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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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?
The books…in no specific orderMe & 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!
Hello!? It’s January 15th, people!
But London was as beautiful as ever at 5pm in January…
Getting to and from London from the south coast is ten times harder than it used to be these days, as the rail company (which has a monopoly) has been running an unsatisfactory service for the last however many months – actually it could be a year or more. Two-day strikes pop up every three weeks or so, and that’s on top of the already reduced timetable. Trains are regularly cancelled at the last minute, even halfway through journeys. As a result, every time the train you’re on actually leaves a station you breathe a sigh of relief that it hasn’t terminated there. Factor in the cold and dark of night, and the prospect of going anywhere by train is rather stressful. And I have a choice at least – the situation for those millions of people who have to travel by Southern Rail every day for work must be unbearable.
So it was a joy to actually make it to the Troubadour last night for Coffee-House Poetry. The second half was ‘What we should have said’, a regular feature described by Anne-Marie Fyfe in the promotional email as “three very different poets, a musician & a proverbial wit, thrust & parry with poetic, harmonic & philosophic contributions, comical, tragical, pastoral & beyond”. It was a wonderful spectacle, a really impactful way of presenting poetry, with Martina Evans (LOVED her work!), the excellent Luke Kennard, US poet Louis Jenkins and ‘What we should have said’ impresario Stuart Silver bouncing off each others’ words, linked together by Marios Takoushis’ jazzy/soulful/arthouse improvisations on the keyboard. The top-class sound management at the Troubadour cafe makes a huge difference here – it’s so noticeable how a reliable and effective sound system allows the performers and the poetry to shine, and the audience to relax and take it in.
In the first half we heard from 21 of the contributors to Live Canon’s 154 Anthology, each reading their response to a Shakespeare sonnet, and a few words about it. I was very proud to be a part of this book and the range of responses and poet voices is fascinating. The book does include ALL of Shakespeare’s sonnets, as well as the ‘response’ poems, so it makes for a very nice (ahem!) Christmas present, even for someone with no special interest in contemporary poetry.
It’s easy to lose the rhythm of blogging – I’ve been lacking the motivation lately, partly out of a feeling of ‘what is there really to say that makes a difference?’ And yet, there are always interesting things to say.
So what’s on my mind at the moment? Firstly, an increasing need to stay away from Facebook, TV news, the media generally. Is that an age thing – when nothing under the sun really seems new, or if it is, it often seems inconsequential? Perhaps also a ‘winter’s-coming-and-the-days-are-getting-shorter thing?
Secondly, we’re approaching our first winter in our new home and the to-do list is as long as ever. It’s such an absorbing project that sometimes I’d just rather strip down a window sill or paint a door, than put pen to paper!
And thirdly … quite a few poetry thangs coming up in terms of events, deadlines etc:
The Rialto’s first poetry pamphlet comp closes on November 30th – I did imagine I would enter, but my pamphlet offering(s) are in horrible disarray at the moment, so not good timing for me. But you should go for it! Fee is £22 (or £16 for Rialto subscribers) and Hannah Lowe will pick the winners from a shortlist of 50.
Other imminent comp closings, in case you’re feeling lucky – Cafe Writers Poetry Competition, judged by Andrew McMillan with no sifters – closes November 30th. Fee is £4 per poem or £10 for three, and there’s an extra prize for the funniest poem, which makes a refreshing change!
In events news, this coming Monday 28th November I’ll be reading a poem at Anne-Marie Fyfe’s Coffee-House Poetry at The Troubadour, along with a number of other contributors to Live Canon’s 154 Anthology. The second half (main event) features Luke Kennard, Martina Evans and more. Should be a fantastic night.
It looks like there’ll be a block of Telltale poets in the audience at the T S Eliot award readings on January 15th at the Festival Hall in London. Hurrah! I always love the atmosphere at this event, and the chance to hear so many fine poets all in one sitting. Only downside is that getting home is always a MARE and who knows what skeletal service Southern Rail may be operating by then.
Oh, and I’ve given myself a deadline of the end of this month to finally finish finalising (!) the second ‘all about Twitter’ ebook, which now needs some rewrites having left it 6 months, and I need to get it out before Twitter pops its clogs.
Now, back to some paint-stripping – oh no, silly me, it’s dark … and what’s more our boiler has just packed up, so this evening I’ll be under a duvet on the sofa with a hot water bottle. Possibly rummaging through my pamphlet poems again …
It’s always a joy to hear poet friend Charlotte giving a reading. There’s a weight to her voice, a rootedness … it’s hard to explain what I mean. There’s no act, no funny stuff. She presents her poems simply, and they just seem to appear in the room – completely in the proper place – like great trees that have been growing for hundreds of years.
Last night was the first launch of Noir, Charlotte’s first full-length collection, published by HappenStance, and it was in her home town of Lewes. It was my home too, for fourteen years (just passing through!), and it’s still slightly weird to go back to, especially on (almost) the eve of Bonfire, its biggest day of the year. I walked down the High Street and Sarah Barnsley and I almost didn’t recognise each other in the dark as we waited to cross the road. Spookily appropriate for the book’s title. But everything about the event was the opposite of noir – a wonderful gathering of friends, family and supporters, a happy audience.
I loved hearing Charlotte’s ‘trailer’ for the book – a selection of poems from the different sections, ending with ‘Molecular Biologist’, a poem from Charlotte’s 2011 pamphlet The Long Woman, and written for her brother (who was there last night). One of the poems is written in the shape/layout of a letter, which Charlotte helpfully explained…
My phone takes terrible photos in the dark, so many thanks to Julia O’Brien, Peter Kenny and Jemma Borg for the pics.
Noir is one of those books you have to keep reading once you start…I’m not very good at reviewing friends’ work but please do read Peter Kenny’s review of Noir to get a feel for this intriguing collection. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about it.
It’s been a tricky month so far for finding the time and inclination to blog, so I thought I’d write a quick update. I have a lovely guest post waiting in the wings, which I’m planning to post up later in the week.
So … the last three weeks have been strange to say the least, as I’ve been travelling over to Brighton each weekday for radiotherapy. It’s an hour or more each way on the bus, but it has to be one of the most scenic bus routes in the country: climbing up onto the South Downs with views of the sea on three sides, skirting Friston Forest and down into Cuckmere Haven with its gorgeous meandering river. It’s less pretty after that but views of the sea are never far away. I’ve read three novels and had fun observing my travelling companions and taking in all the quirks of bus life. It’s almost taken my mind off the reality of having to go every day to lie naked from the waist up in a freezing room while strangers stare and prod and haul me around. Almost. BUT of course I’m grateful, for the NHS, for the kindness of strangers, that the treatment’s nearly over, that I’m still alive.
But just to balance that out, I’ve had one of my fastest ever rejections, from The London Magazine (admittedly it was a bit of a long shot), and I’m also still struggling with a pamphlet that’s been brewing for two years. Just when I thought I was getting close to a publishable standard I had some excoriating feedback and it’s back to the drawing board. I’ve now set myself a target of six weeks to get it into shape. I also had to miss the awesomeness that is the Poetry Swindon Festival which I’d been looking forward to for months.
I’m hoping that I can make up for the lost time of the past 3 weeks and get back on track with poetry, work and projects around the flat. However, I’ve finally given up the idea of making curtains for a big bay window. Bring in the experts!
Image: Cuckmere Haven by Eric Ravilious, Towner Gallery Eastbourne
As promised in my last post, here are my notes from the workshop I did on Saturday at the South Downs Poetry Festival, with Andrew McMillan. I’m including links at the end to other workshop notes, in case you find these posts useful.
I was really impressed with Andrew’s workshop. It’s tricky to teach a one-off session like this when you’ve no way of knowing who is coming to the session nor what they hope to get from it. As well as asking us to each say (briefly) what we hoped to take away, he also offered participants the chance to feed back after every exercise, and the chance to read aloud the example poems. Andrew had planned the session well and we motored through a lot of great material, but his calm and relaxed style meant it never felt hurried or forced. That’s exactly what I want as a participant – to feel challenged by the material, confident in the teacher and unaware of time passing.
So here’s a summary, in which I hope I’ve captured the essential points.
‘All poems fail – which is why you have to write the next one.’
‘Be prepared to throw your life off a cliff.’
Go to the place that makes you feel uncomfortable. Write the thing you wouldn’t want your mother to read.
How do you get at the plain truth of something and still make it sound fresh? Think about the notions of ‘truth’ and ‘honesty’. Getting to the ‘poetic’ truth might not mean presenting the actual truth of what happened.
The thing you want to tackle may be too big or overwhelming to get to grips with. So drill down to a small detail and let that be a metaphor for the big thing.
Example poem: ‘Your Blue Shirt’ by Selima Hill (from Gloria: Selected Poems. Bloodaxe. 2008)
‘How plain can it be and still be poetry?’
‘All poetic metaphor exists because you can’t find the one word or phrase which encompasses what you really want to say.’
AM loves it when plain language is used to express a simple truth, eg W H Auden: “Thousands have lived without love but none without water.”
Readers need time to pause and think.
It’s important to achieve balance – moments of ‘high poetry’ can contrast with those of mundane or ‘plain’ language – the contrast and balance can make each moment effective. Compare for example to music with its highs and lows.
If something’s not working, try stripping out everything that’s not essential – adjectives, fancy verbs, ‘wow’ words etc. Find the ‘survival mechanism’ of the poem. In this way you’re left with something sparse but dense. THEN you can think about building it up.
Consider balance and contrast in language choice and tone
Try to avoid writing about a serious subject matter in too high a register – it can seem a bit ‘poetic’, not really honest. Explore ways around this by varying the language.
Example poem: ‘I will love the twenty first century’ by Mark Strand (from the Ambit Magazine Retrospective) – where he gives the more ‘serious’ ideas voice via a third person, which the voice of the poet then undercuts.
One way of framing a serious topic and to foreground it without losing credibility and staying grounded/true is by bookending it with more down to earth details.
Example poem: ‘Dave and the Curried Soup’ by John Sewell (Bursting the Clouds, Cape 1998) – a mid section of energy and sexual excitement bookended by the banal details of a soup (‘The trouble with Jerusalem artichokes…’)
Last thoughts: ‘What people will think when reading your work … is not important’ (ie don’t let that fear inhibit you … you have the freedom to write whatever it is you need to write) – AM says when he wrote the poems in Physicalhe wasn’t thinking about them being published let alone read!
‘Poems need to vibrate on the page with energy.’
‘Something has to be on the line when you write a poem.’
If you’ve enjoyed this you may be interested in previous blog posts where I’ve passed on words of wisdom from poets:
