Tag: Mary Evans Picture Library

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Nature sleeps. Thank goodness for art

Metope from the Parthenon Marbles

What is it about January? You have to trust that living things are asleep and not dead. The garden is brown and damp. In January I examine any magnolia tree I come across, looking for buds: signs of life. Even though days are getting longer it happens so slowly. Generating every extra minute of daylight seems a huge effort for Gaia.

On the other hand, I was in the British Museum recently looking at the Parthenon marbles, and I was so struck with the energy and verve that still shines from these 2,500 year old carvings. Despite the difficult relationship between humankind and the natural world, I’m uplifted by the way that the creative energy of humans channelled into art can endure, and still have the power to amaze and inspire people hundreds, if not thousands of years into the future.

Here’s a bit of joy in a dark month: this evening is the online launch of Sarah Barnsley‘s excellent first collection, The Thoughts (Smith Doorstop). I’m a bit biased as Sarah is a good friend and a Telltale Press buddy – I’m proud to say we published her pamphlet The Fire Station in 2015. The Thoughts is compelling, and a bit of a page-turner (if poetry can be described that way); it’s formally inventive, sometimes a painful read and sometimes painfully funny. I’m so pleased to see Sarah’s name up in lights. She’s a fine poet and it’s so well deserved that she’s been picked up by Smith Doorstop. Buy, buy!

Moving at a glacial speed (that January feeling) are of course poetry magazine submissions. I’ve had three poems out to a magazine for 120 days, four for 68 days. On a more positive note, Mike Bartholomew-Briggs at London Grip accepted a poem from me in under a fortnight, which cheered me up no end – it’ll be in the March edition. Also, the Mary Evans Picture Library have just published my poem ‘Beautiful Head’ on its ‘Poems and Pictures’ blog. The blog comprises a large archive of work by many excellent poets. Do check it out if you haven’t already, and they welcome contributions by the way.

 

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So this is Christmas, and what have I done?

Mince pies

Oh no! I can see I haven’t posted for several weeks, has there really been nothing to talk about? Let me see…

First of all, nothing to do with poetry but my Covid experience was pretty mild in the end. So as far I’m concerned the jabs were worth it. Plus we’ve made it to Christmas without having to cancel a single concert, which is a result, and in fact I’ve just got back from a bout of rustic carol singing on the outside terrace of the fantastic Chaseley Trust. So a big yay for Christmas.

Meanwhile, perhaps you recall my saying I wouldn’t be sending out any more poems to magazines for a while? Well, after putting out my quarterly spreadsheet I was in a ‘sending out’ mood so I confess I did toss some poems in the direction of one or two publications. I’m testing the water a bit with some new work. I tried two poems on a Canadian publication called Parentheses – submitted at around 6pm, rejected by 7am the next morning. Now that’s what I call emphatic! There was no suggestion they would welcome any more, so hey ho. Other work is still out to various places, and I have a few more items itching to go out. Maybe in the new year. On a positive note, one poem has been solicited by the Mary Evans Picture Library ‘Pictures and Poems’ blog (forthcoming), and another will be coming out in the Frogmore Papers 100th edition next year.

I’ve really appreciated my Hastings Stanza workshopping cohorts this year and was particularly thrilled that we were able to start meeting again face to face. What a difference it makes. I’ve developed such an aversion to meetings on Zoom. I can just about tolerate Zoom readings, but if my course at York in 2022-23 turns into a permanently online thing then I can’t see myself returning.

My reading habits have definitely mutated in the last two years, in that I’m reading more novels, in particular historical crime – it started with Eco’s The Name of the Rose which I became a bit obsessed with, and then I had to read everything by CJ Sansom. On the poetry front I’m currently reading Deformations by Sasha Dugdale in preparation for interviewing Sasha for the Planet Poetry podcast, and the book is stimulating all kinds of ideas in me. I’ve also got Sasha’s The Red House on my ‘to read’ pile, from her back catalogue. Then there’s Myra Schneider’s Siege and Symphony which I’m reviewing for the Frogmore Papers, and latest copies of The Rialto and Poetry calling me. Recently swung onto my radar is the work of Alexander Pope – I’ll probably bore you with more about that in 2022.

The newest episode of Planet Poetry is in the bag and coming out tomorrow. It’s a Christmas special featuring an interview with Di Slaney (Candlestick Press) and Sharon Black (Pindrop Press), both of them poets as well as publishers, talking about their writing and their publishing practice. Peter Kenny and I are proud of the fact that we are now 5 episodes into our second season – I think that makes us veterans in poetry podcasting terms! We’ve already got some brilliant guests lined up for 2022 so if you haven’t already, please do subscribe ‘wherever you get your podcasts’, as they say.

That’s it – a very Happy Christmas to you and yours, and every good wish for the new year. A huge THANK YOU for reading and commenting on this blog, supporting the submissions spreadsheet and my other various projects – I am truly grateful.

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Readings this coming week, Planet Poetry & Uni stuff

Today feels like a desk-work day even though the sun is shining outside – we did go for a long walk on the Downs yesterday and I always need a day to recover after sustained exercise, although of course I have to keep up my Yoga with Adriene sessions! It was cold and frosty up on the hills yesterday, but beautiful:

On the South Downs winter walk

Poetry & Poetics course update

The good news is I wrote my essay and submitted it a week ago – woop! I could have delayed and kept fiddling with it, but I didn’t really see the point. So now I’m free to devote my reading time to Dante. It looks like the entire Spring term will be taught online, which is a shame, but I’m clinging onto the idea that as I’m doing this over two years, next year I might be able to go up to York more regularly. My small coterie of fellow students is lovely and we’ve enjoyed some sociable Zoom chats. All this is much harder for them than for cosy old me of course.

A couple of readings coming up

Nothing at all since last March and now I have two readings in a week – hmmm. Actually both are team readings, the first is on Monday 11th at 6pm (GMT), an event organised by the Mary Evans Picture Library and Arts Destination South Molton, in which 15 of us will each read a poem from the Poets and Pictures blog, accompanied by the photo or image that inspired it. We had a run through the other evening and there are some intriguing poem/picture combinations. It makes good use of Zoom to have the pictures up while we read. Lots of fine poets taking part, including Janet Sutherland, Jane Clarke, Rosie Jackson and Martyn Crucefix. Its free and open to all, but if you’re interested in attending do drop an email to Alison Verney at admin@artsdestination.co.uk who will send you a link.

Meanwhile on Thursday 14th, again at 6pm, there’s a Needlewriters/Frogmore Press Zoom event in which eight of us will read something from the Poetry South East 2020 Anthology. Drop a line to Jeremy at frogmorepress@gmail.com if you’d like a link to attend. It would be lovely to see you at either or both readings!

Planet Poetry

The podcast is back for 2021! In yesterday’s episode Peter interviewed Mario Petrucci, and then we had a bit of banter about prose poems, New Year’s resolutions and whatnot. We have some very interesting interviews coming up over the next few weeks, including Mary Jean Chan, Inua Ellams, and a number of other lovely poets and pundits to be confirmed ….why not have a listen and sign up?

Planet Poetry 7/1/21: Mario Petrucci

Spring

More good news – the days are getting longer! Daffodils are pushing up already! last week I did a big clean up in the ‘potting shed’ and that felt good. The seed catalogues are here and I’m thinking about what to plant. Bring it on!

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What I’ve been doing (and While you were Sleeping)

It’s three and a half weeks until my first term essay is due, and I’m starting to relax into it. Which may sound strange, as I know the usual narrative around deadlines is that the tension rises and the panic grows the closer they get. But instead I did all the panicking early on, when I couldn’t decide what to write about and the vastness of possibilities rose in front of me like Mount Everest. Now I have a loose topic, not exactly a plan yet, but I’m getting there. Today, a flurry of post-its. Soon: an essay plan.

post its

One of the texts I’m focusing on is a book suggested by Peter Kenny who promptly sent me his copy, which is generous of him as it appears to be out of print: Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, a poet who died too young, which may be why she’s not more well-known, certainly it seems in the UK. It’s completely gripped me and I’m going to be scrutinising it alongside Anne Carson’s brilliant Nox, another book that I’ve only recently discovered even though it’s a few years old now. Woop!

Last week was Episode 5 of Planet Poetry, in which I interviewed Jack Underwood and Peter and I talked about some of the poetry collections we’ve enjoyed this year. We’re having a few weeks off now so the next episode will be on January 7th. It’s been hard work getting ‘the Planet’ off the ground, but so stimulating and great fun to work with Peter on it.

I’ve not submitted a great many poems this year, in fact nothing in the last six months. Alongside the usual rejections it’s been super to have work published in Stand, The Frogmore Papers, The North, and I do have two poems forthcoming in Prole. But then… nothing. I hope I can get something out soon, or in 2021 I might vanish.

On a more positive note, I’m going to be taking part in an online reading for the Mary Evans Picture Library in January, and Chichester poetry are going to have me as their ‘featured poet’ in February/March. Come on Robin, write some bloody new poems why don’t you.

Meanwhile my wee group the Lewes Singers have had a quiet year, but a few of us got together for a very small, socially-distanced concert last weekend. It was so wonderful to sing with others again, if a bit tricky having to stand so far apart. And emotional. I felt myself welling up during a couple of the carols. I know there’s a lot of discussion about how to take care of our mental health at the moment, but the subtext I always hear is ‘yes but of course physical health is much more important.’ I do wonder if it shouldn’t be a more equal balance.

Yesterday I had what turns out was my last gym workout for while, so jogs on the windy seafront beckon.  And good news today: the arrival of half a dozen favourite feelgood films on second hand DVD from World of Books which Nick and I plan to hunker down with over the coming weeks. (Overboard, It’s a Wonderful Life, While you were Sleeping, Green card etc) I know what you’re thinking: only six? What about the rest of January? But some of those are going to get watched several times, I’m sure. Plus there’s always Netflix.

Thanks so much for reading/commenting on this blog. Wishing you a peaceful Christmas, and (as someone said on a card) a Happier New Year.

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New: how-to guide to submitting to UK poetry magazines, plus new collaborations

New book!

With the UK poetry magazines submissions windows spreadsheet becoming so popular, I’ve decided to take it step further: a how-to booklet – everything you need to know about submitting to UK poetry mags – well, pretty much everything apart from how to write stunning poems – ha ha! I leave that kind of advice well and truly up to others!

There will be honest advice from magazine editors, tips on how to minimise your admin, dealing with rejections, up-to-date magazine profiles, mistakes to avoid… and more. As much as I can squish into a pocket-book, basically. Expect bullets, calls to action, URLs and minimal padding. This will be a lean, mean fact-packed machine. Magazine submissions is a topic that comes up regularly on this blog and always generates questions and discussion, so let’s get stuck in.

More details to follow soon.

Collaboration for Poetry in Aldeburgh

I love autumn and its sense of re-starting, of new opportunities. A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to take part in Maria Isakova Bennett‘s Aldeburgh Collaborative, a project involving poets all over the country sharing a moment at the coast on the last day of August. Maria is the artist-in-residence at the Poetry in Aldeburgh festival in November, alongside Michael Brown, and her collaborative piece will be on display there. It’s sure to include hand-stitching and a strong visual element. Here’s a fascinating interview with Maria on Paul Stevenson’s blog where she talks to him about her projects.

Another potential collaboration

I was recently contacted by a visual artist who liked a poem of mine on the Mary Evans Picture Library ‘Poems and Pictures’ website called ‘Ladies’ Hour’. She has in mind a collaborative project which sounds really exciting. We’re both new to collaborations, but we’re both at the same sort of stage in our careers and looking for new challenges. Of course there’s the usual issue of funding to apply for first. I also need to stay focused on my first collection, although this new project would be spread out through the year. I’ll keep you posted as to how it pans out.

Magazine news

The Rialto has just opened its window for poetry submissions. It’s a fantastic magazine to get work into, with a fine reputation. It’s competitive, but Michael Mackmin and his assistant editors are always open to new voices. Good luck.

Not really news, but I’ve just taken out a subscription to Strix, a new-ish magazine produced in Leeds (thank you to Heidi Beck for the recommendation) and am loving first of all the presentation. OK I know looks aren’t everything, but it’s joyful when you have something of beauty in your hands. I’m also already enjoying the poetry inside, work by Julie Mellor and Helen Burke in particular.

Angst/

Roundup | a good poetry week

Bit of a roundup post. Last Tuesday evening at West Greenwich Library I got to hear some super poems inspired by the Mary Evans Picture Library, by Sarah Westcott (who I almost didn’t recognise because her new, chic pixie haircut was different to her Twitter pic!) Lorraine Mariner, Mick Delap, Peter Wallis and others – including Sarah’s father Richard, who was also kind enough to buy my pamphlet (!) I bought Lorraine Mariner’s collection There will be no more nonsense (Picador) and have romped through it. Recommended!

lorraine mariner - there will be no more nonsense

I wasn’t able to go to my regular Hastings Stanza group on Wednesday which was a shame, but on Thursday there was a bit of a poets’ reunion at Needlewriters from which I came away enthused – about recent writing, about our plans for Telltale Press, and about catching up with poet friends.

Then on Saturday I was in Brighton for a small group workshop given by Jackie Wills. The day started well (trains running!), until I realised I’d gone to the wrong address entirely. So after a leisurely twenty minute walk from the station, I then turned into a crazy woman trying to find her way across town to the actual venue – and let me tell you Brighton is hilly! So I arrived 40 minutes late, red in the face and carrying all the layers I’d taken off en route while overheating. I then started developing a headache from hell so by the end of the day I was very grateful for sharing a taxi back to the station with two of my fellow poets. I somehow managed to run for the train and then sat through the journey with my eyes closed, praying not to be sick.

And yet! I enjoyed the day very much – Jackie presented us with a series of exercises that were all based on poems by quite different poets, from Thomas Sheridan to Adrienne Rich. I came away with plenty of writing roughs that felt work-uppable.

Meanwhile I have The Rialto still to read properly. It was bittersweet to see two of my poems on a double page spread. It’s always brilliant to get something in The Rialto, but (and I don’t think this is unusual) part of me worries straight away that everything around it always seems so MUCH better. And instead of enjoying the moment I’m thinking how high the next hill is to climb. I did read a very insightful piece recently which I thought shed light on this – how focusing on goals means that satisfaction is always in the future or the past – The Problem of Living in the Present. It’s not about ‘mindfulness’. Worth a read if any of this resonates with you.

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Currently reading/listening to | upcoming events

As usual I’m a bit late to the party on a few things, namely Ocean Vuong, whose Forward-winning collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds (Cape) I haven’t yet read, but I was fascinated by yesterday’s Guardian profile of him and this video of him reading was just so compelling I had to stop drinking my tea and let it get cold:

I’m currently reading Lara by Bernardine Evaristo (Bloodaxe) which was recommended to me as a kind of ‘novel in verse’ although it doesn’t have a straightforward narrative by any means. The various characters are revealed to us in a fragmentary way, sometimes like film scenes, other times more impressionistic. It’s pulling me along. I hadn’t realised that Bernardine is pretty much from the same town as me, or at least, she was at school there. Which feels kind of strange, and strange that I think it’s strange, as if I thought I had some sort of proprietary rights over it.

Meanwhile I’m nursing myself out of a fluey cold that’s dragging on, hoping to be on better form next week as Tuesday 10th October I’ll be reading at West Greenwich Library (not a million miles from my aforementioned manor) at a special event put on by the Mary Evans Picture Library. It features poets who have contributed to the Poems & Pictures blog – we’ll each be reading our own poems and one or two by other contributors who can’t make it along themselves. I’ve chosen to read Valerie Morton’s ‘The Northern Line’, and ‘Show of Hands’ by Ayesha Chatterjee.

It’s a great list of readers. In particular I’ll be excited to meet Lorraine Mariner. I remember reading her poem ‘And then there will be no more nonsense’ in The Rialto a few years back and I can’t explain it but it just jumped out at me – I had to keep going back to it, keep re-reading it. I never thought so much could be loaded into what appeared to be a small poem. I so wished I had written it.

Also next week (Thursday) is the quarterly Needlewriters event in Lewes, featuring poetry from James Flynn & Linda Black, and prose from Matt Freidson.

I’m then looking forward to a day-long small-group workshop with Jackie Wills, whose Woman’s Head As Jug (Arc) I talked about on this blog a while back. As well as her poetry collections, Jackie has also written an ebook called The Workshop Handbook for Writers which sounds like a really useful resource.

 

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‘Poems & Pictures’ blog at the Mary Evans Picture Library

mary evans picture library - poems & pictures blog

We’re into our fourth week of dust, clutter and washing up in the bath. The joys of home improvements! We still don’t have a fully working kitchen, one cabinet is ten mils too big for the space, one lot of contractors isn’t returning our calls and may have gone out of business (or ‘done a Brexit’ in the new shorthand) and rellies are coming to stay on Thursday but DON’T PANIC. Our builder is doing a marvellous job and it’s all going to be lovely.

All this is just my way of saying sorry for not blogging lately. I’ve also got a bit of work on, which I slip in between coats of paint and electricians turning off the power.

So what to report? I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been reviving some old poems, all part of a general poetry cleaning up/recycling drive.

One such is ‘London Bridge to Waterloo East’, a poem that did the rounds a few years ago to no avail. Last year I was contacted by Gill at the Mary Evans Picture Library, inviting me to contribute a poem to their Poems and Pictures blog, something inspired by a photo from their vast library (more than half a million images!) I really loved the historic railway photos, and when I came across  a bird’s eye view of the massed railway tracks at Waterloo Station in the 1960s, I thought of my poem and got it out. It needed some work, and having the image in front of me helped bring out something new. The resulting poem has just been published and you can see it (and the photo) here.

The picture library is fascinating in its range of topics. It’s the sort of site where you start browsing and it’s difficult to tear yourself away.

Angst/

TGI February

Sovereign Harbour Eastbourne - January

January is really my least favourite month – I think it’s the short days and dark evenings that are so depressing.  It doesn’t help that the it’s the month of both my father’s death and my late mother’s birthday, so they are always both on my mind. However! Let’s not get gloomy. I did go to a couple of good poetry events and even sent a few poems out. I did a lot of reading. My ‘start a poem a day’ pledge didn’t quite run its course, but I did spend a good amount of time writing and in particular rewriting old poems.  I did manage to start eleven new poems. I also revived one that I’ve been fiddling with for four years, and which is shortly going to appear on the Mary Evans Picture Library ‘Poems and Pictures’ blog. Which is a fantastic resource, by the way – more on that in a future post.

Meanwhile the ever-supportive Charles Johnson has taken some poems for Obsessed with Pipework, which I’m really pleased about. They are three of the ‘workplace’ themed poems I’ve been working on for several years now. I really believe in it as a sequence or a pamphlet, even if no pamphlet publisher seems to yet. Finding homes for the individual poems, slow process though it is, reassures me that I’m onto something and shouldn’t give up on it.

Yesterday I hosted a poetry day (or ‘salon’, although I’m slightly squeamish about calling it that!) – four lovely poets came over to talk poetry, read poetry, argue a bit over poetry, do a bit of workshopping and stroll along the somewhat chilly seafront. Not everyone knew each other, which makes it exciting but a bit scary (for me anyhow! Why do I put myself through things that make me nervous? Hmm.) I think everyone enjoyed it, so there will definitely be more. And it energised me to spend the next couple of hours poem-ing.

In case you’re wondering, I’ve not missed Facebook at all – every now and then I hear a bit of poetry news I wasn’t aware of, but that’s the point – anything genuinely interesting or useful to know I either catch on Twitter or can rely on friends to tell me anyway. I would have forgotten about it entirely were it not for the fact that you CANNOT turn off all notifications – trust me, I’ve tried. But overall it’s been a real relief to be no longer experiencing irritation/frustration and the total energy- and confidence-sapping behemoth that is Facebook. Hasta la vista, baby.

Lots to look forward to in the coming weeks including a workshop at the Troubadour, a wedding anniversary (15 years – gulp!), a Telltale Press AGM and Catherine Smith at Pighog poetry night in Brighton. Wishing you a Happy February!

Photo: a sunny & happy January day at Sovereign Harbour in Eastbourne