Tag: carol ann duffy

Courses/

Ty Newydd excitement & friends’ news

Ty Newydd photo by Touchstone

Ty Newydd photo by Touchstone

What’s been your experience of writers’ residential courses? I’ve heard many good things from friends who’ve done an Arvon course or similar. The idea of a few days holed up in seclusion with time and space to focus on writing does seem like a wonderful luxury.

I created my own ‘retreat’ a couple of years ago and rented a tiny beach house at Camber Sands for a few days in March. I was lucky with the weather – cold but bright and breezy days – but the place lacked a comfortable chair in which to write. I got a fair bit done, writing, reading and walking/thinking about writing. But I was a tad lonely, and it’s hard to stay motivated on your own.

Anyway I’ve finally booked onto a course and I’m feeling quite excited about it. It’s billed as a poetry ‘masterclass’ with Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke and it’s at Ty Newydd in October. (Photo above from their website). What attracted me was the fact that we had to send some poems before we got definitely accepted. I’ve no idea if that was a token gesture – maybe there were only 16 applicants anyway – but it feels like some sort of quality control, and that really appeals to me. Hopefully we won’t have the kinds of problems described by Isabel Rogers on her blog recently. If you’re going to shell out 500 quid you kind of want to know that everyone else is at least as serious and willing to participate as you are (maybe that sounds a bit pompous but hey.)

PLUS…  news of poet friends  – Brighton Stanza organiser Jo Grigg has tried to keep quiet about the fact that she had two poems on the National Poetry Competition long list this year (come on Jo, could you try bragging a bit more, you’re making me look bad!) and Tess Jolly hit the jackpot in a US competition – there’s gold in them thar hills! Not only that, but Hastings roving writer Antony Mair is now sending out his poems and has had work accepted by Ink, Sweat & Tears and Acumen – nice one.

PS can anyone tell me how on earth to pronounce ‘Ty Newydd’? – thanks

Angst/

The key to writing better poetry is …

Saw a tweet about the new Arvon course list for 2012 being up. So couldn’t resist taking a look.

I’m going through this thing at the moment where I feel a desperate need for some sort of mentoring, or at least workshopping, with better poets than myself. Better writers, more experienced… I guess I don’t necessarily define ‘better’ in terms of recognition or success, but of course that’s part of it.

But it’s funny, sometimes, when I meet someone in a poetry setting, I get an immediate feeling that they’re ‘good’ – it’s hard to describe really, but I get a little ‘ping’, a lightbulb moment I suppose.

I can think of three people who’ve given me this feeling in the last few years. But I’m too shy to name them right now 🙂 The point is, they’re not all obvious candidates for the ‘lightbulb moment’. And I’ve come across many others who you’d think would qualify, but don’t.

It’s probably nothing to do with poetry wisdom or anything. Just a spark, a perceived (and possible one-sided) rapport.

Anyway, the Arvon courses that jumped out at me were a week on ‘Advanced Poetry’ with Carol Ann Duffy (quality-controlled entry, which I like) – but it’s a) in Scotland and b) overlapping with family holiday (already booked) …. a week in Devon with Mimi Khalvati and Sean O’Brien (I think… if I remember that correctly) – I haven’t yet been able to infiltrate the Lewes Live Lit monthly workshops with Mimi Khalvati, something that frustrates me NO END – and the idea of travelling to darkest Devon JUST to get into a workshop with her, when I can’t do so in my HOME TOWN, seems deliciously perverse.

And then there’s the possibility of a week with Don Paterson, albeit a ‘fiction and poetry’ week, when fiction interests me not one iota…. but Don Paterson? Oh my. Don. Paterson.

So I probably won’t be shelling out my £650 this year to the Arvon Foundation. And anyway, all these courses…. they’re a business, right? Just how many courses have the successful poets actually been on, at least, those who’ve been plying their trade since before the MA Creative Writing boom?

Isn’t writing better poetry down to reading good poetry, attempting to write stuff that’s as good, and practising again and again?