Hyblurbole and getting an (anth)ology

How have you been? Oh yeah, Happy Easter if that’s your thing.

Can I point you to this poem that was published recently. I was pleased to have this one out there. I saw a post recently asking about the use of the I and “truth” in poems. I am a subscriber to the “just enough truth to get going” school, sometimes, and this poem falls into that category. The playing football in a plaster cast part is all true. Sadly, so is the breaking the toe part. I was young and stupid. I am not young anymore. Thank you, Ben and the folks at Black Nore (NB those folks are also Ben).

I must also say thanks to Marina and Jack of Resonance Poetry for including two of my poems in the resonance Anthology. It was launched a couple of weeks ago and fun was had by all that attended.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Resonance Poetry Night (@resonance.poetry)

Jack introducing the evening

Click above or here to see Jack’s intro to the night and to get hold of a copy

I enjoyed all the readings, and if I can work out how to I’ll post the video of me reading next week.

The Resonance Anthology

After the reading, my friend and I retired to a pub in New Cross and he took what I think is going to be my new author photo. I rarely like pictures of me, but I’ll take this one

Some idiot, Photo By Mike Howells

Well, it’s looking increasingly like Taylor Swift won’t be getting back to me in a hurry. I know she’s on tour at present, and I guess there’s the whole not-having-a fucking-clue-who-I-am thing to contend with as well, but I’m sure it’s mainly because she’s busy with the three hour shows.

I should say that I say all of this because I recently asked Tay-Tay (via Twitter) if she’d be up for endorsing my book. I’m at that stage now where I need to be thinking about that. Despite the actual writing of it taking years, and the editing taking a long time to knock it into shape it genuinely feels like the hardest part is working out a) what to say about it (what’s it about, etc—and I can’t say 25 pages or £7*) and b) who to ask to say something about it.

The answer to a has already been sorted by someone else, so I’m grateful for that, but b is a perplexing one. I have a short list and a shortlist of folks to ask, so watch your inboxes, folks, but I was hoping I’d be able to go with my list of jokey ones. e.g.

Can I have my tenner now?
Florence Riches

It’s full of holes. We love it. 
Swiss Cheese Magazine 

Buy three. Two will level any table, and have one on your coffee table.
Practical Interior Design 

We wish he’d write fewer often
Pedant’s Monthly


However, I don’t think I can do that—as much as I’d like to. I have to overcome my natural inclination to take the piss out of any serious situation and actually treat this with some level of due consideration and importance. I might not get another chance at this, so take it seriously, Riches, and stop being embarrassed to ask people. Who am I writing this post for???

I’m not 100% sure a blurb will sell the book—eg it’s not the thing that gets someone over the line, but as with all last click attribution models, that thinking ignores the contribution of other things in the sales funnel, so I’m going to work on the grounds that a well-written and intentioned blurb is not just what I am calling Hyblurbole (has that been coined before? Probably), but it should be something that helps get onto people’s radars (along with all the other stuff I need to do to sell the book).

You know what I mean by hyblurbole…it’s the sort of film flam written on the back of books that says stuff like this absolutely destroyed me or one of the greatest books of all time or OMG, like who is this not written for?

So, I need to find someone that can write and has a name that carries some weight. One without the other is ok, but is also under-serving the ethos of a good blurb And just to make it a little more complicated, it’s got to be someone I respect.

Right, to the Bat-Rolodex.

* both because I don’t know how many pages or how much it will be, and because it’s a lame joke, and far be it from me to make lame jokes..oh no!!

And so, a poem for the week. I was contemplating BH Fairchild’s ‘Cigarettes’. and I may well come back to that another time, but the week I’m going with this poem from Derek Mahon. I’ve been reading Mahon’s New Selected poems this week, and marvelling at lots of his use of rhyme, form and structure, but I’ve chosen this poem largely because I’ve had a few conversions of late about the idea of moving out of London and back to Norfolk..It’s not happening for a while, if at all, but it’s a nice thought, and it was all amplified after a long weekend up in Scarborough with the in-laws and a trip to the beach…the peace and quiet was lovely. The poem stuck me as timely when I read it midweek. I also happened to have a quick chat with a chap outside my local on Thruway and he was from Cork…

A Quiet Spot

We tire of cities in the end:
the whirr and blur of it, so long your friend,
grows repetitious and you start to choke
on signage, carbon monoxide, the hard look.
You always knew it would come down
to a dozy seaside town —

not really in the country, no,
but within reach of the countryside,
somewhere alive to season, wind and tide,
far field and wind farm. ‘Wrong life,’ said Adorno,
‘can’t be lived rightly.’

The right place is a quiet spot like this
where an expanding river spills,
still trout-rich, from the dewy hills
of Cork, still fertile in a morning mist.
So, do you pause to congratulate yourself
out here at the continental shelf,
far from the hysteria,

on the perfect work-life balancing act
you’ve found after so many a fugitive year
of travel? If so, let the pause be brief.
Gaia demands your love, the patient earth
your airy sneakers tread expects humility and care.

It’s time now to go back at last
beyond irony and slick depreciation,
past hedge and fencing to a clearer vision,
time to create a future from the past,
tune out the babbling radio waves
and listen to the leaves.


++ Taken from New Selected Poems, Faber & Faber, 2016

Obviously, I can’t ask Derek Mahon for permission, and I should ask Faber & Faber, but I’m going with the fact the poem was broadcast on Sky as part of a series called Voices of Ireland as enough to have the poem out there.

Here’s Stephen Rea reading it in the show

I think I made a mistake buying the New Selected, and should have found a Collected, but there doesn’t seem to be a complete one but there. There’s this from Gallery Press, but he was an inveterate reworking of his poems, so it’s hard to feel like it would be hard to get the measure of them there, but perhaps we should respect we/I should respect the idea that “The Poems (1961-2020) comprises, in their final form, all the poems Derek Mahon wished to preserve.” Perhaps that’s a whole new post/thing to explore.

Finally, while I am still mulling the BH Fairchild poem over, I’ll offer you this alternative from a couple of weeks ago.
It’s a “found poem” (I usually hate the idea of found poems- largely because I’ve rarely managed to find one. I wonder if they’re like Pokemon and if you’ve got to catch ’em all) “by” Joe Moran, collated from the headlines of Adrian Chiles articles. (Never a sentence I expected to type).

Sod it, I also enjoyed this poem by Carl Dennis in the latest TLS this week. Annoyingly, I’ve just seen Dennis has a large back catalogue..FFS!!!

A Song that is in some vague way linked to something

Taylor Swift, Stay Stay, Stay

Laura Stevenson, The Healthy One

I heard this song for the first time in the last couple of weeks after listening to her being interviewed by Craig Finn. I love the song, but it does bear a bit of resemblance to Taylors, IMHO…

Pearl Jam, Blood. This very much my go to karaoke song

THE LAST (TWO) WEEK(S) IN STATS

HEALTH STATS
15ishK running. My knee is improving now I’ve started trying to stretch my hamstrings. This week has seen 3 actual runs and almost no pain This is encouraging. I am very out of breath. This is not so much.
3 day without cigarettes…This is encouraging
0 days since drinking. **Pours another gin**

LIFE STATS
1 trip to Scarborough
1 reading as part of the Resonance Anthology launch
1 night at friends with curry and booze



POET STATS
0 loose ideas/articles gathered (this allows me to kid myself I am writing all the time)
x poems finished: Several for the book
x poems worked on: Lots for the pamphlet, 1 new draft
2 submissions: Agenda, Magma
0 withdrawal:
0 acceptances:
0 Longlisting:
0 readings:
1 rejections: Butcher’s Dog
11 poems are currently out for submission. No simultaneous subs
83 Published poems


0 review finished:
0 reviews started:
0 review submitted:
2 review to write:


1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green

* To date, not this week. Christ!!

READ/SEEN/HEARD/ETC

Music
Monday
Bob Dylan: Bringing It All Back Home
The Durutti Column: Tempus Fugit, Time Was Gigantic….When We Were Kids, Vini Reilly, Without Mercy
The Archers
Craig Finn That’s How I Remember It: Kevin Morby
Tuesday
The Poet Laureate Has Gone To His Shed: Julie Hesmonhalgh
The Verb: Spring
Jeff Russo: For All Mankind OST S1, S2
Kevin Morby: This Is A Photograph, City Music
Weds
The ArchersSpoon: Gimme Fiction
Jeff Russo: For All Mankind OST S2
Craig Finn That’s How I Remember It: Laura Stevenson
Laura Stevenson: Wheel
Thurs
Laura Stevenson: ST, The Big Freeze, Sit Resist, Wheel, Cocksure
Spoon: Kill The Moonlight
FRI
The Hold Steady: The Price of Progress
boygenius: the record
Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
A Certain Ratio: 1982
The Sundays: Blind
The New Pornographers: Continue As A Guest
Dinosaur Jr: Give A Glimpse of What Yer not
Sat
Spoon: Hot Thoughts
Cassandra Jenkins:  A Phenomenal Overview of Nature
Sun
boygenius: The album
Laura Stevenson: the Wheel
Spoon: Lucifer On the Sofa
The Reds, Pinks & Purples: The Town That Cursed Your Name
Keith Jarrett: Kiln Concert
Weds
The Innocence Mission: Glow
Plains: I Walked with you A While
The Clientele: bonfires On the Heath
Beth Orton: Weather Alive
Death Cab For Cutie: Asphalt meadows
Talies: patina
Laura Stevenson: ST
Laura Veirs: Found light
Thurs
The Sundays: SummertimeMark Eitzel: West
My Morning Jacket: Circuitial
Suede: Autofiction
Fri: The Archers
Sat
Various weirdness at a friend’s house
Sunday
The Sundays: Blind
Jim O’Rourke: Bad Timing
Keith Jarrett:Staircases
Laura Stevenson: Live At Audiotree

Read
Gail McConnell: The Sun Is Open
Ciaran Carson: Opera Et Cetera
Derek Mahon: New Selected Poems

Watched
Interior Design With Alan Carr
The Mandalorian
For All Mankind
Commando
Grace

Ordered/Bought
A new remote for the TV
Zaffar Kunial – England’s Green
Cal Flynn – Islands of Abandonment
Rebecca Goss – Girl
TS Eliot The Poems of TS Eliot
Selected Poetry of John Clare
A New Harddrive
A heat gun
A Hat
Geoff Hattersley: Back of Beyond 

Arrived
TS Eliot:The Poems of TS Eliot Vol1
John Clare: Selected Poems
Cal Flynn: Islands of Abandonment
Zaffar Kunial: England’s Green
Rebecca Goss: Girl
Poetry London
A New Harddrive
A heat gun
A Hat
Geoff Hattersley: Back of Beyond 

Cromer, Fango, Have I Read Enough?

What a week to come back to…at one point about this time a week ago I was pretty sure we weren’t going to be home at all. I was desperate to get back to Blighty, but a cancelled flight and then further delays meant it was looking decidedly debatable that we’d make it home. We ended getting back home at 8pm on Sunday instead of about 3 in the morning, but having left our hotel at 6pm (Turkish time) the night before it had been a long day.

I won’t bore you with the long story about long waits in queues at airports and horrendous hotel stays after the flight was cancelled. And I won’t bang on about the lovely holiday we had before the last stage other than to say that we all loved it. We all felt rested, we all ate too much, I definitely drank too much (but not to excess – I’m learning) and there were no major sunburn incidents (not major, but there was certainly some redness about the shoulders for us all). We met many delightful cats.

I almost wish we could have stayed in that little bubble now, given what we’ve come back to. An idiot for a leader and a king instead of a queen. There’s nothing to be said about the latter that is worth saying beyond I find the whole affair pointless. As to the former, I suspect it will go from bad to worse and it was already a fucking disaster. Did I mention we met many lovely cats while away?

We named this lad Fango…

While the time away wasn’t as productive as our last holiday, I did manage six new drafts…two that arrived just under wire and happened on the flight back. I think the last time I got through 10 or more, but given how slim the pickings have been this year I will take six. Who knows what will happen to them. The ≥10 from last time mostly turned into good and useable poems, some of which should make it into the book, so I have hope. I’m just glad to be writing things again. I also managed to work on a draft I’d started before we went, and have even revived an old poem that had been binned that is now a contender for the book, so I will take that as a win.

I can’t afford a trip to, but probably earn too much to warrant a reduced fee for a writing retreat, so these periods of productivity are useful as a way of setting me up to work own stuff for the rest of the year, or until the next burst. Obviously, if new poems want to come in between then I will not that gift horse (the poem) in the mouth (the spontaneousness).

IN OTHER NEWS…

After a week where we saw the shite outcome of one longlist and one shortlist finally get whittled down (See what I’ve done there), I saw there was an interesting debate online about longlists and shortlists as part of the magazine submission process. There are two threads—one on Matthew Stewart’s Twitter, he kicked it off, like the touch paper lighter he is, and another under Zoe Brigley’s, which is sort of in response to Matthew’s question.

The debate was all pretty good tempered, and the response quite divided. Some in favour, some not .

As ever, I can see that there’s no real right or wrong here. It all depends on many factors…I think how long you take to get a response is probably a big one. If it’s a few weeks and then a couple more for the longlist to become a yes or no then it’s fine. Longer than that then it’s likely to frustrate; it certainly would frustrate me.

I can also see that being told you’ve made the list (long or short) can be a fillip to someone. I can also see why it would be annoying too, so a lot comes down to the recipient and the way they see a glass with 50% liquid in. Incidentally, if you find you have a fence in need of someone to perch themselves on it, let me know.

Having been on the receiving end of a couple of longlistings of late I am grateful for the news. I think I’d prefer to be told that if and when it’s a no. If there’s a shortlisting and the decision is imminent then that’s not so bad, but much as the endless sitting about in Antalya airport last weekend, it’s the waiting that kills you.

I suspect most editors are coming from a good place and want people to feel wanted, so it’s probably a good thing. I suspect some of it is buying themselves some time. Ask me again when my recent long-listing becomes a not this time. (Can you guess which way I tend to describe a glass with 50% of its liquid capacity in?)

Finally, a poem

One of the best things about having been away was the chance to read. I set myself the target of a novel a day, and I think I just about achieved it if I average it out…some days were better than others. I was going to avoid poetry completely— and I’m still reeling that I didn’t take any non-fiction, but it was unavoidable. You’ll see the list of stuff I read while I was away below in the stats section, but one book I enjoyed immensely was Christopher James’, ‘The Storm In The Piano‘. I forget where I saw the recommendation , but I recall being prompted to read his Arc collection, ‘Farewell To The Earth‘, and enjoying it very much. NB the prompt for Storm was here.

As someone that really enjoys writing about characters and imagined situations, Chris’s work really appeals; not least for the sheer inventiveness of the situations, but as work that I can learn from. His control of this situations and the information he imparts is incredible. His blog appears to have disappeared, but I’m sure I recall him saying he’d had a long break from poetry there. I am very glad to see he has a book out again. I need to fill in the blanks in my collection.

My keen reader will note that while I was away I set up a post for a M.R. Peacocke poem. While I was away I received an email quite rightly reminding me that I should be seeking permission to share the poems that I have been sharing. This may mean a slow down in sharing poems for a while as I tend to choose the poem on the day/make it up as I’m going – you may or may not have noticed.

However, on this occasion I have planned ahead and have Christopher’s permission to share a poem. I wasn’t sure what to share, but I note that there is a connection between ‘The Storm…’ and ‘Farewell…’ in the shape of a poem that mentions Cromer. And I also note that my brother cycled to Cromer this morning, stopping at the excellent Grey Seal Coffee shop (yes, I will take a sponsorship deal), so how can I not post this. It also feels oddly in keeping with the encouraging news coming out of the Ukraine about beating back Russia.

Today Cromer is Moscow

Seagulls preside on the spires
and onion domes of Cadogen Road.
There are snowdrifts in the belfry
of the parish church. In the Hotel de Paris;
they’re serving Rassolnik soup
and vodka so cold it makes your glass
smoke with ice. In an upper window,
the ghost of Galina Ulanova looks out
across the waves balanced on a single toe.
At the end of the pier the oligarchs
are watching The Tremeloes sing Kalinka
while on the seafront crab fisherman
dance the troika in their wellingtons.
Ice-cream men wear bearskin hats
and play Stravinsky to summon
the children from their homes
because today Cromer is Moscow.
In the lighthouse they’re reading
Pushkin and playing chess to pass the time.
Down on the beach, old cosmonauts
skim stones into the sea while
beneath their feet, the faces
of the tsars are imprinted in the sand.


Taken from ‘The Storm In the Piano’, Maytree Press

Just because it occurred to me today, and just because of some events (although entirely un-related to the most obvious one), and because the seasons are changing, and because the whole of Beckenham was alive with the sounds of a Drum n’Bass night last in the local park last night, and because the weather has been all over the shop this week, because I have permission, and quite frankly just because it’s bloody marvellous, here is a poem by Matthew Paul. It’s taken from his excellent book, The Evening Entertainment. It’s long overdue a follow up, so come on, Matthew…Get that sorted please.

Queenie Queen

After the storm subsides, you find
your glass garden table in smithereens,
kites of plane-leaves sprawling over the fence,
and the closest to silence you’ve ever heard outdoors.
You’re alive as the young cat who appears once a week,
her eyes like a frog’s peeping out from the pond
your neighbours say you must get filled in.

But as another dreary year accumulates,
like autumn’s rain within a cracked terracotta pot,
you hear instead the last few blackberries –
for bramble jelly, crumbles and fools –
still singing lustily on their bush.

Taken from The Evening Entertainment by Matthew Paul

And finally…

Finally, thanks to the folks at Resonance Poetry for the chance to read at their open mic on Monday. It was nice to read some things I haven’t read live before. And on that note, dinner is nearly ready.

REM – Airportman

THE LAST TWO AND A BIT WEEKS IN STATS

HEALTH STATS
5K running. Yesterday was the first run in a while, but my knee didn’t hurt, so I’m hopeful that this is the start of things improving
2 days without cigarettes…I was doing so well..
0 Days since drinking.
0 sleepless nights:

LIFE STATS
7 hours at Gatwick waiting for a flight to Turkey
4 hours flying to Turkey
1 cancelled flight
1 flea-infested overnight hotel,
1 x 17 hours delay coming back, but one wonderful holiday.
1 mountain of food eaten,
1 lake of beer drunk inc 8 Al Capones

POET STATS
5 poems finished: Settling, Swimming Lessons, Dewars, New Mothers, Ingratitude, Drink With the Locals
8 poems worked on: What’ll It Be, Two Beds, Spider That Bit, Not Horses, Sponsorship, Swans, Cat Poem, A Drink With The Locals
2 submissions: Berlin Lit, TLS
0 acceptances: 1 Longlist for Poetry Wales
1 reading: Foley, No you are, A Drink With The Locals, New Spider Poem, Ad blockers, Apples
0 rejections:
19 poems are currently out for submission.
78 Published poems
35 Poems* finished but unpublished
Twelvety poems* in various states of undress
554 Rejected poems* Eg I’ve decided they are not good enough

0 reviews finished:
2 reviews started: Well, read and thought about
0 reviews submitted:
4 reviews to write: How the fuck did that happen…

1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green

* To date, not this week. Christ!!

READ/SEEN/HEARD/ETC

Read
Anna Kirby: Where The Dead Walk
WG Sebald: The Rings Of Saturn
Cynthia Miller: Honorifics
Don Paterson: The Arctic
Louis De Berniere: So Much Life Left Over, The Autumn of The Ace
Hilary Menos: Fear of Forks
Max Porter: Lanny
Christopher James: The Storm In The Piano
Ben Wilkinson: Way More Than Luck, Same Difference
Jon McGregor: Lean Stand Fall
Junicherō Tanizaki: Some Prefer Nettles
Seamus Heaney: Selected Poems 1988-2013
Michael Laver: After Earth

Zooms:

Music
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Emile Mosseri: I Could Be Your Dog/I Could Be Your Moon
Luke Sital-Singh: The Fire Inside
Bengt Berger: Bitter Funeral Beer
Television Personalities: Some Kind of Trip: Singles 1978- 1989, Top Gear
First Rodeo: ST
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Fever To Tell
The Albert: ST
Caroline Spence: True North
The Archers
Simon Armitage: Larkin Revisited Going, Going, Aubade, To the Sea, Bridge For The living, High Windows, Talking In Bed, Toads revisited, Love Songs In Age
Larkin/Essay – Ambulances (Raymond Antrobus)
The National – Sonic Juicy Magic Oneida: Success
The Afghan Whigs: Black Love
Jaimie Brach:Fly or Die
Mathew Halsall: The temple Within
Bardo Pond: Is there A Heaven?
Kathryn Calder: Bright & Vivid
Cass McCombs: Heartmind
The Cure: Wish
Joni Mitchell: Song To A Seagull, For The Roses
Andrew Tuttle: Fleeting Adventure
Craig Finn:A legacy of rentals
Explosions In The Sky: Big Bend, the Wilderness
Angel Olsen: The Big Time
The Cure: Bloodflowers
Joan Shelley: The Spur
Explosions In The Sky: The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place, Take Care x 3
The Durutti Column: Amigos Em Portugal, Vini Reilly, Short Stories For Pauline
Bill Orcutt: Music For Four Guitars
Pale Blue Eyes: Souvenirs
The Church: Priest= Aura
Julia Jacklin: Pre-Pleasure
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: Let’s Turn It Into Sound
Kevin Morby: This Is a Photograph
The Archers
Caterina Barbieri: Spirit Exit, Ecstatic Computation
KH: Looking At Your Pager
The Dirty Three: Cinder, ST, Whatever You Love, You Are, Towards the Low Sun
Joni Mitchell: Mingus
Scrawl: He’s Drunk
The Afghan Whigs: How Do You Burn?
Tenniscoats: All Aboard
Mudhoney: Superfuzz Bigmuff, Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge
Wilco: Kicking Television
Prefab Sprout; From Langley Park To Memphis
Caspian: Live At Old South Church
Caribou: Suddenly
The National: Sleep Well Beast
Tallies: Patina
Chris Forsyth: Evolution Here We Come
Built To Spill: When The Wind Forgets Your Name
Morphine: Cure For Pain
Oliver Sim: Hideous Bastard
Jockstrap: I Love You Jennifer B
Bell Orchestre: House Music
Rachika Nayar: Our Hands Against the Dusk
David Grubbs: A Guess At the Riddle
Joan Shelley: Electric Ursa
Laura Veirs: Found Light
Sharon Van Etten: We’ve been Going About This All Wrong
My Morning Jacket; ST
Ryley Walker: Primrose Green
Echo & The Bunnymen: Flowers, Heaven Up Here, Porcupine, Crocodiles, Reverberation
Self Esteem: Prioritise Pleasure
The Boo Radleys: C’mon Kids
Courtney Marie Andrews: Old Flowers, May Your Kindness Remain
Madi Diaz: History Of a Feeling

Watched
Endeavour
Bad Sisters
Only Murders In The Building
Shetland
The Thick of It
Grey’s Anatomy
The Good Wife
Trom

Ordered
Don Paterson: The Arctic

Arrived
Hilary Menos: Fear of Forks
Don Paterson: The Arctic
Bruce Robinson: The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman (Via Jane Lovell)

Squids In, chips and being poem adjacent

Tap-dancing round decisions…

I can currently hear my wife and daughter practising their tap dance routines for a forthcoming show. It’s wonderful to hear my daughter helping her mum out as she tries to master time steps (whatever they are), and it’s also scaring me to think what’s happening to the floorboards we recently had varnished.

I mention all of this because I’m delaying while I work out what to post based on the garbled post-it notes stuck round my laptop screen. Right, just do them all as they are all share the theme of involving videos.

1. The arrival of this article in my inbox earlier in the week about a colossal squid has given me a excuse to play this song on repeat this week. It always happens whenever I am reminded of it.

Colossal Squid: I Lost Detroit

I can connect to that further by having talked about Detroit with Flo last night while watching an old episode of Criminal Minds. Spooky.

2. Later in the week I decided to play an album by a band called The Wave Pictures. The album is called The Hawaiian Open Mic Night. Later that day the lovely folks at Resonance Poetry announced a new open mic night at The Three Hounds on 23rd Feb. Hopefully I can make this one. It was particular nice to be thinking about Hawaii on Friday as our boiler had packed in the day before and we were waiting on an engineer to come and fix it. It was a cold day on Friday.

3. Earlier in the week I’d put on Simon and Garfunkle’s ‘Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme’ album. It’s not an album I’ve ever played much, but I was happy to hear A Poem on the Underground Wall.. I’ve long pondered on the idea of making a mix of song that mention poems or poets, etc. This would definitely be in there.

4. I think it was Thursday this week that I attended a work meeting and the first speaker was a chap called Orlando Wood. He was there from a research agency called System One to speak about advertising changes over the years. It was a fascinating look at the way ads have changed over the years, and even how they have adapted in the Covid era, but I was very pleased to see this example from Heineken pop up with it’s nice little nod to poetry. I’ve been meaning to read Orlando’s previous book, so this new one puts me even further behind.

Finally, I should end on an actual poem because I like that.

This is a poem called Love song from a seaside souvenir shop by Holly Singlehurst.
I’m sharing this because I reviewed Holly’s pamphlet ‘The Sea Turned Thick As Honey‘ recently. It’s a wonderful pamphlet and I’ll point you to the review as soon as it comes out. I totally failed to mention this poem in my review and I should have done so. Please note I am putting this up here, but it was first shared on the iamb website. Go, go look at that site. Mark Antony Owen has done great things there and with his latest project, After Poems. Obvs, I will take this down if it’s infringing on anything, but it’s a relevant and b) as close to squids as I can manage today. Also, a mate shared a draft of a poem earlier that mentions fish and chips.

Love song from a seaside souvenir shop

Instead of telling you how much I miss you,
I send a small, funny magnet with a crab and a bucket,
a bouncy ball, sun warm stones from an empty beach,
sand sticky fingers from a soft, ripe peach and the glass clear water to clean them.
​
I send you a fat, heavy parcel of fish and chips, steaming in damp paper,
buttery flakes in crispy batter and just the right amount of salt and sauce.
I hand wrap the bath warm evening, write something short on a postcard
with pastel houses, and cut grey cliffs, and a first-class stamp.
​
For a moment, I’m torn between a wood carved seagull with your name on it
and the whole ocean, so I get you both. The blinding glint of sun on its surface,
the tight squinting smile of your eyes when you look right at it.
​
It’s not on display, but I ask, and they have it – that secret sound the stones make underwater;
a solid bubble of your breath, so you can watch it rise up to the blue sky and break;
the best jellyfish, so small and domed and perfect that when you open it you’ll say,
It’s so pretty, it belongs in a bakery, and I’ll laugh and say, I know just what you mean.

THE WEEK IN STATS
49K running. So tired, this training lark is hard, but got my first half marathon distance of the year under my belt today
0 hangovers
3 journeys to Sydenham and back
Many LFTs
1 rejections: Banshee
0 poems finished:
1 poems worked on: Nature Abhors a Vacuum
0 poems published:
2 submissions: Seaside Gothic, Honest Ulsterman
0 acceptance:
30 poems currently out for submission.
72 Published poems*: Was 69, but one was not used in the end, having been accepted.
40 Poems* finished by unpublished
25 poems* in various states of undress
554 Rejected poems* Eg I’ve decided they are not good enough
1 review started: Jeremy Page: The Naming
0 reviews finished:
4 reviews to write: Fuck, how did that happen, I’ve gone from 1 to do to having more…Hmmm
23 day without cigarettes…I have felt both great and awful..
0 Days since drinking
1 sleepless night: This is not a development I approve of
1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green

* To date, not this week. Christ!!

TITLE GIVEAWAY
Fish on A Wednesday
Suspicious Wallop

READ/SEEN/HEARD/ETC

Read
Poetry Review: Autumn 21
Jeremy Page: The Naming

Music
Bernard Butler: People Move On
The Lovely Eggs: If You Were Fruit
Simon & Garfunkel: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme
Calexico: Edge of the Sun
Gorecki: 3rd Symphony
6ths: Wasps’ Nest
Tortoise: ST
Bill Janovitz: Skunk & Friends
Jack: Pioneer Soundtracks, The Jazz Age
The Wave Pictures: The Hawaiian Open Mic Night
The Walkmen: Bows & Arrows
The Veils: Nux Vomica
Karima Francis: The Author
The July Skies: The English Cold
Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel: intensity Ghost
Hundred Waters: The Moon Rang Like A Bell
The Soundcarriers: Entropicalia
Toy: Join The Dots
Kitchens of Distinction: Folly
The Hold Steady: Open Door Policy
King Hannah: Tell Me Your Mind
Black Country, New Road: Snow Globes
Jake Xerxes Fussell: Good And Green Again
Radiohead: In Rainbows
Bert Jansch & John Renbourne: Bert & John

Watched
Criminal Minds
American Rust
Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Ordered
Louis De Berniere; South American Trilogy (as I gave my copies away ages ago)
Alpaca Socks to replace the one I ruined (sorry, my love)
Seaside Gothic #1

Arrived
Alpaca Socks to replace the one I ruined (sorry, my love)
Seaside Gothic
Louis De Berniere; South American Trilogy

No reason other than this is my favourite song from this year

Michael Nyman, Trees and Isabel Galleymore

This week has been a whirlwind. Monday feels like it was a century ago. I’m still not 100% convinced yesterday happened yesterday. What I am sure of is that R and I went to get our infusion the old Komorebis earlier today. Definitely today. We had a lovely walk at Nymans and saw this beautiful thing as we wandered round.

An awful photo of a beautiful tree

Once upon a time I’d have tried to stretch this into a post about how hard it is to capture nature well, but I’m wise enough now not to do that. I could also try and work out what eco-poetics is?

(NB: It’s “Similar to ethnopoetics in its emphasis on drawing connections between human activity—specifically the making of poems—and the environment that produces it, ecopoetics rose out of the late 20th-century awareness of ecology and concerns over environmental disaster. A multidisciplinary approach that includes thinking and writing on poetics, science, and theory as well as emphasizing innovative approaches common to conceptual poetry, ecopoetics is not quite nature poetry.” according to this glossary from Poetry Foundation.)

Instead, I’m just going to post two poems from Isabel Galleymore‘s ‘Significant Other’. I picked this off the shelf fairly randomly, but there’s two poems in there that have caught my eye. The first for the trees and because R had mentioned a pair of Blue Tits in our holly tree this morning, the second because this week has also seen us popping into our elderly neighbour’s house (with the key she gave us) four times a day to help her with eyedrops after a recent cataract op. Her TV has been up LOUD!!!!!!


Harvest

After stripping the branches of berries
the robin held a handful of seeds
in her stomach: the robin carried a tree
— in fact she secretly sowed a whole forest —
a store of bows and arrows and shields.
Years found the bird had planted a battle,
her tiny body had borne the new king.

Men looked up to the skies and blessed
or blamed the planets moving overhead.
A blackbird, meanwhile, started to pick
at fruit both armies had left.


Into The Woods

For those who want to invest in disasters,
the INCH pack includes a sling-shot,
fishing rod and tarp. It stands for
I’m Never Coming Home.
Walk into the woods and don’t look back.
I learn this from my neighbour’s watching
of Doomsday Preppers at full volume —
her October general ears believe
everyone is mumbling. On the street
she leans in uncomfortably close. Hey say
such impairments come by degrees.
We’ll be right back with Brian’s missile silo.
I give up my book, fill the kettle.
sunlight floods the living room;
the birds and branches of the papered walls
fade Ana rate not considered change.

Both poems taken from Significant Other, Carcanet. Arguably both could be considered eco-poetic, but honestly, who cares if they do or don’t. They are great.

I see she has a new pamphlet out, this has been added to the to purchase list.

This also reminds me about Isabel’s excellent poems in a recent issue of Poetry Review.

In other news, I must point you to a couple of things.

1. I think the full videos will be up on YouTube soon, but for now here’s two videos from the recent reading night

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Resonance Poetry Night (@resonance.poetry)

Jack Emsden at Resonance Poetry Night 1

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Resonance Poetry Night (@resonance.poetry)

Some idiot reading at Resonance Poetry Night 1

2. The latest batch of OPOI reviews are up at Sphinx, featuring my review of Kathrin Schmidt’s Twenty Poems

3. I do remember reading this article by Grayson Perry at the start of the week and thinking there’s a blog post in some of these responses, particularly his points about abandoning work and creative visions. I also remember thinking Bastard!! when I saw Roy Marshall had already had a similar idea about a post here. Roy’s posts are always excellent and useful, so read them. Read them all. His recent post (via The Friday Poem) about putting a pamphlet together is one that is starting to feel relevant to me.

THE WEEK IN STATS

1 walk in a woodland area
21K running. First longer run in ages this week (11K)
1 50th birthday party
0 hangovers
0 x acceptances
2 rejections: Definitive no from New Welsh Review and Frogmore Press
0 poem finished:
1 poem worked on: Bedside Manner
0 new submissions:
26 poems currently out for submission.
68 Published poems*: Was 69, but one was not used in the end, having been accepted.
43 Poems* finished by unpublished
26 poems* in various states of undress
554 Rejected poems* Eg I’ve decided they are not good enough
1 review to write (I’ve read the book)
3 days without cigarettes…I was doing well…
0 Days since drinking
1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green

* To date, not this week. Christ!!


TITLE GIVEAWAY
Deus ex macchiato
It is now appropriate to clap

READ/SEEN/HEARD/ETC

Read
Mona Arshi: Dear Big Gods
Victoria Kennefick: Eat Or We All Starve
Stephen Payne: Windmill Proof, Patterns of Chance

Music
808 State: ex:el, Gorgeous, Transmission Suite
Kate; British Road Movies
The Long Blondes: Someone To Drive You Home
Nicole Atkins: Italian Ice, Mondo Amore
Mountain Man: made The Harbor
Fur: When You Walk Away
Admiral Fallow: The Idea of YouPele: Teaching The History of Teaching Geography, Elephant, A Scuttled Bender In A Watery Closet
Caspian: Live At The Larcom
Chapterhouse: Whirlpool
Pedro The Lion: Achilles Heel, Phoenix
Glenn Jones: Bob, Fleeting, This is the wind that blows it out
Pip Boom: Welcome Break, Boat
Explosions In The Sky: Live, Earth is Not A Cold Dead Place
LYR: Cascade Theory
Gracie Abrams: This Is What It Feels Like
Corrina Repp: How A Fantasy Will Kill Us All
The Archers
The Verb:

Watched
Only Murders In The Building
New Girl S3
The Walking Dead
Succession
Shetland
Taskmaster

Ordered
Balloons

Arrived
Balloons

Mickey Nyman and a Trees reference..Ace!!

Sadly, Bubonique’s excellent tribute to Michael Nyman isn’t on any streaming or video services, but if you email me I will send you a copy.

No, You Are…

This week saw another return to the “live arena” or the “meat space” to read at the inaugural Resonance Poetry night at The Three Hounds.

I love that my local booze emporium is branching out and doing different things to bring in the punters. They run music nights, games nights, and a running club. I am a founding member of the running club, and had worrying visions earlier in the week that running and poetry club (the first rule of which is….) would be on the same night. The fear that crossed my mind as I wondered how it would look if I ran in, hyperventilating and sweaty, clad in lycra to then begin a poem…dear god..thankfully they were far more organised and had them on separate nights.

The night is organised by the irritatingly young and talented Jack Emsden, and I commend his excellent Stephen Wright-themed poem to you here. He opened and closed the evening with some wonderful and affecting work that managed to touch on the personal and the universal without ever over-simplifying things. I hope we see more by the lad (although not in lycra as he is also part of the running club).

I have found myself reading work with less personal stuff in of late…probably at the last three or four readings I’ve stuck to poems that aren’t about family or friends, but more of what a friend calls my “riff poems” and I hadn’t really noticed this until I read this post recently by Renee Emerson called Why I Don’t Want You To Read My Book (collected via the excellent Via Negativa by Dave Bonta).

In the post Renee, whose work I’m ashamed to say I don’t know, talks about the fear of people you know reading your work and not getting it, or worse not liking it, and this is something that I ponder on a lot. I don’t have to worry about it from a book POV, yet, but when people I know are coming to readings (as we all want them to) I seem to be pulling back from showing that side of my work. I will have to work on that and learn to strike more of a balance I guess. Or not, I’m sure no one had even noticed.

• 

• 

After the “gig” I was talking with my friends and Jack, I asked Jack if he had new work coming out and we discussed the sometimes lengthy wait between work being accepted and appearing. He has something coming out in about three months— I think, the beer had been flowing by then. I remembered I’d had two accepted in March this year that aren’t due to be out till Feb next year. I’m chuffed they will be out there, but crumbs….

I’ve been starting my sets with a poem called ‘No, You Are…’ of late. I quite like it because it’s got the potential to raise a laugh and it’s always a good idea to get the audience on side with a laugh. It was accepted and published in Raceme earlier this year*, so I’m happy to post it here no, but I was surprised and delighted by a small coincidence the next morning when the first album I put on to accompany my working day was by Honey Ltd and the second track was called ‘No, You Are’. Spooky enough for Halloween. Sod it, it is now.

No, you are…

When filling out a magazine quiz,
your scores are mostly always Ds.
Do you even read your small print?

You’re quite the quietest panjandrum
—after scratching beneath your surface,
we found a load more surfaces.

You’re sugar poured into petrol
conversations. Have you ever
been picked up by an algorithm?

Run up a flagpole, your ideas
are stuck underneath quarter-mast.
You’d bring trowels to a gunfight.

So, to summarise recapped facts
your in-a-nutshells last for days.
I think I’m speaking to myself.

Published in Raceme, issue 11

No, You Are by Honey Ltd

* Issue 11, including poems by Tamar Yoseloff, Dominic Fisher, Ann Williams, Pat Simmons, Myra Schneider, Rosie Jackson, Alyson Hallett, Tim Cumming. John Freeman, Matthew Caley, Christopher Heath, Stephen Payne, DS S. Maolalai, Sue Dymoke, William Thompson and Sharon Phillips.
New title for Arecibo

THE WEEK IN STATS

1 walks in a woodland area
1 visiting mother in law
15K in the last week. Really slow week.Need to up my game some more. I can feel myself getting unfit again
0 x acceptances
1 rejections: Assumed the North have said no. I expect it’s the same with New Welsh Review, but if they want a little more time to think I’m happy to give it to them
0 poem finished:
1 poem worked on: Bedside Manner + an idea for something called Rodeo
3 new submissions: Banshee, The Stinging Fly, Bad Lillies
36 poems currently out for submission.
68 Published poems*: Was 69, but one was not used in the end, having been accepted.
43 Poems* finished by unpublished
26 poems* in various states of undress
554 Rejected poems* Eg I’ve decided they are not good enough
1 review to write (I’ve read the book)
2 days without cigarettes…I was doing well…
0 Days since drinking
1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green

* To date, not this week. Christ!!


TITLE GIVEAWAY
Shouting At A Passing Mongoose
Power Tuiles

READ/SEEN/HEARD/ETC

Read
Donald Justice: Collected Poems
Rishi Dastidar: Supercut Scenes
Olga Dermott-Bond: A sky full of strange specimens
William Wootton: Looking At The Horsemen
Kostya Tsolaikis: Ephebos
Poetry Salzburg #35
Derek Mahon: The Hunt of The Night

Music
David Crosby & Graham Nash: Wind On The Water
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: The Witch Doctor, Mosaic
Wye Oak: Civilian, The Louder I Call
Floating Points: Reflections – Mojave Desert
Zoey Van Goey: The Cage Was Unlocked All Along
Cymbals Eat Guitars: Why There Are Mountains
Craig Finn: I Need A New War
Mirah & Thao: ST
Joy Wants Eternity: The Fog Is Rising
Speck Mountain: Some Sweet Relief
Thee Oh Sees – Warm Slime
Telstar Ponies: In The Space of a Few Minutes
The Surfing Magazines: ST
Jolie Holland: Pint of Blood
My Morning Jacket: ST
Jaymay: Autumn Fallin’, Various Singles, Long Walk To Never, Lvng Rm Ep, To Tell The Truth
Lucy Dacus: Historian, Home Video, No Burden, 2019
Hop Along: Painted Shut
Honey Ltd. : LHI
Christian Lee Hutson: Beginners
Mary Lattimore: Collected Pieces, Hundreds of Days
Debashish Bhattacharya: Calcutta Chronicles: Indian Slide-Guitar Odyssey
Dinosaur Jr. Emptiness At The Sinclair
REM: New Adventures in HI Fi

Watched
Only Murders In The Apartment

Ordered
Rebecca Watson: Little Scratch
Holly Singlehurst: The Sea Turned Thick As Honey

Arrived
Rebecca Watson: Little Scratch