Rorschach, baby…Rorschach, baby, Rorschach…

I mean it doesn’t really matter whether I send this on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday (I’m in love), Saturday or Sunday, but I do like to get this done on Sunday. However, another day of paint-stripping saw to that plan. I’m getting there, I think, and reckon there’s another two weekends of prep work to go. It’s like poetry to an extent, in the sense of fitting it in around the rest of life. I don’t think I could be a full time painter and decorator, just as I don’t think I could be a full-time poet. I’m barely part-time at present, but I was buoyed by reading this para in Maggie Smith’s newsletter.

She sets it up by talking about the idea of pre-writing, as coined by Lee Martin, and then invited her readers to consider committing to doing at least one thing a day in service to your writing.

“This one thing can be a small thing. You might scrawl some notes in a notebook or revise an existing piece. You might chip away at a book proposal. You might research journals or presses, query an agent, or submit work. You might request books at your local library for a project or do some background reading. Yes, reading counts. Thinking counts. And since I find that I do some of my best thinking in the shower, yes, showering counts, too.” Maggie Smith, Pep Talk (Do consider signing up, even if for free).

Have no fear, this won’t lead to me talking about being in the shower…There isn’t enough mind bleach in the world to erase that image for you. And it won’t lead to me wanging on about writing, etc. I’m not sure I entirely buy into the idea of pre-writing, etc, but I also happily buy into it enough when I am not writing to make me feel less bad about that…

Anyhoo, in another attempt to make a connection out of thin air I noticed the following last week.

On Tuesday I decided to put the copy of Holly Hopkins‘, The English Summer’ in my bag for my commute.

Proof of the book being with me on the same day as the article was published. Not that you doubt me, obvs…just going for transparency/paranoia (delete as applicable)

An appalling photo of my copy of a brilliant pamphlet. Taken today

I had enjoyed her Poetry Business pamphlet, Soon Every House Will Have One, a while back, and even though it’s taken me a while to get to reading the collection, it was interesting to see the time between pamphlet and collection, eight years based on the pamphlet coming out in 2014. It’s also interesting to see how many poems have travelled from one book to the other—13 out of 21 by my reckoning. There’s also an article to be written about any changes between pamphlet and collection versions, if there are any, but that it not what we are here for today.

No, it’s the tenuous connection, so here we go. I didn’t read the book on my way in, but at lunchtime I happened to see a post by last week’s poet in residence (of this blog for that week), Rishi Dastidar. He posted a link to this article about his book, Neptune’s Projects. The interview is up at The Mechanics Institute Review and contains Rishi being interviewed by Craig Smith (also ex of this parish). It’s a great interview, and towards the end (SPOILER ALERT) Rishi mentions Holly’s book as one to get hold of/one he’s enjoyed.

And with that, ladies and gennulmen, I had my connection for the week. As long as I enjoyed the poems in the book. Luckily for me, I did. I’d flicked to the notes at the back and saw a reference to the FiveThirtyEight blog by Nate Silver. And look, poetry, polling, probability and predictions are things I am happy to see under one roof, so the poem that mentioned 538 seemed perfect. And it was even better once I read it.

Early Winter

It’s not a frozen spoon on your tongue.
It’s a mildew eating everything,
the path through the forest is pulp.

The trees weigh up the bad choice
and send a shunt to amputate each leaf.
A cataract ripens on the surface of the sun.

Still, the moss is more inviting now,
soft spires; we could curl down like mites.
The river flexes currents on its surface.

These assertions can be verified by anyone
with a car, or the leisure to daytrip by train,
or a little wood protected by a local council.

We’re used to waiting winter out
like a debilitating cold. Our faith in spring
so strong we’d never call it faith.

It’s statistical analysis: every year we lived,
that year it came. These things can be predicted
we read FiveThirtyEight! We know it comes,

it must. Or we’re stood in rotting undergrowth,
ankle deep in muck with mittened hands
charged with shifting the axis of the earth.

+++++++++++++++++
Taken from The English Summer, Penned In The Margins Press, 2022. Published with the author’s permission.

My thanks to Holly for permission to share it. Please note it was also published by The Poetry Society in 2017. And it hasn’t changed since. I love the sense of prediction, the sense of extrapolation about the oncoming winter in the tiny details, the modelling that comes from observing. And the first line (and the rest). I note The English Summer has been shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Prize for first collections this year. I haven’t read any of the other entrants, so can’t really say much, but of the ones I’ve read so far this is my favourite.


In other news/articles that are surely catnip to poets: A look at Rorschach tests being made
It also gives me an excuse to share this joke. Click through for the full joke.

Anyway, a guy goes to an analyst. The analyst says, ‘I’m just going to show you some pictures and I want you to tell me what you see.’
Guy goes, ‘Sure, I get it.’

— Jeremy Millar (@jeremy_millar_1) May 17, 2023

Finally, I saw this below about the rejection letters of the infamous record company..Home to The Pixies, and many other amazing bands. I wonder if magazines and the like could learn anything from this. Can we think of poetry submissions as demo tapes? It also gives me a excuse to link to Half Man Half Biscuit’s wonderful song about 4AD

4AD Rejection Letter 1980 pic.twitter.com/AUcaogWuKk

— 4AD (@4AD_Official) May 18, 2023

NB written in bursts before work and at lunch time….such is the commitment.., but also the apologies for typos, gibberish, etc

We won’t mention the Arsenal result!!


A Song that is in some vague way linked to something (and isn’t the HMHB song)

Holly’s poem gives me an excuse to post this amazing 60’s Psych banger again

THE LAST WEEK IN STATS

HEALTH STATS
22K running. Better, inc longest run of the year so far (and with a hangover)
2 day without cigarettes…
3 day since drinking.

LIFE STATS
1 oven fixed
1 phone number written somewhere in my local park. Don’t know why.
1 team entry for Dino Dash. Hope head doesn’t explode this time.
More paint-stripping
1 hedge cut
1 night out where friendship groups meet. And it worked


POET STATS
1 loose ideas/articles gathered (this allows me to kid myself I am writing all the time)
0 poems finished:
0 poems worked on: Designated Driver (TBC)
0 poems committed to the reject pile
0 submissions:
0 withdrawal:
0 acceptances:
0 Longlisting:
0 readings:
0 rejections: Northern Gravy
18 poems are currently out for submission. No simultaneous subs
83 Published poems


0 review finished:
0 reviews started:
0 review submitted:
3 reviews 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 r= Radio, A = Audiobook, P=Podcast. The rest is music
Monday
Richmond Fontaine: Winnemucca, We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River, Lost Son, Miles From…, Obliteration By Time, Post To Wire
Richard & Linda Thompson: I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight
Tuesday
The Archers
Re-draft: Ben Wilkinson, etc
The Boo Radleys; Giant Steps
Meg Baird: Furling
Charlie Mingus: Let My Children Hear Music
Echo & The Bunnymen: Heaven Up Here
Electrafixion: Burned
Cowboy Junkies Podcast: Sun Comes Up, I’m So Open (p)
Foxhole Companion: Fortress Of War (p)
Weds
Ride: Smile, This Is Not A Safe Place, Weather Diaries, Tomorrow’s Shore EP
Joan As Police Woman: Real Life,
Pale Saints: In Ribbons, Mrs. Dolphin, Slow Buildings, Comforts of Madness
My Morning Jacket:Live Red Rocks 2019
Fri
Califone: Quicksand/Cradlesnakes
The Search Party: Montgomery Chapel
The Posies: Failure
Horse Thief: Fear In Bliss
Masal & Andy Bell: Tidal Love Numbers
Various tunes in my mate Mike’s kitchen
Sat
The Archers
Califone: Villagers
The Wedding Present: 24 Songs
Sunday
LRB Podcast: Don Paterson & Declan Ryan
Cowboy Junkies Podcast: Eps 10-32

Read
Luke Samuel Yates: Dynamo
Holly Hopkins: The English Summer
William Thompson: After Clare
Rebecca Farmer: A Separate Appointment

Watched
Masterchef
Ted Lasso
Succession
Scandal (Watching R&F watching it)
Barry

Ordered/Bought
Strix 9
Dark Horse Sub
Entrance to Crystal Palace Dino Dash run
A replacement cutlery basket for our dishwasher

Arrived
Dark Horse
New Welsh Reader

 

Anthropocene and not heard

A flying one this week. It’s no news week for me this week – just head down and working flat out. The bank holiday was lovely, but did rather put the moccers on my workload…And that in turn prevented me from seeing an old work colleague that had flown in from Australia. Not to see me specifically, but when you consider how far they’d travelled it was a bit annoying. However, I digress and I grumble too much.

This weekend has been all about stripping…Paint-stripping specifically, and it is slow, laborious but dull work. It has meant I’ve been able to catch up on some podcasts as I strip away at layers of paint in my hallway.

Each one has had lots of interesting things to say, so in the absence of anything else I shall point you to them.

1. Rebecca Goss being interviewed by John Greening. It’s in two parts (part one and part two, because that’s how two-parters work.) This was recorded before her latest book, Latch, came out, but you can here in the podcast the book coming to fruition. I loved lots of what Rebecca had to say about being a poet, about her trajectory to becoming a poet, about learning to fight against defaulting to the same form—in her case it’s couplets and being labelled “deceptively simple”. You can also find transcripts here and here

2. The comedian Steven Wright being interviewed by Conan O’Brien. This is a new podcast to me, but I love Steven Wright’s sense of humour. His one liners are incredible.

For example, “Support bacteria – they’re the only culture some people have.”. See here for a list of 100 or so, and get yourself his albums, ‘I Have a Pony or ‘I Still Have a Pony ‘.

The reason I note this podcast, despite being it just being incredibly funny, is that he describes the 4 rules he set himself when he started out. You’ll have to listen to get them all, but essentially he talks about not doing political, topical material or swearing in his work. The first two help to give his work a timeless quality, and the last one is to help make the work land more. A joke with swearing in can be funny, but if you take the swearing out it makes the line work harder. This may or may not be useful in terms of writing poems. I am on the fence, but see what you think.

3. I finally got my copy of the Poetry Review and read the interview/exchange of letters between Gboyega Odubanjo and Don Paterson. I found myself agreeing with much of what both camps had to say. Read it…Make up your own mind…More fence-sitting from me.

4. The Poetry Review podcast interview between Emily Berry and Mary Rueffle was a late addition to my listening today, but was a welcome addition. Despite seeing her mentioned everywhere (define everywhere, Mat), I didn’t know her work, and she mentioned a deep love for writing letters, so it connects to above…loosely.

5. I may have mentioned once or twice how much of a massive fan I am of The Hold Steady/Craig Finn, and I have lately started tuning into Craig’s podcast about memory and creativity, ‘That’s How I Remember It. The episode with Hanif Abdurraqib was notable for many things, but the one that stood out was his point at the end about ensuring you shout about things you like, about cheer-leading for them in public. I try to do this on the social medias, but it never hurts to be reminded.

6. The Wine Verb. Hot off the press, this was broadcast on Friday and features Ramona Herdman (See here for a Ramona poem, Jane Commane, Angie Hobbs (Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield- AMAZING JOB TITLE) , and wine critic Aleesha Hansel to discuss poems and booze. Also, it has a shout out for the Candlestick Press book, Ten Poems About Wine featuring Jane Commane, Matthew Stewart and many others. Ok, eight more.

Now, to get to the poem part.

I saw an article this week about a plastic-eating bacteria (it wasn’t this specific article, but I can’t find it now, and hey, Newsround is a national institution…John Craven and all that)…I think it was on Tuesday that I saw it. On Wednesday I started reading Rishi Dastidar‘s ‘Neptune’s Projects’. I’ve spoken here about Rishi before, and I suspect he needs little introduction to you, my loyal reader(s). His achievements, projects and poetry-based cheer-leading (that word again) are/is multifarious and far-reaching. He’s a fine reader of his work. And he has a natty line in baseball caps.

I’m pleased to see the Neptune poems out in the world now—have heard some of them at various readings in the last few years – including one of the Rogue Strands nights. I think it was at the King & Queen for Rogue Strands 2: The Roguening.

NB I called the King & Queen recently to enquire about using it as a potential launch venue and they wanted a minimum spend of £500. Oof, not sure that’s doable-even at London prices.

Anyhoo, back to the poem. You’ll soon see why it makes sense to put this.


Top of the food chain

Behold! I am the creature that will
replace you and you and you too,

because I am perfectly adapted to
the biosphere you’ve created, and oh

the irony that you couldn’t adjust
in time, install outboard gills, shields

to skin, harvest blood from seas. My
did you go on, as attested to in the

Anthropocene record that surfaces
from the heat-slime now and again,

and yet you did nothing: sound various
alarms, change damn all. I’m glad: as if

you had some divine lease to stay on
the planet forever. Species come, go,

get over yourselves. I bet the dinosaurs
didn’t want to disappear into kids’ TV either.


+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Taken from Neptune’s Projects , Nine Arches Press, 2022. Published with the author’s permission.

My thanks to Rishi for permission to share it, and for pointing me towards this video based on the poem.

The Food Chain

We need more poems with videos, I think. I will allow this poem to get away with its usage of the word ‘Anthropocene’. It seems to me to be one of the words du jour, but it works in the context of this poem.I could be imagining that though, so we’ll ignore that.

I love the tone of voice of this poem; it fits largely with my (miserable) viewpoint that we are just passing through and that we are like very shit guests at the planetary Air B’n’B. The line ‘sound/ various alarms, change damn all” is particularly poignant in light of reports that we have largely passed the point of no return in ecological terms. I think the use of damn quite neatly fits with Steven Wright’s point about swearing taking away from the point being made. It lands harder.

I put it to you that you’d do well to get a copy of Neptune’s Projects for more like this and lots more besides.

We won’t mention the Arsenal result!!


A Song that is in some vague way linked to something

Loscil: Anthropocene

THE LAST WEEK IN STATS

HEALTH STATS
12K running. A slow week due to work and the like, but my knee is improving now I’ve started trying to stretch my hamstrings.
0 day without cigarettes…
1 day since drinking.

LIFE STATS
1 oven gone kaput
1 oven being repaired
1 electrician amazed that whoever installed the oven hadn’t killed us
1 furious Mat
1 air fryer borrowed from a friend. Crikey, they are fast.
1 mate and his son completed a
5K charity swim on the same night I think I pulled a groin muscle sitting down to eat a takeaway.


POET STATS
1 loose ideas/articles gathered (this allows me to kid myself I am writing all the time)
0 poems finished:
0 poems worked on: TBC
1 poem committed to the reject pile. The initial joy of last week’s draft has worn off. It wasn’t very good
0 submissions:
0 withdrawal:
0 acceptances:
0 Longlisting:
0 readings:
0 rejections:
22 poems are currently out for submission. No simultaneous subs
83 Published poems


0 review finished:
0 reviews started:
0 review submitted:
3 reviews 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 r= Radio, A = Audiobook, P=Podcast. The rest is music
Tuesday
The Archers (P)
The Verb, Wild Water, Funny Women (P)
Cowboy Junkies: All That Reckoning, At the End of Paths Taken, Ghosts
Laura Stevenson: The Big Freeze
Conan O’Brien: Stephen Wright (p)
The Foxhole Companion: Tobruk double bill (p)  
Craig Finn That’s How I Remember It: Alejandro Escovedo (p)
Weds
The Archers (p)
Music Is the Drug: Ornette Coleman, A Common Disaster (p)
Akira Kosemura: One Day
Craig Finn: Faith In The Future
Einstellung: Sleep Easy Mr Parker
Dropsonde Playlist 
Craig Finn That’s How I Remember It: The Hold Steady (p)
A Mouthful of Air: Tom Sastry (P)
Thurs
Cass McCombs: A
Jim Noir: AM Jazz
The Joy Formidable: Aaarth
Kreidler: ABC
Brave Captain: Advertisements for Myself
Richie Havens: Alarm Clock
The Breeders: All Nerve
Friday
Richmond Fontaine: Safety
Dropsonde Playlist
Saturday
The Archers (p)
The Verb: Wine, Sound Design (p)
Cowboy Junkies: Caution Horses. 
Sunday 
Mouthful of Air: Cat Jeoffry (P)
Poetry Society Podcast.: Kate Wakeling (P)
Poetry Review Podcast: Mary Rueffle (P)

Read
Rishi Dastidar: Neptune’s Projects
Luke Samuel Yates: Dynamo
Under The Radar: Food
Poetry Review

Watched
Masterchef
Ted Lasso
Succession
Scandal (Watching R&F watching it)

Ordered/Bought
Holiday insurance

Arrived
Poetry Review
Laura McKee: Take Care of Your Hooves Darling
Genevieve Carter: Landsick
Ella Sadie Guthrie: poems for Pete Davidson
Andy Jackson: The Saints Are Coming (Thanks, Andy)

 

I covered myself in fluorescent orange ink earlier. It was the highlight of my day*

Look, I was going to do this last week (which would, I think, have maintained the bi-weekly approach), but there was what could be described as the mother of all hangovers last week. For someone that couldn’t give two shits about #plattyjubes, I certainly lent into the celebrations…and not even in my own street. Look, we’ve all done it, so just let it go…move on…nothing to see here.

It’s sort of annoying though, as I’d already planned out what I was going to write. That doesn’t happen often. I was, and will now, going to write about/link to this article from the excellent Tedium newsletter.

Much like the Boring Conference (and I won’t go on about them again, although I note the Interesting Conference is back this year…For those not aware TBC was a reaction to TIC being cancelled a few years ago), Tedium describes itself as having ” existed to answer a simple question: Can boring things be made interesting? Can we uncover the history of things that usually don’t have histories written about them? And can a voice be given to areas of life that generally aren’t thought about that much? It took us a while to get there, but the answer is yes. We think.”

The article in question is about the origins of neon signs, fluorescent lights** and day-go colours. It ends with the excellent line: “More importantly, fluorescent and neon remind us we’re nowhere near done exploring light.” and that in itself could be a poem, but (and you’ll have to forgive the rather route one link here) I was reminded while reading the article of this poem by Rishi Dastidar. Taken from his first collection with Nine Arches Press, Ticker-tape

The last neon sign maker in Hong Kong

His hands flutter by the five tongues of flame,
joints articulating at 800 degrees Celsius,
lips blowing commercial wishes down glass tubes,
speaking of honest scripts for certain characters:
light-heads, bending, swirling, inflating.

Thousand layer paper slides in to protect
the messages, before chicken intestines
shake hands with neon breath and iron hearts
for a brighter light: “without displays of prosperity
my city is a ghost town.”

If you’re feeling blue
the answer is argon, he says, but best
is daylight red. A door above an air con
unit glows rainbow ready, the past slipping out.
He inhales the urban gas one last time.

Having just had to lay that poem out in WordPress, I now have an even deeper undying respect for editors of poetry journals, and this isn’t even an especially complex lay out.

(Postscript on 13th June…That layout totally didn’t work. Please imagine stanza 1 and 3 are indented. I’ll work out the lay out.)

I’m always glad to share (and read) poems by Rishi, and was glad to mention another of his poems from Ticker-tape earlier this week to Hilary Menos. She was on the look out for poems with a link to economics, and his poem, Diagnosis: Londonism absolutely filled the brief.

Having heard them at readings in the last year or so, I hope to be linking to new poems of his from book three in the future, but knowing I’d already planned to link to one poem of his, meant that the second was a lovely little coincidence— you know how I love such a thing.

And there was a further little coincidence that made me happy this week. About ten days ago Instagram suggested to me I should follow Daniel Bennett. Having written a review of his excellent collection from The High Window Press, West South North North South East a couple of years ago for London Grip, it seemed like a good idea, so I did.

Then a couple of days ago a work colleague of mine messaged me to ask me how I knew Daniel Bennett. I explained that I don’t really, but that I’d reviewed…etc and how do you know him. They replied that he was/is marrying a friend of theirs. Does that make it a small world? Does it matter?

Either way, it gives me an excuse to post another poem. And to make another small connection as my friend Steve Pringle has a book out now about The Fall. It’s called You Must Get Them All and you should buy a copy. Why do I mention this…read on, old fruit…read on.

Back with the Boys


That was the city of dirty cardboard
where we all knew an ex-member of The Fall.
Lilacs sprouted beneath our doorsteps
and Italians students slept inside our airing cupboards.
They were days when we needed nothing
but mixtapes, red wine and crap films,
when we theorised about conspiracies by postcard.
Ah, those were good days let me tell you,
when two men named Tim fought for supremacy
of the underground clubs of Stoke Newington
and the loser became known as Australian Tim,
when a friend had been working for years
on the index to his history of the Templars
and none of us would actually read it
but voiced encouragement about The Project.
These were days before restaurateurs ruled Soho,
when the shops sold Bakelite radios and peacock feathers
and women called to you, trapped in their booths.
Everyone avoided the docks and the reservoir
unless they didn’t and you heard about it endlessly
as the subject of monologues or outsider performances,
and we listened to Colombian instrumentalists
and danced The Scratch and The Fundamentalist
during gigs by Queasy Saint and Aryan Zoo.
One time, someone befriended an old woman
late at night, on the way back from the tube station,
and we dragged her along to The Cuckoo Inn
and propped her at the bar and fed her gin and almonds
until she began to cry and pointed back outside,
warning us that time is circular and space an illusion
and everything is lost, even as you experience it.

Now, just to make things nice and circular, as you will know, the Tedium article makes reference to tomatoes. Yesterday, I planted my tomato plants. Bit late, but I hope to get a reasonable crop. This week I have been working on a new version of a poem that used to be called Photosynthesis and was about me talking to my tomato crop.

It was/is a poem that I hope will be in my pamphlet. After some excellent feedback on it (and the other poems on the longest) from a very kind, generous and patient friend, I think I may have revised the poem to its final state. Part of this is changing the title to….well, that’s TBC.

One final, final closing of the loop. Based on this post that I saw earlier in the week, I’m starting to think that Eva Green is reading these posts.

** This is one of my favourite jokes…I think it’s one of my “jokes” as well.

The Fall, Paintwork

THE (LAST TWO or THREE) WEEKS IN STATS

c70K running. 25K this week, including 15k yesterday. I’m ramping up again.
8 trips to central London for work
1 massive hangover
1 week of taking a hard look at myself
8ish (at least) journeys to dance lessons and back for Flo
1 rejections: Poetry Wales, An official rejection from Crannog
0 new poem finished:
14 poems worked on: Arecibo Message, Cycle, A Foley Artist, Dropsonde, Tomato Pants, Goliath, A Short Survey, Longleat, Fishing Exercise, Slipping Away, Clearing Dad’s Shed, Captain’s Pond, Summer Job, Working With My Dad
0 poems published:
0 submissions: I’m pausing on this while I edit stuff.
0 acceptance:
22 poems are currently out for submission.
5 poems left to submit beyond makeweights
75 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
1 review finished: Tom Sastry
2 reviews to write: How the fuck did that happen…I keep finishing them and then they keep coming.
2 day without cigarettes…I was doing so well, Oh well, back to it. As in giving up, not back to smoking.
8 Days since drinking
0 sleepless nights:
1 more week that I’m not having an affair with Eva Green

* To date, not this week. Christ!!

TITLE GIVEAWAY
A Starter for 9.99 recurring
Arranging Ducks In A Linear Fashion
Any Portcullis in a storm
My battery farm runs like clockwork

READ/SEEN/HEARD/ETC

Read
Joshua Mehigan: Accepting The Disaster
Graham Mort: A Night On The Lash
Finished Creatures #6
Poetry London #100
The Dark Horse #45

Zooms:
None

Music
Tess Parks & Anton Newcombe: ST
The Oh Sees: Levitation Sessions II
The Darling Buds: Pop Said
Craig Finn: A Legacy of Rentals
Vangelis: The Dragon
The Fatima Mansions: Viva Dead Ponies, Valhalla Avenue
Microdisney: And The Clock Comes Down The Stairs
Explosions In The Sky: All of A Sudden I Miss Everybody
The Cure: Anniversary
Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita: Soar, Echo
Teenage Fanclub: Shadows, Songs From Northern Britain
Aztec Camera: Knife
Crowded House: Together Alone
Doves: Kingdom of Rust
The Durutti Column: Time Was Gigantic
The Charlatans: Up At the Lake, Different Days
Mono: My Story—The Buraku Story
Jeff Buckley: Live At Sin-e, Grace
Helpful People: broken Blossom Threats
Valentin Silvestrov: Silent Songs
HAAI: Baby, We’re Ascending
The Cure: Wish
Planet Poetry: Caleb Parkin
Grandbag’s Funeral: Big Willie
Analogue: I Was Not Sleeping
Stanley Turrentine: Salt Song, Jubilee Shout!!
Portion Portion Lopez: Ice Cream Soufi
Gold Panda: Your Good Times Are Just beginning
Frank Sinatra: Watertown
The National: Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers, The Virginian EP, ST, Boxer, High Violet
Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band: Dear Scott
Erland Cooper: Music For Growing Plants
Andrew Bird: Inside Problems
The Cure: Entreat
SG Goodman: Teethmarks
Stanley Turrentine: Joyride
Stars: Under Capelton Hill
Just Mustard: Heart Under
The Archers
Spiritualized: Everything Was Beautiful
Andrew Bird: Are You Serious?
Bobby Hutcherson: Components
The Cure: Faith
Steve Wynn: Here Come The MiraclesMy Morning Jacket: Live Vol1 – 2015
Pearl Jam – Live 2016 New York Nights 1 & 2
The Dream Syndicate: Ultraviolet Battle Hymns and True Confessions
Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band: Adios Señor Pussycat
Erland Cooper: Solan Goose, Sule Skerry, Hether Blether, Never Pass Into Nothingness
Ron Carter: Pastels
Sharon Van Etten: We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, Remind Me Tomorrow, Tramp

Watched
Ozark
Grace
Grey’s Anatomy
Everybody Here Wants You: Jeff Buckley Documentary
Champions League Final
Stranger Things S4
Love Island
Taskmaster

Ordered
Charlotte Schevchenko Knight: Ways of Healing
Screen protectors
iPhone case
Poetry Birmingham Journal #8

Arrived
Finished Creatures #6
Charlotte Schevchenko Knight: Ways of Healing
Screen protectors
iPhone case

Pro-Rogue Strands

AKA Rogue Strands II: The Roguening

Yep, it’s back…almost a year to the day. It’s my enormous pleasure to be able to start talking about this properly, but after the success of last year’s event, Matthew Stewart and I are finally able to put on the second of these nights.

Hopefully, we can start picking up the pace a little bit now, although that is dependent on Matthew being able to get over from Spain. However, that’s an issue for another time.

For now, I want to concentrate on what an amazing line up of poets we’ve assembled.

Feast your mince pies on this lot:

I mean, how good is this list?

How good is that list of people, even factoring me into it? That is a mix of poets to be proud of and all for the princely sum of £3 (or more if you want) that goes to help out the wonderful folks at The Trussell Trust.

Last year we raised over £300. I want to do much more than that this year, so if you can’t make it then please do feel free to donate here –
justgiving.com/fundraising/roguestrands2019

Matthew is going to share more in terms of bios and a poem from each of the readers in the next few weeks and I will talk more about them here, but for now join me in my excitement.

It’s an honour for me to read with all of these poets, I’m a fan of all of them, so I’m a big giddy about it. Let me know if you’re coming along.

TITLE GIVEAWAY

1. Priority Seat
2. Orthopaedic Hovercraft (Credit to my wife for this one)
3. The Screaming of Rhubarb
4. Darkness on the Edge of Tans
5. Burnt Parsnips

THE WEEK IN STATS

17K running – Missed a run this week due to a visiting mother

0 Poems worked on Nada, nowt, zilch. Although, half an idea about a combination of Unwinese and Nadsat.

27 days without cigarettes. May have smoked yesterday, but it’s a blip.

1 rejection email – From Primers. There’s a magnificent looking shortlist of poets though, so I can’t wait to see who gets chosen.

1 flurry of submissions – Now I have a load of poems back I can send a load out again. That’s how it works

1 introduction to Stanley Unwin I’m pleased to have introduced someone to the work of Sir Stanley…

1 review published – Jane Lovell’s This Tilting Earth

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

READ, SEEN, ETC

Read:
The Doomed City by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
Island of Towers, Clarissa Aykroyd

Ordered:
Nothing

Watched:
Not a lot, couple of Dublin Murders and a Rugby World Cup final..

Listened to:
Vetiver, Up on High, Thing of the Past
REM, Monster
Michael Kiwanuka, Kiwanuka
Anna Meredith, Fibs
808 State, Transmission Suite
and of course, The Archers…

Well, who else was it going to be? I reckon I’ve got at least 12 Rogue Strands nights before I need to find another band to use for these things