Meant to add...

I've finally created myself a (very basic) webpage. Plus had five poems accepted by Shearsman Magazine and been shortlisted for something that I can't say anything more about (for now)! It's been a crazy busy year poetry-wise so far for someone like me who doesn't normally get out much!

Reading at the moment includes Pascale Petit (of course!), Selima Hill, Alice Oswald, Robert Minhinnick and Louise Gluck. I've been on a Jen Hadfield phase since I was at Cove park and still keep coming back to her poems.

In the Chateau Ventenac library I came across this lovely oldish Bloodaxe anthology of women poets which features interviews/detailed bios and comments from each of the women included (Stevie Smith, Kathleen Raine, Denise Levertov, Elizabeth Jennings, Elaine Feinstein, Ruth Fainlight, Sylvia Plath, Jenny Joseph, Anne Stevenson, Fleur Adcock, and Jeni Couzyn) which made fascinating reading as well as a great choice of the respective poets' poems.
I've also been loving making use of the free books on the kindle, particularly enjoying reading H.D.'s Hymen and Sea Garden collections and Men, Women and Ghosts by Amy Lowell.

 It became obvious to me from the very first group workshop in France that I don't pay enough attention to the 'voice' of a poem or fully extending my voice in my poems. This comes mainly from having never been part of a in-the-flesh workshopping group. My poems end up becoming tight little image-strong pieces with little room for the voice to speak. I always read aloud my poems as I write but that's always been to pay attention to sound and rhythm rather than voice. This has been so important for me to grasp a hold of because I feel it's a tangible way I can move forward in my poems and write better. Since I've come back I've been reading poems differently, paying attention to the voice rather than going straight to the images.
     
So the week before France I suddenly realised I had realistically enough poems for a full-length collection and used the deadline of a first collection competition to force me to put them together and order them and come up with a title. When I spread all of the poems out I found that they fell naturally into four sections which made the ordering job so much easier. I gave each section it's own title and one section title became the whole collection title. All of this has put far too much pressure on the little title poem whose title seemed representative of many of the poems in the collection rather than being picked for being my best, strongest poem. However it is exciting to think I have the possibility of a collection together and a collection structure to work on and of course I want to throw my new France poems into it and other ones I'm working on at the moment.

Irises by the canal

So France has come and gone like a dream and I had the most wonderful time. My first real experience of  real-life (as opposed to on-line) poetry work-shopping and it was terrifying!! Yet everyone was so friendly and it was such a great group of writers and Pascale Petit exceeded my (high) expectations in every way!
The Chateau Ventenac was perfect and gorgeous and comfortable, our host, Julia, was friendly and efficient and wonderful at accommodating our every request. The scenery was like stepping into a painting, the food delicious, the wine too. There's not a single part of it I wouldn't heartily recommend.
 Most mornings Pascale would set up a writing exercise for us and in the afternoons we all had a couple of one-to-one sessions for individual feedback on our poems. One evening Pascale gave us a reading of some of her recent poems which will be published in her new collection due out next year. On the last evening we all had the opportunity to read our poems from the week in front of a small audience followed by champagne! There were ten of us on the course and I feel so lucky to have met them and be part of such a great group of writers. Most of all, what a privilege it was to hear Pascale read her wonderful poems in such an intimate setting and to have her edit my little poems was a tremendously encouraging experience.It was such an incredibly stimulating week, I've learned so much from the other writers as well as Pascale, I think it'll take me a while to process it all and come back down to earth!

The Canal du Midi

 

View from the writing desk in my room

Canal du Midi flowing in front of the Chateau Ventenac

Roses in the garden of the Chateau Ventenac

Nineteen poems in twenty-two days, the majority of them draftable and some even fully formed. I'm calling it a day on NaPoWriMo. I'm very happy with what I've written but I've run out of steam now and I'm stopping before it becomes an utter drudge. Lots of short imagistic poems, lots of playful pieces and a few experiments. I've thoroughly enjoyed the push to write daily and I've had fun writing the poems I've written. Now to redraft and send them out! 

So far NaPoWriMo has been mostly a plant-based affair! Fourteen days down, sixteen to go.

  Here are some pictures of my inspirations for some of the poems:

 

I think I'll need to come up with a different theme if I'm going to manage to write poems till the end of the month! 

"We and the members of the editorial board have read with interest your submission, and we have the pleasure in telling you..."

Three poems accepted by Poetry Salzburg Review!!

I opened with trepidation the envelope that arrived this morning with Universitat Salzburg printed on the front. An absolutely gorgeous magazine, I'm so excited to have poems in their next issue! Of course they never took the poem I was sure if they would if they were taking any! And I've vastly redrafted the poems I'd submitted to them (as I am in the bad habit of doing!). I will return the proofs today and walk about with a stupid big smile on my face!

Check out the new Calder Wood Press website. My poetry pamphlet collection, Vintage Sea, has now been reduced to a mere three quid along with several other pamphlet collections. A great variety of poetry for super-cheap prices!

I've decided this year to join in on NaPoWriMo. Haven't attempted it since before Ruby was born and now she's three so I thought it was about time I gave it a go! The most I've ever managed before is fourteen days of poem writing before giving up. I hope to beat my personal record this time round! It's a great way to build up draft poems to work on later.

Had a few poetry rejections in the last couple of weeks which is always deflating but one of the rejections was the nicest I've ever received using the words 'engaging' and 'tantalising' and 'delighted to read more of your work', so it's not all bad!!


Thanks to the heads-up from swiss I've recently been devouring  With Robert Lowell and his Circle.What a fascinating read and a very well written memoir. A must read for any Plath, Sexton, Bishop, Kunitz etc fan. I've gone back to reading my Selected Lowell with a lot more care and attention than I ever read it before.

I think, overall,  I feel most at home in imagist poetry, though the movement birthed and died within a few years in the early twentieth century.
I wonder if there are contemporary imagist writers out there who would define themselves as such.

Delighted to have poems in both of these lovely magazines which the postie delivered last week!
Quietly working away, writing and submitting when I get the chance in between the usual hustle and bustle of family life. Sorley's head teacher has invited me to talk to a primary class about poetry which I cautiously said I would think about! Slightly terrifying prospect but I've had lots of good advice via facebook on how to excite a class of kids about poetry so I may agree to do it after all! Reading Best American Poetry 2012 at the moment and loving so many poems in it. Also reading Pascale Petit's The Treekeeper's Tale, which is fantastic. And enjoying reading Anne Sexton's biography by Diane Middlebrook. The May writer's retreat is slowing edging closer and I'm so much looking forward to it!

I'm delighted to have a four-part poem, Fatras, published in the latest Ofi Press Magazine, a Mexico-based online literary mag.
You can read my poem here. I love the image with my poem and I really like the other poems in the issue. Plus there are short stories, interviews and artistic collaborations, a really lovely issue!

Cove Park 2013

Looking across Loch Long towards Dunoon

My accommodation, a recycled freight container

from the inside, a self-contained apartment called 'the cube'!

view from my cube

the neighbours

 

Had an excellent three nights at Cove Park. Spent the days in my cube reading and writing in blissful silence and for a few hours in the evening socialized with five other new writer's award winners who were there. It was a good, productive time for me. I came back with six draft poems to work on and thoughts of how I want to develop my writing. For sheer personal enjoyment and indulgence I immersed myself in Plath's Ariel (the restored edition) reading it alongside Hughes' the Birthday Letters, just because it's fascinating to see a relationship played out in poetry and it's such a great opportunity to see how one poetry collection can respond to another. I also spent a good bit of time reading through a selection of short stories by Kate Chopin, one of my favourite writers. In the Cove Park library I found Jen Hadfield's Almanacs collection which I'd never read before ( I had taken her Nigh-No-Place with me) and absolutely loved it. All the other award writers there were novelists and it was interesting chatting to them and listening to novelist-speak as opposed to poetry-speak! A lovely group of people doing all sorts of interesting writing. Cove Park was just perfect for a writing retreat. We were fortunate with the good weather and although it was pretty cold outside, my cube was so cosy and comfortable and what a stunning view! 

I've decided to start a private blog where I'll post drafts and poems I'm currently working on. I'll continue to post on this blog general poetry news and updates but I'm more than happy to add anyone who wants to, to my private blog. Just let me know if you would like to be added.

I've been having a busy time of it with family and life in general. I had a meeting last week with the Scottish Book Trust people where they interviewed me to see if setting me up with a mentor was going to be beneficial / worth the money in terms of where I'm at in my poetry and my ability to devote time and energy into it. They're definitely going to provide a mentor for me, which is fantastic, and I'll be paired  up with someone after my Pascale Petit course in May for a period of nine months.

I was back in Edinburgh yesterday for a meeting at the Scottish Poetry Library (SPL) where I got to meet the SPL Director, Robyn Marsack, and the other poetry award winners. It was my first time in the SPL building and it is poetry heaven! I was looking through their old issues of poetry magazines and came across issues of  The London Magazine, where Sylvia Plath published fairly frequently in the 1960's. I was delighted to see the original mags from that period with Plath's poems and stories in them just as how she would have seen them in her contributor copies.

I joined the library and borrowed:

 

 Next week I'm off to Cove Park for a writing retreat. It's supposed to be for a week but I think I might just manage three or four days without using up all of my babysitting goodwill. Plus it's going to be strange being essentially just across the Clyde. I'll almost be able to wave to my house!

This time last year I lived in a pokey wee flat with an understairs cupboard masquerading as a 'computer room' with simply no where to put down a book and tripping over baby guff at every step. Now miraculously I live in a spacious lower 'villa', have my very own desk and a proper typewriter (albeit electronic). Sure the desk is a mess but that's okay with me! I've not had a working printer for over a year which is why I'm so excited about the typewriter. Now I can finally type out my poems and start sending them out to places that only take paper submissions. Which means I'll have to start writing more poems. Just had another two accepted by Envoi and my backlog of available poems is rapidly diminishing!

Cove Park

I've lots of good things, poetry-wise, to look forward to next month.

I have a meeting at the Scottish Poetry Library (SPL) in Edinburgh with  the SPL Director, Robyn Marsack, and the Programme Manager, Jennifer Williams. I'm really looking forward to this. I've never actually been to the Scottish Poetry Library before though I use their webpage (here) very regularly, it's a great resource for all things poetic! Hope it's easy to find, I'm much more of a Glasgow-girl! 

I also have a mentoring interview with the lovely people at the Scottish Book Trust. Apparently I can put in a request for who I would like to mentor me over the next year and they then approach that person. It's all very exciting, I guess my plan is to work on putting together a full-length collection so I'd be looking for someone to give me advice on that, my poems and on how best to approach publishers etc. Also it would have to be someone within reasonable travelling distance. So lots to think about!

Also The Cove Park retreat takes place next month too where I'll get a chance to meet the other award winners. Not sure if I'll be able to get babysitting cover for the full week but they've said I can go for a long as I can manage, which is great.

I've a wee poem in the next Gutter Mag which I'm happy about, it's one of my favourite literary magazines. The online mag, Ofi Press Mexico, is publishing a four-part experimental poem of mine in March!

For someone who usually barely makes it out of the sticks I'm starting to feel incredibly busy!

So I've changed my mind about going back to Jerusalem and instead I have booked a week-long writer's retreat in the south of France with none other than the amazing poet, Pascale Petit! I'm so excited about it, the title of the course is: 'Extending your boundaries with Pascale Petit'. I was in two minds about Jerusalem when I happened to see someone advertising the course on facebook and I booked it immediately. This will be my first time ever getting a chance to be tutored professionally apart from the occasional masterclass at StAnza. Pascale Petit's poetry is so image-focused and surreal, which is perfect for me, and the title of the course is exactly what I want to do with my poems. Plus, spending a week writing in a country chateau in the South of France with marble fireplaces and oak flooring overlooking a canal, vineyards and the Pyrenees sounds pretty heavenly to me!

A wordle of my Jerusalem poems.

Not reading any poetry at the moment but reading my way through the rather large (but thankfully on my kindle!) 'Jerusalem: The Biography' by Simon Sebag Montefiore. A wonderful history of Jerusalem with all the gory details, feel like I'm living in a permanent Jerusalem apocalypse of mass murder, terror and seige... all excellent reading!

Happy New Year!

So I've had my first meeting with the lovely folk at the Scottish Book Trust. They took a mug shot for the website... :)

I received my cheque of £2000 and was terrified of losing it all the way home. I confess the first thing I bought was a kindle having been sold on the idea since Israel where I was the only person in the airports lugging around a bag of books to read and everyone else had a dainty little e-reader. Since, I've barely put it down. It's like having access to an instant university library in my home, so many free books and books for a pittance. I am loving reading through Virginia Woolf's diaries at the moment, I been wanting to read them for years. 

The plan is to set me up with a mentor for a series of meetings over the next year. I'll be meeting up with some people from the Scottish Poetry Library next month to talk about what I'm hoping to get out of the mentoring so they can find a suitable mentor. I'm looking for someone who will challange me in my writing, give me critical feedback and hopefully help open new directions for my writing. Since the point of the money is to 'further my writing', I'm thinking of using the rest of it to go back out to Israel for a week or so myself this year and spend the time solely in the old city in Jerusalem writing. 

Other good news is that someone has requested to use a poem of mine in a tree poetry anthology, look forward to seeing that!

It's been a year of the most unexpected ups and downs!

I wish you all a wonderful, peaceful Christmas.

   

I'm now allowed to shout it from the rooftops (and believe me I am)...

I've won a New Writers Award for poetry from The Scottish Book Trust!!!!!

The Scottish Book Trust annually out  gives out  eleven New Writers Awards: four for fiction, two for children and young adult writing, two for writing in Scots, two for poetry and one extra awarded in memory of Callan Gordon.
The Award is an amazing package of a whopping £2000 cheque to further my writing, a year's worth of mentoring with PR and publishing advice and a week at Cove Park which is a residental retreat for artists, musicians and writers and is, funnily enough, just across the Clyde from me!

I head up to Edinburgh on Monday to pick up my cheque and hopefully find out about what kind of mentoring I'll get and who I will get to work with over this next year.

I am so blown away by it all, never in a million years did I dare hope that I'd actually win an award!

I have the most exciting poetry news but I'm not allowed to reveal it until the end of the week which is driving me crazy!
Thanks to Josephine Corcoran for showcasing an old-ish poem of mine a few days ago on her great poetry blog And Other Poems.

A draft poem inspired by James Owens' wonderful photographs which can be viewed on his blog ein klage-himmel.

first draft

(poem removed)

In case you're not on facebook or twitter...

I'm pleased to have a poem in the gorgeous Moon Edition of New Linear Perspectives, an Edinburgh-based online literary magazine, alongside poems from Sammi Gale and Anne Rouse.
You can read the magazine here.