Tag: University of York

Angst/

Season of mists and new starts

Autumn creeping up, and with it, as always, changes.

I’m upset about the Queen’s death, more perhaps than I thought I would be. It may be something to do with delayed (or reignited) mourning for my sister, or my parents. But it’s also something I’ve been worried about for a while – it’s like a final thread has broken, a single consistent as (it feels to me) politics and society is disintegrating. I didn’t hear or see Huw Edwards say ‘She has left us’, but I can’t even think about it without welling up (as I am now). I can’t see any logic to feeling this way; I never met the Queen, I’m not a rampant royalist and the death of Diana left me cold. I just feel the final life raft has been pulled away.

Anyway, this wasn’t supposed to be another funereal post. Believe it or not I have a lot of good things happening at the moment… first of all, I’ve decided to go back to York and finish my Poetry & Poetics MA. The new modules on offer look enticing. Face-to-face teaching is back. And I think now I know what to expect I shall be less demanding of myself and just enjoy it (which was the original idea!) The only possible issue might be the travel, as trains can’t be relied on any more. We’ll see.

New start number two: work on Planet Poetry season 3 is well underway! Interviews are being recorded & edited already and although Peter is in the middle of a complex house move, we are on schedule to kick off in about a month’s time. I can’t as yet reveal who our Season Opener will be (as I don’t actually know!)  but it’ll be a goodie.

Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to reading alongside a plethora of fabulous poetry friends at The Frogmore Papers 100th issue launch in a couple of weeks! Also very pleased to have new work forthcoming this month in 14 Magazine and in Prole.

Angst/

At last, some (a)live poetry events

ancient juniper tree

Having missed three Hastings Stanza meetings due to a choir commitment, next month I’m so looking forward to workshopping with everyone again around a table and the odd cup of tea or glass of wine. We restarted face to face meetings last autumn, and after all the months of having to ‘meet’ online it was such a joy. Actual, live events are just that, aren’t they? (A)LIVE. The same goes for live poetry readings – there are two lovely launch events coming up: first John McCullough is launching his new book Panic Response (Penned in the Margins) in Brighton next week, guaranteed to be a love-in for his many friends and fans, then in June poet friend Sarah Barnsley has very kindly asked me to be one her support acts at an informal launch of her brilliant collection, The Thoughts (Smith Doorstop).

In between, there’s a Needlewriters evening coming up on April 14th. I’ll have the privilege of ’emcee-ing’ this one, and hearing the excellent Peter Raynard whose new book Manland is forthcoming from Nine Arches in July.

Online blues

Like most people I put up with Zoom readings and events when it was the only thing allowed, and I hadn’t realised how much I loathed it until I started to contemplate the horror of online poetry events becoming a permanent thing. The ‘Zoom factor’ is having a detrimental effect on my decision about whether to return to the University of York to finish my MA later this year: as long as there is any chance whatsoever that seminars will be moved online, I can’t honestly contemplate returning.

Ironic really: twenty-five years ago, as an internet newbie I was basking in the excitement of what the Web had to offer, online for hours every night (this was in the US, where it was free!) and making friends across the globe (yes, actual people – some of whom I got to know in real life). I then spent the best part of twenty years working in online marketing and speaking, teaching, advocating and writing books about the power (and brilliance) of the internet for business, for communities and for communication generally.

And now? After nearly three months ‘resting’ from Twitter, I’m wondering just how much I missed it, if at all. In two days’ time it will be my 15th anniversary of joining. But the reasons I used to love it have gone, and I watch it being slowly poisoned by human behaviour and commercial interests. However, having ditched Facebook several years ago (with no regrets), I’m not about to jump ship from Twitter. But I will be carrying out some changes so I can enjoy it more.

Latest news about the collection

Version three of the manuscript is out the door and with the second of the wise poets who are helping me with ordering, culling, titling and general confidence. I finally have a working title that I think I like and will work. Huzzah! (No, that’s not it!) Meanwhile one of my newer poems has been taken by The Alchemy Spoon, and I have a dozen or so others out to other mags. I think I’m back in the submissions saddle.

Blog/

Readings, decisions, fresh starts

I’m feeling very uplifted by real-life in-person poetry events. Last week in Lewes was the launch of three Frogmore Press publications: The Naming by Jeremy Page, Marion Tracy’s Evidence of Love and Neil Gower’s Meet me in Palermo. Strong readings all round and a cautiously-convivial atmosphere.  Fast on this comes tomorrow’s Needlewriters event, our first live readings since January 2020, featuring Jeremy Page and two prose writers Alice Owens and Anna Hayward.

Peter Kenny’s and my podcast Planet Poetry has restarted, the first episode of Season 2 featuring the wonderful American poet Kim Addonizio. There are several interviews currently in the bag, so it will be great to see how listeners respond. I was a bit sad not to see Planet Poetry in a recent round-up of poetry podcasts in Poetry News, and it was a kick up the bum to finish our new website and make sure it’s Google-friendly. Although having worked in online marketing for decades I find it hard to get enthusiastic about keywords and search terms any more. Anyway, those lovely folks at the Poetry Society offered to give our Season two opener a plug on Twitter, which was nice.

Although I’m on a year’s leave of absence from the University of York, I’m actually still plugged in to Dante and also Chaucer these days, and find myself referring to notes I was making on my core course module last year. I’m loving Mary Jo Bang’s translation of Purgatorio, incorporating characters and language from the present day, although I suspect it might be sniffed at in some scholarly circles!

As regards submissions to magazines, I’ve decided to step away from them for bit. I have half a dozen poems out at the moment, but I’m not sending any more for now. I have a few reasons for this.

Firstly, I don’t need to, in the sense that I have a track record of publication now, and I’ve nothing to prove to myself or anyone else. I think I’ve found my level. It would have been nice to be have published in The Poetry Review or Granta, but it’s OK to accept that it’s not going to happen. I could kill myself trying to write the ‘right’ sort of stuff, or I could write what I want to write, and enjoy honing it as best I can.

Secondly (related to the first point), I have a publisher for my first collection. I don’t have the collection yet, but I have the freedom to complete it, knowing it will have a home. This is a very privileged position to be in and I want to enjoy the moment, not fret about why Publication A, B or C don’t want any of the individual poems. Plenty of high profile poets have told about how the individual poems in their (successful) collections were consistently rejected by magazines. Or even that they never submitted them to magazines.

I can’t swear that I won’t submit the odd poem here and there, but I’ll be very happy not to be constantly putting my work up for possible rejection. I think the course at York has opened my eyes/mind to a lot of things. Perhaps a leave of absence makes the heart grow fonder – I’m starting to look forward to going back, which is quite a turnaround.

Blog/

Happy days

Blickling Hall

Some lovely poetry stuff recently – firstly the launch of Finished Creatures in Lewes, the first in-person poetry reading I’ve been to for (pretty much) years. Editor Jan Heritage created a warm atmosphere as always and invited contributors to read their own poem plus another one from the magazine. Although Paul Stephenson and Roy Marshall weren’t actually there, their poems were popular choices! Both before and afterwards we spilled out onto the sunny patio at the Depot to eat, drink and catch up. Perfect.

Then I had some unexpected good news. A poem of mine won the Ruth Selina Poetry Prize, an annual competition held at the University of York and open to anyone in the department of English and Related Literature. It was judged by JT Welsch and Vahni Capildeo. Ruth Selina was a promising student who died at a very young age, and her family endowed both this prize and another at Leeds University. I feel very proud to have won it, especially as I’m currently on a year’s leave of absence from my course, so it’s nice to keep the connection going and remind myself I’m still a student there.

We’re just back from a hot, sunny week in North Norfolk. We seem to be very lucky with the weather when go away in September. I just wish I’d taken more summer clothes! We rented a holiday cottage in Blakeney, completely unaware that it’s the most expensive place we could have chosen (£18 for pub fish & chips, anyone?) But we had a lovely time and managed to actually self-cater, despite the cottage lacking a few essentials. The North Norfolk coast is gorgeous and we also managed a day on the Broads (in which I discovered I CANNOT drive a boat) as well as visits to historic houses and churches. A few pics below.

Meanwhile Planet Poetry is about to begin its second series… I have some interview editing to do!

Blakeney Harbour
Blakeney Harbour
Holkham Beach
Holkham Beach
Holt to Sheringham steam railway
Holt to Sheringham steam railway
Obligatory trip to see the seals at Blakeney Point
Obligatory trip to see the seals at Blakeney Point
Blog/

Drum roll please, the essay is submitted (and other news)

End of my first year on the MA Poetry & Poetics

On Tuesday I submitted my Spring term essay (HURRAH!), and well before the deadline, so no stress, except for not being able to find anything on my desk under the various piles of articles, but they are now all filed away. (This is the module I’ve been studying, if you’re interested). I’ve sent back the four library books I still had. I’m catching up with blogging, emailing and various house and garden jobs.

It’s all been rather strange, distance-learning with very little contact with other students or tutors. I’ve never actually set foot in the University library. Bizarre! If I go back for the second year I’m going to enjoy mooching about the library, going for the odd tutorial, having the odd beer with course-mates and doing all the things I remember as being What Students Do. We shall see how things pan out. There’s no teaching in the Summer term, so that’s my academic year over, pretty much, and universities have been told they can’t offer any face to face teaching in Arts subjects anyway. But I’ve been very lucky. I’m already set up to work from home, I don’t have to worry about accommodation or jobs or a career. But it must have been a pretty awful academic year for most students.

Butcher’s Dog magazine

Another nice thing was to have a poem accepted for the next edition of Butcher’s Dog magazine. Editor Jo Clement was recently being praised on Twitter for the quality and sensitivity of her rejections. It almost made me wish I’d had one. Now that’s perverse for you! I’m a new subscriber to the Dog (see more about it on this recent post) and although I’ve submitted there before this is my first acceptance, so I’m very pleased. Poetry magazines do rely on subscribers though, and I think the way it’s described on the Butcher’s Dog website puts the case for subscribing very well:

Why Subscribe?
Pre-ordering helps keep us in press. Subscribers directly contribute toward advance printing costs and press maintenance. Buy today and you’ll support the mix of emerging and established poets we strive to publish annually.
​
How does it work?
Prices reflect the complete checkout cost. This includes postage, packing and transportation costs for the first twelve months of your subscription, which includes two magazines: Spring and Autumn.

The virtual Needlewriters

The Needlewriters, the writers’ collective which I belong to, hasn’t been able to host its quarterly readings in Lewes, but we dipped our toe in the Zoom water last night and presented our four readers online: Julia Webb (poetry), Emily Bell (prose), Karen Smith (poetry) and Jackie Wills (prose). The readings were excellent, and we were thrilled with the turnout. Although it was free, many people very kindly made donations which has enabled us to stay in the black. Even though we haven’t had any live readings in the last year, unfortunately there are fixed costs that never go away, like web hosting. So it was a success all round. Next event in June, and then in the autumn we expect to be back in the pub and able to socialise, which personally I find impossible on Zoom.

Blog/

Purgatory and the wonders (and pains) of technology

After the excitement of having my site invaded last week, and the subsequent tsunami of ‘new posts’ about ‘how to make a salad’ or ‘best value beanies’ etc (could have been a lot worse I suppose), I thought I ought to write a genuine post if nothing else to check whether I still have any readers. (If you’re reading this then I guess you’re still with me – thank you for you good humour and understanding.)

On Sunday I had hoped to watch the T S Eliot prize readings ‘live’ but was thwarted by some ill-configured viewing platform that had hundreds of us locked out for the first half hour. After several attempts, and having to watch a 90 second ad for the Southbank Centre four times, I gave up and decided to rescue what was left of the evening. I haven’t yet read the prize winning collection by Bhanu Kapil but I look forward to so doing.

A bit of a shame about the livestream fiasco, as I was in the mood for the TS Eliots – I’m currently reading Selling and Self-Regulation of Contemporary Poetry by JT Welsch which has some fascinating insights regarding ‘prize culture’ and ‘debut fever’. The book itself is a tad expensive to buy (I only have access to a PDF) but Billy Mills has written an excellent review here, if you’re interested.

More excitement : last week I interviewed Mary Jean Chan for Planet Poetry and it should be going live next Thursday for Episode 8 – I can warmly recommend Mary Jean’s collection Flèche (Faber, 2019), and she was lovely to interview.  There are yet more excellent poets coming up on the podcast, so do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Last Monday Nick and I attended Live Canon’s Burns Night event – it was great fun seeing people having their Burns Supper on Zoom, hearing Burns poetry read by Live Canon’s brilliant ensemble, and trying to follow the official proceedings of toasts and incantations… hilarious, innovative and oddly quite moving too.

I’m currently enjoying my second journey into Purgatorio, this time with the help and enlightenment provided by the University of York. A whole term of Dante is pure luxury, and a real solace in these grim days. Purgatory is actually a much nicer place than many people imagine, and there are some lovely images to be found, which help a reader orient themselves… like this one! I’ve no idea where to give credit for this, as it seems to be all over the web…

Diagram of Purgatory

As you can see, it’s quite a climb. I’m currently on the 2nd terrace, among the Invidiosi (the envious) – feeling quite at home, actually!

Meanwhile, it’s coming up to the end of January (O GIVE THANKS), so in the next day or so I’ll be shooting off an email to remind people about poetry magazines with submissions windows about to close or open. If you’re not on the list, you know what to do! 

Take care, and hold on, we’ll get there soon. XX

Angst/

– and + and so it goes

A teeny bit of a moan

How’s things with you? Well, I hope. During the first lockdown I was happy to enjoy the garden and revel in the novelty of it all. I trusted (more or less) what we were being told. I admit I’m feeling a bit ground down by it all now.

I’ve just deleted an entire paragraph I wrote here, as I deemed it too negative. All the planning and hoping is what keeps me going I think, but it feels exhausting trying to stay glass-half-full while under what feels like the constant attack of glass-half-empty people. I don’t want to add to the negativity with my own angst, so let’s move on.

So now the positive

My booklet on getting published in UK poetry mags is selling even better than the first edition – wowsers! And THANK YOU for buying it, telling your friends/students/social media contacts all about it.

Planet Poetry, the podcast I co-host with Peter Kenny, is generating some lovely comments. Thank you for that too! Working with Peter on the podcast has been one of the things keeping me positive.

There’s so much I’m enjoying about the course I’m doing, not least of all how it’s opening my eyes to so much great poetry and ideas about poetry that I’d never have encountered otherwise. My bookshelf is bulging. There’s enough reading there to keep me going for the rest of my life, I think.

We’re still planning on having a scaled-down Lewes Singers Christmas concert: venues and singers booked, music distributed. It’ll be intimate. But OH HOW MUCH Nick and I want it to happen, even if we’re only singing to ourselves and a handful of friends and family.

Right, I’m off to a Zoom seminar on the poetics of Don Paterson and Ben Lerner (whose novel 10:04 I absolutely loved.)

Have a good weekend, and here’s to the free life that we took so much for granted. May it return.

Blog/

Into the serious reading, plus a podcast brewing

In the last few weeks I’ve been gearing up to the start of my course at York. The logistics are all up in the air, not surprisingly given the many variables and with you-know-what going on. Next week is Week 1, and yesterday I received a swathe of information about changed timetables, reading lists, induction activities etc.  I’m still holding back from booking train tickets and accommodation, as we’re told the timetable could still change again at any time. So that’s a bit nerve-wracking. The staff at York are doing a brilliant job pulling together all these courses, communicating with everyone and preparing for an influx of students. All the same, I was a bit dismayed to find all my core seminars have been moved from Wednesday to Monday morning, which means travelling on Sunday, a nightmare with all the engineering works, plus more expensive to stay over on Sunday. Ho hum. I’m still feeling very excited and grateful to be doing it at all.

Luckily I’d started on the reading list back in August, in an attempt to get on the front foot as I have a feeling it’s going to be a heavy intellectual load once weekly seminars begin. So among other things I’ve been reading Virgil’s Aeneid, various essays by Eliot, Walcott, Heaney et al, a wonderful ‘selected’ by Maureen McLane (a poet new to me) and large chunks of the Cambridge Companion to Virgil. Not to mention the real tome-extraordinaire, Don Paterson’s The Poem. Eeek. Stephen Yenser in The Yale Review described it as ‘sometimes baffling, sometimes maddening’, so at least I know its not just me. I have absolutely no idea what Don’s talking about a good deal of the time, but he’s very entertaining, and the sections I’m able to follow are invariably fascinating, so I’m still enjoying it.

I’ve also started reading Derek Walcott’s Omeros, to get into the Epic mood, also because I’ve never really read any Walcott, and it’s proving a good place to start. Here’s an extract on the Poetry Foundation website.

Meanwhile Peter Kenny and I have been beavering away on our forthcoming podcast. We decided to get enough material for several episodes before launching. This is a good thing in that we won’t be panicking a week after launch about having to work like crazy to get episode 2 ( and 3) up. But of course you do think ‘oh we could do such-and-such better’ after the first episode is done. Then again, everything I’ve read about podcasting says that you shouldn’t keep putting off launching, or editing ad infinitum because it’s not perfect. Luckily I have Peter to remind me that it won’t sound like BBC Radio 4 so stop worrying. A few rough edges is all part of the charm and quirkiness. I hope so! We’re interviewing some really interesting poets and editors and so we’re really pleased with the content. Even though we’re both sick to death of listening to our own voices when editing. We haven’t yet got a name for the podcast but as soon as we do, I’ll let you know 🙂

Blog/

Exciting times

There I was, thinking of applying to do an MA in Creative Writing, when I realised that wasn’t quite what I wanted. Five or six years ago perhaps, it would have been right. But the more I thought about a course centred around a weekly writing workshop, the more my heart sank a little.

I began delving into the detail of my chosen course, and my second-choice too: was there enough reading and studying of other poets’ work, as well as writing? Was I really going to be immersed in poetry from a range of periods, or was the focus on contemporary? Was I going to have to take classes in novel writing, drama or other types of creative writing in which I have no interest? What was/were the experience, specialisations & interests of the tutors? What were research students working on? Was there much/any potential for crossover into the rest of the English department, or opportunity to take contextual modules?

Then I discovered an MA in Poetry and Poetics at York University. No other British university appears to offer such a thing. The more I read about it, the more I felt it was for me. Taking a part-time course at a Uni that’s 300 miles away isn’t a cheap option but it’s doable. When I was looking at Creative Writing, I did consider a distance-learning option elsewhere, but York doesn’t offer that on this particular MA, and actually when I realised that ‘distance learning’ means email and online text-based chat, without any face-to face-video seminars, I wasn’t so keen anyway.

So, the York course was the way to go, and I’m delighted to say I’ve been offered a place. I absolutely know this is going to be a real stimulus to my own writing, as well as being enjoyable in its own right. Now I’ve got a month or so to get my head around it, start organising travel/accommodation and so forth. At least I’ll have plenty of four-hour train journeys to do all that reading!