer

The cover price is £6 including UK postage – see this page for all the info about what’s in it, and to buy. Publication date is November 1st but you can preorder now.

If you’d like it sent to an address outside the UK, or would like to order more than one copy, do drop me a line first and I can confirm what the postage will be. Many thanks.

Planet Poetry the new podcast from Robin Houghton & Peter Kenny

The Podcast!

It’s here… well, the trailer is up, Episode One to follow very soon… Planet Poetry is a wee project from myself and Telltale poet pal Peter Kenny. We’re on a learning curve figuring out stuff like ‘why does Robin sound like she recorded this in the bathroom’ and ‘what the heck is that whining sound and how to we nix it’. But the main thing is, we’ve managed to pin down some fascinating poets for a chat, and that plus Peter’s and my musings on things poetical means we’re hoping each episode is an entertaining 40 mins or so. I hope you are enticed to have the odd listen, or even subscribe!

It’s a bit frightening, putting our voices out there, but we’re having fun doing it (so far!)

 

Blog/

Into the serious reading, plus a podcast brewing

In the last few weeks I’ve been gearing up to the start of my course at York. The logistics are all up in the air, not surprisingly given the many variables and with you-know-what going on. Next week is Week 1, and yesterday I received a swathe of information about changed timetables, reading lists, induction activities etc.  I’m still holding back from booking train tickets and accommodation, as we’re told the timetable could still change again at any time. So that’s a bit nerve-wracking. The staff at York are doing a brilliant job pulling together all these courses, communicating with everyone and preparing for an influx of students. All the same, I was a bit dismayed to find all my core seminars have been moved from Wednesday to Monday morning, which means travelling on Sunday, a nightmare with all the engineering works, plus more expensive to stay over on Sunday. Ho hum. I’m still feeling very excited and grateful to be doing it at all.

Luckily I’d started on the reading list back in August, in an attempt to get on the front foot as I have a feeling it’s going to be a heavy intellectual load once weekly seminars begin. So among other things I’ve been reading Virgil’s Aeneid, various essays by Eliot, Walcott, Heaney et al, a wonderful ‘selected’ by Maureen McLane (a poet new to me) and large chunks of the Cambridge Companion to Virgil. Not to mention the real tome-extraordinaire, Don Paterson’s The Poem. Eeek. Stephen Yenser in The Yale Review described it as ‘sometimes baffling, sometimes maddening’, so at least I know its not just me. I have absolutely no idea what Don’s talking about a good deal of the time, but he’s very entertaining, and the sections I’m able to follow are invariably fascinating, so I’m still enjoying it.

I’ve also started reading Derek Walcott’s Omeros, to get into the Epic mood, also because I’ve never really read any Walcott, and it’s proving a good place to start. Here’s an extract on the Poetry Foundation website.

Meanwhile Peter Kenny and I have been beavering away on our forthcoming podcast. We decided to get enough material for several episodes before launching. This is a good thing in that we won’t be panicking a week after launch about having to work like crazy to get episode 2 ( and 3) up. But of course you do think ‘oh we could do such-and-such better’ after the first episode is done. Then again, everything I’ve read about podcasting says that you shouldn’t keep putting off launching, or editing ad infinitum because it’s not perfect. Luckily I have Peter to remind me that it won’t sound like BBC Radio 4 so stop worrying. A few rough edges is all part of the charm and quirkiness. I hope so! We’re interviewing some really interesting poets and editors and so we’re really pleased with the content. Even though we’re both sick to death of listening to our own voices when editing. We haven’t yet got a name for the podcast but as soon as we do, I’ll let you know 🙂

Blog/

Exciting times

There I was, thinking of applying to do an MA in Creative Writing, when I realised that wasn’t quite what I wanted. Five or six years ago perhaps, it would have been right. But the more I thought about a course centred around a weekly writing workshop, the more my heart sank a little.

I began delving into the detail of my chosen course, and my second-choice too: was there enough reading and studying of other poets’ work, as well as writing? Was I really going to be immersed in poetry from a range of periods, or was the focus on contemporary? Was I going to have to take classes in novel writing, drama or other types of creative writing in which I have no interest? What was/were the experience, specialisations & interests of the tutors? What were research students working on? Was there much/any potential for crossover into the rest of the English department, or opportunity to take contextual modules?

Then I discovered an MA in Poetry and Poetics at York University. No other British university appears to offer such a thing. The more I read about it, the more I felt it was for me. Taking a part-time course at a Uni that’s 300 miles away isn’t a cheap option but it’s doable. When I was looking at Creative Writing, I did consider a distance-learning option elsewhere, but York doesn’t offer that on this particular MA, and actually when I realised that ‘distance learning’ means email and online text-based chat, without any face-to face-video seminars, I wasn’t so keen anyway.

So, the York course was the way to go, and I’m delighted to say I’ve been offered a place. I absolutely know this is going to be a real stimulus to my own writing, as well as being enjoyable in its own right. Now I’ve got a month or so to get my head around it, start organising travel/accommodation and so forth. At least I’ll have plenty of four-hour train journeys to do all that reading!

Angst/

On a literary education (or lack of), dealing with the social media hate-storms, etc

Is it the end of June already? I wonder how you’re getting on. Well, I hope. If you need a shot of positivity, I find Wee Granny still helps…

Reading matter

Recently arrived in the post: two anthologies and issue #3 of Finished Creatures magazine. Finished Creatures was having not one but two online launches, so I thought it would be good to have a read of it beforehand and was looking forward to hearing some of the poems in particular … but did I make a note of the launch times?? I had it firmly in my mind that they were in July, but I’ve just checked the invitation email only to find they were last Thursday and Sunday, so I missed them. DUH! How %@**&! annoying. All I can blame it on is Lockdown Head – that thing whereby you only have two things to do all week and you still forget. Or is that just me??

The anthologies were Poetry & All That Jazz which Barry Smith publishes each year – its contributors are generally poets who have a connection to the Chichester poetry events that Barry organises, although anyone is welcome to submit something. There are many familiar names here, some of whom also feature in Frogmore Press Poetry South East 2020 anthology, a collection selected by the press’s editor Jeremy Page. It’s ten years since the last Poetry South East, which happened just before I started writing seriously and submitting poems to magazines. So it’s a great privilege to make this one. According to the cover blurb the Poetry South East anthologies represent ‘a comprehensive survey of poetic activity in the region in the first decades of the 21st century’. I certainly discovered some favourites old and new, including Janet Sutherland’s ‘Hangman’s Acre’, Robert Hamberger’s ‘Sleeping with uncertainty’, Stephen Bone’s ‘Inventory’ and John O’Donoghue’s ‘His Plane’.

I know it sounds unlikely, but actually I’m motoring through Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory (Bennett & Royle, Pearson 2005), as part of my self-education (see below). It’s a lot more interesting than it sounds!

Submissions latest

Another rejection from Ambit, on what I think may have been my fifth attempt over eight years, so I think I can safely say my work ain’t a good fit there – oh well, onwards! Then two poems accepted by Prole, which is always good news. So that’s cleared the decks, which means I need to get some more poems out this week.

Thoughts about what next

I’ve been thinking off and on for a few years about what’s going to push my writing on. I’ve thought about finding a mentor, but I’m not sure that’s it. Something that’s been nagging away at me, even though I try not to let it, is that a respected editor who I paid to critique a manuscript, when I’d asked if he would mentor me further, replied that it would be a steep upward curve for me as I have ‘no literary education’. It’s true I have a haphazard approach to reading. If I’m asked to write a review, or judge a poetry competition, I do feel a bit of a fraud (and no it’s not just ‘imposter syndrome’). As writing buddies, I have the Hastings Stanza, a supportive and talented group. I’ve always longed for something else as well, but not been able to define it.

Part of me doesn’t want to go down the Creative Writing MA route, having spoken to people who have. It’s also a huge luxury and not one (especially given the current financial climate) I’m sure I can afford to take. But the prospect of being given directed reading and focus, together with sustained critiquing that develops my writing and helps me situate it in relation to the ‘canon’, is tempting. Interestingly I nearly enrolled for a Creative Writing MA twenty years ago, when I came back from the US and wanted a fresh start. But my head ruled my heart and I took a Digital Media MA instead, which I don’t regret as it set me up for a new career. But it makes me a bit rueful all the same.  So, all of this is a longwinded way of saying I’ve decided after all to apply for that CW MA, and see what happens. I’ll let you know how it turns out!

On trying to stay informed without going down the social media hate-drain

There’s so much bitterness expressed via social media these days, which is unsurprising I suppose, given what the world is going through, and social media is basically seen by many people as their only opportunity to make their opinions heard. Trouble is, we don’t all need or want to be hearing them, especially as the repetition encouraged by ‘sharing’ quickly turns into an endless storm of hate.

I’ve noticed a few people recently announcing their withdrawal from social channels. I took myself off Facebook some years ago and don’t regret it for a moment. I’m not planning to come off Twitter as I still find it entertaining and useful, plus it’s my only regular social media presence these days. I’m proud to be one of its very early adopters and feel a responsibility to keep on using it as it was intended. But oh my, it can be depressing on Twitter these days. I manage my presence there by muting certain people, unfollowing others, encouraging and supporting good (ie social!) behaviour, continuing to share or create what I feel to be informative and/or entertaining things where possible, staying curious and feeling delight when I come across someone new and interesting to follow. Meanwhile I get the news from The Guardian and The Times online, and never, never, never watch any TV news.

Other stuff I’ve been up to

I’m still practising my handmade notelets/notebooks. Here are a couple. The cover of the dotty one is made from a Sainsbury’s bottle gift bag!

hand made notebooks

The garden continues to provide work and endless fascination. I love the strange and curious shapes the courgettes are putting out…

crazy shaped courgettes

And the small white turnips which are new this year, plus strawberries (when we can get them before the snails etc):

garden produce

 

Blog/

Making, moving, cleaning, reading, studying, growing … life while social distancing

Funny how quickly our vocabulary grows around novel situations. A few weeks ago I’m not sure I was familiar with the terms social distancing, self-isolation or elbow bump. Now – well, you know.

With so many projects and events cancelled in the last few days, and many more to come, I’m reminded how crucial it is to stay positive. But what does that mean? I’m fortunate at the moment to be thinking about ‘social distancing’ rather than ‘self-isolation’.  I’m also lucky to be a bit of an antisocial person anyway. Even so, box sets and jigsaw puzzles have a limited appeal. A couple of newsletters came into my inbox today which made me feel like putting together a list of Things We Could be Doing While Social Distancing. I hope something here strikes a chord!

Making

You may not have any spare clay hanging about but what about paint? Or string or rope? The Collective Gen blog has put together 12 Projects To Do Using Supplies You (Probably) Already Have – macrame (I’ve recently rediscovered this myself and no ball of string is now safe). I recently found a rather tatty old jardiniere (plant pot stand!) for £10 in a junk shop and painted it with some leftover Farrow & Ball paint. The joy of middle-class upcycling!

Moving

“If there was ever a time to re-energize, re-connect with your willingness to sit with yourself, care for yourself – it could be now. If there was ever a time to acknowledge that your relationship to the above can have a direct impact on others – it could be now.” –  my yoga guru Adriene Mischler sends out a weekly newsletter to calm your spirit and remind you to take care of yourself and others. Plus there are all her fantastic (and free) yoga videos to do at home. I was a complete beginner when I started following her in 2018 and I love her energy and sense of fun.

Cleaning

Dusty house, dusty mind… or something like that? If you’re healthy and have got the energy how about joining me in a ritual Spring clean. No kidding. A Victorian flat seems to grow dust balls in the hall quicker than you can say ‘tumbleweed’.  Spring cleaning tips from Reader’s Digest here…

Reading

It’s a bit obvious for a poet that now’s a great opportunity to read all those collections that have been piling up. However, I’d like to throw down the gauntlet. I’ve been reading Dante’s Divine Comedy, and am finding Paradiso heavy going. BUT I see there’s Digital Dante – all the text, context, commentary and much more. I’m definitely going to get help here to get me through Paradiso with a greater appreciation. If you’ve not read this work, why not set yourself the goal? Alternatively, my next classic tome to tackle is Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Can I even call myself a poet and not have read this work? I did study the Prologue and some other bits of it at school, about 100 years ago. I’m ready to go for it now, in the interests of furthering my knowledge of The Canon. At the Poetry Foundation you can read the whole prologue.

Studying

How about taking an online course? Search for ‘poetry’ at Coursera and there are any number of free courses you can join. ‘Words Spun Out of Images: Visual and Literary Culture in Nineteenth Century Japan’, ‘Modern American Poetry’,  ‘The Ancient Greeks’ – actually that last one isn’t poetry, but I bet it’s interesting. Or if you’re willing to pay, the Poetry School runs a number of online courses, as do of course the wonderful Live Canon.

Growing

The satisfaction to be gained from sowing seeds and watching them grow is hard to overestimate. I’m very, very lucky to have a garden, but even if you only have a window sill you still may be able to grow something. I think the first bit of growing I ever did was to sprout some seeds. Urban Turnip has a post entitled Best urban gardening & container growing blogs – not a recent post, but it includes links to various indie gardening blogs (ie not the big ones where you’re encouraged to buy stuff). Now’s exactly the time of year to be sowing stuff, and if it’s something you can eat, even better. It really makes you feel that life goes on, and it’s a beautiful thing. Happy growing.

Blog/

Recent reading

I’ve got into a rhythm of reading a Canto of Dante’s Purgatory each night before falling asleep, sometimes I get through the chapter commentary & notes too, sometimes not. If I’m too tired to finish the Canto I have to start it again the next day. Purgatorio is a more complex read than Inferno. There are just as many references to people and politics of the time, requiring explanation, but it seems to me there’s more characterisation and symbolism to get one’s head around, not to mention the philosophical wondering it’s sent me on.

Alongside this I’ve had a number of poetry collections on the go recently. Perhaps I’m getting more reading done this month because I’m not drinking alcohol? I can’t really see the connection, but I’m struggling to notice any other benefits to Dry November except the feeling of smug satisfaction that I can do it, if I put my mind to it. I hope I’m not jinxing it by making that claim when there are twelve days to go. Anyway, I wish I could commune with my internal organs and ask them if they’re feeling detoxified or rejuvenated.

Getting to the point (I know! finally!), here’s a roundup…

Each Other by Clare Best

Clare Best, Each Other (Waterloo Press £12)

I always make sure I settle down with a nice glass of wine cup of tea before delving into a new collection from Clare, because I know I’ll be reading it in one go. She manages to write with such punch, and yet it’s so elegantly understated. The second half of the book is the title sequence, charting a relationship from courtship to old age. Somehow Clare gets to the (sometimes heartbreaking) bottom of the subject with both grace and humour. The first section contains some beautiful, quite personal poems honouring family ties, love and loss. ‘In February’ is especially moving – ‘You’re introduced to angels […] look, they welcome you with song and wine/ as I would, darling. But I must stay behind.’

A Second Whisper by Lynne Hjelmgaard

Lynne Hjelmgaard, A Second Whisper (Seren, £9.99)

Another new release, from another poet friend (disclosure!) In reading many of these poems I feel I’m being invited into a very private space in which the poet mourns the loss of her husband and the subsequent journey that takes her into another loving relationship which also ends in that partner’s death. If that sounds morbid then it’s not – there is more celebration than sadness here, and the reader is left with a strong sense of love, gratitude and hope. Like Clare Best, Lynne has a connection with nature that permeates her explorations of human relationships. ‘Planted on either side of the garden / they slowly inch their way closer/until finally (a century or two later)/ the fir leans into its beloved palm.’ (‘Three Tree Poem’).

Head On by Clare Shaw

Clare Shaw, Head On (Bloodaxe 2012, £8.95)

The book’s blurb tells us we’re in for ‘interweaving themes of personal and political conflict’ and indeed you’re straight into this from the first poem, the powerful ‘I do not believe in silence’, with its repeated ‘because..’ and the turn from ‘I do not believe..’ into the positive: ‘I believe in the heart and its beat / and its bleep and the dance of the trace / on the screen…’ This rhythmic quality is a kind of drumbeat that drives the whole collection. The subject matter is often raw – injustices, dementia, rape, miscarriage – but it also bursts with passion and pure love:

‘How love must, at all costs,

be answered. We have answered
and so have a million before us
and each of their names is a vow.

So now I can tell you, quite simply
you are the house I will live in’

(‘Vow’)

Something that surprised me was the number of dactyls, particularly from the poem ‘A withered brown flower takes on a new colour’ (title dactylic in itself) to the end of the book. There was something about putting these poems back-to-back that meant the metre became a stumbling block in my reading of them. Still a wow of a book though.

The main reason I ordered Head On was because Clare’s one of the tutors at Kim Moore’s Poetry Carousel that I’m going to next month. Similarly, I’ve ordered books by David Tait and Malika Booker, to get at least a feel for their work. So more on those collections in another post.

Blog/

Notes on a poetry residential at Garsdale

I’m back from an inspirational week at the Garsdale Retreat, on a poetry residential course that deserved to be full but wasn’t – if you’ve ever done an Arvon week then I recommend you go to Garsdale for a change. Although the selfish part of me doesn’t want anyone else to discover it, I of course want it to be wildly successful. It’s run by partners Hamish and Rebecca, who realised a dream by relocating to the Yorkshire Dales (although strictly speaking they are just into Cumbria) from Hertfordshire. The Retreat has only been open a year but I predict its courses will very soon be oversubscribed. Kim Moore has been a tutor there and has blogged about it too.

On our week, just four of us had Ian Duhig to ourselves, plus a very absorbing  evening reading from Hannah Lowe, food to die for, very comfortable accommodation and a gorgeous location. Lambs baaa-ed me to sleep each night and I witnessed the joy of Jackpot the bull being introduced to a field of cows. I saw my first-ever red squirrel. And one day we were even treated to the sight of a steam train passing. We were guests at a cello & piano recital and one evening did a lot of shouting and laughing over a ‘literary game’ that Hamish has clearly got very good at. Plus – oh yes! I wrote, read, thought about, listened to and discussed a lot of poetry.

Ian Duhig has an encyclopedic knowledge of literature, history, myth & legend, politics, the environment and much more. (He’s also hilariously down-to-earth.) Tapping into him was rather like releasing a fireman’s hose (nothing lewd intended in this simile!) and many times I found myself giving up trying to write down references or understand everything and just let his talk flow over me. It felt like the way you pick up bits of a foreign language by going to a country and sitting in a cafe where you overhear conversations and the background talk of a TV or radio. The tutorials with him were intense. I was already somewhat in awe. ‘The Lammas Hireling’ made a huge impression on me when I first read it, and, dear God, he’s won the National twice. Now, in one-to-ones I’m aware I can be a bit difficult at times, so I was very grateful for his forbearance & generosity. I came away challenged and felt suitably kicked up the arse.

The fragmentary way of absorbing ideas and sounds ties in pretty well with the key theme of the week, which was how ‘nothing is wasted’ – digging up fragments, interrogating them, piecing things together, enjoying the connections but also the gaps. In this spirit of this, and since so much of what happens on a course stays between those who were there, in this blog post the narrative ends here.

In what follows I share a few of the phrases and ideas that stayed with me, along with some photos I took there which I hope give a feel of the experience.

“We live in descriptions of places not places” – Wallace Stevens –  I tracked this down to a letter written to Henry Church in April 1945.

Untranslateable words, eg Dustsceawung (Old English) – meaning ‘viewing or contemplating dust in the spirit of all things turning to dust. Such contemplation may loosen the grip of worldly desires.’ Ha!

Walls, windows, doors. Idea of ‘the wall which is a door’ in Theology.

‘The ear drieth words as the mouth tastes the meat’ – Book of Job

The disappearing East Coast of England.

Does complex form make you think the poem is less sincere?

“A poem is a bridge that leads to itself” – Paul Muldoon

You don’t want the reader to think “this part of your work is based on an assumption that I don’t think you’ve challenged.”

“Taking the line for a walk” – Paul Klee.

Angst/

A forthcoming retreat | writing vs bathroom | Swindon Festival

Hilda Sheehan and the Swindon Poetry Festival 2016 - Photo:Swindon Advertiser

Retreating

Next week I’m off to the Garsdale Retreat for a week tutored by Ian Duhig and guest reader Hannah Lowe. I’m excited by the prospect of a week just focusing on poetry, away from my usual surroundings. The last time I did a residential I was quite traumatised by it, and thought I’d never go on one again, even though some good poems came of it (at least two of which subsequently published). It also gave me the impetus to start Telltale Press, and from there to my first pamphlet and beyond. The negatives were the sheer number of people on the course, the lack of free reading and fresh air time and the kitchen duties. But that was nearly five years ago and the Garsdale Retreat is a very different prospect indeed. There are still places available, so why not come and join me? Once you’ve explored the website and read the course description you might well be tempted.

Swindon Poetry

Another date in my diary is the Swindon Poetry Festival on 4th – 8th October, where I’ve been invited by the lovely Hilda Sheehan to be the festival blogger and may even be doing a cheeky reading. I missed this the last two years for various reasons and am looking forward to the warm, friendly and somewhat alternative atmosphere that Hilda cultivates down Swindon way. For some reason I don’t feel this Festival gets the amount of social media love it deserves, but it goes from strength to strength every year. The full programme will be up soon and I hear there will be a shedload of fine poets and engaging sessions, it’s also great value. Do come!

Writing vs bathroom

At home we’ve been having weeks of new bathroom installation. I never thought a bathroom could be more trouble or more complex than a new kitchen, but after starting the work on May 1st they’re only now (as I type) on the last job, leaving us to finish the painting. I don’t blame the workmen since a key issue was to do with me changing my mind about having a wall-hung loo (since you ask… it just felt …umm… worryingly unstable!) But two weeks having to flush with a bucket and many days of ear-splitting noise wasn’t conducive to creative writing. This may sound like middle-class hand-wringing but let me remind you that toilet matters are right there at the bottom (sic) of Maslow’s pyramid. Plus I was worried we’d never be friends again with the neighbours upstairs.

On entering a big comp

Anyway, enough of all that. I did manage to scrape together a poem to send to the Bridport this year. I’ve talked before about how I decide whether to enter a competition – the various things to consider and so on. Everyone has different reasons I guess, but the first hurdle I usually fall at is ‘do I have anything?’. I don’t really see the point of paying £9 to enter a big comp unless I think my entry has a fighting chance of winning. (Note: this is not the same as saying you expect your poem to win). I know that’s not the received wisdom of seasoned compers, many of whom play the numbers game and have a budget for it. And I know there’s a huge amount of luck involved. But there’s no harm in developing a feel for which poems should be sent to mags and which are worth entering into a comp, especially if you don’t have a ton of good poems coming out of your ears. Discuss!

Coming up

Before I go to Cumbria I have the Poetry Magazine Submissions list to update, so let me know if you’re not already on the list and would like a copy.

Blog/

From Picasso to Garsdale: news roundup

Taking a leaf out of Peter Kenny’s book, here are seven items from the imaginary newsdesk at Kenny Houghton Towers (sorry Peter – but as Picasso said – possibly – ‘Good artists copy, great artists steal.’)

  1. Picasso is as good as any place to start, having just visited the Tate Modern exhibition featuring work from a year in his life (1932). For once, a major London exhibition that wasn’t ruined by too many visitors (at least, on the day we went). There were two major takeaways for me: firstly, Picasso was prolific. Unbelievably so. For example on Christmas Day 1931 we’re told that ‘after the festivities’ he finished a painting he’d been working on for a week (a long time for him) AND THEN knocked off another big canvas. Secondly, he shot from the hip – first drafts for him were usually the finished article. That’s not to say he didn’t make changes – you can clearly see lines painted out (but often still visible). A bit like my maths teacher at school used to say – show your workings out, you can cross stuff out but don’t erase anything because it could actually be correct. I like that idea – it could actually be correct – as if Picasso didn’t mind anyone seeing what he’d originally drawn, because it allows for multiple and even valid readings. Very interesting to think about in terms of writing and workshopping, and it plays to my liking for (and experimentation with) erasures. PS the image featured here is of a Picasso print that I bought at the Tate – ‘Woman with flower writing’ – destined for the bedroom so I hope Nick will like it. The Tate has a very good framed print ordering system, with free delivery if you spend more than £50.
  2. Two more welcome reviews/mentions of All the Relevant Gods – one by eminent lit blogger & Guardian journalist Billy Mills on Elliptical Movements, and another by Martin Malone forthcoming in The Interpreter’s House. (He tells me it was written in a lighthouse, no less).
  3. Telltale Press launched its latest (and final) publication, the TRUTHS anthology, at a warm and well-attended event in Lewes. I know I would say this, but I think it’s a fine collection with contributions from poets both new and established. Blog post and photos here. I haven’t quite got around to putting it with a sales button on the website, but in the meantime copies may be ordered from Peter Kenny. A snip at £8 plus postage.
  4. Needlewriters Lewes are running a special day of events on Thursday 14th June as part of the South Downs Poetry Festival – a ‘poetry surgeries’ session in the afternoon followed by an Open Mic and then our regular quarterly readings. The ‘poetry surgeries’ are actually a brilliant opportunity to pick the brains of not one but two of our finest poetry magazine editors (Jeremy Page of the Frogmore Papers and Kay Syrad of Envoi) plus fine poets Janet Sutherland and Charlotte Gann. And all for just a tenner (or £12 for the whole afternoon and evening). I was hoping to be helping with the organisation on the day but I double-booked myself – bizarrely it took me several weeks to realise this, having been involved in brainstorming the event & preparing the publicity, and THEN realising I was going to be at the Garsdale Retreat that week – DUH.
  5. Two more poetry events on my radar – Abegail Morley is one of the organisers of the Tunbridge Wells Poetry Festival on 15th and 16th June which features various events including workshops and readings – more info here.  This is also during my Garsdale week so I won’t be able to check it out but it looks very good. And before that, on May 31st in Brighton, Pighog night features Annie Freud and Pam Thompson, with Michaela Ridgway compering. Definitely looking forward to that.
  6. A lovely thing – a friend asked if I would write a poem for her nephew, for a ‘big’ birthday. Now this friend has bought my pamphlets and knows my style, so I had no hesitation in saying yes, because I knew she wasn’t after something funny and rhyming. (Not that I couldn’t do that but… it didn’t particularly appeal.) I spent a morning with her, listening to her talking about the nephew, how their lives had intersected, looking at photos. And just when I was starting to wonder how I would tackle this she said one thing that stuck in my head. And that’s really it, isn’t it? That one thing that makes a poem, in this case one idea or image that somehow in a moment lets the receiver know what’s in the giver’s heart…. without sounding schmalzy or sentimental. I really enjoyed the project and was very relieved when my friend said she loved it.
  7. And so in four weeks’ time I’ll be off to Garsdale – a residential with Ian Duhig and guest poet Hannah Lowe, on the subject of ‘nothing is useless’. I’m not sure if this means ‘nothing you’ve experienced in your life is useless’ or more ‘all those old drafts and poems you’re really embarrassed about may still be useful’. Either way, I can’t wait.