River Runs

I'm trying something new here... actually blogging about something I'm working on whilst I'm working on it... novel, huh? The detail is a bit vague at this stage but I'll know more later in September.

River Runs is a collaborative project run by Radikal Words (featuring Jeff Price, Alfie Crow, Kate Fox, Simma, Aidan Clarke, Ben Holland, Bridie Jackson and me). What with the whole MA thing I've not had a chance to have a think about what my involvement in the project exactly entails but I reckon immersing myself (see what I did there) in river poems can't hurt can it? I'm also going to spend some time getting to know the Tyne a little better - I've worked in a theatre alongside it for the best part of eleven years so I reckon now's as good a time as any to stop taking it for granted and properly pay it some attention. I should probably get down to ~Flow before it shuts shop for the summer too.

Anyway, here are a couple of the poems I've been reading.
Birmingham River - Roy Fisher
What the evangelist should have said - Kei Miller

So as I haven't got anything in mind I reckon I'll be defaulting to my usual free-writing to kick start the poeting bit of my brain. I shall also have to do something about the earworm currently on loop in my head - Drowned Lovers by Kate Rusby. (It is a mint song though.)

Write a Poem About the News Day

The rather marvellous Kate Fox has incited loads of people to write a poem inspired by the news. I don't know if Write a Poem About the News Day is an annual thing but I'd be quite up for it if it is. I've been finding it tricky to write at the moment so any excuse to get something started and finished quickly is helping to keep me ticking over.

I noticed that most of the poems seemed to rhyme so I thought I'd give it a bash too (I couldn't quite combine humour and rhyme though... I'm taking baby steps). So I settled on a villanelle - not exactly the easy option but I found the challenge of sticking to such a rigid form helped to focus on a broad subject.

A Beautiful World

There’s old news and new news, laden with doom
headlines scream out a recurring nightmare;
paint a beautiful world in colours of gloom.

Articles comment on the downside of boom,
highlight the illusion of fiscal flair.
There’s old news and new news, laden with doom.

A Labour party with need of new broom
can’t rescue us from this mire of despair,
paint a beautiful world in colours of gloom.

Threatened injunctions might make racists fume
but a sense of futility hangs in the air,
there’s old news and new news, laden with doom.

A remembered young woman in a garden tomb
her living smile counters the killers stare.
Paint a beautiful world in colours of gloom.

And finally... good news pushed out, there’s just no room,
It’s no longer the point to inform but to scare.
There’s old news and new news, laden with doom
paint a beautiful world in colours of gloom.

http://poetryasithappens.wordpress.com/

John Hegley thinks I'm okay, so I might just start to think so too...

This is probably going to be brief. I attended a Hyperlexic/Apples and Snakes workshop in North Shields today and had a fantastic time as the person running the workshop was John Hegley... well, he was a bit late so Claire Morgan held the fort brilliantly until he arrived. It was a fantastic workshop with some excellent elements (that I might just steal for my Live Writers Group).

Anyway, the reason for this post is that there was an event (which the workshop was tied into) this evening; so not only did I get to see a John Hegley gig for free but I also got to perform on the same stage as him!!!!!! I know excessive use of exclamation marks is technically grounds for having someone committed but these ones aren't excessive. First off, I read a kind of manifesto that arose from the workshop entitled beliefs and bananas and then I got to perform Julia Darling's Indelible, Miraculous in the Dead Poets Slam. Now I really wish, along with everyone else who was lucky enough to know Julia, that I wasn't able to include this poem in this particular section of the night but I'm glad that I was able to share her work and repay her encouragement and influence in a small way. It's a wonderful poem and I just felt so priveleged to read it.

There were loads of other great poets on that night and I really enjoyed Simma and Scott Tyrrell immensely... particularly Coitus Interuptus which rang all too true. I'm just stoked really to have been involved in such a fantastic event, I hadn't gone along with the intention of reading but I did, twice! AND, John Hegley, AND Kate Fox both said that my performance was good... and I'm not going to do what I normally do and say to myself... Oh, but they were just being polite, and they just didn't want me to feel bad because why would they bother? If I was totally shit surely they wouldn't have to say anything at all... they could have just said thanks for coming... ee, I'm learning. I'm really happy tonight and the main reason is that my fantastic, gorgeous husband Daniel got to see me perform and he said I was good too... so it's official.

Here's the (first draft) of the poem I read:

beliefs and bananas
I believe that bananas have a limited time frame for eating.
I believe that green bananas are not the same as plantains.
I believe that people should cherish differences.
Especially the difference between
green bananas and plantains.
I believe that cooking is essential to tranquil family life.
I don't cook as much as I should.
I believe that it doesn't matter if you're not picked first.
I believe that everyone in this room
(well, not this room, but the one earlier)
feels as nervous/apprehensive/shy
as I did before I walked in the room.
I believe that if a person wants to write
they should write.
If they want to sing
they should sing.
I believe that everyone should write a manifesto
at least once in their life.

Well, it turned out to be not so brief after all...