A non-literary post about notebooks and writing

On hearing that the new copy of The Rialto would be hitting my doormat any day I now, I decided that maybe it was time I finished reading the last copy. I tend to dip in and out of journals and sometimes they end up sitting in a pile somewhere for a while before I read them properly. In his editorial introduction to Rialto 71 Michael Mackmin describes how he has piles of notebooks dotted around his house. Me too I was shouting (in my head of course!). 
I am a compulsive buyer and hoarder of notebooks - I have little heaps waiting to be used. I am fickle with them too - I don't just use one notebook at a time. I have one A4 on the go, which is where I try and write my morning pages and then I have two or three smaller ones of differing sizes that I take out with me. I go for nice covers these days (I'm sure notebooks were plainer when I was younger) - but I don't like them too pretty or girly or with things stuck on.  My current favourites have some kind of groovy retro owl print on their covers.  If there was ever some kind of disaster I would have enough notebooks to keep me going for ages; and there is no way they would get used as toilet paper either: take the novels first!  It strikes me as odd that they never have a character obsessively writing in a notebook in post-apocalyptic dramas like Survivors. I would be scribbling away in the corner every chance I got.  
I have always written - I wrote as a child, I obsessively wrote (bad) poetry through my teens, in my twenties I wrote a collection of short stories and more (bad) poetry. I have written on hillsides in Devon, in pubs and cafes, in other people's houses, in cars and on trains, in communes, in bed, in Scotland, Cornwall, Wales, Italy, France and Greece.  For me it hasn't been about the audience - although now I finally am getting one that's nice too - I would write whether I had one or not, hence all the notebooks, I am a writer through and through.http://www.therialto.co.uk/pages/

In the Dust

I have been playing around more with the idea of juxtaposing text onto surfaces where you wouldn't expect to see it. I especially liked this pne as the text looked like it had been there for a long time. If you want to read more about artistic process visit my artists blog at:http://visual-poetics.blogspot.com/

Lorca and The Clash

Is it a coincidence I wonder that one of my favourite poets of all time Federico Garcia Lorca is mentioned in a song by the Clash? Or was I subliminally programmed to like him after spending years as a teenager listening to the album London Calling. Lorca is mentioned in the song Spanish Bombs.

Spanish Bombs

Spanish songs in Andalucia

The shooting sites in the days of '39

Oh, please, leave the vendanna open

Frederico Lorca is dead and gone

Bullet holes in the cemetery walls

The black cars of the Guardia Civil

Spanish bombs on the Costa Rica

I'm flying in a DC 10 tonight

[Chorus]

Spanish bombs, yo te quiero infinito

yo te quiero oh mi corazón

Spanish bombs, yo te quiero infinito

yo te quiero oh mi corazón

Spanish weeks in my disco casino

The freedom fighters died upon the hill

They sang the red flag

They wore the black one

But after they died it was Mockingbird Hill

Back home the buses went up in flashes

The Irish tomb was drenched in blood

Spanish bombs shatter the hotels

My senorita's rose was nipped in the bud

[Chorus]

The hillsides ring with "Free the people"

Or can I hear the echo from the days of '39?

With trenches full of poets

The ragged army, fixin' bayonets to fight the other line

Spanish bombs rock the province

I'm hearing music from another timeS

panish bombs on the Costa Brava

I'm flying in on a DC 10 tonight

[Chorus]

Spanish songs in Andalucia,

Mandolina, oh mi corazon

Spanish songs in Granada, oh mi corazon

Lyrics versus Poetry

After reading "The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison" I found myself wondering about the differences between lyrics and poetry. Lyrics are more akin to classical or lyric poetry than to modern poetry in that they usually rhyme and have a clear structure of verses of equal legnth. They also tend to have less pretensions of goodness or worthiness than poetry (unless you're Bob Dylan or Billy Bragg of course). The words can be meaningless or about the most mundane things and it doesn't matter, no one really minds - what matters is how the lyrics scan, the pentameter, the rhyme and how they fit with the music. Just listen to the lyrics of Spandau Ballet, Black Sabbath or "My Sharona" by The Knack for examples of songs that work well but contain pretty meaningless lyrics.

It must be because of the way that the lyrics fit with music that we find songs easy to remember. I am a big poetry fan but know very few poems all the way through. However I can think of loads of songs that I know all the lyrics to and some of them I haven't heard for years. I might find it hard to remember people's names, important apoointments or my shopping list but I can sing you the whole of "Spirit of Radio" by Rush without a moments hesitation! And they're not easy lyrics, if I tried to memorise them like a poem I think I would struggle.


"THE SPIRIT OF RADIO"
Words by Neil Peart, Music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson
Inspired by 'The Spirit of Radio' in Toronto,

Begin the day
With a friendly voice
A companion, unobtrusive
Plays that song that's so elusive
And the magic music makes your morning mood

Off on your way
Hit the open road
There is magic at your fingers
For the Spirit ever lingers
Undemanding contact
In your happy solitude

Invisible airwaves Crackle with life
Bright antennae bristle With the energy
Emotional feedback On a timeless wavelength
Bearing a gift beyond price --- Almost free...

All this machinery
Making modern music
Can still be open-hearted
Not so coldly charted
It's really just a question
Of your honesty

One likes to believe
In the freedom of music
But glittering prizes
And endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity

"For the words of the profits
Are written on the studio wall,
Concert hall --- Echoes with the sounds... Of salesmen."


Todays reading:
Jim Morrison - Wilderness, The Lost Writings
Frank O'Hara - Selected Poems
Simon Critchley - Things Merely Are

Album of the day: Station to Station - David Bowie

Lost in Translation

I am wondering as I am reading translations of poetry by Jacques Prévert and Georg Trakl how much of the original essence of a poem is lost in translation. In a sense the translator is writing the poetry him/herself just using a set of words gleened fronm the original work. For example when a friend who could read German translated one of Georg Trakl’s poems aloud he translated it word by word and it was very different to the translation in the book. In fact in these translations words have been changed for poetic effect. It makes me wonder if as a reader I would want a direct translation from the German or am I happy to read the artistic interpretation of the author’s work by another poet (in this case Robin Skelton). If I read ten different translations of the same poem done by different translators how different would they be from one another? Would I find myself reading ten completely different poems or would the essence of each poem be essentially the same? For me as a reader I think I might like to see a direct word for word translation as well, just to satisfy my artistic curiosity.

I am thinking about enjambment, where one line of poetry runs on into the next line - or is carried over into the next verse. It is not a technique that I use that often. I try on the whole, to make my lines complete, part of a longer sentence maybe but generally I like the lines to have a definite sensible ending place. It feels slightly dangerous to let the lines roam willy nilly over the page. But I am thinking maybe I need to loosen up a bit, maybe I am becoming too constrained. Maybe I should let my words roam free as wild animals on the tundra across the page. What am I scared of?

Through Life

Through Life

(words by pupski picture by Jeff Soto)

I drove myself to love
through regimented parks where picnickers
spread their checked rugs
and old men pass the time of day,
nodding like dogs in the afternoon sun,
where babies romp on hard-baked grass
and bald boys bounce their balls in the dust.

I drove myself insane,
running amok amidst shopping malls
lined with cash machines
whose angry mouths spit at the world,
where doughy men suck
burgers, kebabs and hot pastries
their greased skin glistening under neon lights.

I drove myself down lifts, escalators,
through petrol-scented car-parks,
running amongst Renaults, Fiats, Rovers,
slipping and sliding on oil-slicked floors,
parking-ticketed and surveillance-filmed,
gulping greedily
at the exhaust-fumed air.

I drove myself to work
in leaden offices where suits and skirts
vie for a place at the water cooler,
where bored secretaries dab at limp keyboards
with chipolata fingers ringed with gold
and nicotine-stained men
suck cigarettes behind rusting bike-sheds.

I drove myself to drink,
in gardened pubs where black-boarded dinners
are chalked in green and red
and umbrella-ed girls lounge
on splintered benches
one eye on the water feature
and the other on the time.

I drove myself to death,
through the myriad streets of my life,
down terraced roads where bedraggled girls play,
their skipping-ropes snagging my tights as I pass,
where ragged washing hangs,
dull and lifeless between the houses,
strung like headless corpses from the telephone wires.

Poetry Disco

I have just had a poetry tutorial and have just found out (thank god) that my poetry writing has improved this term. What a relief I was beginning to have serious doubts about both my sanity and my writing ability. Although having said that I haven't had my fiction tutorial yet...

On a completely different note I am beginning to wish that I had organised a party for my birthday, which is tomorrow. I could do with a good dance to get the angst of this term out of my system. Hmmm they keep talking about a get together at college maybe we should have a disco...

Deadlines of Destruction

Working to deadlines can be something of a double edged sword for me. On the one hand it gives me a push so that I get off my metaphorical butt and produce some work. But on the other hand it stresses me out and when the creative juices aren't flowing or co-operating I start to panic. That is where I am at at the moment. We have been writing in genres and I am finding it difficult. I have initial ideas and have written a couple of stories that I was happyish with but I know that they need work and I am not sufficiently engaging with the genres to make me want to rewrite them. I quite liked the crime genre but feel hopelessly inadequate in my knowledge of police and prceedure - I don't think watching "Life on Mars" really qualifies me as a crime writer.

Poetry, in which I am a fairly prolific writer is also slow to get going. Quantity does not equate quality - and I came away from Friday's crit feeling deflated and inadequate, feeling like I don't know how to really critically analyse my work.

Mothers in Poetry

It seems that my poetry theme for this term has picked me so to speak - it is mother. Not neccessarily my own mother although of course some of the work will inevitably include aspects of her. But about mothers in a general sense, what it means to be a mother, our relationship with our mothers and mothers in general.

here is a light hearted one:

The Hour of the Boys


This is the hour of the boys,
they face the world,
bags crouching hump like
on teenage backs,
heavy with the fears and wishes
of itinerate mothers,

mothers who spin socks from love,
and games bags, gloves,
who sandwich worry
between wholesome slices of neglect,
and write poetry secretly
in dark corners.

Pretty much every poet has written a mother poem from Edgar Allen Poe to Sylvia Plaith, one of my favourite is by Charlotte Ballard:

8.14 I Never Had a Mother

never had a mother
Who read “Hello Moon”
Fifty-seven times before
Tossing it behind the refrigerator

I never had a mother
Who brushed my hair
Before each day’s battle
Against primary foes.

I never had a mother
Who hugged me before
I slept and dreamed of
Gold that only I could acquire.

I did have a mother
Who cooked up soup
To last the three days
Before payday came.

I did have a mother
That roared like a lion
And took me to see
The doctor more times
Than she ought.

I did have a mother-
A piece, a part
As much as she could
Borrow against a Promise made –
That her children
Would never be
Raised by a stranger.
I barely knew her.

Charlotte Ballard

Sylvia Plath

I never thought I would ever say this but I went and bought another book of Sylvia Plath's poetry today. I have found myself more drawn to her poems of late.

I studied Ariel some years ago when I was in my mid twenties and I just didn't get it - I found her self obsessed and utterly inaccessable. Now however 14 years down the line, with a teenage son and several months of counselling behind me I am more able to see where she was coming from. I wouldn't say that I like all her work exactly but i do understand it better now and she has a great way of using language -like abstract painting with words.

Freshness of Vision

So I wrote a ghost story and I was pretty pleased with it. The ideas were good but it needed a bit of editing. Then I went into my fiction class. I didn't read it out but it soom became clear to me that my small editing job is going to turn into a major rewrite.

Basically I have fallen into lots of pitfalls that should be avoided in writing. I had an opening descriptive paragraph setting the scene, explaining who the characters were and what was going on. Well that needs to go. Then I had descriptions of how people are feeling and these are cliched - things like "she suddenly felt scared", evidently it is better to use action to show she is scared rather than simply say that she is scared. This helps the reader to engage more with the character.

I understand these things they make sense and I feel like I am really learning something but I did come out of that class feeling a bit demoralised. It was exactly the reason I had put off enrolling on the course for so long (that and money of course) - writing has always been the thing that I am good at and I thought "what if I get to art school and discover that really I'm no good, where will that leave me?" One of my problems is that I have years of bad habits behind me and I have to learn to break them.

I am finding this problem with my poetry as well, I have got into particular habits and that can mean that my writing can sometimes lack depth and sound a bit cliched. I need to let myself go a bit, break out of my self imposed bounaries - when did I ever get so uptight?

This week I have been looking at some short stories that I wrote in my early 20s. They are not good technically and I can see why only two of them ever got published. But what they do have is a freshness of vision and a confidence that my writing sometimes lacks now. I was not afraid then to use language in a fresh and sometimes unconventional way. I wrote on plain paper without lines and I allowed myself to freefall - the words flowing out in a stream of conciousness style. What I should have done was to take those ideas and work on them, editing them until they were accessable to the reader.

I feel like I need to reclaim that free voice, rediscover that fresh way of looking at the world - if it's not too late. To break out of the self imposed confines I have imposed on my own writing and then maybe I might something worth while.

What is Poetry?

Again I find myself questioning what is poetry? I wrote down some memories that I thought that I might use in my visual practice work and the tutor described them as poems. I suppose that they are poems but I hadn't been sure that they were until then. They are more like snapshots, small glimpses of a child's life.

The gaps between the stairs gape,
cavernous mouths,
like traps,
she is scared of them,
they have thrown her down before
from top to bottom,
clutching a life size baby doll,
whose head rolled off grotesquely,
causing her to scream at its hollow interior.


Helping at the brownie jumble sale aged 9, gave her a feeling of power.
She made some purchases:
2 books – Princess Anne (a novel)
Gulliver’s Travels
a dress that her mum hated but she loved in brown and orange stripes
in the tombola she won: a spray can of Brut 45
an LP – Tjuna Sounds of the living Brass
some bath cubes
her parents tried to look grateful but failed.


A daddy long legs batters its spindly body
against the window in the hallway,
under the glare of a naked light bulb
a girl uses her finger
to sign her name on the misty glass.


Poetry - a literary expression in which words are used in a concentrated blend of sound and imagery to create an emotional response