Happy Birthday to me!

It's my birthday today and I'm planning to write, even though I have the option of sitting about eating chocolates. Does this indicate maturity at last? Seems so unlikely, I can't give that idea much credence.

On an wholly unrelated note, aren't online archives marvellous? The LRB has been busy archiving its older issues, and I recently found my own Diary of a Hustler piece there from February 1997 - the snooker article which springboarded my first novel with Sceptre and gained me an agent at Curtis Brown.

Those were the days! What the hell happened?

All SALT lineup on Wednesday: plug, plug reminder

Ride the Word XVIII

on the road to

The Café Yumchaa

Free Admission
45 Berwick Street, Soho, London W.1

Wed 18th November 7.00 p.m.—9.15 p.m.

Cast:
All Salt lineup
Elizabeth Baines reading from her new novel: Too Many Magpies
Jane Holland
Vincent De Souza
Jay Merill
and guests:

Horizon Review introduced by:
editor, Jane Holland, plus readers George Ttoouli and Sophie Mayer

also
Floor spots: Jan Woolf, Alan Franks,
Marc Compton, et al

On the team

So, how cool is this? I've been selected to represent Warwick University - in a team of about 10 or 12 - at the UPC 9 Ball Pool Championships in Liverpool. I shall be the only female on the team, to the best of my knowledge.

Pot, pot. What could be more fun? And to go for a try-out off the cuff like that, cracking out the trusty old cue like Dracula from his wooden crate, only having played the odd game over the past few years, and get a spot on the team straight off ... well, it's very gratifying.

Now I just have to sort out some childcare for the three days of the Championships.

Flarestack Launch coming up soon

This is a worthwhile poetry event here in the Midlands:

FLARESTACK POETS BOOK LAUNCH, 2pm, SATURDAY, 21ST NOVEMBER, BIRMINGHAM  REP

Flarestack Poets, the new imprint from Flarestack Publishing, will celebrate the publication of its first three pamphlets,  Wake by Cliff Forshaw, Advice On Wearing Animal  Prints by Selima Hill (both winners of the Flarestack Poets Pamphlet Competition 2009) and Mr Barton Isn't Paying, an anthology of poems selected from the competition.

There will be readings from Cliff Forshaw, Selima Hill and poets whose work appears in the anthology.

Wine and other refreshments will be served. The event is free, but anyone wishing to attend should contact jacquirowe@hotmail.co.uk

Verse Palace

Poet Frances Leviston has started a poetry and poetics blogzine, if that's an appropriate description.

Find it at Verse Palace.

Horizon and a reading from Camper Van Blues, November 18th

Ride the Word XVIII

    on the road to

The CAFE YUMCHAA

Free Admission

45 Berwick Street, Soho, London W.1

 

 Wed 18th November  7- 9.15pm 

 

Cast:

all Salt lineup

Elizabeth Baines

reading from her new novel: Too Many Magpies

Jane Holland

Vincent De Souza

Jay Merill

and guests:

Horizon Magazine introduced by:

editor, Jane Holland, plus readers George Ttoouli and Sophie Mayer

 

also

Floor spots: Jan Woolf, Alan Franks,

Marc Compton, et al

 

Hosted by Jay Merill  & Vincent de Souza

 

(Nearest Tube: Oxford Circus, Tottenham Court Rd.,

All Oxford Street buses - to Berwick St stop)

This looks amazing

Birmingham Poetry Reading: Tuesday, 20th October

'Surreal in the City'

Part of Birmingham Book Festival with Salt Publishing and Nine Arches Press poets.

Tuesday 20th October 2009 at 6.45pm, Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham.

Readings from Tom Chivers, Luke Kennard, Simon Turner and Matt Nunn.

Through their distinctive and bold poetry, these four poets re-imagine and re-interpret the digital age and the urban spaces in which we live. Their frequently surreal and wry poetry challenges language and poetic form to produce work that responds to the peculiarities of contemporary life and the ever-shifting landscapes it inhabits.

Tom Chivers’ first collection, How To Build A City, won the Crashaw Prize. He has also published a pamphlet, The Terrors , and is Associate Editor of literary journal Tears in the Fence.

Matt Nunn is a freelance writer and workshop leader. He is the co-editor of Under The Radar and Nine Arches Press and has just launched his third collection, Sounds in the Grass

Simon Turner’s collections include You Are Here, and Difficult Second Album, due out in 2010. His work has appeared in Tears in the Fence, The Wolf, and The London Magazine.

Luke Kennard is an award-winning poet, critic and dramatist. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 2005. His latest collection, The Migraine Hotel was published in 2009.

Unbelieveable, but true: tickets for this excellent event are FREE! But please reserve them in advance with the box office - just call 0121 303 2323

A Blending of Species

Another interesting link for you. (I do have thoughts of my own; I'm just not sharing them at the moment, as most are still at formation/thrashing-out stage.)

This link is to a blog entry from 2008 on David Morley's Warwick University blog - to which I may have linked before but no matter; this entry would repay a second or third visit - where David is describing the events at the Great Troubador Poetry Debate.

The key thing, however, is the less formal debate that follows in the Comments section, which makes for informative and often curious reading, and follows the train of thought expressed below:

David Morley wrote:

Outside is now becoming the new inside. One example: the gently whale-like appetite of Salt Publications – whose work and enterprise I think is totally welcome and good fun – has torn the nets between what we used to call the avant-grade, what we used to call the middle of the road, and what we used to call the mainstream. I think this blending of species is probably a good thing. Now we are different types of krill mixing about in the same space. Now we are all inside the whale, as Orwell would have it. Now we are all calling from the inside hoping to be heard on the outside. A new slightly enlarged small world, a convergence of alternative universes, but at least we have all become more visible and audible to each other.

Then read the Comments which follow. I have ideas of my own about this 'blending' of two different types of poetry - more on that anon.

Quote of the Week

Many thanks to Lawrence Upton, AHRC Creative Writing Fellow in the Department of Music at Goldsmiths, University of London, for the following marvellous encomium, discovered today at Poetryetc, an email list frequented largely by avant-gardists.

Mr Upton describes a critical comment I made about the experimental poet Keston Sutherland's work as demonstrating 'egotism of a high and dangerous order'.

Astonishing how just a few lines of mine quoted at random on an email list can reveal quite so much of my character.

Trying that link again: but it may be encrypted against non-list subscribers. If it won't work, you may have to google Poetry etc and possibly even join the list in order to read the archives.

Cambridge Literary Review

There was a somewhat supercilious review of the first issue of a new magazine recently, which annoyed me - it used to be considered out of order to trash first issues - and made me want to support the project.

You can find out more about the Cambridge Literary Review here.

I shall be subscribing to the magazine myself; if the second issue justifies the critic's comments, I shall not lose any sleep over criticising it myself. But everyone should be entitled to launch a new review without fear of missiles whizzing over their heads.

Billy Collins, review at Tower Poetry

Just flagging up my review of former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins' latest collection on Tower Poetry.