I got home from doing the shopping, the usual trawl around the local supermarket to get all the stuff we ran out of during the month, like pasta and rice and lasagne sheets, to find a letter on the front door mat.
The letter was from the Tyrone Guthrie Centre to tell me that I was the recipient of the Annie Deeny Prize for 2008/09. What does this mean?
Well, in their own words: The Annie Deeny Memorial Prize was launched by distinguished poet Fleur Adcock in May 2004. Mrs Annie Deeny was a teacher and mother of six children who, although she wrote, never sought to have her work published. This perpetual prize is in her memory to encourage someone in a similar situation to write and to publish. It provides a two-week residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig.
Ironic, that I too have six children, isn't it? So, I'm now getting a total of four weeks away this year to write: on my ownsome...and no food to worry about... Just as well my husband is taking me out to dinner tonight: now we have more to celebrate!
Friday, February 27, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Nick Laird & Dishwasher Sagas
As ever, I am a whole week behind: the kids have been off this week on mid-term breaks and the whole household has descended into the sort of chaos that only mothers know: washing to beat the band etc; constantly running out of food and trying to think of 'free' activities that involve exercise of some form. And then the dishwasher which was already getting very weepy, tired and emotional decided that since I'd got a few euros to spare it was time to sputter and blink it's death.
Cue a few interesting days of manual dish washing, in which the kids learned very quickly that 'hands that do dishes' should be anyone's but their own. The new DW was installed yesterday with the usual three hour saga, involving sawing, hacking and much swearing that accompanies any seemingly plain and simple job in our house...
In the midst of all this a friend sent me a link for Nick Laird's article in last week's Guardian.
Laird discusses the political poem, coming from the stance of hearing Elizabeth Alexander's inauguration poem and mentioning Robert Frost's inaugural poem back in 1961 (for JFK). There is a tightrope that has to be walked when you decide to write poetry about politics: "To watch words carefully is a small political act, a safeguard against doublespeak. In daily discourse it leads to questions about truth and power." Laird suggests that 'poetry and politics' is interchangeable with that other unhappy pairing of words, 'imagination and reality.' From reading Wallace Steven's lecture 'The Noble Rider and the Sound of Words,' he argues that Stevens thought that perhaps a 'coalition' between the two worlds was/is possible.
Now, I bet you never thought you'd see Nick Laird, poetry and politics and a dishwasher all in the same post. No, neither did I.
Cue a few interesting days of manual dish washing, in which the kids learned very quickly that 'hands that do dishes' should be anyone's but their own. The new DW was installed yesterday with the usual three hour saga, involving sawing, hacking and much swearing that accompanies any seemingly plain and simple job in our house...
In the midst of all this a friend sent me a link for Nick Laird's article in last week's Guardian.
Laird discusses the political poem, coming from the stance of hearing Elizabeth Alexander's inauguration poem and mentioning Robert Frost's inaugural poem back in 1961 (for JFK). There is a tightrope that has to be walked when you decide to write poetry about politics: "To watch words carefully is a small political act, a safeguard against doublespeak. In daily discourse it leads to questions about truth and power." Laird suggests that 'poetry and politics' is interchangeable with that other unhappy pairing of words, 'imagination and reality.' From reading Wallace Steven's lecture 'The Noble Rider and the Sound of Words,' he argues that Stevens thought that perhaps a 'coalition' between the two worlds was/is possible.
Now, I bet you never thought you'd see Nick Laird, poetry and politics and a dishwasher all in the same post. No, neither did I.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Reading: A Fanatic Heart
I got a short story collection in the post the other day. Well, I'd actually ordered it before Christmas, posted it to a friend's address up North and got up there to collect it the other day.
It's A Fanatic Heart, by Irish writer Edna O Brien. I'd had my interest piqued about her through reading Father and I, a memoir by Carlo Gebler, who I'd heard a lot about last year, from colleagues who were taking the Prose strand of the Creative Writing MA at Queen's. He's a no-nonsense style of writer and critic, from what I heard.
Anyway, I read Father and I - it was a chance find for a fiver in the book boxes that you find at the back of the Central Bank in Temple Bar, Dublin. Once I'd started reading it I couldn't put it down. In it, Gebler traces his troubled relationship with his father, from when he had to deal with his old man's impending illness, moving him into a home and before that: back through time to Gebler's early childhood in London.
I found the account compelling: including moments like how he recalled his mother perched, tapping away on the typewriter at what would become The Country Girls, her first novel, and how his parents separated because his own father found his writing stymied and couldn't cope with his wife's success in writing. But Gebler writes in a way that evokes your sympathies, not because he plays on heart strings, but because he just lets the reader's heart strings resonate. Good writing, simply told.
So that led me to discovering some of his mother's work. A Fanatic Heart is a selected collection spanning across Edna O'Brien's writing career: early to late short stories that draw on her upbringing in Ireland and her travels in the UK and US. Both writers share an ability to turn really good, fresh phrases.
Here's Carlo Gebler at the close of Father and I: "You can't change the past but, with understanding, you can sometimes draw the poison out of it." Boy does that resonate.
And here's Edna O'Brien from 'The Connor Girls' in A Fanatic Heart: "... at that moment I realized that by choosing his world I had said goodbye to my own and to those in it. By such choices we gradually become exiles, until at last we are quite alone." Equally resonant.
You can't say that these two writers don't know how to turn a pithy quote. Now, I must keep on reading - I keep getting ideas though :)
*** Late addendum: Edna O'Brien was appointed adjunct professor of creative writing for UCD's MA in Creative Writing in 2006.
It's A Fanatic Heart, by Irish writer Edna O Brien. I'd had my interest piqued about her through reading Father and I, a memoir by Carlo Gebler, who I'd heard a lot about last year, from colleagues who were taking the Prose strand of the Creative Writing MA at Queen's. He's a no-nonsense style of writer and critic, from what I heard.
Anyway, I read Father and I - it was a chance find for a fiver in the book boxes that you find at the back of the Central Bank in Temple Bar, Dublin. Once I'd started reading it I couldn't put it down. In it, Gebler traces his troubled relationship with his father, from when he had to deal with his old man's impending illness, moving him into a home and before that: back through time to Gebler's early childhood in London.
I found the account compelling: including moments like how he recalled his mother perched, tapping away on the typewriter at what would become The Country Girls, her first novel, and how his parents separated because his own father found his writing stymied and couldn't cope with his wife's success in writing. But Gebler writes in a way that evokes your sympathies, not because he plays on heart strings, but because he just lets the reader's heart strings resonate. Good writing, simply told.
So that led me to discovering some of his mother's work. A Fanatic Heart is a selected collection spanning across Edna O'Brien's writing career: early to late short stories that draw on her upbringing in Ireland and her travels in the UK and US. Both writers share an ability to turn really good, fresh phrases.
Here's Carlo Gebler at the close of Father and I: "You can't change the past but, with understanding, you can sometimes draw the poison out of it." Boy does that resonate.
And here's Edna O'Brien from 'The Connor Girls' in A Fanatic Heart: "... at that moment I realized that by choosing his world I had said goodbye to my own and to those in it. By such choices we gradually become exiles, until at last we are quite alone." Equally resonant.
You can't say that these two writers don't know how to turn a pithy quote. Now, I must keep on reading - I keep getting ideas though :)
*** Late addendum: Edna O'Brien was appointed adjunct professor of creative writing for UCD's MA in Creative Writing in 2006.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Cavan Poetry Competition
Yesterday I drove to Cavan to receive my certificate for Highly Commended in the inaugural Caomhnu National Poetry Competition, for 'The Dairy Shed.' Some of you may remember seeing it in a very rough draft, many moons ago. I refined it to within an inch of its life during the MA programme last year, when it emerged into its final format, a sonnet.
Whilst there, I met Michael Farry, editor of Boyne Berries and another Highly Commended award-winner in the competition with his poem, 'Asking Directions.'
Michael has posted the results of both the short story comp & the poetry comp here, along with a photo of himself and the poetry adjudicator, Noel Monahan.
I enjoyed the prize-giving and the extremely welcome gourmet lunch afterwards, all organised by Cavan County Council. Special thanks to Arts Officer Caitriona O Reilly too for her great organisation.
Whilst there, I met Michael Farry, editor of Boyne Berries and another Highly Commended award-winner in the competition with his poem, 'Asking Directions.'
Michael has posted the results of both the short story comp & the poetry comp here, along with a photo of himself and the poetry adjudicator, Noel Monahan.
I enjoyed the prize-giving and the extremely welcome gourmet lunch afterwards, all organised by Cavan County Council. Special thanks to Arts Officer Caitriona O Reilly too for her great organisation.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Valentine's Poem
In 2006, RTE's Poetry Programme, then compered by Pat Boran, put out a call for poems for Valentine's day. I was standing in the kitchen, making a meal for mise agus himse when I remembered that my mum used to say that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach. Not the sort of thing that makes sense to a small child, but how it resonates years later.
This is from Kairos and yes, I think I have hauled this out before...
The Garden of Earthly Delights
In the kitchen, Valentine,
it will begin with the green
curlicues of garlic shoots hid
in the cold shelf of the fridge.
The prying, bulging eyes of spuds
will wink in the clammy closeness
of their plastic bag. All being pulled
spring-tight tonight, through the tilting
built into their bolting seed husks.
And you too will respond with the flick
in your loins, the click in your head
as my hands riot in the radishes,
tease out the aubergine chunks,
toss together pillows of cherry tomatoes
and delight in these firm ruins
of last year's seedpods. There,
Valentine, is where you will begin.
This is from Kairos and yes, I think I have hauled this out before...
The Garden of Earthly Delights
In the kitchen, Valentine,
it will begin with the green
curlicues of garlic shoots hid
in the cold shelf of the fridge.
The prying, bulging eyes of spuds
will wink in the clammy closeness
of their plastic bag. All being pulled
spring-tight tonight, through the tilting
built into their bolting seed husks.
And you too will respond with the flick
in your loins, the click in your head
as my hands riot in the radishes,
tease out the aubergine chunks,
toss together pillows of cherry tomatoes
and delight in these firm ruins
of last year's seedpods. There,
Valentine, is where you will begin.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Poetry in a Talent Show
Young DCU student Holly Ann Treanor will be on TV on Sunday night, in RTE's All Ireland Talent show. I don't watch a lot of TV at all, and it was a friend who put me on to this, but it's fascinating to see a poetry act being featured on television. Have a look at her audition clip and see what you think.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Reading Poetry
I am reading a poetry pamphlet from Oystercatcher Press at the moment, by Rufo Quintavalle and enjoying it thoroughly. So much so that I find myself wondering where else I can find poems by this guy. Make Nothing Happen is really good value at only £4.00 and gives an intriguing taste of his work.
There's something about the way Quintavalle puts his words that makes you stop, re-read and then a few days later when you read them again you wonder why you had to stop. No surprise for a British poet with an Italian name, who lives in Paris. It's making me think strongly about how you corrall language when you write and what purpose you can put that corralling to. Most people would call it form. But that's to make what I've noticed seem simple, and I don't think it is that simple. I'd better save my thoughts for a review that I'm writing, but for now here are some links to his work, from nth position - see what you think.
Much & Rocks
Figs
***
There's something about the way Quintavalle puts his words that makes you stop, re-read and then a few days later when you read them again you wonder why you had to stop. No surprise for a British poet with an Italian name, who lives in Paris. It's making me think strongly about how you corrall language when you write and what purpose you can put that corralling to. Most people would call it form. But that's to make what I've noticed seem simple, and I don't think it is that simple. I'd better save my thoughts for a review that I'm writing, but for now here are some links to his work, from nth position - see what you think.
Much & Rocks
Figs
***
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Project Verse
Are you a fan of Project Runway? Are you a poet without a first collection to your credit yet? Are you not freaked out by seeing these two things in one paragraph?
Then Project Verse could be just the challenge for you!
Hurry along and read up the rules and see whether you could be in with a chance of winning a contract for a published chapbook, a weeklong residency at Soul Mountain Retreat in Connecticut, an interview with Joe Milford of 'The Joe Milford Poetry Show', and a review of your chapbook in ouroboros review and Limp Wrist. It doesn't say where you have to be from... so, who knows? :)
Then Project Verse could be just the challenge for you!
Hurry along and read up the rules and see whether you could be in with a chance of winning a contract for a published chapbook, a weeklong residency at Soul Mountain Retreat in Connecticut, an interview with Joe Milford of 'The Joe Milford Poetry Show', and a review of your chapbook in ouroboros review and Limp Wrist. It doesn't say where you have to be from... so, who knows? :)
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Bridport - Already!
The Bridport Prize 2009
International Creative Writing Competition for Short Stories and Poems
The Bridport Prize 2009 website is now open for entries!
The Bridport Prize is the richest open writing competition in the English language -with £5000 first prize for a short story (of up to 5000 words); and £5000 first
prize for a poem (of up to 42 lines).
The Bridport is also known as a tremendous literary stepping stone - the first
step in the careers of writers such as: Kate Atkinson, Tobias Hill, Carol Ann Duffy
and Helen Dunmore.
Anyone can enter - so long as the work is previously unpublished. It costs £7 per
story or £6 per poem and the closing date is 30th June 2009.
Each year the prize is judged by well known writers - this year we are delighted to have
Ali Smith judging short stories and Jackie Kay judging poetry.
* I wonder how robust your short stories will have to be to get past Ali Smith - yikes!
The 2008 anthology of winning entries is available for just £12 or £15 overseas
(including postage and packing)
2006 & 2007 anthologies available for £7 or £10 overseas (limited amount)Enter online or download an entry form www.bridportprize.org.uk
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
How Many Jobs...?
Rachel Fox posted about the many different things she's done in her life so far and it got me to thinking about all the different paths that I've persued over my years too. So here goes...
Tile painter: 1986. My first proper job. I worked in a studio over a tile shop with a graphic designer whose job it was to print patterns on tiles. My job was to paint in the tiny leaves and petals on the prints before the tiles were fired in a kiln. I remember the first week, dreaming every night about all the leaves I had to get just right.
Kitchen designer: 1988ish. After a draughting course, I worked in a kitchen showroom, taking the measurements that the salesmen brought in, designing a kitchen and then pricing it up, from the rough drawings that were brought back from clients. The difference between a dear kitchen and a cheap kitchen lies in the choice of doors.
Hotel room sales: 1989ish. I moved to London in 1989-90 and this was the first job I got, answering queries from travel agents booking hotel rooms for their customers... I can still remember how we answered the phones - 'Superbreak MiniHolidays....' in a sing-song sort of voice. No computers in those days, we worked off pages with small blocks that you marked off!
Press Reader: 1990 -94ish I moved on and got this unlikely job reading newspapers for a client index that was kept on a computer, so the first job I had that involved them. I really loved reading the papers in such depth, although it was knackering reading so much stuff every day. Nowadays it's done by computer. Longest job length too, I lasted until 1993/94 when my eldest son was born & I decided that Ireland might be a better option to rear him. I became very handy with a pair of scissors.
Press Reader #2: On returning to Ireland I managed to get the same job with a Dublin based employer. Not as well-paying as it had been in London, but that was the difference between the two countries at the time. I loved travelling to Dublin every day.
Litho Technician: 1995 I left the previous job to go to a well known micro-chip producer - great job, great pay, great prospects... but I was pregnant with child #2 and after maternity leave and returning to work, I got pregnant with child #3! Not much chance of me staying there :( I don't mind, the white suits we had to wear inside the room where the work was done were a real pain to put on, not to mention being hot all the time from the 22 degree temperature they kept it at (at least that's how I remember it).
Newsletter Editor: 1997 After child #3 I really wanted to go back to work, but knew that part-time was really the only option. So I worked in a local arts centre. Although the job description was Newsletter Editor, I had to muck in on reception for evening activities and it helped me to cement relationships with the writing/theatre/art community in my locale. I still have friends from that time that I cherish. I had really taken writing seriously for the first time too around this time, and a first pamphlet of poems got published too, thanks to a grant from that arts centre. Ah, God be with the days...
Receptionist/Bookkeeper: 2003-4ish. So, there were the twins, followed by the baby of the family, which meant a huge gap in proceedings. But in 2003 I got a position as a receptionist for a community organisation that worked with underpriviledged women. The supervisor recognised my potential and got me to train up as a bookkeeper. I discovered that numbers were a lot easier than I remembered and really flew at this job, until our family relocated to another town in 2005.
Civil Servant: 2006. I only lasted four months at this, as I was juggling six kids, studying for a degree coupled with a two hour commute to Dublin... I loved the job, but just couldn't keep everything going... so something had to give.
Telephone customer representative: late 2006. Part time hours in the evening meant that I could sort of juggle this one around, but it was more of a stop-gap to earn sponduligs to pay the fat red man at Christmas.
Administration Assistant: 2007... again only lasted four months at this job. I loved the work, but everything started to fall apart at home again, so I naturally caved again.
2009 - I have a couple of CW classes on the go, which might help pay for the children's books going back to school in September (if I don't need to plug any financial gaps before then), but not a lot else. I am looking for something, but I think most employers see my CV as being a bit patchy/higgledy piggledy these days... So that makes about eleven or twelve jobs, if you count the current position... no, these are not really the sort of thing that you write down when you're young and say, 'When I grow up, I want to be...'
Tile painter: 1986. My first proper job. I worked in a studio over a tile shop with a graphic designer whose job it was to print patterns on tiles. My job was to paint in the tiny leaves and petals on the prints before the tiles were fired in a kiln. I remember the first week, dreaming every night about all the leaves I had to get just right.
Kitchen designer: 1988ish. After a draughting course, I worked in a kitchen showroom, taking the measurements that the salesmen brought in, designing a kitchen and then pricing it up, from the rough drawings that were brought back from clients. The difference between a dear kitchen and a cheap kitchen lies in the choice of doors.
Hotel room sales: 1989ish. I moved to London in 1989-90 and this was the first job I got, answering queries from travel agents booking hotel rooms for their customers... I can still remember how we answered the phones - 'Superbreak MiniHolidays....' in a sing-song sort of voice. No computers in those days, we worked off pages with small blocks that you marked off!
Press Reader: 1990 -94ish I moved on and got this unlikely job reading newspapers for a client index that was kept on a computer, so the first job I had that involved them. I really loved reading the papers in such depth, although it was knackering reading so much stuff every day. Nowadays it's done by computer. Longest job length too, I lasted until 1993/94 when my eldest son was born & I decided that Ireland might be a better option to rear him. I became very handy with a pair of scissors.
Press Reader #2: On returning to Ireland I managed to get the same job with a Dublin based employer. Not as well-paying as it had been in London, but that was the difference between the two countries at the time. I loved travelling to Dublin every day.
Litho Technician: 1995 I left the previous job to go to a well known micro-chip producer - great job, great pay, great prospects... but I was pregnant with child #2 and after maternity leave and returning to work, I got pregnant with child #3! Not much chance of me staying there :( I don't mind, the white suits we had to wear inside the room where the work was done were a real pain to put on, not to mention being hot all the time from the 22 degree temperature they kept it at (at least that's how I remember it).
Newsletter Editor: 1997 After child #3 I really wanted to go back to work, but knew that part-time was really the only option. So I worked in a local arts centre. Although the job description was Newsletter Editor, I had to muck in on reception for evening activities and it helped me to cement relationships with the writing/theatre/art community in my locale. I still have friends from that time that I cherish. I had really taken writing seriously for the first time too around this time, and a first pamphlet of poems got published too, thanks to a grant from that arts centre. Ah, God be with the days...
Receptionist/Bookkeeper: 2003-4ish. So, there were the twins, followed by the baby of the family, which meant a huge gap in proceedings. But in 2003 I got a position as a receptionist for a community organisation that worked with underpriviledged women. The supervisor recognised my potential and got me to train up as a bookkeeper. I discovered that numbers were a lot easier than I remembered and really flew at this job, until our family relocated to another town in 2005.
Civil Servant: 2006. I only lasted four months at this, as I was juggling six kids, studying for a degree coupled with a two hour commute to Dublin... I loved the job, but just couldn't keep everything going... so something had to give.
Telephone customer representative: late 2006. Part time hours in the evening meant that I could sort of juggle this one around, but it was more of a stop-gap to earn sponduligs to pay the fat red man at Christmas.
Administration Assistant: 2007... again only lasted four months at this job. I loved the work, but everything started to fall apart at home again, so I naturally caved again.
2009 - I have a couple of CW classes on the go, which might help pay for the children's books going back to school in September (if I don't need to plug any financial gaps before then), but not a lot else. I am looking for something, but I think most employers see my CV as being a bit patchy/higgledy piggledy these days... So that makes about eleven or twelve jobs, if you count the current position... no, these are not really the sort of thing that you write down when you're young and say, 'When I grow up, I want to be...'
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
BeatBearing - A novel new instrument
I caught this on the BBC NI News last night and was fascinated by the idea:
"A video of a new musical instrument created by a Queen’s University Belfast student has attracted over one million hits on the internet.
PhD student Peter Bennett (26) from Stevenage, England, made the video to demonstrate the BeatBearing - his electronic musical instrument that uses ball bearings to create different drum patterns.
The initial demonstration of the prototype has now been viewed more than one million times on internet video site YouTube.
The BeatBearing has been created as part of research into the use of ‘tangible interfaces’ for new musical instruments. The research is being led by Sile O’Modhrain within the renowned Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC) at Queen’s.
The BeatBearing is an example of minimalist modern design created from chrome, transparent Perspex and computer graphics.
It acts as a rhythm sequencer - a red line sweeps across the grid, playing a sound whenever a ball bearing is encountered, “like an updated version of the old piano-roll”, according to Bennett.
Peter is currently studying for a PhD in the SARC at Queen’s and the BeatBearing is just one of many interesting projects in the department."
Report from QUB Press release; more info from Peter Bennett's website.
Isn't it amazing what you can do a PhD in these days?
"A video of a new musical instrument created by a Queen’s University Belfast student has attracted over one million hits on the internet.
PhD student Peter Bennett (26) from Stevenage, England, made the video to demonstrate the BeatBearing - his electronic musical instrument that uses ball bearings to create different drum patterns.
The initial demonstration of the prototype has now been viewed more than one million times on internet video site YouTube.
The BeatBearing has been created as part of research into the use of ‘tangible interfaces’ for new musical instruments. The research is being led by Sile O’Modhrain within the renowned Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC) at Queen’s.
The BeatBearing is an example of minimalist modern design created from chrome, transparent Perspex and computer graphics.
It acts as a rhythm sequencer - a red line sweeps across the grid, playing a sound whenever a ball bearing is encountered, “like an updated version of the old piano-roll”, according to Bennett.
Peter is currently studying for a PhD in the SARC at Queen’s and the BeatBearing is just one of many interesting projects in the department."
Report from QUB Press release; more info from Peter Bennett's website.
Isn't it amazing what you can do a PhD in these days?
Friday, January 23, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Carson in the Guardian
Many thanks to Ms Baroque for this link to an interview with Ciaran Carson, at home as the photograph shows, beside a great lick of a fire.
I've enjoyed the interview immensely, as I had the honour and pleasure of working with him last spring in a series of classes on translation. In the interview he talks about growing up in Belfast as a member of an Irish speaking family in the 40s. He also mentions that lovely word 'capall;' Irish for horse, which he had us so in love with when we all tried our hand at a translation of a poem, 'Malairt,' (loosely rendered The Swap) by Séan Ó Ríordáin (think I might have posted that on PFFA during April...).
How we struggled with that one, trying it out in English: I always got the feeling there was something in the original that we weren't rendering, and Prof Carson did say that a lot of it had to do with the word 'capall' as well as the word 'bron,' (loosely given as sorrow). Because the words sound the way they do, they have a different association in your mind, a wider feeling of the horseness of horse, or the sorrowfulness of sorrow, but if you're used to thinking of it in Irish first, there must be a strangeness about the English word... anyway.
Not content with that, we also had a close look at Baudelaire's poem 'Correspondances' a poem that seemed to be so much more than it's component parts and that almost yielded a larger meaning to you before slipping away. I also heard Prof Carson describing how he tackled his translation of Dante's Inferno; to him it's about the rhythm as much as anything: he spoke of how Dante composed his poem whilst walking from place to place in Italy - but I digress a little.
I love what Carson says about words: 'Heft. They have heft...and they've got a life of their own.' This ties into an article by Hannah Brooks-Motl, I've been reading about reading poems, particularly the poems that emanate from the 'elliptical' school of poetry in the US (and now elsewhere). The article from The Dark Horse, Summer 2008 is the sort of thing that I like to read over and over again, thinking about other things that connect into the idea of how we read poems, and how the elliptical style of poetry, where poem that don't necessarily connect up in the mind of the reader have been considered difficult to interpret.
Words are tied to experience: all the words you've ever heard have complex connections made all the way back to your early childhood and beyond, possibly even in the womb. It is childhood that usually serves as a rich repository for the poems that I try to write now; poems and stories about potatoes, about cows and calves, but I also keep coming back to growing up along the north side of the bordern as an outsider, and trying to make sense of the occupation and strife of the 70s too.
I think that we all keep a huge hinterland of knowledge that we use when we read poems that aren't opaque, that don't yield meaning straight away. Putting things together in a manner that doesn't seem to make sense, forces the reader to use their own synaptic connections between their knowledge stores: it is in all of us to want to try and divine a pattern and smooth the bumps of our own interpretation and reading. That is what I think gives me pleasure when reading poetry. Well, that and a whole pile of other things like rhythm as well as all the poetic panoply of devices there are. Oh, and time.
Above all though, what really helps me is when I hear a poet talk about their work, and read it; or indeed as Prof Carson often did in class, sing and play his flute for us, as he must have done in the Guardian interview. It allows you a rich layering when you hear how someone has lived, what their interests were and how they are always trying to hear things in a new way, using the language of now, overlaid by the language of the past. As Carson says: 'language, when explored with humility, is always deeper and more accurate than what the author thought he had in mind.' Carson may have never left Belfast other than for visiting other places, but in his mind he has roamed the wide world over.
I've enjoyed the interview immensely, as I had the honour and pleasure of working with him last spring in a series of classes on translation. In the interview he talks about growing up in Belfast as a member of an Irish speaking family in the 40s. He also mentions that lovely word 'capall;' Irish for horse, which he had us so in love with when we all tried our hand at a translation of a poem, 'Malairt,' (loosely rendered The Swap) by Séan Ó Ríordáin (think I might have posted that on PFFA during April...).
How we struggled with that one, trying it out in English: I always got the feeling there was something in the original that we weren't rendering, and Prof Carson did say that a lot of it had to do with the word 'capall' as well as the word 'bron,' (loosely given as sorrow). Because the words sound the way they do, they have a different association in your mind, a wider feeling of the horseness of horse, or the sorrowfulness of sorrow, but if you're used to thinking of it in Irish first, there must be a strangeness about the English word... anyway.
Not content with that, we also had a close look at Baudelaire's poem 'Correspondances' a poem that seemed to be so much more than it's component parts and that almost yielded a larger meaning to you before slipping away. I also heard Prof Carson describing how he tackled his translation of Dante's Inferno; to him it's about the rhythm as much as anything: he spoke of how Dante composed his poem whilst walking from place to place in Italy - but I digress a little.
I love what Carson says about words: 'Heft. They have heft...and they've got a life of their own.' This ties into an article by Hannah Brooks-Motl, I've been reading about reading poems, particularly the poems that emanate from the 'elliptical' school of poetry in the US (and now elsewhere). The article from The Dark Horse, Summer 2008 is the sort of thing that I like to read over and over again, thinking about other things that connect into the idea of how we read poems, and how the elliptical style of poetry, where poem that don't necessarily connect up in the mind of the reader have been considered difficult to interpret.
Words are tied to experience: all the words you've ever heard have complex connections made all the way back to your early childhood and beyond, possibly even in the womb. It is childhood that usually serves as a rich repository for the poems that I try to write now; poems and stories about potatoes, about cows and calves, but I also keep coming back to growing up along the north side of the bordern as an outsider, and trying to make sense of the occupation and strife of the 70s too.
I think that we all keep a huge hinterland of knowledge that we use when we read poems that aren't opaque, that don't yield meaning straight away. Putting things together in a manner that doesn't seem to make sense, forces the reader to use their own synaptic connections between their knowledge stores: it is in all of us to want to try and divine a pattern and smooth the bumps of our own interpretation and reading. That is what I think gives me pleasure when reading poetry. Well, that and a whole pile of other things like rhythm as well as all the poetic panoply of devices there are. Oh, and time.
Above all though, what really helps me is when I hear a poet talk about their work, and read it; or indeed as Prof Carson often did in class, sing and play his flute for us, as he must have done in the Guardian interview. It allows you a rich layering when you hear how someone has lived, what their interests were and how they are always trying to hear things in a new way, using the language of now, overlaid by the language of the past. As Carson says: 'language, when explored with humility, is always deeper and more accurate than what the author thought he had in mind.' Carson may have never left Belfast other than for visiting other places, but in his mind he has roamed the wide world over.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Poems celebrating Obama's Election
The inauguration ceremony for the 44th President of the USA takes place on Tuesday, 20th January 2009.
It's a very tough time for someone whose campaign was so full of hope and promise to be taking office, in terms of both domestic and foreign policy.
So, it's perhaps a good time to re-savour the elation of his election, captured in these poems featured on the Over The Edge blog. Well worth a read, as the contributors list is as follows: Gary King, Eva Bourke, Susan Millar DuMars, Dave Lordan, Aidan Hynes, Maureen-Eilish Purcell, Gemma Marren, Michael Conneely, Desmond Swords, Marie Cadden, Susan Lindsay, Kevin Carmody, Deirdre Kearney, Gary Beck, Eileen Byrne, Rosanna Guneratne, Steve Ely, Lucie Kantorova, Kevin Higgins & Trisha McKeon.
It's a very tough time for someone whose campaign was so full of hope and promise to be taking office, in terms of both domestic and foreign policy.
So, it's perhaps a good time to re-savour the elation of his election, captured in these poems featured on the Over The Edge blog. Well worth a read, as the contributors list is as follows: Gary King, Eva Bourke, Susan Millar DuMars, Dave Lordan, Aidan Hynes, Maureen-Eilish Purcell, Gemma Marren, Michael Conneely, Desmond Swords, Marie Cadden, Susan Lindsay, Kevin Carmody, Deirdre Kearney, Gary Beck, Eileen Byrne, Rosanna Guneratne, Steve Ely, Lucie Kantorova, Kevin Higgins & Trisha McKeon.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Elizabeth Baines: Author and Roman Bonus Victus
We are so delighted to welcome Elizabeth Baines today, author of Balancing on the Edge of the World, a scintillating debut collection of short stories. In honour of this being the first stage of a virtual tour of blogs, I decided to experiment with Roman cookery and have a feast. The menu is… erm, different: but the fish sauce is par excellence (if I do say so myself). I might add that any Latin mistakes are all mine! Welcome Elizabeth, please do pull up a couch and recline away there! Have a heartwarming cup of wine.
Thank you, Barbara! May I say how great it is to be virtually here in Ireland, and most especially to be invited to a Roman feast! Let's just hope I'm not too distracted by my appetite and also manage keep a clear head…
Gustatio: milk fed snails fried in oil, boiled fungi served with pepper and fish sauce…
Milk-fed snails! Madame (or should I say Domina?), you are spoiling us!
You just wouldn't believe how difficult it is to get snails to drink milk...
Anne Enright describes her writing process as 'writing sentences.' I believe what she means is that the writing comes first, the editing and worrying about how/what you're saying come second. How would you describe your writing process: do you have to fight hard from the coalescing of an idea to the final cut?
Hm (hang on while I get my drinking cup and find my best lounging position): Yes, I'd say there's a stage in writing a piece of fiction, usually an initial stage, when it can seem to 'come' without your having to think about it in any very conscious way. It's as if you're 'hearing' the sentences and seeing the images on a screen which somehow miraculously has been presented to you. It just 'happens' to you, as it were. (And when you're 'blocked' it's as if you know there's something there, but you've not yet been shown it and can't yet 'hear' it!) I guess this is why people talk about 'inspiration' and also why people ask writers where they 'get their ideas from', as if the ideas are just out there waiting to be picked up or tuned into. In fact, of course, it's coming from you, but at this stage in a largely subconscious way. It's what I call the 'dreaming' stage of writing, and yes, I do consider it the important and real one, because this, I find, is when I get the rhythms – and in some ways rhythm is the most important thing in prose, in creating a 'voice' – and also the associations and connections which I'd be less likely to come up with were I thinking more logically. So this, I would say, is what always characterizes my first draft. Often when I go back after that less conscious stage, and look at what I've written, I am amazed by meanings I wasn't aware of earlier. Of course, the editing stage can also show up the fact that you haven't made sense, but I do also think you need to allow for the fact that you don't always see straight away, on the logical, editorial level, the things which your subconscious has spied (so always be prepared to put back things you've cut, is my advice)
Usually I will begin a story with an image, or sometimes a phrase, which intrigues me, and a vague situation. I will know that the image/phrase and the situation are connected in some deep thematic way, although not necessarily how – that's the point of writing: to find out how. In 'Daniel Smith Disappears off the Face of the Earth', for instance, I had the idea of a teenage boy walking home alone at night and the image of the cold planet hurtling through the universe; in 'The Way to Behave', I had the scenario of a wronged and vengeful wife and also the image of the elder tree with all its witchy associations (and was therefore dismayed when the image of the tree was dropped in the abridgement for a BBC broadcast of the story – though of course I completely understood the restrictions which broadcast must impose). With these stories, and nearly all of the others in the book, this was enough to trigger me haring off into the 'dream'. I say 'haring off' but then I very often have a couple of false starts – sometimes a few – because the first line or so always has to feel absolutely right for me to carry on without hesitation (although of course, even when I've thought it was absolutely right at this stage, I may go back and change it afterwards).
The more conscious editing stage is, as you imply, more like work. I'd say the level of struggle – ie, how well-formed the story is after the first draft – depends very much on the story, or more accurately on your prior relationship with the material of the story, the amount of time you have already mulled it over and consciously given it a meaning. Most of the stories in Balancing didn't give me much of a struggle, and had only two drafts. I hasten to say it's not always like that, and I should also say that the process isn't quite as simple as I've made it sound. Even when I'm writing a first draft and going with the 'dreaming', that editing faculty is still coming into play to some extent: really, it's as if there are two of me, and the 'dreaming' one is leading the way, but the 'editing' one is there hovering at her shoulder and reining her in to some extent as she goes along (and then pushes her out of the way and takes over for the proper editing phase). (You see, I don't need Roman wine to make me sound bonkers!)
Mensae Primae: Baked dormice, stuffed with pork and pine nuts; roast hare, stuffed with chicken livers and boiled brains…
Barbara, yum!
The dormice are quite a delicacy. But it's very hard to get them to wake up...
Stories like 'A Glossary of Bread,' and 'Leaf Memory,' show that you are willing to experiment with the traditional methods of storytelling: one uses dictionary & etymological definitions; another uses early childhood memories. How useful do you find the process of renewing the short story in this manner?
Erm… sorry, just swallowing. Now the wine is making you flatter me, Barbara: I must say I don't see myself as doing anything so grand as renewing the short story! All I'm doing, I have to say, is telling things the way I see them. And I simply couldn't tell them the way I see them if didn't use the modes I do.
'A Glossary of Bread' is the story of a girI coping with an itinerant childhood and a mysterious but strict and bad-tempered father. The story takes the structure of a dictionary and is built around definitions, drawn from different editions of dictionaries, of the different kinds of bread she encounters as they move around the country. To me this structure is indispensable, essential, and indeed came to me right at the start – it is the story – because it carries in a very concrete way the meaning, ie the idea that situations and indeed meanings which can seem rigid, laid down in stone, are in fact questionable and subject to change. 'Leaf Memory' consists of the splicing of two narratives, the protagonist's first-person memory of being pushed in a pram by her grandmother interwoven with the starker (and italicized) authorized family version of her grandmother's life. As far as I was concerned, this was the only way to tell this story: it was both the way that 'came to me' and it was the way that, when I thought about it editorially, best conveyed the impact of the difference between two dynamic but clashing realities or versions of the truth. In fact, this story – and much of my work generally – is about the fact that the ways in which we tell stories, the modes we use to tell them, can very much affect their meanings.
And of course not all of the stories in the book stretch the conventional short story form. I'm more than happy to use conventional forms if they suit the purpose. 'The Shooting Script', for instance: as the story of a conman and the plot twists he engineers to keep ahead of those he's conning, it fell naturally for me into a traditional satirical and linear-narrative mode. I must say I rarely use the omniscient mode, which generally seems to me to carry outdated authorial certainties about the characters, but I found it was just right for 'Compass and Torch', for watching from an objective vantage point the emotional struggle between a camping father and son who hardly know each other and are failing to acknowledge their own emotions, who have less grip on their situation than any casual observer, and less instinctual understanding than the wild ponies watching them prepare to camp.
Mensae secundae: dates with almonds and honey; yoghurt flavoured with pepper and fish sauce (must use it up somehow!)…
What a perfectly unusual and inspired combination, Barbara…Erm, yes... err, thanks! ( I knew two gallons of fish sauce was far too much.)
How do you know when a story is 'finished': how long might you typically work on one?
As I've said, most of the stories in Balancing gelled very quickly and were written in a week at the most, some of them in just a couple of days or so. But as I've also said, it's not always like that, and 'A Glossary of Bread' caused me a deal more trouble. As I say, what I had this time was the structure (including the idea of bread), which I knew was all-important, and the notion of a family setup, but only the vaguest, and so little sense of how the two fitted together that I couldn't even make a start. Each attempt I made to write the story failed. I must have had two or three tries over a period of two years, and each time I put it away, thinking maybe it was a dud, until it pressed on my consciousness again. Looking back, though, I'm not sure if, for this particular story, it was to do with my relationship to the material or simply a matter of focus and concentration. I do have other, abandoned stories from that particular period, which was a time of quite mad busy-ness; I was doing a lot of teaching, I was editing, producing and marketing a print short-story magazine, metropolitan, and it was the start of my most prolific period as a radio playwright – I kept getting radio commissions, and how do you turn that down, especially when your kids need new trainers? It's interesting perhaps that the story finally gelled when at last I had the chance to give up other things and concentrate on prose once more. So I guess for me it's a case of needing lots of time and few distractions, because the main essential ingredient for the process of bringing a story to fruition, I'd say, is focus. I do really envy people who manage to do other things (and earn decent livings!) while somehow focusing on their writing and doing it successfully.
I do now have more time to focus, yet, interestingly, some of the stories in the new series I'm writing are requiring far more drafts than previous ones, and sometimes I'll return to a story after setting it aside for weeks. I'm finding the process even more of an exploration than ever before, and it truly is a question of my relationship to the material.
And that moment when I know a story is 'finished'? Well, on the deep level it's definitely the moment that I suddenly spy the final connection which brings the story together, lights up all the rest. With some of the stories in Balancing it could be as early as when I was haring towards the end of the first draft, in which case the editing stage felt more like mere titivating, putting a coat on the thing and brushing it down. However, I can sometimes get to the end and know that I haven't really found it – not the real ending – even when the whole thing is already brushed down and looking spotless. What I do then is put the story aside and wait for the real ending to come to me, sideways, which it usually does over the next day or so.
And talking of finishing: really, Barbara, I couldn't manage another thing – not even another date! Thank you so much for having me; what a generous host you have been, and what a great time I've had on this feast of a blog!
Not as much as I've enjoyed your thoughtful answers: it's always a great pleasure to get a sneak peek behind the writer's practice and it is clear you've thought deeply about your own methods – it gives great hope to those who aspire. Elizabeth, the pleasure was truly all mine!
The next stage of Elizabeth's tour takes place at Me and My Big Mouth Scott Pack's blog on the 21st of January 2009. Each week Elizabeth will visit all through the blogosphere on her Cyclone Tour until the 18th of March.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Poetry Ireland News
Poetry Ireland have their latest roundup of events, news and competition titbits. There's a bit about the judging panel for the Strokestown Poetry Competition (John F Deane, Joe Woods, Penelope Shuttle and Máire Ní Annracháin); closing date 22nd January.
If you click here you can download it yourself (it's a pretty quick download), and have a browse through it. Do have a look at the winning poem from the Ledwidge competition, 'Scooter'; it was written by Catherine Ann Cullen; a fellow Doghouse poet, whose collection 'A Bone in my Throat,' was launched in the same year as my own: 2007. Hugh O'Donnell is another Doghouse poet (from the same year), whose article on Poetry Aloud, the national children's poetry reading competition is a lovely inspiration.
It seems we are often out of the Doghouse these days ;) (okay enough puns for today!).
If you click here you can download it yourself (it's a pretty quick download), and have a browse through it. Do have a look at the winning poem from the Ledwidge competition, 'Scooter'; it was written by Catherine Ann Cullen; a fellow Doghouse poet, whose collection 'A Bone in my Throat,' was launched in the same year as my own: 2007. Hugh O'Donnell is another Doghouse poet (from the same year), whose article on Poetry Aloud, the national children's poetry reading competition is a lovely inspiration.
It seems we are often out of the Doghouse these days ;) (okay enough puns for today!).
Today I Shall Be Mostly...
...stuffing dormice. Virtual ones of course!
Elizabeth Baines is visiting with me tomorrow. I thought, since it was the first leg of her Virtual Cyclone tour with Balancing On The Edge Of The World, I really ought to mark the ocasion with something special.
So we will be 'enjoying' a Roman style feast.
Before she gets here, I want to briefly talk about her debut collection of short stories. Right from the off, with the opening story, 'Condensed Metaphysics,' I was hooked. How can you set a story in a pizza parlour, with several people in various stages of drunkenness and still make it a story about humanity, and all our vices and virtues - but one that doesn't preach at you?
You can if you're Elizabeth Baines. This is the way she works: she makes the ordinary (the things, the attitudes, the way that people think) that you or I would pass right on by seem quite extraordinary. She does this by simply showing how characters really are, without apology.
If you read and re-read her work (yes, it really does bear re-reading), there are so many layers to it that each time there is a new freshness to each of her stories. 'Balancing On The Edge Of The World' really is a fulsome collection of short stories, each story fully realised and full of new ways to appreciate our human traits.
I'd better stop myself now... I mustn't let the fish sauce (an important element of tomorrow's meal) spoil!
Elizabeth Baines is visiting with me tomorrow. I thought, since it was the first leg of her Virtual Cyclone tour with Balancing On The Edge Of The World, I really ought to mark the ocasion with something special.
So we will be 'enjoying' a Roman style feast.
Before she gets here, I want to briefly talk about her debut collection of short stories. Right from the off, with the opening story, 'Condensed Metaphysics,' I was hooked. How can you set a story in a pizza parlour, with several people in various stages of drunkenness and still make it a story about humanity, and all our vices and virtues - but one that doesn't preach at you?
You can if you're Elizabeth Baines. This is the way she works: she makes the ordinary (the things, the attitudes, the way that people think) that you or I would pass right on by seem quite extraordinary. She does this by simply showing how characters really are, without apology.
If you read and re-read her work (yes, it really does bear re-reading), there are so many layers to it that each time there is a new freshness to each of her stories. 'Balancing On The Edge Of The World' really is a fulsome collection of short stories, each story fully realised and full of new ways to appreciate our human traits.
I'd better stop myself now... I mustn't let the fish sauce (an important element of tomorrow's meal) spoil!
Monday, January 12, 2009
Mick Imlah
Just as the TS Eliot poetry prize is to be announced, Mick Imlah, author of one of the short-listed books, The Lost Leader, has passed away. The Guardian carry the story.
I have mentioned before how hard it was to get Imlah's book, last year, but how much it was worth the wait: a little like himself making the reading public wait so long for his follow up to his first collection, Birthmarks.
When you look at the actual collection titles, you do wonder. Very sad news indeed.
I have mentioned before how hard it was to get Imlah's book, last year, but how much it was worth the wait: a little like himself making the reading public wait so long for his follow up to his first collection, Birthmarks.
When you look at the actual collection titles, you do wonder. Very sad news indeed.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
The Intimacy of Radio
I did another interview on local radio recently with Harry Lee of Dundalk FM. Before you scoff at the idea of local radio, think of this: through internet technology, this community station (and many, many others) are available to a much wider audience than they are through the wavelength restrictions imposed by their license conditions.
Anyhoo, through the generous help of the wonderful qarrtsiluni, I've been able to get hosting for a recording that I made on Wednesday. To hear the interview/reading click on that link just there. I hope you enjoy the discussion of poetry, life in general and the Irish economic downturn!
Anyhoo, through the generous help of the wonderful qarrtsiluni, I've been able to get hosting for a recording that I made on Wednesday. To hear the interview/reading click on that link just there. I hope you enjoy the discussion of poetry, life in general and the Irish economic downturn!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)