Archive for the 'Poetry' Category

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I am thrilled. Talented and dashing poet James Wood, whose anthology of poems “The Theory of Everything” I featured a few weeks ago has agreed to a podcast interview for Fusion View. I’ll be speaking to him on the phone this weekend and asking him about life as a poet, what it takes to get a collection of poetry published and the poetry scene in Edinburgh where he is based. He has also agreed to read a poem that is as yet unpublished - an exclusive first publication on Fusion View!

If you have any burning questions about the world of poetry that you’d like me to put to James, add a comment or email me by the end of Friday this week 08 December.

I’ll upload the podcast as soon as I’ve edited it - probably during next week.

James has also kindly donated three copies of his poetry book “The Theory of Everything” for a prize draw - winners will be picked from the Fusion View list of email subscribers. Stay tuned and I will let you have more details about the draw when I upload my interview with James.

Photo: thanks to bb c.co.uk

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PS. If you haven’t already taken my Book Lovers Poll, go to the blue box in the sidebar and click on the answer that most describes your reading habits. (It’s anonymous) Apparently Malaysians only read two books a year. I’m curious to find out how many books Fusion View readers read. I’ll review the results in a few weeks and offer you my analysis.

It’s not every day that we have a poem dedicated to us so Angie and I are very thrilled that poet James Wood has dedicated a pearl - or even a raindrop - of his wisdom to us.

James Wood is a dynamic young poet who also has a talent for kick-boxing and tai chi. He worked in a high-flying role in communications in the City before downshifting to Edinburgh to devote more time to his great passion - poetry. James’s first collection of poetry “The Theory of Everything” is coming out on 4th November, published by Happenstance press. You can find out more about him and his work here - http://www.happenstancepress.com/The%20Theory%20of%20Everything.htm.

The poem he dedicated to us, Raindrop, is here - http://www.happenstancepress.com/Sample%20poems/TheTheory%20of%20Everything%20sample%20poem.htm

James is donating the proceeds from the sale of the book are going to the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund, which is seeking to fund research into the early detection and better treatment of pancreatic cancer.

The collection is available to order from amazon.co.uk at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Theory-Everything-James-Wood/dp/0955028094/sr=1-1/qid=1161245702/ref=sr_1_1/202-5461869-0605422?ie=UTF8&s=books

It’s also available from the publisher here: http://www.happenstancepress.com/Order%20online.htm , though please note that this is PayPal or cheque only. Direct orders from the publisher do not get bookseller mark-ups, i.e. they are two pounds cheaper.

I will be interviewing James for a Fusion View podcast soon and asking him about the poetry scene in Edinburgh where he is based, what drives him to write poetry, how one gets published as a poet in the UK and testing him to see if he really has a theory of everything…. If there are questions you would like to ask James about his work or the poetry scene in Edinburgh or the UK, please add a comment or email me and I will choose the best/ most relevant questions to put to him.

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It was misty and cool when I woke up the other morning. Summer has turned now and we are in the first steps of creeping towards autumn.

As a kid in Malaysia, I used to read books set in England, describing mist and fog and it was really hard to imagine what that would be like. Until we went on a family holiday to Fraser’s Hill (as it was then called). Up in the blue-green hills, surrounded by thick jungle, the air was cool and fresh - as if the place were air-conditioned against the thick, heavy tropical heat of the lowlands. In the chalets where we stayed, the lawn had different, more delicate grass. There were bright rose bushes and exotic plants from cooler climes. In the mornings, the mist would sit damply over the hill. Everything seemed mysterious and spooky. I loved it.

The school I came to in England is on the south coast, facing the English Channel. On some winter days, the fog rolling in from the sea would white out the landscape for days on end. At intervals, the fog horn would sound, mournful and eery in the muffled stillness. The air would taste damp and salty and if you spent any time out in the fog, you would come in covered in dew.

My parents were in London in the late 1950s at the time when there were thick “peasoupers” - a combination of fog and pollution from coal fires. Traffic would grind to a halt and people would have to walk. But even walking was hazardous as they would not be able to identify any landmarks or see more than a foot in front of them. My parents describe how the fog would get inside their flats as well, no matter how much they tried to seal the windows and doors with rags. My mum said that even their undergarments would be stained yellow from the noxious “soup”!

I’m glad those days are gone! But I love autumn when the leaves start to turn golden and the air cools - just before it gets really miserably into winter. And on misty mornings, I always think of Keats’s Ode to Autumn:

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, 5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease, 10
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

From our man on the scene, Fusion View brings you an eyewitness account of the recent Edinburgh Festival. David Grantley, poet and micro-short story writer*, reports:

For readers intrigued recently by Yang-May’s account of Brighton (the Saint Tropez of the English South Coast?), Edinburgh may be worth a visit. It is not so much trendy as the Piccadilly of the UK: everyone goes through at some point.

There are several festivals going on at the same time. The Film Festival (first showing of ‘Kill the Messenger’, that brilliant if no doubt controversial TV film), the International Music Festival (of music, opera, ballet), the Fringe (comedy and anything goes with hundreds to choose from), and the Book Festival (authors talk about their work).

Then there is an intermediate thing (I think) which includes The Lady Boys of Bankok (my cousin didn’t fancy, and five minutes for me would be enough) and the something or other of the Penis (Spanish friends recommend, but cousin’s husband didn’t fancy: he doesn’t like looking at what he calls human ‘bits’).

And there are art exhibitions, some good, some ‘interesting’ (cousin insists I see). It wasn’t until I got to Newcastle (the capital of England-lah, if you are young enough to survive it) on the way home that I found the contemporary Scottish artist I like: Michael McVey (please don’t spread the word about until I have bought one). Finally, (still in Edinburgh) there is street theatre (anything goes again). Food is plentiful, inexpensive and varied.

I had been booked to hear Andrew Rowson, cartoonist, on his cartoons, a man called Johnson who wrote the wine map of Europe (his love is only for the wine of France so only gets part of my vote), and Andrew Motion, the poet laureate talking about his autobiography: he came over as a very pleasant very English man (tall, too).

As ever I made a bee-line (wasp, hornet?) for the street theatre. My favourites: Peruvians singing in Spanish and playing all manner of pan-pipes: very jig-enticing sound when not deeply sad. Then some Tibetans, men and women, playing all manner of drum-like objects and a strange trumpet while a tall Tibetan does a dance with a long circular ribbon (if not Tibetan what could they be?). New ears needed: none of the guessable tonalities or tunes of any music I know (Indian, Moroccan, African, Chinese, Beethoven) but fascinating. There are also various magicians and excellent circus-like climbing and juggling acts, and even, this year, a ten-year old (I suppose) doing elementary juggling – he had to get two members of the audience to hold him up so he could be seen. All this free, of course, though donations expected (‘for foreign tourists the £5 note is the one with 100 written on it’).

Can’t imagine a cheaper holiday in the UK once accommodation is found.

Then there are constant oddities. Why was the wine talk sponsored by a whisky company? I came out with a wad of vouchers for free drams of their 12 year old single malt product. A dram is a very generous pouring out of a bottle into a generous glass. Whatever their reputation, the Scottish are never mean with the drink. The drams were poured in a refreshment tent-pub with tables and comfortable seats to the accompaniment of a skiffle and US country-music band. You don’t have to pay for a book-talk to use it. Free kazoos if you want to make a noise. As for the whisky, I like it, but it doesn’t like me. The morning after it takes half the day to stop hating the emphasis on thistles and tartan and everything Scottish (even Lloys-TSB is Lloyds-TSB SCOTLAND). Notable at all the events is the large number of local (= Edinburgh or Scotland in general) people out to enjoy themselves.

Of course I’ve forgotten to mention the Edinburgh Military Tattoo (bagpipes, marching and heavy-metal). But not for me, I’m afraid.

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*Inspired by a post on Fusion View about writing short stories in 55 words only, David submitted a macabre tale to micro short story site www.55fiction.com. Read more here.

Continuing the Fusion Stories series, in this podcast, I talk to Pey Colborne whose experience of both Eastern and Western cultures have influenced her work as an aromatherapist and poet.

Listen to the podcast with the embedded player below.

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Click here to listen to this and other Fusion View podcasts - and also to subscribe to Fusion View Podcasts via iTunes.

• To find out more about Pey’s aromatherapy practice at Neals Yard in Bath - go to www.nealsyardremedies.com and click through to their shop in Bath.

• On the podcast, Pey reads one of her poems:

English is my Second Language

1.

Ghosted on a foundation of inscrutable whispers,

Restless meanings, rocking the cradle.

Sleep now, a lullaby of pictographs.

Dancing with the seagulls in my first

Encyclopedia of Birds,

White wings, black tipped, flashing in the blue sky

White dress, baby feet flashing in that blue heat

Flight and dreaming yoked together

As the many-names-of-things.

2.

Second language,

The ladder to my escape

The way out, the other world

I wrestled for it, asked for blessing;

Exile is an English name.

In banishment, a faint music still follows me

A bamboo scaffold, wobbly but strong

To build new rhythms in a journey (not home).

I go to China, place my ancestors worship,

I clamber around and wind its golden dragons round my thumbs;

Master its ways, gallop the horses of the steppes–

On a high plateau, dance with Generals drunken and fat,

In gold braid and red caps.

3.

I dream in tongues varied and few

In contemplative red mansions

In entire tales scried from a second’s being

In none, come the power of commonality

But in lonely fragments

Like us, seeking to be held close.

My first language follows me like instinct

Or a beautiful abstract

Entirely open in meaning

Unforceable and permeating

A stricken mute maiden

At my heels.

I’ve learnt to jump through the hoops now

I am my other tongue

Whether right or sinister–

Bound like a confident wave to the sea.

I feel the power and the draw of it

The sensual limning,

A careful adornment of bare bones–

Talisman and relic,

Dissecting the myth

Making it new.

Copyright Pey Colborne
Published in Magma 29 Spring 2004

I’ve had some great feedback on the Micro Short Stories entry - take a look here.

Maruthi asked if I knew of any haiku websites. Unfortunately, I don’t but I thought I’d put the query out to my readers to see if anyone could help with this query.

If you can, please add a comment!