Coming soon...honest

I've not got round to writing that much of substance about poetry on here recently, for one reason and another, but I promise to do better over the next few weeks.

I'll have reviews of Michael McKimm's Still This Need, George Ttoouli's Static Exile, Karen Solie's Pigeon, and a number of chapbooks, and I might even manage to finally finish a piece I was writing about poetry on the page as a sort of musical notation for poetry read aloud. You'll be begging for mercy, I warn you...

The race is on again

After last year's rather unseemly brouhaha (I've been dying to use that word - you can tell, can't you?), the contest to find the next Oxford Professor of Poetry is back on.

Of those mentioned in the Guardian article, I think I'd like Anne Stevenson to get it - she's one of those poets who seems to transcend a lot of the divisions in the poetry world. I wouldn't be unhappy with Geoffrey Hill, though, but I hope that's not Clive James angling for someone to beg him to stand. I should probably give his poetry a fair chance, but his crimes against TV are too many to mention.

Small presses in the spotlight

I've been meaning to post something about this event, flagged up here by Alan Baker. I think Nine Arches Press are going to be there too. Sounds well worth a look.

A cricketing Eden

When I was a kid, in the days when there was absolutely no cricket coverage in the winter (except occasional highlights programmes during Ashes series), I fed my cricket obsession in the winter by reading every cricket book in the local library.

My favourites were Christopher Martin-Jenkins accounts of various England tours. Two in particular stick in the mind. One was the story of their disastrous 1974-75 Ashes tour, and the other covered England’s 3-1 win in India in 1976-77, when Tony Grieg's young and improving side surprised everyone.

The bit that really sticks in the memory was the Second Test, at Calcutta (as it then was), when India started the last day just minutes away from a second consecutive defeat. Despite that, the Eden Gardens ground was packed almost full, roaring on the local heroes. I remember deciding there and then that one day I had to watch a test match at that venue.

So the Second Test at Eden Gardens that’s just finished, with India beating South Africa with minutes to spare, was another reminder that the death of test cricket may have been exaggerated. The atmosphere throughout was absolutely electric, so although limited overs and 20/20 cricket may reign supreme elsewhere in the subcontinent, Kolkata has evidently retained its appetite for the longer form of the game. And it’s rekindled my desire to go out there – I’m not bothered if it’s for an England test.

Leamington Spa Shindig

I'm delighted to be reading at the next Nine Arches Press Shindig, at Wilde's Wine Bar, The Parade, Leamington Spa, on Sunday, March 14th.

It's the Leamington launch for Myra's new chapbook From The Boat, and as if that's not enough there's the added attraction of Luke Kennard, whose collections, including The Harbour Beyond The Movie and The Migraine Hotel, have met with critical acclaim and impressive sales. There are open mic slots available too (sign up on the night).

The Shindig schedule is now into full swing, alternating between Leamington and Leicester on a monthly basis. The next Leicester event is at The Looking Glass on Monday, April 12th - the line-up's almost confirmed, so watch this space.

Just arrived

I love bookshops, of pretty much any kind, and I do try to make a point of buying there whenever possible. It's not just that I don't want to see them disappear, it's the fact that I like to have a browse through a book first. I also like to see what the book's like as a physical object - it's not a deal-breaker, but it's important.

Still, Amazon is a God-send, meaning that you can get hold of books that you'd otherwise never come across (and in the poetry world, there are a lot of those). This morning, a parcel arrived containing Philip Gross's TS Eliot Prize-winning The Water Table, and Canadian poet Karen Solie's third collection, Pigeon.

I've got her first two books - Short Haul Engine and Modern And Normal - and they're excellent, especially the latter. I sort of missed the publication of Pigeon last year, easily done since Canadian poetry gets even less coverage over here than most, so I'm looking forward to catching up. She's one of those poets who doesn't quite fit easy categories.

I also thought it was time to get a CD version of Dr Feelgood's classic Down By The Jetty - maximum rhythm 'n' blues, from the days when that meant sweaty blokes from Canvey Island cranking out their own high velocity take on the music that became rock 'n' roll. More punk than most punk ever was, and then some.

Special offer

It's turning into a long, long winter. You need something new to read to see you through those evenings by the fireside. So, now's probably as good a time as any to remind you that my first full collection, Troy Town, is still available. It's in hardback, with a glossy cover featuring Tom Bailey's photography, and you can buy it from Arrowhead Press, through Amazon, or direct from me.

I've also still got a very few copies of my chapbook, Making The Most Of The Light - it's sold out at the HappenStance site, but there are maybe half a dozen dotted around the house. They tend to go well at readings, so they won't be around for long.

Until the end of March, you can get them direct from me for £7 and £1.50 respectively, or £7.50 for both. Just email me at the link on the right, or get in touch through the comments box, and I'll send them out to you.

Bitten by the Bittern bug

One of the side-effects of the hard winter is that certain birds usually known for their secretive and skulking behaviour can be seen a lot more easily. Woodcocks, for instance, of which I’ve seen more locally this winter than in the last 10 put together, and Bitterns.

There have been several around Soar Valley sites since around Christmas, but I’d managed to miss them every time, even the one at Swithland Reservoir that seemed impossible not to see, so small was the area it was frequenting. So, for a change, I went to the far side of my local patch yesterday, to Willington Gravel Pits in Derbyshire, where a Bittern has been seen on and off since early autumn.

Thing is, once I got there, I rather forgot about it. It’s a big site, and there was plenty else to divert my attention, and anyway the reedbed’s big enough that any Bittern can stay hidden for days at a time. I walked down to the first viewing platform, which overlooks an almost enclosed bay of the main lake, and after a scan of the water and the reedy fringes, started watching the nearby bird table. There were plenty of Reed Buntings, two Willow Tits (easier to find than March Tits in my part of the world), and several Robins and Dunnocks.

At one point, there was the sound of movement in the reeds behind me, but careful scanning revealed nothing, and when a Water Rail started squealing from the same area, I assumed it had been responsible for the whole commotion. I returned to watching the table, which now had a couple of Bullfinches in attendance.

Then there was the sound from the reeds again, and I looked round to see a Bittern flying almost straight towards me. Bizarrely, it seemed not to have even noticed I was there, even though the viewing platform is really rather prominent, and it got to within 15 yards before suddenly veering right then sweeping round in a wide curve, and finally dropping out of sight into a ditch. They’re really glorious birds, and always look more golden than you expect.

After that excitement, anything else was always going to be an anti-climax, so a single Stonechat, four Oystercatchers and a couple of Shelducks were no more than pleasant diversions. But out on the far side of the water, patient grilling of a flock of dozing Pochards produced a pair of Pintail, also asleep with their heads tucked out of sight. They’re not a duck we get very often in the East Midlands, so it was a nice tick.

As it turned out, my regular Soar Valley site, Cossington Meadows, had a Bittern, two Pintail, two Little Egrets and the three Short-eared Owls yesterday, but I’d bet my house that the Bittern wouldn’t have shown if I’d gone there instead!

Poetry miscellany

Friday night, I was at Leicester Poetry Society for a reading by Alex Pryce, a young Northern Ireland-born poet who’s currently a student at Leicester University, as well as running PoetCasting in her spare time.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, not really having heard any of it before, and I’m sure she’s a name you’ll hear a lot more of in years to come. She seems to have a very sensible attitude, though – she’s in no hurry to rush a book or even pamphlet out, even though what we heard suggested she has a lot of strong material.

She also played several poets from the PoetCasting site, and as it happened they were all (with the exception of Milner Place), poets I hadn’t yet got round to listening to. I particularly liked the truly extraordinary Hannah Silva, and Richard O’Brien, but it was all just a reminder that it’s a great resource, and a good way of getting a taste of new poets that you can then go off and read.

On Saturday, I was at Coton Manor, in Northamptonshire, for Charles Lauder’s Trees and the Imagination workshop. The fog barely lifted all day, but it didn’t really matter. We discussed a lot of tree poems*, walked in the woods, and wrote for a while ourselves, and I left with the makings of a poem that I’ve been trying to write for a while now. Most importantly of all, the carrot cake was exquisite.

For the rest of the weekend, I wrote a bit more (although not nearly enough), and read. The latest issue of Blackbox Manifold is now up – have a browse.

* One of the poems in the little booklet that we didn’t get round to discussing was John Ashbery’s Some Trees. I’m not usually a huge fan of Ashbery (or at least, he’s my least favourite of the New York poets), but I did enjoy reading this several times yesterday. I should probably re-read a bit more of his work.

Alex Pryce and more

Alex Pryce, the driving force behind the very wonderful PoetCasting, is reading at Leicester Poetry Society, Friends Meeting House, Queen's Road, Leicester, tomorrow at 7.30pm. I've not heard her before, partly because she spends a lot of her time dashing around the country recording other poets, so it'll be good to finally catch up with her.

Also, De Montfort University's Cultural eXchanges programme is out (although I don't think you can book until Monday). March 4th has a talk by Chris Hamilton-Emery, of Salt, on the 10th anniversary of the major independent publisher (daytime, unfortunately, but I'll try to take the day off), as well as a later reading by John James, Tom Raworth and Simon Perril. I've raved on here about James recently, so that's an absolute must.

Owls, yet again

I'm owling mad, me. No, really - they're among my very favourite birds.

Very poor jokes aside, I spent yesterday trekking round my local patch, attempting to kickstart my 2010 list, and to prevent my increasingly dodgy back from seizing up altogether.

It worked on both counts, with the early highlight being a good look at a lovely drake Smew at Swithland Reservoir. It took a while to find it, watching from the dam, because it was tucked in right underneath the overhanging vegetation along the Kinchley Lane side of the res, so I walked over that way and, as it gradually made its way out into open water, was able to get great scope views of it in all its cracked-ice glory.

Most of the rest of the day was spent mopping up some fairly bread-and-butter birds, but on most of my birding trips this winter, I seem to have been magnetically attracted to Cossington Meadows, and its Short-eared Owls (although there was also the hope that the Bittern found by John Hague the previous day would still be around).

It was a gloriously clear, sunny day, and as I entered the reserve and walked over towards Rectory Marsh at about 3.45, I could see a white shape flitting around behind the trees. As I got closer, it was revealed as a Barn Owl, and a very pale one at that, hunting along the hedgerows and occasionally perching on a fencepost. I watched, along with a couple who’d made the trip over from South Derbyshire, and caught sight of a crow mobbing a large bird high in the distance. To my surprise, it was one of the Short-eareds. Surprise, because for most of the winter they’ve been waiting until it’s almost dark to come out, and because you don’t usually see them at any great height.

So, we trooped round to a position overlooking Swan Meadow, and stood with half a dozen other birders as the show commenced. The mobbing had finished, so the SEO descended to its usual level and started quartering the rough grass. Another Barn Owl appeared, this one much darker and more orangey on its back, and for the next hour, we were able to watch up to three SEOs and three Barn Owls hunting nearly non-stop. It was very noticeable, especially when they glided close in, that there was a considerable colour difference between the Short-eareds, too, with one appearing much lighter than the others.

I finally gave up when I realised I was getting positively dizzy with cold (or was that just with the experience and with having my eyes pressed up to my Swarovskis for so long?). There was a fantastic sunset over Charnwood Forest, with what seemed like every possible colour bleeding into each other, and after 15 minutes thawing out in the car, I drove home, enjoying the extra bonus of a Woodcock in perfect silhouette as it flew across the road between Bradgate Park and Swithland Wood.

Title contenders revisited

Well, my poll on titles for poetry collections has now closed, with a clear preference being shown for wacky or surreal titles, followed by one-word titles, followed by titles on the model of The (Blank).

Not exactly the biggest survey sample, to be fair, but it did confirm what I’ve been thinking – that choosing a title that, first and foremost, makes your book stand out from the crowd of poetry releases might be the best idea.

Thanks to all those who voted.

JD Salinger R.I.P

I haven't really got anything useful to add to the mass of material on Salinger that has appeared in the papers and online in the last couple of days, and I guess 91 is a good age to go at. I read The Catcher In The Rye when I was 19 and loved it with a passion, and re-read it a few times in the next four or five years, but I haven't touched it since. That's quite unusual for me with a favourite book, and I think it's because deep down I'm worried that it'll turn out to be something you only love when you're that age.

I've read and re-read most of his other stuff though. The short story collection, For Esme, With Love And Squalor, is probably my favourite, especially The Laughing Man, with its story-within-a-story.

Salinger's death does raise all sorts of questions about what happens when a writer genuinely does write purely for themselves. It'll be interesting to see if they're answered if anything is now published posthumously.

Web wanderings

Given that I spend absurd amounts of time trawling the web at work, a disturbing amount of really good stuff slips under my radar. Clearly I should be looking a bit more closely rather than just amassing trivia which I can then put to use on Sporcle.

So, I’ve only just realised that Tony Frazer, of Shearsman, has a blog, and that he’s just published Elisabeth Bletsoe’s first three collections under one cover. I’m a big fan of Shearsman, who not only have some great poets on board but who also take care to make their books things of beauty. Bletsoe’s someone I’ve read too little of, but what I have seen I've liked a lot, so this will fill a gap in my knowledge.

I’ve also only just noticed that Hand + Star, the poetry reviews site, also features some original poetry. All sorts of good things there when you start looking.

Stride is an old favourite, and I really enjoyed reading the latest batch of reviews. Jeremy Over’s book sounds right up my street, so when the purse-strings allow…

And finally, a bit of a heads-up for this fundraising reading taking place in Leicester tomorrow. Sounds like a varied line-up of writers, it’s a lovely venue, and it’s for LOROS, a cause very close to my heart.

Off to a flyer

I might not get the chance to post as full a review as I'd like, with work rather getting in the way of the important stuff at the moment, but just a few words to say that last night's Nine Arches Press Shindig at The Looking Glass, Leicester, was a great start to what we hope will be a long-running series.

The downstairs room (it also gets used for the excellent Ship of Fools comedy nights) proved to be just about the perfect size - it was pretty much full, and the acoustics were good - but of course any poetry night stands or falls by the actual poetry.

So, Matt Nunn was the perfect man to kick things off. His high-octane style quickly had the very responsive audience eating out of his hand (not literally - that would just be weird). I've written before on here about how much I like his new book, Sounds In The Grass, but one more time won't hurt. It's wonderful - buy it.

Mark Goodwin was flying the flag for Leicester, and read beautifully from Shod, a forthcoming pamphlet-length sequence. You often hear the complaint these days that poets don't tackle real issues or politics, but I'm hearing more and more, and this certainly did in fine style, without ever descending into sloganeering. Keep an eye out for the pamphlet very soon.

I thought we might struggle to get open mic readers first time out, but five brave souls got up and had a go, both familiar names and new. And best of all, there was some really fine poetry in there.

Finally, Tony Williams read from his Salt collection The Corner Of Arundel Lane And Charles Street, and read very well indeed. There's something very subtly off-kilter about Tony's poetry, perhaps the result of some European infuences (I'm really not well-read enough to know for certain), but whatever it is, it gives it a certain edge of the seat quality. You're never quite certain where it's going, but you enjoy the ride a great deal.

In fact, one thing common to all three featured readers was the way they used humour. You hear it said that it's easy, at a reading, to just go for easy laughs to win the audience over, at the expense of the actual serious business of poetry. But I think what all three of these poets do so well is go for the uneasy laughs - you know it's funny, but you don't know why, and there's always its mirror-image just around the corner.

I'm rambling. Let's just say it was a great night, and thanks very much to all who took part and attended. Watch this space for details of more Shindigs in Leicester very soon.

Don't forget...

The first of a regular series of readings/open mics, run in conjunction with Nine Arches Press, takes place at The Looking Glass, on the corner of Braunstone Gate and Narborough Road in Leicester, on Monday, January 25th, at 7.30pm.

We've got a great line-up, with Tony Williams, Mark Goodwin and Matt Nunn, plus support from anyone out there who'd like to get up and launch the open mic in style.

Tony Williams is a Sheffield poet, whose debut collection The Corner of Arundel Lane and Charles Street (Salt) has been highly acclaimed nationally. The Guardian said: “…from all our cultural loam and junk, Williams has made real magic.”

Mark Goodwin is Leicester-based, and a member of Inky Fish poets, and his work deals with landscape, nature, and their connections to the human world. I wrote about his fine Shearsman collection Else on here last year, and he's always an enthralling reader.

Last but certainly not least, there's Matt Nunn, Birmingham poet, editor and co-founder of Nine Arches, whose latest collection Sounds In The Grass was one of my favourites of last year.

The readings start at 7.30pm, and you can sign up for open mic slots on the door.

Mower mouth

My colleague Mike Weedon pointed me in the direction of this Shaun The Sheep video. Get about 2.45 into it, and the goat suddenly goes all Troy Town!

Cheers!

Nice to hear that Helen Mort's A Pint For The Ghost is the Poetry Book Society's pamphlet choice for Spring 2010, and there's also still just time to put in a good word for Helen's show and book, which is in the running for the Ted Hughes Award. Follow this link to find out more...

Leicester Poetry Society

Only just getting round to writing something about last Friday's Leicester Poetry Society Members' Reading, with Alice Beer, Norman Harrington and Anne Kind.

It was a really good night, and I enjoyed hearing all three. Interestingly, both Alice and Anne came to this country before the Second World War, meaning there was some crossover in the themes their poetry dealt with. I bought a couple of Alice's pamphlets, and have been browsing through them since. I particularly like her poems on De Montfort Square, and not just because it's my favourite bit of Leicester.

The next event, on Friday February 5th, is a reading by Alex Pryce, the driving force behind PoetCasting - I'm looking forward to it.

Twitt-twoo

Well, it had to happen. About two years too late, I've decided to hop on board the Twitter bandwagon - I can be found under the name Polyolbion.

TS Eliot Prize

Something of a surprise, but a welcome one, that Philip Gross won the TS Eliot Prize last night for his collection The Water Table. He was certainly not one of the favourites, with many tipping Christopher Reid to take the award.

I've only read two of the shortlisted books (the George Szirtes and Hugo Williams collections), so it's hard to make an informed comment about the decision, but I've got a few of Gross's older collections and like them a lot, and have always wondered why he's, relatively speaking, missed out on recognition in the past. I'll have to dig them out to re-read, and catch up with this latest book.

I do have a slight problem with the judges' comments that "it was not merely a collection of poems but also so obviously a book". As Roddy Lumsden suggests over at Poets On Fire, I don't really think that the fact of it being a themed book should be that important - are we saying that an old-fashioned miscellany of occasional poems is somehow less worthy?

Hoard appeal

Glad to see that the campaign to keep the Staffordshire hoard in the Midlands is gathering pace - it would be sad if it was allowed to go abroad, as has been suggested in the last few days.

Not sure that they do the cause any good by enlisting posturing popinjay/TV historian David Starkey as their mouthpiece, though. He says: "It transforms the history of the Midlands from some kind of obscure Brummie slum into the centre of England - but we're just at the very, very beginning."

Yes, that's right, because before this, we had no idea that civilisation had even reached the Midlands in the early Anglo-Saxon period.

Leicester launch

The first of what I hope will be a regular series of readings/open mics, run in conjunction with Nine Arches Press, will take place at The Looking Glass, on the corner of Braunstone Gate and Narborough Road in Leicester, on Monday, January 25th, at 7.30pm.

We've got a great line-up, with Tony Williams, Mark Goodwin and Matt Nunn, plus support from anyone out there who'd like to get up and launch the open mic in style.

Tony Williams is a Sheffield poet, whose debut collection The Corner of Arundel Lane and Charles Street (Salt) has been highly acclaimed nationally. The Guardian said: “…from all our cultural loam and junk, Williams has made real magic.”

Mark Goodwin is Leicester-based, and a member of Inky Fish poets, and his work deals with landscape, nature, and their connections to the human world. I wrote about his fine Shearsman collection Else on here last year, and he's always an enthralling reader.

Last but certainly not least, there's Matt Nunn, Birmingham poet, editor and co-founder of Nine Arches, whose latest collection Sounds In The Grass was one of my favourites of last year.

The readings start at 7.30pm, and you can sign up for open mic slots on the door.

Title contenders

I might have discussed it on here before, and it's certainly come up for discussion over at Poets On Fire, but what makes for a good title for a poetry collection?

Should it come 'naturally' from the contents of the collection, perhaps using the name of one of the key poems, or is it a good idea to, first and foremost, pick something eyecatching and (probably a lot more relevant these days), Google-catching? After all, isn't the first job of the title to entice readers?

The two needn't be mutually exclusive, of course. Last year, Rob A Mackenzie's The Opposite of Cabbage, for example, was the sort of title that I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have forgotten quickly as a casual browser, but which also came from one of the poems in the book. It's actually also a good example of another common device in titles these days - The Something Of Something - just as a few years ago there seemed to be an awful lot of books titled along the lines of Seamus Heaney's District and Circle.

Anyway, there's a little poll to the right, just for fun - you can vote for more than one category. I'd also be interested to hear any comments, as I'm entirely undecided at the moment.

Oh, and my favourite? RS Thomas again, and the splendid H'm.

Snowbound

Well, not exactly, but after a brief venture out this morning, I've decided I can't be bothered to take to the roads any more than is strictly necessary, and have barricaded myself inside with a plethora of reading material, a Christmas backlog of cheese, shortbread and other goodies, and a lot of malt whisky and fine port. Oh, and a box set of The Sopranos.

First thing I read today was Margaret Attwood's fine article in The Guardian about bird conservation. She covers a lot of ground, much of it the sort of thing that came up at the recent Birds, Culture and Conservation symposium.

I've also been browsing through Ian Hamilton's Collected Poems, reading The Mabinogion, and re-reading Byron Rogers' superb biography of RS Thomas, The Man Who Went Into The West.

Oh, and I've just half-watched the repeat of Bill Bailey's Birdwatching Bonanza, on Sky. It's not great, and it could be a bit shorter, but it was quite entertaining, and I suppose it's good to see birdwatching getting any sort of positive coverage. Some nice footage of Barnacle Geese, too.