One Night Stanzas

An earlier version of this post appeared at One Night Stanzas in August 2008. Please note, Read This Magazine is no longer an active publication.

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About six months ago, I organised a small-scale poetry event to raise funds and awareness for Read This, and was delighted when a famous poet showed up to lend his support. Unfortunately, one of the young poets who’d come along to read ended up a couple of red wines past her bedtime, and accosted said famous poet while he was outside having a sneaky cigarette. She went in for the kill with something along the lines of “tell me how I can be a poet like you!” and – clearly rather startled, the famous poet could only respond with: “well… send your work to magazines. That’s about it.”
In throwing caution to the wind, the emerging poet voiced an anxiety that plagues many young writers. You want to produce poetry, and get that poetry ‘out there’ to be read – but how the heck do you do it? Where do you start?
Technically, the famous poet is right: the best way to begin, the best way to eventually become ‘established,’ is to get your poems printed in magazines. Magazine publishing – coupled with other poem-honing activities like poetry readings, retreats and workshops – can really help you climb the ladder… but I’m sure even the famous poet would admit that getting into magazines is often far from easy!

Be ready.
The very first thing you need to do is address whether you’re actually ready to send your work to magazines or not. It’s a big step up, to go from just writing for yourself to sending your stuff out into the world for editors – and potentially a whole load of readers – to see. It’s essential that you feel confident your work is good enough, so that when you eventually get that inevitable first rejection letter, you’ll be ready for it – and, most importantly, you’ll be able to grit your teeth and carry on with the process! Unfortunately, no one else can really tell you whether or not you and your work are ready to face the general public – it’s something you have to gauge totally on your own. “Being ready” has nothing to do with age, gender, nationality or anything else – at Read This, we’ve received and published fantastic work from 13-year-olds, but had writing from 33-year-olds who were just not quite ready for magazines yet – and vice-versa! Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it because you’re too young, too old, not good enough, etc. And at the same time, don’t let anyone else push you into it before you’re ready. Mainly, it’s about feeling comfortable and confident in your work and yourself, and being prepared for what is sometimes a long and hard road to publication.

Learn about the process.
Knowing what happens to your poems after you release them into the world can really help you to decide whether or not you’re ready for the world of magazines or not. Of course, every magazine is different, but generally the selection process for poems is roughly the same. When your poems land in the magazine’s mailbox, chances are they’ll be surrounded by many, many others. (Even Read This, which has a print-run of only 150 per month, receives submissions by the hundred.) When your poem is read, it will be held up to the magazine’s personal benchmarks - see ‘Do Your Research’! - as well as being considered alongside the many other hopefuls. In some cases, poems will be rejected outright because of factors like length or subject matter, but most of the time, the editors really will sift through all the poems, reading each and every one before deciding what will make it into the issue. As you can imagine, this can take absolutely ages, so expect a delay of anything up to three or four months before they get back to you. (Some magazines don’t respond to the people whose work they’re not using, but you should still wait at least eight weeks before sending the same poems somewhere else.) Also, most magazines can only publish a very small percentage of the poetry they receive (as little as 2% in the case of some larger publications), so if you do receive a rejection letter, you have to be aware that space is a massive deciding factor.

Learn to love rejection (if you can!)
Because of the huge numbers of submissions that most magazines receive, you do have to accept that rejection may well become your new best friend as you delve into the submission process – that’s something that even established poets have to learn to live with! Don’t get me wrong, that “we will not be using your work this time” line really stings, no matter how many times you hear it – and no matter how many times you’ve been accepted in the past, it’s guaranteed to knock the wind out of your sails just a little. However, it’s important to find a way of dealing with it, so you can move on, get back to the grind, keep writing, and hopefully get published! (Need some Rejection Therapy?)

Do your research.
OK, so you’re sure you’re ready to send your work to magazines, you know all about the process and you’re totally ready for rejection to come along and bite you on the ass. Can you start addressing envelopes yet?
Well… not quite. First of all you need to do some research, which might sound boring, but it’ll pay off. Obviously, you need to choose which magazines you want to send your work to – some will be better for you than others (check out my list of featured creative writing magazines). Once you’ve chosen (and here’s the important bit!) read the submission guidelines for every publication very carefully, and - unless you have a really damn good reason not to - follow them to the letter! Nothing gets an editor’s goat more than someone who wants their poems to take up valuable space in a magazine, but who can’t even be bothered to read or follow that magazine’s system for submitting. Each magazine has its own guidelines and they vary greatly – some ban adult content, some refuse science fiction, some only take work in translation, some reject single-spaced poems. Although Read This just says “send us ANYTHING!”, most magazines are very specific about their requirements, and for this reason, you need to check the guidelines every time you submit. It’s time-consuming, but it’s a must!

Send your work wisely.
So, once you have the reading-guidelines-obsessively thing down, you can finally start sending your work out to editorial teams far and wide! The final thing you have to remember is just to send your work wisely – for example, while the occasional zine or two are cool with it, most magazines prefer you not to send work that has been published elsewhere, or that might be under consideration by another magazine (this will probably be somewhere in the submission guidelines, but if it isn’t, it’s best to assume they don’t accept simultaneous submissions). Send all your poems in one email or envelope rather than flooding the poor editor’s mailbox, and if you do email, make sure all attachments are in a standard file-type and will open at the other end. If you’re sending your poems by post and want the poems back, include a SAE with enough stamps on it – do NOT send cash or cheques in the post and expect the magazine staff to buy the postage themselves! Always be sure to include your contact details with your submission, and be courteous and lovely in all your correspondence – karma might well reward you!

Other stuff to read from elsewhere:
A quick cautionary note: there are LOADS of sites all over the internet which claim to help you publish your work. Be viligant! A lot of these are scams or money-making exercises. You should always be able to publish your work without paying anyone, so NEVER part with “reading fees” – if a magazine’s submission process is not free, it’s not worth getting involved with. Also, even the free and legitimate poetry-publishing-advice sites often leave a lot to be desired. For example, the first four my search-engine found were these:

About.com are a massive, corporate and non-poetry-specific site, but their guidelines are actually OK – though they don’t really take email submissions into account, so I suspect they’re a bit outdated. Also, I do NOT agree at all with what they say about cover letters – read their views, then check out this to get a balance.

Empty Mirror Books’ advice seems to be one big ad for a writers’ directory book, which makes me suspicious – they reckon it’s essential, but only part with your cash it if you think you’ll really use it. A lot of the info the book provides is probably available online for free.

There’s nothing wrong with SoYouWanna’s suggestions per se, but again, they’re a massive corporate site and they don’t specialise in poetry or publishing at all. The tone of the article is rather aggressive and they resort to mass generalisations like advising all poets to edit their work down to “the fewest words possible.” Altogether now… ARGH!

The best of the lot is probably Tim Love’s guide to publishing in the UK – its biggest flaw is obviously that it’s UK specific. Also, the advice is coming from a long-standing, plain-speaking poet who has weathered a fair few rejections – just don’t let the cynical tone put you off, young ‘uns!

Basically, if you want advice, click around. Read up. Don’t part with any cash unless you’re totally sure. Don’t be intimidated or put off. Take everything with a hefty pinch of salt. Follow your instincts. Go for it.

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

So firstly, it’s been a pretty horrendous week, in spite of my attempting to remain positive yesterday. Some highlights? Massive (and confidential, otherwise I’d rant) work drama, dentistry, and a huge Facebook fall-out with about 50% of my boyfriend’s closest friends vs me. Self, is there anything else horrible you’d like to start? Let’s hope not. All I can say is — thank goodness for silly stuff on the internets. Seriously — hours of cute kittens and other nice things on Tumblr was pretty much all that kept me from building a big sign and painting “F*CK YOU ALL” on it before retreating to bed with a bucket of ice cream to cry and never return. THANK YOU INTERWEBNETS.

Secondly, I’ve found very few writing-related links this week that I fancied re-posting. If you’re after that stuff, check out these first few and then go put the kettle on, because after a while, randomness sets in. You were warned!

OK, let’s start as we mean to go on. Here’s a photo of Neil Gaiman being random and awesome.

The blank white page. El Diablo Blanco. El Pollo Loco. Whatever you choose to call it, staring into the abyss in search of an idea can be terrifying. But ask yourself this; was Picasso intimidated by the blank canvas? Was Mozart intimidated by the blank sheet music? Was Edison intimidated by the blank lightbulb?

More writing-related hilarity from McSweeney’s.

There aren’t many poetry reviews convince me like this one did.

Do you make books? You should totally enter this contest.

“Ebooks: I hate them. It’s like making believe there’s another kind of sex. There isn’t another kind of sex. There isn’t another kind of book! A book is a book is a book.”

The great, grumpy genius that was Maurice Sendak has gone to the night kitchen in the sky. Sad times! Read his NYT obit here. There’s a great recent interview with him here, too.

This is a mind-blowing infographic. $875m in taxes dodged in the US alone? Yet more reasons to hate NewsCorp.

These amazing line work tattoos… flippin’ incredible.

“If you have social media profiles set up online, you should create a statement of how you would like your online identity to be handled. Just like a traditional will helps your survivors handle your physical belongings, a social media will spells out how you want your online identity to be handled. Like with a traditional will, you’ll need to appoint someone you trust as an online executor. This person will be responsible for closing your email addresses, social media profiles, and blogs after you are deceased.”

Have you ever thought about making an online will?

Camilla sent me this sweet photoset of laid-back capybaras. Thanks for brightening my crap week, C!

I just had a Cinco de Mayo party. I was worried about cultural appropriation. But this stuff hits my quiet Mexican dinner out of the park. [Trigger warning for extreme racism.]

Oh no please, please don’t give me a reason to dislike Tiny Fey…! Oops, too late.

Does this whole concept freak anyone else out, or am I just a technophobe?

Two really interesting — and contentious — and different — articles about activism. One from Furrygirl, who’s right-on as often as she’s wrong, and one from Kate Harris, who’s brave and honest and taking a lot of pretty nasty flak. Go read.

The great Allen Ginsberg once said,

“how can the bunch of hairdressers, ambitious laywers and used car-dealers that call themselves municipal government get off telling women - to whom they haven’t even been introduced - what they can do with their own vaginas?!”

Will Self totally agrees.

How commercial aeroplanes SHOULD be laid out. Thanks Amanda!

Inspirational — the amazing power of yoga! Blub.

I have no idea why this happened but I have to say I quite enjoyed it.

Oh Maurice. Bless you. Sleep well, fine sir.

I *love* Rufus Wainwright’s new song — and HBC is in the (library-themed!) video!

& finally: this! Tomorrow! I’m reading! So is Lovely Boyfriend! Come, one and all!

Have a great weekend!

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

Since last week’s post was a bit of a heavy one, here’s a bit of TiLT lite: a visual TiLT! Click on each picture for more info. Here’s what I’ve loved this week:

Thrift store bargains! (and getting back into doing Wardrobe Remix — chronicling my dedication to cheap, eco-friendly dressing — again, after two years!)

Hula hooping!

Great new finds for Edinburgh Vintage!

Cinco de Mayo!

New and exciting books!

Finding a statement that you JUST SO AGREE WITH.

Yet more vegan brunch! (How cute is my rainbow mug? Part of a set, nabbed from RustBeltThreads, one of my all-time favourite Etsy stores.)

Lovely Boyfriend!

What are YOU loving this week?

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

“You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it. That is not generally taught in school. At most, as if your livelihood depended on it: the next step, the next job, grant, scholarship, professional advacement, face; no questions asked as to further meanings. And, let’s face it, the lesson of the schools for a vast number of children — hence, of readers — is This is not for you.
[...]
To read as if your life depended on it — but what writing can be believed? isn’t all language just manipulation? Maybe the poet has a hidden program — to recruit you to a cause, send you into the streets, to destabilize, through the sensual powers of language, your tested and tried priorities? Rather than succumb, you can learn to inspect the poem at arm’s length, through a long and protective viewing tube, as an interesting object, an example of this style or that period. You can take refuge in the idea of “irony”. Or you can demand that artists demonstrate loyalty to that or this moral or political or religious or sexual norm, on pain of having books burned, banned, on pain of censorship or prison, on pain of lost public funding.
Or, you can say: “I don’t understand poetry.”

– Adrienne Rich

from As if your life depended on it, What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics, WW Norton & Co, 2003.

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

[ we rush into the ocean. arms linked ]

we rush into the ocean. arms linked
water up to our chins. our legs maneuver
around each other’s bodies. chests pressed
the taste of salt. we forget the war on
the beach. the world says in wishful
rubbing there is nothing to fear. the
world says in murmuring happiness, how
dear you are. our mouths harbor every
human hour. our mouths are silvered fish
swimming home.

Regina Green is published in some very fine on-line literary magazines including most recently Lyre Lyre, inkscrawl, The Book Times, BoySlut, Metazen, The Delinquent and The Citron Review. For the month of April 2010 she was the featured poet at Contemporary American Voices. She is a therapist living and working outside Atlanta, GA. You can find her occasionally at redbirdchronicles.blogspot.com

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Want to see YOUR poem featured on ONS? Read this post first: submission guidelines are at the bottom. Good luck!
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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

Link love!

“Your cousin/friend of a friend/former classmate will get a major role. Write/direct/manage/create/invent a Hollywood Internet Silicone Valley thing. They will instant message all available social satellites: Never stop chasing your dreams. Hard work will pay off in the end. You have to fall before you phoenix. They will be 23.”

If you read nothing else this week, read Fielden Nelson’s Failure Map over at McSweeney’s. You will relate.

Chris Scott, one of my all-time favourite photographers, took a photo of Colin McGuire, former ONS Featured Poet and one of my all-time favourite poets. Dream team!

Rachel McKibbens has done something not unlike I just did recently and put some of her online poems together in the same place. GO READ HER GENIUS WORDS, FOR SHE IS AWESOME.

“Do you know what that is, sweet pea? To be humble? The word comes from the Latin words humilis and humus. To be down low. To be of the earth. To be on the ground. That’s where I went when I wrote the last word of my first book. Straight onto the cool tile floor to weep. I sobbed and I wailed and I laughed through my tears. I didn’t get up for half an hour. I was too happy and grateful to stand. I had turned 35 a few weeks before. I was two months pregnant with my first child. I didn’t know if people would think my book was good or bad or horrible or beautiful and I didn’t care. I only knew I no longer had two hearts beating in my chest. I’d pulled one out with my own bare hands. I’d suffered. I’d given it everything I had.”

A beautiful and heartbreaking call-and-response between two female writers over at the Rumpus. Bravo.

Also at the Rumpus: the Beat Generation and their outrageous heckling. (who sent me this? Mr Derry? I think so. Thanks, anyway!)

21 women write love poems to Adrienne Rich, over at VIDA. So brilliant. Watch this space for Read This Press’ own take.

“Who decides if your work is good? When you are at your best, you do. If the work doesn’t deliver on its purpose, if the pot you made leaks or the hammer you forged breaks, then you should learn to make a better one. But we don’t blame the nail for breaking the hammer or the water for leaking from the pot. They are part of the system, just as the market embracing your product is part of marketing.”

A bit corporate-y, but potentially useful for writers: Don’t Expect Applause, by blog guru Seth Godin.

Sixty poets celebrate each year of the Dear Old Queen’s reign. Yay? (I love Liz Lochhead’s one.)

OH NO HE DIDN’T — Roddy Shippin being a total punner over at a handful of stones.

This is a really cool interview with Rattle editor Tim Green, in which he talks online vs. print poets and all sorts of other interesting stuff. (Thanks, Heather!)

“Sometimes when a person sells a book, once the elation and sheer joy has settled a bit, and the person receives that person’s editorial letter, and sets cheerily to revising, that person might realize suddenly that the book that person wrote is in fact THE STUPIDEST BOOK IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, LIKE FOR REAL, and must be REWRITTEN ENTIRELY, preferably by SOMEONE ELSE, since clearly that person is TOTALLY INCAPABLE OF WRITING A BOOK THAT IS NOT STUPID, and maybe other well-meaning people are all like “Obviously your book is not stupid since it is being published and anyway didn’t you say your editor was really smart and awesome so why would she buy a book that wasn’t good” and the person is all like HAVE YOU BEEN IN A BOOKSTORE LATELY OR EVER IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT “PUBLISHED” HAS ABSOLUTELY NO RELATIONSHIP TO “NOT STUPID” AND POSSIBLY THE EDITOR WAS DRUNK WHEN SHE BOUGHT MY BOOK THESE THINGS DO HAPPEN and that person may become inordinately stressed for a time re: the stupidness of the person’s book.”

I so freaking love the artist formerly known as The Rejectionist, aka Sarah McCarry, so much.

I was really interested to hear Tracey S Rosenberg’s thoughts on the comparisons to be made (or not) between US and Scottish slams.

The Joy of Reading. < -- Click this. Seriously. (Thanks, Camilla!)

This article is the best thing I have ever read about the great, flawed genius that is Philip Larkin. Read it, read it all. (Thanks, Mark!)

I was really interested in these professional photographers discussing the worst shot they’ve ever taken.

Need a present for a book geek? This is pretty damn sweet!

“Through the Wire”… told the true-life story of how the aspiring star fell asleep at the wheel of his Lexus and woke up in Cedars Sinai hospital with half his jaw lodged in the back of his throat. He rapped the story three weeks after the accident, in highly original rhymes delivered with his jaw wired shut. The accident occupies the triumph-over-adversity space in Kanye’s biography that being a former crack dealer occupies in Jay-Z’s. Kanye embodied a more emotionally blown-open mode of existence, and relished playing the role of Jay’s wide-eyed little brother and boundary-pusher—“The Lyor Cohen of Dior Homme,” as he billed himself on the single “Devil in a New Dress,” adding, “That’s Dior Homme, not Dior, homie.”

Kanye West is one of my all-time favourite recording artists ever, so I loved this article so, so, so much. I plan to now direct EVERYONE who says “ugh, you like KANYE WEST?!” to me RIGHT THERE.

Last week the HuffPo reprinted the pretty depressing cult “30 before 30″ article from Glamour. I’ve been watching the online responses with interest. This one is best read with the often pretty right-on comments, but my favourite was Hugo Schwyzer’s male equivalent.

Did you guys hear about the roof dog? TOO CUTE.

This is really good advice – and so pretty! Want!

Life getting you down? Feel like there’s something you’ll just never be able to master? Watch this video. Then shut up.

The Book Of The Future is amazing!

You guys know Taylor Mali’s ‘What Teachers Make’? This is a great adaptation of it for the classroom.

I love Kevin Cadwallender’s take on the writing process!

Remember this? Still a whole load of love for this poem/video!

Have a great weekend!

What are you loving this week?

You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

A bit of a heavy post this week, perhaps. But what I’m loving right now is activism.

If you’ve been paying attention to the links in my Procrastination Station posts, you might have got the general gist that I’m a bit of a feminist. You’ll certainly have got that gist if you follow my Twitter. If you’ve been my Facebook friend for a while, you might also have seen one or two angry feminist rants up there, too. Maybe — if you’re a real die-hard fan of mine — you’ve even spotted out my little-used feminist/political blog, Girl Poems. And yes, it’s true — I am a feminist, and more than just a little bit.

It’s happened quickly. Had you asked me two years ago, I’d have said HELL YES I AM A FEMINIST, but I wouldn’t really have been able to tell you all that much about why. At that point, I hadn’t really woken up to the massive discrimination that still comes with identifying as female. Then I had my “click” moment: I watched Jean Kilbourne’s “Killing Us Softly 3.”

As the women on my training weekend this past weekend (which I’ll talk about in a moment) pointed out, when you get your “click” moment, it’s like coming out of the Matrix. You start seeing misogyny and discrimination everywhere. You start realising that things you say and do — things you’ve always said and done — are really not cool. You see that you have friends — really good friends — who are part of the problem. You get really, really, really angry. And other people get really, really, really angry with you.

Over the past two years, since watching Jean Kilbourne, I’ve kind of done a DIY women’s studies degree in my spare bedroom. As well as teaching and reading for my PhD, I’ve also amalgamated a pretty huge collection of academic feminism textbooks, pop feminist polemics, women’s anthologies and women’s studies tomes, and read them hungrily. I follow more feminist/political blogs than I do poetry and writing ones. I’m no longer lazy about this stuff — as well as identifying as feminist I am also trying really hard to be a good trans ally, to rid my students’ (and, sometimes, my colleagues’) vocabulary of homophobic language like “that’s so gay”, and I’m also trying extremely hard to stop being ableist (I’ve only recently realised how gross my use of the word “lame” to mean “rubbish” really is). In terms of the kind of feminist I am? I want intersectionality so badly. I try as hard as I can to check my white, cis, able-bodied privilege, though I’ll admit, sometimes fail. And I am way, way pro-sex (ask me some time about my plan to kick the shit out of the sex industry’s status quo. Seriously).

Twitter has become my safe space. I post anything I like there, and I’m generous with my use of the ‘block’ button. I’ve also built up a sweet network of feminist Twit-buddies of all genders, which is really nice. But I’ve still felt bad about not doing enough. Not talking about this stuff enough. Not trying hard enough to exercise change. Not explaining myself properly. Not really making a difference.

So this past weekend, I went along to Scottish Women’s Aid’s all-weekend “Stop” training. The “Stop” campaign, or Together We Can Stop It, is about recognising that domestic abuse affects everyone, but that — as one of my training-mates put it — we can all affect it right back. It is designed to spread the message that domestic abuse is disturbingly prevalent, and that it’s so not OK, as well as aiming to provide everyone everywhere with workable ways to tackle the problem. The training weekend took me and seven other smart, angry young feminists and taught us how to become Community Champions: we’re now qualified to go out into the local community and help SWA and the “Stop” campaign to spread the message.

The training was a truly amazing, eye-opening and inspiring experience for me. Because I’ve taught myself all this women’s studies stuff, I’ve never been in a space before where everyone just ‘got’ it. There was no mansplaining, no ‘explain yourself to me!’, no ‘what about the men?!’, no arguments about how you can’t be feminist if you’re white and Western, or if you like sex, or if you’re straight, or if you’re a trans woman, or blah blah blah blah. There was no ’stop being hysterical!’, or ‘nobody really cares about this!’, or ‘it’s just a joke, lighten up!’ No one in the room said anything was ’so gay’ or referred to another person as ‘a total retard’ or suggested that ‘girls who dress slutty ask for it.’ There were no rape jokes; no one wanted to whine that Julian Assange or Roman Polanski are awesome, stand-up guys and so great at what they do and therefore everyone should forget about the fact that they raped women and hey who says they even did it I mean these stupid women make shit up all the time. I’m wary of using this word because I know it makes some people queasy (feminists included), but it felt like sisterhood.

There were a lot of opposing views in the room. We talked about tons of issues around and outside domestic abuse including intersectionality, classism and general feminist stuff. We had heated discussions. We disagreed about things. But we all got it, we were all working towards a common goal: to make women’s lives, which are so often hard and frightening and downright depressing, better. In two days I learned so much about women, about feminism, about society, about activism and about myself. It was utterly fantastic.

Now, come to my comment thread and ask ‘what about the men?!’ I dare you.

Honourable mentions: Bare Hands Poetry. Thanks a million for taking one of my poems, loves! // Working on editing together Creatrix. So many great submissions, so many difficult decisions. Watch this space for a post about it. // Being in a play! OMG! Come and see me at the Traverse, in “Dear Glasgow.” // The second printing of my book has landed — let me know if you want to buy one! // Real Foods. Greatest grocery store ever // The lovely Lovely Boyfriend. Better than all the other boyfriends combined.

What are you loving this week?

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

F

Breadth

After the air miles
have all unravelled
behind you
and you have settled
into your new country,
visit the coast.

Crouch barefoot
at the shoreline
and lower both hands
into the water
until your fingertips
are eight small sea stacks.

Imagine me
doing the same
until the ocean
that separates us
has become an object
that we are both holding:

a new blue bedsheet
that we are unfolding
together in your room.
Watch the waves
bunching dutifully
about your ankles:

each one is an echo
of my beckoning
arms

Michael Conley is a 27 year old teacher from Manchester. He is currently in the final year of an MA in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has been published in a variety of magazines, including Cadaverine, Sentinel, Bewilderbliss and Words Dance. Favourite writers and influences include Kurt Vonnegut, Selima Hill, Elizabeth Bishop and John Berryman.

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Want to see YOUR poem featured on ONS? Read this post first: submission guidelines are at the bottom. Good luck!

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

I was directed towards Arvon’s callout to writers for their forthcoming book, Gists, by the lovely and talented Kim Moore. Arvon want to hear what and how you think about your own writing process, and they might even deign to publish your responses alongside writers who are, you know, doing it properly. Famous, and that.

I decided to go and fill in their form because of how Kim framed it — she’d been advised to answer the questions instinctively, without thinking too much. The result was that she found out a few things about her writing process that she’d never really thought about before. Book or no book, that had to be a good idea, I reasoned.

I did the same thing as Kim. I read each question once, and not desperately carefully, and then I answered that question and moved on without reading over my answers. Fortunately, they’re not too rambling and they don’t seem too riddled with typos. The results are below. Those of you who’ve read my poems — or indeed, this blog — can tell me if they’re a fair reflection or not! And if you want to fill out the questionnaire yourself, you can do so here.

How does a book or piece of writing begin to take shape in your imagination? Do you feel your writing is a process of inventing or discovering?

It’s definitely a process of discovery. I’m a poet, and often the ‘trigger’ for a poem will just appear, unbidden. I’ll suddenly hear a line in my head, or find a few snappy words stuck in there like an old tune. I put the trigger line or phrase on a piece of paper and then start poking around with it, building on it slowly. I think that’s actually more like it: it’s more like building than anything else.

What things trigger your imaginative process (for example, significant personal experiences, particular people, places, objects, dream imagery, myths, history, etc)?

All sorts of things. But I write best when I get out of my comfort zone — when I travel to somewhere completely new and a bit unknown, for example, or when something jolts me into uncomfortable territory. I write best when I’m unhappy, when I’m angry. I find that being happy means I write less, and when I do write I produce sweet, placid poems that don’t take as many risks.

How do you work - do you plan carefully or explore in the dark, trusting the process?

I’m not a planner. I try to set aside time to write, but often that doesn’t work — the afternoon I’ve kept free for poetry ends up a frustrated few hours of scribbling and then binning. I’m better when I just trust that the poetry will come and let it come as and when it wants to. I write well on long journeys, on planes and trains. I very often get ideas just as I’m going to bed. I’ve learned that I need to make myself write things down as they appear, because they all too easily melt away again.

Do you feel in control of your writing or are you responsive to the requirements of the work as it unfolds?

I have learned to become more in control. I used to be very much of the ‘first thought, best thought’ school, but I’ve since gained a MSc in Creative Writing and I’m now reading for a Creative Writing PhD. I’ve realised that although, as I said above, I have to trust the process and let poetry appear as and when it wants to, I can also shape and curate the results. So I try to find a good middle ground. If an idea seems silly but won’t stop nagging at me, I’ll try anything once. But I’m also happy to chop things out if they look less promising after a draft or two.

Do you write a first draft quickly and then revise it, or build carefully from the start?

I edit as I go along. I’ll draft and redraft and redraft on a line by line basis, so by the end of the first full draft, the poem is already forming clearly. But I’ll also do several re-writes of each piece. I write long-hand in a large notebook and will usually write a poem out three or four times minimum before transferring it to the typewriter. I’ll try it with stanza breaks in different places, without stanza breaks, mess with enjambment. Then into the manual typewriter. I realise this is an old fashioned way of doing things — especially as I’m only 26 and learned to type on a computer — but I love what using a manual typewriter does to my writing. It makes me careful, and it makes me appreciate and respect the page, its shapes and limitations, much more than word processing does.

How do you deal with blocks in the writing process?

I used to get very stressed about creative block, but then some elders and betters pointed out to me that stress begets stress and the best way to deal with blocks is to ride them out. Now, I am very chilled about creative block. If I can’t write poetry for a few weeks, I’ll write something else — I also write non-fiction essays and a blog. I also read as much as I possibly can — other people’s poems, mainly. Reading, and just reading, dissolves a creative block much faster than any amount of forced creative writing exercises ever could.

Do you write in service of any particular values?

Accessibility. I teach Literature 101 to young people from backgrounds where books just do not factor into people’s lives. These are readers who find the very idea of the written word frightening. They don’t understand the concept of storytelling, and poetry in particular looks like voodoo. Yet, when I introduce them to a poet whose goal is openness and understanding — someone like Billy Collins — they suddenly get it. And they want to read it, and they want to write. They find that they really like poetry. Why would any poet want to suggest that poetry ought to be difficult, that poetry ought to deliberately shut out these readers? Yet plenty do, and often they’re the same poets who are simultaneously worrying over dwindling poetry audiences. I just don’t understand.

What have you learned from the practice of your craft?

That reading and writing and sharing poetry has power in it. Poetry is often misunderstood by those who’ve never really dealt with it — people think it’s archaic and serves no purpose. This isn’t true. Poetry is what language was made for. Get struggling students to write poems and their literacy scores will sky-rocket, as will their social skills. Get a poet to write your advertising copy and see what happens (a lot of companies have begun to do this — look how many TV ads are written in verse these days). Poetry is not old-fashioned, doesn’t have to be self-aggrandising or dull. I’ve learned that none of the rumours are true. Poetry is seriously hip, and what’s more, it’s a long way from being dead.

What is the relationship between the writer’s imagination and that of the reader?

When, as a reader, I really connect with a writer’s work, it’s not like a conversation — it’s deeper than that. It’s almost like a hive-mind. A good writer puts me in their character’s skin and lets me see, hear and feel what’s happening. As a teacher of creative writing I utterly hate the command, “show, don’t tell”, and ban it from my classrooms. But that command is heading in the right direction — writers shouldn’t just tell the reader something. The reader should come out of the other end of a great piece of writing feeling changed. Don’t tell them, don’t show them — change them. Maybe that’s it.

Do writers have any moral responsibility in their work, wider than fidelity to their personal vision?

Writers should always be thinking about their readers. Just as publishers and agents needs writers and should therefore respect those writers’ needs, writers need readers and should treat them accordingly. The poets I mentioned earlier who shout about their ‘right’ to write difficult, obscure poetry and still have it reviewed? They’re not thinking about the reader. Personally, I want as many people as possible to be able to access, understand and enjoy my poems. It’s not hard to make sure that you’re not being elitist.

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!