The Great Graduating Poets' Showcase at Bath Brew House, May 2016

In what I hope will become an annual event, we held our second Great Graduating Poets' Showcase at The Bath Brew House last Friday night, and it was standing-room only! Here's a first round of photos from that excellent night.

Our compere was the tutor for the third-year poetry module this year, Neil Rollinson.

Emma Hebron

Matthew Mason displays his pamphlet.

Graduating poet Aaron Lembo and yours truly (wearing Matthew Mason's wonderful hat)

The whole gang! Well done, everyone!

For Love of 2015

I've had an extraordinary year. The only diminishment to the pleasure has been the inability to share any of it with my parents, especially my mother, my best friend, who I often used to speak to in my thoughts.

The first spectacular was the shortlisting of Imagined Sons for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry by The Poetry Society--or, more specifically, the judges, Julia Copus, Kei Miller and Grayson Perry. For a manuscript first completed in 2006, honed nearly until publication in 2014, I was honoured and thrilled to receive national recognition.

Not long after the shortlisting, Susannah Herbert phoned to ask if I'd serve as a judge for the Forward Prizes in Poetry. The work proved exceptionally heavy--180 books, 225 poems (or thereabouts)--with a quick turnaround before the shortlist meeting. It was a treat to work with A.L. Kennedy, Emma Harding, Warsan Shire and Colette Bryce, and I learned so much about the way poetry collections operate, about the way they achieve integrity and excellence.

With the Forward prizegiving and celebration on 30 September and the new academic year commencing at the same time, I felt overwhelmed and delighted with my year in poetry. At the end of October I attended one of the most personally gratifying events of the year, with the launch of my late friend Linda Lamus's collection, A Crater the Size of Calcutta. Many publishers didn't want to touch a posthumous book by an unknown poet, but Mulfran Press took it on and produced a beautiful volume. The launch of the book in Bristol, with ten people who loved her reading a poem each, was perfect.


Yet there was more, relevant to my position teaching at Bath Spa University. To my delight, I received some teaching relief for the upcoming academic year, so while I'd be coordinating four modules, teaching PhD and undergraduate students doing independent studies, doing the usual load of moderation of marking for my own and other modules, and running the weekly first-year plenary series, I would not be teaching directly any individual modules and so not doing any large loads of marking. Instead of working five days a week for Bath Spa (I'm on a .7 contract, which means just under three-quarters' time), I would be working 2-3 days, so I'd have 4-5 days a week for my writing. Wa-hey! Further recognition came in December, with promotion to Reader in Creative Writing at Bath Spa.

I've had a splendid few months using the extra time the university's given me. I've been writing as much as possible, researching (this is the first book of poetry I've worked on that involved extensive research), and reading widely and voraciously. Thanks to my friends, colleagues, students and readers for your encouragement and support--I'm so grateful.

Here's to 2016!

Cole Swensen's The Glass Age (Alice James Books, 2007), first selection

Those in the Bath area will want to see Cole Swensen when she reads on the Bath Spa University poetry series at Burdall's Yard on Thursday, 29 October at 8 p.m.; tickets are free for students and only £3 for the public at http://www.bathspalive.com, and the venue urges pre-booking so as to avoid disappointment and to help them with staffing.

Here are some favourite passages from the first section, The Open Window (passages from the latter two sections will follow in a separate post):

Sand and ash                    (the ocean like glass

                                            we say of a day when nothing moves)

further a natural feeling for light.

*

...to reach

is not necessarily to touch....

*

So often in Bonnard's work, the window is where we actually live, a vivid liminality poised on the sill, propped against the frame, he turns and speaks for the first time that day.

*

Photography replaced the river, which, due to unexpected complications, resulted in the Great Age of the Train.

*

The earliest movie was a window.

*

...diffusing the focus into a plane that hums, a homogenous intensity extending anarchically....

*

It's an equivalent world, one in which each element serves as a clinamen to trip the homogeneity into precipitating specifics so numerous that they can construct a rolling chaos quite able to hurtle through darkness without a hitch.

*

...a floodplain on which skates, fleet apothecary, the glance.

*

Whatever enters through a window is a ghost; everything else is just visiting--transfixed witness to the instant of the threshold, the site of the slip, the shift; we look up.

In the UK, Cole Swensen's books are most easily found through Abe Books. 

My first collection of fiction

Some of you will know that I've published a number of stories in lit mags over the years, so hopefully it won't be a complete surprise that V. Press has offered to publish a chapbook/pamphlet of my flash fictions next year. I haven't decided on a title yet, but I'm already trying to obtain a particular image for the cover. We're aiming for May 2016 publication, so I can do a launch at Bath Spa before the school year ends. 

Yay!

 

The Third-Year Poets of 2015, second selection

Round two from the student reading at Bath Brew House on 28 May, with the blurbs I wrote for each of their pamphlets.

"Sean Martin’s pamphlet Shrike gives animals from sea, land and sky their own distinctive voices in a series of provocative and compelling monologues."

"In the ambitious pamphlet When I Was, Chloe Mayo intelligently and insightfully explores an ambivalence at the heart of selfhood that manifests both in our sense of ourselves as well as in our relationships with others."

 "In Atlas’s richly nuanced poems, Tom Williams conveys the significance of place—indeed, of inhabiting each place anew—throughout our lives."

 

"In his well-nuanced pamphlet, Is This It?, Matthew Leigh explores the psychological complexities of romantic relationships with intelligence and tenderness."

 

"In this emotive and engaging pamphlet, Skeletons in the Closet, Jack Tinmouth powerfully traces the discovery of sexuality from the purely physical, to the increasing emotional freight of relationships, to romantic love."

An ideal night and hopefully a new tradition for the third-year poets at Bath Spa University!

The Third-Year Poets of 2015, first of two selections

As my third-year poets worked all year toward producing cohesive, ambitious pamphlets, I was happy to arrange a reading for them at The Bath Brew House, where each could read three poems to show a selection of work. One student persuaded me that if they were going to make physical pamphlets, I could write them each a single-sentence blurb, so those blurbs appear below each reader.

"In the thoughtful pamphlet Twenty Two, Nick Compton presents a life in one’s twenties as mingling fond memories of childhood with the vividness of present experience, through precise imagery that shows the power of small moments."

"In De La Mer, Lizzie Martin moves deftly among myth, tragedy and family in a series of evocative and often poignant poems."

"In Tigers and Other Beasts, Ben Halford skillfully evokes India’s exotic animals in their extraordinary beauty and ordinary violence."

"In Theos, Mairead Miller reimagines Greek mythology, giving voice to the often voiceless, airing new interpretations, in a series of original and passionate poems."

"Maddy Heal’s whimsical and original pamphlet, Spirit Animals, uses real and imagined relationships with animals to explore our humanity in poems that manifest their depth on repeated readings."

Good luck to them all!

Publishing Linda Lamus's first collection with Mulfran Press (yay!)

Some of you will have known the late poet Linda Lamus, who died in December 2008 and whom I was delighted to consider my friend. The last time I saw Linda in the hospital, she spoke movingly, urgently of her desire to publish her first book of poetry. Some months after her death, her widower John Lamus asked me if I'd see this wish through, and I agreed. My parents' deaths in 2009 and 2011, on top of my heavy workload at Bath Spa University, delayed the work considerably, but last year I finally found a publisher for the manuscript with Mulfran Press. When editor Leona Medlin told me she would publish it with Mulfran, I nearly cried in both pleasure and relief. 

The book will be titled after one of its poems, A Crater the Size of Calcutta, and published this October, with readings planned for Bristol and Cardiff and more to follow. I'll also be reading a couple poems from it at all the readings I myself do in the year following, to try to spread awareness of Linda's poetry.

Hurrah!
 

A student article on yours truly

Ben Franks, an undergraduate at Bath Spa University, has written a flattering article on me based on an interview we did, and it's up at his own Pie Magazine. Thanks, Ben, for the kindnesses therein!

Head down, still moving

I haven't posted in over a month, and that's due to the start of the academic year at Bath Spa University. As some of you know, for some years I've been coordinating a class with over 200 students, the first-year core course in creative writing. I love the teaching part of it and despise the administrative. Well, I don't despise the administrative work--I just get frustrated with how many hours of my life it demands. 

While I've known for some time that the number of hours necessary to do the job well results in significantly less writing during the academic year and poorer health, I've persisted--until now. The heaviest amount of work for this class is at its beginning and end, and this year, a colleague will be taking over the module for the middle months, January through April. Thus I have been counting down the weeks to winter break not just for that three weeks' relief from teaching and constant emails, but also in anticipation of a more manageable workload in the new year. 

It's all the more heartening, during this time, when magazines come in the post bearing my poems. I have poems in the current issues of Ambit, New Walk, Poetry Wales and Shearsman and dip into them for a few minutes here and there. I see the names of other poets I know and smile, as though we've just waved to each other in passing.

The fantasy of more time is always there, yet most of us have to make a living and strike a balance between the work and the writing. This seems to be the recurring theme in the conversations I've been having with other writers lately, perhaps because with my own workload I am that much more desperate for possible solutions. Some people get up earlier in the morning. Others choose part- over full-time work, trading in greater financial security for more personal fulfillment (to oversimplify). I thought I made that choice, too, with a .7 contract (3 1/2 days a week), but the problem with academic contracts is that one always has to work far more hours than one is actually paid for to get the job done. 

On that note, I should return to my university inbox and tackle the latest urgency.

Self-Censorship and Writing in and out of the Classroom

Yesterday at the annual NAWE conference (the National Association for Writers in Education, UK), I spoke on a panel with Bath Spa colleague Steve May and Columbia College Chicago comrades Randy Albers and Alexis Pride. Titled "Revelation and Transgression: Moving Past Self-Censorship," we spoke both about our own experiences overcoming self-censorship and about trying to get students to overcome it in their own writing. 

I think students feel or obtain such permission largely by example, by the reading they're assigned or recommended and by the instructor's own work. For example, Alexis spoke movingly about how the literary weight given in the classroom to Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye made African-American experience seem welcome subject matter; and after sharing some of the poems that have arisen from my own experience as a birthmother (as in my pamphlet/chapbook The Son), I've had students seek me out to discuss writing and sharing their own work on subjects they consider taboo. The same thing has happened with my experimental poetry--sometimes once a student finds it on her own or comes to a reading I give from it, she'll come to me to find out about experimental writing more generally and how to get started writing it.

The topic lingers in my mind as I consider how I might improve my teaching by broadening such models, perhaps especially in my Sudden Prose module with a wider array of flash fictions and prose poems. Your thoughts and recommendations are most welcome!

100,000 Poets for Change in Bath on Saturday, 29 September

Here is the final schedule for Bath's day of readings as part of the international 100,000 Poets for Change, this Saturday, 29 September at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute on Queen Square, with all money raised going to support Julian House, Bath's charity for the homeless. We'll be in the large Elwin room. Here's the schedule:

2:30-3 p.m. Bath Poetry Cafe, with readings from David Cohen, Teresa Davey, Rose Flint, Rosie Jackson, Jill Sharp and Sue Sims

3:10-3:40 p.m. A Pamphlet Party, with poets reading from their pamphlets: Seren Adams (Small History, Shearsman), David Hale (The Last Walking Stick Factory, Happenstance), Dikra Ridha (There Are No Americans in Baghdad's Bird Market, Tall Lighthouse), and Robert Walton (Waiting for the Wave, Pighog)

3:50-4:20 p.m. Bath Spa University MA Poets Past and Present: Graham Allison, Daisy Behagg, Matthew Haw, Caroline Heaton, Alan Summers, Natasha Underwood, John Wheway and Andy Wright 

4:30-5 p.m. Swindon Artswords Presents, with readings from William Bedford, Emily Harrison, Cristina Newton, Bethany Pope and Hilda Sheehan

5:10-5:40 p.m. Bath Spa University Undergraduates

Dinner break

7:30-8:05 p.m. David Briggs and Kelvin Corcoran

8:20-8:55 p.m. Claire Crowther and Tim Liardet 


There will be drinks and books tables throughout the event (manned by Bath Spa student volunteers), and donations will be requested for Julian House. There is no entry fee as such. I am most grateful to Bath Spa University for its support--paying for the room, readers' travel expenses, etc.--so that all donations can go directly to Julian House.

Bath Spa University's Stand Up Poetry Reading Series, 2011-12

If you live in or near Bath, please take note of the following dates for the Bath Spa University Stand Up Poetry Series this year. In five years, we've never repeated a reader, and I hope that will continue. The organizer of the series is Professor Tim Liardet (with assistance from yours truly) and its manager is PhD poetry student Andy Turner. All readings are held at 8 p.m. at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute, 16-18 Queen Square, Bath. I believe the cover charge is £7, though it's free for Bath Spa students.

6 October (yes, already gone!): Dennis Nurkse

10 November: Ian Duhig

8 December: Julia Copus

12 January: Lytton Smith and Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch

9 February: Geraldine Monk

8 March: Neil Rollinson

19 April: Jill Bialosky

10 May: Vahni Capildeo and Ahren Warner

Unfortunately I'll miss 10 November and 8 December as I have readings in Cardiff and Swindon, respectively, on those nights, but I expect to make it to the others. I hope to see some of you there!

Requiescat in Pace Colin Harvey, 1960-2011

I am saddened to learn of the death of my former student and science-fiction author Colin Harvey. My condolences go out to his family and friends, and I am most sorry I will not be able to make it back to England in time for his funeral next Friday, 27 August.

A short survey of writing habits

For the annual anthology, last year's Bath Spa University MA graduates decided to do a short survey of writing habits, beginning with writers teaching on the programme and extending outward into the larger literary community. Respondents include myself, Peter Finch, George Szirtes, Samantha Harvey, Mimi Thebo, Gerard Woodward, and Lucy English, among others. You can read them here, as well as dip into extracts from the graduates' work.

The Centenary of International Women's Day

is marked by the Guardian with its list of the top 100 women, with 16 in writing and academia. Bath Spa University, where I teach, is in the midst of a week of interesting events, including two Women's Poetry Hours I organised. One will be at Bath Central Library tomorrow at 6 p.m., with myself, Dikra Ridha, Linda Saunders, and Ruth Sharman reading, Nikki Bennett hosting; the second will be held Friday at one p.m. in the Michael Tippett Centre foyer on the Newton Park campus, with a mix of local, MA, and staff poets: Daisy Behagg, Nikki Bennett, Zoe Howarth, Dikra Ridha, and Mimi Thebo, and myself hosting. Both readings are free and open to the public.

Dikra Ridha's "Ordinary Evening"

Iraqi-British poet Dikra Ridha has an MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University; I'm proud to say she was my student. Here is a sample poem from her first pamphlet, There Are No Americans in Baghdad's Bird Market, published this month by Tall Lighthouse.

Ordinary Evening

The sound of a small spoon stirring cardamom tea clings

to the walls. When a hijacker in a filthy helmet opens

the door with a weapon you don't know, you become

an insect in your own home. Incapable of rushing,

unable to scream. You shiver, shake, welter

in the shell of your house. The second he steps

over your slippers and night gown, your smell changes.

A new sweat shields your body, limpid--foreseeing

the end of your prosperity; you existed a moment ago,

five thousand years ago, and diminishing. The hijacker

silences chatter in your ears and blackens the light

in your eyes. You're not dead yet but sure your death

is approaching. Afraid to blink for the weight of this belt,

you choose patience. He checks you out with his boots,

the foetus curl; your last security. He prods, knocks

you over; you fall to your side. He curses at you then turns

and roars his head to the ceiling and laps up your sky.

He takes the water from your bones. Your gold

ring is in his stomach. But wait. Wait.

Dikra Ridha

To order a copy of There Are No Americans in Baghdad's Bird Market, please order it from the publisher here.

Did you think it was over?

Yesterday in the MA poetry workshop I lead at Bath Spa, student John Wheway told me that he'd had such pleasure and success in writing a poem a day for National Poetry Month, that he was going to extend the practice into May. Caught up in the enthusiasm, I said I too would try another month. I've written today's, but what have I done?

i.m. Australian poet Peter Porter, 1929-2010

Here is the obituary from The Guardian. I only met him once, at a lovely reading he gave in Bath Spa's poetry reading series, and found him to be as relaxed and amiable as he was intelligent; a delightful conversationalist.

National Poetry Month returns--come join me!

April is National Poetry Month in the States, and once again I'm going to try to write something every day (a practice called NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month). This time, though, as I'm amid a flash fiction project, I'm going to write either a poem, a section of a poem, or a flash fiction each day.

I'm also pleased to say that the current crop of five poetry MAs at Bath Spa have agreed to join me. If you want commit here as well, just respond under Comments and I'll happily add you to the list. You don't have to post your poems or prove anything, but a few times a month it'd be good to hear how it's going and its effects on your writing, on your process.

So, along for the ride are--

1. John Wheway, Bath

2. Graham Burchell, Dawlish (UK)

3. Daniel Vasili, Bath

4. Jodie Hollander, Bath

5. Louise Ellis, Bath

6. Linda Black, London

7. Dave Sealey, Bath

8. Jenny Martin, London

9. Dawn Trook, San Francisco

10. Libby Walkup, Fargo

11. Helen Pizzey

12. Peter Daniels, London

13. Cat Conway, London

14. Matt Bryden, Bath

15. Desmond Swords, Ireland

16. Cynthia Carpenter, Toronto

17. Catherine Daly, Los Angeles

18. Mary Leader, West Lafayette, Indiana

19. Jill Crammond Wickham

20. Robin Reagler, Houston, Texas

21. Carolee Sherwood, Albany, New York

22. Paul Schloss, Norwich

23. Uma Gowrishankar, India

Poetry Days in London: Tuesday, 12 May

On day 2 I visited The Poetry Library, in part to look into some magazines I enjoy but don't subscribe to (as I can only afford so many!) as well as to research magazines that seem open to beginning poets, for the sake of my three Publishing Your Poetry seminars next year for The Poetry School. I discovered a relatively new magazine from Clutag Press, Archipelago. Issue 3 was the latest, dated Spring 2009; I particularly enjoyed the poems by Michael Longley and Peter McDonald. Often I choose magazines to submit to based on how much I enjoy an issue; that is, commonly I'll enjoy reading a magazine and want to join the company, so to speak. On looking at Archipelago's website, though, I was disappointed to find out the magazine doesn't consider unsolicited submissions, something I haven't encountered in a long while. Oh well.

Next I saw the Annette Messager exhibition at The Hayward. It was so various and particular I don't want to try to describe it here; it really must be experienced. The words that occur to me are intriguing and disturbing. She's very idea- and symbol-driven, which I think describe my work, too.

I spent the early part of the evening in the atmospheric Vaults in the RSA, for the Bath Spa University MA writing programmes' anthologies launch. To read some good work from the programmes, follow these links for the MA in Creative Writing anthology, Mosaic, the MA in Writing for Young People anthology, Pick and Mix, and the MA in Scriptwriting anthology, The First Ten Pages. If I had the money, I'd launch my book in the RSA vaults, too! I very much like the mood the space encourages. 

The latter part of the evening was spent on the town with some of the MA scriptwriters, but details of that I'll leave to rumour....