Bonfire Night Of The Vanities

Well it’s all very exciting!  I’ve known for a little while that two online poetry journals have each accepted a poem of mine for publication.  I’ve had notification today that both are going to publish in the week of 4^th November. Quite appropriately, I shall be as giddy as a Catherine Wheel!

What joy is joy if Sylvia be not by?

My mentor has sent me off to read, and more importantly listen to, Sylvia Plath.

I've bought ‘Ariel’ and today listened to her reading Lady Lazarus and The Birthday Present and one other from Ariel (which evidently made a huge impression as I can’t remember the name of it). So what do I think of her?

She's sharp, clipped, controlled, brittle and about as empathic as obsidian.  I have no sense, from listening to her read, of there being any softness or compassion about her: for others or for herself.  It's a very carefully constructed and presented persona that I don't think we are supposed to like. But then that would just feed into her negative feelings of self-worth, so it figures.  Leaving aside the fact that she’s clearly developed in a cultured and educated environment, there’s a sense of superciliousness about her; a sense of superiority and coldness, particularly in Lady Lazarus.  Maybe it’s the quality of the recording, but I think not.  I accept that it may well be deliberate.  I hear also a rather self-centred core: one that craves love and admiration and yet despised both those that offer that and the self for wanting it. 

And yet, when she took her life, I believe she was quite careful to ensure that her children would be as safe from the immediate physical effects of her actions as she could make them.  So not all bad, then. 

How much of her writing was a simple expression of the mental anguish and pain she lived with, and how much shock tactics designed to elicit sympathy in the reader is very hard to determine.  It’s almost impossible to separate one from the other in someone suffering severe, long-term mental illness. 

Should I be concerned that there’s little ‘emotion’ in her reading, especially in the case of something like Lady Lazarus?  I’m not particularly.  Mental illness can give people an interesting perspective on their own behaviours, often being deeply and overly analytical or distancing themselves emotionally (others, of course, are wracked with overbearing guilt, but she doesn’t strike me as falling into that camp).  Actually, that’s not true.  There is emotion in her reading, just not a kind that I find particularly appealing.  Affective, yes.  Attractive, no.

A...aa..and SHE'S BACK!!

Greetings, one and all.  Well, mostly one really widely read blog that this is.  *Waves at Steven*

Yes, I’ve been away far too long.  Busy getting a life and a job and some money and stuff.  Ok, so not that busy really.  But I can’t post from work, so …

Anyway …

… was at the Garden Centre yesterday (see what an exciting life I’m now leading?) and for a brief moment thought Ann Summers had finally infiltrated our sleepy corner of the Cotswolds when I saw a large banner advertising ‘SHAG WEAR’*…

*It’s a Canadian company that make purses and stuff.  If you’re interested.

Fantastic Ekphrastic ...

Oh, how I wish it had been!

Already you know my two day Ekphrastic workshop experience was somewhat underwhelming.  Maybe I didn’t read the publicity properly.  Or perhaps I didn’t do enough research into the person leading the workshop.  Either way, it was all a bit bollocks, to be honest. 

I should maybe have been alerted when I received the programme for the two days and read the phrase: “Psychological Induction for exploring the museum with a poet’s eye”.  Hypnotic Induction is really not my cup of tea and whilst it was not compulsory to take part (and I didn’t) I do rather think people should be told, clearly, what’s going on.  Not have it dressed up in Jungian psychobabble.  But then there was a lot of that!

I also have to take issue with anyone opening a workshop on poetry by denouncing most modern poetry as being largely rubbish and dismissing the use of Free Verse in favour of Iambic Pentameter.  That’s to rather exclude a huge number of work(s) before we’ve even got started, and it’s personal opinion.  And whilst anyone is entitled to their opinion, it’s not especially helpful to express such a proscriptive opinion to a group whose members you don’t know and who were, largely, new to writing poetry or Ekphrasis.  

If this had come from someone whose own work stood head and shoulders above the majority, I might be prepared to give a little more credence to the views expressed.  But I don’t think anyone is going to be offered the post of Poet Laureate by including the phrase ‘satanic mills’ in a poem on Jerusalem, even when referencing William Blake.  And don’t even get me started on the levels of courage and skill required to produce a phrase as original as: “So far and yet so near”.   

So, the first day was a bit of a write off for me, largely due to my own reaction to the psychological induction shenanigans.  It put me in a bad mood.  And I chose to stay there.  Day two, however, was an improvement.  Nothing to do with any real improvement in the quality of the workshop, more my own attitude.  Still, I finally got the poem down about the David Bowie exhibition at the V&A that’s been swilling round my brain since January, so that was good.  And I met some nice people, including a member of the poetry society I belong to (but who hasn’t come to any meetings since the beginning of the year).  That was nice.  And *may* give rise to a mixed media collaboration at some point, which would be fantastically good fun.  If nothing else, I shall go on one of her workshops to learn how to make myself a book!

There’s something about silver linings and clouds there.

Post (Without) Haste

I've been neglectful of posting recently.  (And I'm going on 'Mastermind' next week: specialist subject will be stating the bleedin' obvious!) Thing is, after two and a half years of not working, I went and got a job which has taken up most of my energies whilst I get used to getting out of my bed at some ungodly hour of the morning again, and having a routine!  Still, I'll (eventually) have a salary coming in again, so it's all good.

Anyway, on to the business of poetic ramblings.  Despite the stresses and strains of being a wage-slave again, last week in particular was a high productive week, poem wise.  I knocked out four completely new pieces; finished two poems I've been struggling with for a while; re-jigged two that some nice people at the writing group I go to kindly critiqued for me; and produced something from notes made at a recent workshop on using the second person.  Some of them are even good.  Go me!  With knobs on!!!

More importantly, several of them are not of the 'prancing around the countryside with a flower behind my ear' variety.  My mentor is encouraging me to move outside my safe zone (writing about how lovely the countryside is that I prance about in) and explore one of the other 'voices' that have percolated up: a political voice.

It's an interesting change.  When I'm in my safe zone, I know when I've got something 'good' or at least something that has potential.  Writing in another vein is slightly disturbing in that I don't feel I have any anchors to cling on to, or reference points by which to plot my course.  Still, it's a challenge and one that I'm rather enjoying.

I'm off to a two day workshop on ekphrastics at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, later this week - writing poetry about some of the exhibits.  Obviously, it's something I've done before at Swindon Art Gallery, but the Ashmolean is going to offer a whole bewildering range of lovely things to choose from.  More another day.  Probably.

Tanked Up

Went shopping on Saturday.  Wow!  I know!  Hold the front page!!

Perhaps I should clarify it a bit and say I went to a large shopping mall on the outskirts of Bristol where I mooched through the Ladies Wear department of a large chain store beloved of the middle classes.  And me.  Except I may have stumbled upon a small spot of blight in the heart of the rose (ooo, look at me gettin' all poetic!)

There was a jumper.  Quite a nice jumper.  A deep coral pink verging on the red type of jumper.  It was £150.  Yes, that's right.  Somebody somewhere thought that it was acceptable to charge £150 for a jumper.  ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY QUID.  FOR A JUMPER!  And it didn't even have sleeves!!!

Voicing My Opinions

I don't usually watch talent shows but I make an exception for 'The Voice' - well it's singing! Watching the live final tonight, if Leah McFall doesn't win ... I think questions should be asked in the House (of Commons) - they ask less contentious, crappier questions on a daily basis.

However, for Matt Henry to be first of the finalist out is a complete travesty. His staging, performance, emotional engagement with his song, vocals - just everything - was brilliant.  I'm struggling to find an explanation as to why he didn't apparently garner enough votes to keep him in the final three.  Other than the explanation given by someone on twitter: that the British public wouldn't know talent if it set fire to its arse.

Honest to God, however good Andrea and Mike are (and they ARE good), would the majority of people really prefer to pay good money to go see a Country and Western singer (albeit probably the first British one) or an Irish Eva Cassidy-alike, both of whose performance styles are predictable and non-physical, or a soul man who lives every note with passion and physicality or one of the most unique voices you're likely to hear?