The Great Unread

I read recently about unread fiction, an attempt to discover 'mid list' authors who write good fiction that may not have sold many copies or are currently between publishers. I love the idea, its acknowledgement that when it comes to writing we may be bypassing some very interesting work in favour of work we've heard about that is more readily available.

The question of 'mid' writers is interesting to me- what constitutes it? Well, I suppose writers who may have been writing a while, may have had one or two books out on small presses but are not widely known or promoted, or between publsihers. As a reader, there is a little thrill discovering work by writers like this, a feeling of stumbling across hidden treasure. The plight of the mid writer is a sad one. They have none of the allure of the new writer, the excitement of being seen to create something shiny and new by publishers and other literary players. They have none of that vital ingredient that sees the new writer through- hope. And yet, the work may shine, polished by experience and development. Does writing shine if no one is around to read it? The plight of the mid writer isn't an easy one. Just as they hit on development or improvement in their work the excitement is short lived, by the cold hard fact of their status. What do they do with it now? I'm not sure what the answer is other than a writer keeps writing, developing. One day we pray someone may see it, maybe not.

I love the idea of the quest to find the great unread. The quest is for fiction.
It is a great idea, and instantly makes me consider finds I've made of my own.
When it comes to poetry, a list like this would be equally valid and interesting. Would such a list help the mid poet? Maybe, maybe not. I doubt there would be an interest by agents or book stores in this, but from readers of poetry? Perhaps it would be exciting way to discover work that slips under the radar somehow.

Mid writers take heart, keep writing and trying. Always.





http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/oct/22/help-find-fiction-unheralded-stars?CMP=twt_fd

Competitions, Poetry, Sweat and Tears

I'm thrilled to be able to announce I was shortlisted for The Arvon International Poetry Competition this year.

I should have been jumping up and down when I heard. Actually, it was so unexpected it was a shock. I read the letter about it under a banner of 'in reference to your submission'... It didn't sound promising. I opened the document and found I'd been shortlisted! And what did I do? My hands shook. I had to read it seven times to check i'd read it right. Then I burst into tears! Pathetic!


At the risk of being unfashionably self deprecating I'll say this- to be honest this news came at a time when I felt my poetry adventures were O. V . E. R. That belief, that quiet little knowledge writers need sometimes that this is better work than before and someone will enjoy it someday, was lost to me. I started the year with it, bit by bit it slipped away. I was sitting on work I felt was good and was too scared to even send it anywhere. After reading some horrible comments about my work online I finally hung up my poetry slippers and said 'stuff this, I'm done.' Then something happened.

I got up on the Monday after reading the nasty comment and said, 'Yep, I have no faith, but I said I was going to enter this competition so I will honour this one last promise to my work.' I worked on the poem I had in mind, edited again, many times, printed it out twenty times. The poem was getting better. I worked on it more. I sent it before I could change my mind.
To be honest I sent it and part of me thought 'Should I bother?' But I did. I sent it like a gambling man putting the last pennies in his pocket on a horse he isn't sure he belives in anymore.

I'm glad I did. Getting shortlisted was a huge relief, to see something that confirmed I wasn't a bad writer. It felt like full circle that it was the Arvon Competition. The first encouragement I ever got as a writer was at Arvon. I was on the dole. I was doing a part time MA. I was on the waiting list for a job in the centre I didn't really want. There was a local arts competition to win a bursary to pay for a place on an Arvon Course. I entered work and won. I didn't have much faith in my work and the Arvon course changed that. The tutors were encouraging and kind. They didn't even care I was too scared to read out loud. Just when I needed it Arvon set me on track as a writer. Now, just when i'd about given up the honour of being on the Arvon Competition shortlist gave me a much needed injection of faith I hope will set me back on the path.

Congratulations to everyone shortlisted and the winners. They'll be going to an awards ceremony in London. I hope they have a great time. I was tempted to go, but I've never been to anything like that before. I couldn't imagine it. There'd be poets there, yeah, but what is some of them are famous? Is it cool to talk to them? Is it silly to ask them to sign your books? Are you supposed to ignore them to stay cool? It's an unknown etiquette landmine!I know so little about all that :)I weighed the odds, counted my writing piggy bank and saw there wasn't enough in it to get me to London and back. I wondered if I was supposed to get someone to go on my behalf. I had no idea.Thinking about it, I wasn't sure there was anyone I could ask.

Moreso, I thought I daren't go- what if something weird happens like someone says 'I liked your poem' or 'it was a good poem'. I thought of how I'd sat and cried with relief, joy, whatever, the day I found out about being shortlisted and decided it was too risky.If someone said they liked the poem I might just go down in interweb history as that silly poet who cried in the room full of proper poets!So I'm staying home, raising a glass to the shortlist, Arvon, the judges and the winners of the competition. Well done for getting there, well done for good writing, and well done for taking a chance.

I'm delighted my poem will be in the Arvon anthology. I'm honoured to be shortlisted. It's just what I needed to make me feel like a writer again :)

last poem

poem for poetry day, new and still will be messed with, happy poetry day, a x

Suitcase to Return Home

To journey home I need a suitcase so big
it can become a small apartment. Toothbrush,
nicotine gum in a Juicy Fruit packet, wire cutters
to get me through the perimeter snip through the chain-link,
masking tape repairs the fence I’ve cobbled round myself.

The gloves are never thick enough to trick the cold,
to prevent the burrs of, the sting
of disappointment when I shake my mother’s hand.

The flashcards are in my pocket, tiny pictures of cushions,
shower, toilets, coffee, simple phrases back and forth
held in front of our lips to communicate our mundane needs.

The hard hat is self explanatory, the steel capped boots
with feather soles are mine alone, eggshell walking my speciality.

The torch, I leave in the case, homes’ searchlights blaze,
whatever goggles I use, meeting its eye is a white flash
that burns an image of my parents when they were young onto my face.
My suitcase is fit to burst, stuffed with so many things I stole

from home and now smuggle back.
Still, there are never enough dirt devils or dustpans
for everything under the carpet. Never enough batteries
or few enough, to prevent the half light cast
into corners piled high with all we don't want to see.

National Poetry Day- home poem

After I Went Home

After, I still went home, there was no other

word for it, altered as a paper house, folded

into the shape of a box. I opened the same door,

stepped into the cold hall and thought of Eskimo’s,

I could use a hundred words for home.

These rooms now, the same, their womb

like shed tights still baring the shape of feet, lives.

In a scratched wooden bowl a purple key.

The next door opened easily, gasped in my face,

I thought of feathers on a bird by the road.

Just as we had left it, this lounge, the thin skin

of the plastic couch weathered and cool

without limbs, hands, to give it breath.

Two mugs on the floor, one spilled and dried,

Two pink plates, sandwiches cut into triangles

Neat as hospital corners, curled as fingers,

A film of the cruelty of air across sliced egg.

Who where we here? I thought, how did

anyone ever take arrange bread on a rim like a zodiac sun

and think it mattered? How did we live never thinking

these ordinary things would be reminders of scenes of kindness?

A sift of cinnamon freckling the surface of coffee

dissolved to liquid and I did not see it.

These cups with their cataracts of old milk

meet my eye, novelty shapes on the foam gone,

the intention holding strong.

I never looked and saw an ant drowning in sugar

or a note in a bottle. I never thought one clean patch of carpet

in this room I know like moving hands would look like a map

I’d press my face nose to, bury myself in its shag,

but still can’t read to make my way home.

How I felt about The Full Indian Rope Trick

The first poem I'm going to hold my hands up and say I don't exactly know everything about it, but I love it, is The Full Indian Rope Trick by Colette Bryce. I do this to encourage people to admit not knowing sometimes is OK. I want to lead by example that if you don't get it all or don't feel clever enough to talk about a poem, it doesn't matter. If you get something from a poem read poems. The feeling you get from a good poem is valid, whether it matches what a text book says or not. I've never read anything about what academics say about this poem. For the aim of admitting not knowing I didn't want to. It seems a bit shoddy to try and encourage more people to read poetry if we feel we need to then read articles to explain it. We don't. Just read it, recommend it, don't always know much more than what it does for you. It's a good start.

I love The Full Indian Rope Trick, but the poem feels a bold and scary choice to talk about. The poem won the National Poetry Competition and was later voted most popular winner of the prize in 20 years of winners. It is a well known poem. It is a beloved poem and it is excellent. There will no doubt be many scholars who know every answer to this poem. Then there's me. I'm going to say I love it, but it is still mysterious to me.

The first lines of the poem are : ' There was no secret

murmured down through a long line

of elect; no dark fakir'

This seems apt to me in the act of talking about poetry. Poetry itself seems perhaps to some that we should know secrets of how to approach it. If we don't, if we weren't born to a long line of poetry readers, how do we know where to start?

I like the beginning of the poem admitting the poet or character in the poem doesn't know secrets. 'The Full Indian Rope Trick' seems to be about this old magic trick. All the parts are there, the rope, the setting, the feat and up and away. As a reader I felt right there, but still, after reading the poem many times, I've wondered what exactly is the full indian rope trick a metaphor for? I talked about this once with a poet who felt it was about disappearing. Maybe it is. I still wasn't sure, it seems more triumphand to me than that, an ascencion in a way. There is the sense of leaving something behind yes, it seems to lie in the line-

the slack weight of a rope

coiled in a crate, a braid

eighteen summers long,

Perhaps the rope climber is eighteen years old, letting go of an eighteen year an old belief or grudge, but I don't know for sure.

The lines, 'Goodbye, thin air, first try,' give me this feeling of the climber of the rope letting old failures go. 'Goodbye, Goodbye', this feels like elation. For me, the poem is much more than the act of disappearing, which is comething I wouldn't equate with the triumphant feeling of the poem. This rope is 'caught by the sky, then 'me, young, (is) up and away.'

The line: No proof,

no footage,

but I did it'

leaves me with a feeling of wanting to cheer, like someone in the crowd watching a show. Yes! She did it, regardless of who saw or what they may think.

It feels the rope climber has left something behind, let go, and ascended to a new level somehow. The inclusion of 'Guidhall Square', walls, bells' may be in reference to mourners, grief, memorium. 'Walls, bells' seem to indicate a church- is the rope climber experiencing freedom from church and state? Is this poem a healing? Perhaps. But I don't feel I know exactly who the narrator is, how exactly, what exactly is being let go of, who or why, I'm not a hundred percent sure. Yet, even not knowing, the poem gives me a good feeling as a reader. I want to punch the air and shout 'Too right!' This feeling of a huge personal triumph in the piece rings out clear.

The magic of the poem, for me, comes in a way in not always knowing. Just as a magician does not reveal his secrets, the poet does not reveal exactly what the trick was for them, who they are, everything it meant or how this trick was done. Would I love this poem as much if I knew exactly? Maybe it would be less of a trick.

The beauty, of course, is the poem itself became a full Indian rope trick- it won. 'I did it...'The last lines may refer to the act of being a poet itself and so much more. There has been pain and loss. It's been hard. Whatever I know or don't know matters less than the sense that whether the rope climber appears to have disappeared, they've been through something private with no footage, no cheers. Yet it mattered. The narrator is still here and strong.The reader feels alive.

And what would I tell them

given the chance?

It was painful; it took years.

I'm my own witness,

guardian of the fact

that I'm still here.

http://poetrysociety.org.uk/content/competitions/npc/npc03/

Talking about poems

For National Poetry day for a week I'm going to do something we don't ususally do- not just talk about poems we love, but admit parts of them that are a mystery. I hope people won't dis me for these efforts, the aim is not to be a critic or be clever. Poetry has enough of that. The problem with poetry is maybe we worry we have to be a professor to read it- we don't. The aim is this- TALK ABOUT POEMS, no judgement, not having all the answers, but saying 'Yes! This poem speaks to me or intrigues me- whether I know all the answers or not.' I'm hoping that by being brave enough to do this other people who have the poetry fear will be encouraged to say Yes I like poems, I don't always get all of them, but that's OK.

Forgive my ignorance, don't forgive it, whatever, but say, yeah, talking about a reaction or personal
reaction to a poem is as good a place to start as any. The thing is to start.
Here goes. :)

Poetry blushing

Tony Williams said in on the Salt blog this week '

'we shouldn’t blush to help people discover poems'.

http://blog.saltpublishing.com/2010/10/04/help-someone-find-their-way-in-on-national-poetry-day/

He's right. Why don't we recommend poems to people in the same way we do a great album or novel? I suppose it is fear. Williams says, 'they don’t know where to start. They’re a bit scared of poetry... Sometimes I’ve had non-poetry people respond to my poems by saying, ‘I enjoyed it, but I don’t think I understood it.'
I could relate to this. I've been writing and reading poetry for many years, yet I've never done a review of a poetry book. Why? Yes, I have loved the work of many poets. But there are some I didn't felt I got or could find a way into and felt ashamed to admit it. It's this sort of fear of feeling stupid, poetry itself as a pointing finger, that stopped me and may put many people off talking about poetry (if we talk about what we loved, we may have to admit ones we didn't get- yikes.) I like how Williams responded to readers saying they enjoyed his work but weren't sure they got it. His response was refreshing- this notion about whether someone got all of it or not isn't as important sometimes as a feeling a reader may have. The power of poetry I think is we might not always get all of it, it might not provide black and white answers, but raise questions, spaces for us to consider as readers. It may open a door but now show you everything behind it, and it is often here we can see something of ourselves.
Many of my favourite poems I can remember no more than a line of. I might not even like the rest of the poem as much as this line which seems to reverberate through me and stick. Or I may love the rest of the poem, but however many times I read it it is one line that stays to the expense of another- one line has spoke to me so much it will always be hard to remember what else the poem said.Is this OK? Would the poet say no, there is so much more there? Maybe, because yes, there will be more than one line of worth in a poem, but like a piece of music it strikes different notes in different people. Just as some people may love a song because of one key change and another may like it because of a chorus, our responses to poems are never going to be right and wrong answers. Unlike poetry, which music we love or why was never something we had to analyse bar by bar in English class. We never felt there were ticks to right and wrong answers about which line from a song we recall in the shower.

Maybe a good way to talk about poetry is to lose our vanity and academic gameface and shrug and say 'I don't know exactly, but this poem stayed with me.' Show it to a friend, see what they say. Have a discussion that feels like walking in the dark as you compare how a poem made you felt or what it may have been about. You may be surprised at what comes up.

For National Poetry day I'm doing just that. I'm saying OK, I like poetry, but I'll never get to the bottom of all of it, and that's OK (maybe once we feel we do there is less within poetry to allure us back, like a lover that spills all its secrets on a first date- why go there?) All week I will think about a different poem a day and say 'I don't know for sure, but I like this because..' Maybe more of us should lose the fear, bring poetry out our closets and do the same :)