Category: Inspiration

Events/

Riordan & Share on ‘100 years of the don’ts’

Don Share & Maurice Riordan

Yesterday evening I was at Keats House in Hampstead listening to a Poetry Society debate on the subject of Ezra Pound’s enormously influential article ‘A Few Don’ts’, first published a hundred years ago.

As the respective editors of Poetry Review (UK) and Poetry (US), Maurice Riordan and Don Share could be said to represent the behemoth of the poetry establishment from both sides of the Atlantic. And both magazines published ‘A Few Don’ts’ when it first came out. Fascinating though the evening was, I guess this was never going to be a platform for a radical re-working of the ‘don’ts’.

Riordan in particular expressed fondness for many of the ‘rules’, and also argued that they were more discretionary than they are usually given credit for. “Go in fear of abstractions” isn’t the same thing as “don’t use abstractions”, for example. He also pointed out that Pound did say the ‘don’ts’ were not to be considered as dogma, rather that they offered guidance – “cautions gained by experience” and were up for debate.

There were some questions and observations from the floor and the talk was less about whether we need a new list of don’ts, but the bigger question of whether in this century we will see a new poetic movement to take us away from modernism, whether we need (or have) another Pound in our midst to reinvent poetry in the way that he did, “from the doughy mess of Romanticism”. Someone said that in order for a new movement to take off, enough people need to hate what currently holds as fine poetry.

Another important point made by Don Share was that there is far greater access now to poetry from around the world, and new ideas spread quickly via the internet. It’s hard to imagine anyone having the influence and power of Pound over today’s poetry scene, with its myriad different artistic movements, sub cultures and niche followings.

I first came across ‘A Few Don’ts’ in a brilliant book called Strong Words, an anthology of essays by poets on poetry, edited by W N Herbert and Matthew Hollis. I think it’s one of those books that’s on the reading list of any Creative Writing MA, but if like me you’ve never done one, it’s a revelation. Highly recommended.

Angst/

At Ty Newydd, part 2

sea-grass-pylon

Here’s the longer post I promised about my week at Ty Newydd. First of all, some of the advice and sayings I captured from the tutors during workshops. It’s not a long list, but we were mostly doing exercises, so I just wrote down phrases that resonated with me:

  • Train yourself to remember details
  • Sometimes by going through an exercise of trying to remember something that happened in the past, you can surprise yourself with what comes out
  • When you’re in a poem, all else disappears – “touch the miracle by allowing this to happen”
  • “At the moment it’s falling apart like a glass of water that’s spilled”
  • There has to be a very good reason for a line to only contain two words
  • Think of verbs as the battery of the poem – they give it life and energy
  • Form forces you to “make choices and to be hard on yourself”
  • You need to love the ‘clay’ between the bricks (ie all the bits of a poem you make have overlooked)
  • There are some words like ‘flotsam’ that “only appear in poems”
  • You can say something more movingly if you don’t over-egg it
  • Have a rationale for your line lengths and stanza lengths – the architecture of the poem
  • Be careful about saying ‘not xyz’ in a poem because then you are saying it!

How we spent the time

There were 16 of us on the course and I was very pleased to find myself thrown together in workshops with so many accomplished and talented poets. We were put into ‘mini groups’ of 3 or 4 and encouraged to work together in our spare time. I warmed very much to my mini-group and I think we did some good work together – we certainly had a lot of laughs (or was it hysteria?) and shared a good amount of wine, all important elements of the bonding, of course.

The idea of spare time was an interesting one! I was in awe of those students who made time to go for runs or a long walk. Two of the days were rainy but I was persuaded to get a bit of fresh air on the last day, which I needed as I had a massive headache from around Thursday lunchtime.

As well as the workshops each morning and two of the afternoons, we had plenty of homework to keep us busy. I was very pleased with my week’s output – two poems that are three-quarters there and the seeds of at least three more. Morning sessions started at ten, so I usually found myself working in my room for at least an hour or so before. At the other end of the day I struggled. On Wednesday I was on the cooking team, so when the afternoon workshop ended we had half an hour ‘free’ until reporting for kitchen duties which then tied us up for the rest of the night, returning to the kitchen after Imtiaz Dharker’s reading to empty the dishwasher and put stuff away. The ‘secret poem’ evening was great fun, but by 11pm when it was drawing to an end I was absolutely fried.

train sign

The thorny issue of tutorials

A few of us (not all – one person took me task for bringing it up) were disappointed to be told right away there would be no individual tutorials, since it was clearly stated on the course literature that there would be ‘plenty of time’ for this during the week. Someone asked the question on the first night and the issue came up several more times, and eventually the tutors defended the decision by saying that individual tutorials tended to just waste everyone else’s time, and were only a feature of beginner-type courses.

The whole thing was (as one student pointed out) simply to do with managing expectations. Some of us had been so excited by the prospect of a hobnob with CAD or GC that it had become a huge selling point of the course. When in fact, if we hadn’t expected it, no-one (me included) would have been disappointed, because we would have gone there simply prepared to take our chances as and when. Which is what happened eventually on the last day, when someone came running into the dining room saying ‘come quick! this is the stuff we’ve been wanting to hear all week!’ – the tutors were in the conservatory, answering questions about getting published, pamphlets, how they (and others) had done it, advice & insider tips … all the things we wanted to ask. Within minutes we were all sitting around them like disciples, agog and hanging on every word.

The people

Naturally what happens in Ty Newydd stays in Ty Newydd. So no identifying details of individuals or the work we covered. But from my own observation, both tutors were extraordinarily giving and worked hard to challenge us and help us develop our writing. It was a generous and supportive group producing some wonderful work. I’ve got exciting names on my radar now: David Borrott, Ben Rogers and Ruby Turok-Squire, for example. Jenny Lewis, who won the competition on the last day with a brilliant sestina (which I had no chance of beating even if I had overcome my flounces about entering) is an accomplished poet with more than one collection already with Carcanet. Her warmth, expertise and sheer humility about her own writing were admirable.

By the end of the week I felt the tutors and students had come to a pretty good rapport. I’ve no idea how Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke teach so many of these courses and remain sane, cheerful and motivated. I have huge respect for them. I’ve never taught on a residential course but I know how exhausted I get after even a half-day workshop with demanding students. It was lovely that both tutors brought along and introduced us to their family in the evenings. The staff at Ty Newydd were so accommodating, relaxed and friendly; I couldn’t fault the atmosphere in that sense.

Relaxing in the library at Ty Newydd

Final thoughts

Several of the students had been on residential courses before, in some cases quite a few. I think I’d be reluctant to do it again in this format. Although for me the ‘outcomes’ of the week (as it would be officially termed I guess) were excellent, I was surprised at how stressful I found being hothoused with so many people I didn’t know. A smaller group would have allowed more real connection with each others’ writing, and might have felt less hectic. I seem to need a lot of thinking time, and because of this I’m not sure my own contributions were that helpful – it takes me longer than five minutes to offer meaningful feedback on a previously unseen poem. But I know there are the economics of numbers to consider.

What I’m hoping is that the payback (if I dare call it that – I was made aware that not everyone likes to talk about the poetry business in such terms) of the week will extend far into the future. I hope I’ve made some friendships and that there may be opportunities for future collaboration, mutual invitations and who knows what other projects. I hope I’ve learned some valuable lessons, about writing and much more. I think I have.

Robin at Ty Newydd

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Something completely different – sound poetry

I was just reading this post on Rebecca Gethin’s blog and from there followed a link to Hannah Silva’s blog, which led me to watch some videos of her performing. Hannah’s amazing ‘sound poetry’ made me think again about the Magma theme ‘the music of words’ – I hope the editors are planning to include something by her.

Here’s a video of Hannah Silva performing ‘Talking to Silence’ for example…


… and then the mesmeric ‘Threshold’ seems to push the boundaries of poetry to its limits. As someone in the comments suggested, it’s not dissimilar to what some composers have done with music, for example Berio’s Sequenza for Voice which I once heard/saw performed by the wonderful soprano Lesley Jane Rogers. It’s a stunning piece of music, and Mozart it ain’t.

Feels like a breath of fresh air to stumble on something like this and find myself challenged out of my poetic comfort zone.

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Audio poem (an experiment)

I was inspired by Mark Hewitt’s performance of ‘expiry tbc‘ the other evening here in Lewes. It was actually a 3-person production featuring Peter Copley on live (and looped) cello, and wonderful lighting effects by Kristina Hjelm. I’d had the privilege of being in Mark’s workshopping group led by Mimi Khalvati earlier in the year, and he had brought along various versions of the text. But although some of the words were familiar, it was amazing how exciting and moving the whole package became with the addition of sound, light and staging. I’ve often fallen into the trap of thinking that performance poetry is mostly about shouting, rhyming and making the audience laugh. But this was something else entirely.

So I went back to my ‘3 voice canon’ poem – the one I sent to Magma for their theme ‘The music of words’ (still open for admissions, by the way) but was rejected, because they said they couldn’t see the connection between the stanzas, and I recorded it the way I envisage it being read. I used a bit of software called Audacity, in which it’s easy to record one track and layer copies of it over the top in a stagger. I was having so much fun I gave it four tracks in the end. So maybe I should re-title it ‘4-voice canon’?

I did it on one take, so I’m sure I could improve on it, although I don’t want to start putting on silly voices or making it over dramatic. Let me know what you think – thanks.

Books/

A day at the (Poetry Book) Fair

poetry book fair 2013

Having answered a call for volunteers on Facebook, I found myself yesterday at Conway Hall in London, donning a blue badge and helping out at the Free Verse: Poetry Book Fair.

Organised by Chrissy Williams and CB Editions, with a lot of help also from Joey Connolly, the Fair is in its third year and apparently bigger than ever. I wasn’t sure what to expect but it was quite a crush – and with something like 700 visitors through the door and 50 or so publishers present, I felt nervously close to the epicentre of the poetry world.

When it comes to events I quite enjoy having a job to do, because otherwise I tend to turn up, wander around, not dare to talk to anyone and leave with a sensation that everyone else knows each other and I don’t know anyone. Actually I still felt like I didn’t know anyone, even though I blatantly did – the ever-friendly Mike from the Poetry Society plus several poet friends including Hilda Sheehan, Marion Tracy and Harry Man. I had very nice chats with many of the publishers and by the end of the day had minded shop for Amy from Seren Books and Sophie from Inpress. I even sold a book for Inpress (thanks, Marion!) I introduced myself to Nell Nelson from HappenStance and discovered a poetry press in my own home town that I’d never heard of. Who’d have thunk it?

I nearly bought quite a lot of stuff but in the end restrained myself. On the Templar table I fell for Matt Bryden’s Night Porter, which has got me thinking seriously about how I might group up some of my poems around a distinct theme and enter them for the Iota Shots pamphlet comp.

Then I spent £3 on a set of 4 microbooks from Hazard Press, witty confections and utterly not what I ought to have been buying, but I couldn’t resist.

On the Roncadora Press table, artist Hugh Bryden told me about the processes involved in producing their beautiful publications, all hand-made. I was so, so tempted by Nest – the photo on their site does not do it justice, the whole thing is a wonderful work of art, and they were selling it for just £6. Blimey, that can hardly have paid for the paper.

Astrid Alben

After the publishers had packed up and left, everyone moved over to the pub for an evening of free readings. Although I didn’t stay for them all, I did catch an enjoyable short set from Astrid Alben, reading from her Arc collection Ai! Ai! Pianissimo (memorable or what?) and later on, with a whole army of young male fans in tow, Chris McCabe who read in tandem with Jeremy Reed from their Nine Arches Press publication Whitehall Jackals. Read his blog post about the making of it here. Sorry about the rather grainy pics by the way.

chris mccabe

Chris was the highlight of the evening for me. I loved his poetry and both he and Astrid were readers with real presence – something that’s hard to define and probably impossible to teach, but you kind of know it when you see it. All in all an enjoyable and inspirational day.

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Seamus Heaney. Just my 2p-worth

Seamus Heaney

What a very sad loss. I think I’d be useless as an obituary writer, as anything I’ve tried writing about the death of Seamus Heaney just sounds crass or obvious. I don’t have anything new to add to what’s been said across the blogosphere, but I enjoyed listening to this short piece on Radio 4 ‘Last Word’, flagged up on Facebook by Josephine Corcoran (thank you).

I thought I would just read here one of my favourite of his poems, ‘Postscript’, from The Spirit Level (Faber, 1996).

Inspiration/

Another three great poetry blogs

Thought it was about time I shared a few more blogs, one I’ve been following for a while and two that have come to my attention just recently.

Clare Pollard's blog
Clare Pollard’s blog

I’ve particularly been enjoying Clare Pollard‘s ‘poetic journeys’ – most recently through Kent, from Broadstairs and Margate to Canterbury and one of my favourite places, Dungeness. The journeys are part-travelogue and part-personal pilgrimage, illustrated with poetry extracts. Clare also blogs about everything from gardens and lullabies to writing children’s fiction, her own poetry and that of others, and her day to day life as a working poet. A rich and interesting read.

Surroundings - Rob Mackenzie's blog
Surroundings – Rob Mackenzie’s blog

Rob Mackenzie isn’t a prolific blogger, but he always seems to put an effort into his posts – so I guess he comes under the ‘I’ll only blog when I’ve got something interesting to say’ category of blogger. Quality not quantity. There are some neat posts here – Rob’s musing on the nature of celebrity, the music of David Bowie and the real truth about what a poem in the Guardian gets you. And check out the sidebar – his blogroll is phenomenal, and there are masses of links to poetry magazines & webzines, poets’ blogs and resources, as well as to his own poetry publications, articles and reviews. This must have taken a lot longer to compile than a few blog posts. Respect.

Very like a whale - Nic Sebastian's blog
Very like a whale – Nic Sebastian’s blog

I think I have Rob Mackenzie to thank for pointing me in the direction of Very Like a Whale.

Although the most recent posted is dated May 2013, don’t let that put you off. I was very excited to find this blog – not least of all because of Nic’s interest in nanopress publishing (“aka alternative poetry publication, with gravitas”) something I’d not come across before. See this post about what it is, and Nic’s interviews with three nanopress publishers.

And that’s not all, Nic has written a ‘ten questions’ series in which he poses key questions to people in the poetry biz. I have only read a couple of the interviews in the ‘Ten questions for poetry editors’ series, and there are about a dozen more to feast on. I am glutton for this stuff – good thing it has no calories. I dare you not to enjoy it.

 

Angst/

A couple of rejections this week – oh well

Hook a duck

Two rejections this week – firstly, a ruthlessly perky email from Mslexia regarding their poetry comp (subject line “Better luck next time!”) – I suppose it’s good to be told you haven’t won anything, rather than not hearing anything, which is the norm. Nevertheless it felt a bit like failing to hook a plastic duck at a fairground sideshow – sorry love! – and the consequent tearing up of the losing raffle ticket. Ah well. At least the subject line wasn’t ALL IN CAPS.

Then I got a rejection from Magma, who I’ve found are generally very good at quick turnarounds of submissions, so all credit to them. This one seemed to be an individual rather than a standard reply, since the editors explained that while my use of ‘sound language’ fulfilled the brief better than most of the entries they had so far received, they hadn’t felt the three stanzas related sufficiently to one another to justify the subtitle I’d given it (‘Three voice canon’). I sent a off a quick ‘no problem! thanks anyway!’ chippy kind of reply, then woke up during the night wondering why on earth I hadn’t at least explained that the ‘canon’ referred to the reciting of the poem by three people almost simultaneously, the stanza breaks being the places where the next voice starts.

Should I have explained this in a footnote? Personally I don’t care for footnotes or complex explanations. But this is the first thing I’ve written intentionally for performance. So, yes, you guessed it, I sent another email saying just that – ‘since you took the trouble to offer feedback, I wanted to just say . . .’ – which probably came over as passive-aggressive but it wasn’t intended that way. I hope I was brief, calm and polite. I realise if there was an alternative reading of the piece then the fault is entirely mine, and I probably should have left it there. I’ve never engaged in correspondence over a rejection before, and in the deafening silence that greeted my email I had a sinking feeling that I had behaved badly. What do you think? Have I blotted my copybook? Clearly my ‘canon’ isn’t a page poem – so maybe I’ll publish it here on my blog and save it for performance only (I need 2 co-performers though!)

My week has been dominated mainly by very sad news of a poet friend, the kind of news that stops you in your tracks and makes you think just how inconsequential in the scheme of things it is to be blogging about the microworld of poetry or the ups and downs of competition entries and magazine submissions. And I remember the words of a neighbour and friend who died last year aged just 52, ‘in the end, all that’s left is love.’

Books/

A bit of a rave about Sam Willetts

New Light for the Old Dark

On the train to the Poetry Review launch the other week  I looked through the magazine to remind myself of the poems which I’d enjoyed on first reading, or that I remembered (not always the same thing of course).

Consequently I found myself re-reading Claire Crowther, Sam Willetts and Jean Sprackland, checking their biographies in the back (why are these always so compelling? Or is it just me that finds them so? I know some mags are firmly of the ‘no biogs’ camp and it always makes me feel a bit cheated as I love to know a bit about the writers).

One of the evening’s readers at Keats House was in fact Sam Willetts, who read all three of his PR poems, two short and one long. I’ll own up now to a rather skittish habit I have of reading short poems before long ones. Superficial? In need of instant gratification? Miniscule attention span? I don’t know. But ‘Stone’ and ‘The Bemusement Arcade’ hooked me in enough to make me want to read the longer ‘Caravaggio’. It’s one of those poems you start reading and think that any minute you’re going to stop, but you keep reading. Like watching something horrific on TV, looking away, but not actually changing channel. It’s the story of an incident that took place when the writer was twelve. Not a pleasant story –  you almost want to wash your hands after reading it –  and yet it reeks of so much ‘impossible truth’, both for the boy at the time and later as an adult ‘Why will all this leave me so angry? What will I have lost?’

New Light for the Old Dark

After the reading I bought a copy of Willetts’ collection ‘New Light for the Old Dark’ (Cape) which was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize in 2010. So I’ve obviously come a little late to the party on this one. But there’s so much I really love about these poems: lively language that almost winks at you, cinematic effects (I mean that in a good way!), a strong sense of place and the ability to switch calmly to interior moments of great intensity.

Loved this:

Near night’s end on Dover Docks
the Channel meets the wall in white high fives (‘Home’)

And in ‘Trick’ , the ‘unexceptional mystery’ of the death of a parent is told with a mixture of detatchedness and tenderness, a sad litany of un-things (‘Dad’s untoothed mouth gawps’) and

His new state exposes the stark child of him
and un-sons me.

There’s a beautiful delicacy about so much of this writing. Even the triolet form is brought to bear with great effect on the tale of an apparent suicide:

She thought that she might breathe the river
breathe the river and never rise (‘Thames Triolet’)

Loved this too:

One police car slides by, and another
slow and self-announcing as a pair of swans.

(‘On Hanway Street with Persian Ali’)

Sorry this isn’t a proper review, just a snapshot. Perhaps I need to go on a ‘how to write a review’ course.

Proper reviews etc: Kate Kellaway  in the Guardian, Steven Knight in the Independent,  Susanna Rustin interview in the Guardian.

Inspiration/

A real summer

Funny how a couple of weeks of sunshine makes a difference in so many little ways. For example, walking through my home town in the last few days I’ve noticed in how people dress.

Usually, sunny days are so unexpected and untrustworthy. My feeling is it’s just not worth buying or making summer clothes when you live in the UK. I usually get by with my one summer (ish) dress or only pair of white trousers, a T shirt or top from a bottom drawer that’s not too shrunken or trashed from having been worn on a beach several years ago. As soon as the clouds appear it’s back to the usual.

But when this recent hot weather looked liked lasting and jeans & jumpers were off the agenda I realised I needed (gasp) a very thin cotton dress. And I guess it’s catching, because people seem to be walking around in genuinely summer clothes. Let’s hope we get to wear them again next year, and the next.

Anyway, sorry for the rather lightweight blog post, it’s just an excuse to post some pics of our little sojourn to Somerset the week before last – we stayed part of the time at the Lord Poulett Arms in Hinton St George, where the food and the garden were lovely, the village quiet and picturesque, but the bedroom was sweltering (not helped by being in a rather small double bed!) But of course I’m not complaining about the weather!

But hang on a minute – i knew there was a poetry connection to report – as I was leafing idly through the coffee-table books in the room at The Lord Poulett Arms, I bypassed the one about Dita Von Teese (bit of a burlesque theme at the pub, a tad odd I thought) but enjoyed another featuring photographs of British people who had upped and moved to France. Only when I got to the end did I spot a familiar face – none other than Antony Mair, my poet friend, fellow Brighton Stanza member and blogger of Hastings life! And then I discovered he’d also written the preface. It’s a small world, alright.

Hinton St George
Hinton St George – it doesn’t get more English than this
In the garden at the Lord Poulett Arms
In the garden at the Lord Poulett Arms

Lord Poulett Arms

Moorhill House Hotel, the New Forest
Moorhill House Hotel, in the New Forest
Lytes Cary, a National Trust house
Lytes Cary (National Trust)
At Lytes Cary
I loved this hanging basket in the garden at Lytes Cary!