Category: Workshopping

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.

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.

Close readings/

From first draft to publication

Something of an experiment today. I love seeing those handwritten drafts of famous poems, with the crossings out and alterations, such as this version of Wilfred Owen’s ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ at the British Library. I think it’s fascinating to see how people work on poems, and in workshops I often wonder how a particular piece is going to change, and why.

We don’t often get to see the full journey of a poem, so I thought I’d have a bit of fun with the idea and take one of mine to show how and why it changed, what happened when I workshopped it. It’s one that eventually won The New Writer competition and was published in their anthology edition this summer, in other words, ‘finished’ in one sense of the word (if poems are ever finished?) Warning: this is a long post.

Here’s the first draft (13-10-12):

Waiting for the bus

He cuts the engine at eleven twenty,
leaves the radio going, eighties pop.
Turning, I cup hands to my temples,

press them to the window, strain
to make visual sense of the black
outside. The driver sits back, lights up.

A few people look about to leave.
Heads slouched in sleep lift expectantly,
backpacks are pulled down from racks

Someone fills the aisle with his body.
Thigh brushing my knee, he murmurs
an apology. Next to me, Terry’s hand

on the headrest in front, taps along
to the Annie Lennox song that’s playing.
Let’s get out, he says, so we do, but

at the roadside I lose sight of my feet
and with them my confidence. Terry’s arm
is outstretched, pointing at a star

low on the horizon, adrift from Orion,
faint at first but stronger with each blink,
a desert lighthouse. It’s coming, he says.

From the minibus, a shout. Figures move
around inside, fetching their things.
Relax, I hear the driver say, not yet,

it’s at least twenty minutes away.
So we watch as the dot grows fat, splits
into four, ploughing the highway, thirty

miles in its own time, kicking up red dust.
I wonder at what point we are visible:
Giralia turn off, junction with Burkett Road,

midnight pickup, nowhere for a drink,
the drivers greeting each other, a dirty laugh,
radio patter in the background, Eternal Flame.

There were some things I liked about this – the radio playing in the background was important and I thought the detail of the eighties pop (Annie Lennox, Eternal Flame) were good. I wanted to get across the sheer blackness of the night, the emptiness of the landscape, the boredom of waiting. The key thing is the idea of the bus approaching from so far away that although its headlights are visible, it still takes ages to arrive. The loneliness, the sense of being utterly out of place.

But – although you could say there was too much ‘telling the story’ and ‘he says… he says’ I decided to go further down that route, make it richer, go into ‘overdrive’ mode which for me usually means the lines get longer and sentences denser. Should the sparseness of the landscape make the details stand out more? Would more detail of the inside of the bus throw the emptiness of the landscape into sharper relief?

The next complete draft was five stanzas of 8 lines. (Did I have a competition in mind??) Much of it was unchanged, but with some detail added:

…
A man fills the aisle with his body,
starts talking loudly in bent vowels.
Ocker – this from Terry, his hand
on the chrome bar of the seatback,
tapping to an Annie Lennox song.
  (from draft 3, 16-10-12)

The title had changed to ‘Leave no trace’, a phrase which appears in the third stanza. The original, ‘Waiting for the bus’ just sounded so pedestrian to me, especially as the bus is so clearly depicted. Need something more intriguing!

I wasn’t happy with the heavy blocks of lines, the look of it. So the next complete version was in quatrains, six stanzas, but much longer lines. I renamed it again, to ‘Midnight pickup, junction with Burkett Road’ and took it to a workshop with Mimi Khalvati and a group of excellent poets.

The comments I got were that there was too much telling of the story, that the ideas ‘peek through’ in some places but the heavy narrative was obscuring it. I’d altered the last stanza and wanted to end with the ‘swapping’ of the passengers getting off with those getting on, but in the course of so doing had introduced another, confusing theme:

…
I wonder at what point we are visible, Giralia turn off, midnight pickup.
The twice weekly ritual of hard grind across desert, stopping here
where there are no signs, for the swapping of human cargo, this thought
as we climb on, as behind us the radio fades to black: Eternal Flame. (d5, 20-10-13)

“Is it about human trafficking?” someone wanted to know, and suddenly images of a war torn landscape and body bags were interfering. Clearly the ‘human cargo’ bit was misleading. Mimi’s advice was to listen. Where’s the poetry? Cut the cord between what actually happened (if indeed it did) and what the poem wants to be about. “Tension between two elements is good but conflict isn’t.” She singled out the two middle stanzas as being ‘where the poetry lay’:

At the roadside I lose sight of my feet and with them my confidence.
Am I wearing shoes? What planet is this? Nothing above or around
but stars fat as glitterballs, too huge to fit my eye, impossible to gauge
where anything stops or starts in this landscape, or guess who’s here

with us, the nocturnals, how many sets of eyes. Our presence
is no more than a fly on a kangaroo’s tail – we will leave no trace.
Terry is pointing at a dot low on the horizon, adrift from Orion,
faint at first, but stronger with each blink, a desert lighthouse. It’s coming.

There was so much good advice to think about. I put the poem away for a month, then went back to it. The next version was pretty close. Suddenly the focus is quite different, and the ‘lost feet’ have been elevated to the opening line. The drafts are getting shorter so here’s the whole thing:

Midnight pickup

My feet are lost at the roadside.
You ask what planet this is –
impossible to say, or gauge
starting points in the landscape.
I hear the nocturnals: tenacious,
strutting. By day they scratch
brutal lives in the shadows,
dry faeces and shuttered eyes.
I can see nothing above or around
but glitterball stars too fat
to fit my eye, on black horizon
a single dot hanging adrift
from Orion, a whisper, faint
at first, but stronger with each blink,
a desert lighthouse. It’s coming.

My breath is as slow as it takes
for a dot to grow big as a bus.
I wonder at what point
we are visible, Giralia turn off,
junction with Burkett Road?
Can we really be found
in the frayed desert, will anything
stop here, where there are no signs,
for the swapping of humans,
attracting the invisible gaze
of lizards, marsupials, snakes,
their ancient paths disturbed?
I hang in your constellation,
unsure if my eyes are open,
trusting, heading North.

(d7, 22-11-12)

I was reasonably happy with this, but not entirely. So I took it to another lovely workshopping group. Immediately, things came to light that were so obvious I couldn’t believe I’d missed them: ‘nocturnal’ animals sleep by day, so what’s this about them scratching around in the sun? There was still some confusion and talk of aliens and prostitutes. Out went the metaphysical fancies ‘I hang in your constellation’ and poetical phrases ‘ancient paths disturbed.’ Great stuff.

So draft 8, which was the version I submitted – funnily enough it went back to tercets, just like draft 1, but the whole thing had become more sparse, rather like the desert. Out had gone all that stuff about the interior of the bus, the radio playing, the people. I kept the ‘swapping’ idea in there, just about. I was quite pleased with the lines ‘breath is as slow as it takes / for a dot to grow bus-big.’

Midnight Pickup  

My feet are lost at the roadside.
You ask what planet this is,
where the landscape starts.

I hear the nocturnals: tenacious,
their brutal lives a scratch
of dry faeces, leathered skin.

Above and around, nothing
but glitterball stars too fat
to fit my eye, on black horizon

a single dot hangs adrift
from Orion, faint at first
but stronger with each blink

a desert lighthouse – it’s coming
– breath is as slow as it takes
for a dot to grow bus-big.

At what point are we visible –
Giralia turn off, Burkett Road –
will they find us in the desert

with no signs to stop them?
And will the swapping
of people, backpacks, jokes

amount to anything here
stood as we are on red rock
bone on bone under black?

(first appeared in The New Writer issue 115, summer 2013)

Angst/

At Ty Newydd, part 2

sea-grass-pylon

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

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

How we spent the time

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

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

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

train sign

The thorny issue of tutorials

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

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

The people

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

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

Relaxing in the library at Ty Newydd

Final thoughts

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

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

Robin at Ty Newydd

Angst/

At Ty Newydd, part 1

We’re halfway through the Ty Newydd poetry ‘masterclass’ with Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke, I’m writing this at 5am because my mind won’t relax, so here are my thoughts so far.

Ty Newydd, the Writers Centre for Wales

Firstly, I have nothing but praise for the staff here – Awen in the office, Gavin the warden and chef and his mother-in-law with the lilting accent – everyone has been so lovely, relaxed and accommodating. I have lucked out with my room – it’s big, quiet and warm, I have my own bathroom, the shower is hot. All perfect. There are stunning views from the landing window. The weather has been wonderful and seasonal. This house seems to have a myriad rooms, nooks, little stairways and books, books, books at every turn.

Ty Newydd conservatory

And the course itself? On day one I got off to a shaky start – on the first evening we were gathered together in the library and asked to interview each other in pairs and introduce ourselves. My neighbour and I went for the usual – families, jobs, backgrounds, poetry successes and why we were here. Everyone else seemed to take the quirky route (‘her favourite poet is Lorca, she wishes more people liked wind turbines and her earliest memory is tasting her first mango’) – I made this one up by the way, but you get the picture.

Ty Newydd dining room

We were also told on the first evening the format of the week – seven workshops in all: two morning workshops with each of the tutors, two afternoon sessions with both tutors in which we may bring a poem for feedback (8 participants on Tuesday, the other 8 yesterday) and on Friday afternoon we’ll be compiling an anthology, although I’m not sure what the tutors’ input on that will be. The evenings are for readings. On Tuesday both the tutors read. It was very special to have a ‘private’ reading like that, and there was a lively Q & A at the end. Yesterday we had a visit from Imtiaz Dharker, who clearly has a very warm relationship with both the tutors. She read some new poems and one or two which were clearly favourites from her repertoire. There was poignancy and humour in her work and a quiet beauty to her voice and interpretation, as well as humour. We loved her.

This evening we will have a ‘secret poem’ session – everyone submits an anonymous poem, which are then read out and we have to guess who wrote what. Supposedly it’s a test of who’s been paying attention to other people’s writing and style. Tricky. On Friday it’s the chance for us all to read something and I have to say I’m looking forward to that – both for the chance to read but also to hear other people’s work, since so far we’ve mostly been generating workshop poems.

The only thing that’s been sprung on us is the news that there’s to be a competition. Carol Ann and Gillian decided yesterday it would be fun. This is the one thing that’s derailed me. Not to bore you too much with the detail of what’s been going on in my head but I’ve decided not to take part (It’s not obligatory). Here’s my honest reason: if I entered and didn’t win, I’d be completely gutted. I’m not saying I’m necessarily think I’m a better poet than any of the other participants, but if I’m not then I don’t want to have my nose rubbed in it. And not winning would make me feel that way – even though YES I know it’s not an objective measure of talent and YES I know it’s just a ‘bit of fun’ – I know, I know – but it matters to me that I come away from this week feeling a little stronger and more confident as a poet. And a stupid thing like a competition could undermine everything I’ve experienced here. Maybe I’m the only one to feel this way and if so perhaps I’m just not as big a person as everyone else. Whatever – I will not take part, I will remove that particular stress and I’ll be very happy for the winners!

I think I’ll leave it there for now – more about the workshops, participants and the tutors in my next post.

Angst/

Waiting on, working on, poems stock-take

I’m sat here with a number of scribbled-on poems around me, trying to decide which one(s) to resume work on and which to re-file for now. They’ve all been workshopped at some point, some of them to the extent that I’ve fallen out of love with them and not looked at them since. But surely there’s a grain or two I can rescue and use.

poems in progress
Everything here appears to be in tercets – hmmm.

I’m also checking what I’ve already got sent out, what hasn’t been sent anywhere yet, and what’s recently come back and awaiting re-sending OR filing for now OR re-working.

Currently in the ‘no response yet’ folder are:

  • Four poems sent to The North in May
  • Three to Poetry London in June
  • Five to Envoi in August
  • Five to Shearsman in September

At least three of these 17 poems I’ve since revised, which is sometimes what happens if I secretly think there’s a high probability of rejection. I know you’re supposed to only send out poems when they are the BEST THEY CAN BE. But how do you know when that is? Even stuff that’s been published I sometimes look at later and want to change.

And if you’ve substantially revised a piece, does it then constitute a new poem for the purposes of ‘simultaneous submissions’, and therefore legitimate to send elsewhere while waiting for the first magazine to reply? I haven’t done this yet (ahem! in case any of the above editors happen to read this!) but I’m thinking on it.

At the moment I’ve got one poem forthcoming in fabulous The Rialto, but nothing else. It’s not that I’m not very excited to be in The Rialto, but this year having made an effort to write more and send out more, so far I’ve had fewer acceptances. So I suppose I’m just wondering if I’ve become too hung up on quantity and the quality has slipped.

In a couple of weeks I’ll be on a poetry ‘masterclass’ at Ty Newydd, and I’m hoping it will be a kick up the bum/reality check/inspirational boost… or preferably all three. Will let you know.

audio/

Audio poem (an experiment)

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

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

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

Angst/

Poetry writers and poetry readers – a tricky issue

Poetry Shelf

It was a small turnout last night at our Stanza reading group in Brighton – just Miriam, Gary and myself! Of course there are all sorts of reasons why that might have been – the first time it has clashed with a sunny evening, plus there’s been some confusion about the start time and content of meetings in recent months due to an unfortunate bookings error by the pub.

The reading group is a relatively new thing which a few of us thought would be fun and would complement our workshopping meetings perfectly. The idea is that we each bring with us copies of a poem for everyone to read, discuss, perhaps learn something from and even spark an interest in seeking out more by that poet. It’s very relaxed and all you need to enjoy it is an open mind. Last night, Miriam had brought a poem by U A Fanthorpe and I had with me two short poems by C P Cavafy  (incidentally, if you’re interested virtually all Cavafy’s poems are online here.)

Unfortunately I didn’t study English at university and haven’t done a Creative Writing course or anything where I would have come in contact with the poetry canon, so I love the idea of being introduced to poetry and having my awareness raised in this way. But the meetings have been pretty quiet. We talked about why that might be. Are those people writing poetry just less interested in reading the poetry of others? Are people put off because they think it’s going to be too academic or ‘serious’? Or do people just want to do their own reading in private and don’t see the point of going to a meeting to talk about it? (Things like weather and time of day are, I think, the kind of issues easily overcome if the desire is strong enough.)

The Brighton Poetry Stanza, being affiliated to the Poetry Society, is all about encouraging and supporting poetry and the poetry community. In my mind that means the whole business of poetry from learning the craft, giving and receiving feedback on work in progress, discovering and reading poetry, supporting poets, going to events (or staging them) and so forth. Since Jo Grigg took on the job of revitalising the Stanza several years ago it really has really taken off – meetings are full, we’re twice staged group readings in Brighton and have started to take part in ‘Stanza Bonanza’ readings at the Poetry Cafe in London.

But people vote with their feet, and Miriam can’t be expected to keep showing up for the reading group if no-one else does. So maybe the group is a lost cause, for whatever reason. One thing we did talk about yesterday was the possibility of combining the reading and workshopping groups in a more structured way. When we’ve tried this informally, it hasn’t worked because everyone just wants to workshop and when you have 10 or more people there’s no time for anything else. However, perhaps at least one person could agree to bring something by another poet. In that way, everyone would get exposed to something by Hughes, Fanthorpe, Dickinson, Duffy or whoever. A little moment of ‘let’s see how the professionals do it / did it’ – sneaking in the ‘educational’ bit. Or is that just too prescriptive/controlling/patronising?

What do you think? Have you been through this yourself? I’m posting a link to this on our Stanza facebook Page also, in the hope that members might have comments or suggestions. Should we just stick with the workshopping and stop inventing problems? For my own part, I just know that for years I used to write poetry, when the only poetry I’d read had been for A level English. I knew I wasn’t writing well, but thought that was all I was capable of. I just didn’t get the connection. When the lightbulb finally went on it led me to raise my game, and for that I’m eternally grateful. I want others to have that feeling.

Image credit: JamesJaffe.com

Form/

Mimi Khalvati on form, and a few ‘banned’ words

Notes from a poetry workshop

Notes from a poetry workshop

Saturday was our penultimate workshop with Mimi Khalvati before the summer-autumn break. (By the way I realise the title of this post could be read as a pun -‘ on form’, geddit?? Um, sorry…)

This month, several of us got pulled up for the chosen form of our poems. Classic Mimi comments often sound like rhetorical questions. “What am I supposed to do with a short line on its own like that?” “Why would you write something that’s a classic ballad in free verse?” “Couldn’t you make this more interesting?” She looks at you with an expression of such disappointment you can’t really think of an answer, other than “I don’t know! I’ve let you down again and I’m really sorry!”

Anyway, either we’re all class A masochists or we do need this kind of talking-to in order to improve. So here are a few of Mimi’s comments that I jotted down. As always, please excuse the brevity. Hope they make sense, divorced as they are from the poems under discussion.

  • Be careful of words or images that work too hard and break the fabric of the poem. The reader wants her attention drawn to the poem, not the poet.
  • Many lyric poems (for example about a bird, or about digging or fishing) act as metaphors for something else, so be careful of referencing that thing explicitly if it’s already implied.
  • When writing in free verse you still need a rationale for your chosen stanza breaks or line length, otherwise the effect can just be ‘paragraphy’. And be open to the possibility of form – it may be that free verse isn’t doing the poem justice.
  • If you have one line of a different length to the others then it will attract attention. You need a good reason to throw in a odd-length line. It needs to stand up to close inspection.
  • Beware potentially archaic words – Mimi has a bee in her bonnet about beneath – apparently we never say or write it except in poetry. (Is this true, do you think?) Ditto within and for (when used to mean ‘because’.) And being IAMBs naturally both beneath and within are even more likely to lead us into temptation. O woe, thrice woe for our disappearing tongue!

 

Form/

George Szirtes workshop in Swindon

George Szirtes

The sun was shining, it was a great day for a drive and even the M25 was a breeze. So my trip yesterday to Swindon was relaxing from the start. Actually I say ‘Swindon’ but the workshop was at the Richard Jefferies Museum which turned out to be a short hop from the M4, so I didn’t see anything of Swindon itself. But by the end of the day I had a clear picture of how the literary scene and poetry in particular is evidently thriving here.

There were sixteen of us in a cosy low-celiinged room, George in the comfy armchair and the rest of us fanning outwards in a kind of how-well-you-know-George pecking order, with copious amounts of tea and biscuits generously supplied by the lovely Hilda Sheehan of BlueGate Poets, our host for the day.

An interesting array of poets – I had probably come the furthest in terms of miles but many had travelled an hour or so, so clearly George Szirtes was a big draw. It was fun to get off of my usual patch, and always intriguing to ‘infiltrate’ a different poetry scene. Most exciting of course was finally meeting Josephine Corcoran, who gamely allowed me to take a snap of us on my phone (I think she came off better than me!)

Robin Houghton & Josephine Corcoran

The theme for the day was ‘form’ – we explored some of the elements that make up a formal poem – not specific forms (although we were asked to write a sonnet in the afternoon) but rather rhythm & metre, rhyme, length and so forth. George made the point early on that form isn’t just to do with the shape of a poem, it’s also voice – voice changes according the context, (which I guess is true of all kinds of formal writing, for example the language, the voice of a legal document versus a love letter versus a school report. In fact I started thinking about the word invoice and wondering about it.)

George talked about the frailty of language and likened the making of a formal poem to the patterns created by a skater on thin ice over a deep pond. There is something below, beneath the language, to be discovered. “Patterns can be difficult but there’s an exhilaration in executing them.” Language itself is purely a signifier, it’s not the thing itself. Rhyme, he said, is arbitrary – “language is not to be bullied into what you want – you have to listen to it…. there’s a couple dancing here but you’re not the leading partner.”

I particularly liked “most good poems are not the execution of intention but the discovery of possibilities…. with practice you develop an instinct about how you ‘fall’ into something, or how the poem moves along.” By being open to rhyme, but not forcing it, you are opening yourself up to new meanings, unexpected or surprising directions. George’s complaint about many competition entries is simply that he knows too soon where a poem is going – the poet hasn’t surprised herself –  “If there’s no surprise in the poet, there’s no surprise in the poem.”

Another tip about rhyme: if you have two rhyming words you wish to use but it’s not working, try swapping the rhymes – one may be more ‘difficult’ than the other – try using the difficult one first. The simple act of a swap can achieve a different or more interesting effect.

Much of this for me felt relevant for all poetry writing, not just form or aspects of form. I think the idea of ‘being surprised’ is one of my biggest takeaways from the day. I know in myself if I decide to write in a specific form I can get bogged down with metre and rhyming words, without paying attention to the possibilities that may be opening up.

In the afternoon we had a go at writing a 14 line poem to a form introduced by George – not exactly a sonnet, but a 3-part poem: the first part featuring a room or a location where something happens. Then in part two, a shift of perspective – a turn away from the action in part one, to something happening elsewhere. We were encouraged to think in terms of camera stills. Then the final part not exactly a resolution or consequence, but a new direction suggested as a result of the first two parts. Try to improvise, said George, “listen… don’t plan it! Poetry is all hunches!”

We also discussed the reordering of lines, the cutting of early material when you might have been just ‘warming up’ (I find often this is true of blog posts… and to be honest, workshops also!) and the fact that different poets have used the same forms in very different ways – compare the iambic pentameter of Yeats, Tennyson and Gray, for example.

“Nothing is an entrapping as you think … forms are just instruments to play/use.” A day workshop like this is only ever going to be a quick skate over thin ice, but I did feel I took away some useful gems of wisdom and new insights. Can’t ask for more than that really.

The day ended with a sadly all-too-short reading by George from his latest book Bad Machine (l have serious title-envy about that one) which he admits contains much that was experimental for him. He’s a poet who has produced a vast amount of work and is still looking for new challenges and directions. Inspirational stuff.