Fleck, Magma 53 and Two Readings

The sun has sneaked out from the heavy cloud which has made June feel autumnal so far in Edinburgh, and already I feel positive about the day. I am definitely not suited for this country’s climate. Anyway, a few recent happenings...

First of all, my pamphlet, Fleck and the Bank has been out now for about a month and seems generally to be getting a good response from readers – thanks to all of you! It’s available from the Salt shop or from me. I have just installed a ‘Buy Now’ button (PayPal or card) below the image of the pamphlet’s cover near the top right of this blog, and also one for my The Opposite of Cabbage full collection. I hope someone will soon be the first to try it! Tell you what – for the first ever button order of the pamphlet, I will send a free copy of the collection. First come, first served...

Secondly, Magma 53, edited by Kona Macphee and I, has been published and is available from the Magma website. The launch at the Troubadour Cafe, London, on 4th June, was a fantastic occasion, and the first of two photo-enriched reports on it will be going up at the Magma blog very soon, hopefully later today. We are delighted with how the issue turned out – from the poems, reviews and articles to Hugh McEwen’s excellent cover and M J F Chance's illustrations.

Thirdly, and finally, I am doing two readings in the next week. I’m reading tonight, Wednesday 13th June from 8pm at ‘Verse Hearse’, Rio Cafe, Hyndland St, Glasgow (near Kelvin Hall underground station), along with the uniquely creative nic-e-melville (expect plenty of high-quality cut ‘n’ paste and Tippex), followed by an open mic. Then, I’m reading next week, Tuesday 19th June, at the Fruitmarket Gallery, 45 Market Street, Edinburgh (at the back entrance of Waverley Station) from 7pm, along with Chris Emery and Andrew Philip (£4). [Unfortunately, we've had to cancel this reading. Apologies for this. We hope to reschedule it for a later date] This will be the Scottish launch of Chris's new book, The Departure, which is well worth getting hold of.

Magma, Fleck and More Shadow than Bird

I had been thinking of creating a new blog, a new start and all that, given that this one has been semi-abandoned in recent months, but that would make no sense. Instead, I’m going to re-launch Surroundings today and try to be more organised.

I have had a fair bit on in recent months, which has made it almost impossible to blog. Until the end of April, I was tied-up with the co-editing (with Kona Macphee) of Magma 53, which is now hurtling towards production and will indeed be published on 28th May with a launch on 4th June at the Troubadour in London. I can’t give anything away yet, but I do feel really pleased with the issue.

I was also revising poems for a new pamphlet, Fleck and the Bank, which has just been published. I still haven’t seen a physical copy but a package should arrive today. I know what’s going to happen. I have various things on today, to do with work, which will take me out the house for a fair bit of the day. The package will arrive when I’m out and I’ll have to collect it from the sorting office in the Gyle Industrial Estate, an area full of factories and warehouses. I’ll wander about for ages in search of the sorting office amid dozens of near-identical buildings and, by the time I find it, it will have closed down for the day. Anyway, it's just over five pounds from the Salt website, where you can also download a free pdf sampler.

Finally, just a quick mention of a book I’m reading at the moment. I spent April reading Rilke, WS Merwin and Durs Grunbein and thought nothing would top that combination this year. However, Nuar Alsadir’s first collection, More Shadow than Bird, is outstanding. I will try to say more in a future post, but for now I’ll just say the title is well chosen. The poems deal not so much with flickers of light illuminating the strange or obscured, as with shadows flitting briefly and quickly across a scene – often the shadows of the apparently unknowable self (if the ‘self’ is an iceberg, this collection focuses on the vast section below the surface). That’s not a prescription for vague writing – every word seems precise and vital – but for a persuasive and musical evocation of what usually remains unthought or entirely out-of-sight.

Two Manuscripts and Three Magazines

I’ve been trying not to neglect this blog. I have ideas, no shortage of things to write about. But the last week or two have been so busy that I’ve had to prioritise other poetry-related activities.

First of all, I did a bit of work on a chapbook manuscript and then decided it was finished (or as finished as it was going to be before submitting it). I now have submitted it for publication and will just have to wait and see what happens.

Secondly, I’ve been hard at work on reading and evaluating Magma 53 submissions. I’ve enjoyed it at times but it’s been hard going too. The submissions never stop flooding in – a good thing, I guess – but there’s only so many I can read each night without my brain turning into mulch. I have to stop as it’s hardly fair to consider poems after that point. It’s been hard rejecting friends and people whose work I actually quite enjoyed, but it has to be done.

Thirdly, I’ve been sent three poetry publications I haven’t been able to resist reading. Richard Price sent me the new copy of Painted, Spoken (issue 22) and so far I’ve enjoyed some excellent poems by Chris McCabe, Dorothy Lawrenson and Gerry Loose, and a review of PolyPly, an event which involved innovative poetry and film. I’m a fan of Chris and Gerry and expect to enjoy their stuff. But I was also struck by Dorothy Lawrenson’s poetry, which seemed to me far tighter and more affecting than anything she was doing 5 or 6 years ago – what any writer wants to happen, I guess. No doubt I’m going to find out she wrote these ones 6 years ago now! I read through the latest edition of Poetry magazine – always one of my favourite reads of the month. And Chris Hamilton-Emery sent me the manuscript of his new book, which will be published in March. Yesterday was my day off and I took advantage by reading through the first 20 pages – some fantastic, distinctive poems in there.

Anyway, I have managed a blog post, even if not a particularly focused one. I have meant to write about BBC1’s recent adaptation of Dickens's ‘Great Expectations’, about the Scottish independence referendum, about Michael Gove’s cultural vandalism, about a Denis Johnson poem... So far, you have been spared.

Short Update with Three Books

It’s been a month since I last blogged and here are my excuses...

No, I’ll save you all that. Being sorry for not blogging is faintly ridiculous. Since my last foray into blogland, I read some of my poems at the University of Basel, Switzerland along with Katy Evans-Bush (at the kind invitation of Andrew Shields) and then went out to try one of the region’s sausage delicacies with a few members of the audience. I stayed in Basel Youth Hostel, which had an affordable bar (in Swiss terms) and a buffet breakfast, and also an inevitable snorer in the room. I walked the cobbled streets and admired the window shutters. I walked along the Rhine and brought back chocolate for the family. A very enjoyable couple of days! I also took part in the Bugged! event at the fabulous West Port Festival in Edinburgh, which went really well. I read a few pieces from the anthology and later that evening went to see a fine reading by Rachael Boast and J.O. Morgan. And the submissions period has opened for Magma 53, which means that Kona Macphee and I have spent the last ten days working out a strategy for keeping up with the poems that flood the inbox daily. Working out strategies is always a good way to spend time.

But this post is really to recommend three books as much as anything else. First of all, Mark Burnhope’s The Snowboy, a Salt pamphlet of real quality. Any poet who can address a wheelchair with, “O wing-black, spectral-silver mass;/ crass imposition upon the meadow” (‘Wheelchair, Recast as a Site of Special Pastoral Interest’) deserves to be read widely, and there are many other poems which make this small collection an exciting experience. Burnhope’s ability to create memorable phrases and recast language in imaginative ways mark him out.

Secondly, Ian Duhig’s Pandorama (Picador) is a great read with a wide variety of forms and styles. You can never quite guess where Duhig is going to take you next. He seems to know about things that few people have ever thought about knowing and uses his learning lightly but with genuine emotional and intellectual impact. This collection is satirical, funny, disturbing and mysterious, often simultaneously. Moving elegies for David Oluwale, a Nigerian immigrant who died following years of racial harassment by police, line up alongside navvies, seed-fiddles, and ‘Closed Enquiry’ which celebrates “Santon Bridge’s Annual Lying Championship”; politicians may be barred from entering but agriculture holds plenty of scope:

cattle so huge they need individual postcodes,
rams’ horns winding up in different time-zones.

And finally, there’s Gabriel Josopovici’s Touch, which is described as a prose essay musing over “the central question of how we can feel at home in the world.” In fact, it’s a fascinating group of essays clustered around that theme, probing ideas of distance with reference to Charlie Chaplin, transgression and self-delusion with reference to Proust, power with reference to the $50m trade in Nazi memorabilia, and the difference between walking in England and walking in Egypt with a nod to Tristram Shandy (which, by coincidence, Ian Duhig also references). Touch, not mere observation, binds the essays into one. Josopovici deals with complex ideas without resorting to jargon or meaningless abstraction and there’s a passionate and intelligent engagement with the world behind every enquiry.

Tweet Your Questions to Magma Poetry

For those of you who use Twitter, the editor of Magma 49, Julia Bird, will be answering your questions for the magazine’s first Online Meet-the-Editors Q&A session. You can tweet questions anytime, but most will be answered today (Friday) from 1pm British Summer Time (12 noon GMT) for one hour. Full details can be found at the Magma blog.

Magma, Issue 49, and the E-Newsletter, Issue 12

The new Magma, issue 49, is all ready and you can read a few poems and articles from it online, including my review of Katherine Gallagher's Carnival Edge: New & Selected Poems (Arc £11.99), Alan Wall’s Doctor Placebo (Shearsman £8.95) and TEN: New Poets Spread the Word ed. Bernardine Evaristo and Daljit Nagra (Bloodaxe/Spread the Word £8.95).

In addition, if you sign up to receive the free bi-monthly e-newsletter (halfway down the page at the link to sign up), you’ll find me doing the ‘subscribers workshop’ in which I comment on a poem someone has asked for help with (perhaps 'set loose to run riot over someone else's poem' might be just as good a way to put it, but I hope it's a constructive riot), along with articles on ‘poetry and catharsis’ by Jacqueline Saphra (which includes a nice mention of Andrew Philip's collection, The Ambulance Box) and a review of Matthew Sweeney’s The Night Post (Salt 2010) by Laurie Smith. Definitely worth signing up for.

SPL Podcast

I’m featured in the Scottish Poetry Library podcast this week, chatting with Ryan Van Winkle about my mysterious middle name, what I’m writing at the moment, form and structure, Magma, revenge and ego, criticism, and various other matters. I also read two new poems. That’s in between saying ‘you know’ and ‘um...’ and ‘kind of’ a few hundred times too often.

If you'd like a good poetry collection recommendation, you need look no farther than Ryan's Tomorrow We Will Live Here, published last month by Salt. On sale at the Book Depository for only £6.98 at the moment.

Forward Prize 2010 Results

I confess I had forgotten that the Forward Prize results were due yesterday. Possibly, that was due to a general lack of excitement over the shortlist for Best Collection. My feeling was that, of the shortlist, Jo Shapcott’s collection looked the strongest, but it was an absurdly conservative list – more on which later. Seamus Heaney won it, the first time he has won the Forward Prize, for Human Chain. I don’t want to say too much about the book itself, as it’s possible I might be reviewing it for a proper magazine. I wonder, though, how readers think it ranks alongside other Heaney collections.

Anyway, the shortlist contained collections by Lachlan MacKinnon (Faber), Seamus Heaney (Faber), Jo Shapcott (Faber), Fiona Sampson (Carcanet), Sinead Morrissey (Carcanet) and Robin Robertson (Picador). One of the judges said that “what we have got represents the quality and brilliant variety of poetry, and poetry publishing, in Britain today.” Of course, it does no such thing. In fact, it represents an incredibly narrow range of poetry and poetry publishing. It’s difficult to imagine how it could be any narrower!

I feel it’s vital, if such prizes are to retain any credibility whatsoever, that a far broader range of styles and publishers are selected. I don’t know how to achieve that, but there must be some way of breaking through the hegemony that afflicts UK poetry at the moment. I mean, I look at Poetry (Chicago) magazine and see a genuinely wide range of poetic styles – everything from Billy Collins to Ron Silliman. People on all sides of the various poetic divides can find something to moan about, which has got to be a sign of health! In similar magazines in the UK, the range is far narrower, apart from works in translation: it’s as though idiosyncrasy in work originally written in other languages is fine, but not in English please... Generally, the First Book and Best Poem shortlists (although not always the winners) have tended to reflect far greater range than the main awards. Could it be that judges feel under less pressure to make the obvious shortlist-choices in these categories i.e. in that they are not, as established poets, having to pick and choose among their equally (or more) established contemporaries?

In any case, Hilary Menos won the Best First Collection prize with Berg – you can read a few examples from it at her website – and Julia Copus won the award for Best Poem with An Easy Passage, originally published in Magma 45, edited by Clare Pollard.

Publication Routes, First Lines and Literary Identity

Apologies for the relative lack of activity here for the last week or so, but that’s partly because I’ve been writing on other blogs. Firstly, an article on my route to publication for Mairi Sharratt’s blog, A Lump in the Throat. The article has a part 1 and a part 2. Secondly, I conducted an experiment on first lines and continuations over at the Magma blog. And thirdly, this morning, I wrote a long comment (sorry about the length) for a fine article by Claire Askew on literary identity. My comment is currently awaiting moderation, but the article and comments made so far are well worth reading.

Magma and The Herald on Poetry Books

At the Magma blog, we’ve been asking whether or not too many poetry books are being published. It’s not so much that I’ve decided either way on the issue myself – I’m more making public an argument being waged inside my own head.

Coincidentally, I was directed to Saturday’s issue of The Herald newspaper for Lesley McDowell’s article, ‘Dawn of a New Age’ (not online as far as I can tell). She writes on the current state of Scottish poetry, which she regards as very healthy, especially given the large number of prizes Scottish poets have won over the last few years (the question arises as to whether that's an accurate measurement of health). But the topic of whether there are too many poetry books surfaces there too, also whether there are too many bad ones, whether editors and publishers are 'gatekeeping' effectively, what the future might hold for Scottish poetry, and the effect of the Internet. I really need separate posts spaced out over the next week or two to do justice to the article, which is very stimulating – and good on Lesley McDowell for managing to get a two-page article on poetry in a national newspaper!

I did also find what I was originally looking for in the article:

“This is certainly a very fertile period for Scottish poetry,” Robert Alan Jamieson says. “And there is a new generation coming through – Jen Hadfield of course, but also Andrew Philip, Rob A. Mackenzie and Jane McKie (the latter won the Saltire* First Book award with her poetry) – serious writers, as opposed to hobbyists.”

*(actually, it wasn’t the Saltire Award that Jane won, but the Sundial/SAC Award for Best First Book)

Sphinx, Magma and Salt

A few quickies. First, the new issue of Sphinx is out. I always recommend this magazine and it looks particularly good this time round. It begins with a terrific interview with Tony Frazer, editor of Shearsman Press.

Secondly, check out this fun, free-to-enter competition at the Magma blog, in which you choose a poem to ban from the school syllabus and say why in less than 300 words. The winner gets a poetry anthology and an annual subscription to Magma – so well worth entering.

Thirdly, all UK orders of Salt books before Christmas will be sent with free postage. If you want to surprise your friends and relatives, I’d guess my book would be among the more unpredictable gifts of the year. Anything called The Opposite of Cabbage is the last thing most people would expect to receive – but none the worse for that. I’d also recommend recent Salt collections by Tony Williams (The Corner of Arundel Lane and Charles Street) and Liz Gallagher (The Wrong Miracle), which I plan to say something about on this blog if I have the time. Of course, there’s also Emily Benet’s Shop Girl Diaries, even if we male types might pretend we don’t read the Christmas book we buy for the women in our lives.

Readers from other countries, don’t despair. The Book Depository will also send Salt books with free postage, although my book appears to be out of stock at the time of writing this…

New Magma Newsletter

I just got my Magma Poetry Newsletter by email today. I’d recommend signing up for this, wherever you are in the world. It’s free and means only one email every two months. It’s very good stuff: this one has an article on reading poetry to an audience by Roberta James, a summary of what’s on offer in Magma 45, short reviews (not in the print magazine) by Andrew Neilson on the Faber New Poets Pamphlets, and by Matt Merritt on George Szirtes’s The Burning of the Books and other poems, and a critique by Laurie Smith of the first poem to be chosen for the Subscribers’ Workshop – it shows how an editor might look at a poem you’ve submitted, why he might accept or reject it, what he’s looking for etc. All very interesting!

The Latest Magma - Issue 45

The new edition of Magma, issue 45, edited by Clare Pollard, is just out. I’ve only had time to read some of the prose so far. Got to say, Jacob Polley’s piece on Poetry and Prose is excellent (in print only, not online) - a very thoughtful and intelligent angle on a subject that often yields little insight. I have three reviews in it – of recent collections by Roddy Lumsden, CL Dallat and Angela Kirby – and these are online and in print, as is Tim Turnbull’s fascinating article on the poetic legacy of the music hall.

At The Magma Blog

A fair bit of action on the Magma blog at the moment: news of a Magma-associated Don Paterson workshop if you’re around Cheltenham, a discussion on writing beyond your own experience (what you don't know), a reminder of the Troubadour Competition, and the new initiative of the Subscribers’ Poem Workshop.

By Leaves We Live 2009

This Saturday, from 11am-6pm, I’ll be at the Scottish Poetry Library for its annual By Leaves We Live book fair. It’s the kind of event you can walk in and out of at any time during the day, although there are scheduled seminars (see link). Many artists, poets and small presses will be displaying their books, pamphlets and who knows what else. I’ll be there for the whole day because I’m staffing the Magma stall. If you’re interested in browsing the magazine or in a discount subscription, then come and speak to me!

A Few Plugs

Quick reminder that I’m also appearing in Blackwell’s Bookshop on the South Bridge, Edinburgh on Thursday 13th August from 6-7.15pm as part of the Blackwell’s Writers at the Fringe events (scroll down at the link), along with five other writers. If any of you are around, it would be great to see a friend or two in the audience.

*

I thought I’d flag up this Edinburgh Book Festival event with Jenny Bornholdt, Bashabi Fraser & Martin MacIntyre on Saturday from 4pm. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it. However, it should be well worth checking out, especially for Martin’s poetry, which is mainly in Gaelic (with English translation).

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The autumn 2009 programme for Poetry at the... is now up. Check out the links on the names down the left sidebar. Should be great! I’m also interested to hear your views on the possibility of having a short open-mic at each event. Is that a good or bad idea?

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The Magma blog asks, Are you bored with the default poem? You can of course answer either ‘yes’ or ‘no’, although further intelligent remarks will also be appreciated.

Over At Magma

I’m conducting a series of short interviews over at the Magma blog with pamphlet publishers who were shortlisted in the recent Michael Marks Awards for Best UK Pamphlet Publisher. So far, you can read those with Peter Hughes from Oystercatcher and Helena Nelson from HappenStance.

Also, Magma, issue 44, is now out. In the print edition, you can read reviews by Ben Wilkinson of The Opposite of Cabbage and by Rosie Shepperd of The Ambulance Box by Andrew Philip. In addition, plenty of good articles and poems.

Buying Poetry At Magma

I’ve posted a new article at the Magma blog called What makes you buy a poetry collection?, which picks up on comments made at the tail-end of the discussion there on reviews.

There are already 19 comments. There main change in buying habits over the last decade has been fuelled by the Internet – no doubt about that – but what works there and what doesn’t so much is intriguing. Also, it seems that bookshops still play an important role for many people. The thread is like free market research for publishers.

Comments At Magma

My article at the Magma blog on poetry reviewing has given rise to a really interesting discussion. There are 39 comments so far, and all of them are worth reading and thinking about. Some are even a little bit extra special.

Reviewing Poetry At Magma

On the Magma blog, my post on reviewing poetry is up. It joins in with an existing conversation – negative reviews, anonymous reviews, how to review a first collection, how to review (or not review) a duff book by a famous poet… It’s all there waiting for your comments and opinions.