From Poetry Parnassus straight into the London Literature Festival! My shifts this week were a little hectic at the Southbank Centre, especially yesterday when a school visit coincided with the Shake the Dust finals (a national youth poetry slam competition). I've been to two events this week, a talk by Michael Morpurgo and his biographer Maggie Fergusson, and 100% Proof, a Shake the Dust event which showcased the works of the Shake the Dust regional poet coaches, a slam/drama group from the US called First Wave, and Lemn Sissay, who is a Southbank associate poet and the first poet commissioned to write for the London Olympics. It's been a good week, and it's been lovely to share it with my sister and dad, who accompanied me to these events, and a couple of friends and aquaintances who just happened to be there!
The Michael Morpurgo event was absolutely lovely. He is one of my sister's favourite writers and I enjoyed his books when I was younger. I remember seeing a production of 'Kensuke's Kingdom' at the Polka Theatre in Wimbledon when I was little, and it became one of my favourite books as a child. It was wonderful to see such an audience at this event - children and their families who are currently reading Morpurgo's books, young adults like myself who remember how special his stories were from our childhoods, and teachers, parents and grandparents who have enjoyed reading the stories to their children over the years. It was amazing just how many different age groups Morpurgo has touched with his writing. Also as special was the way that Morpurgo spoke to the audience. The memories revealed in the talk - for example, the separation of his parents - were not entirely comfortable, and yet Morpurgo manages to speak in such a way that does not dumb down the facts for children, but that retains a greater simplicity and honesty than the way adults interact with one another and censor themselves and each other.
The talk opened the London Literature Festival and promotes 'Michael Morpurgo: War Child to War Horse', a biography by Maggie Fergusson which takes the interesting form of seven chapters - the seven stages of life - to which Morpurgo has responded with seven new stories. It's a collaborative effort, with Fergusson chronicling and Morpurgo reflecting, and I can't wait to read it. The talk itself was about how the book was made, the memories and experiences it stirred up for Morpurgo, and a reading of one of the stories from the book, followed by questions and answers and even Michael singing a song from the stage production of War Horse!
It was a very special talk and a priviledge to be there and to share it with my sister.
100% Proof was very different but equally enjoyable. It began with readings from the regional poet coaches: Molly Naylor, Michelle Hubbard, Kat Francois, Alfie Crow, Frisko, Michael Parker, Sarah Jane Arbury, Brenda Read-Brown, and Si Murray. I enjoyed most of these, and it was wonderful to see such a spectrum of styles, from gritty hip-hop to lyrical storytelling, playful punning and even some singing. I particulary enjoyed Michelle Hubbard, Sarah Jane Arbury and Brenda Read-Brown. Again, these poets had dramatically different styles but were equally touching and enjoyable in their performances. Next up was First Wave, who performed a 30 minute extract of their touring poetry/drama production. I was impressed by the quality of their act, which addressed racism, discrimination, and being an outsider in challenging terms. Their act was not something I would think to go and see normally, and I felt alienated after a bit (although this in itself made me realise just how lucky I am that the people I know in London are so accepting of each other and of me, on all grounds - race, gender, age), but they did a fantastic job and put on a really thought-provoking show. The final act was Lemn Sissay, and it was clear as soon as he came on stage and launched straight into a poem, that here was a master at work. While the other acts of the night had all been good, both Sissay's poetry and performance were on another level. His delivery was wonderfully energetic, his poems both celebratory and thought-provoking. That, and he just seemed like a really cool guy, involved the audience, and is clearly a born performer. It was a wonderful night!
My experience of Poetry Parnassus and the London Literature Festival (as well as other events I have been to in the past) have really changed the way I think about poetry, performance, and the way I want my own work to take me. I started writing when I was inspired by artists like Zena Edwards and Dizraeli, and wanted really to be a performance poet. Recently however, I've realised just how much more suited to the medium of paper I am; that doesn't mean that I can't, and don't enjoy, reading my poems to an audience - I absolutely love it! It's just that I've realised that for me, the poetry comes first, the performance second. The first tenet of slam and performance poetry is that the poetry should come first, but too many times have I sat in front of a confident performer reading at best mediocre poetry. Luckily I haven't had to sit through something like that for quite a while now, and those performers whom I've seen recently have really impressed me, but I think the danger with writing for performance is that the poetry suffers. Yes, supposedly it's all about the poetry, but this isn't true, is it? Quite often performance poetry appears as just a big ego trip, with poets thinking more about their own kudos than about the poetry. I recently watched one performance when the poet actually said, "usually I write about boys, but this poem is about me!" and to me this is the trap that many aspiring poets fall into. Yes, it's fun to read your poems out loud, and get to act them a bit; yes, it's really cool when an audience responds well to your work; yes, it's important to share and preserve our oral traditions; yes, it's wonderful that performance poetry blurs the line so much with hiphop, music and acting. But it is still supposed to be POETRY. Poetry Parnassus and 100% Proof show that it is still possible to put poetry first, and I hope that we can all learn from the example of these poets.
Showing posts with label misc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label misc. Show all posts
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
A very overdue update
If this blogpost were a library book, I would have a very big fine to pay! Apologies!
It's been very busy recently, and not just in literary terms! This weekend I did a charity hitchhike called Jailbreak, in aid of Cancer Research. I managed to get from Norwich to Rosslare in Ireland within 48 hours and spending no money! Hitchhiking was a new experience that has been inspiring a lot of poetry since I got back.
Apart from preparing for and undertaking Jailbreak, I've been doing a lot of literary stuff. Last month I read at two events: the UEA CWS Open Mic, which was wonderful and which introduced me to some truly amazing young poets, and Freewheelin', a spoken word night run by Lewis Buxton and Alex Valente, and which debuted on March 5th at the Bicycle Shop in Norwich. It was a brilliant night in a lovely setting (although a Baileys hot chocolate set me back £5.60. £5.60?!?!) with a really vibrant variety of poets sharing their work. I was so honoured by my introduction. I can't remember it exactly but I remember thinking how welcoming the atmosphere was, how well Lewis and Alex hosted it, and how poetry is the place where I can feel confident and accepted. It was a fantastic night and I hope there'll be many more to come!
Towards the end of February I took a workshop at Writers' Centre Norwich with the wonderful Pascale Petit. As soon as I saw her name, I just had to book it. Her collection 'What the Water Gave Me' is one of my absolute favourites (I reviewed it here) and the workshop didn't disappoint. It was lovely to undertake some exercises that I found really unusual, but had a recogniseable Pascale Petit spin on them. The afternoon was spent critiquing a poem we had sent in advance, which was really helpful and surprisingly enjoyable! I left having a greater confidence in my work. It was a class for intermediate to advanced writers, and some of the participants had the MA Creative Writing from UEA, but I felt more comfortable in that workshop than I have done in beginner's classes...I guess because I am not a beginner. The thing I particularly liked was that Pascale's choice of exercises really brought out my 'voice', the vocabularly and imagery that I have swirling around in my head, the way I like to look at the world. I was surprised that it was a scientific, geological and botanical lexicon that emerged. I got some good work out of the workshop, had a really good time, and have definitely made a leap as a writer as a result of Pascale's suggestions.
Thirdly, I saw Jeanette Winterson give a talk at my university as part of the UEA Spring Literature Festival. She. Was. Wonderful. I came out feeling so inspired. Winterson read us the first chapter of her new book 'Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?', took questions, and just generally shone. Her humour, her humility, her gentleness, her sharpness, were extraordinary. You had to be there to understand how amazing the talk was. I literally ran down to Waterstones to buy a signed copy of the book afterwards. I'm halfway through it and it's wonderful...perhaps a bit philosophical in places for my own taste, but wonderful.
Anyway, that's all for now folks! :)
It's been very busy recently, and not just in literary terms! This weekend I did a charity hitchhike called Jailbreak, in aid of Cancer Research. I managed to get from Norwich to Rosslare in Ireland within 48 hours and spending no money! Hitchhiking was a new experience that has been inspiring a lot of poetry since I got back.
Apart from preparing for and undertaking Jailbreak, I've been doing a lot of literary stuff. Last month I read at two events: the UEA CWS Open Mic, which was wonderful and which introduced me to some truly amazing young poets, and Freewheelin', a spoken word night run by Lewis Buxton and Alex Valente, and which debuted on March 5th at the Bicycle Shop in Norwich. It was a brilliant night in a lovely setting (although a Baileys hot chocolate set me back £5.60. £5.60?!?!) with a really vibrant variety of poets sharing their work. I was so honoured by my introduction. I can't remember it exactly but I remember thinking how welcoming the atmosphere was, how well Lewis and Alex hosted it, and how poetry is the place where I can feel confident and accepted. It was a fantastic night and I hope there'll be many more to come!
Towards the end of February I took a workshop at Writers' Centre Norwich with the wonderful Pascale Petit. As soon as I saw her name, I just had to book it. Her collection 'What the Water Gave Me' is one of my absolute favourites (I reviewed it here) and the workshop didn't disappoint. It was lovely to undertake some exercises that I found really unusual, but had a recogniseable Pascale Petit spin on them. The afternoon was spent critiquing a poem we had sent in advance, which was really helpful and surprisingly enjoyable! I left having a greater confidence in my work. It was a class for intermediate to advanced writers, and some of the participants had the MA Creative Writing from UEA, but I felt more comfortable in that workshop than I have done in beginner's classes...I guess because I am not a beginner. The thing I particularly liked was that Pascale's choice of exercises really brought out my 'voice', the vocabularly and imagery that I have swirling around in my head, the way I like to look at the world. I was surprised that it was a scientific, geological and botanical lexicon that emerged. I got some good work out of the workshop, had a really good time, and have definitely made a leap as a writer as a result of Pascale's suggestions.
Thirdly, I saw Jeanette Winterson give a talk at my university as part of the UEA Spring Literature Festival. She. Was. Wonderful. I came out feeling so inspired. Winterson read us the first chapter of her new book 'Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?', took questions, and just generally shone. Her humour, her humility, her gentleness, her sharpness, were extraordinary. You had to be there to understand how amazing the talk was. I literally ran down to Waterstones to buy a signed copy of the book afterwards. I'm halfway through it and it's wonderful...perhaps a bit philosophical in places for my own taste, but wonderful.
Anyway, that's all for now folks! :)
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Alice Oswald on the Place of Poetry
http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/commentisfree/2011/dec/12/ts-eliot-poetry-prize-pulled-out
Interesting to see what she thinks is the place of poetry, and how poetry and economy are at odds, a viewpoint shared with writers down the centuries...Yeats, Gissing, P. B. Shelley spring to mind...
Interesting to see what she thinks is the place of poetry, and how poetry and economy are at odds, a viewpoint shared with writers down the centuries...Yeats, Gissing, P. B. Shelley spring to mind...
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Catch-up and Pig by Andrew Cowan
The irony is, I've just finished my first semester of my degree in Eng Lit at UEA, and have been reading all sorts, but haven't found the time to write about any of the texts I've come across. Apologies for such a long lonely desolate gap in blogging, but rest assured I will try and be a bit less useless from now on!
I've been writing lots - had a gap where I didn't seem to be able to write at all, and then when I finally did start writing it all came out as self-indulgent crap. Although there have been some good things I've written...lots of lyrics, for example, and an epic prose poem, and I started writing some short stories and a play script...poetry is still the only thing I seem able to finish off to any degree of finished-ness, but I'm beginning to dip my toes in other things, we shall see where it takes me...
Possibly the biggest change since I last blogged is that my whole life has been turned upside-down, my horizons have been broadened, my world view rounded, my personal development developed, my heart and soul have been made exultant, my intellect has been astounded etc. etc. by my new love for the Romantics. Primary school murdered Wordsworth for me cruelly and in cold blood many years ago, but I have rediscovered him through The Prelude. In terms of studying it, it's a pain in the arse because every sentence is about 2385082370875023 lines long and by the time you get to a full stop you can't remember what on earth he was talking about at the beginning. But even so, I loved it. And Percy Bysshe Shelley! What a babe! What a legend! Me and Shelley, we got a thang going on. I love that dude. The epicnosity of ol' Percy B. cannot be described. Basically he's just a well cool dude.
What I love about the Romantics is how kick-arse they were. They were absolutely radical, and I hadn't appreciated that before. Also, Wordsworth was a bit of a babe for being in France during the Revolution. And they still interest me despite the fact that most of them became beige beaurocratic Tories in later life (although Shelley - what an awesome dude he was! - wrote an Elegy for Wordsworth when Ol' Bill was still alive to bemoan his loss of principles and abandonment of his duty to the Great Goddess Poesia). Who would've thought it? Me absolutely besotted by the Romantics?!
Anyway, aside from Ol' Bill and a bit of Percy Bysshe I've had John Gower, Chaucer, Hildegard of Bingen, George Gissing, Yeats, Deborah Eisenberg, Caryl Churchill, Samuel Beckett, Derek Mahon and so many more, thrust at me with instructions to devour them and come back with some ideas. Loving every second of it. I shall review Deborah Eisenberg at a later date for sure, as I AM ACTUALLY HEAD OVER HEELS IN LOVE WITH HER WRITING.
Anyway, I also skimmed Eugene Ionesco's 'Rhinoceros' for a French Module (in the original French). Very interesting play. I think I'd like to see it on the stage though; it was some what depressing rushing it within the last two days I had to write an essay on it. And also, again for a French module, I have been organising a bilingual poetry slam event. Despite the unhelpful interfering of a particularly negative tutor who twisted our arms and made us cancel our first planned event, it is back on for January now. Fingers crossed all goes to plan. It probably won't. But at least it was a good idea in the first place, it had potential to be amazing, and I can now turn to the uplifting and sustaining works of the Romantics to cheer myself up if it turns out to be a complete flop. But yeah, anyway, if anybody reading this happens to be in Norwich on January 24th, head down to the Workshop on Earlham Road. There will be food, there will be booze (you have to pay, we're students, we can't afford it, sorry) and there will be poetry. So come on down and help make it a success, so that I don't have to seek comfort in the papery posthumous arms of Percy. Please.
Anyway, onto Andrew Cowan's 'Pig' which I have just read in preparation for next semester's so-called hard work. 'Pig' tells the story of Danny, who lives on the outskirts of an industrial town that has suffered with the closing of its steel works. His grandparents live in a cottage, where they grow their own food and keep a pig. When Danny's gran dies, and his Grandad is removed to a home, he takes on caring for the pig and looking after the house. He and his Indian girlfriend Surinder use it as a meeting place. Their relationship is secret and set against a backdrop of racist tension. As the summer progresses, this tension begins to rise and Danny and Surinder's hiding place is in jeopardy from the encroaching of a theme park to be built behind the cottage.
I enjoyed 'Pig'. What struck me about Cowan's writing was the attention to detail. The appearance, smells, textures of settings in particular was highly evocative and very skillfully crafted. The characters were believable, and the voice of Danny was convincing (although I felt he was maybe portrayed as a little younger than he was supposed to be). I think the novel stands on the intense detail that Cowan manages to convey. What would otherwise be a fairly ordinary novel about fairly ordinary people in fairly ordinary situations becomes a page-turner through the quality of the writing. That said, I was glad to finish the book, and to be able to move on. It felt like a holiday read, a book to ease me into something I could really get my literature-hungry teeth into (now halfway through Mrs Dalloway, and loving it). So yeah, it was a nice book, a pretty good book, but not one I'd go back to (unless I had to study it...oh, wait!) and not one that made my imagination do dizzying loop-de-loops or scale great heights of intellectual magnificence...
Anyway, that is it for now. I see that I have two new followers. Welcome, and thank you! I'm on the old Twit-twoo if you're interested, it's @FloMoses.
Anyway, obrigada for your patience and ate ja :)
I've been writing lots - had a gap where I didn't seem to be able to write at all, and then when I finally did start writing it all came out as self-indulgent crap. Although there have been some good things I've written...lots of lyrics, for example, and an epic prose poem, and I started writing some short stories and a play script...poetry is still the only thing I seem able to finish off to any degree of finished-ness, but I'm beginning to dip my toes in other things, we shall see where it takes me...
Possibly the biggest change since I last blogged is that my whole life has been turned upside-down, my horizons have been broadened, my world view rounded, my personal development developed, my heart and soul have been made exultant, my intellect has been astounded etc. etc. by my new love for the Romantics. Primary school murdered Wordsworth for me cruelly and in cold blood many years ago, but I have rediscovered him through The Prelude. In terms of studying it, it's a pain in the arse because every sentence is about 2385082370875023 lines long and by the time you get to a full stop you can't remember what on earth he was talking about at the beginning. But even so, I loved it. And Percy Bysshe Shelley! What a babe! What a legend! Me and Shelley, we got a thang going on. I love that dude. The epicnosity of ol' Percy B. cannot be described. Basically he's just a well cool dude.
What I love about the Romantics is how kick-arse they were. They were absolutely radical, and I hadn't appreciated that before. Also, Wordsworth was a bit of a babe for being in France during the Revolution. And they still interest me despite the fact that most of them became beige beaurocratic Tories in later life (although Shelley - what an awesome dude he was! - wrote an Elegy for Wordsworth when Ol' Bill was still alive to bemoan his loss of principles and abandonment of his duty to the Great Goddess Poesia). Who would've thought it? Me absolutely besotted by the Romantics?!
Anyway, aside from Ol' Bill and a bit of Percy Bysshe I've had John Gower, Chaucer, Hildegard of Bingen, George Gissing, Yeats, Deborah Eisenberg, Caryl Churchill, Samuel Beckett, Derek Mahon and so many more, thrust at me with instructions to devour them and come back with some ideas. Loving every second of it. I shall review Deborah Eisenberg at a later date for sure, as I AM ACTUALLY HEAD OVER HEELS IN LOVE WITH HER WRITING.
Anyway, I also skimmed Eugene Ionesco's 'Rhinoceros' for a French Module (in the original French). Very interesting play. I think I'd like to see it on the stage though; it was some what depressing rushing it within the last two days I had to write an essay on it. And also, again for a French module, I have been organising a bilingual poetry slam event. Despite the unhelpful interfering of a particularly negative tutor who twisted our arms and made us cancel our first planned event, it is back on for January now. Fingers crossed all goes to plan. It probably won't. But at least it was a good idea in the first place, it had potential to be amazing, and I can now turn to the uplifting and sustaining works of the Romantics to cheer myself up if it turns out to be a complete flop. But yeah, anyway, if anybody reading this happens to be in Norwich on January 24th, head down to the Workshop on Earlham Road. There will be food, there will be booze (you have to pay, we're students, we can't afford it, sorry) and there will be poetry. So come on down and help make it a success, so that I don't have to seek comfort in the papery posthumous arms of Percy. Please.
Anyway, onto Andrew Cowan's 'Pig' which I have just read in preparation for next semester's so-called hard work. 'Pig' tells the story of Danny, who lives on the outskirts of an industrial town that has suffered with the closing of its steel works. His grandparents live in a cottage, where they grow their own food and keep a pig. When Danny's gran dies, and his Grandad is removed to a home, he takes on caring for the pig and looking after the house. He and his Indian girlfriend Surinder use it as a meeting place. Their relationship is secret and set against a backdrop of racist tension. As the summer progresses, this tension begins to rise and Danny and Surinder's hiding place is in jeopardy from the encroaching of a theme park to be built behind the cottage.
I enjoyed 'Pig'. What struck me about Cowan's writing was the attention to detail. The appearance, smells, textures of settings in particular was highly evocative and very skillfully crafted. The characters were believable, and the voice of Danny was convincing (although I felt he was maybe portrayed as a little younger than he was supposed to be). I think the novel stands on the intense detail that Cowan manages to convey. What would otherwise be a fairly ordinary novel about fairly ordinary people in fairly ordinary situations becomes a page-turner through the quality of the writing. That said, I was glad to finish the book, and to be able to move on. It felt like a holiday read, a book to ease me into something I could really get my literature-hungry teeth into (now halfway through Mrs Dalloway, and loving it). So yeah, it was a nice book, a pretty good book, but not one I'd go back to (unless I had to study it...oh, wait!) and not one that made my imagination do dizzying loop-de-loops or scale great heights of intellectual magnificence...
Anyway, that is it for now. I see that I have two new followers. Welcome, and thank you! I'm on the old Twit-twoo if you're interested, it's @FloMoses.
Anyway, obrigada for your patience and ate ja :)
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
More Ruth Padel and some Louis de Bernieres
Read another two collections by Ruth Padel recently - Rembrandt Would Have Loved You and Fusewire. Rembrant was a lovely read. It was obviously an earlier collection and Padel's sensual style was a bit less developed but I still absolutely loved it, the love poems and use of the kind of scene you see in paintings by the Dutch Masters as an image was absolutely lovely. Fusewire is even earlier, and very politically-focused, particularly on conflict between Britain and Ireland. For this reason I didn't identify with it so much - I'm young enough that I haven't even been taught about the Troubles in school, let alone remember them - although I loved one poem in particular, 'Desire Paths of Sarajevo', which juxtaposes scenes of genocide and suffering with the comfort of love and the tenderness/violence of sex.
I recently bought Pascale Petit's 'The Treekeeper's Tale' and Carol Rumens' 'De Chirico's Threads' (I love De Chirico, the half-cartoon, half-sci-fi, surrealist style of his and the beautiful scenes of Hector and Andromache) and even though I am dying to tear into them I am holding off so that I finish Louis de Bernieres' Birds Without Wings, which I am absolutely adoring (any book that is compellingly readable but still contains the words 'mommixity' and 'foofaraw' is OK by me). L'Etranger is lying in a corner gathering dust. I am trying to forget to feel guilty about this.
I recently bought Pascale Petit's 'The Treekeeper's Tale' and Carol Rumens' 'De Chirico's Threads' (I love De Chirico, the half-cartoon, half-sci-fi, surrealist style of his and the beautiful scenes of Hector and Andromache) and even though I am dying to tear into them I am holding off so that I finish Louis de Bernieres' Birds Without Wings, which I am absolutely adoring (any book that is compellingly readable but still contains the words 'mommixity' and 'foofaraw' is OK by me). L'Etranger is lying in a corner gathering dust. I am trying to forget to feel guilty about this.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Latitude 2011 & Good News!!
First the really cool news, today I signed up for abctales.com, where you can share your stories and poems online, and I uploaded two poems (unseen on this blog). Just found out that they have been cherrypicked by the editors and have had a warm reception from fellow abctales-ers! The poems are 'Plastic Lovespoon' and 'Blind Woman at Clapham Junction' and can be read here. Please take a look!
Latitude is a music festival with a difference, also featuring comedy, theatre and literature among much much more. I just got back from this year's festival and thought I'd write about the amazing wordsmithing I found there.
I spent a lot of time in the poetry tent and the poets that I saw read/perform include:
- Sophie Hannah
- Jo Shapcott
- Dizraeli and the Small Gods
- Amy Blakemore
- Hannah Jane Walker
- Kate Fox News
- Jack Dean
- Mab Jones
- Sam Riviere
Who shone? Dizraeli and the Small Gods - a beautiful, emotional mix of music, rap and poetry; Mab Jones - comic, honest poetry about life's minutiae, really loved it; Hannah Jane Walker for thought-provoking, lyrical poems; and Amy Blakemore for a young voice with surprising maturity and real originality. I urge you to check these guys out online, they were fantastic, and I am going to try and persuade a bookshop that I know in Wales to book a reading with Mab Jones!
Who disappointed me? Well, no one really, all the acts I saw were of a really high quality. However, Sophie Hannah's reading was more like a rant and although humourous at times I also left wondering if she was a psychopath..... Sam Riviere's work seemed, from what I caught of it, to be about the issues of identity and being an outsider, including a long poem about a trip to America. Interesting but not my personal cup of tea. Jo Shapcott read a series of poems about bees, and at that point I had to leave. But I was disappointed with her reading - it lacked audience connection, I felt, and although I love her poetry, the beekeeper in me (yes, I do actually keep bees, have done for 6 years now I think) was frustrated with her overly simplistic explanations to the audience about the science behind the poetry, the science of bees, and her mis-pronunciation of the word 'propolis'. But that's just me being nit-pickety.
What really fascinated me however was the different reading/performing styles of the poets. Some read from books or pieces of paper, e.g. Amy Blakemore, Sophie Hannah, Jo Shapcott - whereas others recited their work from memory, e.g. Mab Jones, Dizraeli, Jack Dean. Both methods worked well but undoubtedly those who had memorised their poems gave more energetic performances. So I picked up some interesting tips for when I am brave enough to finally enter an open mic! Who knows, maybe at next year's Latitude...?
Anyway, just a few musings on the world of the live spoken-word performance. For those who are into performance poetry like me, I can highly recommend Latitude festival; the poetry line-up was wide-reaching, varied and inspiring.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Paul Henry Poetry Workshop 1
Wednesday night I went to Bookish in Crickhowell, Wales, and took part in a poetry workshop with poet Paul Henry. It was a great success, a lovely workshop in a cosy atmosphere. A little daunting reading my work out to a bunch of complete strangers! But really improved my confidence in a workshop setting and met some lovely people.
We began with a free-writing exercise, based on the theme of 'where I come from...', before looking at a few poems based around the idea of place, and then attempting to write our own poetry. Everyone in the class came up with some really cool ideas, I was surprised and a little intimidated by the standard, even though half of us had never written anything before! Anyway, I didn't really do as well - it was a great workshop - but I felt that I lacked life & travel experience and distance from my birthplace which may have helped.
The 'poetry' I came up with isn't very good. The workshop made me become more aware of my writing process, through making me try a completely new method. I found writing after - or imitating the first line as a trigger - the poems we looked at (one by R.S Thomas, another by Kit Wright, another that I can't remember right now) challenging and completely new. These are the results so far, but there is nothing I am even slightly happy with yet. However I shall keep trying!
Anyway, this post will show you what I came up with during the workshop and afterwards. I hope it encourages others to come along to the next workshop or to take the plunge and go to a similar writing event. I'd never done anything like this before, and I have never shown my work to anybody in person before, let alone read it out loud, but I loved the experience and can't wait for the next one!
FREEWRITING: WHERE I COME FROM...
er, what shall I write? B_, or B_grad as I call it, kind of grotty but posh in places, or more precisely a little village called O_, a long high street of georgian-fronted houses built along a geological faultline between the clays and chalk & flint, surrounded by fields with its own castle, and of course the sound of the motorway/by-pass always going, cows behind the housing estate mooing in the heat, the swampy ponds in the fields with the fallen oak I used to climb as a kid, oh dear what next can't think of anything, the churchyard with the graves of the two French soldiers, rooks, jackdaws that descend on our garden and eat the animal food, mistletoe growing on oak trees, the river full of crayfish and trout and watermint, the canal where I once saw an otter with her cub,
WORKSHOP ATTEMPTS AT POETRY - came out more like more freewriting
To live in the Home Counties is to
be strung between the motorway and hedgerows
full of fruit as shiny as Next Door's new Audi
that cannot be left outside for fear of pigeon droppings. It is to
To live between two countries is to be always having to choose
Christmas in Wales or in England?
To live in my home town is to... (very scribbled 3rd draft)
be somewhere between the jaguar-driving cricket clubbers, ex-military, busy-bodied, feeding the charity shop with last week's trends: a gucci handbag, real italian leather, a laura ashley dress, a striped armani shirt - and the one's down B_ Road, where the drugs and murderers are. It is to revel in gossip, the GP dating the shopkeeper's estranged wife who had an affair with so-and-so, the scandal of the hint of the possibility of encroaching supermarkets versus the convenience of waitrose ready meals and the battle of the georgian-fronted high street and the affordable housing estates at christmas: tasteful blue lights, holly wreaths, versus houses bedecked with americana
POST WORKSHOP DRAFTING
Tiptoe over conifer needle-strewn tarmac for fear of dog shit, its orangey iron-smell sharp, making your nostrils flare. As you walk brambles claw their way over the tops of the fence, snagging your hair and clothes. Burs coat the hem of your sleeve. A snail's shell cracks underfoot. A blackbird cackles in fear, swooping in front of you like a dolphin before a ship.
The path is dark. Dank. Damp. Houses rise unfriendly behind the fences on either side. Blank windows. Net curtains. Peeking out from behind the conifer trees. The path is rising, inclined to the breast that continues, it seems, ito the grey ink of the sky. Stones, gravel, punching through the soles of your shoes.
Until you emerge, blinking, blinded and shocked by the view. A field of blue-green wheat stretching to a hedgerow horizon. Oast roofs in red and mossy tiles poke like upturned strawberries from amongst the greenery. Unseen cricket drums a lazy rhythm. The air tastes of poppies and mallows, watermint from the river, hobby farm sheep, oak trees.
You feel that you can breathe it in, this openness, the wheat
the egg-brown earth, its chalk, its flint, is unyielding beneath your feet.
DRAFT 3
dog shit, orangey iron-smell sharp, makes nostrils flare.
brambles clawing over top of fence, snag hair.
burs broider hem of sleeve. snail's shell cracks underfoot
blackbird cackles in fear, swoop
in front like dolphin before ship. Path. Damp. Narrow.
Houses unfriendly, fences: empty windows.
Net curtains. Peek.
path, inclined to grey sky ink.
emerge, blinking, shocked by view
field of blue
wheat stretches to hedgerow horizon. Oast roofs, red mossy
tiles, upturned strawberries amonst greenery.
Unseen cricket drums lazy
rhythm. air taste poppies, mallows, hobby farm sheep, oak trees
breathe it in, openness, wheat
egg-brown earth, chalk, flint, unyielding beneath my feet.
We began with a free-writing exercise, based on the theme of 'where I come from...', before looking at a few poems based around the idea of place, and then attempting to write our own poetry. Everyone in the class came up with some really cool ideas, I was surprised and a little intimidated by the standard, even though half of us had never written anything before! Anyway, I didn't really do as well - it was a great workshop - but I felt that I lacked life & travel experience and distance from my birthplace which may have helped.
The 'poetry' I came up with isn't very good. The workshop made me become more aware of my writing process, through making me try a completely new method. I found writing after - or imitating the first line as a trigger - the poems we looked at (one by R.S Thomas, another by Kit Wright, another that I can't remember right now) challenging and completely new. These are the results so far, but there is nothing I am even slightly happy with yet. However I shall keep trying!
Anyway, this post will show you what I came up with during the workshop and afterwards. I hope it encourages others to come along to the next workshop or to take the plunge and go to a similar writing event. I'd never done anything like this before, and I have never shown my work to anybody in person before, let alone read it out loud, but I loved the experience and can't wait for the next one!
FREEWRITING: WHERE I COME FROM...
er, what shall I write? B_, or B_grad as I call it, kind of grotty but posh in places, or more precisely a little village called O_, a long high street of georgian-fronted houses built along a geological faultline between the clays and chalk & flint, surrounded by fields with its own castle, and of course the sound of the motorway/by-pass always going, cows behind the housing estate mooing in the heat, the swampy ponds in the fields with the fallen oak I used to climb as a kid, oh dear what next can't think of anything, the churchyard with the graves of the two French soldiers, rooks, jackdaws that descend on our garden and eat the animal food, mistletoe growing on oak trees, the river full of crayfish and trout and watermint, the canal where I once saw an otter with her cub,
WORKSHOP ATTEMPTS AT POETRY - came out more like more freewriting
To live in the Home Counties is to
be strung between the motorway and hedgerows
full of fruit as shiny as Next Door's new Audi
that cannot be left outside for fear of pigeon droppings. It is to
To live between two countries is to be always having to choose
Christmas in Wales or in England?
To live in my home town is to... (very scribbled 3rd draft)
be somewhere between the jaguar-driving cricket clubbers, ex-military, busy-bodied, feeding the charity shop with last week's trends: a gucci handbag, real italian leather, a laura ashley dress, a striped armani shirt - and the one's down B_ Road, where the drugs and murderers are. It is to revel in gossip, the GP dating the shopkeeper's estranged wife who had an affair with so-and-so, the scandal of the hint of the possibility of encroaching supermarkets versus the convenience of waitrose ready meals and the battle of the georgian-fronted high street and the affordable housing estates at christmas: tasteful blue lights, holly wreaths, versus houses bedecked with americana
POST WORKSHOP DRAFTING
Tiptoe over conifer needle-strewn tarmac for fear of dog shit, its orangey iron-smell sharp, making your nostrils flare. As you walk brambles claw their way over the tops of the fence, snagging your hair and clothes. Burs coat the hem of your sleeve. A snail's shell cracks underfoot. A blackbird cackles in fear, swooping in front of you like a dolphin before a ship.
The path is dark. Dank. Damp. Houses rise unfriendly behind the fences on either side. Blank windows. Net curtains. Peeking out from behind the conifer trees. The path is rising, inclined to the breast that continues, it seems, ito the grey ink of the sky. Stones, gravel, punching through the soles of your shoes.
Until you emerge, blinking, blinded and shocked by the view. A field of blue-green wheat stretching to a hedgerow horizon. Oast roofs in red and mossy tiles poke like upturned strawberries from amongst the greenery. Unseen cricket drums a lazy rhythm. The air tastes of poppies and mallows, watermint from the river, hobby farm sheep, oak trees.
You feel that you can breathe it in, this openness, the wheat
the egg-brown earth, its chalk, its flint, is unyielding beneath your feet.
DRAFT 3
dog shit, orangey iron-smell sharp, makes nostrils flare.
brambles clawing over top of fence, snag hair.
burs broider hem of sleeve. snail's shell cracks underfoot
blackbird cackles in fear, swoop
in front like dolphin before ship. Path. Damp. Narrow.
Houses unfriendly, fences: empty windows.
Net curtains. Peek.
path, inclined to grey sky ink.
emerge, blinking, shocked by view
field of blue
wheat stretches to hedgerow horizon. Oast roofs, red mossy
tiles, upturned strawberries amonst greenery.
Unseen cricket drums lazy
rhythm. air taste poppies, mallows, hobby farm sheep, oak trees
breathe it in, openness, wheat
egg-brown earth, chalk, flint, unyielding beneath my feet.
Friday, June 3, 2011
PS
sorry about the layout at the moment, I know that I always hate it on blogs when the labels etc. aren't immediately obvious. Can't actually see why everything is at the bottom, Blogger seems to think it's at the side but is displaying it at the bottom. No idea how to fix this but I will investigate! ;)
Monday, April 18, 2011
Charity Shop Books
I have been charity shopping today and found some real treasures! So often I think of books in charity shops as limited to the Maeve Binchies, Clive Cusslers and Good Housekeepings of this world. I forget that I have got some of my most treasured books second hand and many of them from charity shops.
Once I found The Vogue Sewing Book - a massive doorstep of a book - for the princely sum of £1. I was well chuffed. Another best buy is a Haruki Murakami with the most beautifully illustrated cover. Charity shopping can be so satisfying when you strike gold, like I did today.
I wandered into the British Heart Foundation shop in my local town, looking for clothes I could cut up and resew. Nothing that I particularly liked or would wear even once I'd dismantled it. So I wandered to the back of the shop and looked at the books.
It's a miracle I kept on looking. The first things I was confronted with were diets and loads of strange Christian books that rather freaked me out...but soon I realised that just above my head was a poetry and drama section, bigger even than that in the local Waterstones!! (Waterstones' near me is appalling for poetry and drama). There was everything. Donne. Betjeman. Shakespeare. Seamus Heaney's new translation of Beowulf. Emily Dickinson. Loads more that I can't remember but that had my eyes agog. And some literary fiction among the Maeve Binchies and Clive Cusslers. So many of them were brand new, as well. I couldn't believe it! Beautiful books!!
So I came out with a battered but very lovely Penguin Book of Italian Verse (I speak a bit, but luckily there are translations, and anyway, I just want the rhythms of the language, rather than the meaning if I'm honest), Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist and The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile by Alice Oswald, as well as book on myths for my mum. All cost me £8. That's £2 a book. The Alice Oswald on its own would have cost £8.99 new. Major bargain!!!
So my tip for today is not to dismiss charity shops! They're getting trendy (and ridiculously priced, yes, I am talking about you Cancer Research) for clothes and things but they are also a potential haven for bookworms!
(And thanks so much Crafty Green Poet for the paragraphing solution!)
Once I found The Vogue Sewing Book - a massive doorstep of a book - for the princely sum of £1. I was well chuffed. Another best buy is a Haruki Murakami with the most beautifully illustrated cover. Charity shopping can be so satisfying when you strike gold, like I did today.
I wandered into the British Heart Foundation shop in my local town, looking for clothes I could cut up and resew. Nothing that I particularly liked or would wear even once I'd dismantled it. So I wandered to the back of the shop and looked at the books.
It's a miracle I kept on looking. The first things I was confronted with were diets and loads of strange Christian books that rather freaked me out...but soon I realised that just above my head was a poetry and drama section, bigger even than that in the local Waterstones!! (Waterstones' near me is appalling for poetry and drama). There was everything. Donne. Betjeman. Shakespeare. Seamus Heaney's new translation of Beowulf. Emily Dickinson. Loads more that I can't remember but that had my eyes agog. And some literary fiction among the Maeve Binchies and Clive Cusslers. So many of them were brand new, as well. I couldn't believe it! Beautiful books!!
So I came out with a battered but very lovely Penguin Book of Italian Verse (I speak a bit, but luckily there are translations, and anyway, I just want the rhythms of the language, rather than the meaning if I'm honest), Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist and The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile by Alice Oswald, as well as book on myths for my mum. All cost me £8. That's £2 a book. The Alice Oswald on its own would have cost £8.99 new. Major bargain!!!
So my tip for today is not to dismiss charity shops! They're getting trendy (and ridiculously priced, yes, I am talking about you Cancer Research) for clothes and things but they are also a potential haven for bookworms!
(And thanks so much Crafty Green Poet for the paragraphing solution!)
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Poetry Renaissance
Just read a really good article from the Guardian here about the current 'Poetry Renaissance', as brought to my attention by poet Pascale Petit over twitter (recently discovered twitter - its a brilliant tool for all things literature-related. I'm @flomoses by the way). A really heartening, uplifting article, and very inspiring too.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Good vs Groundbreaking and General Pontificating
I've just read this blog by Chielozona Eze, 'New Rules for Writers..' http://africanliteraturenews.blogspot.com/.
This put a big smile on my face, for one thing, and got me thinking about what makes good literature.
Ground-breaking literature isn't necessarily good, or perhaps more often, enjoyable. Tolkien is dreary. I don't know anyone who has ever got through Ulysses. The only people I know of who have are abstract intellectual entities and Kate Bush.
But literature doesn't have to be ground-breaking to be good. There is lots of literature out there that talks about normal life, human conflicts, or nothing very much, but does so subtly, intelligently and with flashes of its own originality. Some of the best stories follow set formulae - e.g., likeable hero is screwed over by nasty antagonist, likeable hero mopes around, but then picks himself up from the depths of despair, defeats the nasty antagonist and still has the time to find true love. Sometimes a simple story, executed with a deft touch, can be just as powerful as the ground-breaking gut-busting head-hurting waffle we call 'art'.
So it's heartening to read things such as Eze's blog, celebrating the astonishing things we humans can come up with and exploring tjhe highest heights of our creativity, especially when you're trying and so far failing to get published. Even industry cannot limit our imaginations.
But equally, I know that not everyone (maybe not myself? We shall see) can write well, and even the people who can don't necessarily make it to publication. And what is good writing? Is it uniqueness we look for, or is it the well-written familiar? Why is it that The Adventures of Captain Underpants have been published and not the life's work of some poor impoverished writer with real, though hidden, talent? Big questions. I have no idea.
But I do know the kind of writing I like. Here is my checklist.
Maybe, despite my last blog, The Bell actually is one for the bedside table; maybe learning to love it is my Everest and will make me a better reader and writer. Maybe it has been thrust into my unwilling hands for the sole purpose of my conquering it and learning from it. Maybe my teachers were just really desperate for a mid-century novel by a female writer. Who knows?
This put a big smile on my face, for one thing, and got me thinking about what makes good literature.
Ground-breaking literature isn't necessarily good, or perhaps more often, enjoyable. Tolkien is dreary. I don't know anyone who has ever got through Ulysses. The only people I know of who have are abstract intellectual entities and Kate Bush.
But literature doesn't have to be ground-breaking to be good. There is lots of literature out there that talks about normal life, human conflicts, or nothing very much, but does so subtly, intelligently and with flashes of its own originality. Some of the best stories follow set formulae - e.g., likeable hero is screwed over by nasty antagonist, likeable hero mopes around, but then picks himself up from the depths of despair, defeats the nasty antagonist and still has the time to find true love. Sometimes a simple story, executed with a deft touch, can be just as powerful as the ground-breaking gut-busting head-hurting waffle we call 'art'.
So it's heartening to read things such as Eze's blog, celebrating the astonishing things we humans can come up with and exploring tjhe highest heights of our creativity, especially when you're trying and so far failing to get published. Even industry cannot limit our imaginations.
But equally, I know that not everyone (maybe not myself? We shall see) can write well, and even the people who can don't necessarily make it to publication. And what is good writing? Is it uniqueness we look for, or is it the well-written familiar? Why is it that The Adventures of Captain Underpants have been published and not the life's work of some poor impoverished writer with real, though hidden, talent? Big questions. I have no idea.
But I do know the kind of writing I like. Here is my checklist.
- unpretentious and comprehensible, but still intelligent, thoughtfully observed and original
- a feeling for the music of words
- exotic characters or settings or ideas. Something has to be new to me and out of the ordinary
- human-ness. Something or somebody I can sympathise with
- Wit. It doesn't have to be laugh-out-loud funny, but I always appreciate a light touch and a little humour never goes amiss.
- It has to be well-written. It doesn't even have to be plain English. It just has to not be Ben Elton-stylee.
Maybe, despite my last blog, The Bell actually is one for the bedside table; maybe learning to love it is my Everest and will make me a better reader and writer. Maybe it has been thrust into my unwilling hands for the sole purpose of my conquering it and learning from it. Maybe my teachers were just really desperate for a mid-century novel by a female writer. Who knows?
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