Poetry is better than fruit (and that means alot coming from me)

I'm not a big poetry writer myself, I tend write a poem once a year and am happy with half of them, but I love reading poetry. The wonderful thing about poetry is that it's so transferable you can listen/watch/read poetry and still take something away from it. I love the way that poetry can fit into your every day life and yet, there is poetry for every occasion.

Whether you want a poem to fit every day; such as Max Wallis who manages to write something every day even if it is about ice cream (though I believe this is changing to a website about his novel now), or you want to listen to the poet reading their work, such as on the innovative Poetry Station, there's always something out there for you. Another good website to dip in and out of is The Pygmy Giant, though I prefer to join their mailing list and then I get poetry/short fiction straight to my inbox everyday ;)

One of my favourite things is when poets animate their work with a video. I believe it makes the poem more powerful as it puts another layer of meaning behind the words. It also means that the poet regains control of the poem as there is less chance for alternative interpretation. As well as, of course, making it accessible to those who don't necessarily enjoy reading poetry. Such as the below video of Manchester poet Dominic Berry:


"Manchester" by Dominic Berry from Siobhan McGuirk on Vimeo.
I try to read one poem a day as it helps me break out of a mindless routine and reminds me there are bigger things in life to worry about. One of my favourite ever poems is The Woman Who Could Not Live with Her Fault Heart by Margaret Atwood, which I have put at the end of this blog,though granted it does have a melancholic theme so it's not really for every day.

I recently bought a copy of Popshot, the poetry and illustration magazine, from their broken biscuits promotion which I am still delving into. I bought issue two which is themed around 'Them and Us' and I love the mix of illustation with poetry and the challenging which it presents. Sometimes the image will compliment what you pictured when reading the poem or even add more to your internal image, and other times it will conflict with what you thought the poem was about. Though one of the main elements that I love about poetry is that it is subjective and is easily interpreted to help you through a personal situation. I wonder how this freedom of interpretation affects the poets creating the work? I know in my own writing I like to leave an element to the readers imagination as stories are more powerful when you can directly relate to them.


Something else which I feel is a necessity for poetry, is watching live local poetry; whether it is first timers at an open mic night or an up and coming artist embracing their local culture. One of my favourite local poets who I've seen perform at the lively Freed Up Poets and also at Manchester's Poetry Pillow, is Jackie Hagan. She's one of those rare poets that can make a poem work on the page as well as bringing it off the page when performed. You can read some of her poetry on her facebook page.

One last thing I would like to ask is: can a poet be as strong in fiction as they are in poetry, or vice versa? The majority of the time I would like to say no, that a novelist will never be as strong in poetry or a poet as strong in fiction; they have learnt to hone their skills on their particular format. However, of course there are exceptions to this rule, such my previously mentioned favourite poem below. Here's my poem of the day, I hope you enjoy.

The Woman Who Could Not Live with Her Faulty Heart
By Margaret Atwood

I do not mean the symbol
of love, a candy shape
to decorate cakes with,
the heart that is supposed
to belong or break;

I mean this lump of muscle
that contracts like a flayed biceps,
purple-blue, with its skin of suet,
its skin of gristle, this isolate,
that caved hermit, unshelled
turtle, this one lungful of blood,
no happy plateful.

All hearts float in their own
deep oceans of no light,
wetblack and glimmering,
their four mouths gulping like fish.
Hearts are said to pound:
this is to be expected, the heart's
regular struggle against being drowned.

But most hearts say, I want I want,
I want, I want. My heart
is more duplicitous,
though no twin as I once thought.
It says, I want, I don't want, I
want, and then a pause.
It forces me to listen,
and at night it is the infra-red
third eye that remains open
while the other two are sleeping
but refuses to say what it has seen.

It is a constant pestering
in my ears, a caught moth, limping drum,
a child's first beating
itself against the bedsprings:
I want, I don't want.
How can one live with such a heart?

Long ago I gave up singing
to it, it will never be satisfied or lulled.
One night I will say to it:
Heart, be still,
and it will.

Literature of the day

I love the idea of making literature more accessible; whether that's by creating shorter pieces that fit neatly into busy lives, or mixing images with words to bring a story off the page. Electric Literature, I believe, does both these things.

Today, my favourite piece is below.





I hope you like it.

Literature Pub Quiz, oragami for kids and poetry: My perfect Sunday.

In preperation for The Literature Pub Quiz which is the next Bad Language event on the 2nd September I have been attempting to make pretty things. However, pretty things aren't as easy to make as they look. Thinking I was a genius I decided to make oragami books to compliment the literature theme. But my skeptical brother tried to prove me wrong by stating that oragami books would be no different to normal books. Well brother, the internet proved you wrong.


I attempted the below under the false hope that having never done oragami before, I would be a pro. After four attempts and weird triangle pages, I decided I needed to start with something simpler.


Origami book from Eddie Dakore on Vimeo.

Then someone finally understood me and decided to get the internet to show me the below: oragami for kids.

How to Fold an Origami Booklet

So if you're as unskilled as me, the above is a good alternative to attempt to make pretty things without hurting your brain too much.



I decided to make two things for the quiz. First, a set of small chap books for a poem of mine called Graceful. It's something I've been thinking of doing for a while and not got round to creating a design for. The chap books are hand written and tied up with gold embossed paper and string, which I thought went with the delicate theme of the poem. I will be attempting to sell these at the pub quiz for £2.50 each.

I also made the minature oragami books for decoration, mainly to prove my brother wrong. They will sit among cup cakes on the tabels to hopefully make the venue look pretty and entice people in. I made the books out of hand made paper which was a present from my lovely friend Nell Ellwood. Nelly makes hand made paper and also beautiful hand crafted paper jewellery. Nelly lives in Derby. Nelly is lovely.

Now that you know my friend Nelly, that's about the extent of my pretty things. I also had a go at painting but as my boyfriend pointed out; 'It looked like the void'.


The poem included in the chap book is below. It would be nice to hear what you think. The quiz is this thursday at The Waldorf next to Picadilly station, if you're interested click on the link at the top of this blog for more information. I am also very excited about guest speakers David Gaffney and Max Wallis! I hope to see you there.

Graceful

Too weak

To smile

She lifts her head up off the pillow and,

Breathes.

And,

She thinks of a time when

Her bed didn’t wear a cage. And

Her body didn’t need two extra arms to help it sit.

Though her children visit often.

Bringing ruins of corner shop flowers

The smiles that they wear always fade to soon.

And,

The letters that they bring

Always two lines too short

She never could get used to being that age.

Silence consumed every visit

Until,

She was ready to talk

And they were ready to leave

Although their hands would linger too long,

They touched her with the same hands that

Disposed of the

Dead flowers

And she never could forgive.

Their deadened touch

On her

Leathered skin

With their backs turned

With bars on her bed

With unkind hands

She never could get used to being that age.

Sad and Beautiful World

Sad and Beautiful World is the last in the 12 part comic series, Demo, written by Brian Wood. Each issue is a separate self contained short story in which Wood wanted to explore the experience of a group of ‘mutant’ youths, albeit set in a non-super hero setting.

Sad and Beautiful World is my favourite story of the twelve because the idea itself can be seen as an extended metaphor and brings a sort of poetic beauty to it. The story features a young couple who have over the years come to fall out of love, but cannot physically be apart from each other or their bodies will tear apart, literally. I love the fact that you can compare this to a modern destructive relationship that have learnt to hate each other through love but cannot bear to be apart.

The comic features beautiful repetition of the phrase: ‘And we healed’ showing the on going pain the couple face of having conflicting wants and needs. The style of the art work, by Becky Cloonan, is aggressive black and white panels, featuring thick black strokes which almost look like rips. I like how it feels like each panel is tearing out of the page at you, as though the panel itself wants to leave but can’t, the same as the characters.

The narrative style features both points of view, from the girl and from the boy, first person, though their stories don’t contradict each other. It describes the times they have tried to leave each other, gradually revealing the climax of their dilemma, and also the process of trying to live everyday life with each other whilst keeping a happy distance. Somehow one of them even manages to have an afraid despite their proximity issues.

My favourite part about this short story is the face that it can be seen as a large metaphor for life; learning to live with each other, how it can cause so much pain, but how you always heal.

If you haven’t read it already, do.

Writing without ducks

Morning. I've been away for the week and thought that I would have a quick catch up on here. I'm changing jobs, from one boring job to another, but the benefit is I've got a two week gap so I decided to go back to my mum's for a week. She has a long garden with a log cabin hidden at the bottom so I thought this would be the perfect place to try and settle into writing for a bit.


Despite being attacked by earwigs by nights and thunder fly's by day, it was the perfect place to write. The log cabin has a large veranda with big comfy sofas and a little table, so it was the perfect plact to set up my mini lap top and curl up. Also my mum has a new collection of mini ducks whose house is right outside the veranda, so watching little creatures chatter to each other and take baths was quite relaxing.

I've managed to write 40 pages of a 60 page script I am writing and multiple micro fictions which need to be edited. Although it is a bit worrying that the 40 page script has reached it's finishing point so I need to have a good look over and see how I can extend it by twenty minutes.

But now I'm stuck, because I'm back in the real world and there's so many more distractions. Out there it was hot, quiet, and distractionless ( other then the little ducks of course). But here, back in the real world, back in my flat, I struggle to concentrate. I always feel like there's something else to do. Worst of all, I put pressure on myself to find a better job, to get something I really want quick before I get stuck in something I don't. I also think more about other people reading my pieces and what they think, before I've even finished a piece. Those thoughts are distracting from writing.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, writing is hard. You have to make time for it in your every day life and keep making time for it. Or it'll end up being a hobby you do when you're on holiday. I think what I need to do is have a move around of my flat and see if I can create a writing cubby, because at the moment it's nothing like curling up in front of ducks!

Artist interview: John Routledge - Images vs Words

                  John Routledge is an emerging artist, sculptor and photographer from Essex. He currently resides in The New Forest where he is completing a graduate internship with Artsway. He is the first to brave my interview to see how art uses storytelling and how storytelling is affected by images.

John's main work is based in sculpture. Since graduating from Coventry University with a degree Fine Art in 2008 John has taken part in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and had many exhibitions country wide for his sculpture and photography work. His most recent exhibitions includes: 'Encounters at Wheatley' at Wheatley Manor in Oxfordshire, and 'Making of Encounters' held at the John Radcliff Hospital in Oxford.

John's ambitions as an artists are quite modestly 'to be recognised as an artist.' His aim is to get his own studio and eventually work on larger public commissions. 

So, over to you John.

How would you describe your artwork?

There are many facets to my artistic practice, comprising of sculpture, installation, photography and drawing.
I am particularly interested in night photography, and will walk around the streets at night taking photos. On a personal level, I enjoy the solitude, but also the contradiction of a place being designed for the use and inhabiting of so many being so empty, it also allows me to concentrate on more formal elements to my photography - contrast, composition, etc – without interference. In a way I see this as a documentation of modern life, representing the new environments we have created for ourselves.

My sculptural practice is based around light, and I see my installation work really as an extension of this practice. I not only utilise light in my work, through the use of fluorescent tubes, but I also manipulate it through the use of highly reflective surfaces and mirrors. I don’t know why but I am a bit of a moth really, I am drawn to light, and I think there is an essential beauty and purity in there some where. I’m really interested in contradictions and hypocrisy, in an abstract sort of way, and really enjoy light as an example of this: it is an absolute, it is on or it is off; there is darkness or there is light. And yet in reality, there is never true darkness, even in the depths of space there is some form of light, however weak, otherwise we wouldn’t know anything is there. Without light we wouldn’t experience the world as we do, we would not be able to see, period. We couldn’t enjoy the beauty of a sunrise, or our partners, or the multitude of other amazing things we experience via vision.

In what capacity do you feel that art in general has the potential to tell a story?

I think art has great narrative potential, and one of the beauties of the freedom of modern art is that so many people are expressing so many things in such an astounding number of ways.

How does your work relate to this?

Whether we like it or not people will always try to read a story into your work, and subconsciously I think art always expresses something of the person who made it. In my sculpture and installation work I think this is ‘the story’ of what I have made, the story of me. I don’t really do this on purpose, but I think subconsciously it happens anyway.

As for my photographs, there are no real strict narratives, but I suppose you could see the images as a meta-narrative of contemporary life. In some ways I like to think I am telling the story of the city, without people it takes on a life of its own, it has its own character and personality completely separate from nature and us. But again I don’t really set out with a story in mind, I just kind of notice things afterwards which lend themselves to some vague form of story. Perhaps I have subconsciously done this as I’ve been going along, or perhaps it is just my natural desire to try and make everything make sense, have some form of order and logic, that means I try and imprint and force something upon it afterwards.

Do you have a specific piece which has a strong story telling element?

I suppose the one I’d most like people to make a story about is ‘The Mirror Room.’ It was one of my final degree projects and was a 6ft wide, 18ft long, 7ft high space with mirrors on all 4 internal walls. I customised fluorescent fittings to create a specific atmosphere and this was enhanced by a constantly evolving sound scape composed specifically for the space by composer David Loveless. It was a very contemplative environment, but also very visually complex, as the mirrors reflected themselves into infinity. The space ended up being almost another world, and I would like to think people imagined themselves in other worlds, dimensions, places.

In your opinion, can a piece of art tell a full rounded story or is it only once words have been added that it is complete?

I think it is possible to construct one without the other, you can create imagery with words, and you can create words with images, but I think really the two are more effective when combined, rather than used in isolation.

Do you think that images can be any more manipulative then words in terms of making the viewer feels something?

I think images evoke a much more immediate emotive response. For example seeing a photo of a dead body is far more potent and would illicit a far greater response, than a piece of text describing one. But I also think that used properly, words can go beyond images, and while they may lack immediate punch, I think they can create something far more affecting in the long run.

 

Which do you feel is a stronger storytelling tool between images and words?

I think images are the easier tool to use, as for stronger I’m not so sure. Recently I’ve attended a few literary events, including Bad Language events, which have really made me reconsider my view on this. There is a vibrancy and immediacy you experience with spoken word, that you just don't get reading a book, and I think this proves that when used properly, by a great writer, words have far more effect. But it seems to me that a far less proficient artist or photographer can achieve something similar. While qualitatively I think words have the edge, in the lazy, accelerated society we live in, pictures get the message across quicker with less effort.


Thank you John! You can view The Mirror Room video below and view more of John's sculpture work at: www.jwr-scrulpture.deviantart.com. 

You can view more of John's photography work at: www.johnny-r.deviantart.com.

Dreamscape - An artists inspiration

Following on from the idea of images VS words I've written a short piece taking inspiration from the artist Antoinette Burchill. The below is the picture I used to spark a story. I wanted to see how such an abstract piece would create a complete idea of a story. However, as the piece is so abstract I feel in return my ideas were abstract. Instead of writing a full rounded piece I have written a short micro fiction which in the end became very personal.

The day I sat down to write this piece I had just discovered that two of my cats had to be put down, both of which I've had since I was a baby. In that respect this piece lends itself to express individual experience and I'm not sure if another writer would get any where near the same story. I can name the particular parts of the image I took inspiration from, which is what lead me to the final idea:

My first thoughts on the image was that is was quite an earthy natural picture. The yellow and red reminded me of a wilted petal. This in my mind related to the earth and ground, fresh in my mind of where we had buried the cats. The way the picture moves from a dusty dark in the top left corner to a softer white in the bottom right brought ideas to mind above recycling and the idea of the continuous pattern of life and death. Again it was probally my own situation that took these conclusions from the colours, but it would be interesting to see if someone else took the same notion of an idea from the image?

Untitled

We burried you together, by the oak tree. The tree was strong enought to hold a chair, a swing chair, and we buried you below where we could brush our toes against your memories. I think of your stillness, deep below the skin of the earth.

Swallowed whole.

You sit like gobstoppers, shrinking; disintergrating; switching from the colour of skin, to organs, to bones. Until the two of you are rotten, and become one.

I site above you, feet pressed to the grass, and imagine your breath is the wind.