Monday, 3 May 2010
Anthony's next Gig!
The next Anthony Joseph & The Spasm Band gig in London is on 27 May 2010 at McQueens in Shoreditch. Its free but you need to rsvp thethrowdownvolume1@gmail.com if you want to come.
Sonnets, workshopping and all that jazz
First up Narayani has sent info on the Poetry Society and Cafe (www.poetrysociety.org) and there some rather fabulous looking events, readings, workshops etc- I might even go wild and leave the wilds of suffolk for a few hours to attend a couple!
I apologise for being so lethargic in writing this blog for the last few weeks- the pressure of time and tiredness have been the victors.
So.... how are we all getting on with the sonnets? I am really struggling to understand the tensions between the formality of the form and the fluidity of how it "reads". Sonnets are so musical and when I read Keats or Wilfred Owen or any of them, they read so musically and naturally, they are very organic in how they flow and yet, and YET they are so structured and meticulous?! how do we do that? and get that balance? So far every attempt I have made just sounds laboured and artificial. Everything I write seems to scream : i'm a sonnett!!! when is should just read easily and beautifully. Some of it has to do with my lack of familiarity with hard rhyming couplets. I worry that no matter what I try and write it will sounds like one of those hideous hall mark wedding card poems (my love is like a red red rose, the more i know you the more is grows etc) or like something we had to memorise as children. Reading more modern sonnets from the 101 Sonnets book and online has really helped. I am still determined to write a formal structured sonnet properly before i write a loser more unshackled on. So far... not looking good.
The other part of the problem for me is that I have a complete mental block that a sonnet is something someone like me writes. Sonnets are what Shakespeare wrote. Shakespeare. So already the bar is set impossibly high and secondly it seems ostentatiously ambitious, arrogant even, to think I could even try. I am sure I wont have a sonnet ready to present in class. I feel this is going to be a slow burning project- but when I do finally have one i will present it here - triumphantly!
On to the workshops. Firstly thank you so everyone who took the time to read my poems. I appreciate it hugely as it does take time to read through someone else's work and come up with thoughtful responses. I took on board all your thoughts and your encouragement has also spurred me on to continue the Animal Cycle - I like to think of the as little messages from the animals, little fables translated from them into our language. For the sonnet exercise I am continuing the theme, possibly with a bumble bee or a falcon - I am working one both and we will see which one resolves itself best.
This week I am in the position of offering critque on other classmates work- Liz and Easlyn. I think it is such a powerful position and thus one which should be used with great trepidation. Because as novices we write so much from our own experience we are actually offering up a piece of ourself for critique. Perhaps this is why what is said without rancour of unkindness can be perceived by another as aggressive/ dismissive etc I can't remember where I read heard it, but i think the expression applies to our workshops: "tread carefully, you are stepping on my dreams". I love that, and think its nice to remember. Having said that- if we want to be mediocre writers we can simply ignore all criticism but if we want to be great writers (and here's a confession: i DO want to be a great writer, i'm not just doing this to pass time) then we need to take it all on board and take stock. After all we write for other people to read the work and if the readers are reflecting back to us that they don't get it/ don't feel it etc then we need to acknowledge that.
Hope you have all caught up on Anthony's performance on Jools Holland? it really made me think about creativity and how we can never be good let alone great writers if we restrict our creatives selves to a couple of hours a week or just between the covers of our note books. Rather our creativity needs to be authentic to our entire way of being. Anthony expresses his creativity in every way possible, words, music, visually etc. If we want to be writers we need to absorb art, music, literature, film, tv- everything! to feed our creative selves.
Hmm im rambling again.... too much time talking to animals does that to you, but at least I get some poems out of it occasionally ;)
I apologise for being so lethargic in writing this blog for the last few weeks- the pressure of time and tiredness have been the victors.
So.... how are we all getting on with the sonnets? I am really struggling to understand the tensions between the formality of the form and the fluidity of how it "reads". Sonnets are so musical and when I read Keats or Wilfred Owen or any of them, they read so musically and naturally, they are very organic in how they flow and yet, and YET they are so structured and meticulous?! how do we do that? and get that balance? So far every attempt I have made just sounds laboured and artificial. Everything I write seems to scream : i'm a sonnett!!! when is should just read easily and beautifully. Some of it has to do with my lack of familiarity with hard rhyming couplets. I worry that no matter what I try and write it will sounds like one of those hideous hall mark wedding card poems (my love is like a red red rose, the more i know you the more is grows etc) or like something we had to memorise as children. Reading more modern sonnets from the 101 Sonnets book and online has really helped. I am still determined to write a formal structured sonnet properly before i write a loser more unshackled on. So far... not looking good.
The other part of the problem for me is that I have a complete mental block that a sonnet is something someone like me writes. Sonnets are what Shakespeare wrote. Shakespeare. So already the bar is set impossibly high and secondly it seems ostentatiously ambitious, arrogant even, to think I could even try. I am sure I wont have a sonnet ready to present in class. I feel this is going to be a slow burning project- but when I do finally have one i will present it here - triumphantly!
On to the workshops. Firstly thank you so everyone who took the time to read my poems. I appreciate it hugely as it does take time to read through someone else's work and come up with thoughtful responses. I took on board all your thoughts and your encouragement has also spurred me on to continue the Animal Cycle - I like to think of the as little messages from the animals, little fables translated from them into our language. For the sonnet exercise I am continuing the theme, possibly with a bumble bee or a falcon - I am working one both and we will see which one resolves itself best.
This week I am in the position of offering critque on other classmates work- Liz and Easlyn. I think it is such a powerful position and thus one which should be used with great trepidation. Because as novices we write so much from our own experience we are actually offering up a piece of ourself for critique. Perhaps this is why what is said without rancour of unkindness can be perceived by another as aggressive/ dismissive etc I can't remember where I read heard it, but i think the expression applies to our workshops: "tread carefully, you are stepping on my dreams". I love that, and think its nice to remember. Having said that- if we want to be mediocre writers we can simply ignore all criticism but if we want to be great writers (and here's a confession: i DO want to be a great writer, i'm not just doing this to pass time) then we need to take it all on board and take stock. After all we write for other people to read the work and if the readers are reflecting back to us that they don't get it/ don't feel it etc then we need to acknowledge that.
Hope you have all caught up on Anthony's performance on Jools Holland? it really made me think about creativity and how we can never be good let alone great writers if we restrict our creatives selves to a couple of hours a week or just between the covers of our note books. Rather our creativity needs to be authentic to our entire way of being. Anthony expresses his creativity in every way possible, words, music, visually etc. If we want to be writers we need to absorb art, music, literature, film, tv- everything! to feed our creative selves.
Hmm im rambling again.... too much time talking to animals does that to you, but at least I get some poems out of it occasionally ;)
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Baudelaire Reading! love love LOVE baudelaire!
Thanks (again!) to Narayani for this one.
Thursday 15th April 7.00 p.m.
THE PROSE AND POETRY OF BAUDELAIRE
John Calder introduces reading from the work of Charles Baudelaire,
including from the classic Les Fleurs du mal.The readers are Virginia
Byron and Tony Rohr.
at Calder Bookshop, 51 TheCut, London SE1 8LF
Unless otherwise stated, entry is £6 (concessions £4)
Contributions are invited for wine afterwards
Booking advisable
Telephone: 020 7620 2900
email: amiddleton@calderbookshop.com
Thursday 15th April 7.00 p.m.
THE PROSE AND POETRY OF BAUDELAIRE
John Calder introduces reading from the work of Charles Baudelaire,
including from the classic Les Fleurs du mal.The readers are Virginia
Byron and Tony Rohr.
at Calder Bookshop, 51 TheCut, London SE1 8LF
Unless otherwise stated, entry is £6 (concessions £4)
Contributions are invited for wine afterwards
Booking advisable
Telephone: 020 7620 2900
email: amiddleton@calderbookshop.com
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
no writing ......
I am not writing at all. Snippets here and there but nothing of any interest and no sustained effort. It has made me think about creativity and what is the enemy of creativity? There must be things in each of our lives that tend to stop us from spending time with our creative selves. I know for myself, that not spending enough time alone, walking, or just "being" in silence means that my own "writer" voice gets no air time. things like TV, twitter, facebook, too many friends around etc mean i hvae no space in my head for creativity. Only when i go for long daily walks on my own (at least an hour twice a day) do I start to feel the little whispers coming through- i write things in my head as I walk and then put them to paper a few days later when they have formed into a whole. Of course lots of rewriting on paper over time but they stat as an internal conversation I have out walking. No walks- no writing! I was wonder what everyone else feels is an enemy to their creative self? send thoughts!
Ambit magazine event- looks like fun yes? any takers
Join us to celebrate launch of Ambit 200, a special double issue starring... Jonathan Lethem, Posy Simmonds, Peter Porter, Geoff Nicholson, Fleur Adcock, Alan Brownjohn, Carole Satyamurti, Peter Blake, the *Ambit 200 Competition Winners* and many, many more....
The issue will be launched at The Owl Bookshop, Kentish Town with readings from
FLEUR ADCOCK
Fleur Adcock was awarded the Queen's Medal for Poetry in 2006, and in 2008 was named Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature. Her new collection, Dragon Talk (her first since Poems 1960-2000), is to be published by Bloodaxe in May 2010
SAM RIVIERE
Sam Riviere was born in 1981. He co-edits the anthology series Stop Sharpening Your Knives, and is currently working towards a PhD at the University of East Anglia. A recipient of a 2009 Eric Gregory Award, his Faber New Poets pamphlet is forthcoming this summer.
JEHANE MARKHAM
Jehane Markham is a poet, lyricist and scriptwriter. She was commissioned to write On The Rim Of The World by the ROH with composer Orlando Gough in 2009. The Jehane Markham Trio performs poetry and jazz whenever it can.
...and an *as yet unconfirmed* prose writer
Join us to celebrate over 50 years of Ambit with free wine and words!!!
The issue will be launched at The Owl Bookshop, Kentish Town with readings from
FLEUR ADCOCK
Fleur Adcock was awarded the Queen's Medal for Poetry in 2006, and in 2008 was named Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature. Her new collection, Dragon Talk (her first since Poems 1960-2000), is to be published by Bloodaxe in May 2010
SAM RIVIERE
Sam Riviere was born in 1981. He co-edits the anthology series Stop Sharpening Your Knives, and is currently working towards a PhD at the University of East Anglia. A recipient of a 2009 Eric Gregory Award, his Faber New Poets pamphlet is forthcoming this summer.
JEHANE MARKHAM
Jehane Markham is a poet, lyricist and scriptwriter. She was commissioned to write On The Rim Of The World by the ROH with composer Orlando Gough in 2009. The Jehane Markham Trio performs poetry and jazz whenever it can.
...and an *as yet unconfirmed* prose writer
Join us to celebrate over 50 years of Ambit with free wine and words!!!
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Shakespeare Evening
Here is a very nice event Narayani sent me. The end of term drinks were lots of fun and lets make sure we all do that again sometime soon.
Thursday 1st April 7.00 p.m.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S A LOVER'S COMPLAINT
A chance to enjoy some rarely performed Shakespeare poems (and celebrate his birthday – almost). As well as A Lover's Complaint, the evening will include poems from The Passionate Pilgrim, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music and The Phoenix and the Turtle.
The show has been conceived and directed by Morley College and Wandsworth Prison Shakespeare tutor Sergio Amigo and is performed by Daniel Kelly. It should last just under one hour.
N.B. THIS IS A FULL PERFORMANCE, NOT A REHEARSED READING.
Unless otherwise stated, entry is £6 (concessions £4)
Contributions are invited for wine afterwards
Booking advisable
Telephone: 020 7620 2900
email: amiddleton@calderbookshop.com
Thursday 1st April 7.00 p.m.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S A LOVER'S COMPLAINT
A chance to enjoy some rarely performed Shakespeare poems (and celebrate his birthday – almost). As well as A Lover's Complaint, the evening will include poems from The Passionate Pilgrim, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music and The Phoenix and the Turtle.
The show has been conceived and directed by Morley College and Wandsworth Prison Shakespeare tutor Sergio Amigo and is performed by Daniel Kelly. It should last just under one hour.
N.B. THIS IS A FULL PERFORMANCE, NOT A REHEARSED READING.
Unless otherwise stated, entry is £6 (concessions £4)
Contributions are invited for wine afterwards
Booking advisable
Telephone: 020 7620 2900
email: amiddleton@calderbookshop.com
Saturday, 6 March 2010
still castaway
I may or may not be writing this in a vacuum, but I will persist nonetheless. If you find anything useful or interesting, or indeed if you find it trite and self indulgent, then please feel free to leave a comment. Some of you have already told me you have used the Darfur pictures as the basis for your story or have found some points interesting (which is not the same as agreeing with them!) Either way, you just click on the little "comments" word at the end of the "article" and the box for your comments will pop up- alternately send an email. I will soon also be posting some of Narayani's finds for day workshops and events at Foyles and other.
The Castaway piece is still dominating my inner landscape. I am still unclear on exactly how the narrative arc will resolve itself but I trying to include the few "tools" I have dug up as the preparatory archeology for the piece. Religiously I was raised with a Church of England reference point and so have used the bible (apparently the "greatest story every told") as one reference. I have taken Jesus' 40 days and 40 nights n the desert as the original castaway experience (although it occurs to me that The Passion/ Crusifiction was a much more spiritually isolating experience). During his time in the desert, Jesus was tempted at least twice by the devil, the first time forced him to question his faith and the second tempted him into sin. As such I am trying to incorporate into my story a moment during which the diarist's faith (spiritual or otherwise) is tempted to the utmost, and secondly, he/she is tempted to sin in order to survive (it could be murder, it could be stealing, it could be prostituting oneself for survival etc) I think the sin should be one of the "7 deadly sins" to keep the scope as epic and biblical as the spread "castaway" implies. Either way the castaways moral compass is thrown off course by the need to survive. I haven't decided yet if my protagonist can resist "sinning" or can maintain their faith.
The next device I am using to frame my story are the often-quoted (but till useful?) stages of grief- shock, denial, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I am certain that anyone shipwrecked, or stranded anywhere would naturally go through a process of mourning their former self, their former life particularly as this piece covers a one year period, possibly three, depending on how it is written. the interesting point in the story will be when the protagonist reaches the point of acceptance/surrender. Is it right at the end? is it half way through? Or are they even a person for whom being lost in this way is a release and a freeing up from a burdensome history or life experience in which case there is no process of grieving.
Other than that my research on geography etc has been the utterly invaluable. PArtially this has been because my location exists which has made digging out information very satisfying but I suspect that even if you are writing a Sci-fi story research into the various gasses on mars and neptune and the colours of nebulae would be useful?!
On another note I would be really interested to hear what people are reading at the moment? I wonder if that will influence what direction their writing takes. I remember that like all good angst addled teenagers I read Jack Kerouac's On The Road and felt I would never see writing in the same way again. Less obviously stylised books have also had that effect on me (possibly the triumph of subdued old age) such as Roy's The God of Small Things. Not so much the story but the voice of the narrator completely changed how I thought about a narrative voice. Rushdi's Midnights Children had the same effect again only this time the ray of light fell more on actual story telling and how a written book could feel it came straight out of an oral tradition and lose none of the magical, fable like quality. So what is everyone reading right now?
I am currently reading an SAS survival and special ops training manual (yes i know, its an odd choice but i think good writers need to be open to everything if they are to write convincingly and the chapters on how to choose a good "safe house" and also infiltrate a enemy's desert hideout - very flat, hard to hide your approach - is really very useful!) I am also reading Gideons Spies , a book abour Mossad assassins and how they are trained etc (yes, there IS a theme here, but I decided to stop being myself and read things i would never normally read, stepping into a world as far removed from mine as possible- my writing tends to be very "interior monologue" : fairly languid and poetic but short on character, plot etc so I thought I would force the change by over correcting in the opposite direction- is this a sensible strategy?) The recent reports in the newspapers about Mossad assassinating a Hamas General in a Dubai Hotel was amazing! Hotel security camera footage of wigs and fake mustaches being applied etc proves that the truth is often stranger than fiction.
The Castaway piece is still dominating my inner landscape. I am still unclear on exactly how the narrative arc will resolve itself but I trying to include the few "tools" I have dug up as the preparatory archeology for the piece. Religiously I was raised with a Church of England reference point and so have used the bible (apparently the "greatest story every told") as one reference. I have taken Jesus' 40 days and 40 nights n the desert as the original castaway experience (although it occurs to me that The Passion/ Crusifiction was a much more spiritually isolating experience). During his time in the desert, Jesus was tempted at least twice by the devil, the first time forced him to question his faith and the second tempted him into sin. As such I am trying to incorporate into my story a moment during which the diarist's faith (spiritual or otherwise) is tempted to the utmost, and secondly, he/she is tempted to sin in order to survive (it could be murder, it could be stealing, it could be prostituting oneself for survival etc) I think the sin should be one of the "7 deadly sins" to keep the scope as epic and biblical as the spread "castaway" implies. Either way the castaways moral compass is thrown off course by the need to survive. I haven't decided yet if my protagonist can resist "sinning" or can maintain their faith.
The next device I am using to frame my story are the often-quoted (but till useful?) stages of grief- shock, denial, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I am certain that anyone shipwrecked, or stranded anywhere would naturally go through a process of mourning their former self, their former life particularly as this piece covers a one year period, possibly three, depending on how it is written. the interesting point in the story will be when the protagonist reaches the point of acceptance/surrender. Is it right at the end? is it half way through? Or are they even a person for whom being lost in this way is a release and a freeing up from a burdensome history or life experience in which case there is no process of grieving.
Other than that my research on geography etc has been the utterly invaluable. PArtially this has been because my location exists which has made digging out information very satisfying but I suspect that even if you are writing a Sci-fi story research into the various gasses on mars and neptune and the colours of nebulae would be useful?!
On another note I would be really interested to hear what people are reading at the moment? I wonder if that will influence what direction their writing takes. I remember that like all good angst addled teenagers I read Jack Kerouac's On The Road and felt I would never see writing in the same way again. Less obviously stylised books have also had that effect on me (possibly the triumph of subdued old age) such as Roy's The God of Small Things. Not so much the story but the voice of the narrator completely changed how I thought about a narrative voice. Rushdi's Midnights Children had the same effect again only this time the ray of light fell more on actual story telling and how a written book could feel it came straight out of an oral tradition and lose none of the magical, fable like quality. So what is everyone reading right now?
I am currently reading an SAS survival and special ops training manual (yes i know, its an odd choice but i think good writers need to be open to everything if they are to write convincingly and the chapters on how to choose a good "safe house" and also infiltrate a enemy's desert hideout - very flat, hard to hide your approach - is really very useful!) I am also reading Gideons Spies , a book abour Mossad assassins and how they are trained etc (yes, there IS a theme here, but I decided to stop being myself and read things i would never normally read, stepping into a world as far removed from mine as possible- my writing tends to be very "interior monologue" : fairly languid and poetic but short on character, plot etc so I thought I would force the change by over correcting in the opposite direction- is this a sensible strategy?) The recent reports in the newspapers about Mossad assassinating a Hamas General in a Dubai Hotel was amazing! Hotel security camera footage of wigs and fake mustaches being applied etc proves that the truth is often stranger than fiction.
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