Sarah James

Dear Blog, it has been a while but…

I’ve been juggling my MA, performance plans for Ledbury Poetry Festival, page poetry for my second collection and organising ‘Live Lit’ for a festival Literary Day.

More of all of these either later in this post or in the weeks to come. But first, I am delighted to have a poem, ‘I bite down on the memory’, in the latest issue of The Rialto, hurrah! I also heard this week that I’ve a poem in the next issue of Abridged (0 – 32: Lockjaw) – a visually stunning magazine, with some wonderful poetry inside. It also has an online version.

This year’s Ledbury Poetry Festival programme is now out – and I’m delighted to say that the Vaginellas have teamed up with the Decadent Divas for a night of fun, feminism, sauce and seriousness on July 11.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, I had my first meeting as part of the Writing West Midlands Room 204 writer development programme, which I’m delighted to get a place on. I am now brimming with ideas for future poetry projects!
North West Poets now has a website, where copies of the anthology Sculpted: Poems of the North West can be bought. I’m delighted to have three poems in this book, which has already received some great reviews and press coverage.
The Mortal Man, an anthology to raise funds for The National Autistic Society is also now available to order online. I’ve contributed two poems to this.

Almost last, but very much not least, my poems and spectogram-art are some wheel-turns closer to appearing on Worcestershire buses. Besides being paid for my commission (always a good sign and great feeling), the designs have apparently now been printed…so watch this space, and those buses!

And, saving the most exciting to last, my second collection. I always get nervous talking about these things before the actual book is in my hand. But since it was accepted for publication earlier this year, the potential art for the cover is back – and looking very good!!! And now we’re talking layout and publicity, it finally feels like it’s becoming real…but I’ll stop there for today, for fear of jinxing it!

It’s short but sweet on the blog front today after a cracking day at Cheltenham Poetry Festival yesterday.

I had an amazing time. It was fantastic to hear Maria Taylor and Jonathan Taylor read from their collections Melancrini (Nine Arches Press) and Musicolepsy (Shoesstring Press). The former has been on to my ‘to buy’ list for a while, and the latter I have been enjoying reading this past week, so it was great to hear the poems read aloud.

The Nine Arches Press poetry rodeo with Maria Taylor, Matt Merritt, Daniel Sluman and Angela France was excellent too – a great poem-&-response format and some wonderful poems.

And I was really buzzing after my reading with Bernard O’ Donoghue! Such a lovely man and I was delighted that ‘Vanishing-Points’ (from Outliving) was one of the poems he read, as well as the very moving Ter Conatus (from Here Nor There) – both in Selected Poems (Faber, 2008). And also the light-humoured yet profound ‘History’ from Farmers Cross (Faber, 2011). Then the serendipity of arriving home to PN Review on the doorstop with strong, moving poems by Sarah Broom, whom Bernard had just paid tribute to with a new poem.

Now I am looking forward to a day of relaxing – and reading PN Review and Melanchrini.

Phew! It’s been another busy couple of weeks – packed with poetry publications, acceptances and the countdown to my reading at Cheltenham Poetry Festival.

I’ve already blogged about how delighted I am to be reading alongside major Faber poet Bernard O’Donoghue at this year’s festival and now it’s so close I can taste the poems!

The reading on Saturday (April 27) is from 3.30pm to 4.30pm at Copa, 66 Regent St, Cheltenham, GL50 1HA and you can book tickets here. There are also lots of other fantastic poets on that day. I’m hoping to catch Jonathan and Maria Taylor’s reading, the Nine Arches Poetry Rodeo and Fiona Sampson and Ross Cogan while I’m there.

Unfortunately, the same day is also the Liverpool launch of Sculpted:Poetry of the North West, in which I’m delighted to have three poems. This week also saw a wonderful review of the anthology on Sabotage. You can check it out here for a flavour of the poetry to be found inside this also lovely-looking book.

Meanwhile, last Wednesday (April 17) saw my poem ‘Tock’ go live on the Fit to Work: Poets against Atos website campaigning about disability reforms. If you click on the title of my poem ‘Tock’ on that website, you will also find a small audio surprise!

This week, I also had a short poemvideo accepted for the first issue of Verse-Kraken: The Magazine of Hybrid Art. The magazine also has a blog featuring some stunning photos, art, poetry, film…

I’ve been revelling too in Mark Goodwin’s Clause in a Noise pamphlet from Knives, Forks and Spoons, featuring one of my spectogram art photos for the front cover.

My copy of Heart Shoots, an Indigo Dreams Publishing/We are Macmillan Cancer Support poetry anthology also arrived at the start of the week. This cause is important to me because of my mother’s successful battle against breast cancer when I was pregnant with my first son, so I’ve proud to have my poem Listen! included in this.

While I’m mentioning charity anthologies, I have two poems in The Mortal Man, to raise money for the National Autistics Society but more news of that to follow in a slightly less busy week!

At last some full-hearted sunshine this weekend – and a few snippets of good news for me.

I was delighted to learn this week that one of my poems, ‘Snatches of the Moor’ has won second prize in the Bourne Hope Poetry Competition 2012 and also to receive copies of the anthology Sculpted: Poetry of the North West, in which I have three poems.

Last week also saw the launch of the Fit to Work: Poets against Atos site protesting about planned welfare reforms. There are some cracking poems up there already, with my own small piece of protest to feature at some point.

This week I have also been greatly enjoying reading Angela France’s Hide (Nine Arches Press), a beautiful, thought-provoking and crafted third collection. Meanwhile, Michael Symmons Roberts’ stunning sixth collection Drysalter has also had me gripped. I tend to dip in and out of collections but the latter is so mesmerisingly beautiful that it was hard to put down. For me, it combines the spirituality of his award-winning Corpus with a wider range of subject matter and crafting. There are a number of O! poems, which didn’t all sit well with me personally compared to the other wonderful poems here (what I particularly loved about Corpus was how the spirituality seemed to be able to encompass most religious beliefs), but is probably inevitable given the overarching medieval psalters’ framework.

It’s been busy, busy, busy and on the buses, buses, buses…

I heard last week that I’d been successful in my proposal for some poems with spectogram-art to go on First buses in Worcestershire. The opportunity is run by the Worcestershire Arts Partnership,First Capital Connect and CBS Outdoors. It means eight copies of my three poems with artwork should go on display ‘Poems on the Underground’ style on 24 buses next month. To say I’m excited is an understatement!

I am also delighted to have a poem Reading Aloud with Our Son up on the RASP website after their World Book Day poetry competition.

They say you can wait a while and then three things arrive at once. My third poetry snippet is last weekend’s Worcestershire/Derbyshire/Birmingham Poetry Society Stanzas and Lichfield Writer’s Group urban landscapes poetry walk and workshop, lead by Gary Longden in Lichfield. It was a great day – and particularly interesting for me, having lived in Lichfield for three years before moving to Bromsgrove, then Droitwich.

It was an inspiring day and one of the feature’s of the day was to produce some cinquains there and then, which will be put together to form one bigger poetry collage of the city. My offerings are below.

Lichfield: Take Five, In Four

Red wreath
against cream paint.
Leaves flake from dry poppies,
memory circles short-lived silence,
time weights.

Brass-plaqued,
Farquhar’s The Beaux’
Stratagem marks The George,
while cobbled pigeons entertain
street crowds.

Johnson
in mosaic:
this language of colour,
his small details pieced together,
defined.

Below
cathedral spires,
an absence now of light
turns the stained glass window to cold
stone black.

In a week of (f)ailments – broken specs and hobbling along with Policeman’s heel – I’ve also been playing with MAnic laughter and electronic colour.

Coincidentally in time for Mother’s Day, my random doodlings courtesy of my dusted-off electronic graphics tablet.

Of course, procrastination still ‘rools OK!’ as the reason for re-training myself on the tablet was supposed to be for working on a poem for my second collection, not random scribblings. However, this week has been full of working on my manuscript and the final two essays for my creative writing MA, so I reckon I might be justified in five minutes (okay, so maybe 20!) of creative relaxation.

Findings this week, include Sam Riviere’s fascinating essay on internet poetry and David Mac’s She said Hell, a beautifully produced, quick, narrative poetry read from Like This Press.

I have been dipping into Matt Fallaize’s Delete, Recover, Delete from Knives, Forks and Spoons Press and the beautiful but very different style of poetry in Paul Casey’s home more or less from Salmon Poetry. I’ve also been enjoying Caroline Squires’s chapbook An Apple Tree Spouts Philosophy from Wood Ward Publishing, easy to see why the title poem won the Camden-Lumen poetry competition.

Meanwhile, I am still waiting to find out if my Venture Award longlisted pamphlet has made the shortlist…my nails are getting shorter by the day!

Time. And time again. R/Sunning backwards, tripping forwards.

Yes, one minute it was the start of February and a few early snowdrops. Suddenly, we’ve red-rosed the middle of the month and are heading towards daffodils, with a few lonely clouds along the way.

So, the last few weeks, I’ve been working on a couple of pamphlets, my MA portfolio (and essays!) and my next collection. I’ve also been doing a lot of reading. A few highlights of which include:

Dear World & Everyone In It – New Poetry in the UK, edited by Nathan Hamilton (Bloodaxe): I’ve been dipping in and out of this anthology, which has to have one of the most interesting introductions I’ve read in a long while. I’ve not read all the poems/poets, and, of those I have read, not all are to my taste. But some interesting poems by Eireann Lorsung, Steve Willey, Miriam Gamble and Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, amongst those I’ve enjoyed so far.

Couples by Michael Stewart (Valley Press Poetry) – a cleverly written and structured collection of poems, with interesting use of page and form, about, well, couples. Left and right, him and her, chalk and cheese…

The Long Woman by Charlotte Gann (Pighog Press) – a pamphlet collection of concise, beautifully crafted, mysterious poems.

Thought Disorder by Joshua Jones (KFS) – a debut full collection I’ve been dipping in and out of. Interesting use of space on the page, some quirky observations, an engaging style, delightful strangeness alongside moments of insight and clarity.

Rain Dancers in the Data Cloud by William Stephenson (Templar Poetry) – this Iota shot winning short pamphlet is quirky, refreshingly different and wide-ranging in its cultural references. Data made interesting in a way I would never have expected or anticipated in poetic form. And it’s nicely handbag/pocket-sized too!

Like Something Flying Backwards by C.D. Wright (Bloodaxe) – I’m continuing to enjoy/find myself fascinated by Wright’s variety, strangeness and vividness. Another of her poems I’ve been enjoying online is Floating Trees.

Mortality Rate by Andrew Elliott (CB Editions) – this collection is different to the rest above in both its length and its quiet subtlety. There’s something peacefully beautiful about dipping in and out of reading these poems, with their gentle observations and insights, which perhaps cut even deeper because of this light touch.

More surprise, out-of-the-blue good news this week, which I have been bursting to share: I have been invited to take part in this year’s Coventry-Cork O’Bheal poets exchange. What could I say, but Yes, please!

The scheme, originally set up by the sadly no more Heaventree Press, involves a four-day trip to Cork, with paid reading, at the end of July. To say I’m excited would be an understatement: I can’t wait!

This also fits in brilliantly with an emerging Irish theme to my year – at my Cheltenham Poetry Festival reading on Saturday, April 27, I will be reading alongside Cork-born Bernard O’Donoghue. The event is at Copa (66 Regent St Cheltenham GL50 1HA) from 3.30pm to 4.30pm and you can book tickets here

And on an entirely different note, spring on it’s way in England. Here are a few pictures from the snowdrop drifts at Painswick, Glos, this weekend. Enjoy!

“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.” G C Chesteron.

This quote sprung to mind today because I’ve been quieter than usual on my blog, Facebook and twitter.(And not just about stilton!)

Only thirteen days in to the new year and it has been a busy one, working on my second collection and the last bits and pieces for my creative writing MA.

It’s also already been a year of exciting new projects. (Watch this space!) And of good news.

I had a phone call on New Year’s Day about a festival reading in April, which I’m very excited about, a poem accepted for The Rialto and a poetry pamphlet longlisted in the Venture Award. (Please keep everything crossed!)

Another great thing about the new year so far has been meeting new poets on my MA and work on two new potential poetry pamphlets.

Meanwhile yesterday was the first snow of the year for me!

Hope everyone else’s new year is shaping up well too.

Day two of the new year and day two of this year’s mindful writing challenge to produce a beautiful small stone of written observation.

Last night’s rosé:
undrunk tones
crystalling a glass.

***

An empty bottle,
the night’s liquid remnants:
diluted fish blood
pink-skinning the day’s light.