Samhain - Happy New Year

Halloween, part of my favourite time of the year. Finland doesn't really celebrate it, but a few places put up decorations, a few houses have pumpkins out and offer treats. My children, of course, didn't understand that it wasn't a big deal here and were still over-excited. So I invited some extra kids over (we don't have any restrictions here) for a Halloween playdate and then took one along with us on a quick trick-or-treating to a couple of friends' house. They still managed a decent haul. 

Samhain, the Celtic holiday which Halloween is based on, is celebration of the year's end. The moment between the old and the new year where the veil between life and death thins. I've long considered Oct 31 my New Year's Eve, a point where my life has often changed. I celebrate the end of old and the potential of the beginning. I turned 50 this week as well, a good time for a change. 

A few opportunities have popped up this week and while they're not perfect or long-lasting, I've decided to go with them. One is teaching creative writing at after-school clubs. It's only for one term and will possibly mess up other potential work as it's a set time. As it's later than regular school hours, it will also make dinner-time a bit stressful. I really miss this sort of work and it will be fun as it's mainly keeping the kids engaged for an hour, no stress to really produce anything, so we can just play about with word games and writing silly poems. We'll see how it goes, if it's too much trouble I won't offer to do it again. Or it might lead to something else.

Is it best to stumble into something and continue to follow that momentum or to strive to find a strict path? I'm torn, I've bumbled the past year or so and occasionally good things happen, but it's not enough to support a family, to feel secure. 

But I'm feeling positive, a new start, hopefully something good will develop. 

Scrambling

I poured myself a glass of pear juice from the box in the fridge, took a big drink and thought it must have fermented as it tasted odd. It was wine from a similar looking carton. So I'm enjoying the relaxing buzz of that first drink of wine at lunch time, a strange, but welcome feeling. It won't last. 

I've been wanting to curl up for a nap all morning and this isn't helping. The dark mornings aren't helping. I've switched on the SAD lamp, it's not helping. The recent cold snap that reminds me that winter is too close also isn't helping. 

I'm trying to help myself. Booked an evening off to go to a friend's open mic event, met a fellow editor for a coffee to chat about advice to get my business going, I'm sending my CV off everywhere. I've had some days teaching which have broken my dry spell with subbing. I've raked 8 bags of leaves. I spent hours yesterday trying to sort out my poems that are scattered over several files, so they're all together and all the latest version. Life ticks on. 

I've worked on a single poem for ages over the past week. This morning I put it in a word mixer and totally dismantled it to start again. I've never thought to do that before, but I might go back to some other half-written pieces and try it. There was something freeing with removing myself from the previous idea and just focusing on what the words say when they were scrambled together. Wish I could do that with other half-sorted problems littering my life. 

Another poem that I've started anew is 'Duolingo' which has recently appeared in the first issue of Drawn to the Light. I started writing the poem for a Scottish Gaelic writing competition. I badly translated it. When it was declined, with lovely comments from the judges about my attempt, I removed most of the Scottish Gaelic and expanded the poem. Writing it was a sentimental journey, so it was lovely it could find a home. 

I hope you find a bit of light in these dark days. 

Little Steps Through the Mire

It's been raining on and off for weeks. My back garden is a bog, studded with windfall apples that I need to pick up before the birds, hares and insects hollow them out. I bought a fruit dryer to keep up with them. The kids eat each batch immediately, so there's no keeping up. With anything, the unmown grass, the fallen leaves, the red pile of apples beneath the tree, the kids and their hunger. 

Last week the scary, big question was 'what do I want to be when I grow up?'. Again. I feel like I did 23 years ago when I finished my last degree. It doesn't help that my course has set an assignment of basically 'what's next?' in terms of professional development and I don't have an answer. So I've had a fretful couple of weeks of worry and stress and questioning what my priorities are. 

I am unfortunately a Jill of all literary trades, but master of none. I've taught literature, creative writing, English as a second language, some media classes, but don't have a teaching certificate. I have worked as an editor with a small publishing company and for my own company for a variety of clients, but I have no specialty besides creative texts which is very niche in a country where I am not fluent in the native language. I am a writer and poet, but not top tier, so getting work, partially because of the language, is not easy. I have no confidence in anything I could offer just now.  

Most anything I am able to do, I don't have the right credentials or contacts or language skills. If I need to spend more time training, I want it to be in something I'll be happy to do for long term. I also need to take into account that I have a family to help support.

I've spoken to my course supervisor and to another teacher at my school for advice about staying in teaching. I'm hoping to meet up with another editor here in town this week for advice there. I've also had an off-the-wall idea I need to be brave enough to approach some people about for a future project. 

I have to not get bogged down in it all. I'm taking little steps forward and have to remind myself that for now that is good enough. It's not something I can decide or sort overnight. I've had a nice holiday week with my kids, trying not to fret too much. I'll get back to it Monday. 

This morning there was frost, a reminder I need to finish my winter digging, to pick the last apples, to rake more leaves. I need to take more long walks with the kids to enjoy the last of the decent weather and sunlight. We're heading into the dark season, there will be enough time for contemplation and planning then. 

And in writing news, my work has appeared in The Broken Spine Artist Collective anthology, 2nd Edition. They have a call out for submissions for their 3rd edition, so get your work in. 

I'm still writing, still working away at editing, submitting. Like the apples, some things don't wait. 

The Presence and Presents of Trees - The IRON Book of Tree Poetry

I'm sitting here watching my silver birch turn yellow and rain leaves onto my garden. My next month of weekends will be taken up by raking and raking some more. I can set my seasonal clock by those birch, when they wake from our long winter, the allergies they give me in May, the green coins shaking above our hammock and their bare trunks shining in the midwinter dark. They appear in my Finnish poems regularly, a totem of my time here.

Like many other poets, I've written countless poems about trees or including trees. Something about their shape, movement, permanence and long life attracts the writer. I've written one just on how the leaves fell from a small stand of trees, trying hard not to use words normally connected with leaves or trees, but to become caught up in their dance. I've written about old trees and fallen trees, trees as a metaphor for growing old or for loss. One of my tutors offered a course using trees as inspiration last year and I decided against it because I couldn't imagine I had more to say about trees. 

This autumn, I was asked to review The IRON Book of Tree Poetry, edited by Eileen Jones and Peter Mortimer. I can now see that no matter how many ways a poet can look at a tree, there's always more to say, more to see. The collection includes more than 40 poets, some I'm familiar with such as Ken Cockburn and Rebecca Gethin, others new names. All offer a vast feast of language and images related to the theme. It may feel like a familiar subject, but it is examined through so many different lenses: sometimes up close, looking at a group or individual specimen or from the vantage point of a physical or a cultural setting, that the poems still managed to surprise me. At times, they turn back on the reader or humanity in general and say things that were uncomfortable to hear. 

Poems that examine new vistas on the presence, usage and importance of trees in our world. Poets who imagine being trees, who consider our inter-connection with them, who plant trees not for themselves, but for future generations. The trees gathered have names, personalities, places in history, in the landscape and in their poets' lives. Some feel like friends, others silent teachers, leading us to understanding. These poems are a 'copse of everything' to do with tree poetry, as Gill McEvoy says in her offering 'A Small Wood by the Sea'.

Not all the poems praise trees out-right. They acknowledge the complicated relationship humans have with trees: we use them, destroy them, pass them by everyday without truly noticing their beauty. Alan Lunt shows a humorous lack of love for the unusual species in 'Monkey Puzzle', "They're more like armoured skeletons than ordinary trees" while I've always found them amusing, especially after I learned their names. We connect to some trees more than others.

With a darker, more introspective note in 'Rhododendrons at Stapleford Wood', Celia McCulloch examines the plant's place in the British landscape and our treatment of it. Her stark comparisons with the current political upheaval around immigration rings uncomfortably true: "We ethnic-cleanse the woods of these dark, flamboyant strangers". It makes me second guess my reasons for recently removing an awkward one from my garden and replacing it with a horse chestnut.

Other poems feel comforting and familiar, a walk through a grove we have long visited, while some bedazzle with their rich language and shifting focus like the two poems by Katrina Porteous:

                 Climbing out of a ruin, a tangle of spikes
                           Snagged by the wash-pool, 

                                                       It corkscrews,
                                                   Crone-like,
                                                       Into debatable air.

                                                                   'Quickthorn'                    

Other poems take novel views of the relationship between trees and people by intertwining their stories and culture as in John Willby's heart-wrenching poem 'That Tree’s Mother Saved My Life' and Pauline Plummer's 'The Baobab'. They remind us that trees stretch beyond our lifetime, offering more than background for our experiences. 

With the upsurge of interest in rewilding, climate change and  our co-existence with the natural world this book's release is timely, but I really enjoyed the well-rounded view of the poems, looking at more than just trees' environmental impact. The book turns towards the resonance trees offer with our inner worlds, those spaces where poetry resides. 

Follow more on Facebook @Ironfestival for more reviews and details of the book and its blog tour.

Seasonal Changes

My garden is a gold splash of autumn, my favourite season. Apples thudding onto the unmowed grass, the buttery sun catching the red leaves of the maples. I have an urge to tidy and gather in supplies, inside and out, to finish harvesting my allotment and ready it for winter, to clear the flower beds of debris, to pack away tools for my winter hibernation. 

With words, I've been kicking through my poems like fallen leaves, noticing a gem here, a spoiled windfall there. I edit a line, I submit a few poems, slowly. There is no urgency with my work, though I know time is running short there as well. My course starts up again tomorrow, I have a book review due in a few days, but I layer words a few at a time, waiting for them to build up into some rich mélange. 

My writing group is planning to go back to face-to-face meetings next week. I can't attend the first one, but with our second wave starting, I have to admit I'm nervous of jumping back into that part of normal life. Not all of it has to do with the virus. I've enjoyed having an online side of my writing life. I've joined mentoring, virtual book launches and workshops in the UK along with my local writing group from the comfort of my home. Being in Finland I wouldn't be able to take advantage of many of these opportunities without the impetus driven by the various lockdowns around the world. 

It's less stressful being online when you have kids and unreliable support, but I also find the social side easier. Seeing everyone in front of me, having to unmute to take my turn makes it easier for me to read social cues. I'm probably still awkward and too vocal, but somehow it's easier to step back and take a moment than when I'm caught up in the pressure of being surrounded by people, trying to find the right time to speak up.

It's a toss-up. I'm afraid online events will dwindle again and I'll be isolated here in my corner of Europe, but it will be good to try and make more local events, now that I've made some connections.  

We'll see what the next few weeks bring, infections are ramping up here, more restrictions coming along. I may not get the chance to see my friends for long, so should maybe jump at it, even masked up. 

Enjoy your week.  

Autumn Scramble

I'm not used to this working full-time thing. OK, almost full-time, as I had Thursday off from school as it was a half day and it's cheaper to get someone already on site to cover for a couple of hours, but otherwise I slogged it out with preschoolers all week. They are exhausting. 

Then the weekend slips by too fast, even with one day child free. I sat and worked on catch-up for my course and poetry all day yesterday and I still feel like I haven't accomplished enough. I've ignored all my housework, so there's that guilt too. There's really no winning. 

I'm trying to write a few new poems to finish my newest proposed collection and editing a poem I've found some new research on. I've never tried to fill in gaps in a collection with poems about specific ideas. It's hard as I usually write more organically, but this collection has a theme of 'strong women' as an over-riding arc and I realised that I need more that follow it and examine it from different angles where other poems I want to include are more loosely connected. 

I don't want these poems I'm writing now to feel forced and I haven't quite got an organic spark for this latest one. So I'm tip-toeing around it, writing notes about images and a few lines, but at the moment it feels very telling and unfocused. I have a deadline for the end of the month I'd like to meet, so need to get it finished. 

The sun is finally shining after a rough, rainy week, so I hope to go out to the allotment today. The girls have been selling my excess courgettes this week and want to see if any others are ready. I have had a serious glut of them this year. They grow to marrows so quickly. The kids are tired of courgette bread and the veg in pasta sauces. I have a freezer full of grated courgette as well. I was surprised anyone bought them as they aren't a traditional Finnish veg and most people I've given them away to haven't known what to do with them, but they shifted over a dozen of them at fifty cents each. I'll try and get as much in as I can before the wet gets to them, but I think the plot is winding down. I still have a lot of winter digging to get started on. 

So much to do, but I'd rather have that problem than the opposite. Make the most of this harvest time. 

The Nitty Gritty

School was over-whelming this week, so challenging and fun. I worked as a classroom assistant, specifically with two kids who barely spoke English and who were struggling to settle into their new class. We had some bumpy moments, but by Friday they had both smiled a few times and engaged with me. I had a Harry Potter magic battle with one and cooed over puppy pictures with another. We also managed to do some work connected with what the class was doing. I left school elated, exhausted and somewhat disappointed that this is just a temporary gig. But after my frustration with teaching last year, I'm looking forward to the next challenge this school throws at me. 

So I had no chance to write during the week, but I took a lot of time this weekend to focus on editing, submitting and general organising of my poems and collections. I put a joking comment on Twitter about my horror at finding an old poem that used a word three times. It wasn't an important word or done for any particular reason, I just never noticed that I used 'clean' in three different ways. 

I'm sure it seems a minor issue, but my writing group knows it's one of my pet peeves for my own work. I want my words to have some power in their use and I feel overuse weakens that. Three times shows to me that I haven't really pushed my linguistic skills and feels redundant. Was 'clean' a theme of the poem I hadn't noticed, was I trying to express something through my word choice or was I just being lazy? I decided the latter. The poems wasn't affected when I found different ways of saying 'clean' in two of the three spots. 

It made me wonder how many other unintentional 'mistakes' I've missed in my proof-reading over the years. I'm aware I sometimes reuse words or images as themes throughout a set of poems, Do we, as writers, sometimes get stuck on a riff and not notice? 

A mentor I once had wrote a book with an uncommon, but not unused, word in the title. Our group spent over a year working with her, sharing our work and almost all of us somehow managed to put the word in one of our texts, often without realising it. She was hyper-aware of the word, of course, so eventually pointed it out to the class, so I'm sure most of us edited it out. I think her editor eventually changed the title, but it showed how we were sponges at her feet.

Today, I found I used the word 'mossy' in two poems that I would probably later consider placing together. Again, it's no big deal until they are actually sitting in a collection together. They were written about the same time, so I wonder if I had that idea on my mind. One was a mossy carpet and one was mossy light, so different images, but with both were used to suggest overgrown abandoned areas, one from above and one from below. Not sure how or which to replace or if I need to at all, but I love this level of getting down to the nitty gritty of language when editing. 

I didn't get that Editorial Manager job I applied for. We all realised I'm a word person, not a people and process person and they really wanted someone with the knowledge to streamline those rather than edit texts. So I wasn't too disappointed and they said they hope to hire some plain old editors in the future, so my CV is being kept aside. In the meantime, I will continue to play with my own words. 

Looking for Distractions

End of second full week of school and I've only been able to work at the school two days because of a cold. It hasn't been bad, but our city has regulations that any sign of illness and you have to stay home, students and teachers. 

So I've been home since Wednesday and now I have three kids down with it. Luckily, they changed the rules about getting a negative Covid test before returning just on the day I was scheduled to get two of us tested. I cancelled, as I'm sure this is just a summer cold. Half of us are almost recovered, two are just starting and my last healthy child is lording it over us all, forgetting she always gets these things the worst of any of us. It's going to be a fun autumn. 

Writing-wise, I'm working on a new collection. Not that my short Scottish collection that's been scheduled to be published this year is anywhere near seeing the light of day, nor has my Finnish collection been picked up by anyone, but it's giving me something new to focus on. In spite of my recent posts about self-belief, I'm still struggling with mine. So I'm snuggling up with my daughter's crepes and writing poems about strong women, forgotten women on another wet Sunday. 

And reminding myself I am one. No word on the job I interviewed for, no word from my course supervisor. I'm going to get the kids' dad to come over and watch those still sick on Friday as he's working from home and distract myself with work. Everything feels like a slog at the moment. 

End of Summer Slump

Back to school this week, but I'm not sure how long I'm going to last among the germ-ridden first graders when the schools all have a strict policy of no attendance if you're ill. I took a girl to the nurse yesterday for a runny nose which was shared with me I'm sure as she wept over me to be sent home in the first week of school.  I'm sure I won't last long either. 

I had my interview and I'm not sure where I stand. I doubt I'll get it, they really want someone with different skill set than me. And I'm not really bothered if I don't get it because it's less editing and more managing which isn't really what I want to get into. Though earning real money would be nice for a change.

I've enjoyed working as a teaching assistant this week, much more than I was as a middle school teacher last year. I'm not sure if it's the age group or being able to actually work one on one with kids a bit more rather than trying to speak to the masses. We'll see how things go. I wish I knew what I want to be when I'm grown up. Substituting has been a good option to try things out though.

I'm struggling with motivation this week with my writing. I see so many writers being awarded this and that, publishers and art bodies offering opportunities I can't take advantage of because of where I live, so I feel I'm just spinning my wheels, wondering why am I bothering. I'm sure it's just a blip and I will get a burst of enthusiasm again. My writing group stayed up late chatting online last night and that helped. I'm happy to have their life line. 

It's raining today after several really hot days. I need an indoor day just to relax, but I really want to get out to my allotment and start sorting it for winter. I can see hints of autumn everywhere, heard the ghostly calls the Barnacle Geese flying overhead last night through a dark, opened window. That sound always makes me want to run away myself, but since I can't I want to prepare for what is coming. 

I've had a poem appear in ang(st) for their Distanced 2.0 issue. They've got a call out for Distanced 3.0 and their Hair issue, if you're looking for somewhere to submit. Their quick response and turn around time is a major plus. 

So if you want me I'll be curled up under a blanket on the couch with a cup of tea. Enjoy

Gearing up and Down Sizing

The schools have started back and we're in that transition period where the scheduling begins, the afternoons fill with hobbies and lessons and we shuffle them around until we can manage. My morning are quieter, but without a flow yet. I am still running around and catching up on errands, so haven't found a rhythm to fit my poetry in regularly. And being a substitute I'm always slightly on edge waiting for the phone to break into the silence. My interview is also coming up this week, so it's nipping at the edge of my mind as well. 

One thing I've started this week is reviewing my poems in consideration of an A5 page size. Suna Afshan at Poetry Birmingham Journal made an off-the-cuff remark on Twitter asking those  submitting to stop formatting poems in A4 docs. It caused a flurry of tweets of confusion, ah ha moments, discussion and it got me thinking. Print magazines and collections do mostly print in A5 or a similar size, so it makes sense. Though most also seem to ask for submissions in A4 (even PBJ), so maybe the industry needs to rethink things as well. 

I do often look at potential collections from that format, but I have never considered using that size to type my poems from the beginning. So it's thrown my work in disarray. I've changed all my potential collections and my rough draft files to A5 and am looking at how it changes the lay-out of the poems. I'm not rewriting many yet, but it is making me see things differently. 

I've noticed my newer poems do run shorter and fit in A5 comfortably for the most part, but my upcoming collection is mostly older poems and is sitting at over the page limit at the moment. I need to find out what size and style of font my publisher uses. I don't mind splitting a poem over two pages if necessary, but three or four lines dangling over looks wrong. I'm unsure what to do about those extra 5 pages I've suddenly gained.

Of course, for online magazines it's less of an issue. Magazines and competitions usually specify A4 and around a 40 line limit, but my lay-out is running about 28 lines to a page (2cm margins top and bottom, 11pt Arial font for text and a 16pt title.) One of the benefits of being trained in editing at a small magazine is I learned little tricks to make a poem fit on a page, how to lay out a book so it looks good, but I won't be able to do that with my collection being published.  

It's a small thing really, but I feel better using the A5 format from now on. I'll still write my poems first in my notebook, not caring about length or format, but it will be a consideration when editing and designing collections. And, of course, I'm definitely not suggesting that poets should write to please editors and to fit publications, but it helps to know how a poem will look on the page and if we're using A4 as our template the printed product may not look how we imagined. 

I'm also trying to get back into reviewing and reading poetry collections, so I read a few poems every night before bed, the one time I can be sure I have time. I have turned back to Fiona Benson's Vertigo and Ghost which I started last year. This is one of those collections I wish I had written, but not lived. Such beautiful writing that tears me apart emotionally. Even the more gentle ones about parenthood and the poet's fears connected with raising her girls in this difficult world when other mothers are leading their children through unimaginable dangers in the hope of finding safety and shelter dig into all my tender places. But Part One which is considers the mythology of Zeus in modern terms, as a serial rapist, is more of a punch to the throat. Benson plays with the words on the page, mixing modern language with ancient stories and uses a kind of interview format to give voices to the victims, Io, Callisto and others, as well as bragging, bravado-puffed Zeus. It goes much further than Yeats' 'Leda and the Swan'. Difficult to read as it doesn't shy from blunt emotion and descriptions, it is an important voice in these times when 'Me Too' is not a thing you wish to say, but it needs to be heard. 

I've been commissioned to write a review for a poetry collection late in the autumn, but more about that later. 

I'm off to edit and later enjoy some late summer sun. 

A Positive Voice

I can not get myself organised to write this regularly at the moment. Summer is coming to an end here, less than two weeks before the schools go back and we're trying to readjust to that life, but my body is resisting. I'm struggling to tread water when I just want to let the current pull me along. It doesn't help that I have this weird ear pressure problem that won't clear. 

I was speaking to my writing group about this question of self-belief in one's writing I discussed in my last post and they pointed out that I was lucky to have a positive first creative writing teacher, positive early role models in general. They felt, and I now agree, that the first voices you hear as a child or young person about your self-worth stick with you. If those people, parents, teachers, mentors, were over-critical or negative, that soundtrack will follow you throughout your life. If they were positive, it gives you a bolster of belief that could help support you when things are difficult. It's worrying as a parent and a teacher to understand how much weight the words we speak to children have throughout their lives. 

It is one of the reasons I love teaching creative writing and why I'm struggling with the idea of going into just regular teaching. As a special creative writing teacher, I could focus on just that, be the positive voice who loved their childish leaps into imagination amidst the classroom teacher's worries and critiques of handwriting and spelling. As a classroom teacher, I wouldn't have that time to focus on what I love because there's so many other things that I need to do just to get through the day. As a substitute I have even less time to get to know the students because I am usually just trying to get through the lesson and keep a semblance of control. I've had one or two sparks of it, but most of it feels again like just pushing against the weight of water to stay afloat.

I have an interview coming up for a new role, away from teaching. I'm walking that tightrope of trying to be positive and not get my hopes up. Everything is moving slowly as well which is difficult. It's 2 weeks before my interview. It could be a chance to move back towards supporting writers in a new way which would feel like a positive direction for myself as well. This summer has been heavy with a lot of doubt and questioning which hasn't helped with forward movement. 

I'm focusing on finishing my coursework and getting the kids ready to go back to school. And doing lots of editing, not many new poems are being written, but I'm finishing up a bunch of those poems I've written in my last few courses. 

I joined the Helsinki Poetry Connection for an open mike night this week. My first in Finland and my first in at least 10 years. I'm well out of practice, but it was a good laugh as a few friends from my group also braved the experience and did amazing. Open mikes are the same in the US, UK and Finland in my experience. It all depends on the crowd, but there's usually a good sense of support, some fun, funny and downright crazy readers. It's a weird experience in another language. My Finnish is just not good enough to follow the poems, but I love listening to the sound of it and how everyone made it do different things. Helsinki Poetry Connection was welcoming and multi-cultural, so I didn't feel strange reading in English. I'll definitely do it again. 

A few other bits of good news: Emerge Literary Journal has published my poem 'Growing Through the Sidewalk'.

My poem 'Without Finnish Idioms' won Wax Poetry Art's European Poetry Competition and was the first, and currently the only, poem published in their new online magazine Europe Poetry Magazine. This was one of the poems I read at the open mike. It was fun to see if the Finns reacted to my translations of Finnish idioms. 

And 'Cafe Dreams' is in the current issue of dreams walking, a new magazine with some great work.

Check them all out. 

Things just keep ticking along. Autumn will be here before we know it. Keep positive.

Good Enough?

I've been thinking a lot about confidence in writing lately. Where it comes from, how to foster it in ourselves and others. 

I've been writing poetry for over 20 years now. I've worked in publishing, I've attended courses and writing groups, I've have a modest publication record. I know I'm not a great writer, but I am proud of what I write. I submit to journals and punt my collections to publishers without fear of rejection. It happens a lot, I just move on.

I've forgotten what it means to fear putting words on the page because they weren't good enough, for judging every single thing I write as crap. There must have been that stage in my writing. Maybe I'm just too old to remember or I'm just too full of myself to have ever suffered from it. I doubt the latter.

I used to take forever to write a poem, spending ages on each line. I would rewrite a few lines and then leave it for a few days to settle before trying again. It took me years to finish things. I'm not sure now if it was lack of confidence in what I wrote or just being unfocussed. Except when I was working on my first novel, I've never had a serious amount of exclusive writing time to just write and edit. I fit it in between work, on commutes, in waiting rooms.

So how does one gain confidence in their writing? The confidence to finish a piece and trust that it is enough, to send it out into the world for others to read, enjoy and publish.

Can you teach confidence to writers? My first creative writing teacher was probably too positive about my work, everything was great and worthy. It made me enjoy and trust my writing and want to write more. It was a shock when I received more critical feedback, some of it very harsh and blunt, but it never stopped me. I learned to filter out the important issues and try to use that kernel of the feedback to improve my writing. 

Someone mentioned Imposter Syndrome to me recently when discussing confidence. There have been times when I've had to play at being a poet to be able to get through situations where I haven't felt up to the task. After my second son, I think I struggled a bit with post-natal depression and barely went out or talked to people. I actually put on a costume (a fancy pin and scarf I wouldn't ususally wear) and went to various writing events to force myself to mingle and smile. I eventually worked back up to reading my work in public. I still wrote, it was the public side I struggled with and pretending I was a capable poet helped. 

I've had days when I've ripped up poems or just deleted them. Days when I've cried at a reader's harsh or tactless or too honest words. Days when I've despaired that I'd never get published or that my writing was so bad that everyone hated it. 

But I always went back to writing because it has never been about publication or being liked or finding an audience though those things would be gravy. It was a need to write, to capture my thoughts, my life, my breath on paper. To give them a permanent space when everything was swirling around my head. And I didn't compare them to others' work, didn't worry if they were good enough because they were me, at that moment, rough and raw, slightly polished with time, changing with mood and experience. And I have always been good enough. 

It frustrates me that I can praise my fellow writers, my mentees until I'm blue, but I can't make them see how good and brave they are for just writing what they want. How bringing that scraggly, imperfect poem into the light of understanding readers is a cause for celebration and pride. How sending your work to a journal even though it will probably be rejected, because the odds are against almost all writers there, is amazing because for 10 minutes or so your words are inhabiting someone else's head and making them think about something you cared enough to write. And if it's not for them, it's still yours. 

I don't suppose there's a way to teach that, but I wish I could.

Ploughing Forward

This blog seems to have slipped my mind over the last few weeks. It's summer holidays here, so I've been busy with the kids, but no more than usual. We're following a much slower pace here. No travelling abroad, no visiting lots of public places. We've gone to the beach, the pool, the woods.

I'm taking it easy with writing as well. I'm not trying to write a poem a day, but working on something every day; submissions, editing, reading. I'm still not focussed on what I want to do next. I've looked at my novels and dropped them again. I can't see an idea for a new collection and with my to be published chapbook on hold because of the Corona situation and now word for any of the publishers I've sent my next collection to, it feels kind of futile to organise a new one. 

To find a sense of direction, I've been applying for jobs. I'm not sure primary or middle school teaching is for me, so I applied for a creative writing university post back in the UK and as expected didn't even get a look in, but it made me think about what I want to do. So on a whim I applied for a publishing job and received a positive response, so hopefully will have an interview soonish. It's a short-term contract to begin with, so it's a good chance to see if I want to get back into publishing. I've been missing it over the past year or so, but I'm not sure if I'm wearing rose-coloured glasses of my time working as an editor for an established press and for my own small company.

Even the change of direction with just applying for jobs has given me a wee jolt of adrenaline and more focus. I love teaching, but I think I love teaching creative writing more than mainstream teaching. I'm still trying to do my course and am learning a lot about teaching children with SEND, which will help me with my own children even if I don't go into teaching. I know I want to work with words and encouraging people to write and share their work, so publishing hits those goals for me as well. 

We'll see what the next few weeks hold. I'm miles away from where I was last year this time; newly separated, shell-shocked with no clear idea of what I wanted to do. I've been working as an editor and a substitute teacher, I've started a Uni course, I've had a chapbook accepted for publication. It's all forward motion, even if I've hit some rocks along the way. At this point, that's all I can ask. 

Apologies for My Lack of Response to Current Events

When I decided to go quiet,
was the time I should have been speaking out.
When the screens started going dark,
black voices said to offer lifelines.
When I wanted to write,
I knew my voice wasn't one that needed to be heard.
I couldn't watch the violence any more,
but can't turn away any longer.
Frozen with indecision,
I've crawled back into my corner,
no safer, no more sheltered than anywhere else
for people of colour, for immigrants
to listen to what is needed of me. 

I had a chance to hear this poem read last night by the author Catrice Greer at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival's online Only Connect with Ankh Spice and it was so hard hitting and beautiful that I'm so happy that it's available online to share. It says more than I ever can.

The Heights

By Catrice Greer

It's been years
I think of you often 
And I remember 
You sitting on the stoop

With your boys,
your cousins
Doing what you knew
But wanting more

One day
After arrests, adventures, girlfriends
Missteps and babies
You turned 21

The sun was shining
It was your summer
And your joy drove in circles
around Wilton heights in your car
your favourtie music blasting
lyrics reverberating
from every corner, fence post, doorknob,
and amplified in the hollow
of the only quiet nook in the horseshoe turn

Your girlfriend and babies
Just dropped off at your mom's
Everyone waiting for you
To come inside
To celebrate you

A flurry of rattled off shots
19
From a fast swerving car
Spilling the life out of your sunshine
Cutting-off your sunbeams
slumped over a car steering wheel
All the hope seeping in puddles

I think of you often
choking back tears, holding my breath
So I don't scream out - why????
I miss
Your smile, young bravado, intelligence, questions
What ifs, and how comes?
Your joy
You
Wanting more out of your life
Making plans to be your best
And we'd talk
Second chances, new plans
Brother to sister, friends
You'd ask me how come I am so different
And I couldn't understand how come you couldn't see
We were the same
Just people living

I saw your heart
Beautiful gem
Gleaming
Miles away from weathered boards on windows
Misperceptions, Spaulding, Palmer, Blevedere and 
Street wars just to stay alive and feel alive in a world that didn't
Understand your value
Stunted short
By gunshots, rivalry, and misdirected youth
3 strike rules, missed opportunities, and poverty that
Brutally entraps, forced by pressures unseen but well known,
Making decisions that bright little brown boys rarely grow up with dreams of making
their lives less than the greatness they deserve

Wishing you a happy birthday,
Seems like
I had just seen you yesterday, Gone, gone
And we miss you
everyday
Every minute of every hour of every day
It's been years

Changing Gears

I've taken some time off from the blog, it was one too many thing to remember and with school ending, two kids' birthdays coming up, something had to give. I've stopped writing a poem a day as well. I'm reading, writing when I want, gardening, baking birthday cakes, crocheting like a mad demon (one square left to finish this beast, I'm not going to think about the joining yet). It's nice to take a break from the things I've pressured myself to do.

I like to keep busy, need to have projects, but with the summer holidays starting, it's nice to take a break before shifting into a new direction. I have my course assignments to work on this summer, so need to get reading for those. I want to keep writing daily if possible, I've always got a mess of unfinished prompts from courses if needed.

I feel like I should be doing something bigger, though. My pamphlet is on hold because of the Corona virus situation, my other collections are sitting in publishers' slush piles. I don't know what I want to do yet, but feel restless. Maybe because I've finished painting my kitchen cabinets and my stairs and sorting my allotment, but it's more writing-wise. I need a new goal. I have no idea what though. So maybe this changing of gears will help me think of something. I even opened one of my novels, messed with the first page and then closed it. 

Suggestions on a postcard welcome.

A very new poem published this week. On the website Pendemic that features poetry written during the pandemic, my poem 'Reading 'The Waste Land' Before My Residence Permit Renewal Appointment'. Nothing like a lengthy title. 

Thanks to all the editors and staff for working on during these difficult times. 

Corona Virus: Week Nine: Back to Semi-Normal

The kids in Finland went back to school on the 14th for about two weeks before the summer and I started subbing yesterday for 4 of the last 7 days. I'm not going to get into the wisdom of that decision as I'm not sure where I stand on it, but regardless, we're all looking forward to a break from this new normal.  

On the days I'm not working, I have plenty of things to keep me busy with my course, my writing and other things on my To Do List. They're opening the libraries to pick up reserved books, so that's something to look forward to. As I've said before I'm used to social isolation, it's the strain of home-schooling 3 kids on my own that's been getting to me. 

My focus has changed, so I've struggled to keep up with this blog. I'm back on my course work, trying to get my allotment sorted before my birch allergy gets so bad I can't go outside and I've finished painting my stairs, so I can focus on the kitchen cabinets next, if I'm not going back to work. I'm still trying to write my poem a day, but usually late at night, so I barely remember what I wrote in the morning and it feels like a new poem. 

The High Window has published three of my poems in their early summer issue. 

The Winnow has also published two of my poems in their summer issue. 

To be honest, I haven't had a chance to check out either of these issues, but will try at the weekend or summer break for us is after next week, so I will have more time then. And a pile of reading to catch up on. 

Things feel kind of back to normal. We can't go out to eat or go to the pool, cinema or amusement places for the kids, but basically life is continuing on with some adjustments. We're not a terribly social family anyway and have few friends here, so staying at home didn't affect us much. We'll see how the infection levels react and whether we have to go back to a form of lockdown again over the summer.

I hope everyone's adjusting and keeping well. 

Corona Virus Week Eight: Distracted

I've been too busy to keep up with this. I can't believe it's May already.

Richie McCaffery has included two of my poems on his website The Lyrical Aye. I'm honoured to be on the site with Scottish poets such as Mario Relich, Sally Evans, Bashabi Fraser, Morelle Smith and Chris Powici, names I knew when I worked in Scottish publishing.

I've also had a poem appear in From Glasgow to Saturn which features writers who are alumni of the University of Glasgow. They've done a virtual launch of this issue with readings from many of the writers. Here's mine, not something I'm comfortable doing, but it was a good challenge. They've also decided to offer this issue for free due to the Virus situation. They were fun to work with and I wish the new editorial team good luck with their future projects.

I've finished Nan Shepherd's A Living Mountain. I love her sweeping language, totally caught up in her place. As a sweet coincidence, my copy of A Scots Dictionary of Nature by Amanda Thomson has arrived. I knew the author as an artist before I left Scotland, so I was surprised to see there's not a lot of illustrations in the book and they seem to be photographs. But I'm looking forward to rummaging through the book with ideas for writing. I don't write in Scots often, but I love the feel of the words I do use. I mean, curl-doddy for a pine cone just screams 'write a poem about me,' doesn't it?

I also ordered Moder Dy/ Mother Wave, a poetry collection by the Shetland writer Roseanne Watt. The poems flit between English and Shetlandic, sometimes as translations, sometimes within the same stanza. I can't wait to have a look tonight when the craziness of home-schooling and kids has passed. I just had to interrupt writing this to help a child understand his math lesson and because another dropped a laptop on her lip?! But even the first poem pulls me in.

Haegri

The day your mapped your bonhogas
out for me, we saw it
curled like a question mark
at the lip of the hill -

I totally forgot about GloPoWrMo in my last post and didn't get this posted last week, but I have been keeping up on my own. I have written a rough draft of a poem for every day of April. It's become a mini-challenge to myself. Even slightly tipsy on Friday after my writing group Zoom session I pushed myself to write something about the third half of the session which we usually spend in the pub, but we now just break out a glass of wine while online. I haven't gone back and looked at any of the poems after I've posted them in my course's space, but will have a look later and see if there are any worth moving forward.

I don't know why, but I haven't finished many poems this year so far, I have a 'Roughs' file full of half-finished poems, but it's rare that I decide one is good enough to send out to magazines or even just move to a finished file. But the rough drafts keep stacking up.

I'm too unorganised and just want to get this posted.

Corona Virus Week Five: Isolation After Isolation

I missed posting this weekend. I was too busy painting my stairs and making use of some child-free time. Oh well. I'll keep it short. 

What I've been thinking about this week: for most people, this isolation is new and frustrating. For some of us, we've been isolated for longer, either geographically, physically because of illness or disability or because of mental health issues. We've missed out on chances to attend events, take up opportunities because we can't get to them due to work or child care commitments or lack of money or cannot cope with the large amounts of people and social pressures. Some have even been unable to work for whatever reasons.

Some of us have tried to reach out to organisers, employers, friends and family across the emptiness, tried to explain the issues we're facing and no one has answered back. We have tried to arrange activities, talk to more people online, request to work or study from home, but most people are busy and caught up in their own lives or unwilling to even consider changing the way things are done. 

Now that so many people are social distancing, dealing with the consequences of cancellation of events and activities, world suddenly hears and comes up with solutions. Various groups and organisations join together to find a way to include people who cannot be physically present. Online festivals, classes and get-togethers, the ability to work and study from home enhanced. People I've been sending messages suddenly are lonely and write back. No one heard us before because it didn't affect them and they couldn't comprehend the loneliness and frustrations. 

The world is changing, reaching out, but when the entertainment venues are open, the ability to meet up returns, will anyone remember that there are still those of us who can't take a weekend off to go to a conference or have the money to get public transport into a bigger city for an event, who physically can't travel to do a 9-5 job?

I hope this new online, distance-friendly, open culture will continues after the dust from the Corona Virus settles. That my kids can still pop into a friend's birthday in Australia, even if it's only to watch him blow out the candles. That I will be able to 'attend' an AGM or conference via Zoom. That I will be able to read my work at a magazine launch, even if it's only on their website afterwards. 

I hope that we remember that ways exist to include those isolated in our worlds and that we are allowed to continue to use technology to build an even wider community, as inclusive as possible. 

Corona Virus Week Four: Filling Time

I almost forgot about this. I haven't lost track of time due to the kids' schooling and their obsession with Easter, but it's trying to keep all the new things I'm juggling. To stay on top of so many projects, my studies, little jobs around the house and my daily writing.

I've managed to keep up so far with my poem of day challenge for GloPoWriMo. I've written eleven first drafts, some about our Corona Virus isolation, but a few other subjects have popped up. It's strange how you can sometimes fine a new way to approach a familiar prompt. I've had the prompt 'green' about four times now in various challenges and I've usually managed to come up with new subjects to write about, sometimes hitting it in a roundabout way like the green-eyed monster of jealousy. It's nice to get back into the flow and it is just that. I often don't have the time and head space to try and write until the evenings, but they just come, lumpy and rough, but I've managed to get the shape of a poem down every day so far.

I need to make a video reading of one of my poems for an upcoming online journal launch. It's nice that the magazine has found a way to launch in this situation and that for once I can 'attend', but I'm not keen on recording myself reading a poem. The audio one I made last week for my poem in Not Very Quiet was difficult enough. I'm not a comfortable reader, so trying to appear natural and calm while I record myself and try and remember my poem will be nerve-wracking. And also finding a quiet space to do it with a houseful of inquisitive and noisy kids will be almost impossible. If the wind would stop blowing so hard and cold, I'd consider doing it outside. I'll link of course once the launch happens. Try not to laugh.

For my poetry writing month poem for this week I thought I'd stick with women from Scotland. I came across Kathleen Jamie through her nature writings before I found her poetry. Her book Findings introduced me to a different side of Scotland while I was first living in high-rise flats in Glasgow. Her poem 'The Tradition' taken from her collection The Bonniest Companie finds a connection with me on many levels, not only it's connection to the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014.

The Tradition

For years I wandered hill and moor
Half looking for the road
Winding into fairyland
Where that blacksmith kept that forge

Who'd heat red hot dragging links
That bound me to the past,
Then, with one almighty hammer-blow
Unfetter me at last.

Older now, I know nor fee
Nor anvil breaks those chains
And the wild ways we think we walk
Just bring us here again.

I'm dreading going back to school work on Tuesday, it's been a nice break with the kids, working in the garden, on crafts. I think we're all tired of the isolation and I've seen a lot of people easing themselves out more due to the nice weather and holiday. The shops were jammed when I went for my weekly stock-up and to the hardware store for repair supplies. I'm afraid we'll see an upturn in infections and deaths in two weeks time. Listen to the guidance and be safe.

Corona Virus Week Three - Chinks of Light

The online magazine Not Very Quiet, a bi-annual online women's poetry journal, has included my poem 'The Wedding Suit' in their latest issue. There's even an audio file of me reading it. Sorry, I know I'm like everyone else and hate the sound of my own voice, but ouch, I'm so not ready for that. There's dozens of poems, that I have to admit I haven't had a chance to peruse yet, but it looks like a great mix from the titles.

The new Scotland-based magazine Driech has included three of my poems in Issue 2 with poets like Chrys Salt and Hugh McMillan. An honour for me to be included in their ranks and to have my work wend its way home. An issue only costs £3, including postage and a year subscription £10 post free and that's 6 issues now they've gone bi-monthly, so it's a great way to support a small magazine in these tough times for not too much effort on your bank account. 

And I've also had two poems appear in a recent issue of erbacce, the magazine connected with erbacce press which was a surprise as I had submitted them last year for their annual FREE poetry prize (still open until May 1 2020!!) and I know they didn't win that, but I didn't hear anything back, so once they announced the winners I assumed that was it. So it was a nice surprise to receive the issue in the mail this week. I guess I made a sort of long list. Read their guidelines very carefully for the prize, but it's worth giving it a go. 

And back to reality. If you had asked me 3 days ago how I was, I'd probably have broken down in tears. Home schooling is breaking me, but I've had a few days respite as the kids were away to their dad's so I've been able to catch up with my studies, go to the allotment, hang some photos that have been sitting unloved for years, do some reading and crafting and, most importantly for the blog, join in with Angela Carr's new 30 day writing challenge which coincides with GloPoWriMo (or NaPoWriMo if you insist on being US-centric) the poetry writing month which encourages people to write a poem a day. And so far because of the isolation I've been able to keep up. Four new rough drafts done and as soon as I hit Publish for this I'll start on the next one. 

In honour of GloPoWriMo, I usually include a poem by a poet I like. This time I'm including The Hill Burns by the Scottish writer Nan Shepherd. I have to admit I've never read her poems before, but I've recently started her book The Living Mountain which is part of a online read-along started by nature writer Rob MacFarlane. I  haven't been able to keep up with the read-along and discussion, but it's worth following Rob on Twitter and reading his books, he has a lovely way with words and inspiring people to explore nature and to write about it. I've only managed The Wild Places and The Lost Words (written with Jackie Morris and with her beautiful illustrations, a magical book) so far as it's hard to get his books here, but I'm in a queue of about a million waiting for his latest book Underland once the libraries reopen here in Helsinki. 

Anyway, I found this poem by Nan Shepherd and it encapsulates the feeling I get from The Living Mountain, that reverence and connection to nature, to Scottish nature particularly. It reminds me of my time last summer walking in Puck's Glen in Argyll. 

The Hill Burns

So without sediment
Runs the clear burns of my country,
Fiercely pure,
Transparent as light
Gathered into its own unity,
Lucent and without colour;
Or green,
Like clear deeps of air,
Light massed upon itself,
Like the green pinions,
Cleaving the trouble of approaching night,
Shining in their own lucency,
Of the great angels that guarded the Mountain;
Or amber so clear
It might have oozed from the crystal trunk
Of the tree Paradisal,
Symbol of life,
That grows in the presence of God eternally.
And these pure waters
Leap from the adamantine rocks,
The granites and shists
Of my dark and stubborn country.
From gaunt heights they tumble,
Harsh and desolate lands,
the plateau of Braeriach
Where even in July 
The cataracts of wind
Crash in the corries with the boom of seas in anger,
And Corrie Etchachan
Down whose precipitous
Narrow defile
Thunder the fragments of rock
Broken by winter storms
From their aboriginal place;
And Muich Dhui's summit,
Rock defiant against frost and the old grinding of ice,
Wet with the cold fury of blinding cloud,
Through which the snow-fields loom up, like ghosts from a world of eternal annihilation,
And far below, where the dark waters of Etchachan are wont to glint,
And unfathomable void.
Out of these mountains,
Out of the defiant torment of Plutonic rock,
Out of fire, terror, blackness and upheaval,
Leap the clear burns,
Living water,
Like some pure essence of being,
Seen only by its movement.

The poem is so vivid and visceral, it makes me miss the country even more. Sorry, to hit you hard with names and links this week, amazing what you can remember and manage when you've had some actual time and distance to focus on yourself.

Back to the grind tomorrow, but it's a four day week this and next week due to the Easter holiday, so that will help a bit. 

I hope you're all holding up and finding bright spots to help you get through.