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!

UK online magazines for poetry &c.

I knew there were online magazines produced in the UK that I didn't know about, so yesterday I put a call out and was amazed to learn of so many. Here's what I found. Please let me know of any I've missed, and I'll update accordingly.

The list so far of online-only, poetry-publishing, UK-based mags, last updated 10 November:

Amaryllis Poetry (http://www.amaryllispoetry.co.uk/)

And Other Poems (https://andotherpoems.wordpress.com/)

Angle (http://anglepoetry.co.uk/)

Antiphon (http://antiphon.org.uk/)

Blackbox Manifold (http://www.manifold.group.shef.ac.uk/)

Black Sheep Journal (http://www.blacksheepjournal.com/)

Burning Bush 2 (http://burningbush2.org/)

Canto Poetry (http://www.cantopoetry.co.uk/)

Clear Poetry (https://clearpoetry.wordpress.com/)

ctrl+alt+del (http://theabsurd.co.uk/cad/)

The Clearing (http://theclearingonline.org/)

Compass Magazine (http://www.thecompassmagazine.co.uk/)

Datableed (http://www.datableedzine.com/)

The Fat Damsel (https://thefatdamsel.wordpress.com/)

Ground: Poetry Faith and Doubt (http://www.ground.org.uk/)

I Am Not a Silent Poet (https://iamnotasilentpoet.wordpress.com/)

Ink, Sweat & Tears (http://www.inksweatandtears.co.uk/)

Intercapillary Space (http://intercapillaryspace.blogspot.co.uk/)

The Island Review (http://www.theislandreview.com/)

Keep Poems Alive (http://keeppoemsalive.com/)

The Lake (http://www.thelakepoetry.co.uk/)

Lighten Up Online (http://www.lightenup-online.co.uk/)

Litter (http://www.leafepress.com/litter/)

London Grip (http://londongrip.co.uk/)

M58 (http://www.m58.co.uk/)

The Manchester Review (http://www.themanchesterreview.co.uk/)
Message in a Bottle (http://www.messageinabottlepoetrymagazine.com/)

Molly Bloom (http://mollybloompoetry.weebly.com/)

Morphrog (http://www.morphrog.com/main_frame.htm)

Nutshells & Nuggets (http://nutshellsandnuggets.tumblr.com/)

The Open Mouse (https://theopenmouse.wordpress.com/)

Poems in Which (http://poemsinwhich.com/)

Prac Crit (http://www.praccrit.com/)

Snakeskin (http://www.simmers1.webspace.virginmedia.com/index.html)

Spontaneity (http://spontaneity.org/)
Starting Out (https://thecurlymindblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/starting-out/)

Stepaway Magazine (http://stepawaymagazine.com/)

Stride (http://www.stridemagazine.co.uk/)

Tender Journal (http://www.tenderjournal.co.uk/)

Three Drops from a Cauldron (http://threedropspoetry.co.uk/)

Turbulence (http://turbulencepoetry.blogspot.co.uk/)

The Undertow Review (http://theundertowreview.webs.com/)

Your One Phone Call (https://youronephonecall.wordpress.com/)

Enjoy!

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!
 

The Mid-Somerset Festival's Creative Writing Day, 14 March 2015

This year I judged each of the 17 classes for the Mid-Somerset Festival's creative writing day. It was a pleasure to work with its co-directors, Jane Riekemann and Hilary Bufton. While I enjoyed the whole of the day Saturday, giving prizes and commenting on the winning entries, the best part was seeing young people taking pride in their writing and reading their work, often for the first time, to a public audience.

I asked Rebecca Sneyd, age 11, if I could publish her winning poem on my blog, and her father sent along this photo as well. She won both first prize in her age group as well as winner of the highest overall score for an under-18 entrant in creative writing.


Instructions

Touch the wooden gate warped with age as it swings open.

Walk up to the door under the arch of red roses, not picking them.

Do not touch anything that does not belong to you as you pass through the house.

In the wild woods, take care to lay a path of pearl-like stones, leading you home.

Beside the river, take the boat but do not look back.

Inside the castle, take care not to climb up the tower on a thick golden rope.

Remember not to trust the man with many names.

Do not eat the apples ripened rosy red.

Trust the princess of Crete, your dreams and your beliefs.

Ride the majestic winged horse, you will not fall.

Follow the yellow brick road back home and rest.

 

Rebecca Sneyd

 

 

 

You can learn more about the festival--eager for more creative writing entries next year--here: http://www.midsomersetfestival.org.uk/ 

Meeting Dave Etter, August 2014

Sorry for the radio silence--did anyone notice? Since the start of the new year I've been drowning in marking.

Growing up in Normal, Illinois, I first met other writers when, at 15, I took an adult ed class at Illinois State University, "Women Writing Women's Lives," taught by Linnea Johnson. As soon as I began meeting other writers, I was asked if I was related to Illinois poet Dave Etter. My answers varied between "I don't know" and "Nah, I'm adopted," but I was curious. 

There used to be an event called Wordfair at the wonderful little Franklin Park (the scene of a poem from Imagined Sons, I'm so fond of it) in Bloomington, and I recall, as a teenager, seeing Dave Etter's books for the first time. He wrote about the prairie and the people who live there, in a style reminiscent of Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology. 

Over the decades, when I meet another poet for the first time and say my name, I've heard Dave Etter's name brought up again and again: "Do you know him? Are you related to him?" I always thought I'd meet him sooner or later, but once I moved to England I didn't hear the questions again and when I did think about it wondered idly where Dave was in the world. Was he still in Illinois? Was he still writing and publishing poems?

Sometime last year, poet Bill Sherman got in touch to ask if he could give my address to Dave Etter, as they knew each other and Dave was interested in writing to me. Dave and I swapped several letters--and books, and on my visit to Illinois last August, we arranged to meet. As there is no public transport serving Lanark, Illinois, the town where he lives, I appealed to my great friend Mike Stivers to drive me, and Adam Aspbury came along for the adventure. The photos didn't turn out very well, but I'm glad to have them!

Dave and I on his front porch

 

Dave

 

Dave and his wife Peggy, who made lunch for us all

 

The Gwendolyn Brooks Illinois Poet Laureate Award, 1986

A local poet had given me the wrong rules for the Illinois Poet Laureate Award, but Brooks bent them for me....

As I was living in a home for pregnant girls when I received this telegram, sadly I didn't attend the ceremony.

Helena Eriksson's Strata (Shearsman, 2014)

My student, the poet Wendy Klein loaned me this book; she and Jan Teeland translated it from Swedish, and it came out earlier this year from Shearsman Books. Here are some favourite passages from this book-length poem:


the riverbed, the flat stones comprise the place
for the final scene


                               Fiction is the junction

*

               This is no real city. They're just acting. It
is real in my memory

*

                             the way of working stays within the frames
                             the way of working defines the frames

*

meanings stitched into the embroideries. Out there on the fortress
What was expected of her

*

Cover the body

               "fluttering golden veil"


        touches every part of the body that isn't listening

*

They pass in the forest of figures, discover places once again, now without intensity. The sharpness or salinity of these discoveries, and even the radiance itself, has diminished. Nevertheless they send thin rays out over their hands. My body has begun to emit darkness.

*

after the winter illiteracy

*

I think of him where he stands with his
grammar    the whole night haunted by
suffixes

*

There was frost still lying over the ground, not even the dogs
were out     still longing for you when I
went     the membrane over everything or
the very sheen of the membrane

*

nothing that is left and nothing that
lies behind     only cupped hands and pairs of eyes

*

the darkening     remains
stinging silence no: speech
rises     remains

*

(the only relief is her gown
in her gown his and hollowed out)



You can purchase Strata directly from Shearsman's website here.

Thoughts Mundane and Provocative on Poetry and Desire (in progress)

-->

The title of this post is my working title for my paper at the AWP, to be given Friday, and I thought I'd post what I have thus far here, to begin the conversation. 

--

I've taken this down after two days so I can develop the piece into a publishable lyric essay--or so I hope!

Things Not to Do When Reading Your Poetry to an Audience

Thanks to Facebook friends and acquaintances for their many useful suggestions! I hope anyone who reads their work publicly will take note.

1. Don't go over time. Don't ask if you're over time or coming up against the time limit. You should know how long you have and have planned your poems accordingly.
2. Don't get drunk before reading. Reading drunk is highly unattractive, however you may feel at the time.
3. Don't mumble or whisper. Enunciate your words clearly with good volume. Read at a conversational pace, neither wildly fast nor snail-slow. 
4. Don't apologize or make self-deprecating remarks about the poems.
5. Don't avoid the mic. If it's there, use it, whatever you think of your powers of projection.
6. Don't read a poem you just wrote that day, however good you think it is. 
7. Don't read from a laptop or phone. A laptop is too awkward to hold and maintain eye contact, while a phone is generally too small to read from.
8. Don't arrive late. If you're a scheduled reader, you should arrive at least fifteen minutes before the reading is due to begin.
9. Don't ask the organizer if there's time for a couple more poems. If you don't know if there's time, you're not showing the audience due consideration. 
10. Don't rock on your feet or pace. 
11. Don't play with things in your pockets (keys, change, etc.).
12. Don't give your poems lengthy introductions. Keep your remarks succinct. 
13. Don't neglect the other readers by talking or checking your phone, etc. Give them the attention you hope to receive yourself.
14. Don't read in a single tone throughout your poems. Record yourself and listen. Change what you don't like or what you think may be ineffective. If you can make a video recording of yourself reading, so you can look for mannerisms, etc., even better.
15. Don't keep your face in your book/pages. Make regular eye contact. 
16. Don't immediately flip through pages to the next poem as soon as you have finished one. Allow enough of a pause at the end of a poem that the audience is clear that it's finished.
17. Don't say where poems have been or are going to be published. It makes you seem insecure and/or arrogant.
18. Along the same lines, don't tell the audience who likes this poem--a famous author, your workshop group, your mother, etc. It won't dispose the audience to like your poem too.  


I suppose 9 and 16 annoy me the most: the former seems self-indulgent, while the latter creates confusion and makes it hard to enjoy the reading.

The Poetry Life, with Thanks to Richard Price

At the first Reading Poetry Festival in June, Richard Price showed two flowcharts of a poet's life. One was a straightforward progression: magazine publication, small press book, possibly larger press book later on. There were perhaps five steps in all. Then Richard showed what a poet's life really looks like, with many 'steps' and arrows in every direction. Writing poems and publishing books became only two among many activities. Poets also give readings, collaborate with artists, publish pamphlets and broadsheets (though we could use many more of the latter in the UK), start their own magazines and presses, translate other poets' work, teach seminars and workshops, form workshops with other poets, create communities of exchange, friendship, love. I'm only touching on part of the breadth that Richard elaborated so well in the session, that makes me excited to think about the life I live. 

On another note, I also think this larger literary life is why American and British students pursue MFA and MA degrees in creative writing while knowing they may never have careers as writers per se. It's worth pursuing the degree for the sake of taking one's writing to a greater strength, for the sake of another year or two's deeper immersion in the world of writing, teaching and publishing. Or have my earnestness and idealism gotten the better of me? 
 

The Pleasures of Difficult Poetry, Tonight on BBC Radio 3's The Verb

Tonight I talk with host Ian McMillan and fellow guests Inua Ellams and Ira Lightman about American poet Hart Crane and the pleasures of difficult poetry on The Verb at 10 p.m. on BBC Radio 3 (that's 4 p.m. Central Time, my American friends), which of course you can listen to online. If that time's not good for you, though, you'll be able to listen to the program on BBC iPlayer for the week following. 

National Poetry Month begins!

Here's the list of those joining me in trying to write a poem a day for the month of April:

1. Joanne Limburg, Cambridge, UK

2. Jennifer Clarvoe, US

3. Aisling Tempany, Cardiff

4. Daniel Luff, Bath

5. Claire Lerpinière, near Bath

6. Natalia Spencer, Bristol

7. Jennifer K. Dick, Mulhouse, France

8. Reiss McGuinness, Bath and Sheffield

9. Kit Fryatt, Dublin

10. Cat Conway, London

11. Barbara Marsh, Hackney

12. Marthe Reed, Lafayette, Louisiana

13. James "J.P." Pavett, Bath, Somerset and Ferndown, Dorset

14. Katy Wilson, Bath

15. Alex Clere, Bath and Tamworth

16. Isobel Armstrong, Southampton

17. Jenny Martin, Great Bookham, Surrey

18. Kathryn Simmonds, London

19. John Wheway, Bath

20. Kristina Close, Cleeve Hill, Cheltenham

21. Tom Weir, Leeds

22. Kenny Campbell, St Andrews

23. Samantha Boarer, Bath and Newton Abbot

24. Matt Haw, Bath
25. Abigail Maskill, Halifax and Bath
26. Laura Hill, Borehamwood and Bath
27. Katherine Frost, Folkestone and Bath

28. Connie Voisine, Belfast, Ireland

29. Frank Dullaghan, Dubai, UAE

30. Dikra Ridha, Bath

31. Libby Walkup, Chicago

32. Jack Tinmouth, Whitchurch, Bristol

33. Simon McCormack, Bournemouth

34. Ginny Wiehardt, Brooklyn, NY

35. Éireann Lorsung, Nottinghamshire

36. Charlotte Owen, Bath

37. Emily Maycock, Newton St Loe

38. Laura Burns, Bristol

39. Mark Olival-Bartley, Munich, Germany

40. Simon Williams, South Devon, UK

41. Peter Daniels, London

42. Sarah Rudston, Bath

43. Zoe Howarth-Lowe, Bath

44. Rob A. Mackenzie, Edinburgh

45. Violet Echo Dahl, Bath and Oxford

46. Lindsey Holland

47. Graham Burchell, Dawlish

48. Sharon Larkin, Cheltenham

49. Bob Walton, Bristol

50. Diana Gittins, Exeter

51. Lucy Sixsmith, Bath

52. Lily Kerfoot, Dartmoor and Bath

53. Sarah Lariviere, Paris

54. Nathan Say, Las Vegas

55. Jason Mark Curley, London

56. Hazel Hammond, Bristol

57. Valeria Melchioretto, London

58. Susan Taylor, Dartmoor, Devon

59. Sarah Law, London

60. Melissa Studdard, Houston, Texas

61. Eileen Moeller, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

62. Kit Kennedy, San Francisco, California

63. Joan Mazza, Mineral, Virginia

64. Marie Dullaghan, Dubai, UAE and Essex, UK

65. Charlotte Owen, Bath and Bradford, Yorkshire

66. Michelle Boisseau, Virginia, Ohio, and Kansas City, Missouri

67. Ben Hall, Bath

68. Scott Lutz, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

69. Louise Stephens Alexander, Edinburgh

70. Kimberly Campanello, Dublin

71. Siobhán Campbell, Washington, D.C.

72. Linda Black, London

I'll post a message asking 4-5 days asking how people are progressing, how the process is affecting the creative process, etc., and I'd be grateful for your responses.

Poet Tomas Tranströmer wins the Nobel Prize for Literature

See the article in today's Guardian.

Requiescat in Pace Scott Wannberg, 20 February 1953-20 August 2011

I met Scott early in my time in Los Angeles in the late 'eighties, often seeing him at poetry readings and occasionally sharing the bill, and was delighted when he found me on Facebook a while back. From that point on he became part of my daily consciousness with his messages, posts and poems. I will miss his easy affection, compassionate generosity, and irrepressible spirit.

Poets on Adoption

Eileen Tabios has begun a blogzine, Poets on Adoption, in which poets affected by adoption in some way talk about their adoption experience and its influence on their poetry. I'll be contributing soon, talking about the curious position of being both adoptee and birthmother and presumably also about Imagined Sons, my manuscript that explores my consciousness as a birthmother.

A writing intensive

That's the best phrase I can think of to describe Claire Crowther and I's period of concentrated poetry writing and reading in the same abode. Last year we had a full week; each day, virtually all day we read poetry and wrote and revised poems; each night we swapped poems for feedback and/or shared new poets with one another. This time we have only four days, but I hope to make the most of them. We begin today!

Poets for Living Waters

Kudos to Amy King and Heidi Lynn Staples for curating Poets for Living Waters, a blog site of poetry responses to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Thus far (having not had time to read all the entries) I've particularly enjoyed those by Tasha Cotter and Brenda Iijima and hope to contribute to the site myself before long.

"The Rise of Poetry in Advertising"

An article in today's Guardian.

"The BBC's poetry season was let down by poor production"

I largely agree with this piece on The Guardian's Books Blog by Nathan Hamilton and would be glad to know others' thoughts.

"It Is Writing" by Roy Fisher

IT IS WRITING

Because it could do it well

the poem wants to glorify suffering.

I mistrust it.

I mistrust the poem in its hour of success,

a thing capable of being

tempted by ethics into the wonderful.

Roy Fisher

The Thing About Joe Sullivan: Poems 1971-1977 

(Carcanet, 1978)