Category: Mags & Blogs

Three more great poetry blogs

Thought I’d share with you three more notable blogs that I’ve come across recently.

1. Tweetspeak Poetry

Tweetspeak Poetry

Not, as it sounds, a site devoted to Twitter poetry (is that actually a genre now? I think George Szirtes is doing his bit to promote it anyway) but a magazine-style blog with regular features such as ‘This week’s top ten poetic picks’ and series such as ‘How to read a poem’ and ‘Take your poet to work’ (in the run up to ‘Take your poet to work day’ which is apparently on July 17th.) Every month the team behind Tweetspeak Poetry hosts a Twitter party (although it’s at 9pm EST, which makes it more of an early-hours lock-in for us Brits).

I was intrigued to know who was behind Tweetspeak, which is a very professional set-up, and indeed turns out its sister site is Every Day Poems, a subscription site (price seems to vary from between $2.99 and $5.99 a year, depending on what page you’re on). Every Day Poems describes itself like this:

Read a poem every day. Become a better writer. Participate in our writing projects, so we can see your work. If one of your poems is a good fit, we might feature it in this newsletter, with your permission.

The idea of creating community around the reading of poetry in a user-friendly and social (media) way appeals to me a lot.

Twitter: @tspoetry

2. Book of Kells

Book of Kells blog

Kelli Russell Agodon is a poet, writer and editor whose blog is a collection of musings, happenings, book reviews, favourite poets … very much a personal record and written in a relaxed and easy style. I suppose I would compare it to Kim Moore’s blog in that sense. As well as writing about her life and professional experiences, Kelli has interesting things to say and share on related topics including photography, creativity and marketing. This is a blog grounded in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, a part of the world where I lived for a short while so perhaps that adds to its appeal.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/agodon
Twitter: @elliagodon

3. Ron Silliman’s blog

Ron Sillimans blog

Those of us who talk too much on our blogs need to take a lesson or two from Ron Silliman. Simply subtitled “A weblog focused on contemporary poetry and poetics” this is a super and ever-growing collections of interviews, reviews, videos, recordings and links both contemporary and historic, with very little added verbosity. This felt like a real find.

Ron has an impeccable pedigree as an educator and writer (over 30 books, with poetry and criticism translated into 12 languages). From his photo there’s also a striking resemblance to Ernest Hemingway.

This site also has a formidably long archive which goes back to 2002 – respect!

I mislaid my poetic mojo in a Ghent hostel

Poetry mags and books

Having been away for four days ‘helping’ with a college trip to Belgium (my husband was the tour leader – his A level students) I’m finding it hard to get back to poetry.

I suppose it’s partly because I’m having to catch up with work as well, and not having a proper night’s sleep the whole time we were away (teenagers don’t go to sleep before 2am, so nor can anyone else in a Youth Hostel where there are no carpets and the doors all slam).

Although they were (for the most part) very nice people, I just found the whole being-around-40-teenagers utterly exhausting and a tad depressing. Their energy saps mine, their zest for life deadens my creativity. I’m amazed at how so many writers are able to combine a teaching career with writing – and yet it’s such a common combination, whether it’s by choice or necessity.

OK, I realise I’m probably being over-dramatic here, after all I think a foreign trip is tiring even for the full time teachers, because you’re never off-duty, not for a moment.

Anyway, I think I now have an even higher respect for my husband and his colleagues for everything they bring and give to teaching. I just know I don’t have that kind of generosity in me!

But on a more positive note… lots to look forward to, not least of all some much-needed sunshine!

The answer to a creativity deadzone for me is to read, and read good stuff. I’ve still to explore the new Poetry Review and Magma which arrived a week or so ago, plus I’m reading Abegail Morley’s Snow Child and Ben Parker’s The Escape Artists, so I’ll be talking about those soon on the blog.

Poetry readings coming up: Hilda Sheehan has very kindly invited me to read at the Blue Gate Poets meeting on 8th August in Swindon, and I’m currently talking with the organisers of the Shoreham Wordfest about putting on a poetry night where I hope to be reading alongside some lovely poet friends. Then come October there are exciting plans for a reading with Abegail Morley and Emer Gillespie – will keep you posted.

Magazine focus: Rattle

Rattle poetry magazine

I (oh no, starting a blog post again with ‘I’) was just thinking it would be fun to occasionally feature a specific poetry magazine: mention what I like about it, give a flavour of what’s in it, fill you in on their submissions policy etc.

I’m currently a tad stressed. First I’m trying to stay civil with not one but two sets of lawyers about two completely different matters, then there’s the order for 500 CDs for my choir that has turned into a nightmare, I’m worried that the recent insect bites are reigniting a years-old stress-related skin condition, and about to spend 4 days as a ‘helper’ on a sixth formers’ trip to Belgium when I don’t know any of the students and I’m intimidated by teenagers. Enough about all that, but maybe it’s appropriate to start with a magazine called Rattle.

[Nonetheless I had a lovely day yesterday, particularly on Facebook. Thank you to everyone for your very kind comments about the Hamish Canham Prize.]

I  don’t know how I came across Rattle, but I liked the sound of it, plus I saw they had a competition on at the moment which attracted me. I’ve been tiptoeing around US poetry for a while, first after encountering the Best American Poetry 2012 and then more recently being sent a copy of Poetry unexpectedly. I’m intrigued by the fact that I know none of the names, and  there are styles and themes that seem very different to what I read in UK magazines, although I’m struggling to put my finger on WHAT exactly.

And so to Rattle. It’s a bit bigger than Poetry, kind of A5 but a bit longer. Perfect bound, nice quality paper and production values generally (including lovely blue endpapers)  I was intrigued by the variety of work (although it felt a little heavy on ‘shock effect’ writing – no fewer than 2 poems had the word ‘penis’ in the title – popular culture, humour and shape-poems all well-represented) and the very stylised ‘Contributor Notes’ in the form of first-person statements (“When I was a kid, listening to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, I thought that art was going to give meaning to my pain…”)

I particularly enjoyed the extended conversation between Rattle Editor-in-Chief Alan Fox and Ellen Bass, rich with insight. Made me want to read Ellen’s work, definitely. Extract:

“I say to my students, ‘Ok you’ve got a metaphor there. Maybe it’s not your best metaphor. Why don’t you make a list of 20 metaphors that might describe this.”  If I say to myself, ‘OK, I need a metaphor here and it’s got to be the exact right metaphor’, I feel like I may as well kill myself. But if I brainstorm 20 or 40 metaphors that don’t have to be good, I may loosen up my mind enough and then I might look at that list and the right one might be in there.”

So here’s the skinny (see, I’m getting into the lingo!) on Rattle.

Based: California

Editor: Tim Green

Published: Quarterly

Features: Poems, translations, interviews, reviews & essays.

Annual Subscription: $20 (I paid $30 and for that it’s mailed to me in the UK, and it arrived within a week although they do say to allow much longer than that)

Submissions policy: only unpublished work but simultaneous submissions OK. Expect to hear within 4 – 8 weeks, email submissions OK. Full details here.

Typical size: 100 pages

Longest poem title: ‘Things That Happen During Pet Sitting I Remind Myself Are Not Metaphors For My Heart’ by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz (a close second was ‘Ringo Starr Answers Questions on Larry King Live About the Death of George Harrison’ by Roy Bentley.)

Are you familiar with Rattle? Had something in it? What are your impressions? I did like the fact that they are firm but reasonable about submissions – all email submissions are acknowledged automatically, simultaneous subs OK. Also when I had a question my email was answered same day by the Editor. And the magazine arrived super quick. Impressive.

Unaccustomed as I am

(So sorry about the weird asterisks etc in the following – just that last time I mentioned the B word I got immediately spam-commented and spam-followed by some decidedly un-poetic peeps.)

It’s been quite a busy week, easier to do it in reverse order – yesterday and Friday I was in London at the BritMums conference, speaking about b* logging (actually about b* log design, which really got my  imposter syndrome alarm bells ringing. Bad enough presenting at a conference where I felt like an alien already – being about 20 25 years older than the average attendee and 100% less maternal.) That doesn’t mean I wasn’t delighted to speak there of course, and all the people I met were lovely. The event certainly had a friendly, supportive vibe. But nonetheless I was a teensy bit out of my comfort zone.  Plus, the Waterstones stand at the show didn’t even have my book for sale – claiming they couldn’t get hold of it, even though the publisher pointed them to reserve stock for them to access. Even though I’m not on a royalties deal, it didn’t look good that my book wasn’t there. GRRRRR. ( I really liked the venue by the way – The Brewery, in the city – a great change from the terrible Hilton-type identikit conferences.)

Britmums Live weekend in London
From The Brewery to Catford precinct – two sides to London

Staying overnight in London did mean having the chance to see one of my good friends from schooldays and stay in her lovely big quiet house just a stone’s throw from where we went to school. It’s an area of south east London which as a teenager I never had much time for, but funny how going back there all I see are wide roads, leafy parks, a greengrocer on every corner and PLENTIFUL public transport links. *Sigh*

Last Monday I was in Tonbridge giving a talk on .. yes … the B word .. to a group of writers. The group is a newly formed ‘hub’, or outpost of New Writing South. The group included quite a few poets, including the lovely Abegail Morley – always nice to see a friendly face or two at these things! I was ready to feature Abe’s fab blog The Poetry Shed  plus a whole host of others in my talk, but was thwarted by the Great Firewall of Kent County Council. Oh yes. Internet access? No problem – you just can’t bring up any actual websites, especially anything to do with poetry. There might be some LANGUAGE I suppose. So the talk about b* logging took place without visual reference to any actual b* logs. It kind of reminded me of the time I had to take an exercise-to-music class and my tape machine broke down. (In case you’re wondering, I just counted out loud. A lot.)

On the submissions front I’ve been sending off quite a few bits and bobs – some more hopeful/speculative than anything, but I seem to have written a good amount of stuff the last couple of months and although I’ve not had the chance to workshop any of it I’m just going with my gut instinct about what is and isn’t good enough to send out. So either way, the second half of the year should be eventful. I sent some poems to Under the Radar back in March, so I’m hoping to hear from them soon (?) – I’ll let you know, whether yay or nay. And then there’s that bit of good news I had about a month ago and it STILL hasn’t been made public and I’m getting REALLY itchy about it (or maybe that’s that the humungous mosquito bites I sustained the other day.)

That’s all for now – thanks for reading and I hope you have a super week.

First ‘Poetry Unplugged’ experience

poetry unplugged at the Poetry Cafe

So much for my resolve to get out and do more readings/open mics this year.

I haven’t yet plucked up the courage to tackle the Troubadour, although to be honest it’s partly the thought of making my way there (actually it’s the getting back from west London –  late at night – a mission with Southern Rail, believe me) and not knowing if I’m going to make it on the open mic list or not. But I like the look of their Monday evening events, with some impressive guest poets appearing.

Last night however I took part in my first Poetry Unplugged open mic night at the Poetry Cafe in London, accompanied by my up-for-anything friend Lucy. It was about this time last year that I persuaded her along to the Betsey Trotwood for an Ambit launch, where I managed to disgrace myself by drinking too much and she did an impromptu guest spot behind the bar. I’ve never been published in Ambit but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

Anyway, back to last night. It was a reasonably full room – pretty impressive that it’s been going for over ten years and it’s every week – I marvel at the stamina of host Niall O’Sullivan, who keeps time with joviality and a very visible iPad display. Most impressive was his ability to say people’s names both before and after they read, and come up with a little linkage banter that made reference to the poems we’d just heard. What a pro.

The first half was an interesting mix of newbies and (I assume) regulars, ten men plus myself. Lucy and I had looked over my poems in Pizza Express and agreed on the two to read – the one where I channel Calamity Jane and the other one a found poem, one of my few ‘funnies’. I think it did raise a slight titter (thanks Lucy!) – but probably too many references to 70s TV shows and not sure I was on the same wavelength as the earnest-looking (and mostly young) audience. Ah well – I still enjoyed reading.

Someone read a lovely poem about a lady who had suffered from dementia in later years and he felt her funeral hadn’t done justice to the person she once was. Probably my favourite of the night, I wish I could remember the poet’s name. Among the others we had some heartfelt lost love/bittersweet memories material,  one long tale in rhyming couplets which apparently was after Edgar Allen Poe (Lucy had to enlighten me on that), some stormin’ political commentary and some (self-described) ‘anti-feminist’ shouty stuff.

Many performed from memory – something I should try to do I think, but I would have to be absolutely word-perfect – nothing worse than forgetting (and telling the audience you’ve forgotten) for breaking the spell. Having said that, the very first poet up stumbled rather towards the end and eventually gave up in a cloud of “fuck its” but all very jolly about it so no-one minded. The last performer entered just as he was announced, giving the impression that it was some sort of show of superiority, or that he couldn’t be arsed to listen to anyone else. This made Lucy and myself less guilty about leaving before the second half, much as I’d like to have heard some women reading (surely there were some) it’s quite an intimate venue and it would have looked worse to leave halfway through I think. And the 21.47 from Victoria beckoned.

PS I’ll certainly go back some time – anyone like to  come with me?

Where my poetry pocket money has been going

June 3rd and I think I’ve already blown my poetry pocket money for this month.

First of all I’ve subscribed to Poetry London which I’ve been meaning to do for ages, and I asked to start with the Spring 13 issue, which has resulted in both Spring and Summer issues arriving within days of each other. A feast!

Today I was reading John Field’s brilliant review of Ben Parker’s first pamphlet ‘The Escape Artists‘ from tall-lighthouse, and couldn’t resist buying it, being only £4. You can’t even buy a glass of wine for that in London. (By the way, if you haven’t already, do read Adele Ward’s impassioned blog posts about how we MUST buy directly from small publishers.)

Then today I entered the Mslexia poetry comp for the first time, having told myself I needed to enter some competitions this year, but only big ones otherwise it gets horribly expensive. And yes, I have also entered the Bridport – well, a gal’s gotta try! I did have a go at the Mslexia Pamphlet comp last year, but more for the experience of trying to put a pamphlet together than any thoughts of glory – there was none, anyway.

Maybe I’m feeling a bit more confident at the moment having had some good news recently, but nothing I’m able to blab about here, at least for the time being – sorry!

My blog’s seen a flurry of new readers after the lovely Abegail Morley linked to Poetgal from her own blog, The Poetry Shed.  If you haven’t read her powerful collection “How to pour madness into a teacup’ I can certainly recommend it, I found myself reading it in one sitting.

Three featured blogs – writing and ‘X’

It’s funny how writing often goes together with a second passion or skill, and the ingenuity of bloggers in combining them in just one blog is often surprising and interesting. This week’s three featured blogs are to do with writing  & gardening, writing & swimming, and writing & animals.

OK so I’m not a great gardener. I used to love looking through my mum’s gardening magazines but mainly for the garden plans. Planning (on paper) was my thing. Nurturing living plants and learning their names has never worked for me. I don’t know what that makes me: a virtual gardener? However I’m very happy visiting or sitting in a lovely garden. More a garden reader than a writer.

But that’s not true of the first of this week’s bloggers.

Sarah Salway
Sarah Salway – writer and coach

Sarah Salway was the Canterbury Poet Laureate last year and is famous for her photographs of benches, among many other things! Living in Kent, the ‘garden of England’, she has an appropriate love of gardens. So much so that her recent project is Writer in the Garden, which she calls ‘an idiosyncratic literary tour around the gardens of England.’

Writer in the Garden
Writer in the Garden

Sarah’s enthusiasm and energy are wonderful and her adventures in gardens are clearly a strong creative inspiration.

The second ‘Writing and X’ blog is the simply named Writing and Swimming by someone calling herself rather coyly ‘Aquamarina’. Dear Acquamarina, I couldn’t find your real name anywhere on your blog, so if you want to make yourself known to me please leave a note in the comments, thanks!

Swimming & writing
Swimming & Writing

Aquamarina’s sidebar is a clever compilation of ‘Books featuring swimming’, ‘Films I like with a watery feel’ and even ‘3 swimming poems by Sharon Olds’. Clearly the blog’s author is a poet, and her watery writing-related posts are entertaining. (I was reminded of poet Clare Best‘s recent fundraising swimathon – maybe the swimming-poetry connection isn’t so unusual?)

Sheila Boneham is a prolific author “best known for her writing about dogs and cats for the past fifteen years”  as well as an experienced creative writing tutor. Her blog, Write here, write now, features guest posts, writing prompts, author interviews and all manner of musings and articles of interest to writers and/or animal lovers.

write here write now
Write here, write now

A quick search brought up some quirky blog posts, such as an article on photographing dogs and another about  New Year writing goals. My only quibble with Sheila’s blog is the navigation – most of the main menu links take you to her main website and away from the blog, and within the blog each time you click on a new post or search result a new window opens, so I ended up with rather a lot of tabs on my browser. But hey! That’s just the website pedant in me I suppose. I was interested enough in the content to keep clicking around, and that’s pretty important. Plus there were all those cute kitties.

if you’re interested in writing the odd guest blog post (great idea if you’re a writer looking to build your reach on the social web) then you may be interested in guesting on Sheila’s blog. Submission guidelines are here.

Three great blogs – poetry

It’s always nice to get those ‘congratulations, another blogger is following your blog’ emails from WordPress, and even nicer when you check them out and discover a real gem of a blog you’d not come across before. That’s how I found John Field’s excellent blog Poor Rude Lines – “I’m just another reader, rather like you, curled up in bed with a book or two.”

It made me think it would be fun to have a regular feature where I could share interesting blogs with you. I expect you’ll already know at least some of them, but who knows, maybe not. Blogrolls are great, but a proper introduction is even better – I’m hoping you may reciprocate and tell me about other fab blogs that I’m missing. Anyway, three is my favourite number, so I may as well call it ‘Three great blogs…’

Let’s start with poetry, and indeed with Poor Rude Lines.  Like Josephine Corcoran I tend to err towards blogs about poetry rather than blogs where an individual posts his or her poetry, although I quite like a mix of the two.

Poor Rude Lines
Poor Rude Lines – John Field

The first thing I love about Poor Rude Lines is that stunning masthead – go on, name all the poets depicted – and John’s use of photos to break up the text and enhance the reading experience. I was immediately drawn into his review of Fiona Moore’s The Only Reason for Time and quickly realised this is a marvellous reviews site, as well as much else. Check out the archives. John also appears to be a high quality Tweeter – worth following.

Cliff Yates
Cliff Yates – Poet, Writer, Teacher

I’m suitably embarrassed to admit I’ve only recently come across Cliff Yates. What can I say? This poetry world is a big ‘un, and I’m but a lowly ant picking my way across its vast acreage. How Cliff finds the time to blog I don’t know, he’s clearly a busy working poet and tutor and his ‘about’ page is inspirational. There’s a comprehensive blogroll, lots of resources for teaching poetry, useful links, details about Cliff’s books, workshops and other activities and yes, some of his poems too. The site is built on WordPress and has a workman-like visual theme, but for me it oozes generosity, warmth and down-to-earth-ness.

Another Lost Shark
Another Lost Shark – Graham Nunn

Established Australian poet Graham Nunn’s blog is Another Lost Shark, which is also the title of his publishing imprint. Graham’s blog documents his many collaborative poetry projects, most recently haiku walks and experiments with other Japanese poetic forms. I loved this post about how famous poems are being pasted on the side of garbage trucks during the Sydney Writers’ Festival (going on at the moment). Watch the video short, it’s brilliant. Cue a couple of workers in their hi-vis jackets taking a break from rubbish collection: “What are you reading, Barry?” “I’ve always been partial to a bit of Lord Tennyson…”

More new reading material, and some happy happenings

Some classic internet-enabled moments this week.

Firstly, my post about having received a free copy of Poetry magazine was picked up by Steven Critelli who alerted Don Share, senior editor of that venerable publication, who promptly lived up to his name and tweeted it …

don share tweet

Then one of the other participants going to the Ty Newydd course in October (Zoe Fiander) found this blog and left an introductory note for me, which was very nice.

And finally, not really serendipitous but a treat all the same, when Inpress ran out of ‘How to pour madness into a teacup’ (by the excellent Abegail Morley) and couldn’t fulfil my order, they (and the publisher Cinnamon Press) offered me another book from their list, by way of an apology. So, I got Abegail’s book from elsewhere and am also the proud owner of A Handful of Water, a new collection by Rebecca Gethin. So plenty of new reading material to look forward to!

today's postbag

Speaking of new material, The Rialto has also just dropped through my letterbox.

So I’m hoping all this high quality poetry nutrition will pay off soon in the form of some decent poems of my own.

But for now I’ll leave you with an extract from William Logan’s poem The Nude that Stays Nude in Poetry magazine, consisting basically of a whole list of new ‘don’ts’ for poets – one of which is

Don’t think what you have to say is important. The way you say it is important. What you have to say is rubbish.

This itself is a line a poem, so one has to take it with an ironic postmodern pinch of salt. Or not. You decide!