Tag: virginia woolf

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Competition season! Be afraid. Plus the odd launch

Those Darn Comps

Love ’em or loath ’em, but some of us just can’t stop ourselves entering. “Is there a competition season?” someone once asked me and I feel as if there is, and it’s now – not sure why except that the National always closes on October 31st, this year a particularly loaded date, sadly. Plus the results of the Bridport out soon.

If you keep up with Angela T Carr’s comps and submissions blog posts then you’ll already know this, but just a reminder:

National Poetry Competition (a misnomer actually – it’s International, as the list of prize winners generally confirms) – closing date 31st October, judges Mona Arshi, Helen Mort and Maurice Riordan. First prize £5,000 but tons of kudos and visibility to anyone making the ‘commendeds’. Even reaching the ‘long list’ is pretty good. First entry £7, Poetry Society members get a FREE second poem. Enter here and lashings of good luck to you.

Also don’t forget the Troubadour Poetry Prize, closing on 21st October. £5 to enter and £2000 first prize, with the very interesting combo of Kathryn Maris and Pat Boran judging this year. I predict there’ll be one grandaddy of a pile of paper in the Maris-Riordan household come November.

Launches, readings

This evening it’s the Needlewriters in Lewes with readings by poets Clare Best, Robert Hamberger and Anna Reckin, alongside prose writer Martin Nathan. I’ll be the host, which is always fun. Do come if you’re able.

This Sunday I’m off up to Greenwich, my old manor, for the Live Canon readings & competition results (for which we’re all being kept cruelly on tenterhooks, having made the ‘long list’ – I’m assuming I haven’t won since I haven’t had the call to say ‘you are coming, aren’t you…?’ But it will be a fun-filled afternoon I’m certain, and every one’s a winner baby (NOT! – whoever thought up that stupid phrase!) Anyway, I’m looking forward to hearing the Live Canon ensemble perform the winning poems, it’s an amazing experience.

November is shaping up well – my new pamphlet launch is scheduled for 25th and (same week) I’m reading for Rogue Strands in London on 28th – more to come on both. I’m also hoping to get to Lynne Hjelmgaard’s launch of A Second Whisper (Seren) on Monday 11th.

Meanwhile I’m getting close to the end of Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary – I’ve been slowing down as we approach the second World War, I almost can’t bear to read her thoughts on it all – and am also in the ‘Rotten Pockets’ of Hell c/o Signor Dante Alighieri. No wonder I’ve been having such weird dreams lately.

 

Angst/

A few thoughts from Virginia Woolf on praise and fame

Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary is proving a rich source of inspiration. On the subject of a writer’s insecurity, it’s refreshing to find the same things bothered her that do us all – is my writing any good, what will people make of it, how come so-and-so got more coverage/attention than me, and so on. She didn’t have social media to cope with of course, but she had a fiercely intellectual and competitive circle of friends and family, and the media of her day carried enormous influence.

Here are a few extracts I’ve enjoyed so far. (‘Nessa’ is Vanessa Bell, VW’s sister, and ‘Lytton’ is Lytton Strachey.)

Shall I ever be able to read it again?

March 1919 

“I don’t suppose I’ve ever enjoyed any writing so much as I did the last half of Night and Day. Indeed, no part of it taxed me as The Voyage Out did; and if one’s own ease and interest promise anything good, I should have hopes that some people at least will find it a pleasure. I wonder if I shall ever be able to read it again? Is the time coming when I can endure to read my own writing in print without blushing—shivering and wishing to take cover?”

This question of praise and fame

March 1921

“Nessa approved of Monday or Tuesday—mercifully; and thus somewhat redeems it in my eyes. I now wonder a little what reviewers will make of it—this time next month. Let me try to prophesy. Well, The Times will be kindly, a little cautious. Mrs Woolf, they will say, must beware of virtuosity. She must beware of obscurity. Her great natural gifts etc etc. … […] then, in the Westminster, Pall Mall and other serious evening papers I shall be be treated very shortly with sarcasm.

[…] And I ought to be writing Jacob’s Room and I can’t […] you see, I’m a failure as a writer. I’m out of fashion: old: shan’t do any better […] my book out (prematurely) and nipped, a damp firework. […] Ralph sent my book out to The Times for review without date of publication in it. Thus a short notice is scrambled through to be in “on Monday at latest”, put in an obscure place, rather scrappy, complimentary enough, but quite unintelligent. Oh, and Lytton’s book is out and takes up three columns […] my temper sank and sank till for half an hour I was as depressed as I ever am.  […] To rub this in we had a festive party at 41: to congratulate Lytton; which was all it should be, but then he never mentioned my book, which I suppose he has read, and for the first time I have not his praise to count on.

[…] This question of praise and fame must be faced. […] I think the only prescription for me is to have a thousand interests—if one is damaged [by criticism] to be able instantly to let my energy flow into Russian, or Greek, or the Press, or my garden, or people, or some activity disconnected with my own writing.”

Beyond boasting – the supreme triumph

May 1921

“I sat in Gordon Square yesterday for an hour and a half talking to Maynard [Keynes]. […] Maynard said he liked praised, and always wanted to boast. He said that many men marry in order to have a wife to boast to. But, I said, it’s odd that one boasts considering that no-one is ever taken in by it. It’s odd too that you of all people should want praise. You and Lytton are passed beyond boasting —which is the supreme triumph. […] I love praise, he said. I want it for the things I am doubtful about.”

Angst/

Summer reading, thinking & waiting

After a couple of weeks of what’s felt like full-on socialising in our sunny garden, I’m enjoying a quiet day alone catching up, which means giving my blogs a little TLC. On the subject of which, I was delighted to come across this observation in Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary, in the entry for January 20th 1919:

entry from V Woolf's 'A Writer's Diary'

… would VW say the same of blogging, I wonder? People sometimes ask me if blogging takes up a lot of time, but for me it has to be the fastest of writing jobs, because I confess I really don’t spend much time editing. I read it as I go along and sometimes delete entire passages, but the decision is usually made quickly, I don’t think too hard & long. I do try to pick up on typos or bits or grammatical clunkiness before hitting ‘publish’, but just as often things slip through. And I kind of like that -makes it more like regular speech I think. And I certainly wouldn’t want to miss out on any ‘diamonds of the dust heap’!

Submissions update

Poetry magazines seem to be having a (no doubt well-earned) summer hiatus in terms of dealing with submissions, and I haven’t started writing anything new in a few weeks. We should all be outside topping up our Vitamin D anyway. Here’s what are currently out to magazines:

3 poems out for 499 days (yes really  – I’ve sort of decided these are probably dead, and I’m aware of/sympathetic to the reason for the length, but there they are, still heading up the list with their ghostly, greyed-out presence)

4 poems out for 195 days (28 weeks) – patience is a virtue

4 poems out for 107 days (15 weeks) – OK, not tapping my foot yet

3 poems out for 68 days (10 weeks) – this one is tricky, as I asked to withdraw one of them on Submittable, but the system only allowed me to withdraw the whole lot, so I’m not sure if two of them are still under consideration or not. I haven’t resubmitted them elsewhere, just in case… which is probably a bit silly, but there you go.

3 poems out for 34 days (5 weeks) – it’s early yet

In addition I’ve got five individual poems out to competitions (a rather high number for me, but I suppose I was running out of suitable/available magazines to submit to) and three pamphlets out to competitions. One of these has been ‘long listed’ by Live Canon, which of course I’m very happy about, but there’s no telling when the final results will come, I suspect not before the autumn. Another pamphlet went to Templar Poetry for their I-Shots competition, the results of which were due (according to their website) by the end of June. However there are no results on the website, and I’ve not heard anything from them, although I have tried asking them nicely on Twitter. I’ve taken this to mean they’re not interested in my pamphlet, which is fine, and I’ve now sent another version of it elsewhere. However, when you pay a fee to enter a pamphlet competition (in this case £18 – and which I’m very happy to do by the way) I don’t think it’s too much to expect a simple email to say ‘sorry, not this time’ or whatever, or acknowledgement of a polite query. Am I being unreasonable?

Current reading

Lots of lovely stuff on the pile at the moment, alongside the aforementioned VW diary, and the recently re-discovered and excellent Feel Free, a collection of Zadie Smith essays, I’ve also got Vanitas by Ann Drysdale (Shoestring) which I’m reviewing for The Frogmore Papers, and two Smith Doorstop pamphlets recently given to me by Marion Tracy: The Topiary of Passchendale by Christopher North and Sleeve Catching Fire at Dawn by Madeleine Wurzburger (now there’s a TITLE!)

I’m also having a bit of a Camus moment. I wonder if the current state of the Western world is driving me to Absurdism? I think it’s taken me forty years to shake off the association of Camus with the horror of French A level and finally return to him as an adult. Anyway, I’ve read and re-read his strange little essay in ‘The sea close by’, and am looking forward to tackling The Myth of Sisyphus in a Penguin ‘Great Ideas’ edition with a very satisfying cover design featuring embossing. All adds to the sense of anticipation!

Books on the reading pile July 2019

 

 

 

 

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Look what I found! Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Writer’s Diary’

Virginia Woolf A Writer's Diary

… Fourth Impression (1965) with a foreword by Leonard Woolf. Hogarth Press! Original dust jacket bearing Vanessa Bell’s design!

I found it at Much Ado Books in Alfriston, well worth a visit if you’re ever in the area. It’s housed in a range of quirky buildings set back off the road in its own front garden. I did find the plethora of notices rather off-putting  (a number of which suggest one is guilty until proven innocent – PLEASE LEAVE LARGE BAGS AT THE COUNTER BEFORE GOING UPSTAIRS, PLEASE RESPECT OUR GARDEN etc) but I can only suppose this quiet, well-do-do village must have its fair share of book shop-lifters and vandals. What a shame.

much ado books alfriston

Anyway, I look forward to sharing extracts and thoughts on Woolf’s reading and writing process with you here from time to time.

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Charleston Festival

Arabiantent

It’s an annual ritual shared with an old schoolfriend. Charleston (Literary) Festival, at the end of May, takes place in the farmhouse once lived in by the ‘Bloomsberries’ – Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes et al. Several hundred people are accommodated in a marquee in the garden, with between-sessions visits to the house, the shop, the lovely walled gardens and the tea tent.

This year there was an addition – the ‘Arabian Tent’ – where Faber held a few taster sessions for its writing courses (clearly more money in this than publishing these days). When it wasn’t being used, however, it looked like this – a space where anyone could loll, meditate or have a quiet gossip while draped over a thinly-disguised campbed or (slightly better upholstered) chaise. Lovely to look at though not so wonderfully comfy in reality, especially on the second weekend when it was COLD.

Can’t complain though – on the first weekend we had glorious weather and Caroline and I enjoyed a long boozy picnic on the lawn.

Tent2

Oh – and the actual author readings…well, Charleston never bothers much with poets, although I feel the opportunity is there for them to run a poetry competition on the Bloomsbury theme. I have a lovely little number about Virginia Woolf ready made for it. Except it’s been published already – heh.

The session that stood out for me was Jeanette Winterson, who talked about her memoir ‘Why be happy when you could be normal.’ From the moment she bounced in she had everyone’s attention. Plus, she eschewed the usual format of reading from behind a lectern, or being interviewed in an armchair by another writer. No, Jeanette wore a lapel mic and simply stood and talked, holding everyone’s attention for over an hour. Very difficult to describe in words the atmosphere and the effect she had. This was pure charisma. I got the feeling whatever she might have asked us to do we would have done it. Winterson for PM!

PS the two friends I was with both got their books signed – cleverly leaving those few seconds early in order to get to the front of the queue – just to report that the author in question is MUCH more petite than she seemed on stage. A big presence.

 

Mags & Blogs/

River Ouse, Rodmell, 1941

The first she prises out, clenched in bindweed:
reluctance adds to its appeal.

And there: not so large as to burst pockets,
several flints conspire

their surfaces glass-perfect, all the better
to slip in without fuss.

From mud, she frees a stump of the fat chalk Down
walked each day, as worn

as the worsted that parcels up her reedy body
ready for anchoring.

Pebbles lean into her, take us they say, take us,
the floods are coming

but like Noah she must leave some behind,
the unbelievers.

 

(first published in Agenda Vol 46 No. 2, Sept 2011)