No Oxford shirts
Well, I guess now I can say that I've read at Oxford. Heehee, that's pretty funny.

I had a great time and I think the students enjoyed my talk and poetry reading. I might even have an open invitation to stay with Karen Head in Atlanta. That's pretty cool. I've not been there yet.

I read Karen's chapbook, My Paris Year, on the way home on the train and really enjoyed it, not least because, during my Question and Answer session with the students, I had to ruminate about truth and lies in poetry, so there seemed to be some sympathetic magic going on.

All in all, it was pretty neat. Especially the bit when I walked past Oxford University Press. Can you say impressive?
- posted by Ivy @ 3:13 PM ¦ | ¦

 
A fresh obsession
Four yeses:

Dear Ivy,

I am writing to confirm that I would like to include four poems in our next issue, with your permission.

I will let you know as soon as I have further news about the events.

With many thanks again and best wishes

The events the editor mentions are local readings to help launch the journal. Pretty pleased about that!


May have another reading in 2010 [!], in Bristol this time. Wow.


This month's series of Writing Poetry workshops on Narrative & Myth has only just started — seems to be going well. All the planning, mental and actual, seems to drive the poetry out of its space, though.

I might have to do some late-night writing again. Really need, want, must finish the second ms. and soon! Having a casual lunch with a publisher mid-month. But of course, these things are never completely casual, are they?


To add to my lists of distractions, I've started a Poets and Writers Who Knit group on Facebook and Ravelry.

I've a theory that I've transferred my addiction to the web to a fresh obsession with knitting.

That's good, I think.
- posted by Ivy @ 11:02 AM ¦ | ¦

 
Pinch me
Whew! Finished planning the lesson plan for my Narrative & Myth series of Writing Poetry workshops. Everyone's paid up and the whole kit and kaboodle can actually go ahead. Yay! Still have to write it up my notes though because one of the participants does the workshop via email.

He's so very keen on writing poetry! Everything is wonderment. I really like that.


And it looks like Mortal will be stocked at the Dylan Thomas Centre Bookshop!


So where might I be heading off in the next wee while? Oxford, Edinburgh, Australia, Berlin and Bath.


My next chapbook may have a letterpress cover! Still a ways off yet but maybe soon...


Please don't pinch me. I don't want to wake up.


I'm trying very, very hard to get a poetry reading in London.


I borrowed a copy of The Gift by Lewis Hyde from the library recently and it's been hard to leave the Introduction:

...every modern artist who has chosen to labor with a gift must sooner or later wonder how he or she is to survive in a society dominated by market exchange.

I think in my case I don't really have to commoditise my poetry very much [books might be a commodity but it is a desired outcome by the writer, anyway, so I don't think it rankles at all] but I can do so with my skills and my experience. I can share what I know and those who want to learn might benefit from that, whether with new poems or the knowledge of how to approach a writing problem or block in the future.

But what do I know? Hee!
- posted by Ivy @ 3:41 PM ¦ | ¦

 
Pulled
Someone writes:

I started reading your book with the very first poem, and then the second, saw all kinds of connections to some of the very earliest versions of the myth, echoes.

Neat.


My reading at the Dylan Thomas Centre was very well-received. I read from Mortal in the first half and poems from the second book-to-come [no publisher yet, tho'] in the second half. Very generous reception. Friendly venue in the bookshop/café. And then home during a lightning dance across the sky.


My proposal to a festival in Australia was accepted! Yay! Now to find a way to get there.


I've been feeling pulled in so many directions lately.


Oh! My contributor's copy of Hair arrived and wow. Talk about lush. How lucky am I.

They have a current call for work about blood.

I reckon the next one will be about skin.


My next reading will be at Worcester College, Oxford on July 8th. That should be quite neat, too.


Oh, I need to write! To write!
- posted by Ivy @ 4:44 PM ¦ | ¦

 
Follow the Consequences
“Already you were leaving us.”

My ex-best friend pretended he hadn’t heard me.

“Sorry?”

“You didn’t even say where you were going. I had to work it out myself.”

“I didn’t know! Mum didn’t say anything. One day here, the next day America.”

“But you did know. You gave off signs. I just didn’t read them because you’d never left before. Mia and I were…” I paused to find the right word. “…devastated.”

“Oh, Ana, come off it. That’s a bit much, don’t you think?” He played with his salad, moving it around his plate like the old days. I felt nostalgic.

“Your mum knows about us, doesn’t she?”

He stood up.

“How’s the new place?” Maybe things weren’t going that well, if he was talking to me.

“I’m feeling some pressure, I guess.”

“Peer group pressure?” I asked, silkily. A long pause.

“Oh, Ana, everyone’s so good-looking at this treatment programme. Everyone’s really thin! I just want to be thin again. I can’t stand this.” Eyes shining, he bit his lip. “Can you and Mia help me?” I drew close to him.

“Yes, you know we can. Hush, now… it’s okay. We all make mistakes.” I faced him in the hallway mirror. “You’re very special, you know. We aren’t friends with many boys. So, have you put on much weight?”

Behind him, I gestured for Mia to lead him to the bathroom, to purge. Pain is pain. Life is life. This was only one solution for the present.


Mine is the 12th post in a game of Consequences. Follow the trail below. The Magpie Nest is next.

If you're in danger of losing yourself, you've simply joined the wrong group of people.

I stood up with the knife in my right hand.

"Sometimes, it is the flame that goes out looking for the moth."

Only the music belongs completely to itself.

We gulp what is here and ours and nobody's and nothing's.

Portez-moi à une nunnery!

All at once, wholly and decisively, he shook with laughter.

Who could possibly quarrel with eyes like those?

A person could walk right through them without falling.

This one's for you, Sister!

Already you were leaving us.

She now knew the butterfly effect could produce a loon in her office.

She felt blessed.
- posted by Ivy @ 9:00 AM ¦ | ¦

 
Wicked and witty once more
The Creative Writing workshops I ran went down a treat for the Wicked Words and Witty Women event. For these, I concocted a Secrets and Lies box, for which participants had to first write theirs on a slip of paper, before they can draw one out.

Yeah, it was a hit, I think.

What were the secrets and lies in the box at the end of the night? I'll never tell. People will have to come to another one to find out.

The box I'd filled with Writing Prompts drew a surprising response from one of the participants, who started crying as she finished writing her piece. Wow.

All in all, it was very good, particularly the storytelling from Mary Anne O'Reilly of the Trystan and Iseult tale and the poetry reading from Susan Richardson.

And getting paid actual folding money for my work isn't half-bad, either. Woohoo!
- posted by Ivy @ 3:43 PM ¦ | ¦

 
Berlin again?
I've been invited to read at a poetry festival in Berlin! Yay! Getting me over there is the only thorn at the moment but I'm looking around to see if there's funding for which I can apply for travel assistance. I shouldn't need to ask for much, as it's only a wee hop-skip-jump over the sea.


Finally decided on the poems for The Private Press' next poetry chapbook anthology. Whew! That was hard. I guess it's a little easier when they're anonymised but the tricky thing, always, is the poems themselves. You tricky poems! Still, it's all done now. Until next time...


My plan for more poetry readings appears to be working. I am in talks for one in Bath next year.
- posted by Ivy @ 10:14 AM ¦ | ¦