Tag: rebecca gethin

Events/

Submissions, forthcoming events, pamphlet sales etc

Lamb Festival 2014

Latest submissions news is …. no news. Or rather, another of my stupid cockups:  according to my records I’d made a submission to Lighthouse in early April, but then this week when I checked their website I noticed it said that submissions are always acknowledged with an email auto-responder. I couldn’t find one in my inbox, so then I wondered if I hadn’t submitted after all, and so sent three more (different) poems. But these weren’t acknowledged either, so now I’m wondering whether the first submission was received after all and now I’ve multiple-submitted – DUH.

Apart from that, I’ve been working on a pamphlet submission with I was hoping to send to Flarestack but their window closes on Saturday and I’m not sure what I’ve got is ready to send, so I may have to hold my horses on that one.

Meanwhile, thanks to a lovely feature on Rebecca Gethin’s blog I’ve had a little flurry of pamphlet sales – thanks everyone! And on the subject of pamphlets, my Telltale Press venture has moved up a gear with a wonderful poet joining as our new Associate Editor – to be announced on the Telltale blog imminently! Exciting news! Plus the second Telltale pamphlet by the very talented Peter Kenny is almost on its way to the printers …

I’m gearing up for a busy week and two trips to London: on Monday I’m reading at the Lamb Festival in Edmonton, and on Wednesday it’s the first launch event for The Rialto – can’t miss that!

Next Thursday I’m helping with an evening of poetry by and for Jo Grigg, much-missed poet friend and Stanza rep. It’s shaping up into a joyous event which I’ve no doubt will be a wonderful tribute to Jo’s writing, her love of poetry and the affection we all felt for her.

Books/

More new reading material, and some happy happenings

Some classic internet-enabled moments this week.

Firstly, my post about having received a free copy of Poetry magazine was picked up by Steven Critelli who alerted Don Share, senior editor of that venerable publication, who promptly lived up to his name and tweeted it …

don share tweet

Then one of the other participants going to the Ty Newydd course in October (Zoe Fiander) found this blog and left an introductory note for me, which was very nice.

And finally, not really serendipitous but a treat all the same, when Inpress ran out of ‘How to pour madness into a teacup’ (by the excellent Abegail Morley) and couldn’t fulfil my order, they (and the publisher Cinnamon Press) offered me another book from their list, by way of an apology. So, I got Abegail’s book from elsewhere and am also the proud owner of A Handful of Water, a new collection by Rebecca Gethin. So plenty of new reading material to look forward to!

today's postbag

Speaking of new material, The Rialto has also just dropped through my letterbox.

So I’m hoping all this high quality poetry nutrition will pay off soon in the form of some decent poems of my own.

But for now I’ll leave you with an extract from William Logan’s poem The Nude that Stays Nude in Poetry magazine, consisting basically of a whole list of new ‘don’ts’ for poets – one of which is

Don’t think what you have to say is important. The way you say it is important. What you have to say is rubbish.

This itself is a line a poem, so one has to take it with an ironic postmodern pinch of salt. Or not. You decide!