Tag: josephine corcoran

Angst/

Where blogging fits into the writing week

Pages from primary school rough book
Aged 10, my note-taking habit had begun

How does your writing week look? Mine can typically include things like

  • blog posts
  • a client email newsletter
  • a lot of emails (sent and replied to)
  • poetry writing/redrafting/editing
  • commenting on blogs
  • client work: proposals, meeting reports, web or brochure copy, etc
  • an email newsletter for one of my groups (poetry or singing)
  • a guest piece for a magazine or blog
  • a chapter for a (non-fiction) book, if I have a book project on the go
  • cover letters
  • various lists/notes etc for myself
  • tweeting etc

– it adds up to writing every day, even though when asked how much time I spend on writing I tend to um and ah or say ‘not as much as I’d like’ because of course I’m thinking of poetry writing – you know, the really creative stuff.

This morning I’d been thinking about blogging and the purpose(s) of blogging. Then I encountered Josephine Corcoran’s interesting and timely post about ‘why blog’ (in relation to poetry blogging in particular).

Blogging isn’t for everyone. I regularly meet people who, if they find out about my blog, aren’t sure what to make of it, as an activity. But sometimes they admit they too have a blog, but ‘haven’t posted for a while’ or else they’ve been ‘meaning to blog’ but are struggling either to find the time or the ideas of what to write about.

When people come to me for mentoring, if I think blogging would benefit them, I suggest it. But it’s one of those awkward chicken-and-egg things: until you start blogging and you reach that moment of ‘getting it’ (which is usually tied up with the community aspect of blogging – see Josephine’s post), it can feel like a chore. Or worse, a worthless or self-indulgent activity two steps removed from bragging and the slippery slope towards staring at one’s reflection in a pond.

Community is a big part of blogging – after 15 years I’m still amazed who you meet on the internet and I’ve always believed (from personal experience) that connections made online can be every bit as strong as those made ‘in real life’. And the wonderful thing is that it’s still mostly fuelled by the written word.

So to follow on from Josephine’s post, my feeling is that blogging helps my writing, because it is writing. It’s part of my writing life – just as is everything else that goes into the writing week, except on a blog I give myself permission to use cliches, make (sort of) jokes, say LOL or whatever else grabs me. I give myself permission to make mistakes, try out new ideas, ask questions, come across as a bit naive or opinionated or whatever. I give myself permission to write without drafting, or re-drafting, or planning, or reaching for the thesaurus, or (much!) editing. To write 200 words or 2,000 words. It’s my ‘sandbox’ I suppose. It doesn’t mean I’m totally unguarded, but I’ve noticed how people appreciate openness, so I think it’s a good thing to aim for. It’s probably an antidote to all that sales/commercial writing that invades our space (bits of which I’m responsible for – sorry!)

What do you think – does blogging flex our writing muscles, or does it just take us away from, well, proper writing?

Bloggers/

The year that was, plus a T S Eliot Prize-themed workshop

So many good end-of-year review-type blog posts in the last week or so. A few I particularly enjoyed:

Anthony Wilson’s ‘Most read life-saving poems in 2013’ which gave me a chance to catch up on some I’d missed, in particular U A Fanthorpe’s Atlas and Derek Mahon’s Everything is going to be all right.

Josephine Corocoran’s Skip to the good bits was just the sort of ‘yearly review’ I’d love to have written, an entertaining walk-through of what she’s enjoyed reading in 2013, the many events she’s been to and her own writing – very motivational.

Katy Evans-Bush did something slightly different with a ‘Ten ways to celebrate Christmas with poetry‘ blog post, which included an interesting list of poets born in Christmas week, as well as suggestions such as ‘have a read aloud session after Christmas dinner’ – I can picture that going down well in some households more than others! Having said that, I remember a power cut on Christmas day a few years back in which someone started singing a Christmas carol, someone else joined in, and we ended up entertaining the neighbours with our impression of the Von Trapp Family. So anything’s possible.

TS Eliot Prize collection shortlist 2013
Collections shortlisted for the 2013 TS Eliot Prize

Speaking of Katy E-B, she’s holding a one-day session at the Poetry School this coming Saturday, focusing on the T S Eliot shortlisted collections. I’m looking forward to getting a feel for the them prior to the prize readings the following day. I think there are a couple of places left so if it appeals to you contact Katy directly, and maybe see you there.

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.