Attack of the Invisible Woman

Crazy week, so much poetry going on there hasn't been much time for real life. There have been so many events on that I couldn't go to many of the ones I wanted to (like the Russian poets readings) because I was doing gigs on the same nights in other parts of the region. Likewise, I wanted to go and see Sean O'Brien's piece on Friday night, but had ran out of money from being out everynight, and had to spend some time at home before they changed the locks and failed to recognise me. Highlights of the week:

1) Sharon Olds reading at Durham on Monday night

This was too exciting and scary for me. Sharon Olds is one of my favourite poets in the world. Her work makes me miserable and hopeful at the same time, the light shines through the poems. Her work always makes me feel something, and this is a quality I like to find in a poem . I wanted to go to this event, and was surprised when Olds read. The poems were amazing, read in a no frills, almost conversational way, that made them very accessible. It felt strange to hear these poems that feel so personal probably to everyone who hears them in front of 200 people. I was surprised by the night, possibly because I had an image in my head of Sharon Olds as a giant of some kind. Her poems are big, strong, powerful, sensual, and I expected to see a woman who looked as if she might start wrestling at any minute. But the woman reading the poems seemed nice, small, even vulnerable. There were lots of things I wanted to know- how do her loved ones react to the work they are so often in? But of course, she was Sharon Olds and I was just Angela Readman, so I couldn't ask her. All I could do was join a queue and get my book signed.

A great night though, one of the best I have ever attended. Colette Bryce and Anna Woodford also read really strong work (I'd never seen Bryce read before, and was impressed by her likeable and laid back style, her humour and the poems themselves.) I was glad this was an event of all women poets. The quality and spirit of the work was so strong I wondered about that event in Liverpool who never have women poets on. I wondered how many other women we just never hear about are writing great work that just never gets out there. Part of me was glad I was a woman writing poems, part of heard the quality this night and thought what's the point? Sharon Olds read her new poems about her mother, so brilliant, so moving, and I went nooooo, because i have been writing loads of mother poems, and it seems there is nothing i can do with them now but put them in the bin. While I was there I bought Anna Woodford's pamphlet The Higgins' Honeymoon (this has been the Holy grail of pamphlets, as I've been wanting it for years and have never actually seen it for sale); I really enjoyed the poems. I was surprised at the sass and sexiness of the poems, because I have seen her read many times and her work is always very precise and powerful, but I've never seen her read sexy poems, and I was interested in talking to her and asking why this might be (but again she was Anna Woodford, and I was just that poor Northern lass who tries to write poems. I'll get my coat...)

2. Liz Lochhead workshop

I was really sad that I couldn't stay and see Liz Lochhead read at the Lit and Phil, but Hartlepool beckoned where I had to read with the Finns and co. But I did go to the workshop in the afternoon. I used to be able to produce poems in workshops, but I now only really end up with some images that I might use at a later date and have to go away and let stew. The exercise was an abstract noun one, were you give it tactile qualities. What I ended up was no more than a list of these, with no inbetween statements whatsoever. But I could feel my little list go down like a sack of shite, other workshop participants having nothing to say about it, not liking what they heard. One person particularly disliked it, said it sounded like some sort of sexual abuse. The truth was it was only a list of images about innocense. One of them was a hand on the back of a child's freshly washed hair, and I thought it was sad that we live in a day and age that to even mention this we jump to sex or abuse. I was aware of people feeling uneasy about me and the lines. I felt nervous reading it out, because I am always nervous reading new work, or reading anything when I feel people aren't on my side. I didn't actually finish reading the list, left off the last two lines because I could already feel people thinking I was the creepy scary one in the group, so I just gave up.For the next exercise I played it safe and just made something up, I wrote about my dad peeling oranges for me. People seemed alot happier with the lie, even though the first one was alot stronger and has more potential. The truth is I don't know my Dad well enough to even know if he has ever eaten an orange.

My favourite thing was that this was ran by Liz Lochhead. I love her work, but she is such a natural and warm seeming person that she makes everybody feel relaxed. I met her 7 years ago at an Arvon course, and she was so lovely in encouraging me to keep writing at the time when too many people being horible about me on the MA had kicked the crap out of me. I don't think I'd still have been writing if she hadn't been so encouraging. It made my day that she remembered me after so long, and seemed really pleased I was still writing and still alive.

3. Finnish Poetry

The Finns were here this week. The highlight of this was meeting Riina Katajavuori and being introduced to her work. She came here to launch her and Andy Willoughby's new pamphlet Peripehries. Her work is strong, imagistic, clear, and ranges from stark reality to the mythic ,which is full of emotional truths.

'The crone doesn't get fat, as children aren't fattening. I'm all skin and bones, baby flesh makes me ecstatic.'

(The Baba-Yaga- Riina Katajavouri- Peripheries)

It is quite hard for me to comment on other aspects of the Finn readings, since I have been part of them. As usual Bob Beagrie, Andy Willoughby and Kalle Niinikangas read with vigour, conviction and bollocks. The music accompanying the poets was fitting and innovative and the poets were professional and well polished, and I wondered why there are so many people who never seem interested in seeing these poets and their inspirational readings. This week there were so many things on that I wasn't surprised at the poor turn-out , but I remembered times when there hasn't been lots on and people still haven't come. (Saying that, the Boro gig was packed.)

The pamphlet is great, the readings and musicians are excellent, but from a personal point of view these weren't good gigs for me. Nice to chat to friends or colleagues, nice to see the other performances, but for me it was the reading equivalent of being at a party and knowing no one would notice if you left. These big performances make me very aware of being quiet, being a girl, not being likeable or charismatic to an audience, and not having an entourage of locals to cheer me on and root for me. Gig wise this has just been a very bad year for me, launching the new pamphlet to like six people every time in February started off this feeling of wondering what am I doing wrong? I know you can't take an audience personally, but what occurred to me is I have been in Newcastle for 13 years, writing for 8 or 9 of them. Going to groups, giving feedback, trying to be encouraging. I'm feeling disappointed, pessimistic, and am in need of some sort of affirmation about my work I think, but aren't sure how to get any, or if the work earns it.

I recently heard from someone I hadn't met, who said when they mentioned me to someone she said my work was interesting. Not good, not that they liked it, interesting. I am starting to wonder if that's what people say about me, that the work is interesting. They don't like it or think it is good, so that's what they say. I thought my new work was good, improved, a while ago, and invisible gigs or one odd comment are making me have that feeling of doubt that feels like certainty. I can feel myself losing faith in a poem as I am reading it,the same way I trail off a sentence and don't finish with friends who I know aren't really listenning and are just planning the next thing they want to say. How can I make this change and make my work into something people want to read and say is good?

(When I think of the word interesting I remember a lad I once knew. We met up and went for coffee when I was 18. I liked him, he made me a bit nervous, made me have those stupid thoughts that I might bump into him at anytime and I would walk down the street planning what I might say if I did. It's odd how when you are young you do that, you waste hours liking people, imagining them and replaying interactions. Everyday you don't bump into them is a disappointment. While we drank coffee he asked point blank what I thought of him. This is an unusual question, you can know people for years and they'll never ask what you think of them (which is often a good thing, and sometimes a sad thing, because if they asked it might make both of you smile). I was taken aback. I panicked. I turned round and said 'I think you are really interesting.' He sounded like a specimen under observation. A month later he died.) Someone saying something is interesting might not sound like a bad thing, but I think it is loaded with things you are not saying. The sort of word you use when you saw a film you didn't really get into but recognised was trying to do something.
I have to cheer up, try and not to think about being invisible, but just when I think I've nailed it I see my hand be wrapped up by a page.

Slimming world

So I've gone and done it, I've joined slimming world.(Seems the world is getting bigger, not smaller, but...) I blame my mate Luan, who came down to stay with me. She looks great, she's lost a lot of weight, and is more confident and happy,but she was like an evangelist about owing it all to slimming world. I wasn't going to mention here that I'd joined, I thought I'd leave this to the other Angela, the one who cooks soups and grouts tile you won't want to hear about. But when I got there I was bugged by recognising a face in the group, and it was a lady who goes to the blue room. She recognised me too, so I reckoned since I can't keep the worlds sepearte these days I'd just confess.

What can I say about slimming world? It goes like this.

1. You get weighed (no one shouts out your weight, or speaks it)
2. They tell you how much you've lost or gained.
3.You all sit there in a horseshoe shape circle
4. The consultant will go round the group one at a time, say how much you lost or gained and you can say something.

There are little stickers and certificate merit systems and you will get these stickers when you have done something good, like lost half a stone, or been slimmer of the week. Would be nice if more in life was like that. Last week they had a food tasting, people brought in food they had made that was good for you, or that technically you can eat unlimited amounts of, and you could try things you have never had and ask the recipe. All this is good. The diet itself means you don't have to go hungry, as there are plenty of foods you can eat whenever you like. There's no calorie counting or weighing and measuring, and many of the foods aren't too difficult to fit into your ordinary life.

But I still find it is a very strange place. The tone in the group reminds me of an Avon lady seminar. Most of the members are women (express no surprise, men get to look distinguished and women get to 'let themselves go', right?) I felt a bit like like I was on planet tupperware, and had forgot my handbag and passport smile. Wish I could get used to normal things like seeming pleasant, exchanging pleasantries. Something switches off and I end up sitting there thinking I am not the right type, again. Maybe if I keep going it will be good practice, and more people will like me. I will practice, when someone says 'how are you?' to only say 'fine thankyou, and yourself?', and keep the 'they're all bastards, they are all trying to get me' at bay.

To be honest I'm going in order to stay sensible. Everytime I've lost weight in the past I've done it by not eating very healthily, silly diets of nothing but bran flakes or Farley's rusks. Eventually the diet controlled me, food just looked like the califoric numbers it contained. I've been to the other extreme of never going on scales because I gave up, and being miserable everytime I have to clothes shop. People don't help when you feel like this, 'friends' put you down with casual comments. (My favourite one was 'we watched an old video the other day, you used to be really pretty'- shouldn't I have just said thanks alot you cheeky cow or what? Instead I did that hunched thing with my shoulders of being about to turn inside out.) Another 'friend' of mine and I were discussing photo's, cheekbones came into the conversation and she said 'Oh, I've never noticed you having any cheekbones.' Now you can say it in a voice like Mary Poppins all you like pet, but isn't that a bit mean?



What I'm wondering, is how many people have 'friends' like this, who can be really lacking tact, insensitive, or just plain bitchy? And why do we put up with it? I really want to think it isn't inherent in female friendships. I don't think it has to be, I have 3 friends who are never like that, and are very encouraging and supportive. But why is this so often not the case? I'd like to go ahh, and blame it on relationships we have with our mother's when we were younger that has set up a template, but I know the mother of one of these quite well and she is lovely, and know people with bad mother's who never act that way. Why do we have friends? It's sounds like such an obvious question, but why people bother with people is something we don't ask, we just do, get on with it. Are everyone's reasons for the friends in their lives different?

Friends should

1. Be fun to be with.
This sounds like a given, but isn't always the case. I think friends need to make the effort to have fun together sometimes.

(An example of this is that at one point I was the only babysitter a friend had in line. I didn't mind, but the problem of course was whenever fun or nice things were done like going out I'd never be able to attend. I didn't mind the babysitting, but was starting to feel like only the babysitter rather than a friend, since we never did anything fun together.)

2. Friends should be supportive of eachother, always. No sometimes is in this. This is the golden rule. You should be able to say anything to a friend, and know that they will be on your side, be routing for you (even if they they would have done something differently.) You should both have an understanding about keeping things in confidence too.

3. Friends have many functions, the sharing of interests sometimes,the exchange of idea's, or someone to confide in. Ultimately friends affirm who we think we are. We make up who we are, how we think about ourselves by the reactions of others, which is why I have to ask why we would ever have friends who make us feel bad about ourselves?

All this seems so obvious, but I've had to think about this sometimes when 'friends' have plain made me feel bad. I've had to remind myself that friends are different to other relationships. That old addage you chose your friends is true (we might have to put up with things from siblings or parents , but we have less choice about that.) Shouldn't friends be your R&R? So what I ask is, what have I done? have I behaved in ways that would make someone chose me as a friend? Have they?


I had a strange dream that I was escaping from a prison, other people tried too, but I was very brave, I pulled myself up onto the roof, lay flat and shuffled along on my belly to get out. The guards didn't see me, they had guns. I almost didn't care anyway, I had to get out, had to try. I have no idea what this dream was about, it sounds like a negative dream, but was quite elating. Just had to try, get out and be damned. I think this dream had something to do with my work actually, or I suppose could be a dream about slimming world. I have continued with the sorting of things, finding things that must go, and found 2 black bin bags of clothes to give to the charity shop, 2 carriers to give to people I know, and some for the bin. I was amazed at the amount of clothes in the bottom of the wardrobe still in carrier bags, things I'd bought over the years and had never yet had the guts to wear. Ended up with just one curver box of clothes I like and would like to wear, but not sure I will, to keep in a holding cell for a year, then they must go. Got rid of a sofa too, sorted through all the books, and got rid of some of them, and CD's. I know some people who never get rid of a book, but eventually they take over. I never get rid of a poetry book, but some of the others (even good ones) had to go. Some I might read again, but isn't that what libraries are for? (Gill made a comment that in autumn there is a shedding to prevent things going foisty, and it was spot on.) I hate the idea of so many things taking up precious space, building walls round me, and me like a hamster sleepy in the middle of it all, chewing my way out.

Progress has been made on the sorting of poems. Been re-working Bettie Page poems, and ended up writing a new one and re-ordering the sequence. A friend told me it was a complex poem to read, so I made it a little easier by actually giving sections titles. I think I didn't want to tell anyone what to think, or give any pre-conceived notions or my opinion by giving the poems titles, so in the end I gave the titles as the age of the protagonist as a compromise between my intention and accessibility. It seems to be working much better now. On Saturday I went to the Sean O'Brien workshop. I am a bit scared of him, because he is such a proper poet and an academic. There is something about him, actually not him (he always seems pleasant and even maybe a bit shy) but his status, that makes me feel very silly and insignificant. So I was nervous about the whole thing, but I was surprised at how perceptive his comments were (I think because I assume men, especially clever men, aren't going to find anything in my work). Sad consensus in the group that the last four lines of the poem had to go, I didn't tell anyone, but these were my favourite lines, the lines that had started the whole poem. Nonetheless have spent time since working on the poem and given them the chop. I don't feel so much that I am murdering my babies, more like sending them out into foster care for a while, if they are good enough in a few years they may well come back.

On the work front, also had a magazine acceptance. This was a great surprise, since I had forgotten sending work to them, and the rejections were all caught up on I thought.They are going to publish 2 of the Marilyn poems in an issue that comes out early 2007, and particularly liked one that is my own personal favourite (that I thought might be a little difficult for a reader to get into.) I have stopped sending things out at the moment, but it might be time to get back on the horse.

Autumn

I'm loving the autumn, keep turning around as if I can feel the year snapping at my heels taking leaf shaped bites. Is it October already? The Christmas cards have already been in the shops for a month so it must be. Where has everything gone? I'm deep into organisational mode, organising the collection, sorting through my posessions and making charity shop, recycling, and bin piles. I took a screwdriver to the futon and made it into sticks, felt as if I was singlehandedly taking down Ikea one latt at a time. I don't know why I kept that futon so long, years of hoovering round it, rearranging my office with it in, yet no one had so much as sat on it for years. I'm amazed at the amount of things we have that we look at and never really see. Everything must go. The things, and the ghosts of people I've held onto the memory of, including myself. And it feels great, looking round each room with an eye on what do I actually like, what do I need? Amazing how much stuff we have that we don't care that much about, keep it because we acquired it, or paid £20 for it years ago, so are you going to let the memory of that long gone £20 force you to keep you imprisoned by rooms so full that they can't be enjoyed? It's amazing how we hoard, as if for a rainy day, as if those scratched and scuffed Tupperware boxes will save us from something some day. I'll think I'm done chucking things when a pocket of the house presents itself, and I have to start over again. At the moment clothes can't go though, that's a bigger job, and something I have to do when I know what size I am, and can, more to the point, actually see myself as it.

I'm deeply in a solitary phase, a leave me alone, while I plod through all these poems some more. Last week I spent 4 days on one poem, editing it, changing the line breaks. It had been a shape poem on a piece of A4 very nicely, till I remembered books are A5 and I had to spend every day playing around with it to make it fit. I tried editing it . I scrapped lines. But there were lines I had to add. I saved over a dozen versions. I still wasn't happy. I'm cross that I still wasn't able to keep the original shape on A5, so there's even more to do. This is when the autism kicked in and wouldn't leave. After days like that it feels good to pull a box of something out from somewhere and throw it away. This week I aim to get rid of a sofa, after I sort that poem I'll need the satisfaction of seeing something big go.

I've been thinking about people I know, and people I haven't seen in years, and will never speak to again. It's sad to me, all the people we shed and have to be shed by on the journey of becoming whatever we become. People who loved us, and then wonder what they ever saw there, make us wonder if we will ever be equals, good enough. I remembered an ex boyfriend, and how it all ended when he asked me to return 52p I had loaned for busfare. I think it was the last time I lost my temper, I virtually threw it at him. I'd spent four days cleaning and painting his flat for him, since he was busy at work and never liked to get his hands dirty, and at some point in that time had borrowed 52p busfare into town so that I could get to a cash machine. A few days passed, he didn't ask for the cash back, I spent the money on food for both of us, a bottle of wine, that sort of thing. Then he asked me one day, have you got that 52p? I hadn't minded helping with the painting, you help friends right? That's what we do, then I realised maybe it isn't what we do, but only what I was doing. That was the last time I thought a certain way about him, some box I didn't want to look in had been opened. 4 years, that's how it ended, with a stack of copper, like rain that can be piled up. It's that easy -how your perspective can change, how you see someone, how our hearts and heads move on, and we are filled with disappointment. Easy as 52p.