I've been surprised to find myself having written eight short poems in the last two days as part of a, hopefully, much longer sequence of poems inspired by my reading of Durs Grunbein's book-length sequence Porcelain and Joseph Brodsky's sequence A Part of Speech.

Each poem in my sequence is ten lines long with an ababcdcdee rhyme scheme. I can't remember the last time I worked in such a regular form and although I'm not keeping to a regular meter or syllable count in each line, all the lines are fairly long and roughly the same length. It's been a mental pleasure to work within the rhyming scheme and great to move away from the more intensely lyrical poetry I normally write. 

I absolutely love Porcelain, translated by Karen Reeder. Aside from the actual poems, it's a beautiful book inclusive of notes on the poems by Grunbein himself. It's a sequence of forty-nine poems about the destruction of Dresden by the allied forces during WW2. The poems of course are wonderful, fascinating, intriguing, informative, elegiac, questioning, all in Grunbein's stylish and ironic way of writing. It also includes photos of Dresden and artifacts mentioned in the poems. Only now translated into English, the poems are not recent works of Grunbein and proved controversial when they were first published in German in 2005. 

It's been a very Merry Christmas with Joseph Brodsky and Durs Grunbein! I have been immersing myself in Brodsky's 'A Part of Speech' sequence and Grunbein's 'Variations on No Theme' sequence. I'm trying out new parts of my 'voice', experimenting in pushing my writing style in ways that have occasionally made an appearance in my work but now focusing on taking it much further. 

It's fun experimenting and every experiment inevitably doesn't exceed. But it's a joy to be so mentally stimulated in the writing process!

I've pieced together a sequence on Inveraray Castle and I've just written a three-part sequence on the festive season using Grunbein's form of thirteen-lined poems.

I'm halfway through reading Young Eliot: From St. Louis to The Waste Land by Robert Crawford and it's easily the best literary biography I've read in years, well, since Richard Holmes' wonderful two volumes on Coleridge anyway! Extremely detailed and readable it is a fascinating piecing together of Eliot's early years. I was interested to read there are a vault of letters Eliot wrote to a female friend which will be opened in 2020 - I wonder what they will add to our knowledge of Eliot. It's been so enjoyable to sink into the world and thoughts of that great poet, I want to eek the book out as long as possible though there is a volume two to look forward to which Crawford is currently working on.

At the WS Graham event in Greenock I picked up a copy of Kathleen Jamie's Selected Poems, a beautiful book and just published. It was really great to hear Kathleen Jamie read at last, I particularly enjoyed hearing her read Graham's 'Loch Thom' poem and also reading an early poem of hers called 'Crossing the Loch'.

It was a good turnout - moving to see Graham celebrated in Greenock, thanks to the hard work and organisation of Rachael Boast and Andy Ching. Very enjoyable to hear Crawford read and Bill Herbert delivered a fascinating talk on Graham's work.

Well I'm definitely on a roll of Inveraray themed poems at the moment. I have a series of individual poems which I think may be turning into a playful sequence. I'm fascinated by Durs Grunbein's sequences and the influence on him by Joseph Brodsky. So that's my poetry reading at the moment!