Category: Mags & Blogs

Angst/

Where blogging fits into the writing week

Pages from primary school rough book
Aged 10, my note-taking habit had begun

How does your writing week look? Mine can typically include things like

  • blog posts
  • a client email newsletter
  • a lot of emails (sent and replied to)
  • poetry writing/redrafting/editing
  • commenting on blogs
  • client work: proposals, meeting reports, web or brochure copy, etc
  • an email newsletter for one of my groups (poetry or singing)
  • a guest piece for a magazine or blog
  • a chapter for a (non-fiction) book, if I have a book project on the go
  • cover letters
  • various lists/notes etc for myself
  • tweeting etc

– it adds up to writing every day, even though when asked how much time I spend on writing I tend to um and ah or say ‘not as much as I’d like’ because of course I’m thinking of poetry writing – you know, the really creative stuff.

This morning I’d been thinking about blogging and the purpose(s) of blogging. Then I encountered Josephine Corcoran’s interesting and timely post about ‘why blog’ (in relation to poetry blogging in particular).

Blogging isn’t for everyone. I regularly meet people who, if they find out about my blog, aren’t sure what to make of it, as an activity. But sometimes they admit they too have a blog, but ‘haven’t posted for a while’ or else they’ve been ‘meaning to blog’ but are struggling either to find the time or the ideas of what to write about.

When people come to me for mentoring, if I think blogging would benefit them, I suggest it. But it’s one of those awkward chicken-and-egg things: until you start blogging and you reach that moment of ‘getting it’ (which is usually tied up with the community aspect of blogging – see Josephine’s post), it can feel like a chore. Or worse, a worthless or self-indulgent activity two steps removed from bragging and the slippery slope towards staring at one’s reflection in a pond.

Community is a big part of blogging – after 15 years I’m still amazed who you meet on the internet and I’ve always believed (from personal experience) that connections made online can be every bit as strong as those made ‘in real life’. And the wonderful thing is that it’s still mostly fuelled by the written word.

So to follow on from Josephine’s post, my feeling is that blogging helps my writing, because it is writing. It’s part of my writing life – just as is everything else that goes into the writing week, except on a blog I give myself permission to use cliches, make (sort of) jokes, say LOL or whatever else grabs me. I give myself permission to make mistakes, try out new ideas, ask questions, come across as a bit naive or opinionated or whatever. I give myself permission to write without drafting, or re-drafting, or planning, or reaching for the thesaurus, or (much!) editing. To write 200 words or 2,000 words. It’s my ‘sandbox’ I suppose. It doesn’t mean I’m totally unguarded, but I’ve noticed how people appreciate openness, so I think it’s a good thing to aim for. It’s probably an antidote to all that sales/commercial writing that invades our space (bits of which I’m responsible for – sorry!)

What do you think – does blogging flex our writing muscles, or does it just take us away from, well, proper writing?

Bloggers/

Two exciting discoveries (new to me, anyway!)

There I was, just noodling about on the internet, when what should I find but not only a wonderful blog and poetry resource but also a poet who I’d never heard of but whose work immediately excited me.

Jeffrey Levine
Jeffrey Levine

First of all, thanks to a Facebook update by Antiphon magazine* I followed a link to an excellent and timeless post on putting together a manuscript, on Jeffrey Levine‘s blog. Jeffrey is a poet, author, publisher, critic, mentor – you name it – and his blog is a powerhouse of articles that you just want to read and absorb RIGHT NOW – rather like Neo being injected with knowledge in The Matrix: “I know Kung Fu!” – he he.

Then I started following links to US poetry magazines, submissions policies, prize competitions (there seem to be a shedload of those going on at any one time in the US, or is that an illusion? Many seem to have entry criteria to do with age, residency or publishing history or whatever, but there are plenty open to international poets.)

Fragile ActsNext, I looked at featured poets, prize winners and so forth, and googled their names. I followed several lovely detours before coming upon Allan Peterson. Here’s ‘Implicit’, a new poem by him in The Believer magazine. Love it, love it, love it. And then on to his own website, which sets out his monumental writing achievements under the modest ‘Resume’ tab.  There are a few poems on the site too, such as ‘Confession’. I could hardly buy a copy of his most recent book, Fragile Acts, quickly enough.

If Jeffrey Levine and Allan Peterson are familiar to you, you may be thinking ‘she’s just discovered them? – oh DUH!’ and I probably look like a bit of a noob. Oh well! One man’s thrilling discovery is another’s same-old!

*PS another reason for me to thank Antiphon is for publishing one of my poems in their latest issue (9) alongside many fine poets, do take a look

Bloggers/

End of year thank yous, submissions news, plans

Daisy by the Xmas treeHappy Holidays (or non-denominational winter festival, etc). Wouldn’t it be great to end the year on a ‘good news’ note? You know – I’ve suddenly been snapped up by Faber, or something – but I’ve nothing exciting to report on the submissions front, sadly: yet another no from Ambit, and a very swift no from HappenStance (very generous of Nell Nelson to read and respond so quickly and thoughtfully, even though I sensed she found my poems a tad yawn-worthy. Clearly I must do better if I want to raise myself above the swollen river of poetic same-ness that constantly darkens her door. Oh dear, there’s a lovely mixed metaphor for you – I rest my case…)

Oddly enough I don’t feel knocked back. I’m strangely optimistic about 2014, and determined to make something happen rather than be passive about it all. What that means exactly I’m not sure, it’s just a kernel of a feeling for now … will let you know!

There’s plenty of poetry business to keep me out of mischief in January: a trip to the T S Eliot Award readings on 13th – I have poet friend Julia to thank for introducing me to this annual poets’ gathering. Great fun! Also, I’ve lately got involved with Needlewriters here in Lewes, and am pledged to help publicise it – next event is on 16th, with Kay Syrad, Patricia McCarthy and John Usher. Plus there’s Brighton Stanza to think about – next meeting on 20th and some planning to be done before then.

I’m planning also for the Lewes Singers, our occasional choir – two concerts in 2014 and cathedral visits for 2015 and 2016 – yes, they have to be booked that far ahead! The Church of England may be struggling for attendees these days and plenty of the less glamorous cathedrals are desperately strapped for cash, but there will always be a ton of choirs wanting to sing in them.  Sadly, it’s regular church goers and visitors who are needed, for their donations, whereas visiting choirs contribute nothing except their singing. A bit unfair of us really. The unevenness of this reminds me of the situation in poetry, vis a vis readers / writers.

I was very lucky this Christmas, not only did my lovely other half buy me a copy of A London Year, 365 Days of City Life in Diaries, Journals and Letters by Travis Elborough, which I’ve coveted for a while, but Stepson also came up trumps and presented me with the Centenary Edition of William Blake’s Poetry and Prose. Blake! Just the thing I need to clear my brain after a bit of Christmas excess and trashy reading.

This will probably be my last post for 2013, so I wanted to mention some of my favourite poetry blogs/poet bloggers and generous Poetgal supporters … thank you all so much for the wonderful posts, discussion, comments, shares/retweets, camaraderie and support: Josephine Corcoran at And Other Poems, Abegail Morley at The Poetry Shed, Anthony Wilson, Meg Cox, Isabel Rogers, Jean Tubridy at Social Bridge, Jayne Stanton, Elly Nobbs, Hilda Sheehan and Lynne Hjelmgaard. And apologies to anyone I’ve omitted. You are all brilliant and it’s a pleasure to know you (even if virtually).

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, and I wish you a healthy, happy and successful 2014! Robin x

Angst/

A literary lunch, a rejection and a Robert Frost mystery

Emerging from the fug of the common cold, what should greet me but a ‘no thanks’ notification from Ambit. It seemed like an automated/standard reply this time, so I think I have to give up on it for now. The last rejection I had from them felt more personal and encouraging.  I think three or four rejections in a row (can’t remember how many it’s been with Ambit, actually) from a mag is a fairly strong indicator that my stuff just isn’t their bag. (Unless I’ve had something published by them before, which is quite different.) So Ambit now joins the ‘probably not’ list. (If the list gets too long I may have to revise my strategy but at the moment it works fine!)

On the positive side, I had a very nice time on Tuesday at the Chelsea Arts Club where my lovely agent (for my non-fiction writing) was hosting a Christmas lunch for some of her authors. A great chance to meet other (far more successful) writers and get enthused about everything from space exploration to Norris McWhirter. Imagine my excitement to meet a fellow poet there by the name of Liz Dean. Liz told me she had a fair amount of work published a few years back, but other projects have taken her away from the poetry scene lately. We talked about magazines, submissions, pamphlets, the way forward and so forth. She made a suggestion which I found intriguing and came away thinking “Yes, I will do that in 2014…” We actually shook hands on it, so indeed I must do it! I won’t say any more now, but all will be revealed here in the fullness of time. Ha ha!

The news that Douglas Dunn has won the Queen’s Medal for poetry had me panicking that I’d not read a thing by him. Well, ‘panicking’ is probably too strong a word, but that general feeling of “oh no! here’s another famous poet I haven’t read or even heard of! what the bloody hell do I think I’m doing, noodling about writing poetry or even having the PRESUMPTION to call myself a sortofpoet when my knowledge of The Canon is so completely inadequate” – that kind of thing.

So partly in a knee-jerk reaction and partly because I needed to return Simon Armitage’s Tyrannosaurus Rex versus the Cordoroy Kid (many gems there) I went to the library and spent an hour or so with the one Dunn book they had which was The Year’s Afternoon (brilliant title poem you can read here). I took it away to read properly, and also a copy of Answering Back, an anthology of pairs of poems, one by a contemporary poet in response to one by a more established/dead one. Edited by Carol Ann Duffy. This looks really meaty and I know I’m going to enjoy it, just from looking at who is responding to who, for starters.

Arrived in the post last week was the latest edition of Rattle, from which I get my regular dose of American poetry and Poems With Titles That Are Quite Often Longer Than The Actual Poems Themselves And Every Word In The Title Is Capitalized (sic). Also by my bed is the Winter edition of Poetry Review which I’ve only skimmed through so far but noticed another enjoyable and cheeky nod to Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by woods’ – a poem by Kate Bingham called ‘Midnight’. In the last edition we had ‘Floating on Lake Windermere in a Stolen Boat’ by Sean Hewitt, a similar homage. Maybe it will be a recurring theme? Something to watch for!

Competitions/

Submissions, projects, ‘poetry corner’

nobody puts poetry in a corner

Sorry for the silence lately, I’ve been under the weather and only today feeling a tad more human. Then there’s been all the Christmas stuff, you know what it’s like. Anyway, here’s a quick update for now:

No news yet from Ambit or Poetry Review, but I did make a submission to The London Magazine, a bit by mistake – someone I met in Wales told me about about a London-based mag that’s a great one to submit to, and for some reason I thought it was The London Magazine, but actually I think it was South Bank Poetry. But I couldn’t find a website for SBP, and before I knew it I was submitting to TLM, although I’ve never actually read it and to be honest it looks like quite a serious cultural mag. I’m not keen on making ‘drive-by’ submissions, but I had a couple of London-themed poems burning in a hole in my computer so I thought what the hell.

The Magma Poetry comp deadline is today, and although I wasn’t intending to enter, once more in an idle moment and after a glass of wine and in a feverish fug I only went and sent something. When will I ever learn?

As a distraction from the Waiting Game, I’ve also been thinking about poetry projects for 2014. A local group called the Needlewriters has recently recruited me to their committee to help with their quarterly events, and I’m getting my head around where I can add value. Then there’s the Brighton Stanza, which has grown in popularity but I now need to work with my ‘loose committee’ on how to preserve the serious workshopping element while still catering for those who just want to come along and share their poems.

I’ve also offered to compile a regular ‘poetry corner’ piece (working title!) for our community newspaper the Lewes News. No other publication round here publicises local poetry events, or promotes the work of the many wonderful poets in Lewes. So my plan is to redress the balance! We’ll see if that comes off: wish me luck.

Books/

Links to useful poetry resources (publishers, magazines, competitions etc)

The Saison Poetry Library

I thought I’d post some links to poetry resources I’ve been bookmarking. I’m sure these are just the tip of the iceberg so if you know of anything similar to add to this list please let me know in a comment – thanks. These are mostly UK but I’ve included one good US resource also.

Write Out Loud Poetry Directory – this is an Aladdin’s Cave of links, to magazines, small presses, courses and regular competitions. Lots of publications I’d never heard of. Recommended.

The Saison Poetry Library on the South Bank in London has a list of UK poetry magazines, although it isn’t up to date (eg it still has old details for Poetry London, Ambit, etc and lists several publications that are defunct) so best to double-check the info you find there. The Poetry Library’s Competitions listings are useful.

The Poetry Can is a site for poetry development in the South West but it features a national list of Poetry and Literature Festivals. This could be useful if you’re looking for gigs to promote your books, or planning to organise an event of your own. The site’s Resources page contains a number of useful poetry links.

The Scottish Poetry Library has an excellent website with resources and opportunities for poets, teachers and families and lots of useful poetry links. I’ve never visited the library but it looks brilliant.

On the Literature Wales site there is information about courses at Ty Newydd, competitions, events and opportunities for writers.

What Editors Want: A Must-Read for Writers Submitting to Literary Magazines by Lynne Barrett in The Review Review. This is a great general resource for writers wanting to research lit mags, although it’s focused on the US there are still many relevant articles here. And if you’re looking to crack the US scene here’s a listing of links to over 600 US print and online literary magazines.

Here’s Carrie Etter’s list of UK Pamphlet publishers currently accepting unsolicited submissions – although it dates from March 2012, so again, not guaranteed to be up to date but a good starting point.

If you’re looking for something a bit more quirky, essential reading is this list of 15th century collective nouns. Excellent tweet-fodder.

*** [added 5-12-13] Thanks to Carrie Etter for pointing me to a list of poetry publishers compiled by Helena Nelson at Happenstance – it’s a downloadable PDF available from this page. Last updated August 13, so pretty much up to date, although as Nell acknowledges, it’s dependent upon people letting her know about changes in circumstances or new publishers.

*** [added 7-1-14] Wonderful piece here on putting together a collection – On Making the Poetry Manuscript, by Jeffrey Levine – check out the rest of his blog while you’re there, it’s a great resource.

Photo: The Saison Poetry Library

Angst/

A reading, not much writing & feeling a bit humble

Poetry reading in Tunbridge Wells

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of taking part in a reading at Tunbridge Wells library, organised by the wonderful Abegail Morley and featuring also Jo Hemmant, Emer Gillespie and Margaret Beston. A lovely variety of poetry and styles, and a good size audience – there must have been more than thirty people there. Margaret runs a Tonbridge Stanza called Roundel and a number of the members came along in support. Also super to see Sarah Salway there.

The weekend prior to that I held a workshop day at my house for a few lovely poet friends. It was so interesting to hear what they were reading and working on, to talk about magazines & publishing, poets and writing. It did make me think of Jo Grigg, whose poetry days at her house had inspired me to do the same – she had planned to come to this one, but it wasn’t to be. Poetry can feel very solitary at times. I suppose that sounds like an obvious statement, but actually it only strikes me that way now and then. I haven’t written anything lately so maybe that’s why it’s feeling like one of those times.

Acceptance/rejection news: It served me right for writing a blog post with the title ‘Nice to end the week with an acceptance!’ – the god of humility struck me down fairly promptly with a rejection from Lighthouse magazine a day or two later. That, coupled with a ‘no thanks’ from Acumen the very next day after I submitted, put me back on terra firma. As result, I have a few poems needing homes, but I can’t seem to bring myself to send them anywhere just yet, although I should, otherwise I’m in danger of not having anything ‘out there’ when the next tranche of yays or nays comes in.

I still have stuff out with Ambit (who apparently have been snowed under since they started using Submittable – interesting!) and Poetry Review, plus a couple of pamphlet submissions, but that’s it at the moment. On the positive side, Morphrog (the online ‘extreme’ sister mag to the Frogmore Papers, and currently seeking submissions by the way) has graciously accepted a slightly mad poem for their January edition.

Competitions/

Nice to end the week with an acceptance

Although I was delighted to hear that Antiphon is taking a poem of mine for the next issue, for a moment I had a panic because it’s a piece I’ve altered drastically since, and I was thinking of sending it into the National in its new form (but same title). As it happened, I was so busy going on holiday at the end of October I missed the deadline for the NPC anyway – DUH, so later version of poem is still with me.

So now what – I really like the new version but I suppose I should give it a new title, make sure it doesn’t contain any of the exact same lines/phrases and think of it as something entirely new. I wonder if there’s such a thing as plagiarising one’s own poem? And can a poem be very very similar to another poem and yet a different poem? At what point has it ‘calved’? I’m thinking about some examples in art – cf all those Monet paintings of water lilies. Or music? Those Satie Gymnopedies are all more or less the same. (My husband might not be impressed by my saying that.)

Meanwhile I guess my entry for the Troubadour prize fell on its face – since I’ve not been one of the lucky recipients of a phone call summoning me to the prize giving! Ah well! Another year maybe …

Mags & Blogs/

Submissions update

Good news and bad news!

Quick update first of all to my October ‘working on, waiting on’ post: Poetry London – standard rejection slip. Shearsman – standard rejection email. The North – a very nice personal reply, but no. Envoi – yes (yay!).

I’ve also just heard that The Interpreter’s House (now edited by Martin Malone and with a shiny new website amongst other things) is taking one of the poems I wrote at Ty Newydd, which I’m very pleased about. It’s a bit of an homage to Ian Duhig. Martin also leaps right to the top of the ‘speed of response’ chart, having replied within a few days. Douze points!

After a sending spree I’ve currently got 6 poems out to Ambit, 3 to Antiphon, 3 to Lighthouse and 3 to Poetry Review. Plus a number of pamphlet submissions. Will post updates to all this as and when.

Angst/

Aftermath

Hedgerow at Ty Newydd

Back from Ty Newydd yesterday with a head full of I don’t know what. It wasn’t that I was sad to leave, far from it – I was so in need of my home, my bed, quiet time. I felt like I’d put my finger into an electric socket and then, only then did I really understand the power of electricity. An emotional last couple of days and even on the long journey back I found myself on the verge of tears at any moment, though I couldn’t say why.

Something about the mournful Coldplay song on the radio in the car down the drive, out of the gates and back to Criccieth station. Two small boys waving at the train from a children’s play park by the sea in Barmouth. Sheep running from the train as it wound its way along the Cambrian coast. My husband appearing unexpectedly to meet me at Euston (which was when I allowed myself to cry).

I will post more about the course very soon, I promise, but I just need a little headspace first I think.

Thanks so much for your lovely comments, here and on Facebook. I was very proud and pleased to come back and see a poem of mine in The Rialto. It was tempered with also receiving standard rejections this week from Poetry London and Shearsman. But that’s no matter. Better things to come 🙂