Leicester Shindig

On Monday night, I was invited to give a poetry reading at the Leicester Shindig. The night was run in conjunction with Crystal Clear Creators (who are publishing my pamphlet), and Nine Arches Press. The night was well attended, with many interesting and engaging poets performing. There was a real focus on the musicality of language, and even an impromptu performance of “Timorous Beasties,” in honour of fast-approaching Burns Night.

I really enjoyed the humour in Jonathan and Maria Taylor’s poems, describing a psycho and the experience of teaching Larkin, respectively. The tone contrasted nicely against Maria’s other poem, in which she explored the notion of family and roots, a subject I also like to address within my poetry. I enjoyed reading Deborah Tyler-Bennett’s “Mr. F.’s Lament” in the last issue of Hearing Voices magazine, inspired by “Harris’ List,” detailing the London prostitutes of the eighteenth century, and so I was glad to hear another from the same sequence. Roy Marshall also gave an impressive reading. Roy is another winner of the Crystal Clear Pamphlet competition, and his pamphlet entitled “Gopagilla,” will be released in March.

I have attached a video of my reading at the Shindig, with an introduction by Maria Taylor. Despite being fairly nervous before-hand, (I’m glad there was a bar), I think it went very well. Some of the poems are taken from my pamphlet, “Someone Else’s Photograph,” which will be published alongside Roy’s and the other four winners in March 2012. The Leicester Shindig was a fantastic evening, and I will definitely be attending in the future.   

"The Shipping News" and New Beginnings

One of the books on my A Level English Literature course back at school was Annie Proulx’s Postcards. I loved the book, and the terrible sympathy that was roused for Loyal by the end of the novel. Until this week, Postcards remained the only novel by Proulx that I had read. I had heard good things about The Shipping News, the story of the journalist Quoyle who returns to Newfoundland, the home of his ancestors, following the death of his wife. The ocean is almost a character in the novel, ranging from the quiet, “There’s the sea. Like a door opening and closing,” to the tumultuous waves of “green curlers.”

          

          In her acknowledgements, Proulx credits The Ashley Book of Knots by Clifford W. Ashley as an inspiration for her novel. This encouraged me to think about beginnings. How to start a story? The protagonist of her novel, “Quoyle,” is taken from The Ashley Book of Knots as a name for a coil of rope. The example given is that of a “Flemish Flake,” which is a “spiral coil of one layer only. It is made on deck, so that it may be walked on, if necessary.” This encapsulates Quoyle’s character at the beginning of the novel, dominated by his unfaithful, nymphomaniac wife. Each chapter begins with a quote from The Ashley Book of Knots, helping to develop and enrich the plot.  

          

          Taking inspiration from this, I found a book called The Penny Cyclopædia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. I chose a page at random, which told of the tradition usage of dried kingfishers. This was something I had never heard of, and I have used it as a starting point for a poem and a short story. I think this is an interesting writing exercise because it forces you to move away from ways in which you typically start putting pen to paper. I’ve also found that it’s been a good prompt to fit in some writing in between dissertation deadlines this week!

Christmas Themes: "The Oxen" by Thomas Hardy

I came across Thomas Hardy’s “The Oxen” today, and thought it was fittingly Christmas-themed now that we have entered December. His poem explores the Christmas superstition that oxen kneel, as they supposedly did in the Nativity, on Christmas Eve at midnight. He recounts the credulousness of his childhood: “Nor did it occur to one of us there/ To doubt they were kneeling then” (ll.7-8). This memory of trust is treated gently, reflected in the idealised portrayal of the “meek milk creatures” dwelling “in their strawy pen” (ll.5-6). Hardy’s poem draws on folk tradition, utilising dialect such as “barton” and coomb” (l.13), to create a sense of authenticity and to evoke the Oral tradition as embodied in the figure of the “Elder” (l.3), largely displaced by the Industrial Revolution.

          

          “The Oxen” was written in 1915, long after Hardy had moved away from his Christian faith. The use of the word “flock” (l.3) to describe the children gathered has strong religious connotations, and reflects the beliefs of his own childhood. By 1915, the First World War was occurring, destabilising the metanarrative of religion as explored by the contemporary modernists.

Hardy’s poem examines this loss of faith, and yet by the third stanza, he imagines somebody calling him back to see the oxen of his childhood. The poem expresses a want to believe; Hardy claims that he would “Go with him in the gloom” (l.15) of his disbelief and of society fractured by war “Hoping that it might be so” (l.l.16). However, the uncertainty of “might” reminds the reader of the credulousness of adult life, and of modern society, ending with a childhood superstition which remains just that.  

Here’s “The Oxen”:

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.

“Now they are all on their knees,”

A Elder said as we sat in a flock

By the embers in a hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where

They dwelt in their strawy pen,

Nor did it occur to one of us there

To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave

In these years! Yet, I feel,

If someone said on Christmas Eve,

“Come; see the oxen kneel

In the lonely barton by yonder coomb

Our childhood used to know,”

I might go with him in the gloom,

Hoping it might be so.

Todd Swift's Eyewear Blog

I've written a guest review for Todd Swift's Eyewear blog on Anne Szumigalski's A Peeled Wand. You can view it here:  http://toddswift.blogspot.com/2011/11/guest-review-mayhew-on-szumigalski.html

Hearing Voices: Volume 4

Hearing Voices is a literary magazine, published by Crystal Clear Creators. Although only three issues were funded by “Awards for All,” the magazine has fantastically made it to the fourth issue. I am fortunate to have one of my own poems included, titled “Someone Else’s Photograph,” taken from my forthcoming pamphlet of the same name, and I’d like to mention some of the pieces from the magazine which caught my attention.

         

           The magazine opens with Todd Swift’s poem, “Presentation.” I enjoyed the internal conflict of the poem, particularly between the voiced and unspoken: “Let’s have a minute break/of silence to jaw-jaw/mulling it over...” I thought that the sense of having missed something through the cyclical motions of the poem was well placed at the end, “listen to those songbirds/ that last week we’d like to sing,” as well as providing a striking entry into the other voices in the magazine. 

          

          “Finding Time,” by Charles Lauder Jr presents an intimate glimpse into Albert Einstein’s evening. Einstein’s theories thread gently through the poem like his wife Mileva’s sewing. The lack of punctuation gives the piece a feeling of continuity, and emphasises how “time is felt differently in both rooms.” The scientific is also central in Jonathan Taylor’s “Neutron Star.” In the universe of this poem, the speaker has “compacted the dead star of you,” the claustrophobic equations culminating in the couplet, “its protons, electrons crushed to neutrons/ like anything else which comes too close.” I thought the way that the relationship of the poem is revealed through distance was particularly effective.

I enjoyed the concise images in Chris Hardy’s “We are Here.” The names cut into the “soft red brick” offer a point of permanence, only to be “washed away like a beach of stars/ beneath the Sun’s tide.” I also thought the imagery was strong in Helen Ivory’s “In Bluebeard’s Garden.” I have just re-read Angela Carter’s short story, “The Bloody Chamber,” and I enjoyed Helen Ivory’s alternative retelling of the Bluebeard fairytale. In her poem, Bluebeard “plants” his victims in order, “from a distance/ they are trees holding hands.” I thought this image was both tender and disturbing, the murdered women grouping into groves. This sense of transformation also appears in “A Witch’s Death: 11 March 1618,” by Sue Mackrell. The poem is haunted by the murdered witch’s familiar who shifts form from a cat, to a hare, to an owl. I thought that the changes worked effectively by focusing on the physical, “...as a spasm/pushes out pinion feathers/he becomes/owl.”    

          “All That Remains,” by Hilary Spiers is a framed narrative, providing a glimpse into a woman’s memories of young love. I thought the shift in time, triggered by viewing a painting, worked well. I enjoyed the description of the seaside landscape, especially the “wind and sunburnt lips,” which conjured images of the illicit affair with few words. The unknowing tenderness of the final lines was striking. Memory is also used effectively in “The Summer of Controlled Experiments,” by Maria Taylor. I liked the humour of the experimenter vowing never to wear her “unflattering” dress again. The poem presents a romance, with echoes of Romeo and Juliet, “this is no holy kiss,” but far less idealised, “discussing supper, no candle lights.” 

I loved the rhythm of Deborah Tyler-Bennett’s “Mr F’s Lament,” beginning with the tumbling, “I know this place where dark’s a spreading space/ between fingers,” opening a space for the poem’s glimpses of prostitution. It has inspired me to read Harris’ Lists on which the poem is based. There are many other brilliant poems I haven’t mentioned in Hearing Voices, and I definitely recommend purchasing a copy. It only costs £3, or £2.50 for members. Purchasing details are on the Crystal Clear Creator’s website:  http://www.crystalclearcreators.org.uk/ 

           

Cannibal Compositions

On Tuesday, I watched students from the University of Northampton perform a film score which they had composed at the Royal and Derngate Theatre. They worked with songwriter Chris T-T, producing pieces for a medley of film clips by the French Director Claire Denis. I thought the students’ interpretation of the scene from Denis’ 2001 film “Trouble Every Day,” was particularly effective. Their frantic, lurching composition reflected the growing horror of the scene; the boy breaking through the boarded-up bedroom doorway, and falling prey to the object of his lust’s libidinous cannibalism. See the video of their performance here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HNSytwZ8mQ