Tag: Mark doty

Angst/

The Reading List, winding up

I'm nobody, who are you?

First: general ‘how I’m feeling’ stuff, feel free to skip down if you’re short of time

Apologies for the silence these last few days. The usual self-employed person’s dilemma of feeling like rubbish and simultaneously wanting to stay on top of work and not let people down.

Yesterday I had to leave early from John McCullough’s poetry workshop at New Writing South, for fear of irritating everyone with my endless coughing. Once home, I went to bed for two hours. And being a fast day was good, especially the no-alcohol bit. So the upshot is that I’m feeling much improved today (but not well enough to go to choir rehearsal tonight.)

The Reading List

My mini-review series ‘The Reading List’ has come to an end. It was just SO 2015! There are plenty of excellent other blogs featuring reviews, and looking at the stats for this site I could see that the initial interest in mine had levelled out. However, I’d like to assure you I’m still reading, and now and then I may well be moved to blog about individual poetry collections.

What I’ve enjoyed lately: Mark Doty’s Deep Lane, full of pathos, warmth and even farce – there’s a lovely tale of the narrator locking himself out of his house not once, but twice, and having to clamber through the window ‘which makes me think / this was what it was like to be born: / awkward, too big for the passageway…’ (‘Spent’).

I’m meandering my way through Mark Ford’s essays on poets, as gathered in This Dialogue of One (Eyewear). They are thought provoking, well researched and accessible (but not so ‘accessible’ that I don’t feel I’m being educated!) For example, this morning I read about the controversy surrounding the interpretation of Emily Dickinson’s work and how her editors disagreed about how it should be presented – as pure manuscript, or as ‘visual productions’. It made me think about her poems quite differently. If she’d been around today I think she would have wholeheartedly embraced everything from graffiti to video and sculpture in the course of expressing herself. Probably not a performance poet though, given her reserve. But a kindred spirit to Banksy, perhaps?

News of poetry rejections, submissions etc

Last week I spent a few days going over the poems I’ve been gathering for a next pamphlet. I haven’t entered the Poetry Business pamphlet comp for a few years now (since my over-confident days!), because I feel it’s the ‘big one’ as regards pamphlet comps, and the odds of winning are low. Also, I don’t feel I’ve had a strong enough submission, the time hasn’t been right, etc. But a funny thing happened as I was reading and ordering this latest group: they seemed quite good. So I thought I’d just do it, and enter. I ruthlessly ditched a couple that seemed weaker, although I like them. I’d also resurrected a poem that first saw light of day in The Interpreter’s House about 4 years ago, but that I’d been working on to improve since. In the end I had 21 poems. I wasn’t sure about the title, but I never am. Anyway, it’s sent now. Never to be thought about again, until I can try it somewhere else!

Are you currently sending out pamphlet submissions? What’s your feeling about them? I once heard a poet talking about how she wouldn’t send out her MS unless she’d first paid a professional poet to edit it. Is that usual? I just kind of naively thought you put it together yourself, did your best to order the poems, eliminate any stupid errors, and … send. And if someone liked it, you then worked with the publisher/editor to hone things up. Do share your own experience of this, I’d love to know.

Meanwhile I received yet another rejection last night, to add to the one last week. Talking about kicking a sick poet when she’s down. Still, not quite as bad as getting a £100 speeding fine three days before Christmas – Top of the Season to you, DVLA! Still, as regards the rejections (I prefer ‘DECLINED’ as a folder name) I console myself with the fact that several of the re*****d poems had been out so long I’ve since revised (and hopefully improved) them. We shall see, when I try them elsewhere. On the good news front, Charles Johnson of Obsessed with Pipework has found space for my 2 poems in the February issue, so I won’t have to wait until May to see them in print and settled down.

And MORE good news – Telltale Press has at last been accepted by the Poetry Library as a legitimate press, which means we will have a listing on their website and that all our forthcoming pamphlets will be available there. Another small but significant sign of recognition, and gratefully received.

Blog/

What I’ve been up to, and look ahead to Aldeburgh

aldeburgh beach

Just a quick update and a look ahead to the weekend …

I was excited to see the T S Eliot Prize shortlist, especially as it included the excellent debut collection from Sarah Howe – Loop of Jade – which I mini-reviewed on this blog a short while ago.  I’ve already signed up for Katy Evans-Bush‘s excellent preview day when we look at all the shortlisted collections as curated by Katy. I went this a couple of years ago and it really enhanced my enjoyment of the readings night. Recommended! I’ve also bought a couple of the books on the list – Mark Doty’s Deep Lane and Don Paterson’s 40 Sonnets. I’m trying not to read any reviews of the books before I talk about them on the The Reading List, in case they influence me, and I’m trying so hard to learn how to review/critique.

Speaking of DP – I’ve booked to go hear him and Liz Berry read at The Print Room on 15th December…actually off the back of hearing Liz read on the podcast Transatlantic Poetry – definitely worth a browse, there’s a wonderful archive of poetry reading there.

Meanwhile I’m three sessions in to New Writing South’s ‘Advanced Poetry’ course with John McCullough and it’s really warming up. With a large number of students I suppose it always takes a while to settle down. But John’s enthusiasm and support is great. He’s giving us a crash course in poets many of us are unfamiliar with and it’s very exciting. I’m keeping notes on all the writing prompts and tips he gives us in the hope they will be useful to dip into. He’s also suggested we create an ‘anthology’ of poems that we like  – in magazines, on the web, etc – type them each out and save them in a ring binder under categories that will help us refer to them later, for inspiration. It sounds a bit analogue but I thought this was a fine idea – I so often read a poem in a mag, think ‘ooh this is good’ then have trouble recalling who wrote it or where I saw it – duh! Mind you, these days one needs to be careful not to fall into the ‘I must have subconsciously been influenced by XYZ  and yes my own poem came out pretty much word-for-word the same but it was all an innocent mistake!’

Last week we had a whistle-stop tour of rellie-visiting and on the way we stopped at Bradford upon Avon for Dawn Gorman‘s excellent Words & Ears event. What a privilege to be invited to read there – so many good poets in the room, and a lovely atmosphere. Thank you to everyone who came and also to those who bought pamphlets – I think this was my best reading in terms of sales!

Now I’m looking forward to the official launch of Sarah Barnsley’s debut pamphlet The Fire Station next Thursday 12th November at Goldsmiths in London. The Telltale Press massive is, well, massively excited about it, so do come along if you’re able.

And now to Aldeburgh! It’s my first visit to the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival and I think it’s going to be a wonderful weekend. I’m sharing a ‘sorority house’ with poet friends Clare Best and Charlotte Gann on the bracing Aldeburgh seafront. If you’re coming too, please say hello if our paths cross!