Mother spider

This little spider has been travelling with me for over a week now. I feel a duty of care for him/her. I try to stick to 30mph as any faster and I worry his web will blow apart. I have deliberately avoided washing the car despite it being covered in tree juice. He has an unnerving knack of rushing in behind the wing mirror when I am forced onto a faster road. There he sits - two feet sticking round the mirror, waiting for me to stop, then he quickly reappears. Perhaps this is like those who insist they are preserving a natural meadow instead of owning up to an overgrown garden. When I leave work I am glad to see he's still around, and drive him carefully home. I know he'll leave/die soon. I just hope he doesn't go to another car. I would feel quite offended.

For now he's carved out a niche on my Leon. Who am I to send him back into the Wilderness.

Things I am learning

Today I am paying careful consideration to my old poems. Going through each one and taking out gratuitous 'ands'. Tightening. It's remarkable the difference this makes. Concentrates the meaning to the right words.

I am also changing the font as I edit. When I change from Calibri to something like Berlin I look at them differently and sometimes think they could be someone else's. It's a useful way of looking at your work objectively. I was skeptical of the idea at first but then tried it and really, it's an excellent tip (not of my own, so I am allowed to boast). Berlin 10.5 also happens to be the typeface of choice for The Rialto. And who doesn't want to appear in The Rialto! I see it as practice for the future when i eventually write something good enough. Interestingly, Berlin doesn't seem to be available on any of my computers (and I have 5!) but it still let's you change. I don't understand this. It's a wondorous magic.

I am also taking some old poems that didn't work and converting them to prose poems. This is proving to be successful and they are better in this form. They now read better and the meaning comes forward. I had a theme I wanted to cover. As a poem it seemed drab and lifeless yet in a prose poem form it just seems to work so much better. Always worth experiementing.

Read around the Fear

If you go to the Litfest website, you can follow some links to information on the new Poetry Anthology (The Crowd Without) by Flax, being launched in June. This will be the new home for three of my poems: Reclamation, Bay Rock and Square Metres for Acreage. They will be very happy there.

Here is a little blurb from the web by editor Sarah Hymas;

"The Crowd Without is the latest of our poetry anthologies. It contains poems that twist through relationships, the sky and memory. While these topics are well populated, the narrators of the poems are outsiders, or at the least, objective witnesses to what unfolds around them.

Sensual, political and, at times, wry, these poems herald some of the strongest voices in the North West, from both new and established poets"

I not sure if I am terrified or excited. Actually I do know. Terrified. Due in most part to the great line up of other poets that, by rights, I should really not be a part of.

Little moments from today

I watched the sugar caramelize at the bottom of the mug, drying out crud of the morning. I watched the tree outside my window move in the wind and considered where on the beaufort scale it was going. I pondered the shine on other people's windscreens. The skip outside reminds me constantly, think pink! But I don't know what it means. The return key is worn from trying to get back too many times and the 'A' is rubbed off but I don't know why. I listened to the burr in the room, chased the sound around to no avail. It won't quieten beyond this hum. I repeatedly read the address where Silver Spoon is refined. Oundle Road. Peterborough. I watched the shadows chase eachother round the cars until it rained. Then they went.

(Atlas Moth. Photo copyright R. Allen 09)

There is something sad about this.

Maybe the dirty, ripped gauze. The small companionable butterfly. The resigned wings of the moth.

I don't know.

But I like this photo.

Musee des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Pieter Breughel c. 1558

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

I have always loved this poem. On one level because of the link to the painting. A way of writing I feel very at home with. But also, because I remember it from school; discussing at length what Auden is telling us about the nature of suffering in the world. It seems obvious now I am older, but it was a revelation at the time. In the years since I have often thought about how suffering happens quietly elsewhere while other's lives go on. Thinking miserably that while I am writing this, someone else's house could be burning down. I may see the fire engine and flinch but ultimately I will go back to my emails. I try not to dwell on it often, but I think this is a fine example of how poetry can masterfully articulate truths about life, that while we may already know them somewhere in the back of our minds, we never really spend time imagining the implications of that truth. Auden did that for me and it has stuck with me ever since, profoundly affecting the way I view the world. I can't think of any other poem that has had quite the same effect.

Then a friend got me thinking. About those moments when you find quiet bliss whilst everyone is suffering around you. In some ways this is the opposite of what Auden is describing. And almost awkward to talk about. Yet, still true. Not at all schadenfreude but just finding a quiet hole in the fabric where you can slip through and find solitude amongst the rush.

I wonder what writing has made a profound impact on the lives of others. Transformed a way of thinking or broadened their philosophy. I'd be interested to find out.

Do you ever write something and not have a clue what to do with it?

I think I have finished a new poem. Although, I am not sure what finishing means as I usually go back and think they could be improved/changed weeks or months after first drafting. But for this one, I can't see where to make the changes without it becoming something else altogether. I think this is a good sign.

It's shorter than usual and has an adventurous (for me!) format on the page. Not entirely sure what to do with it now. I could submit it, but I am not sure of where it would go! It's obscure and specific at the same time. It's called Not Rothko and was inspired by a visit to the Seagram Murals back in February 09, but it's not so much about the art but about the location and a relationship within it. I quite like it and hope to find a home for it in the future - push it out of the nest.

Finchley

So, these little guys aren't lost in the Wilderness which is nice. But they were in quite a small aviary. I wasn't convinced at first (not a fan of bird enclosures) but they are so weeny and cheerful that selfishly I enjoyed seeing them and I hope they don't begrudge visitors too much.

Birds and butterflies are oft used motifs in writing. I know this. But still I'm drawn to them.

What He Tells His Friends

Scary Little Silver Box

Well, after much anxiety it really wasn't that bad at all. In fact it wasn't bad, it was really quite exciting. And done in two takes. The first take I tended to trail off at the end of the lines giving the poem too much melancholia and leaving the end result sounding a little unconfident. On the second take I tried to sound more commited to the poem. As I got into my stride I started to race through, so I had to be slowed down, but by the end I was pretty happy. Now, if only they could make my voice sound like Tilda Swinton or something. That would have been great.

Afterwards I had a little peak at the Auditorium where we will be reading in June and I was shocked to see a stage and microphone. The last launch I went to was in Carnforth Station (Flax 17) where the readers were at ground level, but hey, i'm sure it'll all be fine. I'm looking forward to it all now and can't wait to see the postcards. I even know the title for the Anthology, which incidently sounds great, but that can all wait to be announced by Litfest/Flax. Exciting times for a brand new writer.

Clammy Hands

Tomorrow I have to go and record a podcast of one of my poems. I am scared about this. I have no shame in admitting it. Firstly, I hate the sound of my voice. Secondly, once it has been recorded it's out there and netted for all time. Like a butterfly, or something less cliched like a Belemnite. But both of these things are lovely and my poem probably isn't lovely, so maybe it'll be trapped like a 7 legged spider or a cockroach. Podcasting it is like pinning it into a windowed box in a museum. Oh, the things that can be seen close up.

The only time I have read them out loud has been in the bedroom while I write them and even then I whisper in case they offend my own ears. I think I need to work on confidence at this juncture, especially as I will have to do it in person fairly soon.

I wonder if other people have this problem?

79 Anagrams

Of my name. Here are some I like.

Lethal Run, Earth Null, Lethal Urn, All Hunter, A Hell Runt, A Lent Hurl, All en thru, and my particular favourite, A Hell Turn.

156 Anagrams for Wilderness including Lewder Sins, Dense Swirl, Idlers News, Weld Resins, Red Less Win and Lends Wires

Great book shops

OK, so i have been a little late in discovering Hay-on-Wye but this is not surprising given my late arrival to all things writerly. Up until now I have been a die-hard Foyle's fan (on the Tottenham Court Road) but there is something to be said for a good rummage of an afternoon in Wales. Besides Foyle's isn't cheap and is all a bit 'new'. But in terms of sheer front-cover enjoyment it's still to be beaten, and when you compare it to the rush of the city outside then for an honorary northern bumpkin like me, it's a delight. Similar to the feeling one gets at Borders in Preston Deepdale getting all the latest quarterlies.

However, I would suggest going on a Monday to Friday or a Saturday if pushed, as on Sundays the opening times are odd and largely undocumented. I was pretty much inconsolable to find the poetry bookshop closed when i got there, despite apparently being the largest dedicated retailer in the UK and saying on their website that they are open on Sundays. Do folk still not realise that if you work every other day of the week then Sunday is your only retail therapy day? The excitement was at fever pitch as I rocked up only to find that nasty 6-letter word hanging in the window. You can't bottle that type of disappointment and just as well. Internet is good but not the same as picking up the book and looking at it from all angles. Getting the feel. Smelling the pages.

The Bookshop (and several welshcakes) turned out to be the cure; a real gem with lots of otherwise expensive editions at prices more reasonable than Amazon. However, no where had a decent modern anthology of Polish poetry. I can only assume I may have found this in the Poetry Bookshop. If anyone knows where I can get one then please let me know...I was hoping Bloodaxe would publish? They've certainly nailed Young Romanian and Bosnian so there is hope.

Hay is also home to the 'world's first honesty bookshop'. I love the idea of this but really it's only useful if you have a particular interest in such obscurities as Fridge Mechanics 1973-1975 or A Guide To Cooking With Rare Marrow Species. There was actually a large compendium of reports from the early days of the Deep Sea Drilling Project...once upon a time in a far away life where Geologists used to find jobs....I may have gone for it, but alas it was getting mildewy and in need of a wipe-down and the weight was burdensome. I won't spell out the metaphor.

Also note, bikers seemed to be viewed with a degree of suspicion. Especially bikers clutching C. K. Williams (A great recommendation from Sarah @ Flax, thanks for that. An immediate affinity.) Or maybe I am paranoid. I don't know.

Pleased to hear the CAD is now poet laureate. I hope she gets all her sherry on time. A nice idea too to give the attached 'salary' to the poetry society as an annual prize.

I have been brewing over an idea to post what I would call phone poetry. I'm frequently caught short without notebook and end up tapping ideas into my phone when out and about. And actually, i think it's quite an interesting way of recording ideas. You have that choice; save to drafts or send to someone. Obviously, I never send them to anyone and even if they were fully formed I wouldn't. but it's an idea! A mass-dissemination device. It's also interesting the way when you hurriedly type in the ideas, predictive text will come up with it's own interpretation and the word you wanted will get replaced if you're not concentrating. Sometimes this works! Sometimes Mr Nokia has a better word than me. Sometimes it's just humorous to see the meaning change. Maybe CAD should use it as a way to get young people back into poetry. Humorous excerpts? OK, so it's a rough idea but it's not altogether awful...it could catch on. I wonder if she tweets...

I may post one. Get it out there. Anyway, you heard it here first.