Rialto

Ray Winsome

/ Mat Riches / Leave a comment

A quick keep-your-hand-in post this week…as we’ve been out .

It took until Friday to finally feel like I’m back in the land of the living, but the dreaded Covids have worn off. I need to be careful, and am going easy on the return to running, and I was absolutely knackered by end of play on Friday, but fingers crossed for the way forward.

One thing that did come out of the ill ness was watching a few thing I’ve been meaning to watch. One of which was the BBC’s Art That Made Us series. It’s been fascinating so far. I’m trying to watch stuff that’s a bit more in the brain food department, but it’s tricky when Flo is watching Grey’s Anatomy marathons, so I have ti take the moments when I can.

I watched an episode (Art That Made Us, not Grey’s Anatomy) that featured a section about the translation of the Bible into Welsh during the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, so imagine my surprise when searching for a poem for this week…I have just grabbed the nearest thing to hand…it happens to be the latest Rialto.

A random flick through and I landed on the poem below by Maura Dooley. You can see why I chose it. Oh yes, this week has seen the arrival of the latest Poetry Wales, so there’s that too.

Unenglished

Maura Dooley, The Rialto #98

On the desk a bible in Welsh is open at the Psalms
and like the woman who arrived with a pheasant
and sat to pluck it on the summer lawn – the feathers
taken by the wind to the four corners of the earth
as the naked bird stiffened on the grass
so I knock at the door of this language, its double dds
and double Ils, its simmering beauty, and hear how
to baste and roast it to plump goodness,
the house herby and steamy with new flavours,
sharing the succulent dish with any who would try.



In other news, it’s been a weekend of two halves. An acceptance from Acumen (having been on a longlist) and a declining by Northern Gravy – also having been on a longest. You win some, you loose some, you look winsome…

Right, ice cream and a can of Lucky Saint awaits


Obviously when writing about Welsh-adjacent poems and things the sensible option is to go for some Dutch indie music…

THE LAST TWO WEEKS IN STATS

3K running. Post Covid recovery begins here
1 week of taking a hard look at myself
0ish (at least) journeys to dance lessons and back for Flo
1 rejections:
0 new poem finished:
7 poems worked on: Dad’s Shed, Riches, Ash. Signs, Working With My Dad, Spider That Bit Peter Parker, Settling
0 poems published:
0 submissions:
1 acceptances: Acumen
9 poems are currently out for submission.
5 poems left to submit beyond makeweights
78 Published poems
37 Poems* finished by unpublished
25 poems* in various states of undress
554 Rejected poems* Eg I’ve decided they are not good enough
0 reviews finished:
1 review submitted: Julia Duke at London Grip
2 reviews to write: How the fuck did that happen…
4 days without cigarettes…I was doing so well..tried one on Thursday..Mistake.
0 Days since drinking. had a beer today (and Thursday and Saturday)
0 sleepless nights:
1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green

* To date, not this week. Christ!!


READ/SEEN/HEARD/ETC

Read
John Glenday: Selected Poems
Richie McCaffery: Summer / Break

Zooms:
None

Music
Rich Ruth: Calming Signals
Tallies: Patina, ST
The Wooden Sky: If I Don’t Come Home You’ll Know I’m Gone
Blossom Dearie: ST
Andrew Tuttle: Fleeting Adventure
Orbital: The Alltogether
Sam Prekop & John McEntire: Sons of
The Reds, Pinks & Purples: Still Clouds At Noon
Idlewild: 100 Broken Windows
The Shadows: Specs Appeal
Sleater-Kinney: The Woods
Owen Pallett: Heartland
Giant Sand: Center of the Universe, Ramp
The Orlons: I’ll Be True
Come: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
Jonathan Richman: Not So Much To Be Love As To Love
The Chemical Brothers: Dig Your Own Hole
Thalia Zedek Band: Been Here And Gone
Ben E. King.: Supernatural Thing, Seven Letters
Jonathan Edwards: Sailboat
Kathryn Williams: Night Drives
Interpol: ST
The Cure: Wish
Neil Finn: Dizzy heights
Giant Sand; Valley of Rain
Suede: ST
The Counts: Love Sign
The Bevis Frond: Valedictory Songs
Laura Veirs: Found Light
Kelly Lee Owens: Inner Song


Watched
The Art That Made Us
The Good Wife
Breeders
Sandman
The Lazarus Project


Ordered
Jack Little: Slow Leaving
Raceme #13

Arrived
Christopher James: The Storm In The Piano
Poetry Wales
Jack Little; Slow Leaving
John McCullough: Panic Response
Holly Hopkins: The English Summer

Hambling On

/ Mat Riches / 4 Comments

The season of spookiness has been and gone, again. No trick or treaters at the door (the boiling oil did it’s job last year!!) and while it’s all a bit sad, I’m not usually one for the dressing up, etc or all that witches and ghouls malarkey.

However, you know how I love a coincidence…And I’ve noticed a couple this week.

Firstly, I saw a tweet by the journalist Andrew Male (and a few others) earlier in the week singing the praises of the Maggie Hambling (Maggie Hambling: Making Love With The Paint) doc on BBC4.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000nx23/maggi-hambling-making-love-with-the-paint

Click on the link to watch

I worry I’ve not watched enough “educational” stuff throughout all of this lockdown. We’ve watched plenty of good stuff (I’m very much enjoying re-watching Battlestar Galactica, for example), but when the BBC make a good documentary I rarely get round to watching them. Not because I don’t want to, but just because…well, no reason really, but it was very much business as usual when I duly made a note to think about getting round to watching it at some point.

Then I had a conversation with a friend that mentioned people in a particular anthology from the late 80s, it triggered a conversation around an idea I think I’ve mentioned before about investigating people involved in older copies of anthologies or mags, etc.

To add fuel to a point I was making in the conversation I grabbed an old magazine off my shelves (It turned out to be The Rialto No.27, Winter 1993) and looked down the list of people on the back to see the names I recognised.

Rialto, 27, Winter 1993

And there are a few. I did originally plan to start searching out all of these folks to see what had happened to them. There are a few I know without searching, e.g. we all know that Sophie Hannah has gone on to be a novelist and that Julia Copus hasn’t done too badly for herself. There are other names I recognise and plenty I don’t.

As an aside, it was nice that Apollinaire finally made it into the mag. I know The Rialto is one of those mags that can take a while to get back to you, but bloody hell….Given he died in 1918 there’s added meaning to ““How slow life is, how violent hope is.”

I wonder who got his contributor copy.

Anyhoo, I digress. I did start searching out the names on the list to make a start on this (Obvs, it would make for a very long post, and I can’t even guarantee you’re still reading now). My search for “M.J. Armitt + Poet” revealed absolutely nothing that appears to relate to a poet. According to the biog in the back of the mag, “M.J. Armitt is a former lecturer writing again after a twenty-year silence, and seeking publication for the first time.”

A search for “Armitt + Lecturer” revealed a Matthew Armitt, but I suspect he’s either had a lot of Botox/surgery for someone that hadn’t written for 20 years in 1993 or isn’t the person I’m looking for. You judge for yourself.

Meet Matthew Armitt

I will come back to the names another time, with some more research, but it does ask the question about visibility in this day and age (more on that anon). Do we need to have web pages, blogs (I’m not sure I want the answer to that one), Twitter accounts, the Tik Toks, etc…Or is it enough just enough to be present in the mags, to have the books or the writing? Or both? I don’t think there’s really an answer here other than it’s up to you, but if you’re a poet that doesn’t have e.g a pamphlet or book behind you, or have published in digital mags to have created a trace then it’s pretty much impossible to join the dots when you find a poet you like.

This is just one poet, there are several more to investigate, but let’s make it an on-going series.

Yes Mat, but what about the co-incidences?

The real co-incidence came when I flipped the magazine over and saw the cover.

Please control yourself over the flash of knee at the top of this picture

The picture is called ‘Laughing Mouth’ by a certain Maggi Hambling.

You can’t argue with co-incidences like that, and still they keep coming.

The Hambling documentary has a moment where Maggi is drinking Special Brew—last week I finished a poem that mentions my dad getting pissed on Special Brew.

When I actually looked back at the poem by M.J. Armitt, it’s a poem called ‘January Pigeon’. What was last week’s post about?

And now for the biggie…while searching for M.J. Armitt I did stumble across this article. It’s called ‘Cup and Ring Marks in Context’. It’s written by a Clive Waddington, but it cites an I. Armitt.

The extract notes that

“The key argument presented in this article is that a threefold temporal sequence can be recognized in the deployment of cup and ring marks and that these changes can throw new light on the nature of ideological evolution in northern Britain during the Neolithic. It is proposed that the initial phase relates to the symbolic portrayal of the ideological beliefs which constituted the ‘Neolithic’ (c. 4000–3200 BC) by mapping them on the landscape via outcropping bedrock.

During the second phase (c. 3200–2000 BC) the significance of this symbolism is thought to be appropriated, as it is reworked into ‘man-made’ megalithic constructions which ‘monumentalize’ the landscape under the aegis of increasingly overt human control.

By the third phase (c. 2000–1800 BC) a disjuncture is apparent in both the function and meaning of the cup and ring tradition culminating in its expropriation as human control of the natural world becomes more fixed.”

So far, so fascinating, but also so what…However, this week I was asked to provide some feedback on a poem by a dear mate, and would you Adam and Eve it, that poem talks about cup and ring marks.

Please note that when it comes to gifs I will only use Schitts Creek gifs

There’s quite literally nowhere left to go after that. Not without getting more freaked out ad losing sleep. I need my beauty sleep (**Stay in bed a month** is the usually shout here) so let’s move on.

I am morally obliged to make you aware of the launch today of IAMB A POET wave 4. Once again Mark has assembled an excellent group of poets, some of whom you’d think have a “name” that doesn’t require the extra push that Iamb provides, but ultimately, I don’t think IAMB is about that.

It’s more just assembling groups of great poets (and me in wave 2) and letting them speak for themselves (Literally, given Mark has us all recording versions of our work).

Get yourself over there. Listen, read, enjoy.
NB Really must nail what constitutes a “name”.

Now…

THE WEEK IN STATS

27k running – Not bad, will settle for that.

2 days of a the 7-minute workout

0 x rejections: All good.

2 poems worked on. Phantom Settlements and Lucky Foot

3 days without cigarettes…

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

TITLE GIVEAWAY

Over Bar The Shouting
Major Domo
The High Chaperone

READ/SEEN/HEARD/ETC

Music
Beverley Glenn Copeland: At Last
Laura Cantrell: Hello recordings, Humming By The Flowered Vine, Kitty Wells Dresses, No Way There From Here, Not The Tremblin’ Kind, Trains and Boats and Planes, When The Roses Bloom Again
Mint Julep: Stray Fantasies
Blur: Blur, The Great Escape, Leisure, Magic Whip, Modern Life Is Rubbish, Parklife, Think Tank, Under The Westway/The Puritan, 13
Girls: ST
Frightened Rabbit: The Midnight Organ Fight, Painting Of A Panic Attack, Pedestrian Verse, Sing The Greys, State Hospital, The Winter of Mixed Drinks, The Woodpile
The Afghan Whigs: Beautiful Girls OST, Big Top Halloween, Big Top Halloween Demos, Black Love, Burning London (Clash Tribute), Congregation
Margo Price: That’s How Rumours Get Started
Joni Mitchell:The Hissing Of Summer Lawns

Hangouts/Video Calls/Zoom/Etc (not for work)
None this week

TV/Film
Battlestar Galactica: S3 E9-15
Strike: The Silkworm, S2, S3 and S4 E1-3
Inbetweeners S1 E1-2
Maggi Hambling :Making Love With The Paint
The Witches

Radio/Podcasts
The Archers

Ordered
Of Mice & Men for Flo
Frank Wood : Racing The Stable Clock
Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal Sub
JO Morgan: The Martian’s Regress
Colin Bancroft: Impermance

Arrived
Of Mice & Men
Frank Wood : Racing The Stable Clock
JO Morgan: The Martian’s Regress

Read
Charlotte Gann _ The Girl Who
Benjamin Cusden- Cut The Black Rabbit
Nina Mingya-Powles: Magnolia 木蘭

A Trophying

/ Mat Riches / 3 Comments

There’s been a meme (is it a meme, not sure) doing the rounds on the Twitters in the last couple of weeks that asks participants to name 3 recurring themes in their work. You then tag in other folks and get them to do the same.

I was tagged in this week by Matthew Paul.

I was pleased to be tagged in, but also it struck the absolute fear in me, worrying about whether I can answer the question. Emma managed to reply the same day, and I’ve managed to spend all week prevaricating and pondering on it. And not because I wanted to write about it here, but because I genuinely don’t know if I know the answer. I’ve been looking up and down the poems I have that have been published and those that are “waiting for a home” and keep drawing a blank, bupkis, nada, zilch or the old goose egg…

While I think Matthew is being slightly flippant with his choices— his work is infinitely deeper and more varied than he makes it out to be as you will, of course, know, having bought The Evening Entertainment, obvs—I did, and still do, find myself asking if should I be able to answer this without thinking? Am I over-thinking it?

I don’t think I’m being pretentious and blah-di-dah about it, all I couldn’t possibly reduce my work to three words, etc, but I am struggling with it. I’ve never felt the need to sit down and work out what my poetics are, perhaps this is a sign I should…just as soon as I work out what it means.

However, as I write this I think I’ve managed to work out the answer. I’m going with the following.

1. Moments of frailty
2. Mockery
3. Inanimate Objects finding/Getting a voice

Apologies to anyone that actually reads this, but you are at least witness to Twitter in action, as it would be unfair to post this here without replying on Twitter, so…hang on…

The proof that I did
Also proof that I didn’t

The tricky thing now, I think, having worked this out (and getting beyond the idea that it’s based on anything more than a snapshot) is will I now notice these things more and stop doing them? Should I notice these things more? And should I stop doing them? Oh god…I need a rest.

Anyhoo, enough of this flim-flammery.

Now that it looks unlikely that I will be going back to work in any normal sense, certainly not before March, I’ve got comfortable with the idea of having a home office. I’ve shifted my poetry mags up there and a few reference books, and on top of the shelf sits this trophy.

The only trophy I have ever won

I put it there because I hadn’t worked out where to put it (if that makes sense) and just haven’t found a moment to give it a proper home. However, at least three times this week I’ve been asked about it by people on various work-related Google Hangouts or Zoom calls.

I won it back when I was in my early 20s, home from University (nearly left this as Uni and would have had to hit myself in the face) and still living back with my parents. I may have moved out and into Norwich by then and commuted back at the weekend for games, but it’s irrelevant. Or is it? I spent a couple of summers playing cricket for my local village team. I enjoyed the camaraderie of being around these menfolk, all in their 30s and beyond and all the usual trappings of amateur sport, the teas, the sitting around, the jokes, etc…

I was crap at cricket. I had a batting average of 0.5 in the ’99 season. I was usually stationed at Fine Leg or Deep Square (or my favourite name, Just Backwards of Square – this also gives me my musical choice for later) to keep me away from the action when fielding. This wasn’t helpful, given that I couldn’t throw very far.

Ok, so it’s baseball aka American Cricket, but on the other hand, it is Mariah….

However, I could bowl a little bit of spin, although I had no idea of what would happen with the ball once it left my right hand. While the batsmen didn’t either, neither did the wicketkeeper.

(As an aside, the wickie was a lovely man by the name of John Edge. Our local bobby/Busy, he was a Scouser, and was nicknamed, with true panache and consideration, Edgey—somewhat ironic for a wicketkeeper, I think).

Despite bamboozling myself and Edgey, it did help sometimes to get batsmen out. MY favourite was a chap close to his 100 against us. Our fast (and good) bowlers had struggled against him. I think I was the Fuck it, why not option for the captain. Long story short time, I got him out. And if memory serves, it was before he reached his tonne. I very much enjoyed the time in the pub later.

So it was particularly lovely to see this poem in the latest Rialto by Oliver Comins. Please note there are many, many other excellent poems in the new Rialto (and an excellent couple of interviews), but for now we will focus on this one.

Oliver Comins, from the latest Rialto (Issue 94)

I loved Oliver’s Oak Fish Island and have been enjoying seeing his new work come out across the mags and sites, etc, but this one, alongside the questions about the cup, triggered the happy memory. I wasn’t quite in 8fer territory. I may have managed 3 once, but I certainly recognise the ‘all-night grin’.

And now that I’ve realised that Matthew’s original tweet mentioned Cricket and that I’ve been talking about cricket here—by accident, not by design, I can pat myself on the back and stop.

THE WEEK IN STATS

6k running – Lower, again, this week due to still having what I think is hamstring knack…

2 days of a new 7-minute workout. I will build this up, but it’s a start. Hamstring knack is killing my motivation

1 evening in with a mate that was most enjoyable

2 x rejections: Stand and Marble Poetry

1 poem finished – Was called ‘Buttered Dogs’, but isn’t now

3 poems worked on. ‘Tea Breaks’, ‘Hatton Garden’ and ‘Schröedinger’s Catch’

1 day without cigarettes…

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

TITLE GIVEAWAY

Quiet Fire (thanks to my wife for that one)
Trundling In
Oh The Huge Manatee

READ/SEEN/HEARD/ETC

Music
Philip Glass: Symphonies 3 & 8, Early Works 1969 -70
AdriAnne Lenker: Abysskiss
Smashing Pumpkins :Confessions of a Dopamine Addict EP
Bjork: Homogenic
John Hiatt: Slug Line
Kath Bloom: Bye Bye These Are The Days
Suzanne Vaille: Love Live Where Rules Die
Susanne Sundfør: The Sillicone Veil
Tall Ships: Impressions, Everything Touching, There Is Nothing But Chemistry Here
Fairport Convention: Full House, ST
The Family Cat: Magic Happens
Followed By Ghosts: The Entire City Was Silent
Four Ten:Live At Funkhaus, Berlin 2018
R.E.M.: Around The Sun, Fables of the Reconstruction
Rachel’s: Selenography, Music For Egon Schiele
New Order: Power, Corruption & Lies
The Tallest Man In The World: The Wild Hunt
Robbie Basho: Venus In Cancer
Sonic Boom: All Things Being Equal
OSEES: Levitation Sessions
Kevin Morby: City Music, Harlem River, Oh My God, Singing Saw
The Last Dinosaur: Untitled Piece for Piano and Viola, Hooray! For Happiness
Working Men’s Club: ST
Margo Price: All American Made
Sun Ra & His Arkestra: Holiday For Soul Dance

Hangouts/Video Calls/Zoom/Etc (not for work)
None this week

TV/Film
Battlestar Galactica S2 E7-13
Selling Sunset S3
The London Marathon – well done to Emma, Rufus and Euan

Radio/Podcasts
The Archers
Grandbag’s Funeral Ep5: NoseyBonk At Chinawhites

Arrived
The North 64
Alex MacDonald – Delicious All Day
Gregory Leadbetter – Maskwork
Poetry News
Socks from Jollies
Nine Pins Mug – Get yours here to support a new press

Ordered
Socks from Jollies
Alex MacDonald – Delicious All Day
Derek Mahon – Selected Poems

Read
Dark Horse 42
Rialto 94

A lovely song from a lovely album….I do actually think these song choices through.

Where Eagles Beware

/ Mat Riches / 1 Comment

Just read through last week’s post and discovered the phrase “eagle a fist”. I think, based on what had gone before I meant “waggle a fist”. Eagling a fist is perhaps a golfing term and as far as I am concerned I’m with Churchill on golf. He said it’s a shit sporting not to be bothered with.

I know there’s a more famous quote attributed to him, but this unattributed (and entirely made up) one is far better, IMHO.

I’ve been very lucky of late to have my ramblings picked up and included in Dave Bonta’s round up of weekly blogs, Via Negative. I find my gibbering in among a range of great posts where people make genuine sense, post interesting work of their own and generally look like they know what they are doing, and I am bemused as to how I got there.

However, it’s lovely to see and cheering. I am 99.9% confident that this week’s post won’t make the grade (Double dares Dave!!).

There’s nothing to say this week. I’ve continued my pre-work schedule of writing for about 30 – 45 minutes before switching to day job mode and I think it’s helping. I’ve made some progress on a couple of longer poems that have been hanging about for a while. I think the idea of the graft required to get them anywhere was subconsciously putting me off working on them, but nibbling away at them over the last two weeks has been quite restorative.

It’s interesting that it’s longer stuff that’s being worked on. I didn’t think I was a long poem kind of poet at all. The sustained level of thought didn’t seem like me at all, and perhaps it isn’t. The poems may well be shite, but I like the idea of a concise idea being spread out—if that’s not an oxymoron.

It’s also interesting in these times that it’s taken so long to get into a routine for myself; the work routine happened pretty much straightaway.

I think, for me, the end of summer and the return to school has shaken me out of the stupor a bit, made me accept the long haul of it all. There was a lovely quote from someone on an online research community for work that said something like, “At least if you’re in prison you know when you’re getting out pretty much to the day. Lockdown, etc isn’t like that – it’s the not knowing.”

I’m paraphrasing, but the point’s the same, and it’s taken me six months to come to terms with that. That said, that getting up and exercising then writing and then a full day off work has knackered me out. Today was the first day I’ve slept in for months…it was glorious, but I feel discombobulated by that. I can’t win.

In other news, three lovely things arrived this week that I am enjoying leafing through.

  • The Rialto
  • The Dark Horse
  • Frogmore Papers

THE WEEK IN STATS

4 days of a new 7-minute workout. I will build this up, but it’s a start.

10.4k running – Lower this week due to cancelling this morning’s longer run – sleep and dodgy hamstrings made me think sleep was the better option

1 evening out with a couple of mates that was most enjoyable

1 meal out with Flo

1 shopping trip to Rough Trade for Flo to buy her first vinyl. Nice.

3 poems worked on. ‘OOO’, ‘Tea Breaks’ and one I can’t decide on a title for

2 days without cigarettes…I was doing well, again…

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

TITLE GIVEAWAY

Ornation Under A Groove
The Knights Are Drawing In
The Knights Are Colouring In
You Want A Piece of Me, no…not that one
You Know You’re In The Fire When The Frying Pan Looks Good
Batch Cooking

READ/SEEN/HEARD/ETC

Music
VA – Door To The Cosmos
Gillian Welch – Time (The Revelator)
Glenn Jones – Fleeting

The Go-Betweens
Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express
Tallulah

Goat
Requiem
Stone Goat
World Music
Commune
Fuzzed In Europe
It’s Time For Fun
Live Ballroom Ritual

RM Hubbert
First & Last
Thirteen Lost & Found
Breaks & Bone

72-Hour Post Fight – ST and Not/Unglued
Smoked Sugar – ST
Manic Street Preachers – Futurology. (Every 6 months I try again with MSP and every time they bore me to tears)
Menomena – Wet And Rusting
Molina and Johnson – ST
Nice As Fuck – ST
Pearl jam – Gigaton

Pele
Elephant
Enemies
The Nudes
People Living With Animals, Animals Kill People
A Scuttled Blender In A Watery Closet
Teaching The history of Teaching Geography

Fleet Foxes – Shore
Explosions In The Sky – All of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
Fleet Foxes – ST
Bedhead – Transaction De Novo
Ed Harcourt – Monochrome to Colour
Jealous of the Birds – Penisula

El Ten Eleven
Tautology III
Banker’s Hill
ST
Fast Forward

Elbow – Giants of All Sizes
Laura Barton’s It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere Playlist
Eric Andersen – Avalanche
VA – Fieldworks:Ultrasonic
Bonny Light Horseman – ST
Tangents – Timeslips
Mint Field – Sentimiento Mundial
Frank Black – ST
Fanny – Fanny Hill
National _ Boxer
John Hiatt – Mystic Pinball
David Axelrod – heavy AxeWilliam Ackerman – Imaginary Roads

Hangouts/Video Calls/Zoom/Etc (not for work)
The latest ep of Grandbag’s Funeral

TV/Film
Battlestar Galactica S2 E2-6
Selling Sunset S2 E7-8
The Truman Show

Radio/Podcasts
The Archers
Latest Episode of the excellent Grandbag’s Funeral

Arrived
Frogmore Papers Sub
Rialto
Dark Horse

Ordered
Frogmore Papers Sub
A Nine Pens Mug
Alex MacDonald Pamphlet

Read
Sarah Corbett: The Red Wardrobe, Other Beasts
Dark Horse 42