Not my own success in this case but a friend's, Jan Bengree, (whose blog, jan's writing journal, you can read). Jan has recently had a run of success with flash fiction and short stories - second Prize in the Keele University short story competition and several short pieces published in Flash magazine (published by Chester University); success she shared at Words and Biscuits, our writing group of 10 women, who meet every 6 weeks. Jan is a very, very good writer but somehow for years she did not seem to do much, but suddenly she has the bit between her teeth and is at full gallop. And it's great to see!
Not only great to see but inspirational too: I went home after the group meeting and felt really keen to try some flash fiction writing myself so have spent a happy weekend spewing out short pieces. Three seemed really promising and I have sent these off to Flash magazine. Mslexia magazine also regularly features readers' flash fiction but their word limit is 150 words, extremely short - Flash magazine's word limit is 360, a bit more generous!
Words and Biscuits has had an interesting history. It was founded by Jan in the year 2000, and has only seen two people leave and two new faces arrive, and then only because these 2 former members moved away from the area. So we have been pretty constant. We are a mixture of poets and prose writers; some of us write in both forms. We used to broadcast our work twice a year on BBC Radio Merseyside, on the Artwaves programme, and were recorded by Angela Heslop who is very dear to all our hearts, such a relaxed, lovely person. But the programme got axed in favour of sport - totally disgraceful! as Artwaves was a really good and enjoyable programme, which presented details and snippets of art happenings all round our region and kept us in touch with what was going on. One of the few Radio M programmes I used to listen to regularly whether Words and Biscuits were on it or not.
Anyway, a cheerful goodbye to our past in the media! And on to other things: one of our members, Dilys Dowswell, is an active WI member also and she has organised for us to read our work to various WI groups round Cheshire. So we now troop around the county to some of the loveliest villages and read our work to groups that vary between tiny numbers and huge hallfuls of members. We get given wonderful tea and cakes, and we join in the singing of 'Jerusalem' with great gusto. I've never experienced anything quite like it in my life, and I tell you it's been a revelation and a joy. I never thought I would like this but to my surprise I do. Not just the tea and cakes but the obscure places we get to, the variety of village halls or other meeting places, the passionate causes championed by the different groups - yes, the WI is a great campaigning body for rural issues and is currently taking up the matter of the dearth of the honey bee, which I'm delighted about. (But that subject is for another blog post , when I get round to it...) I am beginning to have a great deal of admiration for the WI. They are remarkable women.
And you find out that some villages have Poems and Pints session which you don't know about, and other have 'Poems and Pies' lunches. These forays into Cheshire could almost take the place of Artwaves....
Sunday 28 June 2009
Monday 22 June 2009
Midsummer
And where are those long, long beautiful June evenings? Nowhere to be seen up here.
Despite that a pot of runner beans trained up bamboo canes is doing well in my small garden. How tough Mother Nature is - I'd have curled my toes up in this too cool summer weather!
The potatoes-in-the-compost-bag thing are not showing any signs of life yet but I didn't plant them until late; I had a spell of feeling very tired.
And there are only five apples on my apple tree this year.
I might try some rocket in a large pot but if I don't get round to that THEN
it's up to the runner beans...!
Despite that a pot of runner beans trained up bamboo canes is doing well in my small garden. How tough Mother Nature is - I'd have curled my toes up in this too cool summer weather!
The potatoes-in-the-compost-bag thing are not showing any signs of life yet but I didn't plant them until late; I had a spell of feeling very tired.
And there are only five apples on my apple tree this year.
I might try some rocket in a large pot but if I don't get round to that THEN
it's up to the runner beans...!
Saturday 20 June 2009
Zest!
If you are near Chester on June 29th and have a free evening let me invite you to drop into Alexanders Jazztheatre Bar in Rufus Court (off Northgate St) at 8 pm and join me for an Open Mic Poetry Evening called ZEST! I shall be hosting it and almost everyone who wishes to gets a chance to read at least one poem. Even if you don't want to read you will have a very enjoyable time listening to a wide variety of work, including poems from our guest poet Alicia Stubbersfield.
We try to have a special guest at our Zest! evenings at least twice a year: in the past we have had Pat Borthwick, Chris Kinsey (BBC Wildife Magazine's poet of the year 2008), Matt Merritt, John Lindley, Andrew Rudd, Mandy Pannett, Maggie Norton and David Bateman.
When I say 'we' I mean the Zest! team who are myself together with Leih Steggall and Caroline Hawkridge.
We try to have a special guest at our Zest! evenings at least twice a year: in the past we have had Pat Borthwick, Chris Kinsey (BBC Wildife Magazine's poet of the year 2008), Matt Merritt, John Lindley, Andrew Rudd, Mandy Pannett, Maggie Norton and David Bateman.
When I say 'we' I mean the Zest! team who are myself together with Leih Steggall and Caroline Hawkridge.
Friday 5 June 2009
Dream Songs
"I am going to give you all some dream songs" said Michael Symmons Roberts early on in last Saturday's Poetry School workshop on writing the poetry sequence.
How wonderful! Everyone should have a dream song; dream songs should be lying on every surface of the house: the fridgetop, the kitchen counter (preferably beside the kettle), on your bedside table, and definitely in the bathroom.
But of course Michael was talking about the American poet John Berryman's great work, a huge sequence called "Dream Songs", written largely when Berryman was in hospital for a long period being treated for depression. And the poet was delighted because in this situation the work came to him and he got it down. Which made me think about the creative act and depression:
Caroline Smailes whose blog I read from time to time has been very candid in a recent post about her own fight with depression some years ago, and this is a young woman who is a very dedicated, enthusiastic writer. I'm not going to go into great lists here of writers who have struggled with serious depression through their lives; anyone can find any amount of examples.
But sometimes illness can trigger creative expression. I am thinking of the poet Molly Holden who was diagnosed with MS, and who wrote some of her most moving poems in the voice of someone shut in behind a window, looking out at a world that was calmly going on without her and which she was no longer able to get out into without help.
A diagnosis of MS is particularly numbing since there is so little that can be done for it. My own husband had MS and when he came out of hospital after receiving that diagnosis, following a crisis that left him paralysed and unable to speak, he recovered enough to throw himself into a fury of doing things, worked very long hours in the lab, and insisted on cutting down a half rotten tree in our garden, a sycamore standing on a slope. I will never forget the manic rage with which he set himself to that task, attacking only the trunk and refusing to do the sensible thing of first removing branches. There was no restraining him and perhaps he needed to express his own helpless despair and anger at being told he had MS, but I can only tell you that when that tree gave way and began slowly to topple down the slope, away from my husband, I have never felt so thankful in my life! It fell against another tree which stood firm.
He was not able to keep this impassioned activity up for long: the disease in his case was quite progressive and he rapidly reached the stage of incontinence, numbness in the hands, problems with speech, his memory shot to pieces, unable even to recognise close members of his own family. He died at the age of 47.
Maybe if he had been a poet he would have written his own dream songs. Instead I have written them for him.
Here's one:
For Finbar
The stars here are like apples
crowding the tree.
You could have picked them one by one,
kept them in the pocket
closest to your heart.
But it is I who watch the stars,
I who cannot name them as you did.
The pockets of my heart are filled
with holes, the bright apples
always out of reach.
This poem was originally published in Poetry Scotland, and later in my pamphlet "Uncertain Days" (Happenstance Press)
How wonderful! Everyone should have a dream song; dream songs should be lying on every surface of the house: the fridgetop, the kitchen counter (preferably beside the kettle), on your bedside table, and definitely in the bathroom.
But of course Michael was talking about the American poet John Berryman's great work, a huge sequence called "Dream Songs", written largely when Berryman was in hospital for a long period being treated for depression. And the poet was delighted because in this situation the work came to him and he got it down. Which made me think about the creative act and depression:
Caroline Smailes whose blog I read from time to time has been very candid in a recent post about her own fight with depression some years ago, and this is a young woman who is a very dedicated, enthusiastic writer. I'm not going to go into great lists here of writers who have struggled with serious depression through their lives; anyone can find any amount of examples.
But sometimes illness can trigger creative expression. I am thinking of the poet Molly Holden who was diagnosed with MS, and who wrote some of her most moving poems in the voice of someone shut in behind a window, looking out at a world that was calmly going on without her and which she was no longer able to get out into without help.
A diagnosis of MS is particularly numbing since there is so little that can be done for it. My own husband had MS and when he came out of hospital after receiving that diagnosis, following a crisis that left him paralysed and unable to speak, he recovered enough to throw himself into a fury of doing things, worked very long hours in the lab, and insisted on cutting down a half rotten tree in our garden, a sycamore standing on a slope. I will never forget the manic rage with which he set himself to that task, attacking only the trunk and refusing to do the sensible thing of first removing branches. There was no restraining him and perhaps he needed to express his own helpless despair and anger at being told he had MS, but I can only tell you that when that tree gave way and began slowly to topple down the slope, away from my husband, I have never felt so thankful in my life! It fell against another tree which stood firm.
He was not able to keep this impassioned activity up for long: the disease in his case was quite progressive and he rapidly reached the stage of incontinence, numbness in the hands, problems with speech, his memory shot to pieces, unable even to recognise close members of his own family. He died at the age of 47.
Maybe if he had been a poet he would have written his own dream songs. Instead I have written them for him.
Here's one:
For Finbar
The stars here are like apples
crowding the tree.
You could have picked them one by one,
kept them in the pocket
closest to your heart.
But it is I who watch the stars,
I who cannot name them as you did.
The pockets of my heart are filled
with holes, the bright apples
always out of reach.
This poem was originally published in Poetry Scotland, and later in my pamphlet "Uncertain Days" (Happenstance Press)
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