Extract

Extract from a poem

The leaves quiver an elderly hand,
so slight I need to adjust my eyes.
Rustle of breeze like a prom dress
being tucked into a car,
hum of tractor far away
as Mom's hoover at the foot of the stairs.

I saw a picture of sunflowers once,
a swirl of sky so angry you knew it cared.
There is just this, warm, light.
With my eyes half-shut
I have learnt to be my own Van Gogh.

Rainy Bank Holiday

Last night I had a dream that my tongue was involved in some sort of accident with a fishing rod, and I had to live without a tongue- couldn't speak, taste a thing, and it made me quite depressed in the dream. I woke up, couldn't get back to sleep right away, and later dreamt that I had a butterfly in a jar, it was an amzing thing, I had caught and wanted to show to someone before I released it, but I was in my old school and none of my schoolmates would look at it.

This morning I woke up to another rejection from a poetry magazine, the bog standard variety. One of the poems I sent is probably one of the best I've ever written, or at least that's how I feel about it. The problem with sending to mags is the ability to hold on to how you feel about your work is threatened, maybe this can sometimes be a good thing. It was a sad poem, not neutral feeling at all, and I am wondering if this is a problem. Seems emotion in alot of work magazines favour can be a liability, and not something that can be harnessed. All day today I am clashing my tongue against the back of my teeth to see it is still there, wondering if I make a sound- and if it exists if no one hears it.

The proper poets

This week I have been working on how to approach the life of a Cheesecake pin-up model in poetry form. There has been a problem getting into it, because I have found so much contradictory information about her life. The question is who do I beleive, and having to decide which side I will take somehow. In the end I wrote a poem in which I described one event twice, projecting both versions of events, which seeemed more interesting than I imagined, in questioning what truth is, how memory is constructed. Perhaps both versions of events are reliant upon eachother to exist. Really I should have been writing prose this week, but the research I had done was pressing upon me to make a commitment and decide how I would tackle it. I wanted to tie up poetry loose ends before delving into prose because I always feel with prose I never know how long it will take. I don't with a poem, but at least a draft is in sight.

Also this week I went to two poetry events. The first was a reading by Paul Batchelor and W.N Herbert at Newcastle University. I was uncertain about going to this event, I think because it was at the university, and because it was required to book a place to attend (I worry that events which do this potentially exclude people who may not know if they can attend until on the night itself, or people like myself who can't speak on the phone.) I am sort of very wrong at the uni, the room was full of academics and proper poets, lots of people who don't know me, and lots of people who have met me once or twice but don't really want to speak to me (just as well, I am even more useless in this context and sort of hear my voice bleat useless hello's, but am too intimidated to have anything else to say.) (OK, a quick diversion to describe what I mean by proper poets, I think this is something I need to think about. I suppose the term refers to people I consider to be serious poets somehow, either by the content of their work or by the fact that they are recognised, known and respected as poets. Proper poets leave me feeling somehow improper I suppose, somehow inferior because of the things I write about maybe, but also because I'm not there. I am not a hobbyist with my poetry, as it is something I am passionate about, but somehow respectable poets leave me feeling like a poet YTS.)

This event was really packed out, literally every man and his dog (the proper poets can really rake them in.) There was a good mix of men and women in the audience, which was unusual. (Last month there was a reading by female poets and the audience was exclusively female (this doesn't beg the question to me, it screams it- what lies at the heart of this? It seems to indicate that women who like poetry are interested in hearing it whatever its source, but this does not seem to apply the other way around. I refuse to accept that male poetry lovers are somehow more discerning, or that the quality of poetry by women is generally inferior to that by men. I am still thinking about this, and have noted that when I have seen lists of poets favourite poets it is very very rare for female poets to be included on the lists of men. Is it just me who finds this insulting?)

Batchelor read from his new pamphlet To photograph a Snow Crystal (everyone knows this is a poet on the rise, and I mean this in an actual way, not in how we usually use this term to talk kindly about poets who aren't yet known, so I won't go into the quality of his poems- we all know it, since the poems are a competition winner.) I almost feel as if some poets are a different type of species to myself, perhaps because of the quality and content of the work, and I feel ill-equipped to venture my opinion when the poets are academics. Batchelor's poems are very clean and precise, at their best they are like a crystal through which we can see the real nature of light. My favourite poems in the pamphlet are those which illuminate specific details of real life (sometimes the ordinary becoming extraordinary, as in Butterwell, a poem which is not in the pamphlet which the poet ended the reading on, in which the simple act of his father returning from work is transformed.) The poems are controlled, almost scientific, but if the poems are a science they are a science of the human condition, providing space for thought. My favourite poems in the pamphlet are those which seem somehow haunting, almost lonely.

' A day
with nothing to say for itself, and morning
making light of it. Who in the world
might she have been? You draw the blinds
& turn back to the bed as one
by one the panes fill up with snow.'

(from Snow, To Photograph a Snow Crystal- Paul Batchelor)

In contrast to some of the poems I was surprised at the humour, and humanity of his introductions to poems. Like I said, this is an event of a whole different poetry species ( the respected poets) so I didn't expect humour and honesty at an event at the university (don't ask me why, something to do with my own fear that middle class/academic people are somehow robots, I am prepared to accept that many of them may not be, but they usually have to demonstrate otherwise somehow first!) Batchelor seemed to create an atmosphere of inclusivity for the audience by allowing chinks of humanity to be glimpsed in his introductions to the poems. (I think introducing a poem well is a skill that isn't thought about too much, the danger of saying too much or negating the poem is always present, and the tendency to say too little is there. What I actually realised is that audiences do like to hear little bits to create the illusion that they know the poet a little, that he/she is sharing something of themselves with them. This is something I need to work on, since I have the feeling that the less I can share of myself the better, as I hope the poems are alot more interesting than I am.) There was a comfort in hearing Batchelor's mother said she ' liked this poem, it reminded her Ruby don't take your love to town, by Kenny Rogers', and it was this sort of revelation that was surprising in the midst of (some of) the poems.

W.N Herbert read following Batchelor, and I was again surprised at the energy he put into presenting his work, and the inclusion of humour in the poems and the presentation of them. I haven't seen this poet read before, and he wasn't as I imagined him to be at all. The audience lapped it up. The only thing that I was slightly disappointed by perhaps is that although the poems were presented in a very confident and engaging fashion, there was less of that illusion of the poet revealing something of himself to the audience, and I was left wondering what this poet may actually be like really under all of this. The advantage of this of course could be the creation of intrigue. I will certainly be reading more W.N Herbert in the future, not only because it was of a high standard (like I said why go there? since this is a uni event and a Bloodaxe poet we knew that) but perhaps because I want to see if there is any sense of who this poet really is to be gleamed from inspection of the poems.

The following night I went to Colpitts in Durham, to see Jackie Litherland read from her new book The Work of the Wind (I really can't wait to read this book from cover to cover.) This was another extremely well attended event, and I suppose another situation in which I am uncomfortable in. (What I discovered from the two events being in sucession was that people's reaction to seeing me at events is to say 'I haven't seen you in a long time. are you alright?' This really surprises me since I do go to a fair few events, not every event granted (or there wouldn't be time to write, or do those pesky things that need doing in life to ensure free head space for writing time- in my case, at this time of year re-potting plants, and sorting through rooms with binbags of things for the charity shop, things for recycling, things that will get in the way when I have to gloss the skirters.) (Perhaps people say this because they just don't know what to say to me, because after all these years I've still never managed to have a conservation with any of them beyond how is work?) Jackie Litherland's reading was amazing in so many ways, the sheer volume of work in this book is intimidating in alot of ways (the fact that there are 60 sonnets in the book is something that makes me realise how far I have to go.) The poems are lyrical, sad, and at times funny, but always ferocious with life, and she defly combines all these elements in deeply personal poems which never contain an ounce of self pity, bitterness, or anger. What the poems do is present loss, grief, the ordinary things that become extraordinary in everyday life, and most of all love, a very human tenderness is in these poems, and we see love, relationships that are sometimes mundane, predictable but always magical. This is a love that is sometimes full of holes that have had to be darned again and again in different ways, the poems show this working, love happening between different people negotiating who they are and what is there everyday. I felt extremely moved at the reading to hear poems about her father, poems about alcoholism, life and grief. I forgot about class, and didn't care, the poems seemed so specific and yet universal. I forgot how uncomfortable I was, how I didn't fit right, how I hate my hands and couldn't seem to hide them, and was transported by the poems. A poem which was a celebratory tide of a baby forming cyllables on the beach seemed to demonstrate the remarkable skills of this poet, a subject which could so easily become sentimental and be difficult to tackle in a poem flowed effortlessly, beautifully, a celebration. This was truly an inspiring night, a humbling night, and something that has made me think about how there are still things I've never been able to write about to any satisfaction, and perhaps never will.

Holy smoke

Having an odd week, after such a good week last week with the writing of poems about pigs. I've just returned from a few days away in Holy Island , a writing retreat with some poetry colleagues. Came back feeling? Odd. That's about the only word. I haven't stayed on Holy Island before, and the place is so different to anything I've experienced before, it is such a beautiful place, and I went expecting the isolation. What I didn't expect was that because the island is so small you can never really be alone, you go for a walk and there is always someone everywere you go, strangers. It is a quiet place were I seemed unbareably loud, the jangle of change in my pocket, the buckles of my boots, I felt invisible in many ways when I was there, and yet almost wanted to be because the place demands it. Travel is a funny thing, you start to think too much, because there is no one there who knows you, about who you are really, and it seems a difficult question to answer. We are all so constructed by the people around us, what they see, what they reflect back to us, that being away makes you wonder what is really there, wonder if there's anything at all. All around the island there are notices, signs to make you aware of things that could happen, intructions: Beware of falling rocks,
We are not a cafe,
Naturally occurring poisonous algae,
a strange feeling of an awareness of visitors the islanders don't want to bother with. I have quite a high threshold of being able to be alone, but this feeling of not quite being alone is new to me, and something that made me an unwelcome visitor in my own skin.

As well as the physical aloneness I suppose there was that awful feeling of being misconstued, things you have said that have been re constructed by interpretation, which make you feel invisible in a more sad sort of way. I sat around worrying about not being entertaining, about being quiet, about people thinking I was not really there and engaging with them, and it was a feeling of being exposed I suppose, of people discovering the parts of you that are worried about on a bad day- what if I'm boring, silly,no good at it all, what if I just have nothing to say? I wanted to have jokes, to wear them like a mask and nothing would come. I just felt quiet, as if I was thinking about things I couldn't identify yet. In terms of the writing I took scattered notes and that's all, and I realised that my process has changed. I used to be a workshop poet, could write something there and then and have something to show. For some reason I'm not like that anymore (mostly those workshop poems could never be used again anyway, maybe 1 in 10) , something has changed and i'd be interested to know why. I just take notes now, the odd line, which I have to put away and return to, and be at my desk to sort out. To see the poems typed as I make them seems essential, for the spacial awareness. If I was to describe now the way I used to write I'd say it was like making a stir fry,so many colours, a little flash tumbling into one another, now it is more of a casserole, plainer but needs to simmer for so long. I didn't know this about myself, I think something about being given the time to spend on my writing may have something to do with it, I can approach everything alot more slowly,have more time to think. I didn't see that I am working in a different way, and just sort of needed time to process the things I had thought about there. When I came home I was able to process all those odd little notes more I think, and have written two poems (one of them quite long, one short.) I am saying this stupidly, as if size matters, and maybe sometimes with me it does, most of my favourite poems are quite short, but when it comes to my own work I somehow feel more justified to myself if I have produced more lines (which is just so wrong, and something I hope will go if I can gain more confidence in my abilities.)

The whole experience was interesting. The negative thing about it was thinking too much, being faced with my own limitations, and wondering if my poems are any good and if I will get them out there. I think I am thinking about this because I am at a stage with the current poems were I have been writing away, and am in need of some reaction to them/feedback, as the doubts are trying to creep in before I've actually given the poems a chance. My hunch is they are different to my previous work, but are they better? They are certainly simpler, but am not sure if that's a good thing. They are more assured in the respect that they do not try to be clever or witty in any way. But I don't know if this is a bad thing. I was trying to think of working class women poets who have made good, and couldn't think of many at all. In terms of poems in magazines, poets who win competitions, etc etc they seem to have alot in common, a sort of class neutrality, and often location neutrality, which doesn't allow for exceptions.Don't get me wrong, they are always good poets, but is it possible that poetry isn't as open to diversity as much as we would like think? Cultural diversity seems to be embraced by poetry, with this one exception. It also seems to be somehow more acceptable to be a working class man than a working class woman. I worry about this a great deal. If I wasn't so working class, infact even if I was a man would magazines etc be more interested in my work? These are things I don't want to think about, that suspicion that I'm just not the right type of poet, but maybe I have to. So the question is what can I do about this?

I wanted to wear the shoes in the picture when I was away, because I so rarely am anywhere were I don't have to wear big shoes to be taller, but the weather didn't allow it. When I got back all the cherry blossoms I could see from my office window had gone.

oops- forgot

Oh , forgot to actually say what I've been up to. Came 2nd in an internet competition to write a poem about new year (was such a bummer to come second, in a way would have been better not to be placed at all, because the prize for 1st place was an ipod, and i'd love one- so near and so far!) I have no use for the second prize, some simm card back up thing, so just gave it to a friend. Still, I suppose these minor triumphs get us through the day. The poetry perculating bore fruit. Worked on a huge sequence last week about pigs, the first draft was finished on Friday, and it ended up having 16 parts (16 being the age it ends at, before the story has already been told, or rather seen.) Also been considering images and stuff to go with the porn poems (actually I call them that, there's very little adult content in them, it's just a working title I guess that I stick to). I think it would work nice as a package with images at a reading, so it's been a nice hobby for me to consider this at my leisure. Took a lovely little bit of footage of the tree outside blowing in the wind, but now need to find out if there is a way for it to be projected bigger without it losing all the definition (when blew it up on the PC became more pixilated the bigger it got- this is a huge problem, since had the camera on highest res possible. Wonder if doing it on a proper digital moving image camera would improve it or not?) I think I need to learn more about stuff like this, but am not sure how or where to start. There are so many more things I don't know than I do it's amazing some days, and scary others.

rejection

It didn't take long, sent out first bunch of work to magazine in 6 years last week, and got my first rejection today, less than a week since I sent it. It was the standard photocopied slip, no comments, the usual. I couldn't help but notice how pristine the poems seemed, wondered if they'd even been read. I think I'd have felt better if the magazine had kept hold of them a little longer somehow. Still, I knew this was coming, just didn't know how soon. I am looking at the poems wondering what it may be that they didn't like about them, and can come to the conclusion that maybe they aren't poemy enough. They probably don't have that poem tone somehow. I'm not sure how I define this, it is the sort of thing you know when you see it, when you read the poems that do make it into magazines. Quite often the poems that make it into mags are fairly quiet in tone, seem somehow mystical and mysterious. The poems I sent are new ones, and have a plainess to them, not complicated really, no tricks to them. This may be what will be wrong with them to the poetry world, I dunno, time will tell. I'm still wondering if sending work to magazines serves any function , other than to fluff the poet's own ego, and reinforcing their feeling of being a poet. Think people need this from tme to time perhaps, but is that all it does? I don't think I know anyone who has gained collection publication or readings or anything from getting work in magazines, I don't even know if it sells books, or any feedback from the poems is passed on and is useful. If you've experienced anything positive from sending work to mags let me know, I think I'd like to hear it's not just fluffing.

Also, this week I heard that Colpitts in Durham has limited days. This is really sad to hear. Colpitts is the only regular poetry night in Durham, and has been going for thirty years. It seems that alot of poetry nites are sizzling out, and I worry about this. There are alot of theories buzzing about about why nights may be disappearing: that they aren't getting the audience figures, aren't reaching new audiences, that the arts council have changed their funding criteria, that large arts institutions like The Sage and The Baltic mean there aren't enough funds to go around. I really don't know what the case is, maybe a combination of things. I just know that i would be sad to see Colpitts go, and that I worry about the future of poets in the region. It seems that poets plod along and there are less and less places for them to get together, read their work, and sell their books. There are alot of problems for poets, one of them is that book shops simply will not stock poetry (particularly by small presses.) (Recently I was on a quest to buy some poetry by Sharon Olds, I went in several book shops looking for her work. Not one poetry section had a single one of her collections. I eventually found one shop which stocked her selected works (but being a purist of readuing a collection as it was intended, this isn't reallty the same thing. yes, I could have asked them to look her up on the computer and order a book, I would have to go back for in a few weeks time, but the thing is, I wanted to see a few of her colections on the shelves, have a flick through them, and select the ones I felt held most value for me. Poetry in these shops isn't selling, I'm not surprised. Few people will buy what they cant see. Potentially I would have bought three books that day, in the end I bought none.) I wonder if independent presses will become a thing of the past if there are no regular poetry nights in existence where their books can be sold. What will happen to all the poets?

The general reputation and accessability of poetry is a huge problem. It seems the majority of the population just are turned off by it. There are many many writers producing exciting and vibrant work which I think could change people's minds about their associations with poetry being nothing other than stuff that seeemd irrelevant to them when they were made to study it at school- the problem is trying to get people aware of it. One way audience figures have improved is by incorporating music or comedy into poetry events, and this has worked well. But speaking as a writer I think poetry spaces which do not want to go down the open mic or slam route should be maintained and are due for a re evaluation, and re appreciation. I have read at both types of events in the past, and think both are vital for bringing poetry to life away from the page. Unfortunately the simple fact is books don't sell at events with musicians and comedy. The audience may be younger and therefore do not have the funds to buy books, and I have been to many poetry events were people attend for an open mic or a slam to read their own work and do not stay for the poets (or do not listen.) At events like this poets who are performance or comedy poets are able to gain the attention of the audience, but for those less skilled in this area it is a struggle. There are poems even skilled performers will not read at such events, because they are quieter or more serious poems, and there needs to be a space for poets to read good quality, though not necessarily funny or immediate work. I read at Colpitts a few years ago, and went there worried and holding perhaps some of the prejudices some people may have about such poetry nights.I was worried about not being middle class, about having a regional accent, and about how I would be received. The truth is I was delighted to find something unique there, that is a place were the audience really listen. This is somewhere that doesn't feel like a poularity contest, a battle of charisma or confidence to make the work heard, an attempt to be read your funnier stuff (that in your heart you know isn't as good as some of the serious poems in your bag that you daren't read because there is silence after them)- this is a space that is all about the words. It didn't matter how I read them, who I was or wasn't, words were allowed to stand up by themselves. (And I sold more books as a consequence than I had sold in the last 6 gigs combined.) I am ashamed to say that I am not currently a member of a library- how odd is that for a writer? The reason is that libraries have changed. The library were I live has been closed down. Libraries have been transformed somehow from what they used to be, and the concept of quiet and a librarian saying ssshhh is a thing of the past. Libraries are full of children, teenagers, mobile phones and people who come in to use the computers, and the need for quiet seems to have gone with the digital age. I don't like what they have become. I don't beleive poetry should be something in the exclusive domain of libraries, but nor should it belong exclusively to the domain of pubs. I am grateful that something like Colpitts still exists, an event that I can go to hear good quality poets, were the space a good poem needs is provided and understood.

Colpitts aim to re-apply and ask for reassessment of the decision to stop their funding, and I hope it is sucessful (or like I said, is the future of poetry performance poetry only? I don't think anyone would see this as a good thing?)

As for poetry being so poorly available in shops, I am extremely continually disappointed that The Baltic fails to stock a selection of regional writers in the book shop. A poetry section of regional writers in the Baltic bookshop would take up little space, and be a welcome addition, and way for an arts funded project to show support for artists in the region. It is easy, it's simple- so why don't they do it? Who knows. I also know that phoning to ask about this, or sending an email gets absolutely no response (hey, even a response explaining why this isn't their policy would be nice, and a courtesy.) What started me on this was reading with the Finns at the bookshop in The Museum of Modern art in Helsinki (which is a hell of a building, amazing) , who were very nice to the poets and happy to stock the book. Yet a reply could not be gained as to the prospect of The Baltic stocking the book from the Baltic poetry exchange. Seems that if somewhere like The Baltic would stock regional poets it would become somewhere that could host the ocasional reading in their bookshop (and given the aspect of the shop what better way to get people to see contemporary poets, people pass by on their way in and out.) One art institution supporting in these small ways artists, and smaller arts projects in the region, seems logical and couldn't be easier. Why don't things like this happen? Is poetry dying, and who's going to miss it when it's gone?

Writing in April

The research has been getting to the good bits. Research is like that, so much wading through irrelevant stuff and then bam! Something that gets you going, pen moving away, can't wait to get it all down. I haven't felt as if I've gotten as much writing done this month, but I think it's a false verdict in a way. All it takes sometimes is a period of getting lots and lots of new stuff on a page so that what follows seems lazy in comparison. All that new stuff has to be sorted, waded through, and spotting the mistakes and improvements takes time, sometimes more time than that inital rush. I haven't sat and counted how many poems there actually are for the biographical set, I slowed down, and what came out seemed more ready and in need of less work. I wrote the gaps that needed to be filled out once I sae it, and I think I'm done with that. There is still an end poem conspicuous by its absence though, something that feels like an end, without tying too much up this is a tough one.

I have spent my evenings in spring cleaning mode, painting the walls a boring colour I never thought I'd entertain. I must be becoming a beige person in my old age. I just wanted something cheap, clean and tidy. When I got back to work I got stuck into a poem about pigs, it had been bubbling away while I worked. I have one book left to read I think until I need to change my routine to better accomodate prose. The poetry has worked well as some actual writing while I'm doing research, but I'm at a point were I need to wrap up lose ends then flip to researching poems while i write some prose.

And yes finally I've done it, I've been psyching myself up most of the year to send some work to magazines. I sent one some poems this week. I tried to guess what the mag would ike, but to be honest I just can't tell. Mags are funny, now I'll wait for the rejection. I heard it's a 1:30 ratio of rejections over acceptances, just 29 more mags to send to then!