Dear all, the submissions are still rolling out (which isn't to say they're always rolling in). Great news is that I'll have two poems in Issue 6 of Horizon Review, Salt Publishing's own online literary magazine edited by Katy Evans-Bush. I'll say more about that nearer the time, and provide a link as soon as it's up. But please, have a look at the current issue, which includes poems, articles, reviews and short stories from some of my favourite writers. It'll be an honour to be among the always high-caliber list.
One of the writers you'll find there in Issue 5 is Matt Merritt. I've been enjoying his first two publications lately - the pamphlet 'Making the Most of the Light' and his first full collection 'Troy Town' - after which I'll move onto his latest. I'm enjoying the work very much. It's tender, heartfelt, evocative, clever, and often very very funny. He has a real ability to celebrate nature and humanity's place in it. Or to celebrate humanity and nature's place in it. Reading these poems, it's clear to me what critics mean when they call something 'emotionally intelligent'. They're full of feeling but also detailed observation, clever without a shred of self-consciousness.
In other news: I'm very happy to have been invited to write two poems for a Red Squirrel Press anthology, being published, it's hoped, in late 2011. One poem's based around Lord Summerisle from The Wicker Man. (But will Nick Cage and his diabolical bee allergy make an appearance? Haven't decided yet.) The other is based around Joe Pesci, the mobster-movie icon also known for trying to infiltrate The Fortress of Dangerous Toys which Kevin McCallister made of his house. Ah, Home Alone: THE movie of the 'Left Behind' generation. The world had gone on holiday and abandoned us. But instead of moping, we ate pizza and invented grunge* music.
Speaking of which, there's a general call going out here - anyone's welcome to submit - for poems based particularly around TV Adverts. So, send something in. Every Little Helps, as it were.
*If anyone's interested in an anthology about music, please consider me for a poem about Seattle grunge. K THNX (as the new iPod Generation might say).
Monday, 31 January 2011
Thursday, 27 January 2011
Mutability, White Birds and Apocryphal Bees
Congratulations to Derek Walcott for winning the TS. Eliot Prize for Poetry with White Egrets. My congratulations also go to Jo Shapcott, who has won the Costa Book Awards for Of Mutability. It's the second time in a row that a book of poems has won the Costa; last time, it was Christopher Reid's beautiful A Scattering. Both books deal gracefully with the subject of mortality and, to a greater or lesser extent, sickness and infirmity.
In wondering what the heck to write about here, I've sometimes thought that I should concentrate on the poets and poems which inspire my own work in some way. So, very conveniently, a few days ago I received through the post a personally-signed copy of A.B. Jackson's new limited edition pamphlet Apocrypha. It's breathtaking, both for its best-album-never-made artwork (three cheers for Donut Press!) and of course, for its poetry, which is Jackson on top form again. The always spare poems -- clipped lines, sentence fragments -- are nevertheless packed with striking and often hilarious imagery. Not a word is wasted. Jackon's last (and first) collection Fire Stations used plenty of theological/religious ideas and images. The poems were not-quite-surrealist (there seemed to be no deliberate intent to confuse; the 'epiphany', that 'aha!' moment of understanding, was still there) and pleasingly symbolic (it feels rare to be offered meaty symbolism these days!). Even the title alludes to emergency fire rescue, and the Stations of the Cross. So: modern, meditative, monastic even.
The Apocrypha poems deal again (though often more irreverently) in bible stories stirred with a smattering of jumped-up contemporary culture. There's still that surreal juxtaposition of images (their interpretation being left, this time, almost entirely to the reader). There's a close attention to form and shape: the majority of lines contain a recognisable 2, 3 or 4 stresses, and each poem has the same structure: three tercets and a concluding couplet.
I was privileged to read at the same Magma Poetry event at which A.B Jackson was one of the two 'headliners' (Philip Gross was the other, whose poetry I also love). I was hooked. He truly performed the poems, unlike myself, who got up to the stage, nervously mumbled some lines, and then got off again. Anyway, I bought a copy of Fire Stations (which very deservingly won the Forward Prize in 2003) and read it till the early hours in my hotel room. For all its technical craft, irreverent humour, the book had a strange, spiritual impact on me. It did what poetry should do... or does do... or sometimes does (you pick).
I didn't set out to write a review, but is that what that is? Almost, maybe, no?
In wondering what the heck to write about here, I've sometimes thought that I should concentrate on the poets and poems which inspire my own work in some way. So, very conveniently, a few days ago I received through the post a personally-signed copy of A.B. Jackson's new limited edition pamphlet Apocrypha. It's breathtaking, both for its best-album-never-made artwork (three cheers for Donut Press!) and of course, for its poetry, which is Jackson on top form again. The always spare poems -- clipped lines, sentence fragments -- are nevertheless packed with striking and often hilarious imagery. Not a word is wasted. Jackon's last (and first) collection Fire Stations used plenty of theological/religious ideas and images. The poems were not-quite-surrealist (there seemed to be no deliberate intent to confuse; the 'epiphany', that 'aha!' moment of understanding, was still there) and pleasingly symbolic (it feels rare to be offered meaty symbolism these days!). Even the title alludes to emergency fire rescue, and the Stations of the Cross. So: modern, meditative, monastic even.
The Apocrypha poems deal again (though often more irreverently) in bible stories stirred with a smattering of jumped-up contemporary culture. There's still that surreal juxtaposition of images (their interpretation being left, this time, almost entirely to the reader). There's a close attention to form and shape: the majority of lines contain a recognisable 2, 3 or 4 stresses, and each poem has the same structure: three tercets and a concluding couplet.
I was privileged to read at the same Magma Poetry event at which A.B Jackson was one of the two 'headliners' (Philip Gross was the other, whose poetry I also love). I was hooked. He truly performed the poems, unlike myself, who got up to the stage, nervously mumbled some lines, and then got off again. Anyway, I bought a copy of Fire Stations (which very deservingly won the Forward Prize in 2003) and read it till the early hours in my hotel room. For all its technical craft, irreverent humour, the book had a strange, spiritual impact on me. It did what poetry should do... or does do... or sometimes does (you pick).
I didn't set out to write a review, but is that what that is? Almost, maybe, no?
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Jazz-hands
Happy new year, all. Yes, I'm back. Thanks to December thawing into January, my blogger's cold-feet are beginning to warm. I've gone through various crises I don't mind admitting: re-launch the blog, change its name, reduce the amount of 'subjects' I try to cover; all thinly-veiled attempts to cover the fact that I am - yes, I'll admit it - a practising blogger. I realised quite soon that I was banging on about nothing but poetry, so I've decided to carry on down that road, if that's OK with you lot. I probably should change the 'theology' bit to 'faith', since I'm not really 'reading theology' at present, just interested in faith matters. Basically I'm narrowing it all down, but that doesn't mean I won't veer off-piste sometimes... I'm not a skier.
So yes. Happy new year, and welcome back to The Beasts. What I did do over Christmas and New Year's was spend some time polishing my trumpet... *cough* ready to play some for you now. I'm not very good, so excuse the squeaks.
*clears throat*
Last year I had my first publication: three poems in Magma 48. That was followed towards the end of the year, by two poems being chosen for nthposition. I finally had the privilege of interviewing the very talented Tony Williams at the Salt Blog (which you'll hopefully find by following that link).
So an extremely satisfying 2010, and I'm looking forward to what 2011 might bring.
So yes. Happy new year, and welcome back to The Beasts. What I did do over Christmas and New Year's was spend some time polishing my trumpet... *cough* ready to play some for you now. I'm not very good, so excuse the squeaks.
*clears throat*
Last year I had my first publication: three poems in Magma 48. That was followed towards the end of the year, by two poems being chosen for nthposition. I finally had the privilege of interviewing the very talented Tony Williams at the Salt Blog (which you'll hopefully find by following that link).
So an extremely satisfying 2010, and I'm looking forward to what 2011 might bring.
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