Sights of Midwinter

Yesterday cousin and I headed south (well, to Forfar) for lunch and an art exhibition. Forfar is the Angus "county town"... it's also pretty grey and landlocked (unlike coastal Montrose and Arbroath - the Angus towns I know better). In Forfar you can see the hills... and get a very good lunch at a place called Springers (best chocolate cake I've had in a long time). We hit the charity shops, the gallery, looked up at the lights.

Road to Forfar:

Forfar Xmas lights:



Something missing:



I do like a Xmas tree:



Something with bells on:



Well, some of the lights came on:



Santa really does fly over Forfar:



No snow here yet but some over on the Angus hills (road back towards Brechin):



And then today the schools broke up at lunchtime. In the afternoon I walked the dog on an old railway embankment nearby and watched the sun go low (this photo taken at 15.03... sun set not long after):


And tomorrow our visitors arrive and then it's cook, cook, cook and non-stop games playing till Hogmanay. Happy holidays everybody.

x

No time to shop...

No time to blog, no time to shop... but there's always time for poetry! I've been working pretty much non-stop on a long writing project this week... and dealing with the weather (power cut on Thursday evening)... and girl's pantomime business this week (in 3 shows - last one tonight)... and this and that.... but still I have been following the progress of other poets in IPYPIASM (see here). I've hardly been in any shops myself this week (hurrah!) but I did just quickly knock this little number up with the "In a Shop" feature in mind. Maybe someone else would like to get it onto the shelves for me (STOP PRESS Titus did it - here) ... or maybe I'll manage it next week. Here it is:

Smells like corporate machine spirit

Who wants to smell like famous folk?
The pong of Katie Price?
Sex and the City's flashy brew
The whiff of Old Posh Spice?

I'd rather smell like just washed hair
Or even just washed dog
Who needs Tulisa's X appeal
Or Britney's boxed-up fog?


RF 2011

x

Pamphlet Power

I have three fairly new poetry pamphlets just now that I would like to write a little about. Regular poetry reviews bore the life out of me so I'm not going to attempt such an exercise. Instead I'm going to do something that looks more like a survey/questionnaire (market research has been one of my, ahem, fields of expertise...). *Most of the "questions" are self-explanatory but the “first/last poem power” may need some introduction. I remember hearing or reading Don Paterson talk about first and last poems in a collection (I think when his book “Rain” came out). Basically he said they should be the best poems in the collection and whether we agree with that statement of not I want to test these three pamphlets on that criteria. Just for fun partly.

So, pamphlet one... into the ring!

Title – Vintage Sea
Author – Marion McCready (formerly known as the blogger Sorlil... now blogging under her own name here)
Publisher – Calder Wood Press
Price – ￡5
Number of poems – 29
Cover – artwork by possibly the internet's finest purveyor of images Roxana Ghita



Recommendations – on the back James Owens, morgan downie and Hugh McMillan say nice things about MM's poetry. I like morgan's offering – “it is not magical realism but a realism that becomes magical”.
Phase in career – first collection
First poem power (*see introduction) – “Razor Shell” is probably my favourite poem in “Vintage Sea” thus far so yes, a good choice of opening poem. It is possibly the plainest poem in the collection but it is very effective. The title comes from it too.
Last poem power* – yes, definitely a powerful piece once again... though perhaps more so for a person of some religious leanings as one of the quotes is from the Bible (I only know because I asked...) and the poem references “the Eternal”. Still, I like it anyway especially “the sun-bell of your arms”.
Everything in between – there is a lot of beauty in this book, a lot of nature, colour and birdlife. There are also a fair few “I”s, a huge amount of water and quite a few mysterious female characters/spirits/mysteries. It is undeniable that Marion has the voice that some poets look for and never find or hear and her voice says things like “My hair rests on the waist/of the North Sea” (from “Castle Sands” – the book is full of sea and hair!). Marion writes often of her admiration for the poetry of Sylvia Plath but whereas I find Plath's poetry almost (heresy alert) comical at times I can enjoy Marion's poems without sniggering – especially the subtler ones. Plath was a little distracted by her own brilliance, I suspect, but sometimes the less glittering life can help the writing, I think (and Marion lives fairly quietly on the west coast of Scotland, has worked in a fish factory, went to uni but has a practical, regular life that keeps her grounded, at least most of the time...). Perhaps because of this (at least in part) Marion can write simple lines very well (and that is to be cherished, I think). Take “I am pushing this pram/uphill forever” from “Becoming Spring” or “I'm up to my knees in nothing” from “Child” – so easy-sounding but so right. And then on the other hand she has a kind of mystical side that stops the work being too mundane (so she has the lot in some senses – in terms of potential anyway).
Overview - if she keeps hard at it (perhaps with some kind of mean mentor) I can see Marion's writing career panning out nicely as Scotland looks for more strong, dedicated women poets to fill up the ranks. Onward, watery woman of the west, onward!


and our next contender...


Title – Grave with Lights
Author – JoAnne McKay (blogs as a dog – here, damned clever canine...)
Publisher – self-published, handmade by the poet indeed, available at blog (link above)
Price – ￡10
Number of poems – 13
Cover – Like fancy wallpaper and the whole thing comes in a little fabric bag/slipcase, images inside the pamphlet are by Victor Henderson



See JoAnne holding a copy of the book at this blog post
Recommendations – as with JoAnne's previous two pamphlets this one is introduced/endorsed by Hugh McMillan. No matter how flattering the intro I'd have to say that if you keep this up guys people will talk... maybe someone else next time?
Phase in career – third self-published pamphlet (and I self-published... we are the true hardcore!)
First poem power* – (not counting the poem on the dedication page) “The Countess of Bathory of Romford” is a poem of JoAnne's that I have come across online once or twice and somehow I do like it more on a proper page (maybe I'm just getting old...). It is a kind of Essex anthem and I love the cheek of “for we all hate grass”. It sings pretty loud and clear.
Last poem power* – “Grave with Lights” is my favourite in the book, for sure. A tiny little slip of a thing it will even fit in here:


Grave with Lights

When the sky is great,
such night as this, and not sky
but heavens to ask
why do I feel
this thing, that thing
is child's why.
Because I said so.
Because why not.
Because you are so
very, very

small.


by
JoAnne McKay

So yes, a good end.
Everything in between – I much enjoyed JoAnne's first pamphlet “The Fat Plant” (and wrote about it here) but her second one “Venti” (near prize-winner and very beautiful item, as it was) didn't do so much for me, I'm afraid. Maybe I'm just allergic to prize-winners (near or otherwise) or maybe it was the balance within the book (there was more of JoAnne's erudite content in “Venti” than the “Plant” and I have my allergies to that too I think, though I'm not proud of it...). Maybe it was also that some of the “Venti” poems felt more consciously poem-y, if you know what I mean, than those in “The Fat Plant” and I like a poem that isn't too excited about itself being a poem on the whole. Whatever... I never judge prizes (and we all know prizes are the way to proceed) so JoAnne should probably ignore everything I say! Bad news for her is that I enjoyed the work in “Grave with Lights” (as well as the first and last poems I liked “On Looking”, “Edge”, “Romford Handfasting”, “I Shall Give You”) so I hope that doesn't jinx its progress...
Overview – despite being of English origin (if married to a Scot) JoAnne is still managing to make her way as a poet in Scotland (ours is the last voice Scots ever want to hear really but sometimes they just can't ignore it...). JoAnne does have a strong voice too (like Marion) though the McKay version does splinter off in many directions thanks to the many strands of her personal history (Essex abbattoir survivor, horrific experience survivor, ex-copper, mystical mother, at times ferociously academic expert type person, at others weary working wifey). One thing you can never say about JoAnne McKay, however, is that she is boring. I hear she never sleeps.


and finally...


Title – The Heavy Bag
Author – Ross Wilson
Publisher – Calder Wood Press (them again... they have published several of my favourites now...)
Price – ￡5
Number of poems – 24
Cover – Sepia family photo, nice and fuzzy... and I'm no whizz at typefaces but that doesn't look like one of the approved "poetry" ones (good).




Recommendations – first a cringe-moment... Colin Will did you really write “This collection marks the emergence of a refreshing new voice in poetry”? I feel like maybe I've read that line a few hundred times before (naughty Colin). Luckily the back cover also contains, in place of the usual recommendations, a charming quotation from one of Ross's school reports that kind of makes up for the first sin (I'm presuming the quote is genuine... and OMG was RW really at school – primary school – in 1989..?).
Phase in career – first collection/pamphlet
First poem power* – Yes, Ross (and Colin?) have done their first poem homework because “What's in our Hands” is an absolute cracker and I won't show it here because then you might not buy the pamphlet. To be honest it's so good that it sets quite a high standard for the rest of the book to live up to (like a really high-achieving first child...).
Last poem power* – “Milne's Bar” is yes, another really strong poem (linking with the title, linking with the opening poem...). Good work, very good work.
Everything in between – there is a lot of family content, a fair bit of Fife and a lot of boxing poems (unusual... but Ross was a national schoolboy boxing champion). These all ring good and true (though I suppose they could all be fiction – how the heck would I know?) and they all contain well-drawn characters and crunchy snippets of dialogue (“The Way John Went Out” is my favourite just now). There are also several crap-job-and-crap-training-course poems which I enjoyed too – “Stuck” perhaps most of all (“Because we were unemployed/we had to get up early every morning,/ sit in a portakabin in Kirkcaldy,/ and listen to a man speaking/ through a rolled-up cigarette/ as though it were a microphone.”). There are few women in the book (just a lassie here and there, a factory full in “The Old Patterns”) but that's fine – it balances out nicely with Marion's sea full of mysterious long-haired, seaweedy females and, heavens, poetry needs the male point of view too (especially the, if you like, ringside view that Ross works pretty well). My least favourite parts of “The Heavy Bag” are the end rhymes (for example in the sonnets “Friday Night” and “Saturday Morning”). I love end rhymes but on this evidence I don't think they're Ross's strong point (not as yet anyway). He gets away with the rhymes in “Milne's Bar" but they are more scattered and casual, somehow. Still, a lad doesn't have to be good at everything does he?
Overview – “The Heavy Bag” is a very strong first book – varied, rich, individual and a refined-kind-of-raw. Let's hope he keeps that edge (and in contact with interesting, vibrant content) as his writing career progresses. Scotland has a lot of successful male poets – it's some crowd to stand out in – but I think he could do it, given time. You could say that he's challenger material alright (and he will have to get used to bad boxing references from other people writing about his work...). It's lazy, isn't it, just lazy...


So that's my survey over. I hope you've seen something that interests you.


p.s. pic at top of post is this week's art class offering... my first try at a watercolour (messy but I enjoyed it... I like mess really).

Some movie talk

I promised you a movie post recently... and here it is.

While we were away for the six months earlier this year we didn't get to see many movies... and the ones we did see were usually h's 11 year-old choices (she was with us pretty much all the time). Even in hotels and motels we had to watch junior-compatible fare as she was often awake till quite late (and even more so if we were trying to watch something - “what are you watching?”, “what are they doing?”, “who's in this?” - she's more the movie geek with every passing day). We managed “The Social Network” and the new “True Grit” whilst staying with relatives in Canada and found the former not too bad (if fiction, so they say) and the latter really very good. We also managed to sneak in series 2 of “Nurse Jackie” whilst with relatives elsewhere too but otherwise it was pretty much cartoons, tweens and Lindsay Lohan all the way (for 6 months...). Good job we had so much else to see and do...
Anyway, once back home (and needing to stay in a bit to save money...) we have been catching up on some serious grown-up movie-watching. Below are the good (and the average) of what I've watched since the beginning of August (all at home on TV because we are, once again, miles from a cinema now we're home). The only exception was our trip to Dundee to see the documentary "You've been Trumped" (but I wrote about that a few posts ago - here). So let's start with...

The Good

Four Lions (2010, dir. Christopher Morris)
This is a really excellent film - a perhaps unlikely comedy about British jihadists from the Chris Morris house of he-didn't-he-did-he-really-did humour. It's funny (always good from a comedy) and then really not funny at all in places (as you might expect... considering the subject matter). There is top notch acting too (Riz Ahmed as the lead is very good, Kayvan Novak as the daftest terrorist is... terrifying) and it's a really effective movie all round. A must-see really... unless you have no sense of humour of course.

Waitress (2007, dir. Adrienne Shelly)
This is the one where the writer/director, Shelly, died before its release (murdered in her New York apartment). Reviews for this one were good and they weren't wrong as it really is a charming film about crap marriage, pregnancy and pie. It was beautifully made and well-acted too (Shelby acted in it as well as everything else – she was in several Hal Hartley movies in the late '80s/early '90s). Try to catch this one - that's my tip (sorry!).

Inside I'm dancing (2004, dir. Damien O'Donnell)
(Also released under the title “Rory O'Shea was here”).
In this one the central characters Michael and Rory are both in wheelchairs (Michael has cerebral palsy and Rory muscular dystrophy) but whereas Michael is quiet and well-behaved Rory is gobby and full of ideas and schemes. The story starts when Rory (James McAvoy, as good as you've ever seen him) moves into the residential home where Michael has lived for years and pretty much turns lives upside down (Steven Robertson does a great job as Michael too). I loved it, really loved it. Proper drama, proper moving - superb.

Goodfellas (1990, dir. Martin Scorsese)
Well, most of you will have seen this one by now. Daughter was away for the weekend though and this movie was on the free film club thing so we threw ourselves once again into the world of pasta sauce, mass murder and hiding cocaine all around the house. The best mob film ever made? Quite possibly. I find it almost too enjoyable in some ways.

Burn after Reading (2008, dir. Ethan & Joel Coen)
For me Coen brothers films are a bit hot and cold but this project, luckily, is one of the hotter ones. Clooney plays a blinder (a really weird blinder...), McDormand likewise and the whole thing is kind of a “Tinker, Tailor, Shagger, Spy”. We loved it.

Un Prophète (2009, dir. Jacques Audiard)
This one came via the postal dvd business. It's a French film that doesn't rely on pretty little brunettes and moody music and, that for me, was a plus point straightaway. Instead it's a fascinating story of life in a French prison – seen via a young Arab inmate, Malik (Tahar Rahim). It's quite a long film but hey, time takes time and I'd say it's really worth the hours. It features a great central performance, an unpredictable story/screenplay and it is really quite a “Goodfellas” in its way. Highly recommended.

A Mighty Heart (2007, dir. Michael Winterbottom)
I've yet to see a Winterbottom film I don't like in some way or other (2002's "In this World" is excellent, for example) and this is quite some movie too. Even though it's based on the true story of Daniel Pearl and his kidnap and murder in Pakistan it's hard to feel sympathy for the journalists in places (and I should think that's no accident). Still the film draws you into the Pearl story bit by bit... and from so many other angles. Angelina Jolie is pretty good as Mariane Pearl and some of the details (like music choice) are so well done - good work.

Mean Girls (2004, dir. Mark Waters)
OK, so we're still watching some Lohan... but this one is so well-written in places that it makes me want to weep with joy (screenplay by Tina Fey, based on the original book by Rosalind Wiseman). Its certificate is 12 but in places it's so brutally honest (and just plain brutal) that I wonder really how good it is for the younger end of its audience (or at least the portion of that audience that is sensitive and thinks about things at all). Still, it's a very good film and in fact we've liked a few of Mark Waters' movies (the Lohan/Lee Curtis “Freaky Friday” is excellent and we enjoyed the “Mr Popper's Penguins” this year too). I notice that Waters' brother Daniel wrote “Heathers” back in 1988 (surely a prequel of “Mean Girls”). Interesting.

Funny People (2009, dir. Judd Apatow)
Though I've heard of some of his titles, I haven't seen any of Apatow's films to date (“The 40 year old virgin” etc.). Then I read about this one in the papers a while back and it did sound like my kind of thing (I'm interested in almost anything to do with comedy – good comedy anyway - and this story concerns Adam Sandler as a successful stand-up/comic movie star who is facing death). Again this is another quite long movie but it is one I really enjoyed – lots of humour, a good story and the very likeable Seth Rogen as the real hero of the piece (a wannabe comedian). Other comedy stuff I've enjoyed recently includes this interview with English funny woman Sarah Millican (currently at the “in everything on TV” stage) and this piece on the edgiest of edgy comedians (and one of my current favourites) Stewart Lee.

Field of Dreams (1989, dir. Phil Alden Robinson)
Somehow I missed this movie in the '80s (and boy, is it an '80s number!) but it came up in a movie quiz game we were playing recently and I fancied giving it a try. I expected heaps of baseball (the reason I had “somehow missed it” no doubt) but I wasn't expecting all that interesting stuff with James Earl Jones as the radical writer in hiding. I was surprised to really enjoy it ('80s hair and all).

The Devil wears Prada (2006, dir. David Frankel)
Daughter wanted to watch this so I tried it with her recently (I avoid fashion movies on the whole – I don't get any of the references for a start...). However this one, of course, has Meryl Streep in stunning form so its appeal cannot be denied. We both loved it but I was pleased to note that I still hated all the clothes the characters were all drooling over. I've always been more Millets than Milan when it comes to clothing (and accessories).



So that was the good – the films I really rated. Now let's have a go at...



The rest
(and see if I can diss/dismiss them all in one line each... though I may bend that rule here and there).

I am legend (2007, dir. Francis Lawrence)
Will Smith looks gorgeous, the dog is cute (and you know what that means...) and the zombie things are nasty.

Casino Royale (2006, dir. Martin Campbell)
James Bond is still pretty predictable – it just takes longer to find out (good freerunning scene near the beginning though).

The Road (2009, dir. John Hillcoat)
All I can say is... life is depressing enough (nice to see more of “the Wire”s Omar/Michael Kenneth Williams though).

Swimming with Sharks (1994, dir. George Huang)
The Spacey is great (as ever) as an evil movie boss in this cheapish “Player” meets “Misery” drama (in fact all the cast are good) but the script has some major holes for me (I hate watching a film that makes me shout “there's no way he wouldn't know that!” at the screen).

Shutter Island (2010, dir. Martin Scorsese)
Scorsese films are always watchable and/or striking but this one needed a script edit or two maybe.

Inception (2010, dir. Christopher Nolan)
Just because something is complicated and/or expensive that doesn't necessarily make it good.

Submarine (2010, dir. Richard Ayoade)
I so wanted to like this movie from the “The IT Crowd's” Ayoade but it just felt really unoriginal in the script department to me (I kept feeling like I'd heard it all before a bit... maybe a younger/less jaded viewer would get more from this film though... and it is about youth).

Twilight (2008, dir. Catherine Hardwicke)
We watched this to see when it would be suitable for daughter but really it's “Endless Love” with vampires (yawn)... saying that I adored “Endless Love” when I was about 13.

Salt (2010, dir. Phillip Noyce)
Featuring Angelina Jolie doing a “24”/Bond/Bourne type thing, this is preposterous (unless you like action movies... in which case it's all the usual stuff... leaping off buses, buildings etc.)

Music and Lyrics (2007, dir. Marc Lawrence)
OK, so this one was with the daughter (she likes a rom-com here and there). I expected to hate it but it was really quite funny in places (the com is ok, the rom is painful). The opening '80s video spoof (see here) is really quite amusing and Hugh Grant, perhaps unsurprisingly, does ham pretty well.


Now shoot me.

x

City sights

So we were in Glasgow yesterday (man and I). It's not somewhere we get to very often but, considering it's November, it was a lovely day so mostly we just did strolling around and looking at things in the city centre. A lot has been done in recent times to clean up Glasgow's centre and you would have to say that a lot of it is looking very smart and spruced. It always reminds me of Leeds in some ways... and yesterday, with all the hills, it even made me think of San Francisco a little (that might sound odd but I think if you added in some streetcars and a few hundred thousand tourists you might see the resemblance too).

Anyway I'm too weary to write much today but here is a mini tour (some photos by me, some by him). First (above and below) the views from our lunch on West George Street:


And then some views from further up West George Street (I know these are similar - I can't decide which I like most):



One for a regular visitor:


And then just another view:


Here are a couple in Blythswood Square:



Here's one in the CCA (Centre for Contemporary Arts) on Sauchiehall Street:


This one is outside the famous School of Art on Renfrew Street:


Then down on Buchanan Street the front of Princes Square is pretty fancy:


Next door looks like this:


More of Princes Square:


A bit of Xmas cheer on Argyle Street:


And then several cocktails and a good meal later here we are on our way back to the train station... first on George Street:


And then in George Square (full of protestors not so long back - just a Xmas tree there now... but that photo was a bit fuzzy...):


And now we're home again.

x

Green and greenerer...

Photo taken just up the road here, whilst out dogwalking last week. This was the photo I used for the pastel pic that I put on facebook this weekend (for those of you who saw it). That was class number 6. This week watercolours!

Last week I did something I haven't done for ages - I read a poem of mine aloud at the local folk club. It was a new poem (very new) inspired by the documentary about Donald Trump and his Scottish golf project (that I wrote about at some length here). Obviously all the Occupy protests are probably rolling about in there somewhere too. And lots of other things.

Now I know Trump will be quaking in his... what would it be... overpriced loafers to hear that British poets are writing about him... but still, protest comes in many forms... and from tiny acorns and all that. (N.B. Some changes to this poem since first posting... minor ones).


 

Money for green

So often money talks.

It says 'move over',

'what's yours is mine'

and 'boy, I like it here

this place is fine'.

Money can curl,

can twist the path around,

flash off its golden grin,

buy up the open road,

then kick the bloody door right in.

So often money burns

smoke in your eyes.

It takes the cleanest day,

stamps on its face,

thinks that's OK.

And money may not show

it's busy all the time,

it may not even call,

and then who knows for sure, for sure,

if it's really there at all.

RF 2011

Work, progress

We've had an old friend staying this week and there has been lots of walking, even some cycling, much talking, giant eating, a bit of music, some dressing up. I still managed to get to art class on Wednesday though and this time I asked Jackie (teacher) if I could try pastels (chalky ones... I had a go with oil ones a couple of weeks ago – the thistles back here). I really only intend to do the ten classes right now so I'd like to try as many different ways of making marks as I can while I'm there (next stop watercolours!). Maybe it seems odd to only want the ten classes at this point... but I am odd... and who knows... I may have some other classes in the future.

Anyway the pastels turned up two pictures this week. One was h on a beach (and I posted that on facebook yesterday). The other (above) is working from a photo of my Mum and little h taken in 2006 (one of my very favourite photos of them – a picture of total love and devotion and being relaxed with another person). This is very much a first stage picture I suppose and I'm sure I could do a lot more to it (apparently you spray with some kind of hairspray stuff and then keep adding the layers). The problem is I quite like it as it is... so what to do? It's not like with poetry where you can keep a copy of the first draft and go back to it if you want. I guess I'll just have to start from scratch if I want to keep this individual picture at all. And maybe no-one will like it much but me.

In some ways I had/have this problem a lot with poetry too. I quite like early drafts, rough edges, unfinished business and I'm not sure it helps with how my (writing) work is... received at times. I'm pretty sure that when I've sent poems to magazines and competitions in the past often the response from the readers/editors/committees must have been “why hasn't this person finished their work?” or “what are we supposed to do with this?” Other reactions may have been “did this person go to school?” or “what were they thinking?” It's a bit frustrating because obviously I did go to school and usually I've put quite a lot of thought into what may seem an unfinished piece. It feels to me like somehow I'm not really a big fan of perfection (at least when it comes to arts like these... obviously if I'm getting into any form of transport I'd quite like the designer and manufacturer to have quite high standards when it comes to perfection...). I don't necessarily want to produce something (in a poem or a picture) that has been tweaked and retweaked to within an inch of its life... but I am aware this is not necessarily a popular view. Certainly not amongst poets. I once read another poet talking about "instinctive" writing and I suppose I fall into that camp. Maybe. I'm not really keen on camps either.

Speaking of writing I am sure that many of you read the tips for writing fiction printed in the Guardian newspaper last weekend (here and here). They got a great range of writers to contribute and below are some of my favourites points from the list.

From Margaret Atwood (ever practical):

“Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can't sharpen it on the plane, because you can't take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.”


A smashing one from Elmore Leonard:

“My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”


From Roddy Doyle (though his whole list is great):

“Do not search amazon.co.uk for the book you haven't written yet.”


A couple from Geoff Dyer:

“Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.”

and

“Do it every day. Make a habit of putting your observations into words and gradually this will become instinct. This is the most important rule of all and, naturally, I don't follow it.”

I have to admit I had to look Dyer up (I'd never heard of him before). Can anyone recommend which of his books to try first?


From Anne Enright:

“The first 12 years are the worst.”


A timely one from David Hare (considering the whole Booker prize readability/quality business this year... again...):

“The two most depressing words in the English language are 'literary fiction'.”


From A.L.Kennedy:

“Write. No amount of self-inflicted misery, altered states, black pullovers or being publicly obnoxious will ever add up to your being a writer. Writers write. On you go.”


A lovely one from Joyce Carol Oates:

“Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.”


Someone had to say it – here's Philip Pullman:


“My main rule is to say no to things like this, which tempt me away from my proper work.”


A twist on the old feminist line from Ian Rankin:

“Don't give up.”


A few choice ones from the marvellous wordman that is Will Self:

“Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.”

“You know that sickening feeling of inadequacy and over-exposure you feel when you look upon your own empurpled prose? Relax into the awareness that this ghastly sensation will never, ever leave you, no matter how successful and publicly lauded you become. It is intrinsic to the real business of writing and should be cherished.”

“The writing life is essentially one of solitary confinement – if you can't deal with this you needn't apply.”


From one of my favourites Zadie Smith:

“Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won't make your writing any better than it is.”


And finally a corker from Colm Tóibín that we could probably all keep in mind:

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

OK. OK. Over and out.

x

Bridges and bones

Montrose bridges, yesterday, as we set off for walks and friend-visits mid-morning.

The schools are back today after a two week break so once again I have a few hours in the day to... well...work. I have a couple of little projects in what I suppose must be a pipeline but mostly just now I'm working... writing... thinking... in a fairly free and wandering way. I'm not getting a whole lot done... but I don't always mind that.

I'm still reading the book about writing that I mentioned a few posts back ("Writing down the Bones" by Natalie Goldberg, publ. 1986). It is, I am sure, the kind of... hippy nonsense that would drive many poets (especially British ones...) to distraction but that's OK with me (I think I live in a different universe to many of them anyway - I've tried reading some of the books other poets recommend about writing and I never seem to get very far with them). Goldberg's book is mainly about making writing central in your life... about speaking from within... about digging really deep... whilst at the same time still noticing all that's around you. And whilst it's true that you could work that all out for yourself... and in a way many of us do... still, much of what she says is powerful and incisive. The book has sold many copies... and it is very readable (now, now... let's not get involved in the Booker prize readability debate) but mostly I am finding it pretty helpful and interesting at this odd stage of life (mother just gone, daughter on brink of adolescence, self a bit vague). I have also, in between reading the "Bones", read Goldberg's coming-to-zen book "Long Quiet Highway" (1993). A lot of it is her life story and that was interesting for many reasons - one of them being that she has spent a lot of time in Taos, New Mexico (and we were there too earlier this year - beautiful place). This book's subtitle is "Waking up in America" and I really enjoyed it. We can be calm. We can be good. It's nice to know.

Here's a quote from "Writing down the Bones":

"Suzuki Roshi says in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind that 'The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in its wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.' You need a large field in writing too. Don't pull in the reins too quickly. Give yourself tremendous space to wander in, to be utterly lost with no name, and then come back and speak."

See. Not bad. Now try this from earlier in the book:

"Every minute we change. It is a great opportunity. At any point, we can step out of our frozen selves and our ideas and begin fresh. That is how writing is. Instead of freezing us, it frees us."

And now another photo:

Another Montrose bridge we passed yesterday (this time on the way home again in the evening). This one is the train viaduct by the Basin.

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Testing paint

This is the painting I managed in art class number four last week. I'm really just testing this to see how it looks online... and being a bit naughty by posting paint instead of poem on National Poetry Day... Still, someone else (Judith Taylor) posted a link to a humdinger of a poem (this one). And from it this:

"Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved."

Hard business, this creative lark. But fun. Sometimes.

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Poetry days, radio days...

Our garden, on Friday

So this week in the UK it's National Poetry Day (it's on Thursday - events and info here). However after a few years of my own events and activity for NPD this year I plan to do nothing special whatsoever for it (yay). It's school holidays here at this time of year and we're all at home so we're having a quiet family kind of a week instead. I'm feeling very laid-back... it's great.

Yesterday, for example, I spent a crazy amount of time sorting out one of the rooms upstairs (so many papers, so many boxes of stuff/old photos/birthday cards, so much dust!) but the best bit of it was listening to the radio all day (I don't seem to have done that for ages). It was great too - on BBC 6 Music they were doing specials for National Poetry Day/Week so we got an interview with the founder of said annual poetry celebration (William Sieghart) on the Cerys Matthews show in the morning (quite interesting - listen here). But then, even better, there was an absolute giant of a poetry segment on the Jarvis Cocker show at 4pm. Jarvis interviewed poet/former Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, and though I've never been a Motion fan (or, to be honest a Cocker fan... I like him but not any of his music particularly to date... though I guess things can always change) it was a really interesting interview (listen here). It's more about poetry in general than Motion's own work and a lot of it concentrates on his involvement in the Poetry Archive (which is a fabulous resource).

So much culture content... and the room is tidy too (at last). Win win.

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The return of the fridge magnet...

Above - Edmonton, Alberta, back in July. How I love my crazy North American roadside signs...


So, I am back at the coalface of poetry-work of late (bang bang, scrape, scrape)... and it feels good, it must be said. I've been writing quite a bit... and reading heaps. I wrote a new poem this week that reminded me of an old one (one of the ones people have actually said was good - hah!) and I realised that I've never posted that old one on a blog (though it is in mah book, still available here). I did post it online ages ago but that was on myspace (and heavens, who could even find myspace these days!). So here it is (with audio here - from a while back... my voice sounds young!). Maybe the new poem next week.


Let me be your fridge magnet

Let me slip into your home
Like a leaflet for a loan
Hidden in a free newspaper
Or supermarket circular
I'm not proud

Oh how I'd love to be your Baby on Board
Suckered on to your smoothness
I'd feel every bump in your road
Know exactly how much air was in your tyres
If you let me

I could stick faster still
If you'd let me be your fridge magnet
I'd hang on to your cool place
So perky, so keen
I wouldn't let you down

I'd be superficial for you, gladly
Cling to any surface - as long as it was yours
Then I'd ask softly 'do you understand now?
Do you get the message?
Do you read me at all?'

RF 2006

And whilst some people reference Greek myths and what-not this one (as, of course, the erudite amongst you will already know) refers back to the great Baby D hit of the early 1990s "Let me be your fantasy". Happy days, dancing on the bar nights. 

More radio poetry

Well, much as I don't want to overshadow that lengthy Poetry Bus review-thing I did last post I must just tell you that this week on her BBC 6 Music show Cerys Matthews is reading a Helena Nelson poem. You can hear the show here until next Sunday. The poem is "The Book of the Night" from Helena's 2010 book "Plot and Counter-Plot" (Shoestring Press) and I wrote a bit about that book here (it is a very good book). The poem slot on Cerys' show ("poetry in motion") is at about 1 hour 15 mins or so this week (it's a 2 hour show) but do listen to the whole two hours if you can because there's some lovely music and a real mix of styles. Radio at its very best.

Photo above is from on the road in Tennessee back in April. Gotta love that road...

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Points of interest on the Bus route

So, the new Poetry Bus magazine (issue 2).... getting it out nearly killed its editor, it's twice the area of the last one and this time it has a CD of poets reading their work and some music included too (hooray for music). I've only had my copy a few days but here are some early thoughts (starting near the back... I often read from the back...).

Firstly on individual poems:


The poem about a Francis Bacon painting by Sarah Maria Griffin is outstanding. I like her "electric picnic" poem (in two parts) too – 'selectively claustrophobic' and all.

Liam Ryan's “Homings” is that simple-in-a-good-way kind of a poem. Me like.

The poem about 'dyke and bike' by Kit Fryatt is very sophisticated and entertaining and most definitely, unique.

Jessie Lendennie's “4th August, 2011” is a current affairs poem that shouldn't work... but really does.

Liz Gallagher's “Stuffing Our Faces with Gods” seems to be the poem where the version in the magazine least matches the version on the CD. I would be interested to know which version Liz prefers at this point. I specially like the line “my god is more lucid than your god” but there are lots of other good lines too (some of them involving pies).

Kevin Higgins' “Blue” is a welcome flash of grotesque comedy in a sometimes sombre collection of poems (mine, for example, couldn't be gloomier if it tried... damn that bereavement).

Noel King's “When Fairies Gather” has a good play with the muse.

In “Drumcondra April 2010” David Murphy rhymes 'sarong' with 'pong' (and other things). Joy.

Richard Epstein's “News Break” contains some nifty lines/phrases. I like “Dress for adversity” and “More on this if there is more”. TV news has gone mad and he gets it just so in this poem.

Benjamin Robinson's “Have You Seen My trousers Anywhere?” has some cracking rhyming going on (and I'm just glad to see some rhyming poems in a poetry magazine at all, to be honest... it's been so long... and they're good too – even better).

Colm Scully's “Like a hat” is intriguing.

Michèle Vassal's “Under the Dog star” might just win the “best last line” award for this issue.

Richard Halperin's “Circus” is an interesting trip.

Padhraig Nolan is one of the old online Bus poets. I enjoyed his “Stella” in the magazine very much and remembered it from one of the original Bus prompts (the Stella Artois one, for those of us who were there... good memories). I also like his “an orange block/of what we buy as cheese” in “Noon”.

Miriam Needham's “In Need” is a corker. Dress to impress, indeed. And teamed up with matching artwork on the opposite page (by Una Gildea) – it's this season's must-have.

Brenda Cusack's “The unnameable” is, for me, a grower. First listen I wasn't struck on it (can't be doing with Beckett, so shoot me) but by second listen I was warming to the old corpse and its story nicely.

Colm Keegan's “Fridays” is a heartbreaker with some perfect details. I like “in the time before phones” (just minimal enough) and the mood is very well-painted in a simple but effective way.


And then some other thoughts:


It's good to have some poems in the mag about buses and being on buses. Adrian Mitchell would be pleased (“a bus says 'us' while a car says 'me'”, from his poem “Yes”).

There are not so many poets featured who used to ride the old online bus (someone else has written about that here). Who knows why this is... maybe some didn't submit, maybe some submitted poems that the editor didn't like... whatever it is I'm sure editor Peadar O'Donoghue will have some trouble ahead along this avenue (but I'm sure all editors do...and the more successful the mag the more the trouble will come... but good things will come too). For me, I do have a poem in this one but if he doesn't choose one of mine for issue 3 or 4 or 5 will I hate him? Oh yes... for at least a few hours... and then I'll hate someone else. In actual fact I don't much like the poem of mine that he did pick in the end for this issue. But maybe that's a good sign... I don't know.

Both of the music tracks on the CD are lovely, really enjoyable. Maybe next time there could be even more music sprinkled amongst the poems..? I love the vocals in The Souterrain's track and Martin Egan's “The Tune” is really gorgeous – unusual too.

The readings on the CD are very varied. Some are from live shows, others done on phones, some very clear, some a bit muffled. Some are done at breakneck speed (Sarah Clancy must breathe through her ears!) whilst others are damned slow (that'll be me... I'm getting a bit Pinter with the pauses, there). Anne Tannam, Miriam Needham, Sarah Maria Griffin and Stephen James Smith read well, for my taste, get the right mood (not too natural, not too stage school)... and I like Kat Mortensen's reading too (very crisp). I love all the different accents...and I suppose I never realised before that for an Irish poet, like Karl Parkinson in “In Rios Nightclub Drinking On My Own”, 'poem' can rhyme with 'alone' (that wouldn't work in my accent!). And I heard his 'birds' as 'boards' (which would completely change the tone...) so it's a good job I had the text to check... One or two poems are not on the CD which is a shame as it'd be nice to have the full set. Though saying that in places you can hear how some poems lose a little (for me) as audio. I like Kerrie O'Brien's “Drifting” much more on the page than on the CD, for example. It's a subtle poem and hard to do it justice in a reading perhaps (I like the poem very much).

The artwork is all really well-done and well-chosen. The cover artwork by Adam Neate, as shown at the top of the post, is fantastic (the centrefold too) and I have a soft spot for “Clouds” on page 39 by the Project Twins as well.

There are a couple of typos in the text (though not many). Our man needs a ham with the poofreading maybee.

There are some poems and poets that I haven't mentioned here and that is no criticism of them. This is only early thoughts and, in all honesty, there is nothing I don't like or think is rubbish in this new Poetry Bus (plus what do I know..?). It is a big old Bus with a lot packed into it so well done, that driver, I say. I find a lot of poetry magazines really, really boring/uninspiring/po-faced/predictable and you certainly can't say that about this one!

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Swiss radio?

My return-home resolution was to blog a little less (one good post a week rather than heaps of little ones...) but I just have to pass this bit of news on today. Photo above by Mark Stephenson, by the way.

One of the first things I did when we got back to Scotland at the end of July was listen to some radio. There's not a huge amount I like on UK radio these days but I have a few favourites still - shows like Mike Harding's hugely enthusiastic folk show on BBC Radio 2 and there are a few highlights on BBC's 6 Music too (like Lauren Laverne's show and the Cerys Matthews Sunday morning 10am spectacular). On the first one of the Cerys' shows that I listened to since our return she was talking about how hard it was to get permissions for poems to read aloud on the show for its weekly poem slot ("weekly poem slot", I know, just for that it's fabulous). She was talking about poems by famous poets like Dylan Thomas but I thought how crazy this was - people in the world of poetry are often to be heard wondering (aloud) how to get a wider audience for the bleedin' poems and here's a national radio show wanting to read poems to folk and not being allowed to (on occasion). So I thought 'I know a whole lot of brilliant poems by less well-known but equally good poets... and I know a lot of small publishers who would love the chance to get their poets more widely heard'... so I sent her a suggestion (this poem by Morgan Downie, or blogger Swiss to some of us). And I didn't hear back right away so I thought 'oh dear, there's another mad email I've sent into the vast vat of mad emails in the world...' (a lot of them mine).

Then this week she read Morgan's poem out... and so beautifully too (hear the show here - if you're in a place where i-player works that is). I can only hope Morgan was suitably delighted to hear his poem "the stone bible" read aloud by the delectable Ms Matthews (I am quite a fan of her singing and music, never mind the radio show). I know Colin Will was pleased to get a mention for his Calder Wood Press too. The show always blends the poems with music and it was a great combination this week (full details at the show's site). There's a wee interview with folk singer/songwriter Ralph McTell on this week too... if you like that sort of thing... and McTell singing a kids song he wrote that I'd only ever heard before on our girl's Singing Kettle CD (don't know the Singing Kettle? It's a Scottish thing...).

I was pleased to hear the reading for many reasons but partly because, as regular visitors will know, I am a HUGE fan of the SOUND of poetry. I've almost got to a place where I've stopped reading it in my head altogether... I want to hear a poem so much more than I want to, what is the word... absorb it (which reminds me... I've added a rather more hurried and rather less gorgeous audio version of my recent first-in-a-while poem in the last post today). But never mind that, rejoice and celebrate in the power of the Downie words and the whole 'hearing good poems on the radio' business... and while you're at it maybe send Cerys a poetry suggestion (especially if you know the show will easily be able to get permission from the poem's publishers for it). The email is this simple:

cerys.6music@bbc.co.uk


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Coming clean

So my Wednesday trips to Arbroath... no secret mission for the government... just my first ever art classes (once a week for ten weeks). Of course, like most people I did get some art classes in school but I don't remember ever being taught anything back then... apart from that I wasn't very good at art. I remember us being given painting tasks to do and always being disappointed with what I produced. I also remember that awful task that everyone seems to get in high school art (and that very few people can do anything with) - "draw/paint the person sitting opposite you". I remember making a picture of my friend where she looked like a horse with a painful staring problem and thinking "well, best keep to the stuff I'm better at" (pretty much anything besides art back then).

Anyway, I wanted to do some art classes last year (to do something new with my brain partly) but the ones I chose then didn't happen due to lack of numbers. And then we came back this summer and there was a poster in Arbroath library advertising some classes with local artist Jackie Gardiner. So now, here I am, once a week, trying lots of different things like painting and pastelling and drawing and what-not. Two classes so far and I am having a ball - it feels so good to not be working with words and wordy ideas for a change. And maybe soon I will start to understand what my artist friends are talking about now and again. It's a win-win.

In the meantime I did manage a poem this week too. One of the reasons I've been off poetry for a while is that I got tired of endlessly writing about my Mum and the lack of her. I felt like I was just upsetting myself, boring everyone else and, worst of all, that she would hate it (she was a doing person, not a whining person...). Still, I've been reading a book recently called "Writing Down the Bones" by Natalie Goldberg (1986) and it's all for getting everything out and just keeping on writing so maybe that's what has helped this poem along. I found the Bones book via the website of the writer involved in the book of adoption stories I wrote about a couple of posts ago (Ann Angel - I'm guessing not her real name). "Writing Down the Bones" is totally not my kind of thing (I dislike books about writing most of the time and even the subtitle of this one makes me wince - "freeing the writer within"...) but sometimes it's good to face things that are not one's kind of thing, I think. Hence the art classes also I suppose. Anyway, the poem:

Everywhere

You're in that lonely coffee pot
The tiny size of it
The way it pours

And in that rose tree
The clusters of its buds
That choice was yours

You are the empty chairs
The quiet on the stairs
The wisps of light

And though in heavy plastic urn
You take a very peaceful turn
You still burn bright


RF 2011

There is a hint of Python in the urn I know (or Morecambe and Wise...)... yet, still I leave it. Hard to explain why. Maybe it's masochism (so not what anyone sensible in modern poetry would do... and it rhymes too). I am beyond help.

p.s. quick audio version of the above here

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Local colour

Still, not many words from me. It seems I am in an unusually wordless phase at the moment... and in some ways I am really enjoying it (maybe others are too...). So instead some pictures.

Above is a bit of colour from our dogwalk on Friday. Below are some shots from a damp drive down to Dundee on Saturday to visit friends. It would be easy to just post sunny beach pictures of Angus (I have plenty of those) but there is more to the great county than that...

Finally a shot of Arbroath's Signal Tower Museum from last Wednesday. I will be in Arbroath regularly for the next few weeks. Ah, but what will I be doing..?




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