writing – Robin Houghton

Angst/ 14/03/2023

How to be successful…enough

As I was cleaning my teeth this morning for some reason I remembered a boy called Andrew* at primary school who was always either 1st or 2nd in class rankings (oh yes we had those). For any subject: maths, English etc. I remember because it was me who was 2nd when he was first and vice versa. I doubt he even noticed my existence at the time, let alone remembers me now; at age 10 he had an air of confidence and single-mindedness whereas I could only worry about how to do well at everything and be liked at the same time. Thinking back on that, It was a horrible pressure to put myself under, and I think there’s no doubt it came from inside me – there were no familial expectations or teachers building up my hopes. But the idea of the need to constantly compete was always big in my mind.

Then I went to a grammar school full of girls like me and many much cleverer. And something happened. I settled into the comfortable upper-second. I didn’t have the drive or the application to be a high flyer. I wasn’t super-talented, just talented enough (and hard working enough) to keep the teachers happy, and confident enough to not take the odd poor mark or result to heart.

At university it was the same, and guess what? I finished with a 2:1 (or upper second class degree as it used to be known I think).

A bit of history/explanation here for anyone who graduated in the last 10 or 15 years: a 2:1 probably sounds a bit slack. But it used to be the case that British universities awarded degrees based on a percentage rather than an absolute. In other words, around 5 – 8% of degrees awarded were 1st class, and 5- 8% were 3rd. The vast majority were second class, divided into two equal groups – upper and lower. If you happened to graduate in a year with a large number of academic hot shots, you might miss out on the 1st. Another year you’d be in.

I’m not saying I feel any bitterness about my 2:1, quite the opposite in fact (!) But just look at this idea in diagram form (bear with me!)

Does this look at all like anything to you? Perhaps a teeny bit like all those ‘open book’ logos we see on book club websites or whatever?

Ok I know it’s a bit of a leap, but with this thought I suddenly realised the problem with striving for/hoping for some sort of big breakthrough in the poetry world is that you’re trying to enter a tiny, tiny sector.

Now look at the huge central area, the massive open double-page spread – that’s where most of us sit. We hope we’re in the right hand section, the recto page. Anyone who sells print advertising knows that an ad placed on the right hand page is noticed first. It’s the place to be. Premium. It costs more. The left hand page is less good. Verso. The sinister side. The casual reader probably skims over it. The RECTO side is preferable, and what’s more, it’s a big target, which makes it relatively do-able. The comfortable upper-second embraces a very wide range of poetic ability and success.

That tiny sector on the right is the Prize. It’s where the big names are: poets who publish with the big houses, who win the Eliots and the Forwards, who have long successful careers in poetry publishing. But I know for a fact that plenty of poets who you might think are here, either don’t consider themselves to be, or don’t feel they deserve to be, or who constantly feel one poem away from slipping into the upper-second.

So there we are (well, I am, and maybe you are too) in the ‘upper-second’ sector of the poetry world. There’s plenty of fluidity of course.

Scenario one: You get an email from The Rialto accepting two of your poems, or you win mid-range poetry competition, or your book is reviewed in the Guardian… HUZZAH, move up to position A on the diagram. You’re nearly there! Look how close it is to 1st!

Scenario 2: you haven’t written anything you’re happy with in months. The last six responses from magazines have been rejections. It’s been years since that competition success/big magazine acceptance/wildly successful reading you did. Go directly to position B and stay there until you pull your socks up. That Lower 2nd is beckoning you, and the bright young things are pushing in!

So that, my poet friends, is the game of snakes and ladders that we’re all playing, not necessarily knowingly, not necessarily willingly, in fact you might be thinking it’s a load of bullshit.

But for some reason I take comfort in this analogy. The open book, the invitation to read and write, and look! – the middle section is the most prominent, the most visible. That RECTO page is mighty big, with room for us all to be a little easier on ourselves I think, still with plenty of scope for ambition, some healthy competition … and the chance to be successful enough.

*not his real name, by the way. Apparently he went on to make a fortune with Lehman Brothers and raised a family on a twenty acre estate in Kent.

Angst/ 20/01/2014

Where blogging fits into the writing week

Pages from primary school rough book — Aged 10, my note-taking habit had begun

How does your writing week look? Mine can typically include things like

blog posts
a client email newsletter
a lot of emails (sent and replied to)
poetry writing/redrafting/editing
commenting on blogs
client work: proposals, meeting reports, web or brochure copy, etc
an email newsletter for one of my groups (poetry or singing)
a guest piece for a magazine or blog
a chapter for a (non-fiction) book, if I have a book project on the go
cover letters
various lists/notes etc for myself
tweeting etc

– it adds up to writing every day, even though when asked how much time I spend on writing I tend to um and ah or say ‘not as much as I’d like’ because of course I’m thinking of poetry writing – you know, the really creative stuff.

This morning I’d been thinking about blogging and the purpose(s) of blogging. Then I encountered Josephine Corcoran’s interesting and timely post about ‘why blog’ (in relation to poetry blogging in particular).

Blogging isn’t for everyone. I regularly meet people who, if they find out about my blog, aren’t sure what to make of it, as an activity. But sometimes they admit they too have a blog, but ‘haven’t posted for a while’ or else they’ve been ‘meaning to blog’ but are struggling either to find the time or the ideas of what to write about.

When people come to me for mentoring, if I think blogging would benefit them, I suggest it. But it’s one of those awkward chicken-and-egg things: until you start blogging and you reach that moment of ‘getting it’ (which is usually tied up with the community aspect of blogging – see Josephine’s post), it can feel like a chore. Or worse, a worthless or self-indulgent activity two steps removed from bragging and the slippery slope towards staring at one’s reflection in a pond.

Community is a big part of blogging – after 15 years I’m still amazed who you meet on the internet and I’ve always believed (from personal experience) that connections made online can be every bit as strong as those made ‘in real life’. And the wonderful thing is that it’s still mostly fuelled by the written word.

So to follow on from Josephine’s post, my feeling is that blogging helps my writing, because it is writing. It’s part of my writing life – just as is everything else that goes into the writing week, except on a blog I give myself permission to use cliches, make (sort of) jokes, say LOL or whatever else grabs me. I give myself permission to make mistakes, try out new ideas, ask questions, come across as a bit naive or opinionated or whatever. I give myself permission to write without drafting, or re-drafting, or planning, or reaching for the thesaurus, or (much!) editing. To write 200 words or 2,000 words. It’s my ‘sandbox’ I suppose. It doesn’t mean I’m totally unguarded, but I’ve noticed how people appreciate openness, so I think it’s a good thing to aim for. It’s probably an antidote to all that sales/commercial writing that invades our space (bits of which I’m responsible for – sorry!)

What do you think – does blogging flex our writing muscles, or does it just take us away from, well, proper writing?

Angst/ 25/03/2013

Notes from a workshop

Last week I was lacking inspiration, part due to work commitments and then a 3-day headache – ugh – so it was a pleasure to once more find myself in the interesting ambience of the Lewes Bus Station building for another workshop with Mimi Khalvati and the group of serious poets I seem to have inveigled myself into. (Can one ‘inveigle oneself?’ Hmm).

Sometimes in these situations I have a feeling of ‘this is not real’. I suppose it’s the usual ‘I’m an imposter and any minute now I’m going to be found out’ anxiety that I gather many women (especially) suffer from. A bit like jobs I’ve had in the past when I’ve sat in meetings and had the distinct sensation of acting like I know why I’m there, like I know what’s going on and my presence is making a difference. It’s not exactly the fear of being unmasked, like that scene in ‘Working Girl’ when Melanie Griffith is accused of being a fake and leaves the boardroom saying ‘sorry! sorry!’ It is something like that. But it also feels like I’m in a play, or someone else’s dream. There’s something fragile about the situation, grounded in nothing much. It’s like meeting a childhood hero in your kitchen or office. The strange mix of something that’s at once real and unreal. The feeling that it might be you who’s actually experiencing this or it might be something you’re dreaming or watching happen to someone else. And then wondering if there’s any difference.

Anyway, sorry for the cod-philosophical moment there – back to business – it’s very odd how sometimes in workshops there emerges a kind of theme. I remember a previous session where there were a lot of poems about water. And another where houses featured prominently. This week, dreams and fairytales came up quite a few times.

So in no particular order, here were some of Mimi’s general observations/comments that I made a note of … hope they’re of use /interesting.

When you have what’s basically a list poem, how will you meld together the various items on the list? If you use the same construction for each (eg active verb phrases like He puts out …. she ties together … they wait.. etc) it can get wearing. What’s the mortar that will tie the ‘bricks’ of the poem together? Maybe think about rhythm more, or bring in other tenses, sentence constructions?

We’re often told to avoid poeticisms, and yet one that sometimes slips through is a noun phrase that starts “what…’ as in ‘what stirred him at that moment was XYZ’ or ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. Mimi says this is a sightly archaic construction – not something we tend to say in speech – beware.

General point on form – the structure needs to convey a thrill, just as much as the image or emotion you’re communicating.

Natural speech stress is not the same as metrical stress. When writing in strict metre it can be tempting to put in the little words that you might ordinarily leave out in free verse. But you can sometimes afford to drop the extra words and still keep to the metre. (This is something I need to work on – I tend to get drawn into ‘dumty-dum’ phrases if I’m not careful.)

Punctuation – it’s possible to be too punctilious! If someone is a fast reader, they may lose some of the excitement/interest if they are slowed down by commas or being too deliberately led. Specifying the pauses in this way can also put a big responsibility on those phrases to ‘scintillate’.

Poems/ 08/02/2013

Poem-a-day, Days 3 – 4

Dear Reader

For a minute I thought I was struggling already, but the Guardian came to the rescue, or rather whoever it was who posted a link on Facebook to this article, about stealing a line from an existing poem and using it as the basis for something of your own.

I had Emily Dickinson on my mind after my last post, so picked up my Everyman Pocket Dickinson and had a skim through. But then I struggled with all that iambic tetrameter – Within my Garden rides a Bird … A Chilly Peace infests the Grass, etc …it sucks you into dumdidum rhymes before you can help yourself, it’s like trying not to look at a road accident as you drive past. BUT, dear reader, I found a lovely line. And used it – not sure how lovely the rest of the poem is but I’ll return to it another time.

And then, since tomorrow is my wedding anniversary and sequestering myself away to write would be too rude, I even wrote tomorrow’s poem today! I am ahead of myself – hurrah!

Yours smugly,

Poetgal

PS best wishes for the weekend 🙂

Angst/ 06/02/2013

Setting myself a new challenge

Emily Dickinson wrote 1,800 poems and died at 55.

After a chat with a wonderful poet friend yesterday I had a bit of a lightbulb moment (albeit over a couple of beers, funny that).

She told me of another poet who had just had a poem accepted by Poetry Review and was over the moon because she had been trying for ages. Trying for ages! And I haven’t tried once. Why not? Because I never feel I have anything good enough. Why not? Partly because I don’t write enough – not enough practice, not enough decent material, etc.

I’ve told myself this before but never done anything about it. So enough of the hand-wringing! I could just pootle along the same as I’ve been doing, sending off whatever I’ve managed to write and hoping for the best, getting the odd acceptance from a magazine, going to workshops and wanting success. Or I could actually work at it, put in the hours and quit thinking it’s going to magically happen.

So as a start, I’ve decided I’m going to write at least one poem every day. I won’t go back to work on a previous poem until I’ve written my day’s poem. I will do this at least until Easter, as a kind of Lenten promise. The idea is not to write just anything, but something – something that has at least the potential to become something good. I won’t pressure myself to send these poems off anywhere, or worry about whether a theme is emerging or ‘could this go in a pamphlet’.

You might be reading this and thinking it’s no big deal, maybe you’re a prolific writer with hundreds of poems. But I’m not, so the thought of having written over 40 new poems by Easter is very exciting. Wish me luck. (By the way, I’ve written my poem for today. A sonnet – ha!)

PS Latest rejection news: Versal, a magazine I hadn’t heard of until I saw them on Facebook and thought I’d try something with them. They are an outfit who make a nominal charge for submitting – a hotly debated topic but actually one I am sympathetic towards. I’d rather pay a quid to a poetry magazine for taking the time to read my poems and respond, than to Royal Mail. And the response was not only quick, but very polite, along the lines of ‘please submit again’. I’m cynical enough to wonder if that’s a stock response to everyone, but if anyone from Versal is reading this, and it isn’t, then I apologise.

Picture credit: Emily Dickinson Museum

Mags & Blogs/ 09/11/2012

A feast of first lines

First lines. Ack! It’s worse than a job interview. You have 2 seconds to make an impression. Or something like that.

Do you find yourself going back to the first line and re-writing because it’s just not strong enough? And as a reader, do you ever read the first line and immediately your mind says ‘uh oh’ and you’ve already got a prediction in your head of where it’s going? I know I do both of these things, and more. After the title, the first line has to be pretty good, do you agree?

In a moment of stupor I thought I would try to finally CRACK the first line thing by doing some research. Ha ha! The appliance of science – always worth a try!

So I dutifully recorded all the first lines from every poem in The Rialto 74. Call me crazy if you like, but it was a fun exercise. And the resulting list of 55 first lines actually reads like a poem in itself, although I don’t think even the (theoretical) love child of Selima Hill and Sam Riviere could come up with this. (Love them both though! No offence intended! But they can be pretty left-field!)

So here we go. If this is a breach of copyright, I apologise – all credit to the poets, but if anyone would like their line pulled from this post, on the grounds of non-attribution, please say.

Hard to think about infinity

We’re the lucky ones

The postman listens to Roxy Music on her iPod nano

Down with poetry! It’s all over the place

We lean into the soft brake BLUES

Some people are bad for the soul. Avoid them.

In the museum-without-proprietor

The bound book lay open on the desk

At least you can sleep, folding us and the hours

You’ll have had me, the view of me, down on the sand

At the high pass, forward scouts report,

You are welcome, you arrive to embraces and chatter

There’s a red spot in the centre of today

Laura shows up in time to have to wait

I reflect on their defects. They give me

spine faded, pages yellowed, corners turned down

What would you do if I died right now, here, you asked,

Until recently we were very pleased with Roger.

We were litte upstarts; our causes imperceptible, inflamed

The bathtub, the Frigidaire, the gilded tap,

We learn why things happen

The inn on the Tokaido Road has

Standing at the sink

The others are glad not to be the corpse

are discussing provocation: holding law up to the light.

Across the road the decorators have finished;

In the last August of the war, my

Dear little damp foot

Really I want to keep this to myself

You tell that story again

A girl is two eggs waiting to be a cake, or a sun; Our Father going round and round in her song.

How the heart wire snapped and on the loose my heart

Wriggling, it pulls. The tip of the tail

Robert makes two cups of tea

Each of my poems is

And this too will pass into spring

You tie my scarf so it drapes like Madonna’s,

It is not the rusting of summer into inevitable

A man coughs like a box

I am an old book troglodyte

For years nobody had been to the library

Make do with my father, speeding

Love was the boy you broke up with years ago

Grief was the flash bloke with the bleached teeth

The smell of bonfires. Autumn in the garden.

I’m sat on a bench on the promenade

And how many men are stood like this in their socks

I ride the famous tourist bus for hours,

He’d forgotten he had his father’s pistol.

He’d never seen such a horse before:

I’m not malicious though have scarred a woman

The stone in me speaks directly into the eyes of a toad

We drive until there are no more mirrors.

We finish and you sigh and gaze up into my eyes

After breakfast I clipped the peonies

(image credit: British Library)

Poet's Tips/ 18/10/2012

Tips from Don Paterson

The Mimi Khalvati workshop notes I posted here recently went down well, so I thought I’d share with you some gems from Don Paterson. Don came down to Sussex for the Pighog Poetry Festival in 2010, and as a tea-making volunteer I was lucky enough to sit in on his masterclass. (Actually that sounds very grand – the way Don described it was ‘you can ask me questions and I’ll just talk’ – in other words, no workshopping or advice on individual work.)

Clearly the man doesn’t beat about the bush. I have to say I came away with so many great tips, and I go back to them OFTEN – I know I still commit some of the ‘sins’ mentioned here and need reminding not to do it! So if you’re sitting comfortably, here goes:

Themes, titles, general tips

The title is where you can put a clue as to what the poem is about. Once you stated that, don’t keep saying it.
The beginning has to grab the reader. You might actually start halfway thru the poem, so that the reader can’t tell immediately what it’s about, but wants to read on to find out.
Don’t make the poem too obscure though – sometimes you have to state what might seem obvious to you.
If your beginning is predictable then the reader will be one step ahead of you – BORING.
Don’t start at the beginning with an exposition – first this, then that, then the conclusion – boring!
Look at how the great poets do it. Frost, Hughes, Heaney. Then look at your own work, and figure out the shortfall – what’s the difference? How can you bridge it? (If anyone has the answer to this one let me know!!)
Don’t write about hackneyed themes – rainbows etc – there’s nothing new to say – similarly, ‘cool’ things that happen to you – leave them alone! Poetic, beautiful, heart-wrenching things – the poetry is in them, you can’t create another poetic layer, it will be crass.
Focus on ONE thing – write about ONE thing – it’s a common error to cram too much into a poem.
Often the one great idea/line you start with ends up being the bit you scratch.

Language

Cut out the unnecessary modifiers.
Only use rhyme if it’s necessary, if it’s integral to the piece – don’t add it on. Same other stylistic things – they must be integral, or not be there.
English is hard to rhyme, so consider half rhymes, or even just focusing on a few related (linguistically) sounds – eg cook, cod, recoup, dog, buddha.
Pattern the consonants – think about where they are made in the mouth and be aware of grouping them, eg voiced/unvoiced or fricatives or stopped consonants.
Use short words and long vowels – lengthen and emphasise the vowels, avoid too many schwas, eg words like repetitive or communicative don’t work well
Make your words sing, the line must sound good

And while we’re on the subject of DP, this video of him in some windswept location reading ‘Rain’ is one of my favourites:

Angst/ 30/09/2012

So this is what happens when I sit down to write

A free evening, and it’s a couple of hours until Downton Abbey (I’ll start watching it at 9, pause it at 9.01 so it starts recording, then start watching it at 9.15 and I can fast forward thru all the ad breaks – sorted!) So I think ‘I’ll dig out some old poem and give it a re-working’ – standard practice if I’m not inspired to write anything new.

Actually I’m a fan of recycling – I’m glad to have kept all the stuff I wrote pre-2009, which is when I tell myself I started taking poetry seriously (ie started READING poetry and realised I was on the Wrong Track) – even though the base material may be, well, base, sometimes there’s a kernel of something which can be dusted off and used. Somehow.

The poem I chanced upon is a little piece written ages ago when I was living in the US and a bit lonely and when I got some leave I used to take myself off on road trips. Ah yes! Cruising along the strip malls, perching my cardboard cup in the drinks holder and pretending I was a native. Surely I can summon up those memories no problem? Except I can’t. It was a while back, and I can’t even picture myself in a left hand drive automatic car, although it certainly happened.

I need to get into the mood – how about some American rock anthems? I used to LOVE singing along to them as I negotiated the I-5. A quick look on Amazon and I’m sampling ‘Babe’ by Styx (1979, their only number 1, apparently) and of course ‘Is this love?’ by Whitesnake. ‘China in your hand’ – ugh, that singer was so FLAT as she approached the chorus. But hang on, Amazon only gives you a few seconds of the song. I need to hear these in full – bring on YouTube. I’m listening to “Babe’ and reading the comments from people who met their first true love when this was playing. Then I remember a slightly embarrassing scene in a Florida piano bar when I sent a request to the players for ‘Babe’ and included the unnecessary details ‘English! Staying at the Hilton!’ on the request slip. Oh dear.

But back to the poem. Unfortunately by this time I am too far gone down the one-way street of lowbrow memories and general tackiness to be able to pull together anything of literary merit. And Downton is on in 20 minutes. Ho hum!

Mags & Blogs/ 19/09/2012

Rejected but not cowed

Oh well … I kind of suspected that the stuff I sent to Poetry London wasn’t going to blow Colette Brice’s socks off. So another sad little SAE plops on my doormat, tell-tale thin. Must do better!

Never mind, I shall blow the dust off, maybe do a little tweaking before trying them elsewhere. (I have a sonnet at the moment that I’m quite pleased with, but it does contain the word ‘erection’ in a context that could be seen to be gratuitous, so perhaps needs a little work.)

Ambit still have some poems of mine in their intray, which I sent back in May, so I’m starting to wonder if they ever arrived, as 4 months seems a tad slow, even for Ambit.

So I need to get some other stuff off. Do it, woman, and stop talking about it!

Then there’s Saturday’s workshop with Mimi Khalvati looming… I don’t want to waste her time or mine by presenting something half-hearted for workshopping. Do I get out the Poetry London rejects and find out exactly why one of them didn’t make the grade? Do I chance the ‘erection’ poem and hope I don’t blush when reading it (there are men in the group)? Do I try to write something new in the next couple of days..? Ack.

Angst/ 19/08/2012

Writing musings/ submissions etc

I’ve been grabbing the odd hour here and there to write while my other half watches the cricket highlights each day.

I need to submit some new stuff, so I need to write some new stuff. I’ve tentatively been trying to come up with something ‘humorous’ for the Moss Rich Prize. Yes I know I’ve told myself not to bother with competitions but as this one is local, has extended the deadline (so may be short of entries – ha!) plus the ‘humorous’ tag may put off many of the usual suspects.

So I’ve whipped up four shorties to try on it. Not sure if they’re ‘funny’ as such but should raise a wry half-smile with luck. But that’s just time and money down the drain really, whereas sumitting to magazines is more my bread and butter. I’ve work out at the moment for consideraton at Ambit and Poetry London, neither of which I’ve tried before and I’m not sure if I’ll hear from either for several months. That leaves 2 or 3 poems that are almost publishable, I think. But where to send?

Are they quirky enough for Obsessed with Pipework? Agenda and The North have both closed submissions for the time being. The Rialto has just published one from me and I don’t like to push my luck too often with them as I feel I’m in there by the skin of my teeth. Three forthcoming in Iota but they too seem to have significantly slowed down their production schedule. And Smith’s Knoll? I don’t know… I know the quick turnaround is great but in some ways it seems worse to get a rejection so quickly… it’s extra demotivating somehow, so I’m reluctant to try them again (it would be my 3rd time, and I tend not to pursue a publication more than twice without an acceptance – stupid I know, but there’s something psychological about it.) Plus, their website talks about the current publication being 2010 – I guess it’s hard to keep a website up with that strict 2 week turnaround to stick to, you’re too busy reading submissions. Nevertheless it makes me lose a little confidence in a publication and wonder if they still have an active publication schedule.

Both Charles at Obsessed with Pipework and Patricia at Agenda were most generous about work I have submitted before so I’m inclined to try them again. If what I’ve written is suitable. But then again I could always writing some more. Hmmm!

Tag: writing