Category: Mags & Blogs

Mags & Blogs/

Brighton Stanza on top

Stanza Poetry Competition

Stanza Poetry Competition

First the good news: I got a note through a week or so ago from Paul McGrane at the Poetry Society saying my poem had been commended in the 2012 Stanza competition (judged by John Siddique), but the full results weren’t out until today. So what should I find, but that there are 2 other Brighton Stanza poets on the list of 10 commendeds – Tess Jolly and Tom Cunliffe. Hurrah for us all!

Tess is a friend primarily from Jo Grigg’s workshopping group, which has been a fantastic support and inspiration for me. She is a really talented poet and I’m so pleased to see her name coming up regularly in publications and comps.

So overall, I think that makes the Brighton Stanza the winner this year – thank to Jo for encouraging us all to take part. It’s only a small competition, but always nice to get a little recognition.

And the bad news? My submission to Ambit seems to have gone astray. So that’s 5 months of waiting for nothing. Boo! But the Ambit chaps were kind enough to respond to me on Twitter and suggested that if I re-submit I could mention what happened and they might put my poems a bit higher up the slush pile. Except now when I look at what I submitted, I don’t like them! So they deserve to be at the bottom!

Mags & Blogs/

Bad Robot Poetry

Yesterday was the launch of a new ezine, Bad Robot Poetry. Not sure where I read about it but I just think the title is so cool/groovy/excellent* – love the idea of BAD robots. In fact even just robots.

Lots of heady, ALT poetry on there already, including some stuff in Javascript or php or something – ha ha! Plus some creative screenshots. I particularly enjoyed the ‘How well do I know you’ sequence from Ben Beutel-Gunn (I’m not even sure if the names are real!)

Inspiration perhaps for the current Magma call for poems about ‘the soul and the machine’?

Anyway, more about Bad Robot in this promo video by founder/editor Catherine Woodward:

*delete whichever 2 adjectives you find the most ridiculous

Mags & Blogs/

Rejected but not cowed

Boo hoo

Oh well … I kind of suspected that the stuff I sent to Poetry London wasn’t going to blow Colette Brice’s socks off. So another sad little SAE plops on my doormat, tell-tale thin. Must do better!

Never mind, I shall blow the dust off, maybe do a little tweaking before trying them elsewhere. (I have a sonnet at the moment that I’m quite pleased with, but it does contain the word ‘erection’ in a context that could be seen to be gratuitous, so perhaps needs  a little work.)

Ambit still have some poems of mine in their intray, which I sent back in May, so I’m starting to wonder if they ever arrived, as 4 months seems a tad slow, even for Ambit.

So I need to get some other stuff off. Do it, woman, and stop talking about it!

Then there’s Saturday’s workshop with Mimi Khalvati looming… I don’t want to waste her time or mine by presenting something half-hearted for workshopping. Do I get out the Poetry London rejects and find out exactly why one of them didn’t make the grade? Do I chance the ‘erection’ poem and hope I don’t blush when reading it (there are men in the group)? Do I try to write something new in the next couple of days..? Ack.

Mags & Blogs/

Close encounter

Close encounter on the Tube

So there I was yesterday lunchtime getting on a tube at Oxford Circus on my way to Victoria and home, when I overhear the words ‘Rialto’ and ‘RSPB’ in the conversation to my right. Then, as one of the men in the group turned around I saw his luggage tag with what looked like a ‘The Rialto’ business card.

Could this be.. Michael Mackmin, legendary editor of the aforementioned first class poetry mag? Standing right next to me? I had 2 stops to make up my mind – do I say “excuse me, are you Michael Mackmin?” or maybe the less certain “excuse me, you’re not Michael Mackmin are you by any chance?”

I’ve done this sort of thing before and made an idiot of myself. Once in a restaurant I approached a party of jovial diners with a prominent flag on their table and asked them where in Germany they were from, only to be told they were Belgian, and I had mistaken their flag. But then again, as a teenager I was a tenacious autograph hunter, with no qualms about asking a tennis player to sign his name on my outstretched arm, or nabbing a famous footballer as he waited for his wife outside the toilets at Wimbledon.

So what’s the matter with me? I’m grown up now! Just say hello! What’s the worst that can happen? He answers “Er … no…” and thinks I’m a weird person who talks to strangers on tube trains. Or “Er … yes” and total embarassment from him while I say something gushing about “I thought so – I love your magazine and you gave me my first break and I’m eversograteful!” Or even “I thought so! I couldn’t help but overhear and then I saw your luggage tag…” making me sound like some sort of stalker – I mean, how likely is it in a city of millions that a poetry editor should have a chance encounter with a lowly contributor/reader outside of a poetry reading?

Time was nearly up. I looked at him again, I think I caught his eye. He looked very stern. Probably already had me marked as a weirdo. I wasn’t even sure it was him. But it must be him – how big is the Rialto? Surely there’s only him and Nathan Hamilton who I know is younger… but there are probably others…I hesitated. I hesitated and I wimped out. I said nothing –  NOTHING!

I then relived and replayed the moment in my mind for rest of the day, especially as I quickly found out that he was indeed in London to judge the RSPB/Rialto competition. Couldn’t I have just said hello???

I shared the experience with a poet friend, who admitted she wouldn’t have said anything either. Not only that, but “he’s a poet too – he would have hated it” – which actually made me feel a lot better. I had saved Michael Mackmin from a horribly embarassing moment. Which perhaps is my way of saying ‘thank you’ to him after all.

Angst/

Writing musings/ submissions etc

I’ve been grabbing the odd hour here and there to write while my other half watches the cricket highlights each day.

I need to submit some new stuff, so I need to write some new stuff. I’ve tentatively been trying to come up with something ‘humorous’ for the Moss Rich Prize. Yes I know I’ve told myself not to bother with competitions but as this one is local, has extended the deadline (so may be short of entries – ha!) plus the ‘humorous’ tag may put off many of the usual suspects.

So I’ve whipped up four shorties to try on it. Not sure if they’re ‘funny’ as such but should raise a wry half-smile with luck. But that’s just time and money down the drain really, whereas sumitting to magazines is more my bread and butter. I’ve work out at the moment for consideraton at Ambit and Poetry London, neither of which I’ve tried before and I’m not sure if I’ll hear from either for several months. That leaves 2 or 3 poems that are almost publishable, I think. But where to send?

Are they quirky enough for Obsessed with Pipework? Agenda and The North have both closed submissions for the time being. The Rialto has just published one from me and I don’t like to push my luck too often with them as I feel I’m in there by the skin of my teeth. Three forthcoming in Iota but they too seem to have significantly slowed down their production schedule. And Smith’s Knoll? I don’t know… I know the quick turnaround is great but in some ways it seems worse to get a rejection so quickly… it’s extra demotivating somehow, so I’m reluctant to try them again (it would be my 3rd time, and I tend not to pursue a publication more than twice without an acceptance – stupid I know, but there’s something psychological about it.) Plus, their website talks about the current publication being 2010 – I guess it’s hard to keep a website up with that strict 2 week turnaround to stick to, you’re too busy reading submissions. Nevertheless it makes me lose a little confidence in a publication and wonder if they still have an active publication schedule.

Both Charles at Obsessed with Pipework and Patricia at Agenda were most generous about work I have submitted before so I’m inclined to try them again. If what I’ve written is suitable. But then again I could always writing some more. Hmmm!

Mags & Blogs/

Out now – The Rialto 75

The Rialto: bedside reading for this week at least.

Very proud that I have a poem in it on page 50.

Rialto-75-cover-print-1-small

The Last

They’ve been coming since posters were invented:
sometimes in dreams, to the tipping of cowboy hats

or dressed in Liverpool shirts. Each one appeared
in my diary, in code. My mother wouldn’t explain,

I couldn’t ask.  And still they would come, insistent.
They left my body as they found it: I never wanted

them to stay, or change things. It’s been a while since
I wrote a diary. I don’t know how many there were,

I wasn’t counting.  Too busy getting on with
the business of getting on. For the last, though,

I would have thrown a party, marked the occasion
in some way, worn something red, if I had known.

Mags & Blogs/

Ambit at the Betsey Trotwood

Took Lucy along to an Ambit poetry night yesterday at the Betsey Trotwood pub, a little island of old London tahn amidst the chaos and cacophony of Farringdon Road and on the edge of Clerkenwell Green.

We weren’t prepared for the evening to start on time, but it did, so we missed a little of Kevin Crossley-Holland, and the upstairs room was COSY, but we really enjoyed the evening. Loved Jim Burns. Three headline poets and an entertaining short story from Eley Williams, plus an interesting open mic (with only one woman reading, most unusual).

Lucy did her bit riding the faders and even mopping up someone’s spilt beer (she likes to muck in!) and I bought a copy of Ambit, after hurling all sorts of unveiled hints about when I might hear about my submissions (I should never have had that, um, 2nd glass of wine). With a 9pm end we sauntered back to the station and had a very civilised ride home bypassing Victoria. And I didn’t get rained on. Result!

Mags & Blogs/

At the Plastic Bag Museum

these are the things
that carried the stuff
that people bought
see those loops
for hands – handles
they’re called

naturally they never
carried boxes
the corners would
poke through
split sides
you can see why

empties got crumpled
thrust into drawers
small thin ones used
to pick up dogs’ turds
the sturdier ones
for kitchen bins

some got buried
with their cousins or
stuck up trees years
later plucked free or
flushed out to sea
to bob in packs

some (not this one)
swallowed whole or
chomped through
by blue whales
wrapped round claws
or tails perhaps

you’ve seen one
you can’t get them
any more but feel
how smooth and thin
logo intact how
perfectly preserved

 

 

(published in Mslexia issue 53, March 2012)

Mags & Blogs/

Bumper latest news

Seagull_dieppe

Lots been happening lately.

Firstly, my good friend and very talented poet Charlotte Gann was shortlisted for the Michael Marks pamphlet award. Although she was pipped at the post it was a wonderful to see her pamphlet The Long Woman make the shortlist for a big prize.

Then, I had the chance to take part in a workshop here in Lewes with Mimi Khalvati. I’ve been on the ‘reserve’ list for a while and there’s now a strong possibility I may make the cut for the autumn dates.

It’s difficult to step into an established workshopping group where everyone else knows each other, and I had decided not to attend as a ‘fill in’ any more, but if I can become a regular member I think that will be much more helpful, for me and I’m sure for everyone else, as It’s not always useful to have a stranger turn up and launch into a critique of your work.

Also in June I finished a short course at the Poetry School with Jack Underwood, all about putting together a pamphlet. It was useful and fun, although I’m not sure I’d do a regular class in Lambeth again as travel to and from isn’t easy – the class over-ran every time and because I had to run for a train it meant I missed quite a lot. More about the pamphlet in another post. Met some interesting poets on the course, including Harry Man, Madeleine Wurzburger, Steve Boorman and Olly Todd.

Although I missed the Brighton Stanza meetup last month and will miss the next (am giving a talk to the London Writers’ Cafe group about blogging) I did make it to the Pighog poetry night at the RedRoaster Cafe in Brighton last week. It was a great evening, with John Davies, John McCullough and Rosy Carrick reading – I really enjoyed Rosy’s performance and was great to finally meet the lovely John McC who I feel I already know a little via Twitter and Facebook – I’m now enjoying reading his book The Frost Fairs. I did read at the open mic (just – they called it a day and then said ‘OK, we’ll take one more reader’) and got a ‘well done’ from John Davies afterwards, which was kind of him.

PS the photo was taken in Dieppe at the weekend, where it appears to be summer.

Mags & Blogs/

Hurrah! The Rialto takes another

Rialto

So excited to have had a poem accepted for The Rialto.

The first poem I had published was in this magazine (Rialto 70, Autumn 2010) and to say that I was ‘gobsmacked’ would be an understatement… only I’m not allowed to use that word in my husband’s presence as he believes it is an affront the English language.

The only trouble is … I wasn’t as proud of that particular poem as some of the stuff I’ve written more recently, plus since then I’ve had this nagging feeling it was a fluke, and I needed dear Michael Mackmin to say ‘YAY’ to another in order to revive that ever-ready to deflate tent that is my confidence.

So – phew! Very happy.

Also forthcoming are 3 poems in Iota, although I’m not sure when it’s coming out. Back in March I got a rejection from Iota, for the same three poems that had previously been accepted by the same. Very strange – eventually I realised it was because I had submitted twice – the first time I included my contact details on the poems and then realised that Iota operates an anonymous selection process. I was advised to re-submit, and it was the second submission that was rejected. 

It’s a good example of how the same poems can be wrong for a publication one week, and right for it the next – presumably down to things like what other poems are in the mix already, where the editor has a gap, etc. Maybe also what they read that morning or had for lunch. Who knows – but it was a good illustration of how you should not give up too easily on a poem just because it gets rejected a few times.