Generally, I quite like to find something that’s happened during the week, make some spurious connection to it and the act of writing whilst warbling on for a few paragraphs…insert a pun or two and, et voila…It’s not rocket science, this stuff. It’s also quite likely not useful either, but on the scale of Rocket Science to useful…hang on, that assumes rocket science isn’t useful—I’ll hang up my market research spurs…bang goes the day job. Bugger. (Can you see the warbling happening before your very eyes?)
Where was I, ah, yes..connected warbling..!
This weekend has largely been spent doing the prep work for some decorating work. I can no longer put off the work my wife has decided we need to do again, and so I’ve spent my time rubbing down woodwork, filling holes and all of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes of painting. Between that, and a nice long walk today, I’ve not had much time to ponder on what to write here (no change there then…).
From today’s walk at Poleston Lacey. Now I think of it, it does look like someone trying to do the cutting in round the ceiling.
And then it occurred (Christ, am I some idiot version of Carrie Bradshaw?) to me that is the act of writing similar, that there’s lots of prep work going on in the subconscious or more blatantly in the act of research, etc before getting the pen to paper? Line breaks as cutting in…
And then I realised that this is an awful idea. And so I’ve stopped doing that. It really would be utter gibberish (more so than this).
Although, I would now like to read some poems about the act of decorating? Has there been/are there any painter and decorator poets?* If you can think of any I’d like to hear about them.
There was a guy called Freddie The Fox who drank in a pub I worked in in my ear 20s. He never showed me any poems…or even mentioned poetry at all to be fair, but he did have a quiff, so y’know…
* I will accept plasterers too. That’s plasterer poets, not plastered poets…There are plenty of those.
THE WEEK IN STATS
25 press ups and 12-15 sit ups a day so far
20.5k running – The 0.5 is very important. Better than last week.
3 poems finished – Post-Surgery Club and the two new things called ‘Ingratitude’ and ‘Wetsuit’.
0 poems accepted, 0 poems rejected. It’s a delicate balance
3submissions – To Poetry Wales, Atrium and an anthology publisher called Acid Bath Publishing.
1 x feedback to a friend on their poem. I love watching a draft of someone else’s work come together. Seeing what they take on board, what’s ignored and why… That’s a post at some point…*Take a note, Riches – you said you’d do this last week*
0 reviews written or subbed. I’m working on a new one though
1 days without cigarettes…and then…Fits and starts, yeah!!
1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green
TITLE GIVEAWAY
Worn Regards Another Day, Another Dolour Are Ornaments Useful? An Unsolvable Thought Meets An Unaskable Question Placing An Ouborous Around An Omphalos
READ/SEEN/HEARD/ETC
Music Ruth Copeland – I Am What I Am James Blackshaw & Lubomyr Melnyk – The Watchers Bobby Hutcherson -Color Schemes Courtney Marie Andrews – Old Flowers John Cale & Terry Riley – Church Of Anthrax VA – Next Stop..Soweto Vol.2: Soultown R&B, Funk and Psych Sounds from the Townships 1969-1976 The Band of Holy Joy – Neon Primitives The Jayhawks – Rainy Day Music Inventions – Continuous Portrait Suzanne Vega – ST
Cowboy Junkies The Caution Horses – After reading Charlotte Gann’s post and it triggered a memory of Thirty (not 39) Summers Lay It Down Miles From Our Home Remnin Park Sing In My Meadow The Wilderness Nomad Series #5: Extras One Soul Now Open Open Road
Laura Veirs – My Echo VA – Psych Funk Sa-Re-Ga! Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher Throwing Muses – Red Heaven Warren Zevon – Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School Harkin – ST Pearl Jam – Gigaton Caspian – On Circles INXS – Shabooh Shoobah
Hangouts/Video Calls/Zoom/Etc (not for work) What We Read Now: Alan Buckley/Rishi Dastidar/Claire Cox – Hosted by Jennifer Wong Greg Dulli Livestream Gig
TV/Film Cardinal S1 E3-5 FA Cup Final
Radio/Podcasts The Archers x 2
Arrived Pretty sure nothing has arrived this week
Ordered Sam Gardiner – The Night Ships Decorators Caulk Sandpaper Poetry Wales Subscription
We went for a walk earlier as a family, round Downe, following in the footsteps of old Charlie Darwin and it was glorious.
Resident idiotCan I resist a They Might Be Giants reference later?
I say all of this and post these photos not because I have run out of things to write here…oh no, but because while walking round earlier a couple of things happened.
1. I had an idea for a poem. I suspect it will turn into nothing, but having listened to our Laureate interview Chris Packham earlier about nature poetry (and punk rock) in the week I was half-attuned to the idea of writing a nature poem.
I reckon this subject for a post on its own, but for someone of countryside stock nature is not something I write much that about. I don’t know why. To be fair, punk rock doesn’t feature either, but we are concentrating on Nature poems (albeit briefly).
2. The other thing I noticed was that I had the time to notice this. (This was actually a line in an old poem – “You notice you have the time to notice this” – I can’t remember where the line breaks went or what the poem was called, but I may have to dig it out of the rejects folder).
The point is that this week has been the first week since the start of lockdown when I’ve been able to take a foot off the gas. Work has been quieter as a few projects are off and doing their thing for a bit before I need to tune back into them and thanks to a sore left knee I’ve not been running so much. This, and the fact I have massively reduced the to be reviewed list means that I’ve had the chance to do some of my own writing for the first time in about a month and a half. I know it’s not important in any scheme of things (whatever scale of grandness you choose to use), but it does feel good to be back at it.
And the drafts have happened. Some of this is more fully-fledged ideas gathering pace as they get closer to finished, but shockingly, there are two whole new poems being worked on this week. Both are ideas that have percolated for a while (a year or more), but given the paucity of work recently this is a flood. If I add that to the notes I’ve rescued from my email drafts and notes apps then I am a happy man. I like it. It’s almost productive.
Although, not as productive as my daughter. Two days ago she started mapping out her first novel in a series. It seems to have a vampire and witch theme—oddly, she’s been watching a lot of vampire and witch-based stuff on TV, but who cares about the theme; I’m just waiting to be able to retire off the back of the proceeds.
THE WEEK IN STATS
1 friend announcing she’s having a baby. Go on Beth and Matt!! Oh they grow up so fast
25 days of 25 press ups a day challenge completed. (and kept going)
3k running – Very poor, short run on Tuesday and felt my left knee afterwards. . I had loads of plans to do a long run this weekend too, but I’ve enjoyed not running…Still miss it though. Back to it next week. Knee-willing
3 poems worked on – Post-Surgery Club (drafts 8-11) and two new things called ‘Ingratitude’ and ‘Wetsuit’. We’ll see.
0 poems accepted, 0 poems rejected. It’s a delicate balance
1submission – To The North. We’ll see.
2 x feedback to a friend on their poem. I love watching a draft of someone else’s work come together. Seeing what they take on board, what’s ignored and why… That’s a post at some point…*Take a note, Riches*
2 reviews. Two written and subbed.
1 review published. I was very pleased to be the first to review Suna Afshan’s ‘Belladonna’ for London Grip
3 Bottles of Chilli Sauce arrived from out of nowhere.
1 days without cigarettes…and then…Fits and starts, yeah!!
1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green
TITLE GIVEAWAY
Gone To Seed In A Beautiful Pea Green Boat Chap Hop is Shite I Haven’t Got Time For Latency
READ/SEEN/HEARD/ETC
Music Social Distancing Distortion Playlist – Matt Berninger Laura Veirs – The Lookout Veruca Salt – American Thighs Karl Marx – Stasi Acid The Lilac Time – No Sad Songs Seals & Crofts – I and II Laraaji – Sun Piano
Stornoway The Farewell Show Live At New Theatre, Oxford Bonnie Bonnie Unplugged Tales from Terra Firma You Don’t Know Anything Beachcomber’s Windowsill
PJ Harvey – Dry Poltergeist – Your Mind Is A Box (Let us Fill It With Wonder) VA – Turds on a Bum Ride Vol1&2 Taylor Swift – folklore VA – Documentary Sequences Vol.1 Major Lance – Major Lance’s Greatest Hits Recorded Live At The Torch The National – High Violet
Rilo Kiley Take Offs And Landings Under The Blacklight ST
Jenny Lewis On The Line The Voyager
The Four Seasons – The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette
The Beths Jump Rope Gazers Future Me Hates Me
Laura Veirs – Carbon Glacier Margo Guryan – Take A Picture
Hangouts/Video Calls/Zoom/Etc (not for work) 0
TV/Film Mrs America E1-2 I May Destroy You E1
Radio/Podcasts TMS – Monday The Poet Laureate Has Gone To His Shed – Simon Armitage
Arrived Alice Oswald – Nobody Matthew Francis – Mandeville 3 x Chillis Sauces (produced, of all things, by the drummer from Snow Patrol). Sent to me by my mate Paul Grey.
Ordered Black Cab Coffee Matthew Francis – Mandeville
Read Connie Bensley – Finding a Leg to Stand On: New and Selected Poems (Must remember who recommended this)
As I say down to write this I was actually attempting to make some sort of connection between a whisky priest and what’s about to follow, but I couldn’t manage it. I can manage the signs of moral weakness standing on my head (and that’s often the problem, ho, ho, ho, etc), but the second part is usually more of an issue.
NB: If you’re not sure, a “Whisky Priest is “A priest or ordained minister who shows clear signs of moral weakness, while at the same time teaching a higher standard.”
Luckily, the heading now reads more like something Eddie Izzard would call one of his tours. *Makes note to call Eddie Izzard*. ** Makes other note to find out how to call Eddie Izzard**
Anyhoo, it sort of makes sense as what follows is a wonderful bit of whimsy…
I’ve often mentioned how I love a coincidence. And this week I’ve seen a few that have made me happy and are largely poetry related. You may recall a few weeks ago that I was extolling the virtues of Julie Mellor‘s poetry and that she very kindly sent me a copy of her first pamphlet, Breathing Through Her Bones—well, this week I finally managed to find time to start reading it. I fell in love with it instantly. I suspect I will be buying and reading Julie’s work for a long time. I hope to be buying and reading a full collection from her in due course.
As with her other pamphlet, I loved this one from the get go, but my eyes properly alighted on this poem.
Julie Mellor, Whisk – for Breathing Through Our Bones
There are so many things to love about this poem, a vague sense of threat from the Ford Zephyr, the moonscape of the batter mix—I wish I could nick that for the Title Giveaway— and the ‘bucket seats/ waiting to swallow us whole’. I love it (and every other poem in the book.
What really set it off though, and this entirely unrelated was something Florence said yesterday.
My work here is done. My child has realised she can use a whisk with either hand and has described herself as Ambiwhiskuous.
Entirely unprompted, Flo walked through and told me this pun that she’d just made up. I am ridiculously proud.
Then, today in another turn of twitter and poetry connections. My dear friend Mark Antony Owen (he of Iamb fame) tweeted
Two new poem ideas rattling round my head this morning – one titled 'Nuptial flight', about the myth of so-called 'flying ant day', the other a piece of nostalgia that riffs on hearing the Popeye theme tune music as the local ice cream seller cruises the housing estates.
Things That Happen – Hugh Underhill, from The Human Heart
I knew this poem as I’ve been reading it a lot this week because I’ve been reviewing the book that it comes from – The Human Heart by Hugh Underhill. I sent the review off a couple of days ago, and, this morning, when I sent the poem to Mark I didn’t know it was due to be published today.
However, it has been and I am very pleased about that.
You can read the review here. Please do, and all of the others.
I may have to have a good think about writing reviews for a while—once I’ve cleared my backlog (…Three. More. To. Go….) as it’s taking its toll on my own work, but I certainly don’t want to give it up.
THE WEEK IN STATS
25k running – Some hill repeats, some fast 5ks and an aborted 8k today when my mate’s calf went ping.
1 poem worked on – sort of..I drafted a few lines of one I’ve been working on for a while. Not sure if they will make the grade.
0 poems accepted, 0 poems rejected. It’s a delicate balance
2 x feedback to a friend on their poem. I love watching a draft of someone else’s work come together. Seeing what they take on board, what’s ignored and why… That’s a post at some point…*Take a note, Riches*
1.75 reviews. One written and subbed and one nearly done. It was this post or that. I know, I know….finish the review.
5 days without cigarettes…and then…Fits and starts, yeah!!
1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green
Music The People’s Choir of Operation Push – ST El Ten Eleven – Tautology II Margo Price – That’s How Rumors get Started Kestrels Dream or Don’t Dream Mr Ben and the Bens – Life Drawing Green On Red – Gravity Talks The Cure – ST Thao & The Get Down Stay Down – Temple Mary Lorson & Saint Low – Tricks For Dawn
Lift To Experience Black Sessions Peel Sessions The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads
Like Honey – Leaves Loamlands – Sweet High Rise Lomond Campbell – Black River Promise
The Jayhawks Back Roads and Abandoned Motels Blue Earth Hollywood Town Hall
Jellyfish – Spilt Milk The Jesus Lizard – Liar The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced?
Jóhan Jóhannsson Dis The Theory of Everything OST Virulegu Forsetar Fordlandia
John Coltrane – Blue Train Julian Cope – Jehovahkill Kingmaker – Eat Yourself Whole Kosmische Läufer = The Secret Cosmic Music of the East german Olympic Programme Larry Coryell – Coryell Laura Veirs – July Flame The Dells – There Is Laraaji – Sun Piano My mate Simon’s The Fall Playlist Kathleen Edwards – Voyageur Kate Pierson – Guitars And Microphones B52s – Cosmic Thing
Read Julie Mellor – Breathing Through Our Bones Hugh Underhill – The Human Heart Suna Afshan – Belladonna Terence Hayes – American Sonnets for my Past and Future Assassin These two excellent interviews with Rishi – One & Two
Electrafixion – Zephyr…The great in-between Bunnymen band… Saw this lot at Sheffield Leadmill in 1994 with my then girlfriend, Jenny Frew.
First things first, I don’t normally like blowing my own trumpet, but I am exceptionally proud of last week’s post. I felt I really got at the heart of what I wanted to say on the subject. I’m not sure this week will be able to emulate or build on that so I’m not going to try.
It’s been a strange old week, for work we’ve been running an on-going community, asking folks about their experience of lockdown and one thing we’ve started noticing of late is a general malaise, a feeling of being utterly rudderless (leaderless??) and that whatever the “lockdown experience” is/was people are now utterly over it. I think I can relate to that.
In amongst the malaise of the week there were, at least, two highlights.
1. Two poems of mine were published at the ever-excellent Wild Court. I am very, very happy that these poems are out there…they are newer ones to me (this means written in the last year) and I’m very proud of how they’ve turned out. There is another Dad poem in there, but that’s no bad thing. And my friend Simon* is present in both poems.
It has prompted me to think about author photos. I was happy (and a bit pissed in this photo), and it felt like the right one to use, but will it now follow me round for years? Do I need to care? Probably not.
I really must work on what I’m going to use as an author photo
It was also wonderful that my work was next to that of Naush Saber (of the excellent Birmingham Poetry Journal fame) and my fellow Iambpoet alumni, Scott Elder. Their work is excellent, please have a read of them first…and everything else on Wild Court. My thanks to Rob Selby for accepting them—both my poems and every other one on the site.
A lovely bit of serendipity is that Naush’s Broken Sleep/Legitimate Snack pamphlets arrived this week. Heredity/Astonyme are both beautifully presented in a lovely box. I’ve not got to read them yet, but if they are anything like the poems on Wild Court then I’m in for a treat, and so are you if you can get hold of one when the next batch goes on sale.
*Another nice bit of fortuitousness or serendipity, I’ve seen him this weekend whilst back in Norfolk.
2. A few reviews of mine were published For Sphinx Joe Williams’ This Is Virus CD Boyland’s User Stories
The pile of reviews is growing as well, which is both nice and frightening.
3. A trip back to Norfolk to see my mum and a dear friend who is very ill. It also coincided with my friend John’s 82nd birthday. So there was joy and sadness at the same time.
THE WEEK IN STATS
41k running – That’s the last two weeks worth. Some hill repeats, some fast 5ks and a lovely run round my home village yesterday.
1 poem worked on – needs a title and some more work…A couple of ideas noted down too, but not sure if they will turn into much. All this reviewing and work stuff is properly putting a cramp in my writing…
260 miles driven this weekend
1 walk with my mum and some friends at Oxnead…many cows present
1.5 pints in the Skeyton Goat. Wasn’t planning on going to the pub, but it was very pleasant.
1 day without cigarettes. Fits and starts, yeah!!
1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green
TITLE GIVEAWAY
He-Man and Action Man’s pants Paradise By the Gasboard Light As the Sun announces it’s over the Yard Arm by joining Tinder The Three Hour Yes I Haven’t Got Time For Latency
READ, SEEN, HEARD, ETC
Music Greg Dulli – Random Desires Gabor Szabo – Spellbinder Big Thief – Two hands Yorkston/Thorne/Khan – Navarasa: Nine Emotions Davy Graham – The Holly Kaleidoscope The Tavares – Hard Core Poetry Elvium -Piano Works VA – The Rough Guide to Psychedelic Cambodia Mono – The Last Dawn
My Morning Jacket Circuital Does Xmas Fiasco Style Evil Urges It Still Moves (Deluxe Version) Z Red Rocks 03.08.12 Red Rocks 04.08.12 14/08/2015, Morrison, CO
Beth Orton Sugaring Season Central Reservation
Led Zeppelin – III The Early Years – ST Alèmayèhu Eshète – Ethiopiques 22 Aerosmith – ST Boygenius – Demos Ryley Walker – covers VA – Éthioiques 5 – Tigrigna Music Sad Eagle – Banging The Drum To Catch The Criminal C Duncan – Architect
Can Landed The Lost Tapes
VA – Lullaby For The moon – Japanese Music for Koto & Shakuhachi Nancy Elizabeth _ Dancing Natalie Evans – Better At Night Ned’s Atomic Dustbin – God Fodder The Needy Sons – Vis-A-Vis
Nina Simone Emergency Ward Little Girl Blue
Nolan Porter – Nolan Norman Greenbaum – Back Home Again My Morning Jacket – The Waterfall II Sofia Portanet – Freier Geist My mate Jon’s 1992 Moodboard Playlist
The Afghan Whigs 1965 Live At Koko
The Archers…It’s weird and I don’t like it
Hangouts/Video Calls/Zoom/Etc (not for work) None
TV/Film Spooks S9 E8-10, S10 1-6 Penny Dreadful (The new one) E3-8
Arrived Naush Sabah – Heredity/Astonyme Richie McCaffery – First Hare Orbis #92 James McGonigal – In Good Time A laptop stand from work
Read Sue Rose – Scion Terence Hayes – American Sonnets for my Past and Future Assassin
I was lucky enough to be invited to review this album, so in a change to the regular levels of rambling…
LYR are, so we are led to believe, called Land Yacht Regatta by their mum when they are in trouble.
However, as Armitage has it in the band’s biog, “There shouldn’t really be a land yacht regatta! But I liked the idea of something that’s a hybrid. It’s like a 3-way contradiction. We were doing something that’s unusual and perhaps even impossible.” The same biog also states they are “a genre-splicing supergroup of sorts, comprised of author and current British poet laureate Simon Armitage, musician Richard Walters and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Pearson”
And it’s this phrase “genre-splicing supergroup of sorts” that stands out. I wondered when I first heard about this album in February—how long ago does that feel now?— whether an album of poetry read out over “ambient post-rock passages, jazz flourishes, atonal experimentalism, as well as swoony strings and piano — and some more unusual instrument choices too, such as the kora” would truly gel, or knit into something greater than the sum of its parts.
(As an aside, I’m sure there were rumblings in 2019 on a Soundcloud page, but that’s now bare – https://soundcloud.com/lyrbanduk)
There’s a worrying moment at the start of this album, where the band’s lead vocalist—we can’t say singer, although there is a singer present, Simon Armitage intones the following words over what sounds like a Rhodes piano.
‘Gone your own way now, nothing to say now…’ and as he said these word, I had a horrifying vision of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Armitage and his fellow band mates in LYR all stripped to the waist, covered in gold paint somewhere on the moors near Armitage’s beloved Marsden.
Thankfully, he follows it with the half or slant-rhyme of ‘Still mouthing your name though’. That ’though’ does a lot of heavy-lifting there and I was immensely happy to hear it. And, even more thankfully, the music is light year away from that mob.
The music description above is both bang on and also not quite enough.There are moments, for example where it can invoke the sort of post rock made by the likes of Inventions or This Will Destroy You. There are moments when all I could think was the theme tune to The Bridge by Choir of Young Believers. There were others where it could easily be Public Service Broadcasting’s fourth album – the words of a poet drawn from the BBC archives instead of recordings from the NASA archives, or Welsh Miners or BBC broadcasters/Auden reading Night Mail.
There are moments when the sort of classical/dance hybrid similar to the sort of musicÓlafur Arnalds makes with Kiasmos, or Erland Cooper’swork is all that springs to mind, for example in Urban Myth #91 (although for some reason I also got a sense of a sort of Glitter Band beat there too as it gathers pace.
However, there are also moments where the likes of The Penguin Cafe Orchestra or Michael Nyman spring to mind, the most obvious of these is the track Product Testing. It initially feels like a throwaway track, or like someone has pressed the demo function on a keyboard as Armitage intones “On/Off”, but it quickly turns into a twitchy dance number, or something like what I imagine the inside of David Byrne’s brain to sound like. At the end of the song we hear Armitage say “Yeah, seems to work” and he’s right. It does.
“The origins of LYR stretch back to 2009 when Walters, a big fan of Armitage’s work, approached the poet’s publisher about the possibility of collaboration. Walters wound up setting Armitage’s poetry to music in his 2011 solo song ‘Redwoods’.
“Simon and I talked about the next step”, recalls Walters. “Instead of just taking words and me singing them, we had the idea of a spoken word project that had a bit more of a life around it in terms of the musical setting”. Walters thought of Pearson, who he had met in the early 2010’s, as part of a short-lived, shoegaze inspired band called Liu Bei. Pearson loved the idea, and LYR were born.”
It’s testament to the skill and musicality of both Walters and Pearson that the music never interrupts the words, but is never just wallpaper or mood lighting. These are not backing tracks or soundbeds, they are not foley artists putting real noises under the lines of the actors. These are songs that could quite easily function as standalone pieces. The question is then, does or could Armitage’s contribution add anything to this three-legged stool?
The band themselves suggest ‘It’s not poetry with music underneath,’” says Pearson of the project. “We’d always talked about it as being a focused band project.” Walters agrees: “It’s definitely a universe, the record,” he says. “There’s so many people on it.” Armitage, with characteristic dry wit, is quick to respond, and jokes: “We might make a Broadway musical!”
It’s interesting that the main vocal line of the final song on the album, Leaves On The Line (we’ll discuss this later) is handed to Waters – does this suggest that Armitage could fade back to writing the words for future albums, or is it just that Waters sounded better on this one? Who knows?
I wanted to talk about the music first in this review, because it could so easily be the Armitage show.
“A lot of the lyrics have come about from writing in a time of post-industrialisation, austerity, and the recession,” explains Armitage. “And yet, even through those years and those atmospheres, there’s still been an exuberance around, an exuberance of communication, information, language. I think a lot of the speakers in the pieces are expressing some kind of marginalisation and are doing so as if they’re almost hyperventilating.”
That marginalisation reaches a sort of zenith, if that’s the right word, at the end of Adam’s Apple after a sequence of three songs that end with Waters singing/repeating “It’s all too much for you” in ‘ the exquisite You Were Never Good With Horses, “move on, move on” in Urban Myth #91 and then “let go, let go” at the end of Adam’s Apple.
Each song is written form the point of view of different characters, Never Good With Horses, for example written from the point of view of some dissatisfied with their partner’s discomfort with the natural world. The partner “comfortable with a steering wheel” and “watching the movie of life layout through the windscreen’s lens”— a nod to Iggy Pop’s The Passenger, perhaps, but they “were never good with horses…my dear, always took a step backwards when they came near. Couldn’t bear to look in the dark rock pools of their eyes”. That last line is when you know you’ve got a poet running the lyrical show.
Having mentioned Iggyy Pop here, there’s a further connection in the form of the excellent 33 1/3 with its lyric which that starts out making you think it’s a hymn to vinyl with references to “captured orbit around the spindle”, but by the second go around we’re talking about “The rope that he swung from/ […] A whirlpooling swansong.” Every repetition of the title towards the end of the song adding more and more weight.
Armitage’s demo of 33 ⅓ was set to a haunting whirr which came from the run-out groove of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures vinyl. “Ian Curtis is definitely invoked on that track,” says Armitage, of the band’s frontman who committed suicide in 1980. Curtis was found hanging with a record player’s needle stuck on the final moments of Iggy Pop’s ‘The Idiot’.
While the majority of these lyrics were written specifically for the album, Armitage has also reached back into his catalogue of poems to bring a couple to life. Specifically, Zodiac T-Shirt, which he states in the notes to a recent collection of, to use a musical sort of reference’ b-sides and songs that didn’t find a home. I sort of think if it as discs two and three in the boxset version of his more recent full collection, The Unaccompanied. And now I write that there’s a sort of irony to that.
So while he never expected it to be sung by him, we still have him intoning the poem. It’s close enough for me. Don’t forget we know he can sing after The Scaremongers, and even heard him attempt beatboxing in a recent episode of his BBC podcast, The Poet Laureate Retires Too His Shed.
The Wedding Present’s very own David Gedge describes the process
“I’d been aware of Simon’s work for a long time – hearing him on the radio and stuff – but I don’t think I actually met him until he interviewed me for his book ‘Gig : The Life And Times Of A Rock-Star Fantasist’ which came out in 2008. He interviewed me in the dressing room of the Picturedrome venue in Holmfirth, which is near where he lives, and we’ve kept in touch ever since. He’s a lovely bloke.
When we were writing ‘England’ I decided that I wanted some form of narration on there but it was actually Jessica who suggested Simon. I asked him if he’d be interested and, by an amazing coincidence, he told me about his poem ‘The English’ which fits perfectly! It’s brilliant when things fall into place like that…
The other moments from his back catalogue comes in the form of the aforementioned Leaves on the Line and The National Trust Range of Paints Colour Card. As I was reading the track listing, I remember thinking ‘Crikey, The National Trust….is almost the most Simon Armitage title of all time. The I remembered that it is a Simon Armitage poem title, and that both poems are found in his pamphlet, Travelling Songs.
On the back of that he says “Describing yourself as a poet is often seen as a challenge or even an alibi. In those circumstances, it’s worth having a few tunes up for sleeve to prove it” . While he was clearly referring to his poems, it feels like he’s finally got the second album’s worth up there 18 years after Traveling Songs was published.
Call In The Crash Team is available at all good retailers – on and offline – Let’s support our record shops if we can.
Also available at your standard issue streaming services.
Please also note there is an additional single Called Lockdown that sets Simon’s poem to new music, and features Florence Pugh and Melt Yourself Down. Might I suggest you buy it as the proceeds will go towards supporting Refuge
Final thought. It’s only at the end of writing this that I realise LYR is also the first three letter of Lyrics and Lyre. Ooh, maybe for the next album the band can get other folks to join – like Crosby, Stills and Nash did with that Canadian bloke…
UPDATED TO INCLUDE THE USUAL WEEKNOTES
Two titles to giveaway 1. Set Phrases To Stun 2. Link in Bio
Music Teenage Fanclub – It felt like the kind of week to just play sunshine Ain’t That Enough Bandwagonesque A Catholic Education The Concept DGC rarities Did I Say? Dumb Dumb Dumb Grand Prix Here Howdy I Don’t Want Control Of You I Need Direction It’s All In My Mind Judgement Night The King Man-Made Mellow Doubt Neil Jung Norman 3 Songs From Northern Britain Sparky’s Dream Thirteen
TFC & Jad Fair Near To You Words of Hope & Wisdom
The Temptations Cloud Nine Compact Command Performances
Tess Parks – blood Hot Thao Nguyen – We Brave Bee Stings And All This is the Kit – Bashed Out This Will Destroy You – Young Mountain Throneberry – Sangria The Apples In Stereo – Just the song 7 Stars on a loop ten times Bert Jansch – Avocet Caspian – Live At Church Charles Mingus – Presents Charles Mingus LYR – Call In The Crash Team Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher Grandbrothers – Dilation Mogwai – Ten Rapid (after being reminded of this clip from Friday Night Lights) Mojave 3 – Puzzles Like You Mount Kimbie – Cold Spring Fault Less Youth Mountain Man – Made The Harbour Throttle Elevator Music – Emergency Exit Jenny Beth – To Love Is To live Richard Walters – Golden Veins Snowgoose – The Making of You Caribou – Suddenly The National – Trouble Will Find Me My Morning Jacket – At Dawn
Hangouts/Video Calls/Zoom/Etc (not for work) In Conversations – Nell Nelson & Alan Buckley
First things first, I’ve touched upon my time at Bertrams here, so I won’t go into that now, but I was very sad to read about Bertram Books entering administration. That will be a significant blow to the folks that worked there and the fine city of Norwich.
Now, as mentioned before I love a connection that occurs during the week that then gives me something to gibber on about here. Imagine my joy when I managed to make such a connection early on in the week (rather than the more frequent sitting down with no idea what will come out).
Here goes…
Last summer I started working on a family tree for my mum’s birthday…I was using a popular online service, and found it quite useful for what I was trying to do. I was mainly trying to track the lines of the maternal side of my family – discovering a relation who I think was a travelling performer of some kind in the 1800s. (Please note I’ve not verified this yet), and this was on top of discovering a more recent relation was in the Norwich order of druids. Have I mentioned that before? I’m certain I would have given the words NORWICH and DRUIDS are in the same sentence. #DAPIT* And, of course, I’m contractually obliged to mention I’m a Freeman of Norwich because of my great grandfather (and because my gran used to allow women to be involved, but that’s another story)
Anyhoo, I went a bit wild on this service, using it’s suggested connections to trace my way back to c.1600s in some cases. Then this week I had an email from another user of this service who suggested I’d made a mistake connecting one person to someone else, and it got me thinking
1. What the bloody hell is my password so I can go in a reply to them? 2. Why didn’t I finish doing this project? 3. Why haven’t I gone on to explore the paternal side as much yet? (NB this is linked to point 2 and probably point 1)
The last ten days have also seen the anniversary of my dad’s death (12 years now, crikey), my mum’s birthday and then what would have been dad’s birthday too. Lockdown has meant we couldn’t go to see mum and also that I’ve largely been too buy with work to think about the dad stuff too much (but it’s also Father’s Day today, so I guess it’s all been playing on my mind somewhere).
I’ve been reading Nature Near London by Richard Jefferies for the last few weeks – It’s one that’s been sat on the TBR pile for quite a while, and it’s something of a departure for me in terms of subject, etc…(This is a good intro to the book). It’s full of beautiful descriptions of the flora and fauna, etc that used too be found in this neck of the woods. Some of the references really hit home how much London has changed since he wrote this. One essay makes reference to Jew’s Walk in Crystal Palace/Sydenham – a road that is now very much surrounded by the trappings of urban life, but in here is effectively the outskirts of London.
I digress, I finally finished the book this week, and despite Jefferies getting a bit jingoistic about English trees towards the end, I really enjoyed the book. Particularly a the chapter called ‘The Southdown Shepherd’, I’ve included some of it below. Initially, I was thinking of it as some sort of Ars Poetica or using it as a jumping off point for wanging on about the act of writing (Don’t worry, I won’t do that). Have a read of this and I’ll meet you on the other side as I start to get near to whatever conclusion it is I am heading towards.
The ploughs are at work, travelling slowly at the ox’s pace up and down the hillside. The South Down plough could scarcely have been invented; it must have been put together bit by bit in the slow years–slower than the ox; it is the completed structure of long experience. It is made of many pieces, chiefly wood, fitted and shaped and worked, as it were, together, well seasoned first, built up, like a ship, by cunning of hand.
None of these were struck out–a hundred a minute–by irresistible machinery ponderously impressing its will on iron as a seal on wax–a hundred a minute, and all exactly alike. These separate pieces which compose the plough were cut, chosen, and shaped in the wheelwright’s workshop, chosen by the eye, guided in its turn by long knowledge of wood, and shaped by the living though hardened hand of man. So complicated a structure could no more have been struck out on paper in a deliberate and single plan than those separate pieces could have been produced by a single blow.
There are no machine lines–no lines filed out in iron or cut by the lathe to the draughtsman’s design, drawn with straight-edge and ruler on paper. The thing has been put together bit by bit: how many thousand, thousand clods must have been turned in the furrows before the idea arose, and the curve to be given to this or that part grew upon the mind as the branch grows on the tree! There is not a sharp edge or sharp corner in it; it is all bevelled and smoothed and fluted as if it had been patiently carved with a knife, so that, touch it where you will, it handles pleasantly.
In these curved lines and smoothness, in this perfect adaptability of means to end, there is the spirit of art showing itself, not with colour or crayon, but working in tangible material substance. The makers of this plough–not the designer–the various makers, who gradually put it together, had many things to consider. The fields where it had to work were, for the most part, on a slope, often thickly strewn with stones which jar and fracture iron.
The soil was thin, scarce enough on the upper part to turn a furrow, deepening to nine inches or so at the bottom. So quickly does the rain sink in, and so quickly does it dry, that the teams work in almost every weather, while those in the vale are enforced to idleness. Drain furrows were not needed, nor was it desirable that the ground should be thrown up in “lands,” rising in the centre. Oxen were the draught animals, patient enough, but certainly not nimble. The share had to be set for various depths of soil.
All these are met by the wheel plough, and in addition it fulfils the indefinite and indefinable condition of handiness. A machine may be apparently perfect, a boat may seem on paper, and examined on principles, the precise build, and yet when the one is set to work and the other floated they may fail. But the wheel plough, having grown up, as it were, out of the soil, fulfils the condition of handiness.
Richard Jeffries, Nature Near London. Worth reading the start of this chapter (or the whole book) for some excellent ideas about ho to use guns.
The other book I’ve been reading this week has been Rob Selby’s ‘The Coming Down Time‘. The book isn’t due out until the 26th of June, but for some reason Blackwell’s had decided to send out my pre-order a few weeks ago (Begs an interesting question about the nature of release dates in this modern age. one for another time though. We have a way to go yet). I haven’t finished reading ti yet, so this is not a review, but what stood out were the poems at the start about Rob’s grandfather and a few references to ploughs, for example in ‘Elysium’ with its reference to
‘the shallow -crowned kettle or Brodie helmets
still ploughed up in Flanders, Northern France’
Or, in ‘Hellfire Corner’ we meet the ‘German POWs at their ploughs’. There’s lots more to say about Rob’s book, and a proper review should come out at some point. I need to finish it first, but there’s lots to enjoy in these pages. If you order now you might get it before it’s out and about officially, so do it. Do it now.
Rob’s poems set me off thinking about my own paternal grandfather, Alfred. While he didn’t serve during the second war, he did end up working after war (and during, I think) as part of the war effort. He drove a digger (a big plough, if ever there was one) for a company called Heyhoes. (Please note a I can’t find much about them online, but a search for heyhoes does tell me that Norfolk had the highest concentration of this family name in the 1890s, this is according to the popular online genealogy site I refer to earlier).
Alfred died almost 20 years ago now, and my memories of him when I was young are quite sketchy (NB My memories of everything when I was young are quite sketchy, so this is not a reflection on him). I do recall that as part of his digging he was always uncovering old bottles – medicine bottles, beer bottles and the like. He’d bring them home for my grand and then later for my mum. I know seem to have them.
The line our hallway and a repotted about in our kitchen as well. I don’t tend to notice them so much anymore, but I looked about earlier in the week when all this was percolating in my mind.
For some reason I’ve just remembered I need to read the Matthew Caley book my friend sent me recently…
I have no grand sweeping conclusion to make, no staggering revelation to offer, than much like the ‘Brodie helmets’ mentioned by Rob all of these events have been ploughed up this week and all of these quite random connections have been joined together by Rob’s poems. That’s the act of something quite special, so I’ll tell you to buy his book again.
Last week, I detailed the various distractions that happened while writing that post. You’ll be pleased to know that no cat litter trays were harmed in the writing of this post. The only real distractions this week have been washing/pumicing off ink from a fountain pen…TWICE…and scratching at a particularly irksome ant bite on my ankle. I want you to know I suffer for these posts.
In one final act of joining things up, I had an amusing conversation on Friday with my friend Simon. We had a socially distanced beer together in my garden and the conversation turned to working at home. We discussed how our respective partners are discovering our “work personas” and how they differ from our “home personas”. It was a daft aside (although I suspect it carries a grain of truth). So, imagine my surprise when I saw this post from Mr Stewart today all about poetic personas.
That’s enough.
* – Definitely A Poem In That. I wonder if I can make this acronym a thing. Help me.
Oh yes, I may break my promise and mention our Laureate again next week.
THE WEEK IN STATS
23 k running – Less than last week, but there were some quiet painful hill repeats yesterday. technically I should be finished my ultra-marathon today, but as that’s postponed I’m just knackered from a long week
0 poem worked on – Nope, nothing, diddly. Too busy. The world will, I suspect, continue to turn
Ok, 1 small note for an old poem
A bazillion Hangouts for work, as per
1 email that left me physically shaking with rage. All I will say is “Fuck off” to some called Linda
1 email that I think contravenes GDPR, or the very last should really have been BCC ( I didn’t send it) but it has led to a review I need to write
2 reviews written and sent off. 3 to go.
1 day without cigarettes. Fits and starts, yeah!!
1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green
TITLE GIVEAWAY
Good Volley Miss Molly
Loose Lips, Succinct Ships
READ, SEEN, HEARD, ETC
Music Agnes Obel – Myopia (instrumentals) The Lollipop Shoppe – Just Colour Grandbrothers – Open American Music Club – Love Songs For Patriots
Explosions in the sky Prince Avalanche The Rescue Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
Gia Margaret – Mia Gargaret Grandbrothers – Dilation Tim Burgess – As I was Now
Pearl Jam Gigaton No Code Pearl Jam
Peaking Lights – Cosmic Logic Faith No More – Angel Dust The Flowers of Hell – ST The Innocence Mission – See You Tomorrow It’s Jo & Danny – But We Got The Music Jeff Klein – The Hustler LYR – Call In The Crash Team The National – Boxer Buffalo Tom – Big Red Letter Day Pixies – Bossanova The Wedding Present – Bizarro Wilco – Kicking Television The Cure – Wild Mood Swings Bessie Jones – Get In Union Laura Cannell – The Earth With Her Crowns No Age – Goons Be Gone Hinds – The Prettiest Curse
The Archers…It’s weird and I don’t like it
Hangouts/Video Calls/Zoom/Etc (not for work) None
TV/Film Spook S8 E1-5 Bournemouth Vs Crystal Palace
Arrived Joe Williams – This is Virus Sue Rose – Scion Hugh Underhill – The Human Heart #1-3 Poetry Birmingham Peter Kahn – Little Kings
Ordered/Bought Notebooks for work from Muji Plastic sleeves
Read Richard Jefferies – Nature Near London CD Boyland – User Stories Rob Selby – The Coming Down Time Matthew’s excellent review of Rory Waterman’s work at Wild Court
I heard a strange noise coming out of my daughter’s bedroom earlier, and the oddest thing was that it was a noise I know well. In fact, it was a noise I am more familiar with than her. I say this, not as an expression of superiority over her, but because it was a song I have known for 20-plus years and she has known for at best 20 days.
The song was ‘Wishlist’ by Pearl Jam.
Wishlist
I first heard this song when Pearl Jam put out Yield, their fifth album, in 1996. This is a full tweet years before she was born, so I am claiming this as a win for me on the grounds of historical precedence, even though it’s not a competition. NB I’m labouring this point to the point of exhaustion because I want to be very clear that I really don’t care what she listens to. It is entirely up to her, and we (my wife and I) do not believe she has to listen to what we do – I know some sad folks do try and enforce their listening on their kids.
(FYI, in case you think the world of poetry blogging is glamorous, between the word ‘precedence’ and the start of the next section I have had my dinner, watched an episode of a TV programme with my family, cleaned the cat litter tray, broken the cat litter tray, ordered a new cat litter tray, bodged a temporary fix for the current cat litter tray, washed up after dinner and then had a cheeky bet with myself about how many times I can use the words cat, litter and tray in a blog post).
From the moment we brought her home from St Thomas’, and technically before than, we have always played music around Flo. I have a very happy memory of listening to music while sat on the floor waiting for her to be born. NB I’d been kicked out of the room for a moment by the midwife. I was sat in the corridor and put Explosions In The Sky on my iPod to keep me awake/chill me out. I also have a lovely memory of listening to Teenage Fanclub’s ‘Howdy‘ about two weeks after we brought her home. R was asleep, as was Flo and we were in a calm moment. The sun was shining into our flat and all seemed perfect with the world.
We tried to play her all sorts of things, and while the next few songs don’t represent the gamut of tunes, I remember things like bouncing round the living room with a one year old that loved ‘Unbearable‘ by The Wonder Stuff, or the sheer weirdness of a three-year old singing along to The Cure’s In-between Days and her singing “Yesterday I got so old, I felt like I could die”. She loved Prince’s ‘Raspberry Beret’, The Beach Boy’s ‘Barbara Ann‘ (and never fails to remind me about Dennis Wilson dying in the sea) and all sorts of other things as the years progressed.
And then, as it should be, she found her own things, discovered her own music. We managed to keep Taylor Swift as a mutual thing, although I suspect I love Tay-Tay more now. I know I like Charli XCX more than Flo now, and Charli supported Taylor when we went to Wembley, but it’s irrelevant.
I love the fact that she’s finding her own things now (NB I don’t like a lot of it as it sounds like exceptionally dull young men singing exceptionally dull songs to me, but who fucking cares what I think of what she likes – she doesn’t).
I was just pleased that she was listening to a song we’d talked about two weeks ago. She’s been telling me A LOT about Vampire Diaries. (A LOT OF A LOT, she loves the VAMPS at the mo) and one of the characters has a Camaro . During our conversation about said Camaro, I mentioned that the Pearl Jam song above refers to Camaros. It could have been Bruce Springsteen, but PJ sprang to mind. We were outside Beckenham Tescos at the time, which I suspect neither band/artist will know anything about.
I played her the song on the way home and then promptly forgot about it..until earlier today when I heard it coming from her room. I was pleased, checked my dad privilege and then got on with enjoying it as a moment. As is often the wont, that’s a poem, I thought. There’s an idea there, however shite, it’s an idea, but how to get anywhere near writing down the history of how we got to that moment (especially without referring to Beckenham Tescos) and without making it sound like I’d made her listen to it. It felt like a tall order (even once I’d navigated the internal monologue about whether it was a shit idea). And to be honest with you, I’ve got this far into this post without really knowing what my point is other than thinking that I see lots of posts about the poems we have written, the poems we didn’t write, how to write the poem we didn’t know we wanted to write (via prompts), how to edit the poem we have written (for example this great one from today by Natalie), but I can’t recall seeing one that talks about something from the moment of conception, how it got that far and whether it should then carry on.
To be fair this isn’t that post either, but it’s potentially a marker in the sand (another Pearl Jam song, as it happens) for the future. If I get beyond my internal wrangling about how to even start it and if I should start it I’ll let you know. In the mean time, I’ve linked to a few great songs on the way.
NB. Yield is arguably when their sales/initial popularity started to decline. A Separate post on this as applied to the poetry world is there to be written when I am more confident about the idea/sober.
THE WEEK IN STATS
35.2 k running – Better, better. Needed some long, faster runs this week.
0 poem worked on – Nope, nothing, diddly. Too busy. The world will, I suspect, continue to turn
A bazillion Hangouts for work – cos I was off, innit
1 potential fall out over the use of the word “Channel”
1 podcastout there – enjoyed recording this one about Poltergeist, After Hours, American Werewolf In London, getting mugged and many other things
1 day without cigarettes. Fits and starts, yeah!!
1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green
TITLE GIVEAWAY
Are
You
Still
Interested?
READ, SEEN, ETC
Music Freddie Gibbs/The Alchemist – Alfredo Engineers – ST
Embrace Drawn From Memory If You’ve Never Been
Elvis Presley – Raised On Rock Ef – Mourning Golden Morning Eef Barzelay – Bitter Honey Echo Lake – Wild Peace Dorothy Ashby – ST A House – I Am The Greatest Drive-By Truckers – Brighter Than Creation’s Dark Hop Along – Painted Shut The Hold Steady – Live In London 2019
James Iha Be Strong Now Look To The Sky
Hiss Golden Messenger Hallelujah Anyhow Haw Heart Like A Levee
The Grodeck Whipperjenny – ST Grant Lee Buffalo – Fuzzy The Great Electric – ST William Bell – Wow This Will Destroy You – Vespertine Love – Four Sail
The Cure Great British Music Weekend Anniversary Curaetion
I had to fight hard with myself not to call this The Withdrawal Method …although, actually that might be better.
I’ve just sent two emails I didn’t particularly want to send to withdraw submissions from two magazines. Good magazines—and I hope I’ve not poured petrol on and then chucked a Zippo (A lighter, not a clown) at any bridges, but these submissions went in back in November last year.
Yes, yes, I’m sure you have waited longer—so have I, and I appreciate the world is weird as all mighty fuck at present/people have different concerns, etc, but…Actually, what is the but here? I don’t really know, other than I think we should possibly expect better.
It goes without saying, but I will say it, that I realise a lot of magazines and journals are run on a less than a shoestring, by people that do this for love. I am forever grateful and I do feel churlish for grumbling about a long wait, but I don’t think it’s wrong to run out of patience.
I am very aware that the world is a different place at the moment and a lot has changed since the relevant submission windows have closed—it was in theory February in both cases, but in one case it was something like 28 weeks after the window had closed. TWENTY. EIGHT. WEEKS!!!…I’m patient, but not that patient. Especially after a polite tweet to chase and a polite email a month ago.
It goes without saying that I’m looking forward to seeing the poems (and more patient poets) that do make it in to both, and hope that I get the chance to submit again in the future.
I’ve not really had to do this before – a couple of times because I wanted to use the poems for a wider submission or something along those lines, but this is the first time because of a long wait. I’ve not really seen a guide on how to withdraw your poems gracefully. There’s lots of advice on how to submit, but (and I may be missing something obvious) how do you write an email to say I’m withdrawing my submission because you’re taking too long? Is it just that? Or is there a way to dress it up? How do you do yours? Do you do yours?
Take care, take care, take care.
THE WEEK IN STATS
24 k running – A lower week this week – didn’t have a longer run today, but there was the small case of
1 x really sore calf that I want to avoid aggravating
0 poem worked on – Nope, nothing, diddly. Too busy. The world will, I suspect, continue to turn
A bazillion Hangouts for work – cos I was off, innit
1 day without cigarettes. Fits and starts, yeah!!
1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green
TITLE GIVEAWAY
These Were A Few Of My Favourite Things
Attack of the Cats
Tea Lights
READ, SEEN, ETC
Music Slow Is The New Fast – Slower Inventions – Continuous Portrait Psychic Markers – ST Jetstream Pony – ST Okkervil River – Black Sheep Boy
The Cure Curaetion-25 ST Disintegration
Sad Eagle – the Priest is the beast – Sad Eagle – The Priest is the Beast Pearl Jam – Binaural Smashing Pumpkins – Zeitgeist Hood – Filmed Initiative Hefner – Dead Media Harold Ousley – Sweet Double Hipness Greg Dulli – Random Desires Spiritualized – Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space Band of Horses – Why Are You OK? Chris Forsyth & Solar Motel Band – Dreaming In The Non-Dream Lift To Experience – The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads
The National Alligator Cherry Tree High Violet I Am Easy To Find Trouble Will Find Me
Mercury Rev Deserter’s Songs All is Dream
Brigid Mae Power – Head Above The Water Sly & The Family Stone – Stand
The Archers…It’s weird…
Hangouts/Video Calls/Zoom/Etc (not for work) Hung out with Jon ‘Jarman’ Harman and Simon ‘The Twat’ Rance on Grandbag’s Funeral duties TV/Film Spooks S7 E4-7 Black Klansman The Gangs of London S1 E1-2
Arrived Poetry Birmingham #4 A lovely parcel from my mate Paul of Matthew Caley’s ‘Apparently’, Charles Tomlinson’s ‘The Shaft” and Brian Patten’s ‘ The Irrelevant Song’ River Wolton’s The Purpose of Your Visit, Leap and Indoor Skydiving Geraldine Clarkson’s Monica’s Overcoat of Flesh
My apologies if, in light of current events, it seems churlish to be writing about rejections or “being declined”, but I’ve had two this week. Both of which I expected, so I’m not particularly annoyed by the poems not finding a home. There are no sour grapes to be found in this house. In fact, in the case of one submission, it’s actually worked out better (in the long run) as two of the poems from that particular batch have been worked on and IMHO improved greatly since I sent them off.
Why would you do that, Mat? Why would you send unfinished work off?
I sent them off thinking they were up to snuff, but as is often the way the passing of time gives you extra perspective on them – and I was also lucky to have some feedback on them while they were out from a source I trust. This feedback made me realise I could improve them, and improve them I did.
Having wanted to get into the particular journal I sent them to, I figured it would also be a great way to tempt fate and get an acceptance there with those two specific poems. Annoying that it wasn’t the best version, but I could live with it. If the editors liked that version then that’s ace, and as we all know it’s not an uncommon practice for poems to change between mag/journal publication and inclusion in any pamphlet or collection.
The submission was sent in at the start of November 2019. I know acceptances were given circa February this year. Yesterday I got the result I was expecting, eg a no thanks.
However, it’s written in such a way that suggest to me that despite having the poems for seven months they may not have actually read them. What do you think?
“Many apologies about the delay in getting back to you, we had lots of submissions, and as you can imagine many very pressing matters. If you haven’t already heard from us, please do consider your poems available to send out to other magazines. This may not mean that we have rejected your work, but simply that we have run out of space in this issue and out of time to consider it for a future one. “
Obviously, I am going to try again. It’s a journal that I think continues to publish excellent work in every issue and my subscription will be renewed regardless of the above.
Finished Creatures This disappointment did not manage to dint the fact that I was overjoyed this week to receive my contributor copy of the latest Finished Creatures.
Finished Creatures, #3Just Lookat thatline up
That line up is pretty spectacular – new work from Sarah Wescott, Jessica Mookherjee, Ramona Herdman, Roy Marshall, Matt Barnard, DA Prince and many more. I’m still working my way through the thing, but I’ve not found a duff poem yet, so it’s an honour to be part of what is rapidly turning out to be an excellent addition to the world of poetry mags and journals.
Every issue has been chock full of excellent poems (and now some knobhead) and they feel like lovely things to hold too. Jan has done an excellent job there. I particularly like the little touch that the contributors copy has a book mark on their page. Nice.
Courses for Horses
Quick, mention the fact that horse racing is back in the news to justify the heading….
In better news, yesterday morning was spent on a Poetry Business course run by River Wolton and Cliff Yates. And what an enjoyable 3 and half hours that was. I’ve come away with 4 new drafts (although I note, largely to myself, that I’ve done nothing with the drafts from my previous session) and a huge amount of excellent feedback for a poem I’ve been putting off revisiting – despite liking the idea behind it a lot.
However, what was is more thrilling is seeing and hearing the work of the others on the course. Given we’re mainly seeing initial drafts of things scratched out five minutes previously. the standard is always ridiculously high, and takes a leap even further in the second session when it’s more about feedback on one specific poem – that can be a draft from elsewhere or something written on the day.
I think it was about 70/30 in favour of the former. I don’t know what the thinking was for the others, but for me I think that sort of group feedback is better used on a idea further down the road. The drafts I wrote that morning as part of the first session are things that I have no idea what they want to be, so trying to get feedback or suggestions for them seems premature to me.
The other obvious privilege of these things is the chance to discuss work and learn from the tutors – this time it was River and Cliff. They were two poets whose work I wasn’t really aware of prior to signing up. I’ve not had a chance to buy their work yet (that TBR pile isn’t really decreasing), but I’d like to steer you towards River’s poem Rat, published here as part of Kim Moore’s excellent Sunday Poem series, and to Cliff’s wonderful ‘On the Difficulty of Learning Chinese’.
Incidentally, if you’re not already aware then you should sign up for either the Unlocked or OPOI writing sessions with Nell Nelson and or Annie Fisher/Charlotte Gann. These will be excellent chances to learn either how to develop your poems (and probably being a poet) or your reviewing skills. I’ve spoken a lot about the OPOI reviews, so I won’t wang on about them anymore, other than to say they continue to help my own work as much as they provide a small boost to the awareness of the work of others.
Sadly these sessions are taking place during the working day, and having been off for a week I suspect I will have no chance of finding the time to attend. While Zoom, etc has been really helpful at allowing the attendance of readings or course without the need for travel, it has yet to find a way to bend time.
Take care, take care, take care.
THE WEEK IN STATS
36.4 k running – A much better week, back on it thanks to
2 x socially-distanced runs at the weekend and 2 during the week
3 poem worked on – The Post-Surgery Club, Out of Office Messages and Hatton Garden
4 new drafts: Card Shark, My First Time on Mars, That Bastard Rhesus Monkey At Longleat, and Ooh Matron—this last one very much a working title
0 Hangouts for work – cos I was off, innit.
2 rejections – Woohoo, some sense of closure, but also I wish the outstanding subs would hurry the fuck up and make a decision
Over 207 days now for submissions being out with Tangerine and Lonely Crowd. I should count from the window closing and I’m not complaining (much) about waiting, but I’d love to just know one way or the other.
1 day without cigarettes. Fits and starts, yeah!!
1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green
TITLE GIVEAWAY
A Business of Ferrets
A Collective Noun for Collective Nouns
I Went to a Cockney Pilates Studio Called Core Blimey
Marmoleum
READ, SEEN, ETC
Music Slow Is The New Fast – Slower Margo Price – Perfectly Imperfect
Echo & The Bunnymen Evergreen Flowers Siberia
Cowboy Junkies – Ghosts VA – Get the Holy Funk – Jewel Spiritual Groovers Inventions – Continuous Portrait Charli XCX – how I’m feeling now Maximillian – ST Erland Cooper – Hether Blether PINS – Hot Slick British Sea Power – Open Season Inventions – ST The Modulations – It’s Rough Out Here
Fleet Foxes ST Sun Giant Helplessness Blues Crack up First Collection
Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha Warren Zevon – Sentimental Hygiene Jes Sah Bi & Peter One – Our Garden Needs Flowers
The Archers…It’s weird…
Hangouts/Video Calls/Zoom/Etc (not for work) Hangout with Jon Harman (He’s in the Norways) Poetry Business Writing Day TV/Film SpooksS6 E7-10, S7 E1 Brassic S2 E1-6 American Werewolf In London After Hours Poltergeist 2
Arrived/Ordered A Charger for Flo’s electric keyboard Marmoleum Cleaning Fluid
Read Finished Creatures #3 Jennifer Wong – Letters Home 回家
I started writing something here that was going to be the best blog ever written. It was going to involve my viewing of Poltergeist on Friday, but then I started watching the latest briefing by the Prime Minister. It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that there is no fucking point. Normal service (such as it is) will resume next week.
Happy birthday to Bob Dylan…
THE WEEK IN STATS
30.4 k running – A much better week, back on it thanks to
2 x socially-distanced runs at the weekend.
1 poem worked on – Changed two lines and a title. Massive!!
7 Billion Hangouts for work
0 rejections – Woohoo, but also I wish the outstanding subs would hurry the fuck up and make a decision
Over 200 days now for submissions being out with Tangerine, North and Lonely Crowd. I should count from the window closing and I’m not complaining (much) about waiting, but I’d love to just know one way or the other.
1 day without cigarettes. Fits and starts, yeah!!
1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green
TITLE GIVEAWAY
Dominic Cummings is a lying twat
Seriously
READ, SEEN, ETC
Music Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever – Hope Downs Rolling Stones – Aftermath VA – Rough Guide to Cajun & Zydeco VA – Rough Guide to Sufi Music Sam Amidon – All Is Well
Scarce Deadsexy The Rise and Fall of Circus Boy
Scheer – Infliction Screaming Females – Rose Mountain Screaming Trees – Oceans of Confusion Seckou Keita – 22 Strings Pearl Jam – Gigaton Pelican – City of Echoes Jay May – Autumn Fallin’ Jenny Lewis – On The Line Jesus & Mary Chain – Munki Joan As Police Woman – To Survive Joe Strummer – Walker (OST) Adem – Homesongs The Postmarks – ST Public Service Broadcasting – Live at Brixton Pussy Cat – Boof, The Complete Pussy Cat Radiohead – Hail To The Thief Richmond Fontaine – Don’t Skip Out On Me Rickie Lee Jones – ST PJ Harvey – Dry Tim Burgess – I Love The New Sky
Smashing Pumpkins Teargarden By Kaleidyscope Machina Gish Melon Collie & The Infinite Sadness
Beth Orton Central Reservation Trailer Park
Ben E King – Spanish Harlem Josh T Pearson – Last of the Country Gentlemen Kathleen Edwards – Asking For Flowers North Sea Radio orchestra – Dronne
Hangouts/Video Calls/Zoom/Etc (not for work) Beth Orton’s Live Instragram after her #Timslisteningparty for Central Reservation (I’m aware those words don’t make much sense)
TV/Film Barbershop Chronicles – National Theatre on YouTube Spooks – S6 E1-6 Poltergeist
Arrived/Ordered CD Boyland – User Stories Alan Buckley – Touched
Read Rishi Dastidar – Saffron Jack Jennifer Wong – Letters Home 回家
