Kirsty and I are extremely distracted this month. As well as getting it together for the Dress Rehearsal Rag event, we're doing the new tradition of a poem a day for April. We've done it the last couple of years, and even though it results in daily banging your head on the table at midnight and beyond, you do come out of it with a lot to work with. Last year and this year, I picked an over-arcing theme and took it as far as I could. Many of last year's poems ended up in Scarecrows, so I'm hoping to generate a similarly rich crop in 2010.
I'm posting them all to this thread as I go along, so if you think you can stand my constant complaining about not having enough time and are interested in what limits I will stoop to in desperation, by all means have a gander. I'm not horribly ashamed of my efforts quite yet. K's thread is here.
Friday, 23 April 2010
Thursday, 22 April 2010
When The Hate-Mongering Tart Met Fuselit
One of our favourite poets, E. Kristin Anderson, through her Hate-Mongering Tart blog, is currently putting together an almighty series of features to coincide with National Poetry Month. She dragged me and Jon out of the burning house of NaPoWriMo just long enough to ask us a few questions, and the (frankly gorgeously laid out) results can be viewed here!
Choice extracts include:
"I thought it’d be simple!"
"Extra emphasis on the ludicrous."
"I wish I’d been that good at that age."
"It involves having twelve different pseudonyms."
Choice extracts include:
"I thought it’d be simple!"
"Extra emphasis on the ludicrous."
"I wish I’d been that good at that age."
"It involves having twelve different pseudonyms."
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Dress Rehearsal Rag is tonight!
Londoners, here me!
Tonight, for £3, at 7.30, at the Betsey Trotwood in Farringdon, you can gather around to hear the songs and poems of Leonard Cohen as performed by an array of talented poets and songwriters. There will also be original poems inspired by lines from Cohen songs, a little fiction, and a short talk by music journalist Gavin Martin.
Tonight, for £3, at 7.30, at the Betsey Trotwood in Farringdon, you can gather around to hear the songs and poems of Leonard Cohen as performed by an array of talented poets and songwriters. There will also be original poems inspired by lines from Cohen songs, a little fiction, and a short talk by music journalist Gavin Martin.
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
Mind Map Review needs you!
Jet Payne, formerly headbosschief of Arts Pneumonia, has engaged in a most intriguing sport, launching a zine that encourages your synapses to run riot - the Mind Map Review!
A freely distributed London arts review magazine based around a simple concept, Mind Map Review covets reviews in the form of a ‘mind map’, 'brain storm', ‘spider diagram’, ‘flow chart’ or similar diagram, with the aim of simplifying the reviewing process, stripping it back to the essential points as they would appear at a planning stage.
The London Mind Map Review launches in May, and Londoners should submit reviews of art exhibitions, spoken word events, theatre, gigs and other arts events.
Further specifics can be found here.
Deadline for the May issue is 1 May with the 1st of each following month marking the deadline for that month’s issue.
Contact themindmapreview@googlemail.com
Monday, 5 April 2010
Bumper News Bulletin
BUILDING
It's all go over here. First of all, we've set a new word for Fuselit submissions - Contraption. This issue will have, we dare to dream, a steampunk sort of thing going on. K's been wanting to do a steampunky issue for some while now.
We're also beginning work on Fuselit: Jack. This issue is going to have an entirely inappropriate hallowe'en/nightmare aesthetic. We're also pondering what to do for a supplementary booklet. At the moment, the idea is that it's going to be something to do with hijacking.
SUCCEEDING
In other news, a poem of mine was highly commended in the National Poetry Competition. Here's a page which gathers all the commended poems together. There's pictures too. The poem in question was 'Jake Root', and it's included in Scarecrows.
READING
I have a few readings coming up. Somewhere towards the end of this month I'll be doing a little launch for Scarecrows at Days of Roses, alongside readings from Sam Riviere and others. This will probably be at The Camden Head, but it's to be confirmed. I'll also be reading at The Hold, likely at Oliver's Bar in Greenwich. Then, of course, on Tuesday 20th, there's Dress Rehearsal Rag, our Leonard Cohen night, at which Kirsty and I will both be reading (only two poems each - one of Cohen's and one of our own) and playing cover versions of LC's songs.
Finally, on May 31st I'll be reading at The Wheatsheaf with Earnest Hilbert, Katy Evans-Bush and Richard Price.
We'll both be doing a reading or two in June in Edinburgh as well, but more details of that later.
WRITING
This month is NaPoWriMo. A lot of people must be sick of this - and hearing about this - but the idea is to write a poem a day, every day, through April. I find it a useful shelf-clearing exercise. At any one time I have a notebook full of notions and ideas for what may or may not make good poems some day, and writing for me is such a bitty, often-interrupted, long-winded process that I usually never get round to most of them. April is a chance to try everything. If something doesn't work, do what you can with it, post the feeble effort for others to mock and try something else the next day. Ignore the pain and the every-growing feeling that you're about as far from a hardcore poetry-writing machine as it's possible to be, and at the end of the month you have at least a dozen or so that are worth buffing up and filing away for later.
The other important thing is to make completion of the poem a day an unreasonably high priority. Once you start letting three square meals, gainful employment, friend's birthdays and your own psychological health get in the way you might as well give up!
It's all go over here. First of all, we've set a new word for Fuselit submissions - Contraption. This issue will have, we dare to dream, a steampunk sort of thing going on. K's been wanting to do a steampunky issue for some while now.
We're also beginning work on Fuselit: Jack. This issue is going to have an entirely inappropriate hallowe'en/nightmare aesthetic. We're also pondering what to do for a supplementary booklet. At the moment, the idea is that it's going to be something to do with hijacking.
SUCCEEDING
In other news, a poem of mine was highly commended in the National Poetry Competition. Here's a page which gathers all the commended poems together. There's pictures too. The poem in question was 'Jake Root', and it's included in Scarecrows.
READING
I have a few readings coming up. Somewhere towards the end of this month I'll be doing a little launch for Scarecrows at Days of Roses, alongside readings from Sam Riviere and others. This will probably be at The Camden Head, but it's to be confirmed. I'll also be reading at The Hold, likely at Oliver's Bar in Greenwich. Then, of course, on Tuesday 20th, there's Dress Rehearsal Rag, our Leonard Cohen night, at which Kirsty and I will both be reading (only two poems each - one of Cohen's and one of our own) and playing cover versions of LC's songs.
Finally, on May 31st I'll be reading at The Wheatsheaf with Earnest Hilbert, Katy Evans-Bush and Richard Price.
We'll both be doing a reading or two in June in Edinburgh as well, but more details of that later.
WRITING
This month is NaPoWriMo. A lot of people must be sick of this - and hearing about this - but the idea is to write a poem a day, every day, through April. I find it a useful shelf-clearing exercise. At any one time I have a notebook full of notions and ideas for what may or may not make good poems some day, and writing for me is such a bitty, often-interrupted, long-winded process that I usually never get round to most of them. April is a chance to try everything. If something doesn't work, do what you can with it, post the feeble effort for others to mock and try something else the next day. Ignore the pain and the every-growing feeling that you're about as far from a hardcore poetry-writing machine as it's possible to be, and at the end of the month you have at least a dozen or so that are worth buffing up and filing away for later.
The other important thing is to make completion of the poem a day an unreasonably high priority. Once you start letting three square meals, gainful employment, friend's birthdays and your own psychological health get in the way you might as well give up!
Sunday, 4 April 2010
Dress Rehearsal Rag: a tribute to Leonard Cohen
If you're in London on Tuesday 20 April 2010 and have a love of Lenny, Jon and Declan Ryan are hosting Dress Rehearsal Rag, a night of poetry and song celebrating Leonard Cohen, with a short talk by music journalist Gavin Martin and fiction from Chris Teevan and Mak Rahmdel.
Poets and performers include Roddy Lumsden, Declan Ryan and Phil Hillis (both from the Shingles), Jon Stone, Kirsten Irving, Joe Dunthorne, Jacqui Saphra, Chris Horton, Catherine Eden, Malene Engelund and Rich Trow (aka Mr Dupret Factory), Gareth Jones, Anna Gregson and Fiona Bevan.
£3 entry.
Facebook event here.
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