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.)

Driving + Poeting = ?

I don’t know why I decided to write a blog post directly into the blog when I have the world’s sickest laptop that somehow manages to hiccup and delete passages at random. Then blogger conspires with the laptop to compound the situation by auto-saving before I could hit the undo button. Lesson learned - this post has been cut and pasted from Word without the perils of auto-save.

So, January saw a resumption of normal services when Dan went back to work full-time and I reverted to being a cliche - juggling work, kids, uni and poetry... okay so maybe the poetry bit isn’t a cliche. The reality of waking up at 7.15am, getting the kids (and myself) ready and out of the house, driving Maya to school, Ruby to nursery, driving back to the house to drop the car off before walking down to the Quayside to start work, only to reverse the whole process at 2.30 revealed a new strand to my parenting style... ‘shouty mum’.

I put it down to the fact that I now have to drive every weekday. I hate driving. Largely because I like to believe the folklore that poets can’t drive. Having said that I can already feel that the anxiety that usually joins me in the car is becoming less noticeable. Maybe by the end of the term it’ll be gone completely. I wonder if my poeting skills will decrease the more comfortable I get behind the wheel...

Anyway, writing & performance highlights so far... getting my first MA submission of 12 poems in, performing at the Tyneside Cinema for Radikal Words Night, Newcastle City Library with ID on Tyne and the very, very fabulous Trashed Organ fundraiser for Shelter (it was like being out in that London... or at least how I imagine a poeting night in London would be).

The lows? Waiting for my MA submission of 12 poems to be marked. And starting the year off with four rejections is a bit off-putting, particularly when combined with the comedowns I seem to experience after performing... onwards and upwards though, eh? I have a couple of readings coming up in March that’ll take me out of the North East (even as far as St Andrews!). Not to mention the fact that I’ve just got confirmation of my place on an Arvon course at The Hurst courtesy of an Arvon 42 grant, so it can’t all be bad.

Oh and the Rascally Scoundrels are in the early stages of developing a new piece of theatre, which I’m rather excited about - we have a meeting with Annabel Turpin in a couple of weeks to discuss a possible development week at ARC, Stockton to get the project off to a fantastic start.

And as February progresses ‘shouty mum’ seems to be mellowing as the weather gets warmer and the school run becomes more familiar.