upon that high hill

and in contrast to my sloth detailed in the last post…

after a quick dash back from islay i went out to kilgraston school to hear helen lawrenson reading from her new collection upon a good high hill. it was shame t couldn’t make it but she’s still under the weather from the after tremors of the unwellness that’s grounded me for the last few weeks. venue was grand (in all senses!) and there was a good turnout. i’d arrived slightly behind time and as i came up the stair here was helen’s daughter dorothy playing the northumbrian pipes (the possession on which and the ability to actually play them caused me acute envy!) so i knew i was in the right place.

i couldn’t stay for the whole thing unfortunately but i did get my copy and got it signed (and immaculately punctuated!). the collection is all concerned with hadrian’s wall and reflects helen’s long association with that history and geography. background knowledge is helpful but not super necessary, esp if you know the countryside. however a bit of prior information will reward the reader. beyond that i’m kind of biased as i’ve heard many of them before so that when i read them i can hear helen’s diction in my head. i did note tho, a peculiar frequency to the appearance of hyphens and even at least three instances of …, which i’ll be demanding explanation of from one who is an oft exponent of the colon and semi-colon!

i’m also a sucker for the layout. dorothy, for it is she in the guise of perjink press, does better end papers than any other pamphlet maker i know (a bit of design i’m going to shamelessly copy) and living in a house of fans of paper, this can only go down well. we noted also the attention paid to the unity of colour scheme from cover thru text. wee things but wee things me and t like!

helen’s pamphlet is shortlisted for the callum macdonald prize to be awarded next week which is even better news. but that got me to thinking that while maybe i haven’t been working too hard of late it’s something that can’t be said of my fellow perth writers. maurice gartshore was recently shortlisted for the scott prize and andy jackson is on the shortlist for the hippocrates prize. maurice didn’t win unfortunately so fingers crossed for andy.

for a small and predominantly rural area even amongst the wee group of writers i know perth and perthshire generally punches well above its weight but while it’s grand for me to have such a bunch of folk to interact with it seems a shame that more attention isn’t paid to the diverse groups of people working around the area. it could be argued that various people in dundee are addressing this but it’s curious that writing should somehow gravitate towards cities.maybe it’s just a geography thing - who knows?

doing nothing!?

it got pointed out to me recently that maybe i wasn’t entering/submitting as much as i could be recently. recently, it turns out, is pretty much the last twelve months. and while that is, more or less, true it doesn’t equate to doing nothing.

i was watching graeme obree’s video about his impending attempt on the world human powered record (graeme, after spending time with t on the ireland ferry last year and being generally motivational with her, will always be a good guy in this household!) and i was struck by what he was saying about having regrets at ninety.

while there always has to be a balance i’m reasonably certain that, in my dotage, when i’m looking back (if i’ve time!) i’ll be wanting to remember myself working on things rather than prepping/editing/ bothering about whether so-and-so like my approach to punctuation and/or the use of capitals!

it may be true that i’m not submitting as much as i should but it’s also true that i’m getting involved in grand things. doing all that day to day stuff, that’s all fair and good (i’ve got a day job for that) but indulging your passion is something else entirely. it’s nice to get a bit of public engagement but for me it’s the doing that’s the thing. when i see graeme enthusing about his handle bars that’s a passion i can engage with.

all of us, whether we realise it or not, have that passion for something somewhere. it’s not about being fastest, getting recognised, being vindicated, (tho those things are nice!) it’s all about the doing. i like that quote form beckett in worstward ho -all of old. nothing else ever. ever tried. ever failed. no matter. try again. fail again. fail better.

that’ll do for me!

world of leaf

it’s not like i’m not writing at the moment just that it’s taken a back seat to other things. i was back at it this last couple of days and finding it really quite soothing tho at the same reminding myself that it’s not entirely without a deadline component.

that deadline component is much more prevalent with what the writing has taken a back seat to. i’ve got a painting thing i have to get finished by the middle of next month. sure i thought, that’ll be no problem and it wasn’t, at least until i decided i’d be using a bigger canvas than normal. it’s not so much that i’m having to use a different technique, tho i kind of am. more that there’s just more….

but that’s more or less going swimmingly. the next deadline is for an installation piece at the beginning of february. i’ll not say much about that beyond that it involves leaves and glueing them to metal which is why i’m just after arriving back home after yet another frustrating swear fest at the studio. if anyone knows a decent way to get leaves to bond to metal i’d love to hear it. currently all my glue options are failing, i’m unconvinced my primer is forming a decent key and i’ve also discovered that the frustration with 3m spraymount continues as i discover that while it may be utterly useless for sticking things it does dissolve car paint!

and did i get the paypal thing sorted for distances? no i did not. beginning of the week, honest….

the moral of the story being that it’s not good to take on too many things, esp at the time of year when your day job is most likely to be at its most busy

bbc

so, thanks to rachel, a surprise appearance by the stone bible on the bbc this weekend. you can listen here for the following week – it’s on at about 1:44. i was out and missed it which was a bit of a shame. i did ask them to tell me when it was on and/or send me a sound file as it was unlikely in the first place i’d be in to hear it but for whatever reason they didn’t get it together. call me churlish but not replying to emails is just plain impolite. i find this seems to be becoming more common these days and it’s getting to be a bit of a bugbear. i could go on and on and on…!

but anyway… it was a bit of a fanboy reading for me. i can’t claim to have been a fan of catatonia back in the day – i was being all electronic and refusing to listen to anything that involved voices or actual instruments (changed days, yes i know) but offstage cerys matthews did all the falling about and whatnot that was so dear to us back then (allegedly!) so that, should i have chosen to listen to something of that ilk, catatonia were well up on my acceptability list. the years go by and in the interim and she’s got all solo and all the better for it i think. so (and given that the bbc have just been a bit bbc in previous readings of me) i was looking forward to seeing what she was going to come up with.

not least because (and rachel makes the same point) i’m interested to hear what the poem sounds like, even if it’s one of mine. poems are great on the page but there’s a something about them that’s half-lived, as if they need to be out and about and breathe. plus, being that reading to each other, telling each other stories, must be among the most fundamental of human experiences, it seems daft that we don’t do it more. so, nice job, cerys matthews.

and, in that vein, and given that i’m getting a bit better with the sound recording these days, if there’s any poems out of the book or that i’ve done elsewhere that anyone wants to hear then please let me now and i’ll sort it out. if it’s not by me then you’ll need to be negotiating around permissions but if that can be done i’ll do that too.

a lazarus

i was rather delighted to be informed that my collection ‘ a lazarus’ had been shortlisted for the qarrtsiluni chapbook prize. thanks then to qarrtsiluni and all associated with them. it’s fair to say that, in the shape of two of greek poems, they’ve published work i don’t think would find much of a voice here and i think a lazarus continues this with a vengeance. if you’ve not visited their site i would highly recommend it and the sites around it esp dave bonta’s video poetry site moving poems which is an ideal place to while away the afternoon.

i should also thank peadar at tfe for getting the notion of the collection together by publishing the title poem and claire askew who published i am furies at just the time i was needing it. all of which might sound a bit like so much blah blah blah but it just goes to show you’re never really on your own even when it seems that way.

i like rewriting poems. i find it a good way to get into the language, copying it out, longhand or typing, it doesn’t matter (tho i prefer longhand). so what then if i took the words in poems and only those words and fashioned it into something else. so far so oulipo(esque!). the most obvious method would just be to do a cut up. which is fine for one poem but what if you’re going to do a bunch of them? in which case you have to do something like unwiring the grammatical side of your brain and then hook it back up again in the wrong order so that the resulting work has some sort of internal sense. and everybody has to be dead…

by the time i was done, and to be honest a chapbook length thing was about as long as i could manage, my brain was thoroughly fried. so much so i had to take some time off, write nothing at all but, at the end of it i had a thing that i’d seen through, that i was happy with. i guess what i’m saying is it’s worth it, to purse these notions, to do the thing for no other reason than because you want to, to see what it’ll look like when you’re done.

a slight change of direction

after my brief festival outing – very enjoyable and a couple of very unexpected surprises! – getting myself back down to work. it’s true i haven’t been super active in poetry land this year which doesn’t mean i haven’t been writing but more getting back to my default position of doing nothing with it! there are reasons for all of that but they’re really quite dull. i am (still) supposed to be finishing some prose work and, while i have done some of that, i remain in the process of finishing some prose work!

so far so procastinatory! what i have been doing is getting involved in conversations about having some paintings for sale next year. actual paintings by me for sale by someone else to someone else! and i’ve more or less agreed! very odd. but in that way that life will often give a hint of the direction you should go in i’ve fallen into taking possession of a studio so i should really use it!

i find it all quite exciting to be honest. quite what i’ll be doing there i have no idea but with any luck it’ll encourage me to get the things done i need to sell and the space to experiment with some new work.  and i’ll be open to visitors! so, if you’re passing by and fancy a look at what i’ve been up to, leave me a comment here

competitions

so, once again the bridesmaid in the aesthetica competition but got finalised so that’s good. their creative works annual featuring moi can be got here

and then i look at my list of things i’m doing and i find that i’ve almost nothing on and, to be honest, not much in the way of plans to do so. competitions seem to be getting awfully pricey these days with the larger ones especially offering little in the way of surprises. i know people have to cover their costs (and there is a dollop of irony here as i’m involved in just such a cost exercise at the moment) but looking at this year’s fish competition the entry of 14 euro per poem is one to raise the eyebrows. not that it’s fair to single fish out (they’re just the last lot to appear in my inbox) as it seems a trend across the board. which is all fair and good if that’s what you’re into but, while they have a certain necessity, i’ve never been wholly keen on the whole competition thing even if i’ve done alright with them.

magazines then? i find i’m almost more antipathetic to them. why would i be reading one of those when i could be out on my bike? and, to be honest, some of the discussions going on in their pages make me feel there’s a (large) contingent of folk that just need to be getting out more. i liked being in the poetry bus magazine recently because of the vibe around that, a vibe i’m not really getting elsewhere.

unless it’s the internet. as with all magazines (except possibly rouleur) i’m a bit uncomfortable forking out for something that’s going to be cluttering up my floor for months until i finally bin it. not so the internet versions, of which there are many, whether they be the likes of ouroboros which looks and feels like a magazine without the pesky paper or clutter, or the ongoing cavalcade that is qartsilunni, a place i can waste an afternoon in no problem!

but really, i’m not getting it together for those either. is it just the usual laziness? likely, but it’s not as if i’ve entirely absented myself from writing poetry and, in addition, i’ve got a short story collection that just needs finished (and is maybe functioning a bit like a psychological albatross) and a play or two that just need properly started!

just lately tho i’ve been getting drawn in other directions. i’m stuck in a landscape/narrative painting thing at the moment which is just a lovely spot to be in plus i’ve kind of enjoyed my involvement in swiss lounge (e-pamphlet out that i’m in, real soon) and am getting spurred on to do other stuff as a result of that (embroidery, me? wouldn’t have thought so but my aching fingers tell me otherwise)

so what am i saying? competition, magazines all that stuff – unless that’s the path you’re planning on going down, it really doesn’t (whisper it loud!) matter. it seems a shame, given that we only have this one shot at life, to get pigeon-holed into one field of creative activity. do something else. enjoy it. and who knows your primary activity may have a whole other bunch of horizons opened up. a blank canvas is a big as we can make it!

happiness

can be catering to your inner fanboy/girl

in which case it’s been rather a good couple of weeks for me. in the first case, while i was on holiday i came across the strange story of margaret atwood and her kidney based superheroes. i’m delighted that la atwood does such things even if i’m no clearer about her motives! and on the plus side courtesy of the good dr topf (if you scroll down the side bar) i’m now in possession of an excellent resource for getting some of the staff i work with heads round the notion of fluid and acid-base balance. did i think this would ever occur as a result of reading margaret atwood? i did not.

then, this week, she pops up again on woman’s hour talking about a handmaid’s tale. sadly i remain immune to whatever it is that people like about atwood’s fiction so i can only understand it at a remove but, all the same, hearing her going on always makes me a happy fellow. should any radio producers be browsing and have a notion to make a programme about or with margaret atwood on the subject of either birds or, even better, her poetry, i’m claiming first dibs.

what would i ask you ask? first off – purple wind turbines, yes or no? the poetry i’d be taking more time to think about!

*you’ve got three days left for the radio 4 thing

venti

and it’s always the way of it for the lazy blogger that two things arrive in the same week that i wouldn’t feel good about if i didn’t post at least something.

also hitting the mat this week is joanne mckay’s latest venti. now it’s true i have many things written by many people and i really should have said something about just about all of them (but haven’t – note the comment about the lazy blogger). so what’s different about this one?

in the main, it’s just such a pretty thing. i love handmade things, things you can run your fingers across, things with texture, things that have the smell of new paper, paper with a bit of heft, the sort of thing you could never send off and have done by a printer. such is venti. and that’s before the illustrations, done in large part by matt kish, beautifully coloured and, by happy coincidence concerning themselves with moby dick, a subject unlikely to find ill favour with me. in between there appear to be random stamps of fleur-de-lis, seahorses,a cherub and even a thumb print at the end. have you been reading thomas bewick perhaps joanne? it’s a thing of care and loveliness and even better, given we know where it came from, all the better for it.

as for the poetry i have joanne’s last, the fat plant, but as i came to it late i always had the feeling reading it that she’d moved on and that i’d read things i’d preferred more recently. and that recently is in this. there’s a definite buzz about seeing work that was only familiar to me electronically or in a preparatory stage now worked up and down on the page (no kindle or the like will ever replace the book for me). and of course a poem about moby dick, which can never go wrong!

there are things you buy because you feel you should and there are those other things you come across that you just have to have, this, and the aforementioned poetry bus, fall firmly into the latter category. i’m delighted for joanne that her first run has sold out and the penpont child labour camp has swung into action to make more (for me!). venti is a genuinely beuatuful thing, a delight to own.

thanks for that joanne!

the poetry bus arrives

i was delighted earlier on in the week when my copy of the poetry bus dropped through the letterbox. it’s true that the sight of a poetry magazine more often than not leaves me less than joyful so what was the difference with this one?

a while back, an irish blogger called tfe started putting poetry prompts up on his blog. soon enough a reasonably loose collective of people were contributing. a man after my own heart, rather than do all the work himself, he rotated the prompts around the contributors. the prompts reflected something of those who set them and the responses were, and are, unpredictably varied!

next, he started talking about getting some sort of collection together. emails were exchanged between those who had done this before, advice was given. he definitely wanted to do a print copy, something you could hold in your hand. applications were made for funding from whatever irish arts body does these things. predictably these were declined!

so tfe had to do it all himself and the end product is all the better for it as far as i’m concerned. he said from the beginning there would be illustration and he’s done that, from the beautifully coloured cover to the scattering of drawings inside. quite how he’s selected the poetry to be included i don’t know, and haven’t asked – it seems to me to be a fraught process! but in the end what’s emerged is one of the most diverse wee collections i can remember coming across. of course i’m more inclined to be sympathetic as i ’know’ many of those included but in terms of geography, age, topic and expression i don;t think it can be beat.

will there be more. tfe has volume 1 coyly placed on the cover. i’d like to see more but even if not it’s refreshing to see something someone has dreamed about coming to fruition purely as a result of their motivation and hard work. for me this was what the internet was supposed to be about – bringing people together, creating new stuff. the poetry bus hits that nail right on the head. the fact of its existence brings a smile to my face.

thanks for that peadar!