Tag: lewes

Close readings/

Kim Lasky pamphlet launch

… or rather ‘pamphlets’ launch – not only did Kim Lasky win the Iota Shots competition last year, she did a double whammy with the Poetry Business comp – now that’s just greedy!! Although, to be fair, I don’t know Kim personally but I’m told by several good friends that it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person and more deserving poet.

Anyway, imagine my surprise to get a Templar email alert last Monday to say a pamphlet was about to be launched not only here in my home town of Lewes, but three doors along from my house. How convenient!

kim lasky pamphlets

Kim’s two pamphlets are Petrol, Cyan, Electric (Smith Doorstop) and Eclipse (Templar), available on the night for just £8 for the two – too cheap! And as always from these presses, lovely production values. Kim read from them both, Eclipse accompanied by a beautiful film. (If I’d had my reading glasses and with a teensy bit more light I’d have read along from the copy while listening. I often have that feeling when listening to poetry being read – I want to see it on the page at the same time. Is that something to do with how our brains process information – maybe there’s a word for being more able to absorb the written rather than the spoken word ?)

I haven’t yet read Eclipse properly, but I’m very much enjoying Petrol, Cyan, Electric. I wasn’t quite sure I connected with the subject matter at first (pioneers and early experiments in electricity) yet in fact I’m finding so much that I like in the poems, such as ‘Cut’ in which the silence of a power cut throws what light there is into sharp relief: ‘The moon lays a white sheet / on the bed’ and later ‘the odd spotlight / of an upturned torch / like a ringed planet.’

Elsewhere, in ‘In the Mood’ we’re offered a glimpse of ‘the father I have in photographs’ who ‘took five sugars in tea’ imagined in an empty aircraft hangar, leading the narrator in a 1940s dance –  ‘In your arms I smell the man I never knew / Brylcreem, the chemistry of petrol.’

The collection features many more delicately described incidents, imagined happenings. There is a sense of wonder about it.  I love the way Kim brings real (his)stories to the fore without it feeling like a backwards take, preserving the magic and the mystery of things which, like electricity, are still never fully explainable.

Petrol, Cyan, Electric is on the shortlist for this year’s Michael Marks Pamphlet Award, with results being announced tomorrow.

Places/

What we know by heart

Lewes Bonfire night

Today’s the biggest day of the year here in Lewes – Bonfire. Not much I can say about it that will do it justice, but search for ‘Lewes Bonfire’ on YouTube and you’ll get the picture. For the first time in about eight years we’re having a ‘quiet Bonfire’. In other words, I’m not dressing up & processing, Nick’s not playing host to a houseful, we won’t be standing in the muddy field at 11pm and I won’t be down said field at 7am tomorrow filling a hundred black bags with discarded bottles, chip papers, cans, broken umbrellas and all the other detritus dropped by thousands of spectators.

Nope – we’re just going to pop outside to watch a procession or two, enjoy the odd beer and bangers & mash and then see the fireworks from our top room. Ah!

Having woken up at 5.30am to the first bangs I started saying ‘Remember, remember the fifth of November’ in my head and trying to recall all the verses which get recited by the ‘Bonfire Boys’ around town tonight under the banner of ‘Bonfire Prayers.’ But if it makes you think of wiggling a few sparklers in the back garden as a kid then think again. These Bonfire Prayers are recited with all the ritual awe and seriousness of the Anglican Creed. People really do remember, and may of them feel the events of the past as if they happened yesterday.

What rhymes or songs learned in childhood can you still recite? We no longer have an oral tradition in this country, unless you count football chants (‘We’re all agreed, Liverpool are magic’). I was reading recently about how in Russia you won’t struggle to find people who can recite poetry, from all walks of life and backgrounds.

I started dredging my memory. Nursery rhymes – OK, I can probably do a couple of verses of ‘Sing a song of sixpence’ or ‘Oranges and Lemons’. After that, hymns – daily assembly from age 7 to 18 left an indelible mark. Even my ex-chorister husband (who has an encyclopaedic memory for hymn tunes and numbers) is surprised at how many verses of how many hymns I can still sing from memory. Pop ballads, sure. But there are no new lyrics, although I used to love memorising Al Stewart songs (“In a morning from a Bogart movie / In a country where they turn back time / You go strolling though the crowd like Peter Lorre contemplating a crime…”)

Then of course TV. ‘Hugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grump.’ And something I’m most ashamed of, advertising jingles:

Richard Shops are filled with lots of pretty things / lots of lovely pretty things to wear / hey there, pretty thing! Make the world a prettier place! / Come pretty up, come buy your clothes at Richard Shops! (Aaahh!)

Hmm… some nice (if unsubtle) internal rhyme there, but more repetition than a search-engine-optimised ‘buy now’ page. Believe it or not, that actually worked on me when I was about 15. I was desperate to shop at Richard Shops. And I won’t even start on the Flake advert.

Miss Cave who taught us RE at school (“Cave! That means ‘beware’!”) made us learn the books of the Bible to a catchy tune. Yes indeed – the entire Old and New Testaments. I wouldn’t trust myself to be word-perfect now, as I’m a little out of practice. But I can do enough for it to be a party piece. Of course it was just a mnemonic device, although many of the names have their own music – Habukkuk, Ezekiel, Collossians.

When it comes to poetry I know very few poems in their entirety (and they’re all short!) and some snatches/lines from other poems. There’s always been a movement in support of learning songs and poems from memory. I wish I’d made more of an effort to do so when I was younger and it was easier to stimulate the long-term memory. One of my mother’s great pleasures at the end of her life, when it was hard for her to focus on the here and now and even photographs had lost their relevance, was to be read the poetry she learned in her youth. Even the little rhymes in her school autograph book made her laugh every time I read them out, and it was a joy to hear her join in the phrases she still knew by heart.

If you’re around fireworks this evening, stay safe (and dry, if you can.)

Angst/

Notes from a workshop

workshop notes

workshop notes

Last week I was lacking inspiration, part due to work commitments and then a 3-day headache – ugh – so it was a pleasure to once more find myself in the interesting ambience of the Lewes Bus Station building for another workshop with Mimi Khalvati and the group of serious poets I seem to have inveigled myself into. (Can one ‘inveigle oneself?’ Hmm).

Sometimes in these situations I have a feeling of ‘this is not real’. I suppose it’s the usual ‘I’m an imposter and any minute now I’m going to be found out’ anxiety that I gather many women (especially) suffer from. A bit like jobs I’ve had in the past when I’ve sat in meetings and had the distinct sensation of acting like I know why I’m there, like I know what’s going on and my presence is making a difference. It’s not exactly the fear of being unmasked, like that scene in ‘Working Girl’ when Melanie Griffith is accused of being a fake and leaves the boardroom saying ‘sorry! sorry!’ It is something like that. But it also feels like I’m in a play, or someone else’s dream. There’s something fragile about the situation, grounded in nothing much. It’s like meeting a childhood hero in your kitchen or office. The strange mix of something that’s at once real and unreal. The feeling that it might be you who’s actually experiencing this or it might be something you’re dreaming or watching happen to someone else. And then wondering if there’s any difference.

Anyway, sorry for the cod-philosophical moment there – back to business – it’s very odd how sometimes in workshops there emerges a kind of theme. I remember a previous session where there were a lot of poems about water. And another where houses featured prominently. This week, dreams and fairytales came up quite a few times.

So in no particular order, here were some of Mimi’s general observations/comments that I made a note of … hope they’re of use /interesting.

  • When you have what’s basically a list poem, how will you meld together the various items on the list? If you use the same construction for each (eg active verb phrases like He puts out …. she ties together … they wait.. etc) it can get wearing. What’s the mortar that will tie the ‘bricks’ of the poem together? Maybe think about rhythm more, or bring in other tenses, sentence constructions?
  • We’re often told to avoid poeticisms, and yet one that sometimes slips through is a noun phrase that starts “what…’ as in ‘what stirred him at that moment was XYZ’ or ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. Mimi says this is a sightly archaic construction – not something we tend to say in speech – beware.
  • General point on form – the structure needs to convey a thrill, just as much as the image or emotion you’re communicating.
  • Natural speech stress is not the same as metrical stress. When writing in strict metre it can be tempting to put in the little words that you might ordinarily leave out in free verse. But you can sometimes afford to drop the extra words and still keep to the metre. (This is something I need to work on – I tend to get drawn into ‘dumty-dum’ phrases if I’m not careful.)
  • Punctuation – it’s possible to be too punctilious! If someone is a fast reader, they may lose some of the excitement/interest if they are slowed down by commas or being too deliberately led. Specifying the pauses in this way can also put a big responsibility on those phrases to ‘scintillate’.
Courses/

Forthcoming events

publishing industry day

Last week I wasn’t able to get along to the first Pighog poetry night in Brighton as it was Nick’s birthday so we ate out at the Jolly Sportsman in East Chiltington (lush). BUT I’m looking forward to the next one on March 28th as Judith Cair, a lovely poet who I know from various workshopping groups, is launching her pamphlet The Ship’s Eye.

Tomorrow is the meeting of the Brighton Stanza, and we’re combining the reading and workshopping groups into one. Although we had booked our workshopping dates, the pub omitted to ‘put them in the book’ and as a result we were bumped. So we thought we’d combine the 2 groups for this month and next. Anyway, we’ll play it by ear and do whatever people want to do on the night.

Then on Wednesday I’m facilitating the ‘First Wednesday’ poetry group here in Lewes at Pleasant Stores, run by Colin Bell who’s away this week. It’s a new group and I’ve only been to one event myself. It’s mostly a reading group, there’s no workshopping. So I shall take plenty of current magazines and collections to share and read a few things from, and hopefully others will too.

Next Saturday 9th March is the New Writing South Publishing Industry Day at Brighton Library which should be brilliant: many good speakers/writers and industry experts, plenty of opportunities to network with writers, publishers, agents etc. I’m presenting a short session on ‘building your online writer presence’ as a taster for my new course running in April/May. Do come along if you can, and say hello.

Poet's Tips/

Notes from Mimi Khalvati workshop

workshop notes 26-1-13

workshop notes 26-1-13

Yesterday was the first of our monthly workshops with Mimi Khaltvati this year, and as usual I came away with plenty of new insights and reminders. Here are some of the things Mimi said which I jotted down, as usual I’ve tried to stick to ‘universal’ comments rather than those to do with specific poems. Hope you find it useful.

On form/shaping/editing: Test out different forms, don’t just plump for the first way you’ve written something, which may be a bunch of uneven-length stanzas. Is that really the best you can do? It can make a huge difference – for example triplets can be more musical, lighter than big blocks of ten lines or whatever.

On villanelles – they need “strenuous thought”. You have to think backwards. You need to have arrived at a transformation in the last two lines, their meaning needs to have changed even though the words haven’t.

On consistency of register – if you use contractions (I’m, he’s etc) sometimes but not always, that will seems wrong. Beware mixing up idiomatic and archaic phrases, especially if it’s done to fit a certain metre or rhyme scheme.

On rhyme – ‘if you choose the wrong word to rhyme then everything goes wrong!’

On specific references to things the reader may or may not be familiar with: “it’s courteous as a writer to assume the reader is one step ahead of you. It also makes for better writing.”

On developing a critical faculty – ask of other people’s writing (as a precursor to asking it of your own) ‘what is missing? what more could be done?’ “A fierce critical faculty is a wondrous gift.” Be prepared to think in larger terms rather than just tweaking.

On beautiful language – it’s not enough to just write beautifully. Too much beauty can be soporific. (Mimi admitted literally falling asleep at a reading by a prominent poet – I couldn’t possibly say who – because it was all too lovely “the melody, the evenness of the waves…”). So how can you break up it up? You need a counterpoint. Look at what you’ve written and move things about if necessary – a strong start to a line can serve as a stake, a prop holding things up. You may naturally write beautifully – but your best strength can also be your weakness.

On tricky links – you can make ‘leaps’ (I took this to mean the idea of moving between seemingly unrelated images or meanings) – leaps are good – but they need to be ‘clear leaps’. If something is in the way, confusing things, you need to get rid of that, clear the way.

On developing a ‘forensic’ eye for syntax – check for missing subjects or verbs that change tense, confused constructions, missing commas etc due to long sentences with sub-clauses over several stanzas. (For me, this is a bit like writing HTML – every time you open a bracket or start a new ‘declaration’ you have to close it, even if it’s hundreds of lines later, with all kinds of embedded instructions in between. If you get something wrong the whole thing falls apart.  But it’s so satisfying when you find the missing inverted commas or bracket!)

Angst/

Needlewriters poets & that pesky CW MA

At the library of memories - Maria Jastrzebska

At the library of memories - Maria Jastrzebska

Wonderful evening at the Needlewriters in Lewes last night, with Maria Jastrzebska and Andrea Samuelson reading their poetry.

Both read very movingly. Maria’s new collection ‘At the Library of Memories’ is just out from Waterloo Press, and Maria gave it an intriguing introduction by saying the memories were not only hers, but those of her relatives and possibly even ours. This morning I opened the book at random and read and extraordinary poem called Telling Tales. No surprise then to read in in the credits that this particular piece was a prizewinner in the Troubadour competition a couple of years ago.

Sort-of disclosure: I have the great privilege of being in a Mimi Khalvati workshopping group with Maria (as well as a number of other very accomplished poets) and I have to say that as well as being a talented poet she is also an insightful and supportive and member of the group. Lucky moi.

I wasn’t familiar with Andrea Samuelson‘s work but it was a pleasure to meet her and hear her read from her new book ‘Cradle Song’, on the subject of the life of her Swedish great-grandmother and the similarities in their experiences.

Two poet friends let on that Andrea had done the same MA Creative Writing course just before them, and her work had been held up as a ‘model’. Ooer! I wonder if she knows?

On the subject of a Creative Writing MA, I am yet again looking at course descriptions and dreaming of applying to somewhere like Royal Holloway, commuting to London twice a week for heady tutorials with Andrew Motion or Jo Shapcott… what’s the matter with me? I haven’t got £6k in my pocket and I’m supposed to be earning money, not spending it on luxuries like this!  Plus, I seem to be forgetting that there’s the small matter of applying and getting accepted.

Talk me out of it, someone!

Books/

Readings, launches, and the Carmen Rollers

Readers at the Frogmore anthology launch in Lewes
As we were reading: Jeremy Page, Julia O’Brien, Robin Houghton

 

Lots of excitement in the past week. First of all, National Poetry Day and the launch of the Frogmore Press anthology Poems from the Old Hill on Thursday evening. It was standing room only as we’d all brought family and friends to cheer us on. It was fab to see some of my non-poet friends there, just hoping they enjoyed it and went away to tell everyone how great poetry readings are.

Big thank you to Charlotte for capturing some pics of some of us reading. We did look up occasionally, promise! Actually there’s some video footage too, which I may just post here if I can get my nerve up.

One non-poet friend got in a muddle about the date and venue and turned up a day late – but at least she went to Ieko on the High Street so in instead of us she got the lovely Catherine Smith reading from her new collection Otherwhere. Not so bad, eh? I just hope she didn’t accost Catherine and say “but I thought Robin Houghton was reading?” Tee hee.

And THEN on Sunday evening I was persuaded along to the monthly open mic event at the Baltica cafe by my stand-up performance poet friend Louise Taylor, neither of us quite knowing what to expect. But Louise being such a pro she had her material at the ready and performed two VERY funny classics of hers (the second by popular request, poor L being a tad hungover from her birthday party the night before.)

Halfway through the evening (not just poetry but also various acoustic musical acts) about a hundred people piled in, and it turned out to be none other than singing friend Polly with her entire family (including her 90-year old mother) fresh from a four-hour operatic marathon at the Duke of York’s in Brighton. A number of them formed themselves up as members of two close-harmony groups, the Carmen Rollers and the Old Spice Boys, and sang a couple of numbers. Grand entertainment. And what a nice evening – all those people turning out to perform for each other, rather than staying in and watching Downton Abbey. Love it!

Poet's Tips/

Workshop with Mimi Khalvati

Aren’t we lucky in Lewes? A bona fide A-list poet comes down here from London each month to offer her wisdom and help us improve our writing. And I am finally in! After a year or so of champing at the bit I now have a place, and enjoyed my first ‘official’ workshop on Saturday at the salubrious venue of Lewes Bus Station. As well as Mimi there’s also a fantastic line-up of poets in the group, so I feel really privileged.

Here are a few extracts from my frantic note-taking of Mimi-isms, in no particular order… (I know these sound completely random and out of context they probably are, but I’m partly doing it to remind myself of what was said)

  • Don’t say the same thing several times
  • Be careful when editing not to lose the tone, if it’s crucial to the poem
  • On line length, if you’re unsure: find an important line and try using that as your line length
  • Ask yourself “am I going this way or that way?’
  • If you aim high you have more work to do
  • Writing formal poetry is 50 times harder than free verse (I liked this one!)
  • You sometimes need to be bold and not care what readers think/feel
  • Doubt in the mind of the reader is good. Don’t worry about taking things too literally. Sometimes  it’s a sign you need to read more, and read more ‘illogical’ stuff eg Selima Hill. If people don’t understand that’s their problem!
  • Avoid signposting (ie nudging people), plus a few more ‘over used’ words hit the dust (ask me if you really want to know!)
  • Try swapping nouns or noun phrases and see how it sounds – mess things up a bit – to stretch yourself into unfamiliar territory

Happy days!

 

 

Angst/

Please do not put me on after 9.30pm

Stephen Plaice

The autumn poetry scene has swung into action. On Wednesday evening Clare Best hosted an evening of readings at the Needlemakers – something enjoyable from all the readers, a good mix including Jackie Wills, John Davies and Clare herself.

I enjoyed it all but I do tend to very suddenly have a concentration crash at 9.40pm – nothing to do with excess alcohol, I can assure you (I came out with very little cash, and although Charlotte was looking after a basket of fivers – entrance money – for part of the evening, she kept me well away from it. Thanks for buying me a drink though, C!) Sitting with us was a non-poet neighbour-friend who asked us poetry questions which of course got us going. It was all very fine and civilised but I left making a mental note that I hope NEVER to have to read last at an event, and certainly not beyond 10pm.

Then last night was Lewes Poetry, the evening at the Lewes Arms run by Oli Gozzard, famous for its raucous interval limerick competition and near punch-ups during the judging process. I haven’t been to the last couple of events so was looking forward to it. Unfortunately we were late – I dragged Nick along, promising him it wouldn’t even have got going by 9pm, but when we arrived we were just in time for a long interval. Oh good, I thought, the limerick comp! But alas, it has been DROPPED due to ‘public demand’ – what? I miss a couple of sessions and my favourite bit has been ditched because someone got offended. This was Lewes Poetry’s USP, so a big mistake IMHO. Thankfully, Oli read a very rude poem involving ‘coalitions’ and ‘positions’ so managed to slip some welcome hilarity under the radar. I should also mention how fine it was to see Stephen Plaice there (pictured above) – back on the poetry scene, he tells me, so watch out for more from him.

But anyway, I just happened to have a short ditty in my back pocket (!) so when Oli asked if I wanted to read I said ‘yes’ – not thinking of course that being a latecomer I’d be on LAST.

So there I was reading at almost ten pm – so much for my resolve.

 

Books/

Upcoming poetry events in Lewes, Brighton & Seaford…

Seafordcrypt

Very pleased to be invited by Tom Roper to be one of the poets reading at Seaford Live this year on September 12th. Last year I did the open mic. It’s an intimate venue – the Crypt Gallery – rather lends itself to ghost stories or something creepy. I’ll see what I can conjour up…

Then two days later it’s Pecha Kucha Night at the Lighthouse in Brighton, and I’m planning to present a kind of poetic ‘happening’. PK is all about showing 20 slides, each for 20 seconds, and providing some commetary to go with them. I’m doing something very similar to the last time I took part which was a couple of years ago now, when I showed photos by my talented friend Simon Dale, acccompanied by some poetry they inspired. No ditties of publishing quality but it was certainly different, and even if you don’t care for the poetry you can enjoy the photos! There is always a fantastic range of subjects at a PK night so worth coming along to.

And then on October 4th it’s National Poetry Day and the launch of Poems from the Old Hill at the Needlemakers in Lewes, which will mean reading in front of quite a few REAL poets – ooo-er!

Photo of Seaford Crypt Gallery from http://www.littlemissmortar.com/