Category: Writing

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On encouraging children’s interest in writing poetry

I recently had a text from one of my stepdaughters who was passing on a question from her five-year-old: “Nana, how are poems made?”

Hmm! I tried to think very hard before responding. How to say something encouraging and likely to engage a five-year old, while still being honest? No doubt there are teachers or ex-teachers reading this who would have plenty of good suggestions. All my teaching experience has been with adults, and having been a Brownie helper for a short time I learned very quickly that I had no idea how to seriously pique the interest of a 9 year old, let alone a 5 year old. The last thing I wanted to do was to say anything that would put my granddaughter off poetry for life.

I wish I could remember what I thought about poetry when I was five. Did I love nonsense poetry, silly stories and loony rhymes? I’d hate children to think that’s all poetry is about. Is it the only way ‘into’ poetry for a five-year old, or is that just setting low expectations?

Anyway I tried to say something funny and interesting and intriguing, about looking very hard at what you see around you and playing with new words to describe things, reading aloud and enjoy words that sound the same, all that kind of well-meaning nonsense. I never got a reply, so even that was probably deemed to be over the girl’s head, who knows!

So now, having volunteered to help Live Canon with its brilliant Children’s Poetry Competition, I find myself with a whole folder of poems by 5, 6 and 7 year olds to mark. Luckily we’ve been given pointers about the kinds of things to look out for and ‘reward’, which helps me greatly in terms of where to set the bar.

It’s great fun to do: very encouraging that so many children that young are writing poems and impressive how some are already capable of tackling serious themes. I’ll try not to agonise about the responsibility, as I’m really only ‘another pair of eyes’ and won’t have to make the final decisions. I’ll be interested to see if any of my favourites make it to the winners’ list though!

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Advice to a poet, and a curious birthday thing

Q: Who are these poets and what do they (almost) have in common?

poets-born-on-29Oct

(Answers below…)

Advice lines

Recently I came across this delightful and very relevant piece on the Poetry Ireland website:

Advice to a Poet – words of wisdom from Maurice Harmon, critic, biographer, editor, literary historian and poet.

Even the title has an authoritative feel! But this is no harangue. When I read it I’m picturing a kind but firm teacher, one who challenges but encourages at the same time. So many good thinking points (‘All forms of laziness are fatal in poetry’ ….’You must, and will, find your own way of saying’ … ‘Poetry is above all a way of telling the truth’…’Does it make a difference?’)  I don’t know about you but I have to read essays like this on a regular basis, to remind myself what the hell I’m supposed to be doing, because it is so, so easy to stray down those lazy byways or lose sight of the reasons I’m trying to write poetry.

Advice comes in many forms of course and sometimes poets don’t even know they’re giving it. One of the things I like about Rattle magazine is the regular poet interview at the back, and I’m just at the section of the Eavan Boland Sourcebook where we get to read interviews with her. There are always gems to be found in these chats, I think; there’s something both voyeuristic and educational about hearing what a poet has to say about their working methods, inspirations and general thoughts about what gives.

On a somewhat drier note, in the spirit of starting my ‘literary education’ from the beginning, I’m also reading Aristotle’s Poetics, translated by Anthony Kenny (Oxford World’s Classics edition 2013), although I’ve learned quite quickly that it’s actually about tragedy and ‘the epic’ rather than lyric poetry, which doesn’t get a look in. Aristotle rather slyly suggests early on that he’s going to come to ‘comedy’ in due course. And then he doesn’t. What a tease.

Calling all poets with late-October birthdays

I’m fast approaching a ‘landmark’ birthday, and I’m reminded that I share it (the date, not the year) with fine poet Sarah Howe (above right). So just for fun I got researching poet birthdays to see who else is in this 29th October club. According to his family at the time, John Keats was born on October 29th, although official records list it as 31st. Killjoys! Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke only just missed out – she was born on 27th October, as was Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath. So, if you, or any poets you know of, were born on October 29th (or let’s say 2 days either side, although that’s not quite the ticket) do let me know and we’ll sort out a club logo or secret handshake or something. (When handshakes are allowed again, of course.)

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Those tips from Don Paterson again…

I was doing a bit of editing yesterday and looked back on some of the notes I’d made from various workshops, and then I remember this blog post from 2012. Yes, nearly 8 years ago, a heck of a long time in politics but a few seconds in poetics. Anyway, I thought I’d reblog it, as it still made me think (and laugh):

A Few Tips from Don Paterson

Angst/

SloPo

How are you doing?

Apparently we’re now all feasting on The Repair Shop and reruns of The Vicar of Dibley. The skies are bluer and quieter than ever, all the better to hear birdsong. Stars are brighter, if you have access to outdoor space at night time. I realise these are terrible times for so many people and I’m one of the fortunate ones. I’m not facing financial ruin, I’m ‘locked down’ in the company of my best friend and I have a garden. I’m able to appreciate Spring and watch things grow. Just the word grow makes me slow down. So what if I haven’t written any stonking new poems lately. I have a few ideas, but they need time to grow. SloPo seems to have come into its own.

I planted some basil seeds on 6th March, and another lot on 20th April. What a difference six weeks makes.

Basil growing

The problem is I have plenty of poems at the pre-germination stage and I want them to look more like that 6-week young basil!

I enjoyed reading an interview with Julia Cameron in the Sunday Times last week, (apologies if this is behind a paywall) on dealing with social isolation (“As westerners, we have a hard time sitting and doing nothing”). I remember reading The Artist’s Way and struggled to follow its advice. There’s something about ‘free writing’ that feels to me like the opposite: I feel restricted, I regress to cliche, old reminiscences, boring language and prosaic nonsense. An advocate might say ‘yes that’s the idea – not to think, just write’. But sadly it doesn’t free me up. I guess I could adapt the daily free writing to something else: word games around a theme or something that at least begins with a structure.

Next month I’m going to be following Adriene Mishler’s monthly calendar which will have a meditation element to it alongside the yoga. Meditation isn’t something I’ve ever got into, but these days I’m suitably chilled to give it a try.

Quick submissions update

So far I’ve managed to stick to my resolve of not entering any single-poem competitions. (Although I did try the Poetry Business Pamphlet competition again.) Having had nothing really appear in magazines for months, I’m paying the price for submitting very little in the second half of 2019. I did have a poem long listed in the National this year, which I was chuffed about (once I’d got over the initial BWWAAA how did I manage to miss out on the money?) I’m very pleased to have a poem forthcoming in The North in the summer, and one in Stand. I’m currently awaiting responses to nine poems from three magazines. That’s it for now.

Wishing you love, health and slo-po.

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Making, moving, cleaning, reading, studying, growing … life while social distancing

Funny how quickly our vocabulary grows around novel situations. A few weeks ago I’m not sure I was familiar with the terms social distancing, self-isolation or elbow bump. Now – well, you know.

With so many projects and events cancelled in the last few days, and many more to come, I’m reminded how crucial it is to stay positive. But what does that mean? I’m fortunate at the moment to be thinking about ‘social distancing’ rather than ‘self-isolation’.  I’m also lucky to be a bit of an antisocial person anyway. Even so, box sets and jigsaw puzzles have a limited appeal. A couple of newsletters came into my inbox today which made me feel like putting together a list of Things We Could be Doing While Social Distancing. I hope something here strikes a chord!

Making

You may not have any spare clay hanging about but what about paint? Or string or rope? The Collective Gen blog has put together 12 Projects To Do Using Supplies You (Probably) Already Have – macrame (I’ve recently rediscovered this myself and no ball of string is now safe). I recently found a rather tatty old jardiniere (plant pot stand!) for £10 in a junk shop and painted it with some leftover Farrow & Ball paint. The joy of middle-class upcycling!

Moving

“If there was ever a time to re-energize, re-connect with your willingness to sit with yourself, care for yourself – it could be now. If there was ever a time to acknowledge that your relationship to the above can have a direct impact on others – it could be now.” –  my yoga guru Adriene Mischler sends out a weekly newsletter to calm your spirit and remind you to take care of yourself and others. Plus there are all her fantastic (and free) yoga videos to do at home. I was a complete beginner when I started following her in 2018 and I love her energy and sense of fun.

Cleaning

Dusty house, dusty mind… or something like that? If you’re healthy and have got the energy how about joining me in a ritual Spring clean. No kidding. A Victorian flat seems to grow dust balls in the hall quicker than you can say ‘tumbleweed’.  Spring cleaning tips from Reader’s Digest here…

Reading

It’s a bit obvious for a poet that now’s a great opportunity to read all those collections that have been piling up. However, I’d like to throw down the gauntlet. I’ve been reading Dante’s Divine Comedy, and am finding Paradiso heavy going. BUT I see there’s Digital Dante – all the text, context, commentary and much more. I’m definitely going to get help here to get me through Paradiso with a greater appreciation. If you’ve not read this work, why not set yourself the goal? Alternatively, my next classic tome to tackle is Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Can I even call myself a poet and not have read this work? I did study the Prologue and some other bits of it at school, about 100 years ago. I’m ready to go for it now, in the interests of furthering my knowledge of The Canon. At the Poetry Foundation you can read the whole prologue.

Studying

How about taking an online course? Search for ‘poetry’ at Coursera and there are any number of free courses you can join. ‘Words Spun Out of Images: Visual and Literary Culture in Nineteenth Century Japan’, ‘Modern American Poetry’,  ‘The Ancient Greeks’ – actually that last one isn’t poetry, but I bet it’s interesting. Or if you’re willing to pay, the Poetry School runs a number of online courses, as do of course the wonderful Live Canon.

Growing

The satisfaction to be gained from sowing seeds and watching them grow is hard to overestimate. I’m very, very lucky to have a garden, but even if you only have a window sill you still may be able to grow something. I think the first bit of growing I ever did was to sprout some seeds. Urban Turnip has a post entitled Best urban gardening & container growing blogs – not a recent post, but it includes links to various indie gardening blogs (ie not the big ones where you’re encouraged to buy stuff). Now’s exactly the time of year to be sowing stuff, and if it’s something you can eat, even better. It really makes you feel that life goes on, and it’s a beautiful thing. Happy growing.

Angst/

A chilled start to the year

January 15th and I’m just getting round to my first post of the year, something that would have concerned me a bit in the past but for the new decade I’m surprisingly chilled. A new decade. Hmmm. Is it me, or has it passed rather under the radar this year? I think I remember the start of the 80s in terms of pop music if nothing else. “Pop go the seventies!” You have to put that into context: there were only 3 TV channels in those days, no web, no TV on demand, no mobile phones etc etc. So Who Was Number One in the Hit Parade was pretty key. BUT I have no time for all those click-bait/lazy media articles about how ‘boring’ the Olde Days were. I’m probably preaching to the converted, so moving on…

Currently reading

I have a lovely pile of books to read and so far I’ve absolutely loved Hubert Moore’s The Feeding Station (Shoestring Press) which I’ve reviewed for an upcoming issue of The Frogmore Papers. Moore is a good example of a poet who’s been writing for some time and isn’t part of the social media merry-go-round, nor the champing-at-the-bit-for-readings crowd. I’m sorry to say I’d not heard of him, because this collection is wonderful. I feel quite inspired, and certainly will be seeking out more by him.

Another poet I’ve finally got around to reading properly is David Borrott. David was one of the standout poets on a course I did at Ty Newydd back in 2013. His pamphlet Porthole was a Laureate’s Choice (Smith Doorstop) in 2015 and I can see why. The pamphlet is wide-ranging in subject matter and very accomplished. Nothing predictable about it, very enjoyable.

My subscription to Stand magazine is drawing to a close so I’ll be moving onto another publication shortly, in line with my ‘subscription rotation’ policy. I’ve really enjoyed my year with Stand, it’s quite different and I’ve discovered names I’ve not read before, for example in this issue (Volume 17/4) Natalie Linh Bolderston and Iain Twiddy.

I’m about halfway through Robert Hamberger’s Blue Wallpaper (Waterloo Press) and enjoying it immensely, which is probably why I’m taking my time over it. For me his work still feels vastly underrated. There is so much to love in his poetry. Robert is also quiet and modest, qualities that I can’t help but find endearing. All I can say is, seek him out. The works speaks for itself.

Back in the summer I decided to read Dante’s Divine Comedy, in a Penguin parallel edition with the original Italian and Robert Kirkpatrick’s translation. Many decades ago I was an eighteen-year-old ingenue in Rome, arriving by train and taking up an au pair job while speaking no Italian. My host family were kind enough to enrol me in the Dante Alighieri School to learn the language. This was my first encounter with Dante, and I’m ashamed to say it took me all this time to decide to actually read his most famous work. It would have happened sooner if I hadn’t changed course at University and ditched Italian literature. So – I galloped through Hell (Inferno), then spent around two months in Purgatory. There was so much to process. When I reached the end, I felt I needed to re-read the introduction. But now I’ve just started Paradiso – although I’m still only on the introduction, which is itself daunting. Interestingly, Nick is conducting a performance of ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ in Brighton in March, which is basically a story about a soul’s journey after death through Purgatory and beyond. So we’re been comparing notes over dinner: is there actually a Lake in Purgatory, or two rivers (as Dante describes)? Is it possible to be regaled by Demons trying to lure you to Hell once you’re in Purgatory (Gerontius) or are you impervious to that? (Dante) I have to remind myself now and then that this is all pretty much theoretical.

Currently writing, and a resolve for 2020

One reason I haven’t been blogging much lately as that I’ve been writing, which is of course an excellent thing. Several new poems in the pipeline plus I’ve been creating a skeleton for a collection, complete with ideas and poem titles on card which I move around and play games with. The new work is putting flesh on the skeleton.

This year I’ve decided not to enter any competitions, a decision that was reinforced when I received a recent email exhorting me to enter a particular competition which appears to have raised its entry fee considerably, while the prize money seems spectacularly unspectacular. Harrumph! My magazine subscriptons and submissions will carry on though.

My competition ban (in terms of pamphlet or book comps) may have to be relaxed if my collection plans progress well… but I’m trying not to succumb. Definitely no single poem comps though!

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Ah! The business of poetry blogging

Oh no!

It’s been a few weeks since my last post, and yet Matthew Stewart has still generously kept me on his list of ‘Best UK Poetry Blogs of 2019’. Matthew observes that 2019 was ‘far from being a vintage year’ for blogging, and his suggestions of why this might be are interesting: keeping a blog going can be a chore at times, once you stop it’s hard to get going again, sometimes you can’t help wondering if you’re writing into a vacuum.

I’d rather be bog-snorkelling  bragging  blogging

In some ways, writing this blog is no more of a chore than writing actual poems, in that I prefer not to force either of them, but to let them happen when the inclination hits me. Having said that, I know it’s not good to leave a blog hanging for too long. I do from time to time give myself a goal, such as ‘write a blog post a week’ or ‘start a poem a day for a month’. I haven’t done either of those for a while, but I’ve been gee’d on by others lately. Heather Walker has been blogging every day recently and it’s been fascinating to read. Josephine Corcoran shared recently that she’d written twenty new poems. Lordy! That’s probably my annual output. And Mat Riches has been blogging every week for some time, AND he sent out 161 poems this year – BLIMEY.

Coming soon – the stats of shame

Actually Mat’s post reminded me that my annual roundup of subs/rejections/acceptances is due. I doubt I’ll be offering any natty graphs. Somewhat a visual feels like it might be a detail too far. But hey! Let’s see…

I do know that even if I’m not blogging, I’m reading other people’s blogs. They come at my inbox every Monday morning and I never cease to be amazed at how much thought, energy, creativity and generosity goes into blogs. And with the boot on the other foot, I’m eternally grateful to my readers, aka YOU, for taking the time to read this.

Current reading list

My poetry books-to-read pile currently includes the Winter issues of Rattle and The Moth, Clarissa Aykroyd’s Island of Towers (Broken Sleep Books), Hubert Moore’s The Feeding Station (Shoestring) which I’m reviewing for The Frogmore Papers, Katie Griffiths’ My Shrink Is Pregnant (one of my fellow Live Canon Pamphleteers) and Robert Hamberger’s Blue Wallpaper (Waterloo). Recently I received a copy of Sarah Windebank’s super first collection, Memories of a Swedish Grandmother (Myriad Editions). I was lucky enough to get a review copy, and wrote a short testimonial for the book.

And so this is Christmas…

I only got 6 out of 18 in the Guardian’s Christmas Number Ones quiz – although I think it was a swizz as there were only one or two questions about the seventies! Come on, Christmas was invented in the 70s! Can you do better??

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And from this cluttered desk

I admit it – I’m very nosy about other people’s workspaces. Writers and artists especially. So I loved Josephine Corcoran’s recent post about her ‘cluttered desk’ – although I thought it looked pretty good actually.

My first instinct was of course to compare it to mine, so I reached for the camera – but before tidying up. Monday is usually my day for clearing the desk and starting afresh, so this is the gritty reality of the pre-clean-up. Josphine’s desk seems to be in a lovely light, airy place, whereas mine is a darkish corner where I’m flanked by bookshelves, a chest of drawers, a tall filing cabinet and a printer. But it’s cosy though, and nobody can come up behind me 🙂

There are actually two desks. The main one with the nice big screen and the standing desk with the laptop. Here goes – with Josephine’s post still open on my screen which shows how I leapt up to take a photo!

Robin's desk

You may be wondering about some of the items here… the Brownie Badge Book (I’m a volunteer Bownie helper, so just doing a bit of record-keeping for the Unit) and the empty toilet roll (I’m learning knots at the moment and one of them calls for a tube … don’t ask!) And two pairs of glasses may seem greedy but hey. Believe it or not there is some legitimate work stuff in that pile of papers. I’ve always had a big screen desktop comp as I used to do a lot of graphics and website stuff. Although I do less of that now, I like writing at the big screen and seeing words unfold there. I don’t do any writing longhand.

As it happens, the standing desk is currently my poetry desk, and I’d like to say it’s tidier, but…

Robin's other desk

Somewhere in there is a renewal notice from the PBS, a copy of The Author, poetry collections by Stephen Sexton and Jericho Brown, a copy of Dante’s Inferno which I’m reading in English and Italian (a good way of stretching my vocabulary!) a couple of notebooks and a copy of ‘101 Things to Do in a Shed’ which is brilliant and altogether 101% distracting. All that’s missing is a half-drunk can of Diet Coke (it was too early in the morning) and Bobby, the black cat who likes to block the screen and nudge my mouse hand when I’m trying to type (like now!) In fact I think it’s time for a little yoga (Bobby likes to join in, and he does a fine Downward Dog).

So thanks Josephine for the idea. I’d love to see some more of these ‘my workspace’ posts. Like I said, I’m a tad nosy!

Angst/

Back to school, current reading & looking forward

Back. After twelve days or so away I’m feeling positively autumnal and a bit ‘back to school’ (garden looking blousy, woollies coming out the wardrobe, wondering when Masterchef starts, etc).

I haven’t got back into any new writing but that will come. Sometimes I get the feeling I’m waiting  – for inspiration maybe – for a collection of poems, rather than a poem here, a poem there – and I’m a bit annoyed with myself. I really enjoyed hearing Kei Miller read at Hastings LitFest a few weeks ago, and he surprised some us by saying that he only wrote poems when he had a book in mind, and when there’s no book in mind, there are no poems. This was refreshing in a way – I’ve never been one of those people who are disciplined to write every day (not poetry, anyway). I’ve also never been very good at using exercises or ‘free writing’ as a means of churning out (or up?) ideas into proto-poems. Thinking in ‘book’ terms appeals to me and I do it a lot – trouble is, it seems to be in parallel to writing poems; I haven’t yet tied the two together. And I need to remember that Kei Miller also writes novels, so he’s quite possibly knocking out several books in those poetry dry-times. Ha!

Current reading

The September edition of Poetry, which seems to be breaking the boundaries this month with the inclusion of graphic prose poetry, a computer program, pictures of fans and a couple of essays… intriguing.

Madeleine Wurzburger‘s pamphlet Sleeve Catching Fire at Dawn (Smith/Doorstop), a gift from Marion Tracy. The poems are written in a kind of pseudo-historical style, in that they seem to be (on the face of it) well-researched historic portraits, commentary, testimonies. But they’re witty, funny in places, and certainly interesting.

Stephen Sexton‘s first collection If All the World and Love were Young (Penguin) – what a gem of a title for starters. You’ll be reading plenty of reviews of this, watch as it comes up for various awards. I was at the prize giving ceremony for the National Poetry Competition in 2017 when this poet won it, still in his early twenties. Oh my. This book was a slow burner for me, but I’ve read nothing like it. Very subtle and original and all the more moving for it. If you get a quarter of the way through and you’ve still no idea what’s going on, trust me and stick with it! Nice piece here by Stephen in the Irish Times, on the background to the book.

Coming up, in brief

Next week two lovely poet friends, Clare Best and Robert Hamberger, are launching their new collections in Brighton and I’m hoping to go, but if not then I’ll definitely hear them read at Needlewriters in Lewes next month, for which I’ll be MC-ing which is always fun. Also next month I’ll be running a workshop for some lovely High Weald Stanza writers. Some time in November I’ll have a new pamphlet ready to launch, alongside three fine Live Canon pamphleteers. And I’ll be reading in London in November at a special night being organised by Mat Riches and Matthew Stewart.

Meanwhile I’m still deciding whether to renew my membership of the Poetry Book Society. I tend to buy poetry books at readings, or second-hand. I’m not sure how useful I find the PBS Bulletin which basically includes brief review/blurbs, long poet blogs, huge poet photos and a sample poem for each of the ‘recommendations’. Pamphlets only get a very small amount of space. Buying through the PBS doesn’t save any money (once you factor in the postage cost and cost of membership). Or should I not be looking at it in those terms?  I’d be interested to know people’s thoughts on this.

 

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Working from (a temporary) home

I’m currently working each morning from a little B&B room in a farmhouse in Pembrokeshire, while Nick is here playing the organ for St David’s Cathedral. Apart from occasionally getting up in the night and bashing into furniture it’s all very pleasant. A cockerel and a swarm of hens outside. Peaceful countryside views. We’ve had some lovely walks along the coast, and a boat trip over to Skomer island. Our hosts are accommodating and don’t seem to mind me holing up here a lot of the time, even though it probably seems a bit odd. Our flat and garden are being taken care of at home, so I’m trying not to worry about the tomatoes, or dwell on the heatwave we’re missing…

The timing is a bit weird as we’re shortly off for a ‘proper’ holiday, and so I’m finding there’s rather a lot to fit in beforehand. One big (but unpaid!) job is to get the quarterly magazines submissions windows list up to date for mailing out on or around September 1st. So far I’ve been through the spreadsheet and updated all that I can from the magazine websites and/or Twitter feed: new URLs, new subs windows info, changes to guidelines, publication schedules and whatever. I’ll emailed eleven magazine editors to ask them to clarify (eg when websites show a July submissions deadline, that sort of thing). Have heard back from one so far, but hopefully by the end of next week… It looks like there are at least half a dozen new publications to add. And some windows closing on August 31st or early September, so I’ll let everyone know that on an email prior to the end of the month.

If you’re not on the email list for this and would like to be, just let me know (robin at robinhoughtonpoetry.co.uk) and I’ll add you.

Meanwhile, I’m reviewing my manuscript for Live Canon, as some of the poems have changed a little. And I’m trying to keep up with (but enjoying) Live Canon’s August Treasure Hunt.

On the submissions front I’ve had three poems rejected by Prole (they have such a fast turnaround, which never ceases to amaze me) and two accepted by Stand, which I’m very pleased about as I’ve never had anything published there, and it’s a great mag (and I like the shape/ format too).

By the way – Prole has a pamphlet competition on at the moment but it closes on 31 August, so hurry if you fancy entering,

I was hoping to make this week a bit of a mini-retreat, but so far I’ve only managed to start one new poem. I’ve been reading as well, but I haven’t quite had the time I imagined I’d have.

Anyway here are a few photos to give you the feel of the place…

Pembrokeshire coast

welsh pony

Little Haven, Pembrokeshire

St David's Cathedral

St David's Cathedral interior (Nave)