Back to School - with a bang

This back-to-school malarkey doesn't get any easier each year. I'm just in the last throes of it today and tomorrow: hemming trousers for the boys in extra strong stitching, so they don't pull down their hems through repeated putting in of their legs; extra sewing on the box pleats of the skirts, so that they don't end up ripping up to the waistband. Ironing on about 30 labels with names on, not so much for the benefit of the schools, but to save kids here rowing in the mornings about whose tracksuit bottoms belong to whom.

I still have a list of things to get as long as my arm. It's not that I'm a last minute lassie, it's just that it really does take the whole summer to organise things. Things like a pack of twistables x 3, or rubbers x 20, or even copies (exercise books to forn readers) x 100. And that's not a joke.

I buy pencils by the box load, pens by the bucket. And don't talk to me about pencil parers (I actually invested in an industrial strength one of those a few years ago - best €15 I ever spent). But somehow when we get to Christmas they're all gone - poof - vanished into thin air. I reckon there must be a hole in each classroom where stationary fairies live with a huge hoard of the little buggers. Maybe they re-sell them on fairy-eBay...

Ah well. The upside of all this expense is that next week I get my house back to myself between the hours of 8.30am and 2.45pm, Monday to Friday. I think that's something to look forward to: the sweet smelling sound of silence. Oh yeah.

And in between all that I've been writing poems, and getting ready for my own new term of writing classes to begin. You know what they say: ask a busy woman ...

So, how did poetry get into my life..?

Beware the throw-away remark about poetry, because it will always pique someone's curiosity. Recently Rachel asked on the memish blogpost about blasts from the past, just how I did get into poetry, because I had remarked that at the time of first-born's birth I wasn't much of a writer, nor a poet.

Oookaaaay. So, where do I start? I'd love,of course, to be able to say that my parents were mad into poetry and instilled a great love of it in me. The truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction.

Do I start with the scribbles I used to leave behind on my blotting sheet in the Draughting course I took, circa 1989?

Do I start with the play I wrote about St. Augustine, after a story I heard in Primary 6, circa 1979?

Although I'm sure you'd love to hear those stories, sometime, the real one is about how I found my way into poetry and got really, really hooked.

It all began with a chap who became known to me as Dermo Pegleg (back in 1994). At the time, I had recently joined the Open University, completing a foundation year in IT. I was in the second year, studying Computer Programming and not enjoying it one bit. In fact, I hated it. The only thing I had done with any success was to write code for a programme to pick Lotto numbers. I was looking for excuses not to study. And so, one night I went out, to what would now be called an open mic session in a pub, hosted by DP.

There were acoustic guitar players, interspersed with short, quickfire bursts of poetry from various contributors. Most of it was, well, shite. But there was one poem that I reacted to: it was written and delivered as a sort of rebuff to a girl (and women in general) for refusing to be interested enough to continue beyond a first date. This poem annoyed me so much that I went home ranting about it, and encouraged by my then-boyfriend, I wrote a riposte, which led on into writing other poems.

I didn't write that much in those first tentative years: maybe about fifteen poems or so. I'm really grateful that most of them have disappeared or got lost, because they were utter rubbish. Really awful rubbish. As well as writing, I was getting involved my community arts scene: I got a part time job in 1997 as a Newsletter Editor for the local arts centre where I lived, which meant I got to meet those involved in writing locally and foster friendships that have endured.

I remember sending some of those early poems to The, then recently launched, Stinging Fly (circa 1997?), and receiving a rejection that said though they weren't good enough, to keep at it: keep on writing and try sending again. Alas, I wasn't confident or savvy enough to appreciate what encouragement this actually was.

In the meantime, I read things that were recommended to me. Books about poetry. Books of poetry. Books about anything but poetry. Books like novels and books of non-fiction. I was a starved garden of weeds: books were my fertiliser, pens and paper my digging tools, language my seedbed.

In time (after producing two more children) I met my current partner (and produced three more, bringing my troop to six), I thought I should start into learning more about some of these poets and writers I had read about. I re-joined the Open University (2003) and decided to do a BA in Literature. I wrote more poems, fed by all the newly-acquired knowledge and old knowledge I had. I But I grew, and I learned to see the faults in all the stuff I had written, as well as what was salvagable. I still wanted to write poems and write them well as well as I could.

So, now I wrote and honed poems for real. I tried out forms, like sonnets or quatrains. I played with rhythm and enjoyed playing with words, just for the sake of it. I started sending out some of these later efforts. I got lucky in a journal in the States, after sending a good many submissions. One strike led to a few more, which in turn led to applying for Poetry Ireland 'Introductions' series. I got in second time around, in 2005. A whole pile of credits accumulated and I thought about submitting to a publisher. I sent out query letters to the four corners of Ireland, and one replying positively. I sent them a MS and I can still remember getting a phone call six months later, saying 'Yes, we'd love to publish it next year.'

After completing a BA in Literature, in September 2007, I started straight into an MA in Creative Writing in Queen's University, Belfast. I literally posted the last End of Course Assessment for my OU degree on the Friday and began the MA course on the following Monday in Belfast. I remember meeting the poets and writers on the first day of term and feeling like a fraud - so many there with awards and publication credits under their belt. Surely they would see through me, despite the fact that my first collection had just been published.

Across that wonderful year (07-08) I learned to trust what I knew. I learned to trust myself and to trust my work. My first collection sold very well. I learned to trust the truth of the people at readings across Ireland, in Scotland and in the UK buying the book and enthusing about it. I learned that I was also a good teacher: people trusted what I had to say about writing and poetry and I learned the thrill of seeing talent walk into my creative writing classes and watching them develop their confidence and skills.

All of this happened, because I mitched off studying computer programming and got angry with a man who wrote something I disagreed with! So now you know part of the story.

The Sound of the End of the Summer

Up and down this fair green land of ours, you can hear the faint sound of glee, tinged with grumpiness, as mothers hand over their last few cents to shopkeepers in exchange for goods that will help the children of this land on their annual 'Back-to-schooling.'

Every year in all sorts of newspapers, big and small, there are researched articles, bemoaning the price of books, uniforms, bags, stationary, shoes (I'm sure I've missed something), totting up the average spend of the 2.2 kid family and making us all have mini-strokes into our Saturday cereals and posh coffees. Other support articles appear on what sort of packed lunches we mothers should try out for our offspring's bored tastebuds (God help the poor wee chap who survived seven years of 'hang sangwiches.')

I laugh in the face of these articles. No-one has the art of Back-to-School as well researched or executed as me. I could wipe the floor with most of the statistics that you'll see in print. Getting six feicers ready for the new school year is one challenge that I relish. My only complaint is that Back-to-School happens during the holidays, making it the most expensive part of the year, matched only by the ferocious spendfest that is Christmas.

You see, I take a certain satisfaction every time I spend money on this ugly-but-necessary-school-badged-fleece, that rare-and-hard-to-buy-school-book: I am buying my way back to a certain (albeit limited) freedom. One that I know the weather will probably support me in too - I call the radiant sunny days that we get in Ireland during September 'Mother's Treats.' Just don't mention the phrase 'Free Education.' That really sets me off!

An Impression of Our Family on Holidays...

Mam, I’ve got a sore toe.
Mam, I’ve got sunburn.
Mam, there's no milk.
Mam, I can’t find my swimsuit.
Mam, there’s jellyfish in the sea.
Mam, where’s Dad?
Mam, there's no bread.
Mam, what’s for dinner?
Mam, why is it still raining?
Mam, I’m hungry.
Mam, can we have ice-cream?
Mam, can I have a biscuit.
Mam, he broke the 'nocliers.
Mam, she broke my DS.
Mam, he won’t leave me alone.
Mam, she won’t leave me alone.
Mam, they won’t leave me alone and my foot is sore again.

Mam: LEAVE ME ALONE - MY HEAD IS MELTED!