Tag: poetry pamphlet

Angst/

A new pamphlet & all the angst of getting there

getting the pamphlet together

It’s taken a while coming but I’ve found a home for my second pamphlet, ‘All the Relevant Gods’. Those lovely, hardworking folks at Cinnamon Press (Jan Fortune and team) have offered to publish it, due out early next year.

What I’m feeling right now is a mix of gratitude and relief, and a wonderful sense of calm – now I can move on and focus properly on new writing and maybe even work up some of those projects I’ve started in my mind but not progressed.

I also think the process of getting to this point has made me grow up a bit.

I had no idea it would take so long to herd a bunch of poems into a pamphlet, at least, one that a publisher would take a punt on. I’ve always angsted about what my problem could possibly be. I’ve driven friends mad over a pint, moaning about this and that. Despite the odd shortlisting (which regular readers of this blog know, I  – rightly or wrongly – tend not to set much store by), my efforts in pamphlet competitions have always been unsuccessful. But then again I suppose I’ve never believed 100% in my submissions (‘I don’t have a theme!’  ‘I have some themed poems but not enough!’ ‘I don’t have a voice!’).

But three things happened in the last year.

First of all I emailed a publisher I really respect to ask if they would consider reading my pamphlet (apologetically, as I know unsolicited submissions can be a pain) and they agreed to consider it. Although they didn’t take it, the response was kind and included a little feedback. Crucially, I was invited to re-submit once I had worked it up a bit more. This was encouraging – a chink of light at the end of the tunnel. I realised I’d never tried my pamphlet on anyone other than in competitions, and maybe sending it on spec was a gentler, less stressful way in.

Then I sent the same group of poems to a poet/editor and paid for a detailed critique. (I say I paid, but I really want to thank New Writing South here – they have supported me in many ways, not least of all with a modest but crucial grant for mentoring. Huge kudos to them.) The feedback was certainly detailed, and full of suggestions of poets to read and how I might improve the individual poems and the manuscript generally. This was useful – I tried hard to take both good and bad comments on board and forced myself to be grown-up about it, but the report was topped and tailed with phrases like ‘disappointing’ and ‘not the standard required for publication as a pamphlet.’ I couldn’t help feeling knocked-back, and it was several months before I was able to look at the poems again and see what could be improved. It didn’t help that most of them had been published in magazines, which I took to mean they are ‘good’ in some way. But beware – if you also get that feeling when you get a poem published, or it wins something, – ‘it must be good!’ – that feeling is a false friend! I won’t even go into the whole ‘it’s all subjective’ thing here because poets tell ourselves that all the time and it doesn’t always help 🙂

Eventually, after redrafts, and with several pamphlet competition deadlines and reading windows approaching, I asked another poet who I really admire to help me work the manuscript up (paid for with the rest of my NWS grant) . She read the poems. We then spent a long afternoon going through the poems themselves, the ordering, themes, which were weaker, which would work better first or last, and so on. There were criticisms I’d heard before and hadn’t liked (but when you hear the same thing from different sources – hmm!), there were poems I was determined to keep in but ended up removing, there were a few unpublished/new poems that I hadn’t tested on magazines but followed my instinct and included. Being familiar with this poet’s work and meeting face to face made a huge difference.

So something I’ve taken from all this is that I don’t always respond well to the written word alone. This is quite an admission, given my championing of online communication for the last twenty years. And I know that asking for a critique is not asking for praise. You need to know what’s not working. And yet we hear the written word in our heads, and (for me anyway) anything negative -especially if we don’t like the tone of it! – can jump out and take on a far greater significance than anything positive. When the same comments are delivered face to face, with space for all that entails – tone of voice, empathic feedback, the possibility of discussion and clarification, for me this is a marvellous thing.

The reworked pamphlet felt good. I sent it out. It’s going to be published. When I think of all the workshopping groups, magazine editors and poet friends who have encouraged and helped me, and of course you, for reading this blog with its warts and all, I’m truly grateful. There was a huge dollop of luck involved (there always is!) but if any of this sounds familiar, if you’re in the position I was, I would say it is as much to do with perseverance and finding a way to negotiate criticism – in such a way that you make it work for you, without chipping away at your confidence.

Angst/

Individual poems v collections – still on the learning curve

poems for pamphlet

Putting together a collection of poems is proving to be harder than I ever expected. For a while now I’ve had a number of poems on a theme, which originally I dared to call ‘a pamphlet.’ I tried it on a few pamphlet comps: a couple of long-listings came of it, but basically nothing much.

So I looked very hard at the poems. Some were definitely stronger than others. Some I ditched entirely, some I took to workshops, some I worked on, and continue to do so. I sent them out as individual poems to a few places and it took a while but eventually a few of them have now been taken by magazines. But no-one has taken more than one, even though I’m now sending several as a ‘sequence’, or at least calling them ‘part of a sequence.’ I still believe very strongly in the sequence (or pamphlet, if that’s how it ends up) and perhaps I have more poems to write which may find their way in. But only a few of them ‘stand alone’ out of context. On the other hand, if I cut some poems and settle for a sequence, little else that I’ve written sits logically with it to make even a pamphlet. I feel like I have a lot of individual poems, but they have nothing in common with each other.

Showing groups of poems to various people in recent months has been difficult and nerve-wracking – feedback is mixed, and I feel knocked back, much more so than the feeling you get when a magazine submission is rejected, which I’m quite used to now. I’m very grateful for the feedback, especially if it’s offered as a favour, but asking someone to critique a collection of poems is very different from workshopping an individual poem. I find it impossible to link general comments to what’s not working in specific poems. I’ve also finally come to the conclusion that I struggle with written criticism, particularly if I’ve not actually met the person. You have no chance to interrogate the issue, get to the bottom of it – no dialogue, no chance to say ‘oh yes I see what you mean, so this doesn’t work because….if I do this, then…’ This has been an issue for me when I’ve taken part in online courses, for example.

I’ve thought for a long time what I need is a mentor, but as a poet friend pointed out to me recently, that may just be a cop-out. No-one has the magic answer to all this, or can tell me ‘what to do’ – or rather, they can, but is there ever ‘right’ advice? I need to work more on my writing, read more closely, and figure it out for myself.

I suppose I am learning though – for example, I’m learning which poems I feel strongly about, and which I can let go. Also, by looking endlessly at ways of ordering or re-ordering poems, and looking for possible links, I’ve actually identified a Key Poem – one which I used to think was nothing special, almost lightweight, fun in performance but no big deal. It’s a poem I’ve always struggled to explain to people but I can see now that it introduces overarching themes, and although it was OK as a standalone poem it can contribute more, has more to say, as part of a sequence.

I’m very interested to hear how others have tackled these kinds of issues, and any ideas of how to move forward, what’s worked for you. Do share, if you feel able to. Thanks.

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The Reading List, week 11 – Clare Best’s ‘Cell’

It seems my blog posts of ‘micro reviews’ have set some sort of trend – who’d have thought?  Anyway, I haven’t posted one for a couple of weeks as other aspects of LIFE have rather taken priority. The original idea to read a book a day was ambitious,  but the blogging of the reviews has proven to be the hardest bit, and something I haven’t always managed to find time for. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading.

Rather than waiting until I have the time to write three or more reviews at once, I think I’ll sometimes just get them out singly. So coming up soon – thoughts on Mark Doty’s  T S Eliot Prize-nominated Deep Lane (Cape) and Wendy Pratt’s pamphlet Lapstrake (Flarestack). But today I’ll focus on one pamphlet.

 

Cell –  Clare Best & Michaela Ridgway (Frogmore Press 2015)

An unusual pamphlet, both in physical form and concept. Clare Best’s award-winning sequence ‘Cell’ is in the voice of Christine Carpenter, a 14 year old girl who, in 1329, took a vow of  ‘solitary devotion’ and became an anchoress. Accompanying the sequence are a number of powerful pen and charcoal sketches of the human (female) form by Michaela Ridgway (herself an accomplished poet).

In the unfolding and re-folding of the single sheet, you create a box-like space which represents the cell in which the girl spent over 1,000 days. From there, following the sequence isn’t easy – each is numbered in Roman numerals, which took me a few moments to work out (come on then – CCCMLXXI? Quick!) Having been at the launch event, I know from Clare’s reading that the numerals represent the number of days since the girl’s incarceration. Otherwise that too would need some work on the part of the reader.

And that’s surely the point – reading ‘Cell’ was like following a set of clues, deciphering a horrible secret – in figuring out the folding and the ordering, observing the contortions of the figures, the smudged-out body parts that seem to overstuff their pages, even before reading we have to do a little work, but not very much in face of what we’re about to witness in the poems. We are primed to ‘solve’ the mystery. And a mystery it is, certainly to present-day readers, why a young girl would go willingly into such a contract.

Just one day, Mother, since you
kissed my brow, my cheeks and chin.
I must not love the window,
must protect my sinful heart. (II)

In reading Christine’s words and thoughts it’s hard not to be moved – not just by the pathos of the situation, but also the girl’s ongoing reflection in terms of her belief (having perhaps no other framework to cling to) even as she passes from excitement and determination to fear, pain and finally resignation.

Dreams like thoughts –
both sense and
nonsense. How shall I
bear the silence
of this place? (CCLXI)

The reader isn’t spared any details of the girl’s physical and mental deterioration ‘scalp alive with lice’, ‘shrunken gums’, and the nightmares (‘Lucifer, again. … he spreads me, enters like a fist’) but for me the story is told with intimate tenderness and without judgement. ‘Cell’ is a challenging read, moving and highly compelling. Both the artwork and Katy Mawhood’s ingenious pamphlet design corroborate the story and heighten the reader’s involvement – which is what genuine ‘multimedia’ should be about. Excellent job.

Cell, by Clare Best & Michaela Ridgway, Frogmore Press 2015

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The Reading List, Week 8 – McCabe, Hopkins, Skinner, Sawkins

Poetry pamphlets by Chris McCabe, Holly Hopkins, Richard Skinner & Maggie Sawkins

All the National Poetry Day euphoria over with and I’m back into the swing of The Reading List this week, and some wonderful reading to report on. Included here are two pamphlets I picked up at the Poetry Book Fair, by Chris McCabe and Holly Hopkins ( who I also heard read). I’ve had Richard Skinner’s ‘Terrace’ for some time, and thought I’d lost it or lent it out, until I found it down the side of the bed when we moved house – almost as good a tenner – ha ha!

Chris McCabe, The Borrowed Notebook (Landfill 2009)

A sequence of numbered poems exploring a young man’s relationship with his father (I think) who has apparently died young. Rich in musical references and wordplay, steeped in Liverpool, popular culture and snatched details/memories ‘you threw me your most assured & scalding/ marshmallows in Russian vodka look’ (5) ‘your best most cynical / strawberries in gravy look’ (1). Many of the pieces are almost in note-form themselves, referencing the ‘notes’ – both those written by the father and discovered after his death ‘your fictionalised biography in a ringbound jotter’, and the mental notes taken by the son, revisited in the light of this discovery. At least, that’s how I read it – the whole piece has a fragmentary feel, and open to interpretation (like all good poetry, in my book)  – but what excited me most about this sequence was the energy of the language and the layer upon layer of repetition, rhyme, puns, jokes and other verbal richness.
‘I took your notes to fish out the best.
To flesh out the beast.
It was a bastard. Made fresh.’ (13)

Holly Hopkins, Soon Every House Will Have One (Smith Doorstop, 2014)

I enjoyed many of the poems in this pamphlet, although for me the strongest were towards the beginning. It opens with a walk through a semi-derelict rural landscape where a barn owl magically appears ‘because you were there and could charm a fish out of its pond’ (‘Offchurch’). It’s the first of a number of strange, sometimes beautiful landscapes throughout the pamphlet that become increasingly dreamlike, where space and place are paramount (‘We left the broken glass of the old city,/ that bowl of smog between chalk hills,/ to live inside high granite walls.’ (‘The City Cut from a Mountain’). A theme we return to many times is the body and body parts – natural, artificial, alive and dead – from mannequins given names and life histories in order to increase their value to collectors (‘Investing in Mannequins’), to a woman with ‘steel hips’ swimming across a lake (‘Margaret and her Cottage, Ontario’). ‘Bicycle Woman’ presents a Frankenstein-esque scenario that takes prosthetics to a poignant extreme. One or two poems didn’t quite work for me and there were times I wanted more, for example the five lines of ‘Country Churches’ seemed too brief.
Favourite poem: ‘Bicycle Woman.’

Richard Skinner, Terrace (Smokestack, 2015)

The cover art is beautiful and reflects the lushness of these poems. The reader enters a world of mysterious landscapes, exotic birds and re-imagined histories. The sky takes centre stage here, whether we’re being blinded by a ‘sunrise blow-torch’ (‘Three Landscapes’), up high looking down (‘Each of these cimitero is like a Chinese character / legible only from the sky’ (‘Isola di San Michele, Venice’) or on a high ridge (‘the sky like bits of blue material, / yet still immaterial.’ (‘Pillar’). There’s an smooth elegance about these poems, but this is no travelogue of gorgeous landscapes. Alongside the oleanders, curaçao and eucalyptus we meet challenging characters and situations. ‘You wait for the men to come, with rouged lips, / brace yourself for the arms and the turn of the lock.’ (‘Indoor Pallor’). A sinister organisation hints at dark activities in a totalitarian-regime-style press release (‘The Monarch Foundation’.) A rich and intriguing collection. Favourite poem: ‘Isola di San Michele, Venice’.

Maggie Sawkins, Zones of Avoidance (Cinnamon, 2015)

This is a work perhaps better known as performance piece – it won the 2013 Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry and I wrote recently about seeing it performed live in Lewes. As a collection, it’s set out in two parts – in the first we meet the poet’s daughter, seen from her mother’s point of view, and witness her struggle to cope with drug addiction, up to the birth of her child and his subsequent adoption. There is a narrative flow which begins with the eponymous opening sequence, followed by various episodes typically recorded in a flat, factual way, which adds to the horror of it all. ‘Sunday morning. The doorbell rings. I put on my dressing gown and go down. Sitting on the doorstep, with her back to me, is Sunny Girl. She gets up and I let her in. She’s wearing three overcoats, she’s dyed her blonde hair black, she’s spent the whole night walking.’ (‘The Real Thing’)

Part two takes us into the worlds of other recovering addicts and the moving testimony of their stories. ‘…he’d always / considered himself a moral thief – / would only steal from mates, / the old girl’s purse’ (‘Papillon’).

Addiction – the symptoms, the consequences, the reality of it – is ostensibly the subject matter here. But it’s as much about a mother’s metaphysical struggle, her questioning, her need for answers, that accompanies the sheer exhaustion of day-to-day coping. There are some truly heartbreaking moments, but blackish humour also, as in ‘Sub-title: A Visual Exploration of Fetish’. There is lyricism throughout the collection and the language and range of forms are beautifully judged. Sad and fascinating, ultimately offering hope of a sort.
Favourite poem: ‘The Cord’.

Pamphlets/

The pamphlet is here, hurrah!

The Great Vowel Shift pamphlet

Just taken delivery today of my new short pamphlet, The Great Vowel Shift. I’m very pleased with how it looks, and feeling kind of freed up to focus now on new writing.

If you’re so inclined, you can buy a copy here … just £4 plus 50p postage. Bargain! And signed by the poet!!

Thanks ever so. x

Pamphlets/

Publish and be damned

Telltale Press logo

Call it ‘self-publishing’ if you will, call it an unhealthy desperation, frustration or whatever –  I’m not sure exactly what my prime motivation is but it feels good to be taking charge!

Here’s what’s happened …. I have named my new poetry press. I’ve named my pamphlet. I’ve (almost) decided on the content and order, thanks to some super insightful comment and expert suggestions from an experienced poet. I have applied for my first batch of ISBN numbers. I’ve had several print quotes, and have juggled various options regarding size/format. I’ve pored over many pamphlets to see how they’ve been made, the typefaces, line height, paper weight, where the acknowledgements go, etcetera. I’ve done most of the typsetting and layout myself in Illustrator. I’ve decided what I like and don’t like in terms of cover designs, and have briefed a talented artist to come up with something beautiful.

So far I’ve really enjoyed the process and haven’t had any big problems. I realise it’s still a novelty for me. And I’m doing this as an investment, not to make money or even cover costs, although that would be nice, and not utterly impossible. So I guess the difficult thing about publishing must simply the business of money – where it comes from, how not to lose it, and how to finance the next project and stay sustainable.

My own pamphlet is being financed by moi. But in so doing, I’m getting excited at the prospect of publishing other poets. That was the point of creating a new press – to publish my own first pamphlet alongside a few other people in the same position as me, namely, those feeling ready to publish but as yet unlucky in winning a pamphlet competition (because that seems to be the only way to one’s first pamphlet). What does this mean? Am I setting myself up as a publisher? Yes and no. I see the pamphlet projects as being fairly collaborative and ‘self help’. I don’t have the experience to be an editor. And I don’t have the funds to publish endlessly out of my own pocket. So any fellow poets coming on board have to be prepared (as I am) to share the financial burden of production (although on the positive side this means sharing the sales income too.)

That said, being prepared to PAY is not the only criterion – too much like a vanity press. And I do (of course) have strong feelings about the kinds of collections I’d like to be published alongside. So there are artistic criteria, if you like. And quite a few other criteria also, the nuts and bolts of which I’m still working out. Most of all I think of a Telltale pamphlet as being a first step, maybe a springboard. It feels important to me that it’s for first pamphlets, because it gives newcomers a chance. (But will I change my mind once I’ve done one, and can’t get anyone else to publish me? Ha! We’ll see!)

The way I see it, there’s room for all kinds of publishing enterprise. This one has yet to earn its stripes. But it’s fun to try.