Leicester Shindig!

The latest Nine Arches Press Shindig takes place at The Looking Glass, Braunstone Gate, Leicester, next Monday (the 11th) at 7.30pm.

Featured poets are Roz Goddard and Michael W Thomas, and there'll be music from Jen Elvy too. As always, open mic slots will be available - you can sign up on the door.

Roz Goddard's The Sopranos Sonnets & Other Poems is a streetwise, bittersweet pamphlet collection from Nine Arches, based around 10 sonnet-portraits of characters from The Sopranos, the TV series about a dysfunctional mafia boss and his family. I've been enjoying it since hearing Roz read from it earlier in the year, so I recommend it highly.

Port Winston Mulberry, Michael W Thomas's new collection, takes its name from the artificial harbours used for the D-Day landings in June, 1944. The title poem highlights one of the poet's abiding interests – giving voice to anonymous witnesses when history throws a fit. It's a varied collection, though, with many other strands to explore.

A refreshing change

I've recently completed a review for Staple of C J Allen's new e-chapbook, Lemonade, which is available now from The Red Ceilings (it's in the column down the right-hand side).

I was going to post a cut-down version of it here, but I'm far too idle to do that, so you'll have to wait for the next issue of Staple to see exactly what I thought of it. Suffice it to say, though, that it's a great read - simultaneously very accessible yet satisfyingly complex, and very much the sort of coherent piece of work that pamphlets and chapbooks are particularly suited to.

I'd have to say, too, that the e-format didn't really make much difference to my appreciation of it. I printed it off, but ended up doing most of my reading onscreen. I always tend to have a few books on the go at once anyway - one each for the lounge, bedroom and, err, bathroom, and one for work - so this just added another poetry-reading opportunity to that. And it's got to be better than going on Twitter or Facebook every time I fancy a break from work, hasn't it?

The Salt Companion to John James

Not having studied English Literature beyond A Level, I'm not necessarily the best person to be assessing a book of critical essays on a poet who, despite frequently being as accessible as any mainstreamer, remains firmly in the 'unjustly neglected' stable.

Except, maybe I am. Having read two of these volumes (I bought the one on Lee Harwood last year too), it strikes me that they fill a gap in the market not only as far as giving an in-depth analysis of certain poets is concerned, but also in allowing late starters in poetry to get to grips with the whole business of critical appreciation. There's nothing especially difficult about James, and although the essays here lack nothing in academic rigour, there's nothing difficult about them, either.

Edited by Simon Perril, this book provides pretty much every perspective you might need on the Cardiff-born, Cambridge-based James, placing him in several intriguing contexts.

Perril's own pieces, a pithy introduction and an essay on the 'politics of indolence' that locates James simultaneously within the Welsh praise tradition, English Romanticism, and the playfulness of the New York School, are among the most enjoyable reads here. Garry Kelly does a fine job in relating James' work to the worlds of late 70s reggae and punk, too, while John Wilkinson's essays are all excellent.

On the down side, I did struggle a bit with Romana Huk's piece, finding it rather repetitive, although given that one of its subjects was repetition in James' poetry, perhaps that was part of the point that I was missing.

But, that doesn't really matter. It isn't a book you're going to read through in one sitting - you'll want to dip in and out as and when the fancy takes you, probably as you visit or revisit the poetry itself. And in that respect, it does its job admirably. If you already, as I did, loved the poetry of John James, you'll find that it sends you back to the work with renewed enthusiasm. If you're a relative newcomer to it, you'll probably want to get hold of everything the bloke's ever written.

As it happens, Salt have just the thing for that, too. Buy the Collected Poems too, and you've got as good a two-volume summary of a poetry career packed with invention, exuberance and intellectual curiosity as you could ever wish for.

Leicester Poetry Workshop

This Sunday (September 19th) at 7pm will see the first of what are intended to be monthly poetry workshops at Phoenix Square, Midland Street, Leicester.

The title of the first workshop is What Is Poetry, and the aim is to provide somewhere for new poets, or those with some experience but who are looking to move their work on to the next level, to talk about their poems and poetry in general in a friendly, informal, constructively critical environment.

It may well take a few months to gather pace, but if you think you could benefit from taking part, or help other poets benefit, come along on the night. It's free, and refreshments will be available in the cafe bar.

Robert Hass

Over at his blog Other Lives, Dan Wyke has posted this fine poem by former US Poet Laureate Robert Hass. I've read a fair bit of Hass's work in anthologies before, but I look forward to catching up with a lot more when this book comes out in the UK (actually, it's tempting to jump the gun and just order the US version).

EDIT: Just noticed that Hass is one of the headline poets at StAnza 2011.

Discussion points

There's been a couple of interesting recent dicsussions on the Magma blog - firstly about whether or not having a 'day job' is good for a poet, and secondly on poets and self-promotion.

On the first subject, I think Katy Evans-Bush's comments are the sound of a nail being struck squarely on the head - I couldn't agree more with pretty much everything she says. On the second, I think there's a lot of truth in what's being said to the effect that what's needed is for poets to promote poetry more generally.

Warwick Words Shindig

There's the latest Nine Arches Press Shindig at Wilde's Wine Bar, The Parade, Leamington Spa, this Sunday (12th September), at 7.30pm. Entry is free.

To celebrate October's Warwick Words festival, it will feature a reading from Warwick Laureates past and present, plus a prize draw for tickets to two Warwick Words events and some Nine Arches goodies. Warwick Laureates past and present confirmed to be reading so far are: Helen Yendall, Jane Holland, Cathy Whittaker and Marg Roberts.

Mark Goodwin will also be reading from his latest Nine Arches collection, Shod, and there'll be live music, too. You can sign up for open mic slots on the door.

Paper vs e-book

I'm not the most techno-savvy person around, but I'm no Luddite either. I'd have to say, though, that I really can't see why I'd ever buy a Kindle or similar device.

It's not just because I like books as physical objects. In fact, it's not got a lot to do with that at all. It's more that I can't really see what advantage an electronic reader offers over a book.

OK, so it means you can take a small library away with you on holiday without filling suitcases full of books. Why you'd want to is another matter, and this particular plus point is vastly outweighed, as far as I can see, by a bunch of negatives.

These include the expense (OK, this will probably be reduced at least a little as time goes on), and the fact that it's just one more piece of kit to lose, break or have stolen, any of which will mean considerable further expense for you to replace it. It's also another bit of kit you have to remember to pack a charger for. A book, on the other hand, is cheap and easy to replace, should you happen to drop it in the bath, leave it on the beach, or stand on it while making a bleary-eyed pre-dawn departure to the airport.

And that's how this situation, as far as I can see, differs from what happened with music when MP3 players first appeared. The predecessors to MP3s, of course, were all also bits of electrical kit that cost a fair bit, were prone to getting damaged, and were attractive to thieves. The book, on the other hand, is a simple but pretty solid bit of technology in itself, with few obvious disadvantages. Convince me that it's obsolete, and I might change my mind, but for now I can't see any good reason to change.

NB This isn't to say, of course, that I don't see the point of e-books. For some people, in some situations, they probably do offer far more real advantages, so I suppose ideally I'd want to see books offered in multiple formats.

Eyebrook interlude

We were out on a photoshoot for work this morning, at Eyebrook Reservoir near Uppingham. While I was waiting for the others to turn up, I got good views of a Kingfisher fishing from the posts and dead trees at the inflow end, and eventually picked out a couple of Curlew Sandpipers on the muddy shore on the far side.

Once we started walking around, we found a Yellow-legged Gull, a handful of Snipe, and the long-staying Pectoral Sandpiper among a mass of Lapwings (there were huge numbers of Coots and Great Crested Grebes, too).

By the time it had really warmed up, there were loads of Buzzards on the thermals - at one point, a good dozen were up at once. Just to confuse things, two or three Red Kites were also around, plus another 'buzzard' that left us all a bit baffled. I have far too little experience of Honey Buzzard to be confident about making a definite call, and it was a frustratingly distant bird, but our photographer Tom Bailey has seen them more often and thought it was a good bet for a HB. Having checked every reference book to hand, so do I now, but I'd really want to see it again to be sure.

Birdfair 2010

It's a very busy time at the moment, hence the relative silence of Polyolbion recently (a welcome bit of peace, you might think).

Anyway, the last three days were spent at the British Birdwatching Fair, at Rutland Water. Now, although strictly speaking it's work, and despite the fact that this morning my feet and back ache like you would not believe as a result of standing on the Bird Watching Magazine stand for hours on end, it's also a huge pleasure. It's good to meet readers and contributors face to face, and to talk about what's right and wrong with the magazine. OK, we can't always guarantee that we'll please everyone, but at least we can try to get things right, with the help of this feedback.

But it's also a good time to catch up with old friends, from right around the world, not just the UK. Not for the first time, three days wasn't quite enough to get around everyone, but I had a damn good try!

Not long before the end yesterday, I popped into the Events Marquee and saw part of Stephen Moss's talk and presentation on his forthcoming BBC4 series, Birds Britannia. It looks excellent, and the bit I saw was notable for featuring two poets, Andrew Motion and Helen Macdonald. It's probably fair to say they're at opposite ends of the poetic spectrum, stylistically, so well done to the producers for casting their net widely.

That old chestnut

Two different views of the old 'lyrics as poetry' debate here and here - it also touches on the 'it's not like it was in my day' argument. For what it's worth, I don't think there's been any great change in the quality of lyrics, or rather in the proportion that might be considered as of poetic value on their own. On the other hand, I often don't want lyrics to work as poetry - that's why they're set to music in the first place.

Sweet sole music

Monday night saw a book launch with a difference, as Mark Goodwin's new Nine Arches Press collection Shod was unveiled at The Looking Glass in Leicester.

Rather than the traditional format - poet reads selection of pieces from new book - Shodfest saw a number of Midlands poets (Steve Carroll, Pam Thompson, Lydia Towsey, George Ttoouli, Simon Perrill, Stevie Blue, Katie Daniels and myself) picking four pieces each from the book (which tells the story of shoe messiah Sidney Realer), then reading them in turn. If the poet before you read the piece you'd been planning to read, you moved on to your next piece, and so on. It'd be hard to pick out highlights, although Simon's breathless recital was great, while Lydia injected real tension and drama into the proceedings.

It worked really well, I thought. It was fascinating to hear different people's takes on the book, and I only hope we did Mark some sort of justice. The collection, incidentally, is terrific - you can read more about it here.

The open mic was excellent, too, with some familiar faces and some new, the latter including conceptual poet Ira Lightman, who was passing through Leicester and popped in. All things considered, a triumph, not at all dampened by an absolutely torrential downpour as I drove home.

Food for thought

Not been getting much chance to blog recently, but here's something to stimulate a bit of debate. I think Jon Stone has encapsulated a lot of what I feel about the subject. I'll return to it later in the week...

Monday browsing

The new issue of Blackbox Manifold has gone live - you can find new poems from the likes of George Szirtes and Sharon Olds here, and there are some good reviews too.

I've also been enjoying this, over at Ink, Sweat & Tears. Now it's probably fair to say that I'd look kindly on any poem that took a Carry On film as a starting point, but it's also fair to say that Helen Mort has taken it way, way beyond any novelty or curiosity value.

Shodfest!

Birds and music

I was reading this fascinating post over at Bill of the Birds, the always entertaining blog of Bill Thompson III, editor of Bird Watcher's Digest.

Over here, British Sea Power are probably the best-known birdwatching musicians, but I was interested to see that Steven Tyler of Aerosmith is thought to be a birder too. Respect!

Bill's a pretty useful guitar player himself, incidentally - he gave us an impromptu performance at the airport in Cebu City last year.

You can hear more about all this on Bill's This Birding Life podcast - have a look through the archives, too.

Troy Town at Peony Moon

My collection, Troy Town, is currently featured over at Michelle McGrane's wonderful blog Peony Moon. There are four poems from the book, plus some info on how to get hold of it. I'm very grateful to Michelle for giving the book some attention - have a browse through her blog's archives to find all manner of fine poets featured in the past.

Last night's Shindiggery

I popped over to Leamington Spa last night for the latest Nine Arches Press Shindig, and a splendid event it was too.

Featured readers were Roz Goddard, Deborah Tyler-Bennett, Maria Taylor and Julie Boden, and they worked very well together. Roz read from her just-launched Nine Arches chapbook The Sopranos Sonnets & Other Poems, and Deborah from her recent Smokestack book, Pavilion. I'm looking forward to reading both, because The Sopranos is a long-time obsession with me, while Deborah's book is themed around British dandies and eccentrics, and you can never have enough of those.

In addition, there were loads of good open mic readers - I'm terrible at remembering names, but I think it was a chap called Nigel Hutchinson who read a really good poem titled Lammergeier. There were some excellent poems from Simon Turner too (I've only just got round to buying his new book, Difficult Second Album), and I read a couple, Cahoots and Drinking With Godberd.

I came away with plenty of new reading material (Roz's, Simon's and Deborah's books), and I'm looking forward to the next Shindig, at The Looking Glass, Braunstone Gate, Leicester, on August 9th. It's billed as Shodfest, and will see the launch of Mark Goodwin's new Nine Arches collection Shod. More details soon...

Latest Litter

Lots of good stuff over at the latest issue of online magazine Litter, with poetry from the likes of Jane Commane, Nathan Thompson, Kelvin Corcoran, Carrie Etter, Ian Seed and C J Allen.

I particularly liked Jane's poem At Lyveden - the site it refers to figures heavily in the Midlands Revolt of 1607 and the whole tragic story of Captain Pouch.

Also good to see C J Allen's Lemonade there - it's the title piece of a new e-book that I've just downloaded to review.

S.O.S.

As you may have seen elsewhere, poetry publisher Salt is experiencing one or two difficulties at the moment, but nothing that can't be solved with a bit of good old-fashioned retail therapy. You go out and buy a Salt book, you read it, you feel entertained/educated/better etc, and Salt is able to go on doing what it does so well.

It's not just poetry, either, now I come to think of it. There's fiction, including short stories, and the likes of The Salt Companion To John James, which I'm currently about halfway through. I'll be posting a full review in due course, but in the meantime I'll just say that it's a great way of getting more from the poetry of one of the UK's most underrated writers.

You might also want to pick up James' Collected Poems, while other volumes in the Companion series look at the likes of Lee Harwood. Serious about poetry, but seriously readable too.

Cover versions

I've wondered for a long time why poets so rarely read other people's poems alongside their own at readings. After all, go to see a band, and you can usually rely on hearing at least one cover version during the course of the set.

I have seen it done, though, and it works well, especially if the poems chosen in some way inform the rest of the set, or have some sort of connection to it. Of course, the fact that most poetry sets only last about 20 minutes probably means that poets are reluctant to 'bump' one of their own poems to make way for something else, but I wonder if there's also a fear of making their influences too obvious?

Well, whatever, I think I'll give it a try next time I do a full reading. Whenever I come across a poem I really like in a magazine (or maybe in a public place), I make a point of copying it out, not just so I've got it to hand, but because recording it helps to fix it in my mind. It means I've now got a wide assortment of poems that I probably know better than my own - I think I'll start with a couple of those.

More pics from Oz

Time for a few more pics from my recent trip to Australia's Top End, that part of Northern Territory stretching south and east of Darwin.

The first picture shows a Darter, on the wetlands close to the Gagadju Lodge, Cooinda. We took in the Yellow Water Dawn Cruise, seeing huge numbers of Plumed Whistling Ducks, various egrets and herons, a lot of Rainbow Bee-eaters and Forest Kingfishers, and a scattering of White-bellied Sea Eagles and Jabirus.

Next picture is me having a bit of a refresher at Gunlom, after we'd climbed the escarpment in search of the White-throated Grasswren. Sadly it eluded us, one of the few target species to do so, but having a midday dip was some compensation. The view's incredible, back across the Kakadu National Park, and the water's cold. And crocodiles can't climb, either.

The third pic is of one of our camp sites on the three-day canoe safari down the Katherine River, with Paula of Gecko Canoe Safaris, and my guide, Chris Parker. We had Blue-winged Kookaburras in the trees around us, while other birds included Black Bittern, Great-billed Heron and a lot of raptors. You'll notice that, as well as the battered field guides and binoculars, we hadn't neglected to pack a few bottles of the best Aussie reds, to help pass the evenings. Later, sleeping out in the open, we could hear dingos howling on the far side of the river, plus one or two strange animal noises we preferred not to try to identify!

Finally, a really bad picture of some female Hooded Parrots, taken at Pine Creek as we headed back to Darwin on the last evening. I was having to rest my compact camera in the fork of a small tree, and the light was entirely wrong, so this was the best I managed before they flew off and met up with some calling males. But it's one of the signature birds of the Top End, and we were thrilled to finally track some down.

I should just mention that, should you be interested in finding out more about the area, a full trip report will be in a future issue of Bird Watching. But you should also have a look at the website of Fisher King, Chris's company. I can't recommend him as a guide highly enough.

Taking your time

In the poetry world, there are plenty of late starters, people who relatively late in life start to take their writing seriously, in performing it, or trying to get it published. I'd include myself in that category, to an extent - I only really started to make a big effort about eight or nine years ago, although I'd dabbled in a rather directionless fashion for years before that.

There are also, though, plenty of poets who write and are published right from their teens, who maybe do English and/or Creative Writing at university, but who don't publish a full collection until well in their 30s, maybe their 40s. I've come across quite a few lately, in fact I'm reviewing a couple at the moment, and I have to say I admire their patience and dedication in resisting the urge to put out a debut collection until they're ready. I can think of a couple of problems that the long wait can create, but for the most part they seem to sidestep these rather admirably.

I'd guess that the rise (or rather the resurgence) of the chapbook has something to do with it, too. It means that poets are able both to get their name out there and to plan and create complete, self-contained pieces of work. Some put out several pamphlets before ever even considering submitting a collection. From what I've seen (someone like Helen Mort might be a good example), it's a thoroughly good thing, allowing younger poets to experiment with voice and form.

I'm rambling, I know. But I'll try to put these thoughts in a more coherent form soon...

Shindig, Sopranos and more...

The latest Leamington Shindig takes place on Sunday, 18th July, at Wilde's Wine Bar, The Parade, Leamington Spa, with special guest poet Roz Goddard. Doors open at 6.30pm, with readings and open mic from 7.30pm. Entry is free.

Roz Goddard's The Sopranos Sonnets & Other Poems, from Nine Arches Press, will be available on the night, both as a standard Nine Arches Press chapbook, and as a signed limited-edition pamphlet in a print run of 100 copies only.

It features acutely observed, streetwise and bittersweet sonnet-portraits inspired by the TV series The Sopranos (the greatest ever? I could make a good case for it), about a mafia boss and his family. I'm a huge fan, so I look forward to seeing the book. It'll be interesting to see if either of my favourite characters - Tony Blundetto and Silvio Dante - are featured.

More reading

I got home last night to find that not only had Anon 7 arrived, but so had issue 6 of Under The Radar, Nine Arches Press's in-house magazine.

I didn't have time for more than a quick flick-through, but I enjoyed poems by Angela France and Michael McKimm, and will have time to have a proper look at the rest of an eclectic crop over the weekend. There are also four poems by me in there - Cahoots; Drinking With Godberd; Dreams From The Anchor Church; and Breedon-on-the-Hill, an interview with Claire Crowther, and reviews from the likes of Alison Brackenbury.

It looks like an excellent read, as ever - I look forward to reading both mags properly.