Monthly Archives: March 2012

Monday 26th March 2012

Diary, Home 26/03/2012 Comments: 4

Daffodils, and all the trees cloaked in a pale green mist…

Yes – dog walking is a real pleasure in this wonderful weather.

We’ve had a full house this weekend, Isaac home and Ferg’s friend an added extra, the house has been reverberating with loud music and male laughter… Pity the neighbours… Cooking for young men is such a pleasure. I love to see them enjoy their meals with gusto and  hear their groans as their plates are scraped clean. It makes all the effort worth it. And now it’s the school holidays – no pressure to get them all moving before seven and a gentle relaxedness settles over us all. I still like to get up quite early. I love the house to myself first thing – to kick start my day and my writing. I hate the feeling of the day having slipped away from me if I get up late. But it’s also lovely to know that if I go to bed very late there isn’t going to be an alarm hounding me to wake before I’m ready.

I have my last poetry class of the John Gallas course I’ve been attending today. We each have seven minutes to read from the poetry we’ve been working on over the last six weeks. I’m just trying to choose which six sonnets to read – I have sixteen now that are in some semblance of completeness. Some are serious and quite sad, others light and (hopefully) amusing. I can’t decide whether a mix would work or to keep the mood similar throughout, or to work from heavy through to light in a vain hope to uplift?

I’ve been enjoying the six wonderful poetry pamphlets recently published by Crystal Clear Creators. Check them out.

I attended the launch of the pamphlets at Leicester University which was a fantastic and uplifting evening. Also the recent Shindig at the Western pub, where Aly Stoneman and Charles Lauder were the featured poets – another equally stunning evening.

The quality of the writing and the delightful way it is presented makes for some memorable pamphlets:

Andrew Graves’ energetic rhythms and keen observations.
Jessica Mayhew’s glittering imagery, old tales caught in mirrored glass.
Roy Marshall ‘s Pared down vignettes and his Rose that made me remember my babies and then made me cry.
Charles Lauder’s blood and guts and contemporary sexuality.
Hannah Stevens’ acutely observed detail and intense emotivity.
Aly’ Stoneman’s shifting landscapes and lyrical poinancy.

Click on either of these two links to excellent reviews of the Shindig and check out Crystal Clear Creators on facebook for many more.

http://jaynestantonpoetry.wordpress.com/

http://garylongden.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/shindig-western-ph-leicester-2/

Even better – get yourself a copy of each… you won’t be disappointed I promise.

Thanks for reading :)

Saturday 24th March 2012

Diary, Home 24/03/2012 Comments: 4

Summer’s Coming…

Less than 3 weeks to Coachella and only 109 days till Latitude… Smell the canvas :)

Oh my… How beautiful is England today? Hazy, warm, golden, growing, green shoots exploding, buds bursting, my heart sings with the love of it all.

I apologise for such hyperbole, but y’know… I’m a poet… What do you expect?

I’m alone – a rarity nowadays – and I’m loving it. I dropped the man off at the train station at 6.30 this morning. He’s chairing a writing panel at a conference in Manchester and I left him on the platform looking exquisite in pristine white linen. I’ll eat ‘is ‘at if he don’t turn a few ‘eads ‘oop north today…

And… All my children, including a weekend adoptee, have disappeared into Leicester for the day under their own steam… No taxiing required! Isaac drove! How wonderful is retirement from a job that was only ever foisted upon one? Very, I say… Forsooth… ought that to be verily? I’m so excitable and I don’t quite know why. Must be the moooooooon. Or maybe just the sun?

I’ve washed three loads and hung them all out to dry, written two more sonnets for my collection, early drafts of course, and I’m about to shower and go walk the dogs. The railway cutting beckons I think. Otto is on A course of steroids in an attempt to cut his itch/scratch/itch cycle. I’m fed up with his bald patches. They make him look like he has mange and you know how superficial and shallow I am. I have warned him… Ugly things offend me… I said, but he took absolutely no notice, as is his want, and kept at it. So… A general anaesthetic, biopsy and a 150 quid later, still none the wiser. Four weeks of antibiotics, a course of steroids and another 125 quid later still… We’ll see if we won’t cure him, but all these drugs are making him sleepy. A walk is definitely what we all need, I think.

On Thursday we attended a talk on e-publishing At Leicester Writer’s Club and very interesting it was too. I particularly enjoyed Christ Meade’s vision and enthusiasm. Catch up with him and his peeps on the following links:

http://bookfutures.blogspot.co.uk

http://ifbook.co.uk

My mind’s revved into ballistic overdrive with wonderful ideas about ways to publish poetry on the web… Images, sound, text… All very exciting. Will try some sound immediately. Maybe with one of my sonnet collection… (sixteen now. Been working like a Trojan!) We’ll see.

And just to leave you with some chilled sounds – my current obsession – Nicolas Jaar – a Chilean beaut…

Some of his output is a little difficult I admit and I downloaded his album recently to the complete confusion of my synapses… But stick with it. He’s amazing. Try these for size and see how you get on.

Enjoy the weather… And always remember – this is England and this may be our summer…

18th March 2012

Diary, Home 18/03/2012 Comments: 2

Mother’s Day

Three boys home and a house full of flowers…

 

 

I travelled home on the train from London this morning and it was packed with people carrying flowers, most of them No doubt on their way home to see their mothers. It was a heart warming sight. I was rushing home myself to cook for my own dear Ma and Pa, my Uncle and his wife and my boys. I was greeted with kisses and flowers. I can’t think of anything lovelier to come home to.

I’ve not posted in a while – but been madly busy writing, so it’s all good.

I spent yesterday on a writing workshop organised by Spread The Word with the wonderful Alison Macleod. I first made contact with Alison after I read her incredible story The Heart of Dennis Noble which was runner up in the BBC Short Story competition last year. I thought (think) it’s the best short story I’ve ever read. I wrote and told her how much I enjoyed it and we consequently became facebook friends. She posted a link to this course and I enrolled immediately.

The day was every bit as good as I expected. We spent the morning discussing her story and also What we talk about when we talk about love by Raymond Carver, another (of course) superb story. Both are interrogations of love, so similar, yet also very different. Alison was generous in discussing the writing of the Dennis Noble story, her research, her blending of fact and fiction, her handling of several narrative threads and their back story and the seamless melding of them all. She even shared with us some early drafts! I managed to ask all the questions I wanted to and Alison answered them all.

After lunch we completed three writing exercises and I really enjoyed them. Those precious seeds have already grown and budded into two exciting story ideas and I’m raring to get on with them. That’s what I call value for money.

I’ve also been attending a six week poetry course with the wonderful John Gallas at the Writing School, Leicester. Each Monday class has left me totally inspired and desperate to get home to write. John has been encouraging us to begin writing a collection of poems. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while but I wasn’t sure of a theme. John got us to think about what we liked, what we didn’t like and why, in both our own writing and others.This collection could be as loosely or tightly themed as we wish and the theme could be anything we like. Our poems could be linked by form, subject matter, narrative, style, or anything else we could think of.

I’ve decided to write a series of sonnets – I’m aiming for 40! And I’m going to illustrate them!

Their linking theme will be clothes, but they will be about love life, religion, family, sex drugs and rock ‘n’ roll as much as about frocks.

An enjoyable challenge.

Written 10 so far… Way to go!

I’ve also written quite a few new stories and have decided to enter some competitions this year. There’s about 6 this month. Wish me luck!

I entered the Fish Short Story competition for 2011 and found out last week that I was selected for the long list. That was really encouraging for me, specially as I have re-edited that particular story since and it’s now much better.

I feel I’ve recently turned a corner and my writing is improving a great deal. I’ve finally learned how to self edit. Cutting great chunks of text that you love is actually quite liberating when you finally understand how it benefits the story. Working closely with the man helps of course…

My guilt about not blogging finally got the better of me today, hence this post. I’ll try to write a little more regularly again. Promise. See you soon x

 

 

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