Category: Mags & Blogs

Angst/

Summer reading, thinking & waiting

After a couple of weeks of what’s felt like full-on socialising in our sunny garden, I’m enjoying a quiet day alone catching up, which means giving my blogs a little TLC. On the subject of which, I was delighted to come across this observation in Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary, in the entry for January 20th 1919:

entry from V Woolf's 'A Writer's Diary'

… would VW say the same of blogging, I wonder? People sometimes ask me if blogging takes up a lot of time, but for me it has to be the fastest of writing jobs, because I confess I really don’t spend much time editing. I read it as I go along and sometimes delete entire passages, but the decision is usually made quickly, I don’t think too hard & long. I do try to pick up on typos or bits or grammatical clunkiness before hitting ‘publish’, but just as often things slip through. And I kind of like that -makes it more like regular speech I think. And I certainly wouldn’t want to miss out on any ‘diamonds of the dust heap’!

Submissions update

Poetry magazines seem to be having a (no doubt well-earned) summer hiatus in terms of dealing with submissions, and I haven’t started writing anything new in a few weeks. We should all be outside topping up our Vitamin D anyway. Here’s what are currently out to magazines:

3 poems out for 499 days (yes really  – I’ve sort of decided these are probably dead, and I’m aware of/sympathetic to the reason for the length, but there they are, still heading up the list with their ghostly, greyed-out presence)

4 poems out for 195 days (28 weeks) – patience is a virtue

4 poems out for 107 days (15 weeks) – OK, not tapping my foot yet

3 poems out for 68 days (10 weeks) – this one is tricky, as I asked to withdraw one of them on Submittable, but the system only allowed me to withdraw the whole lot, so I’m not sure if two of them are still under consideration or not. I haven’t resubmitted them elsewhere, just in case… which is probably a bit silly, but there you go.

3 poems out for 34 days (5 weeks) – it’s early yet

In addition I’ve got five individual poems out to competitions (a rather high number for me, but I suppose I was running out of suitable/available magazines to submit to) and three pamphlets out to competitions. One of these has been ‘long listed’ by Live Canon, which of course I’m very happy about, but there’s no telling when the final results will come, I suspect not before the autumn. Another pamphlet went to Templar Poetry for their I-Shots competition, the results of which were due (according to their website) by the end of June. However there are no results on the website, and I’ve not heard anything from them, although I have tried asking them nicely on Twitter. I’ve taken this to mean they’re not interested in my pamphlet, which is fine, and I’ve now sent another version of it elsewhere. However, when you pay a fee to enter a pamphlet competition (in this case £18 – and which I’m very happy to do by the way) I don’t think it’s too much to expect a simple email to say ‘sorry, not this time’ or whatever, or acknowledgement of a polite query. Am I being unreasonable?

Current reading

Lots of lovely stuff on the pile at the moment, alongside the aforementioned VW diary, and the recently re-discovered and excellent Feel Free, a collection of Zadie Smith essays, I’ve also got Vanitas by Ann Drysdale (Shoestring) which I’m reviewing for The Frogmore Papers, and two Smith Doorstop pamphlets recently given to me by Marion Tracy: The Topiary of Passchendale by Christopher North and Sleeve Catching Fire at Dawn by Madeleine Wurzburger (now there’s a TITLE!)

I’m also having a bit of a Camus moment. I wonder if the current state of the Western world is driving me to Absurdism? I think it’s taken me forty years to shake off the association of Camus with the horror of French A level and finally return to him as an adult. Anyway, I’ve read and re-read his strange little essay in ‘The sea close by’, and am looking forward to tackling The Myth of Sisyphus in a Penguin ‘Great Ideas’ edition with a very satisfying cover design featuring embossing. All adds to the sense of anticipation!

Books on the reading pile July 2019

 

 

 

 

Blog/

Poems, schmoems. Couple acceptances, a bit of rejection but hey.

Well hello! I am feeling epic. Not because I’ve suddenly won some dough or got a call from Faber. No!

Health update (feel free to skip!)

You may recall my moaning on about my bad back or whatever. It seems to be something else entirely that’s been sapping me of energy and slowly seizing up my joints to the point of what felt like Permanent Old Ladydom, the mystery has I think been solved. It looks like I have a condition with the important-sounding name of Polymyalgia Rheumatica, which nobody is supposed to get before they hit at least 70 apparently. So for various reasons I don’t fit the profile, except that my brother has also had it, and if he hadn’t said ‘your symptoms sound just like mine’, I would never have been diagnosed. So THANK YOU that bro of mine. The key facts for me to take in are 1) no-one knows what causes it (funny how that’s often the case when it’s a condition mostly affecting women) 2) there is no cure  and 3) one can only wait for it to go into remission, which takes at least 2 years.

But the good news is that there’s a drug that suppresses the symptoms, and for once in my life I have given in Big Time to Big Pharma. Within hours of taking the magic pills I felt about 20 years younger. I am honestly not exaggerating. I am Lazarus. I can function again, and it feels like I’ve got a second chance at life – more so even than after having cancer. So here I am taking a long-term, systemic drug after always saying I never would. I accept there may be side effects but I will manage them. I’m sleeping right through the night. I’m starting to write again. It’s even kicked me and Nick into a new resolve to eat low-carb and take better care of ourselves. So all good.

Quick submissions summary

Poems currently out, to magazines: 11, competitions: just the Bridport (ha) and two pamphlets. One of the pamphlets was ‘long listed’ by Live Canon.

Three more poems rejected by Shearsman, two pamphlets sunk without trace in competitions.

Three poems accepted by Morphrog, one ‘highly commended’ in the Ver Poets comp.

Recent readings

No full readings lately but I did go to the launch of Magma 74 last week and read my ‘hospitality management’ poem. It was a really good night – great to hear many of the poems read, and a chance to catch up with several poet friends including Jayne Stanton, Alison Brackenbury and Hilaire (who read very calmly from London Undercurrents at only five minutes’ notice!), say hello to others who I know either slightly or met for the first time, such as Maura Dooley, Carole Bromley and Stuart Charlesworth, as well as editors Pauline Sewards and Benedict Newbery (a fellow Live Canon longlistee). The venue in Exmouth Market was fun – with a very high but tiny stage. Here are a few pics, not sure who took the medley of pics that appeared on Twitter:

Readers at the launch of Magma 74

 

Here are Benedict and Pauline doing the intros (a bit fuzzy, sorry):

Launch of Magma 74

Two days later I took a wee trip to St Albans, just north of London outside the M25, and it was actually a very easy journey by train  as there was no need to change in London. I was a bit ashamed I’d never been there before, as I like visiting cathedrals and cathedral cities where there’s often a lovely historic vibe.

I was there for the Ver Poets competition readings, so I got to read my HC poem ‘Next best thing’ and hear all the winning poems, some of which were read by the poets themselves. It was a lovely surprise to see Peter Raynard there, as I hadn’t realised St Albans is actually his manor.

Adjudicator Kathryn Maris gave a really thoughtful and kind introduction. At the end, a cheque was presented to a lady from the OLLIE Foundation, a charity that provides funding for suicide prevention skills training for any individual or community that wants it. I wasn’t aware that proceeds from the competition were given to charity in this way, and was impressed. Personally, I think if this was made more explicit in the promo material it may encourage even more entries.

I don’t have any pics of the event but I’m looking forward to reading The Book of Jobs, Kathryn Maris’s first full collection, a copy of which I picked up while I was there.

Oh and here are a couple of photos I took of the Abbey:

St Albans Abbey

st-albans-abbey

 

 

Blog/

New reading: Magma 74 and the Laureate’s Choice Anthology

Laureate's Choice Anthology and Magma 74

The new edition of Magma, edited by Benedict Newbery and Pauline Sewards, is dedicated to ‘work’, a subject close to my heart. It’s always puzzled me why there appears to be so little written about traditional (or otherwise) workplaces, given how many hours of many people’s lives are given over to work (in the sense of ‘earning a living’, although of course the Magma editors were hoping for plenty of poems about ‘work’ in its wider sense.)

Sarah Mnatzaganian‘s ‘Laying up’ appeared to me with its rich nautical vocabulary (‘…until our halves meet / and lie without stretch or slack, / my luff to your leech, head to your foot, / clew to your tack, throat to your peak’). I loved the evocation of a mass laying off (a subject I’ve tried to write about myself) by Fokkina McDonnell, ‘The empty hours’, with its matter-of-factness capturing the reality of having to stay dispassionate when tasked with an uncomfortable job (‘If we’d stayed at the Bridge Hotel, Kendal, staff / would have recognised us from last time, / would’ve made phone calls last night.’)  Steve Kendall‘s ‘Emotional Labour’ beautifully captures that feeling of doing what is essentially a meaningless job, with random rules and procedures (‘I must send it to whoever’s desk is equidistant from / the first addressee and Emma’), embroidering one’s thoughts with whatever it takes to make it through the day. I think my own poem comes under the category of ‘a bit offputting’, with its crossed out words and slightly odd title (‘Hospitality Management (Diploma) Enrol Now £2,400’). I hope it doesn’t put everyone off reading it though. I know I can be a bit impatient with this sort of thing, rather like my first thoughts about Shaun Carter‘s ‘<title> The office sound in broken code </title>’ – reading through broken code is a bit too close to home for me!

Magma‘s featured poet in this issue is Tom Sastry, who seems to be having a bit of a moment. He also pops up in The Laureate’s Choice Anthology (smith|doorstop), a selection of work chose by Carol Ann Duffy during her tenure as Poet Laureate. As a side note, I did first hear about the ‘Laureate’s Choice’ from Carol Ann when I was on a course with her and Gillian Clarke at Ty Newydd back in 2013. She asked me then (as well as a couple of others) to send her my pamphlet manuscript, for consideration. I didn’t really understand what it was about, but I sent her it anyway. Nothing came of it, but David Borrott, who was on the same course, made the cut. So when this anthology came through my door I was only a TINY BIT bitter!)

But back to Tom Sastry – his poems did rather jump out at me for their originality and intrigue. I loved ‘Difference’, a telling snapshot of a relationship running on parallel lines, the sadness of ‘The Office’ (‘You can bring the name of a bird/ in from the outside, if you like. You can bring its call/ on your ringtone…’ and the simple beauty of ‘Waking’ (‘I dreamt that we were older. It didn’t matter at all.’)

I enjoyed a huge number of the poems in this anthology. Just flicking through again I’m reminded of a few:  Yvonne Reddick‘s ‘The Bait’, Mark Pajak‘s ‘Spitting Distance’, David Borrott‘s ‘felicitous blending of figure and landscape’ and ‘Wolf Fell’, John Fennelly’s ‘Those flowers’.

The anthology doesn’t have a foreword, which is a shame, as I’d like to have read something by Carol Ann talking about the thinking behind the project and her selections. Some of the poets are clearly newcomers, whereas others I would describe as established already,  with full collections and awards to their name. It’s true that they were picked up over a five-year period – the first Laureate’s Choice collections were published in 2015. Nevertheless it makes for an interesting mix of work.

The Laureate’s Choice Anthology is available now from The Poetry Business, £10.

I’ll be reading (and possibly explaining a bit about my poem) at the London launch of Magma 74 on Thursday 6th July, 6.30pm at Exmouth Market, alongside many fine poets including Lorraine Mariner and Alison Brackenbury. Perhaps see you there?

Blog/

New poetry magazine: Finished Creatures

Finished Creatures

I first met Jan Heritage at the house of the late and much missed Jo Grigg. Jo was the coordinator of the Brighton Stanza and to be invited to her writing ‘salons’ was a real privilege. That must have been getting on for ten years ago.

For a quite a while the idea of starting a new poetry magazine had been bubbling under for Jan, so when she put out a call for submissions late last year I was excited to see it happening. I sent her two poems, knowing full well she’s fair but firm in her critiques and wouldn’t be publishing her mates for the sake of it. So it was lovely to find I had a poem accepted, and last night was the first of two launch events. I was planning to go, until I decided this current flare-up of sciatica was only going to be made worse by three hours on a train. So instead, here I am at my standing desk blogging about the mag, and looking forward to reading others’ accounts of the event.

For a first issue, Finished Creatures has an impressive contributors roll-call. Alongside established names such as Philip Gross, Pippa Little and Paul Stevenson are many that are new to me. Poems that jumped out at me on first reading were ‘My American Child’ by Amuja Ghimire, ‘Trigonometry’ by Claire Collison, ‘from the IKEA back catalogue’ by Lisa Kelly and Caroline Hammond’s ‘Deep Water Warning.’

The production quality is high, and I have to applaud Jan’s design and layout skills… there are some very visual poems in this book, and getting the correct spacing isn’t easy. Then there’s the proofing, the ordering, the decisions about typeface, pagination and so on. Yes, there is software, but software is only as good as the human using it, and there’s no software like the human eye with its brain attached. Having laid out the Telltale TRUTHS anthology last year I can personally vouch for the number of woman-hours that went into this magazine. Jan has a background in publishing, and it shows.

The magazine came with a matching bookmark, in a beautiful envelope with old-fashioned string fastening. Classy stuff, 84 pages and well worth the £7 price.

Is it madness to start yet another poetry magazine? Only if you look at it with the eye of a business person. We all know there’s NO money in poetry but I think there’s always room for another beautiful journal. It will be interesting to see how Finished Creatures develops in terms of content, themes and (dare I say it) ongoing funding. I’m so pleased for Jan. What a triumph.

Read all about it here – and you can get a copy of the historic first issue by emailing poetry@finishedcreatures.co.uk – it’s £7 plus £1.50 postage.

Blog/

Pre-Cork checklist

banshee magazineAlthough I’m going to miss my writer’s group this week it’s for a good reason, as I’ll be in Ireland for the Cork International Poetry Festival, which sounds rather grand, but so far my impression is that it’s going to be a chilled affair, perhaps not as intimate as Swindon but not as scary as Aldeburgh in its Snape Maltings days. Having booked for all the sessions online it was lovely (and unexpected) to receive the slightly ‘alt’ programme in the post. I’ve been googling various poets so that I’m not entirely in the dark when I go hear them read. I’ve also come across at least one ‘fringe’ or rival event on Thursday night, so perhaps there’ll be a bit of poetry gunslinging. All adding to the good energy no doubt. Anyway, you’ll be the first to hear about what goes on as I’ll certainly be writing the odd blog post… but I’ve promised myself some serious writing time each morning. The weather forecast is rain, so what better than to hole up in the warm and dry, reading fine poetry and writing, um, poetry?

Meanwhile I’ve been dipping my toe in the Irish poetry scene with Banshee, three back issues of which arrived in the post, together with a nifty tote which may well come in handy in the next few days. So far so good – and I’ve been enjoying the essays as much as the poems. I do enjoy creative non-fiction and for me it sits well with poetry, whereas I struggle to switch my attention between poetry and short stories. This hasn’t occurred to me before so it’s an interesting discovery.

A couple of things: Martyn Crucefix asked me to mention his current project Works and Days of Division – basically he is posting 29 new, original poems in which he wrestles with Brexit. The form he’s following is an old one. “The so-called vacana poems originate in the bhakti religious protest movements in 10-12th century India. Through plain language, repetition and refrain, they offer praise to the god, Siva, though they also express personal anger, puzzlement, even despair.” A thoughtful alternative to the current political “debate” and one which dwells more on what Martyn terms the “psychological fallout”.  Here’s today’s poem, ‘O Twitterstorm’.

And surfacing on on Twitter, this gem of a poem by Claire Cox was voted the Poem of the Month on Ink, Sweat & Tears: ‘The card given out at his funeral’. Lovely stuff.

Blog/

City walk, a workshop, Van Halen & Jo Bell’s ‘Kith’

This is the first year in a while that I haven’t been driving up to the Southbank for the T S Eliot Prize readings this evening. I’ll look forward to reading all about it on various blogs.

I’m having a catchup day between jaunts. Last week was the first session in Katy Evans-Bush‘s fortnightly small-group poetry workshop up in Clerkenwell. I’m planning to make these Wednesdays into interesting trips to London by adding on other activities. The way the train tickets work is that you can’t leave London between 4 and 7pm on a weekday, without paying another £34. So since I can’t come straight home after the workshop, why not do something else?

detail from the Queen Victoria statue in front of Buckingham Palace, London

Last month when Nick and I were in town for a night, we spent a lovely morning just walking around and discovering so many quirky things we’d never noticed before. So after the workshop this week I decided to walk back to Victoria from Clerkenwell, taking my time, looking at statues and interesting buildings as I go and just being a pedestrian. I didn’t dawdle but I didn’t rush – along Theobalds Road towards Holborn, past the lovely gardens of Gray’s Inn, through Theatreland to Piccadilly Circus, down through leafy St James’s and Pall Mall, past the looming Duke of York’s monument and down steps to The Mall, up to Buckingham Palace and onto Victoria Station. I may have been the only pedestrian who wasn’t in a hurry. I didn’t check Google Maps or stress about best roads to take, just followed my nose. It was brilliant. I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy my ‘city walks’, and I plan to try different routes each time. The nice thing is that if I change my mind there’s always a bus to get part or all of the way. I know it sounds silly but I’m so used to getting around central London on public transport that it’s a real revelation to find how easy it is to walk places.

The workshop itself was really useful, so much so that the poem I’d taken for feedback was tidied up the next day and sent out. Yes! In fact I’ve gone a bit crazy since my last blog post and sent out no less than fourteen poems. You read that right! I just looked through all my current stuff and thought, this is ridiculous, what am I waiting for? So they’re out the door. Amazingly, three have already found a home: Charles Johnson at Obsessed with Pipework is so good at responding quickly, and JUMPED on my poem ‘The Metallurgy of Eddie van Halen’ (see what I did there?). In fact I think I probably wrote it with OWP in mind. Anyway, it’s given me an immediate shot of confidence for the new year. Huzzah! This is how I feel!

On Friday I was in Reading at the excellent Poets’ Cafe at the invitation of Claire Dyer, and I have to say it was brilliant. The organisation, promotion of the event, the venue, the lovely audience and everything was so good. Things like being asked ‘can I just check how you pronounce your name’ is the sign of a professional set-up. I want to mention in particular the lovely hosting by Becci Louise Fearnley. Do get along to the Poets’ Cafe in Reading if you can, it’s every month at South Street Arts Centre. Highly recommended.

In the post this week, a little treat:

Kith by Jo Bell

I started reading it over a cup of tea and couldn’t stop. Consumed in one sitting! That has to be a recommendation. I loved it, and kept thinking OOH I wish I’d written that. So, another good omen for the year ahead. It’s not brand new, but dammit it’s good. Kith by Jo Bell (Nine Arches Press) is currently on offer for just £4.99 – Yes! You read that right! Half price! Buy it!

Blog/

Updated – poetry magazine submissions windows

It’s December which means I’m updating the list of magazine submissions windows.

If you ordered A Guide to Getting Published in UK Poetry Magazines then you should have received a version of the list which I updated last month (if you didn’t get the list then I apologise – but this latest version should be coming to you today or tomorrow).

If the last list you received was dated September, then here’s what’s new since then:

The list now contains detail of over 80 journals.

  • NEW journals added: 11
  • Journals with updated information: 26
  • Those with windows open now, some closing quite soon:  15*
  • Those currently closed but opening either later this month or in January:  6 
  • Those which welcome submissions at any time: 32

*I would draw your attention to Popshot which closes tomorrow 4th December, also Magma closing on the 8th and Modern Poetry in Translation on 14th.

Also, Ink Sweat & Tears is once again running a ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ call for submissions which is open NOW but closing on 9th December.

A new magazine launching in the Spring, Finished Creatures, opens for submissions next Monday 10th December.

As ever, I’m grateful to people for telling me about amends, additions and so forth.

I’ll be sending it out shortly, as a PDF with clickable links to the submissions pages of each magazine’s website.

This is a free service. If you’re not on the emailing list for quarterly updates and would like to be, either tell me in the comments below or drop me a line – robin at robinhoughtonpoetry dot co dot uk.

A Guide to Getting Published in UK Poetry Magazines by Robin Houghton

A Guide to Getting Published in UK Poetry Magazines

A great companion to the quarterly updated list. The first print run sold out in ten days!

It’s now back in stock, so visit this page to read all about it, including testimonials, and buy for £5 (postage free within in the UK). 

Blog/

Small milestones

'The Other Foot' by Robin Houghton, from 'Foot Wear' (2017)At the end of October it was my birthday, and over a boozy supper my dear husband suggested we do a ‘dry November’. I couldn’t think of a reason why not – no social events planned, Christmas to look forward to, and I certainly couldn’t face giving up alcohol for January, the most depressing month of the year. So November seemed like a good time to try the Ultimate Detox. I wasn’t fantastically optimistic we’d manage it to be honest. But here we are, 16 days in and holding strong. Fingers crossed!

It may seem like a minor thing, and perhaps a bit sad, but if my willpower keeps going to the end of the month it will feel like a mighty achievement. Other things I’m celebrating other than half a month without a drink: two and a half years so far free of cancer (without having taken the drugs), and my ‘how to get published in UK poetry magazines’ booklet selling out in ten days. This was amazing to me – and I wish I’d had more copies printed in the first place because it would have been so much more cost-effective than having to do a second print run. On the plus side, I’ve tested the market and (so far) have had some wonderful feedback. If you’ve bought it, and if you’re one of the lovely people who’s shared it and endorsed it on social media, thank you so much!

Having had my head down working on ‘the book’ my poetry writing has been a bit inconsistent lately. I received a rejection from Rattle – not entirely unexpected as it would be amazing to have a poem accepted there. Poems I sent to a couple of comps crashed and burned. Meanwhile the Poetry News theme of ‘the abstract space’ had left all of us in the Hastings Stanza a bit bemused. Having said that I did send a couple of poems in the end. I was quite pleased with one of them, so even if doesn’t work for P News I have hopes for it. I also sent three poems to Magma on the theme of ‘work’ – would be ridiculous if I did not, having banged on about my work-themed poems for so many years. An interesting thing: as I bundled these three together I realised there was another unifying theme, and something I’ve spotted elsewhere in my own poems. It’s starting to look hopeful for the much-talked-about first collection. Now that WOULD be a milestone. I almost daren’t say it!

Blog/

Forward Prizes, Poetry Book Fair – big poetry week

Free Verse Poetry Book Fair 2018

It’s a good thing it’s pouring with rain today as I have every excuse to stay indoors, write, bake bread and plan this week’s garden tasks. I don’t know about my fellow poets but I’m all for a bit of quiet reflective time after the excitement of the Forward Prizes on Tuesday and then Free Verse the Poetry Book Fair yesterday.

It was my first visit to the Forward Prize readings, at the suggestion of Sarah Barnsley who was cockahoop when Abigail Parry got shortlisted for Best First Collection. They are friends and colleagues at Goldsmith’s, and Abi read with the Telltale poets and also contributed a fine poem to our TRUTHS anthology earlier in the year. Needless to say we cheered her on, and although she missed out on the prize (awarded to Phoebe Power for Shrines of Upper Austria (Carcanet) Abigail gave a confident and fluid reading from her collection Jinx (Bloodaxe). Interestingly this prize is sponsored by the Felix Dennis Trust. You may not know this, but Felix Dennis was an extraordinary person – a publisher, poet, philanthropist and amazing planter of trees – over a million in his lifetime, and many more still to come. When he died in 2014 he left £150 million of his fortune to carry on the planting of a 30,000 acre forest of native English trees not far from Shakespeare’s Stratford. What a guy.

I really enjoyed the evening, especially hearing Tracey K Smith, Danez Smith (eventual winner of the Prize for Best Collection, and an electric performer of his work which clearly has page-appeal not just stage-appeal), Shivanee Ramlochan, Fiona Benson and Liz Berry, who won the Best Single Poem prize.

A bit of schmoozing in the foyer but as usual with evening events in London you’re always on a knife-edge of anticipation as to whether you’re going to make it home without incident, Southern Rail being so unreliable. So we didn’t linger. But then I knew the Poetry Book Fair would be a more leisurely occasion for catching up with poet folk.

So to yesterday, and the Poetry Book Fair (now actually the Poetry Book and Magazine Fair) in its new venue, the Senate House of the University of London. The Poetry Society have taken over the running of the event after its having been established over several years by Chrissy Williams and Joey Connolly. I think the organisational mind behind it this year was Julia Bird, and although I wasn’t able to get to any of the readings taking place during the day the whole thing seemed to run smoothly and attract a huge crowd. It was some sort of Heritage Open Day yesterday so the building was buzzing with visitors anyway – I wonder if a few non-poetry people came into the fair to see what it was about? I hope so – there must have been getting on for a hundred exhibitors/vendors with so much on offer.

At the Poetry Book fair 2018

I was helping to ‘person’ the Frogmore Press half-table, giving publisher Jeremy Page a few breaks. I think I sold one book. Sorry Jeremy! In my defence I can only say that I was next to Joanne Clement of Butcher’s Dog magazine, who turned out to be sales supremo. Respect to that woman!

This is maybe the first year I’ve felt at home at the Book Fair, maybe because I felt I knew more people – and I liked the addition of magazines. I had a chance to catch up with Robert Harper (Bare Fiction), Peter Raynard (Proletarian Poetry and Culture Matters), Tamar Yoseloff (Hercules Editions – I was excited to snap up number 12 of 300 copies of The Practical Visionary by Chris McCabe and Sophie Herxheimer) and Jane Commane (Under the Radar/Nine Arches).  Also lovely to meet Claire Walker of Atrium Poetry and  poet Clare Crowther, who co-edits Long Poem Magazine and who I had a long conversation with before we sort of realised who each other were – typical of these events where it’s noisy, everyone seems to be out of context and it’s not always easy to join up the dots quickly enough, brief ‘hellos’ with Richard Skinner, Jess Mookherjee, Sarah James, Brian Docherty, Mike Sims, Jill Abram, Mike Bartholomew-Briggs & Nancy Mattson…. I think I was a bit lightheaded by the time I spoke with Carrie Etter, as I was on the point of leaving, although hopefully she didn’t think I’d been too long down the pub (I didn’t get there at all, honest!)

I’m a real sucker for beautiful books, pamphlets, bookmarks or anything made of paper, frankly. Yes I know that sounds a bit superficial. But I had a budget, so couldn’t buy every lovely object. I had very nice conversations with publishers I’d not come across before, and it’s great to support them if possible, for example the lovely folk from Boatwhistle Books. Besides, buying books on spec is fun – you never know what you’re going to like, so why not take a punt? One can always pass copies on to friends if you decide it hasn’t earned a place on your bookshelf.

Is it me, or is there often a slightly surreal element to these events? It’s the people-watching thing of course – so these are the people who read/write poetry! Then Jeremy told me we were in the very room where Keeley Hawes as the Home Secretary got murdered in Bodyguard. (Or did she???) Even more mysterious was the odd waft of mothballs as I steered through the hubbub of poetry-browsers. Could it have been emanating from clothing (“It’s the Poetry Book fair luv – I’ll just get my jacket out of mothballs”) or from the books themselves (“here’s that 30 year-old box of copies from the loft – let’s sell them as ‘vintage’ editions”)…?? Anyway, by 4pm someone was resorting to market-stall tactics, yelling GET YER SONNETS HERE! and when Jeremy offered me the chance to slope off I confess I did so. But not without a good haul of new reading and a warm poetry-shaped glow – just what I needed to negotiate the train journey home.

Blog/

New: how-to guide to submitting to UK poetry magazines, plus new collaborations

New book!

With the UK poetry magazines submissions windows spreadsheet becoming so popular, I’ve decided to take it step further: a how-to booklet – everything you need to know about submitting to UK poetry mags – well, pretty much everything apart from how to write stunning poems – ha ha! I leave that kind of advice well and truly up to others!

There will be honest advice from magazine editors, tips on how to minimise your admin, dealing with rejections, up-to-date magazine profiles, mistakes to avoid… and more. As much as I can squish into a pocket-book, basically. Expect bullets, calls to action, URLs and minimal padding. This will be a lean, mean fact-packed machine. Magazine submissions is a topic that comes up regularly on this blog and always generates questions and discussion, so let’s get stuck in.

More details to follow soon.

Collaboration for Poetry in Aldeburgh

I love autumn and its sense of re-starting, of new opportunities. A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to take part in Maria Isakova Bennett‘s Aldeburgh Collaborative, a project involving poets all over the country sharing a moment at the coast on the last day of August. Maria is the artist-in-residence at the Poetry in Aldeburgh festival in November, alongside Michael Brown, and her collaborative piece will be on display there. It’s sure to include hand-stitching and a strong visual element. Here’s a fascinating interview with Maria on Paul Stevenson’s blog where she talks to him about her projects.

Another potential collaboration

I was recently contacted by a visual artist who liked a poem of mine on the Mary Evans Picture Library ‘Poems and Pictures’ website called ‘Ladies’ Hour’. She has in mind a collaborative project which sounds really exciting. We’re both new to collaborations, but we’re both at the same sort of stage in our careers and looking for new challenges. Of course there’s the usual issue of funding to apply for first. I also need to stay focused on my first collection, although this new project would be spread out through the year. I’ll keep you posted as to how it pans out.

Magazine news

The Rialto has just opened its window for poetry submissions. It’s a fantastic magazine to get work into, with a fine reputation. It’s competitive, but Michael Mackmin and his assistant editors are always open to new voices. Good luck.

Not really news, but I’ve just taken out a subscription to Strix, a new-ish magazine produced in Leeds (thank you to Heidi Beck for the recommendation) and am loving first of all the presentation. OK I know looks aren’t everything, but it’s joyful when you have something of beauty in your hands. I’m also already enjoying the poetry inside, work by Julie Mellor and Helen Burke in particular.