Tag: workshopping

Angst/

And in other writing…

Death comes for the poet

Not much new to report on the poetry writing front, except for a dozen or so poems in submission (“in submission”? Should it be “under submission”? I won’t say ‘Under consideration” because that suggests the darn things are actually being read by someone, and there’s no knowing if that’s the case. Anyway I think I like “in submission”.)

Now you see this is the kind of nit-picking that the writing of poetry demands, is it not? When it may take an hour to decide on whether in or under is best. This is one reason I’m enjoying writing a first draft of My Novel. I’m just motoring through, sitting back and enjoying the action, as if it were Midsummer Murders. I guess at some point I’ll have to go back and refine it a tad, which might mean pondering those kinds of SHOULD IT BE ‘GOWN’ OR KIRTLE’ HERE? questions that few readers in the end would care about, but I can’t put my wee novel in submission with anyone until I’ve polished it up I suppose. I just hope I don’t hate the whole thing and ditch it when it’s done, which is typically my poetry MO.

One thing I can’t imagine is workshopping this thing, the way I would a poem. I had to laugh at this, quoted on Mat Riches blog: ‘Workshops are a waste of time. Trojan horses of mediocrity to quote Adliterate. […] Only workshop when you have no choice.”  Mat goes on to say he’s not entirely sure who the quote is by, and also that ‘they aren’t intended here to be discussing writing workshops’ – aha, but that’s how we read it, given that Mat’s is a writer’s blog!

Workshops of any kind aren’t for everyone, it’s true. I’ve had an on-off relationship with poetry workshopping I have to admit. It’s lovely when you find yourself in a group that gels, and you don’t feel threatened or threatening. Then again, if you all become mates then it can become a bit of an echo-chamber. Sometimes though it’s also nice to have poetry mates, and never mind the feedback.

Right, back to my soon-to-be classic historical novel! I know quite a bit about historical writing, given that most of my poems in submission have been loitering on editors’ desks (or in out-trays) for so long they may as well have been written on parchment. Alack and alas!

Angst/

Today’s poetry world – where do we all fit in?

Real Poet luggage tag

This is a guest post by Ann Perrin. Ann and I both attend a fortnightly poetry course in which we are introduced to poets, movements and styles, with the aim of improving our writing. The sessions also include writing exercises and about once a term each poet gets a chance to workshop a couple of poems with the group. The group started out with about 15 participants but it’s usually around 10. I’ve known Ann for a while, mainly from meeting her at poetry events in Brighton or at the Troubadour in London. She’s a great supporter of workshops, readings and open mics.

Our poetry course has an online forum, but it doesn’t get used very much. So when Ann posted this heartfelt piece I asked if I could reproduce it here. I think she brings up some interesting, if thorny questions:  about writing poetry for a particular audience (or not), about ‘legitimacy’ in the poetry world, on competition (and competitions), even the uses of workshopping one’s work with relative strangers.

Ann asked these questions to the others in the group – but she’s happy with my opening it up and asking the lovely readers of this blog. Do please let us have your comments!

Over to Ann:

After our recent class in which I workshopped two poems with the group, I started thinking about potential audiences and who they might they be. I was also thinking how difficult it was to decide what to bring to the group. New work that I really felt unsure about which seemed a bit of a risk, or something I was a lot more sure about, had shown to a fellow poet, taken to a workshop or written on a much earlier course – after all, it was to be scrutinised by people who I really don’t know. Does anyone else think about such issues?

I also think about how one might fit into the modern poetry world. Do you write to be acceptable to a particular group, or poetry magazine? Do you look at pamphlets and ask yourself ‘might this or that editor be interested in my work?’ It seems to me in recent years poetry like other forms of creative writing has become a very competitive industry.

Do you go in for competitions? I’ve entered a few, sometimes at considerable expense. I was longlisted in two big ones in 2013 (isn’t everyone?) and managed to win a small local one. But recently I watched a person I know actually winning a pamphlet competition just as the publisher (who was due to publish the winner) was going out of business. So now I’ve decided to save my money!

I tend to subscribe to Charles Causley’s idea that poetry is ‘for everyone not just for the chosen few’. When I started to write poetry it was just for family and friends. More recently however, I sometimes I blog them, or even podcast a few and/or publish the odd leaflet to put into a local café. I have even self published a collection. However, even though I had some mentoring for this, I know this doesn’t make my book acceptable in the legitimate poetry world.

I was interested to learn this week that one of the big competitions has decided to accept poems that have been previously published on a blog. This feels like a welcome development and perhaps things like blogs, self publishing, video/film poems and so on may become the way to go in the future.

 

‘Real Poet’ luggage tag by Zazzle.

Workshopping/

Every Stanza meeting is different

Poets' Pub

Poets' Pub

I turned up to yesterday’s Brighton Poetry Stanza meeting with pretty much a clean sheet regarding how we’d spend the time. Although it was scheduled as a poetry reading and/or workshopping group, everyone was actually wanting to workshop their own poems. So pretty straightforward, and virtually no facilitation required from me at all. Except it had to be one of the more unusual meetings I’ve been to.

First of all there were more men and than women (7:2) – almost unheard of. It was quite a lively and outspoken group (again, slightly unusual – perhaps we were missing the calming influence of Jo or Miriam, our regular facilitators?)

The poems presented were an eclectic mix, including one on a religious theme to accompany an art exhibition and three performance pieces. One poet handed round a series of short zen-like poems handwritten on cards, and we each read ‘ours’, unexpected and quite moving. There was a discussion about the spelling of licorice/liquorish and some heated argument about whether poems written to be read (off the page) and poems written for performance are different, and whether it actually matters what ‘performance’ pieces look like on the page.

As Antony and I ran to catch the train we couldn’t help agreeing that each Stanza meeting is different. On the train, we were discussing various things including the poetry of Ian Duhig and a woman across the aisle reached over and offered Antony a book – “I’m sorry to interrupt but I couldn’t help overhearing what you were talking about and I think you’d find this really interesting” she said. “Good News for a couple of lost souls?” was my first thought but no, it was ‘Be Glad You’re Neurotic’.

Antony was somewhat nonplussed but handled the whole thing very gallantly, including calling the young lady back after she had rushed for the door and left her bag behind. I confess I got the giggles and struggled to hold it together all the way home. You couldn’t make it up, as they say.

(Image: Poets’ Pub by Alexander Moffat, 1980)

Poet's Tips/

Notes from Mimi Khalvati workshop

workshop notes 26-1-13

workshop notes 26-1-13

Yesterday was the first of our monthly workshops with Mimi Khaltvati this year, and as usual I came away with plenty of new insights and reminders. Here are some of the things Mimi said which I jotted down, as usual I’ve tried to stick to ‘universal’ comments rather than those to do with specific poems. Hope you find it useful.

On form/shaping/editing: Test out different forms, don’t just plump for the first way you’ve written something, which may be a bunch of uneven-length stanzas. Is that really the best you can do? It can make a huge difference – for example triplets can be more musical, lighter than big blocks of ten lines or whatever.

On villanelles – they need “strenuous thought”. You have to think backwards. You need to have arrived at a transformation in the last two lines, their meaning needs to have changed even though the words haven’t.

On consistency of register – if you use contractions (I’m, he’s etc) sometimes but not always, that will seems wrong. Beware mixing up idiomatic and archaic phrases, especially if it’s done to fit a certain metre or rhyme scheme.

On rhyme – ‘if you choose the wrong word to rhyme then everything goes wrong!’

On specific references to things the reader may or may not be familiar with: “it’s courteous as a writer to assume the reader is one step ahead of you. It also makes for better writing.”

On developing a critical faculty – ask of other people’s writing (as a precursor to asking it of your own) ‘what is missing? what more could be done?’ “A fierce critical faculty is a wondrous gift.” Be prepared to think in larger terms rather than just tweaking.

On beautiful language – it’s not enough to just write beautifully. Too much beauty can be soporific. (Mimi admitted literally falling asleep at a reading by a prominent poet – I couldn’t possibly say who – because it was all too lovely “the melody, the evenness of the waves…”). So how can you break up it up? You need a counterpoint. Look at what you’ve written and move things about if necessary – a strong start to a line can serve as a stake, a prop holding things up. You may naturally write beautifully – but your best strength can also be your weakness.

On tricky links – you can make ‘leaps’ (I took this to mean the idea of moving between seemingly unrelated images or meanings) – leaps are good – but they need to be ‘clear leaps’. If something is in the way, confusing things, you need to get rid of that, clear the way.

On developing a ‘forensic’ eye for syntax – check for missing subjects or verbs that change tense, confused constructions, missing commas etc due to long sentences with sub-clauses over several stanzas. (For me, this is a bit like writing HTML – every time you open a bracket or start a new ‘declaration’ you have to close it, even if it’s hundreds of lines later, with all kinds of embedded instructions in between. If you get something wrong the whole thing falls apart.  But it’s so satisfying when you find the missing inverted commas or bracket!)

Workshopping/

How to tackle the “What does it mean?” question

Puzzled

Puzzled

“Poems need room for the imagination to engage” says Roselle Angwin in a interesting blog post on creating ambiguity in a poem, not telling the whole story.

So here’s a problem I have, and I can’t be the only one! When I take a poem to a workshopping group I really don’t like explaining. Anything. I just don’t think it’s relevant. So if I’m asked straight away “what does this mean?’ I want to say ‘what do you think it means?’ Letting people decide, or hearing people discuss amongst themselves can be very revealing about where the problems are. Not in the sense of ‘oh no, they’ve got it all wrong, I need to change that so that my meaning is clear.’ Because if I do that, there’s no ‘work’ left for the reader. And anyway, I love it when people put their own take on a piece. It means they’ve engaged with it.

But how to tackle the ‘what does it mean” question? Sometimes people get a bit tetchy if I refuse to provide answers. And if I say ‘I prefer not to explain’ it all sounds rather pompous. Or if I do find myself explaining, I get all defensive and then annoyed that I’m coming across as not wanting criticism, which of course I do, but I think this ‘need to find the meaning’ gets in the way of really looking closely at the thing.

There are plenty of poems I can’t make sense of, especially on a first reading. If there’s a specific word or phrase I don’t understand, I may comment that this tripped me up, or ask if it’s important that the reader understands it.. By asking “is this important?” you are prompting the poet to question it in her mind. Personally, that’s the kind of feedback I find helpful – comments that make me really interrogate what I’ve written. What do you think? Do you agree? I know it’s not easy to give feedback – I find it really hard myself – so am I being unreasonable? Should I be grateful for any kind of feedback?