"McCready has the uncanny ability to imbue even the most mundane, common place things with mystical properties"

"This is nature turned mythical and extraordinary, there is an acute awareness of life-cycles, weather patterns and things coming to some kind of fruition or ending. And through it all there is a deep running smouldering sensuality, a delight in the beauty and unpredictability of nature and a sense of place and of rootedness"

"McCready brings a heightened awareness to her subjects that make her poems a joy to read"

Thanks to Julia Webb and Ink, Sweat & Tears for this wonderful review of Vintage Sea which you can read here. I'm over the moon with it!!!

The influence of Roethke on Plath's poetry is no secret, however in an essay by Roger Elkin, 'Hidden Influences in the Poetry of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath', Elkin explores the idea that Roethke's poetry and creative theories greatly influenced Hughes also.
It's a fascinating essay detailing not only the similar themes and techniques such as animism and minimism and use of Jungian symbolism in the poetry of all three but also the role/purpose of poetry to tap into and explore the primitive, pre-conscious thus universal self. He obviously analyses Plath's 'Poem for a Birthday' but also thoroughly analyses Hughes' 'Wodwo' in the light of Roethke. You can find the essay here.

Another Brenhilda / Sula Sgeir poem

second draft

(poem removed)

Thanks to those who reminded me about this - The Baker Prize 2011 - a new annual writing competition organised by The Skye Literary Salon and The Isle of Skye Baking Company. There are categories for Gaelic poetry, Gaelic short story/script/prose, English short story/ script/ prose and English poetry. And it's free to enter!
The closing date is Nov 24th so get your entries in quick, I had better get my thinking cap on!

Calder Wood Press are having an end of year party combined with the launch of Ross Wilson's first collection, The Heavy Bag.Unfortunately I can't make it due to travel problems and childcare but it looks like it'll be a great night so if you're in the area it will be held at the Canon's Gait Cellar Bar, High Street, Edinburgh, Monday 5th December, 8pm. Free buffet included!

A few short poems I've been working on this morning

(poems removed)

I've just noticed that Kathleen Jamie is reading at StAnza 2012! I'm really excited about this, she's one of my favourite Scottish poets and she reads her poems wonderfully. You can hear her read some of her poems on the Poetry Archive website here.  The full list of participants is available here and looks like it'll be a great festival one again. Just from scanning the list I'm interested in hearing Niall Campbell and Richie McCaffery, a couple of young Scotland-based poets whose poems I've been impressed by when I've come across them in mags. I'd also like to get a chance to hear Michael Symmons Roberts, Robert Crawford and Simon Barraclough. I see Alistair Cook, an Edinburgh-based photographer who also creates wonderful short films to accompany poems, will be there. I can't wait!

The other day I was delighted to receive through the post a gorgeous new collection of poems by Morgan Downie interlaced with just as gorgeous photographs by the very talented Roxana Gita who also provides Romanian translations of Downie's poems. I'll be reviewing it on the blog sometime soon.

A short poem

First draft


The Fire-leaves of Autumn

(post removed)

There's a nice wee write-up about my poem 'The Kitten and the Brick-layers Cap' which appears in the pamphlet anthology of poems ‘Starry Rhymes: 85 Years of Allen Ginsberg’ (edited by Claire Askew and Stephen Welsh) on the Sabotage Reviews website here.

Thanks to Rachel for  this link to the Guardian for tips for writing by a great range of  authors, one I like so far:

"You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there's no free lunch. Writing is work. It's also gambling. You don't get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ­essentially you're on your own. ­Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don't whine." Margaret Atwood

Nothing to do with poetry but...

...my husband is playing a starring role in the manhunt for James May across Dartmoor which will be shown tonight (Tuesday) on BBC2 at 8pm as the first episode of the new series of Man Lab! So if you happen so catch it, my better half is the one sporting the combats!!

out in the cold

For some unbeknown reason Facebook has currently suspended my account! So until it's been sorted out I might even get a few poems written!

I've been on a bit of a non-poetry reading frenzy lately which began with the following three Plath books I was sent: Bitter Fame by Anne Stevenson, The Haunting of Sylvia Plath by Jacqueline Rose and The Silent Woman by Janet Malcolm. The most interesting, for me, was the Rose book. There was much more of a focus on Plath's poems in it including some stuff I hadn't previously read much about such as the possible influence of cinema films on Plath's work, more on the influence of African folklore, and a rather extensive almost Freudian-like emphasis on sexuality in the interpretation of many Plath's poems. The infamous Bitter Fame was a pretty dull read and the Malcolm book offered an interesting perspective on the history and difficulties facing Plath biographiers.

After the Plath triad, I then became thoroughly engrossed in reading a biography of the Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing. R.D. Laing: A Divided Self by John Clay is an absolutely fascinating read. Laing was a forward thinker in his time and helped lead the way to modern thinking about mental illness, schizophrenia in particular, and therefore how it should be treated. Laing's psychiatry and writings were heavily influenced by existentiallism, at the height of his career he was a great success but on a personal level he was unpredictable and completely off-the-wall to put it mildly. A quote from wiki: "Many former colleagues regarded him as a brilliant mind gone wrong but there were some who thought Laing was somewhat psychotic".

You can read more about him on Jim's blog here.

Now I'm onto Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams. I'm only a few chapters in but it's fascinating reading Freud's hypothesis that all dreams are a form of wish-fulfillment which is backed up by detailed analysis of several of his own dreams, dreams of some of his patients and even dreams by some of his children. Even from a sociological perspective alone it is deeply interesting to see what people were dreaming about over a century ago!

draft poem

I'm not sure why writing poetry should be such a cathartic experience but sometimes just the effort of having cobbled some words together on-screen can be an amazing pick-me-up!

What a happy coincidence: to be reading Tomas Transtromer the week it is announced that he has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. If you didn't know much about him before there's now no shortage of articles on him and his poetry popping up all over the place.

First draft

Like the Sklif of a Daylight Moon

(poem removed)

Review of Vintage Sea!!

"Throughout Vintage Sea is the accumulation and distillation of things that Plath did well – situating the self in / seeing the self through landscape; myth-making as a way of making sense of experience"

"My favourite poems here are highly musical, and their sparse forms, clipped lines and taut linebreaks support their close sound recurrences and small units of meaning. In this, I’m reminded of Elizabeth Bishop"

"So many lines (too many to quote) from ‘Sargassum Lullaby’, ‘The Cockle Picker’s Wife’ and ‘Life Rafts’ are tactile, smelly, tasty"

I'm so exited about this fantastic review of Vintage Sea by Mark Burnhope which you can read on the Sabotage Reviews website. 

Though I really must stop writing smelly poems! :))) 

Poems: published and rejected, books and birthdays

I'm pleased to have my Allen Ginsberg poem up on Ink Sweat & Tears today, especially after receiving my third rejection from Magma...they really don't want my poems. On the bright side it frees up two poems to send out elsewhere!

I've yet to really get into Transtromer because the lovely Rachel Fox posted me a bundle of Plath related books which I've been up to my eyes in all week! I've also been reading a biography of the Scottish psychoanalyst R.D. Laing, whom I became interested in after reading Jim's excellent review of one of Laing's books on his blog. It's been fascinating reading, the fragility of the mind, perceptions etc.

Also it's been a busy weekend of birthday celebrations, a friend's 50th and Ruby's second birthday tomorrow which we celebrated today. So, I'm hoping to get into Transtromer this week!

Sorley and Ruby

Poetry on the Radio

If one can have a little fame by association then I'm glad to know Morgan Downie whose beautiful poem 'stone bible' was read out on BBC radio by Welsh singer/songwriter Cerys Matthews no less!!

You can listen to it here at around 1:44. It's from Morgan's full-length poetry collection stone and sea available here from Calder Wood Press.

Programmes, Blogs, Books

So that's The Killing finished and life seems a little empty without my daily dose of Danish crime drama :) But the good news is that series 2 is apparently on its way!

The BBC series A Poet's Guide to Britain is currently being re-run. It's good getting a chance to catch up on the programmes I'd missed first time round. I'd only seen the Plath and George MacKay Brown ones. So the other day I watched the one on Matthew Arnold's 'Dover Beach', which was really enjoyable and the one on the Welsh poet, Lynette Roberts, and her poem 'Poem from Llanybri' which I also really enjoyed, not knowing much about her previously. I'm really looking forward to watching the Louis MacNeice programme, a poet I've very much neglected to read which leaves the Wordsworth programme, which I think I might pass on...

Blogs of Interest: -

Thanks to Andrew Shields for the link to this fantastic blog - How a Poem Happens - every post is a poem followed by an interview with the writer of the poem analyzing how the poem came to be written. Reading through the back-posts has been fascinating, enlightening and full of little gems of advice. Very satisfying for those, like myself, who probably think too much about the actual process of writing!

Randomly came across this blog - Angel Exhaust - while researching the British poetry scene, lots of interesting stuff on the history of the underground/experimental/non-canonical poetry scene.

Been lazy about writing over the last couple of weeks, probably because I've been mostly reading prose. So need to decide on a new poetry reading plan, feel a little Crowther and Grunbein-ed out, though I'm still thinking on their poems I need to bring in a fresh strand of reading/focus.

I've been reading Primo Levi properly for the first time since I visited Dachau six years ago. Levi is a favourite writer of mine, I love his ability to see things so concisely and analytically. I think his collection of essays in The Drowned and the Saved is some the most insightful and honest writing on human behaviour ever written. I expected visiting the camp at Dachau to be an upsetting experience but wasn't ready for it to be such a traumatic experience. So six years on I'm now ready to face my Levi books and the difficult unanswerable questions he raises.

reading, submissions, blah

So my recent poetry efforts have all been re-drafted and sent out into the big wide world. They've been experimental poems for me so I'm curious to see how they'll go down or whether most or all will come back to me with a thanks-but-no-thanks reply. I wish all journals and mags would move to email submission, I've become very lazy about submitting to anywhere that requires an actual envelope and stamp.

Apart from Michelle McGrane's widely admired collection The Suitable Girl, which I bought last week,  poetry-reading has been moved aside for non-fiction prose.  I'm currently reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (I'd love to pinch that title for a line in a poem!)  and volume one of the The Alan Clark Diaries.

My Allen Ginsberg poem, 'The Kitten and the Brick-layer’s Cap' (after  his 'The Bricklayer's Lunch Hour) will be up on Ink, Sweat & Tears later on this month, Vintage Sea is now available to buy through Word Power Books (as all Calder Wood Press titles are now) and I even have an Amazon page for my pamphlet but since I've not supplied Amazon with any, none are available through it and thankfully there aren't any selling secondhand...yet...!!

I never got into the Danish Crime drama The Killing first time round so I'm catching up with it now!

First draft


Brambles

(poem removed)

First draft


The March Moon...

(poem removed)

First draft


Like a dead shrew

(poem removed)

Poetry School Downloads

Busy week, my son's first week at school which thankfully went went swimmingly well.

I've been feeling for a while that I really need an intensive boost to my writing to get past my current plateau. I'd love to go on an Arvon course or something similar and be tutored by great poets, but that's just not going to happen. There are plenty of online courses and poets willing to provide individual critical attention but finances won't allow for that either.
Which is why I'm rather excited about coming across a webpage on The Poetry School website which lists plenty of purchasable downloads of varying poetry advice from many interesting and admirable poets at £3 apiece! I'm most interested in "Chance and Random" by Penelope Shuttle, I've been reading up everything I could on Peter Redgrove recently, and "Stealing Stanzas" by Alison Brackenbury.
You can find the list of downloads here.