Sliding Out of 2024: End of Year Review

The dark time of the year. The snow we had is melted and the sky has been without sun for ages. We have been full of sickness and lacking motivation for most things, especially Christmas. 

I always find this time of year difficult, living away from what I consider home. The cold, the darkness, the forced jollity of Christmas. Even after 15 years, I don't feel at peace here and the holidays make it worse. 

But this is what the kids know and look forward to, so I focus on our family traditions and we make a gingerbread house and decorate the house and tree. We get out the crafts the kids made when they were wee to hang on the tree, the tatty paper tonttu (Christmas elves) and the salt dough decorations that have survived over 15 years. The run-up to Christmas is stressful, but as we don't have family here the day is pretty laid back and then we have a quiet break until we all return to school. I'm looking forward to that most of all. 

We got through Christmas and have fallen into the well of the Daft Days. I feel now the end-of-year urge to finish things off, tidy up and organise things. It probably won't happen in the house, but I can start with my poetry admin.

First of all, I'd like to thank all the publishers of journals and anthologies who have published me this year: The Banshee, From Glasgow to Saturn, Poetry Scotland, Causeway/Cabhsair, City of Poets, Dreich, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Aimsir, Dust Poetry, Hillfire Press and Helsinki Writers Group. Eleven publications which published 17 of my poems. It was a quieter year, but I still feel blessed to have my work shared by such interesting and innovative publishers.

That brings me to my end-of-year stats. In 2024:

I wrote 29 new poems.

I made 13 book submissions and 37 magazine subs. I still have about 15 submissions still out undecided.                    

I've had 11 acceptances from journals or anthologies, one as I've been writing this post.                          

But I had 16 book rejections and 31 magazine rejections.

In the end, I had 11 publications publish 17 poems.  

I had a 22% acceptance rate which isn't bad, considering all my numbers are down from my best year of 2022 where I had 28 acceptances for a 32% acceptance rate. But still better than 10% when I started counting in 2017.

I have been submitting my books more to publishers, 13 times with 16 rejections. It's frustrating that I cannot find a publisher for them. And even more frustrating that the book that was accepted in 2019 is still not published. But I'm trying to focus on the slow writing I'm doing, each tweak on a poem, each new line scribbled.  

Everything feels dark just now, but with the solstice past and the new year waiting, we know the sun will return. 

Turned Inward But Moving Forward

Everyone is shell-shocked from the recent election. I kind of expected it, but to be honest, I can't summon up much emotion towards its aftermath. 

I've been on this slide into disbelief, dismay and depression after most elections since the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014. Even the Tories being ousted this year felt hollow as I knew Labour wasn't going to do anything differently, and the SNP faced significant losses. 

Now, I just kind of hang around in the numb depression area when it comes to politics and society. I can't summon up hope in the run-up and don't feel the raging disappointment others feel when it all goes badly. 

I don't have the energy really, my personal plate is full. I'm balancing so many things for my kids, my own four and the sixty-plus I care for at school. Their needs are my full-time job, my focus is always turned towards them.

And then on the way home from work last week, I received a phone call that dropped another weight onto the pile. A small bump on my nose was found to be skin cancer. I've had it for years, but it was beginning to grow and change so I wanted it removed as it's ugly and annoying to me. Both the doctor and I were surprised by the results. 

I wrote this two years ago when I had a biopsy for a lump in my breast, a much bigger concern that turned out to be nothing:

Foreign, just a speck of sand,

an irritation within my shell.

Pearl of blackened rot

or a quiet multiplication of cells.

I imagine it spreads,

infestation

like an explosion of ants

crawling into every crevice.

Meanwhile, this other lump was growing. I'm sure it's nothing major, it's so tiny, but it'll be another pile of appointments and concerns to add to the list. 

So with all that's going on in the world, selfishly I've turned my thoughts inward even more, towards the people I care for and even towards myself for a change. I just have to keep moving forward, holding so much afloat, as if there is a future for my kids worth moving towards. To give them the foundation and the skills to keep moving forward themselves. 

And poetry is left to fall between the cracks of all that. In the summer, my editor said we would try to get my book out in November and, of course, I haven't heard from him since. After 5 years, I can no longer summon any enthusiasm for his promises. My other collections have been declined by 15 other publishers this year, yet I submitted to another publisher this week. 

I keep on writing, slowly though my belief in my publishability is low. Though I continue to half-hope, that is not the goal. It's pulling the feelings, memories, worries and love out in words that keeps me afloat. I work out my thoughts in my journals or in my poems. It doesn't matter if they get published really, though I would like to be able to share my work. So I'll continue to send my poems out and continue to write a blog that few read. It's better than letting the thoughts bump around the echo chamber of my mind.

I'd like to be able to say I ended that poem above with a hopeful message, a chink of light, but it ended like this:

After a season, an offering,
benign,
a word of chalk and bone,
crumbling beneath my heel. 

In the silence that remains,
a twitch of worry
still worms
beneath my surface.

I'm positive about the whole thing, it'll be a pain to sort, but I don't believe it's a serious issue, just another thing to deal with that will get dealt with.

'What Grows in the Dark' was recorded with the Helsinki Writers Group at Helsinki Open Waves back in 2022, though their audio doesn't seem to work now, this link does. It's lovely hearing those poems again. 

First Day of a Too Familiar Winter

November 1st saw our first batch of snow here in Southern Finland, just as I was driving my car home from getting its winter tyres and service at the garage. Everything was sorted by the skin of my teeth. I was hoping the autumn weather would hang on for a bit longer, but there's no escaping from winter. The temps will bounce back up above zero after the weekend, but this was just a reminder to not get too comfortable.  

I didn't manage to do much of Scotstober this year, but I have a handful of snippets, some poetic lines that I might try to do something with. I'm not getting much writing done, even when I was on holiday. Ideas rattled around but didn't stick. I can't seem to focus on writing and I have too many other things I need to do first before I can relax into poetry. Even today I was scanning documents for a child's school application and going through some course work rather than work on a poem. 

I'm not worried, my writing is cyclical like the seasons. When I have been writing the past few months it's been autumnal, the fear of winter side-by-side with the love of the harvest season. The geese leaving me behind. Now, when it comes, my writing will be full of ice and frustration with the long, dark winter hibernating behind windows. 

I sometimes feel I write the same poems over and over. Do I say it differently, better with age? I'm not sure. It's reassuring in a way because I know that I will move into the next season with a familiarity wrapped around me. And there's always a poem or two that pop up to surprise me because they are so different. That's worth moving through the too-familiar for a while. 

Nothing else to really report, no publication news.

Back To Reality: Scotstober

Back to reality or at least to a lot of laundry and kids' issues both at school and at home. Life always seems to trip you up when you try to take a break from it.

My trip to Fife was amazing, mainly because it was so laid back. I wandered the beaches when the weather was beautiful, the woods when it was a bit grayer and museums and churchyards when it was raining. I got to stand as close as I dared to the Forth Rain Bridge which I'm a bit obsessed with. None of these things would entertain my kids, so it was a good chance to entertain myself.

Here's a few new Scotstober posts, some inspired by my recent holiday in Scotland. I've combined them to catch up on those words I missed, although I haven't been unable to come up with anything poetic for Day 6 - boak - to throw up, the feeling you're going to throw up. That may be beyond my poetic ability.

#scotstober Days 7, 8 and 12 tap - top lang - long jouk - a quick movement, to evade Cloods tap thi hills thi firth bleacht siller an white thi lang stretch av beach bowlin wide dugs lowsed tae thi saunds joukin in an oot thi rocks up an doon thi stair Days 9, 2, 10 and 11 haver – to talk nonsense, to gossip dicht – to tidy up thole – to bear or endure bile - boil naebody tae haver wi naebody tae dicht up efter ah can thole thi seelence av a tuim hoose ah lang fae its echa in thi bile av thi kettle Days 13, 15 and 16 howff – a favourite place puddock – a toad cuddie – a stupid person ah sall gae tae Birnam Wid an staun in thi hert o thi aik ye’ll cry me a witch in mah howff wrunkelt as a puddock but yer a cuddie afeart o a wumman wi ideas Days 9, 14 and 17 haver - to talk nonsense gowster - to storm with wind and rain lum - a chimney a gowsterous day thi wind howlin thi rain blatterin oan thi windaes but thi lum is drawin weel an ahm haverin wi mah freends

Days 18, 21 and 22

tuim - empty
sook - to suck
heid - head

ahm tuim av thochts
staundin in thi wat leaves
thi wind sookin at mah skin
hair beelin around mah heid 

I'll try to catch up some more before the end of the month, but it's been so busy at work it's unlikely.

I've had some work published in Scotland recently. My poem 'Writing for Mr Stangeland' has been published in From Glasgow to Saturn, a magazine connected with the University of Glasgow, my alma mater. I can't wait to see a copy.

And my Fibonacci style poem 'Found in a Goniatite Ammonite' was published in Poetry Scotland. It contains such a great mix of poems from Scotland and abroad. A great wee read.  

Scotstober 2024

I'm on holiday in Scotland and I can't wait today for my first wander. I woke up to a pale sunrise and an alpaca in the field below my window. 

I was here twice over the summer, once with a school group and once with 3 of my kids, but this time it's just me. I have no plans really. I'm staying in the East Neuk of Fife where I've only visited once, besides St Andrews, decades ago. Summer was so stressful and dictated by others, I hope to just visit some of the coastal villages, do some writing in cafes and just chill. 

And maybe catch up on the Scotstober posting. Every year, Scotstober celebrates the Scots language on social media by posting a Scots Wird o thi Day, a new Scots word every day that posters can use creatively, writing their own poems or sentences, finding famous or humorous uses of the word, just sharing the love of Scots. 

Here's a list of the words

I don't speak Scots naturally. I lived in Scotland for about 17 years and I studied Scottish Literature. My ability to use Scots is like most of my languages, I can read better than I speak. But sometimes I can hear Scots in my head and that's the voice that I want for a poem. 

I'm way behind on my posting of the words, but here's my start. I tend to write snippets of poems and then try to stitch a poem together at the end of the month. 

#Scotstober Day 1 -  tyne - to lose, to suffer the loss. 

ah hae tint thi mune
deep in thi tangles
av thi epple trees

Day 2 - dicht - to tidy, to wipe up

Ah dicht thi rottin fruit
thi lace-leafslien on thi egress
abandont by thi rashin saison

Day 3 - noo - now.

ah hae tint thi mune an its story
in thi doctors an lesson plans
noo clutherin
mah mind

Day 4 - haar - a sea fog

memories
hingin oan lik a haar
saft an lawoer thi gairden

Day 5 - clype - to tell tales

but nane will clype oan me
if ah dae nae work thi day
no thi maggie
or thi hare

I'll head off soon, but I'm enjoying the slow start to the morning, even if the internet is dodgy.

The Wet Dark Slips of Gold

Wet, windy and dark, we're properly into autumn, but it's been so delayed this year which hasn't been a bad thing. The lingering heat is very welcomed. The leaves are starting to turn, maples first and then the birch. My garden covered in gold flakes that I will have to rake and rake, but I will never stay on top of them. 

Seasons cycle and I fall into the same routines, with my gardening and in the house, my moods. Even in my poems, I find myself caught up with the same images, the same thoughts. The geese leave depresses me, leaves falling are beauty but an ending. The cold is sneaking in. I rake and prune, tidy the garden for hibernation, trying not to think of the next season. Trying not to count the seasons that have passed and the emptiness of uncertainty of the season before me, but the certainty that they will follow the same rhythm. I try to capture the positives of the moment, focus on those slips of gold. 

I'm still only really writing on the weekend, so trying to see the positive of that. Starting one poem a week is good, submitting once a week is good. I was playing with images this week in connection with my poems, maybe something I can use if my book is ever published. Things have slowed up at my publishers, so I'm guessing everything has been pushed back again. 

I've been playing with combining photos that I've taken and adding lines from poems.  I'm not very artistic, but I do love to take photos. The act of collaging multiple images with words is something I've never tried before and I am enjoying it. I have about 5 pieces so far. The group that hosts our writing group meetings has a regular call for art for its window space, so maybe I could aim for posters to hang as a display. Then once I have a book in my hands I could use them for a reading.  

Here's one I've posted with these lines on Insta:

Thi claik are gangin awa,
arrows lowpin aff,
takin a daud av mah hert
jist like they dae ivery year.

I'm enjoying playing with them for now.

Publication news after a dry spell:

Two of my poems are appearing in the new issue of Aimsir. It was lovely to be included and the editors worked with the writers to get it just right. It looks amazing. Best of luck to them. 

Scottish Book Tour: Scotland Ten Years On

My attempt at Substack didn't work, so I'll stick to notes there and my blog here. 

The sun's back. Two weeks ago I had solar panels installed and then Finland went into autumn mode with mists and overcast darkness. It's good to have this burst of sunlight to make the huge cost seem worthwhile. The cats and I have been recharging our batteries in pools of light, though the throw blanket has found it's way back to the couch. I'm not ready to turn the heat on yet. 

The trees are just starting to turn, hints of gold and red around the edges. We're about a month behind season-wise. I have pictures of the kids from past years, knee-deep in piles of leaves. Gold birch coins and mushrooms are just starting to sprinkle the lawn. 

My pictures also show the Scottish Independence Referendum from ten years ago, September 18. My social media is full of people remembering, many mourning the loss. It's still a blow, especially after Brexit and the recent mess in the Scottish Government. The possibility of independence seems further away than ever before. 

Speaking of Scottish, I'm still trying to work my way through the pile of books I bought this summer in Scotland. I picked up a few older books that I had never read, including Jackie Kay's Trumpet and some George Mackay Brown titles. 

I also tried John Burnside's Dumb House. I haven't been able to get through it. It reminds me a lot of The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks which I love. Burnside was a poet, novelist and editor who recently died and I had never read any of his work. But I couldn't get into this book, the main character is messed up. The book starts with him just saying that he's fed a set of twins poison, similar to Banks' character Frank announcing he'd killed three people so far in the opening scene. I couldn't find anything redeemable in the main character, even though the book tries to show the loss that led to his horrible actions. I may go back to it as it's impelling to find out about the twins, but I just can build up any sympathy for the main character. 

Trumpet, however, really builds empathy for the characters, Millie and Colman, the wife and son of a famous trumpeter Joss Moody who has just died. Joss's secret is out and his family are left to deal with the aftermath of the explosion left between them, Millie by hiding herself away and Colman by exploring his father's past with a journalist. Here the backstory doesn't truly explain Joss' choices but lays a foundation for the person he becomes. The writing is beautiful and quite raw with emotion, beautifully done.

And beautiful isn't quite the right adjective for George Mackay Brown's seminal novel Greenvoe. Wrapped in myth, landscape, history and humour, Greenvoe is a village full of character and characters set on an imaginary Orcadian island. Their secrets are all laid bare and knit into the village's spirit, Alice has seven children all named after the men she had affairs with, guileless Timmy buys his meths for his Tilley lamp, but everyone knows he drinks it himself and the school teacher impotently lusts after the ferryman who has his eye set on a bigger prize. Mackay Brown builds up a close-knit community that doesn't always have each others' best interests at heart. When modern incursions of an secret industry called Dark Star threaten the island, the villagers have little choice, but to accept their own natures. The writing is poetic, woven with sea and island culture. This is no surprise as Mackay Brown is also a brilliant poet. An absolute gem and I'm looking forward to my next book by Mackay Brown. 

It's been over ten years since I left Scotland and almost twenty since I completed my Masters in Scottish Literature and there's still so much to explore in its literature. 

No real news in my own writing. Moving forward slowly. 

If anyone is interested in Scots language, the Dictionary of the Scots Language has their own version of Wordle - https://www.macwordle.co.uk/ which is quite fun. 

Moving into Autumn, Moving On

Finally autumn is here. I'm not complaining about the long summer, but it's been slightly surreal, the heat and the bright sun. But last week had a hint of 'mists and mellow fruitfulness', one of my favourite descriptions of autumn, especially when I go out to my damp apple trees, but also a humid heat. This week things are definitely starting to move more towards autumn. Lots of rain yesterday, gold birch leaves scattered on my lawns sweaters needed in the morning.

I've been making applesauce, apple cakes, courgette/ zucchini cake, stews and fruit compotes. Autumn to me is a lot about food, obviously. But I'm also doing a tidy of the garden and my allotment, curling up in the mornings to write to the rain. My favourite season, except for the awareness of winter stomping in at the end. I just want to focus on the hazy, cool and damp moments in front of me.

I'm booking another trip to Scotland for October which I'm getting excited about. This one is just me for five days. I'm heading to Fife where I haven't spent much time. Hoping to do a lot of writing and wandering around little towns, visiting cafes and bookshops. Big plans, lol. 

I have no news on publications, magazines or otherwise. I'm still submitting my Finnish collection here and there, but my Scottish collection has been delayed again. Surprise, surprise.

Even though my book publication is probably still a ways off, I'm trying to psych myself up by figuring out how to promote myself on social media. I've joined various platforms and occasionally spend some time reading, but I'm not very good at posting on them. I wonder if poets really get many sales from social media. I think online sales will have to play a big part for me as I won't be able to do the book tour thing as I did with my last book almost 20 years ago. 

I was lucky that another poet who was being published by my press was a Writer-in-Residence and had the contacts to set up a poetry reading series around southern Scotland and I set up a few of my own with groups and places I knew. I'll do a reading or two here in Helsinki, but otherwise as far as I know there isn't much of an English poetry network here. If anyone knows differently, please contact me. 

So I've joined Substack recently, but haven't really posted and I'm still finding people to follow. I'd like to get off Twitter, but I don't want to lose that sense of network, even if I'm a quiet member. I'm not sure where to start with being a more active poster. 

I'll post this on Substack and Twitter and Bluesky, but otherwise I rarely post on social media. So many platforms that I lurk on. I don't like that they are such time-suckers, but it is what poets, artists in generally probably, need to do if they want to have a presence. It feels like you need that presence to be accepted for publication, especially when I cannot have a physical presence in the UK where I am mostly published. So I'm trying again with this . . .

My long weekend is drawing to a close. It's wet and moody out, bringing dusk earlier and earlier. The days are slowing down and I'm giving in to them. There's never enough time, there's still a sense of urgency different from what I get in the summer. To nest, to harvest, to prepare for what's coming. 

I've made banana bread, apple cake and applesauce cake for home and school, two types of chicken with apples and applesauce. All trying to use up my apples from my cinnamon apple tree. I've wrangled my reluctant daughter into dinner, homework and taking out the rubbish, but not a shower. Compromise. 

And writing, I've managed a little. Sent out some submissions, one already declined. I've fought with a poem that I can see but can't express. It's coming, gradually. 

We'll see how it goes. 

Writing A Life

After a week of heat, autumn rain has hit my little corner of Finland this morning, so I'm soaking up tea and writing since I couldn't manage to sleep in. Back to school blues. I'm happy to be back to work, love meeting the kids again, but miss the slow starts to the day and the empty calendar. 

This last weekend I downloaded all my posts on this blog to a Word file. Yes, I was procrastinating writing poetry, we won't go into that. 

It got me thinking about how much I write about my life and my swirling thoughts. I keep a journal, not every day, but regularly. I write in this blog, I've kept various blogs over the years. I've been in online forums where I've posted regularly in a daily update thread. I've even come across a gardening journal I kept for a few years of what I planted, what the weather was like. I obviously have an obsession to chronicle my life. 

Over the years I have downloaded all this online journalling and have so many files. I could stitch them together to get an interesting view of the past twenty years of my life, from a writing point of view, as a mother (from parenting boards) and just about life in general. It would be reams and reams of words though, this blog alone takes over two hundred A4 pages. 

Twenty years of blogs, 40 years of journals and over 30 years of poems. Which all basically add up to my life story. I can't imagine what I could do with it.

A friend recently wrote a memoir, a non-fiction meditation on her life. I say recently, but she obviously spent years writing it. I'll review it below. I can't imagine writing a memoir. I wouldn't know what angle to take or what theme to spin around. I have done lots of things, lived in some interesting places, lived through 50 years of events, I even taught a writing your life course for a couple of years and I'm no stranger to exposing my life through my poems, but I wouldn't know where to begin. What makes our lives interesting to others? What obsession can we share?

Or have I already begun? I'm tempted to start bringing together the different pieces year by year, to see what I was doing and where I was mentally. It would be a huge job, a distraction. 

In my early journals, I didn't write about what was going on in the world. I was a teenager and was more focussed on what was going on in my own little bubble. I doubt that would have much of a wider appeal. Things get more interesting as I get older and better at writing, go to university, to Scotland, become an adult, enter a relationship and have children. Though I occasionally look over the parapet, I still focus on my own internal world, worries and dramas. And none of it is too dramatic, maybe not enough to write a memoir. 

So I'll probably just keep writing, an archive of my life to leave behind. I'm sure it'll give my kids a laugh. Maybe it'll end up in a museum of Generation X - following my journey from eight tracks to X.com and beyond. 

A quick review of Storm Pegs by Jen Hadfield as I've just finished it. I've mentioned here before that I'm not good with non-fiction. I try to read it but always leave the text unsatisfied. That sense of trying to make meaning of the randomness of our life, to wrap things together, not with a neat bow, but into a useful bundle of sticks often feels forced to me which is probably why I couldn't write one. 

Storm Pegs follows the poet's life in Shetland as she tries to discover 'where am I?' As to be imagined, it's full of poetic wonderings at the Shetland landscape and sea, travels to different corners and islands, learning about the language, the culture and people. It's lush with details and unravellings. 

Jen Hadfield fights against the idea that Shetland is isolated or remote and draws beautiful connections between the community, her neighbours and the creative scene in Shetland. But there is a sense that she's quite comfortable in being hunkered down in her caravan, strapped down against the elements and prefers that edge-of-the-world feeling, that the sparse spaces and distance are something she craves. 

She doesn't try to show us how we should live, where to take your next holiday or how to find the poetic in your daily lives. This is the smallest glimpse of what her Shetland life is, make your own conclusions. 

Jen is an amazing poet, with an eye for the small awkward details of the world, so I knew the writing would be exquisite. From her poetry, I knew she would draw me into the Shetland culture and wade through its language, scooping up glimmering fragments as she does glowing algae. I wasn't disappointed. 

She also gives us a hint of the day-to-day, making a life where she has no history, where she can write her own story as Poet as a neighbour calls her. It's not always simple, of course, but she finds patterns of beauty in even cutting open worms when she needs a non-poetic job to pay the bills. It was lovely to wrap myself in her world for a short time and it left me wanting more. Maybe Jen should start a blog, lol. I wish her the best of luck in the next stage of her adventure. 

Enjoy your weekend. 

A Fallow Summer

My summer break is almost over, I return to work in a few days. I feel like I've barely done any writing which is frustrating when I think how much time I have off from school in the summer. Finland's had an amazing summer this year, really warm and sunny, but I haven't taken advantage of it either. Having a week teaching summer school in the middle of the summer broke the time up weirdly. In the first weeks, I had a rush to do all the appointments I was not able to do while working and then when I was just starting to relax I had to go teach in Scotland for over a week. There was an expected bereavement during that week that also threw things out of whack. We knew it was coming soon, but not just then.

I then brought the kids back to Scotland to visit friends and family and that turned a little difficult, I hover between the words traumatic and miserable, but that seems a bit dramatic. All three who came, went into surly teenager mode, even the pre-teen. They didn't want to do anything, even eat and I felt stressed and put out. It left me wishing I had travelled alone as no one seemed to enjoy it. 

I remember a similar disastrous cross-country trip when I was a teen, my headphones on the entire time, not wanting to do anything but wander about alone, so I shouldn't be surprised, but it did put a damper on the summer. 

So this summer feels incomplete. I don't want to go back to work, though I enjoy my job, and I don't want to push into autumn, but I do want to change the soundtrack for the end of this summer. I've had friends over one evening, and I'm trying to write again in the mornings after wandering out into my garden to water. Maybe combine the two, at least at the weekends.

Today I rode my bike to the library and the plant store and then spent ages trying to sort my cottage garden spot. It's not working well in Finland but I keep trying every summer. I put in new flowers for the heavy winter to kill and dig up plants that haven't made it or just don't suit. The soil is horrible, full of house-building waste and it doesn't get enough rain under the eaves, but this year it was full of tulips in the spring and overrun with irises, so it's not all bad. 

I've written a couple of new poems over the past two days which is more than I've written most of the summer. I'm still in the first flush of love with them, but I will let them mellow and see if I can live with them. I have no focus just now, no collection I'm trying to round off or a new theme stuck in my head. Random words or ideas set me off and I just let my writing flow from there. Hopefully, the fallow writing summer will allow for some more growth later on. 

Poetry publication news: my poem 'In My Last Phone Call' was published by Ink, Sweat and Tears. It's my second poem to appear on the website.

Not much else to say, I guess slow movement is movement. 

Subversive Translations - More than Just the Gist

It's the longest day tomorrow. Juhannus in Finland, when the Finns douse themselves in summer; light bonfires, go to sauna, jump in lakes and leave the city. It'll be a quiet day for us. Everything's closed, we don't have a summer cottage to retreat to. It's one of those weird holidays where if you didn't grow up with it and have the associated traditions connected, you wander around feeling out of sorts. It's important, but you can't place why. It always leaves me feeling a little out of sync. 

A new poetry delivery this week, Dastram/ Delirium by Taylor Strickland. Published by Broken Sleep Books, I chose this collection because it is 'versions' of translations of Scottish Gaelic poetry. I've half-heartedly studied Gaelic since I first lived in Scotland in 1991 and have an interest in its poetry, but not the skill to read it. I'd heard of the poet the collection is based on, Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, but had never read his work. The first person to publish a Scottish Gaelic book, the first Gaelic-English dictionary, he is also considered one of the foremost Gaelic poets and his life was connected to many of the most important Scottish events during his lifetime. 

But beyond the historical interest, I was intrigued by Strickland's translations because this collection won a Poetry Society Translation Choice Award while he says he doesn't speak much Gaelic. The answer to the questions raised by that last sentence is Subversive Translation. According to Strickland via the poet/translator Rody Gorman, subversive translation is 'less a technical methodology and more an accountability act that represents the text through translations, but which accepts the failure in worthwhile translation as sufficient in its own right'. 

I don't claim to totally understand the concept, but my gut is saying these translations owe more to the author's interpretation of the text rather than the exact translation of the words. This appeals to me as this is how I exist in Finnish at the moment. I have enough of the language to understand the gist, mood or theme of a text or a conversation, but I cannot directly translate or understand the nuance and details. If I read a poem in Finnish I can get something, but it's heavily weighted towards my surface understanding of the words rather than a deep dive into the language, the place and the time it's coming from. I also hang my own sense of self, place and time over the poem. 

And this I feel is what Strickland is doing. The first section of poems, praise poems to a lover Morag, are already erotic in the original Gaelic, especially considering they were written by a minister's son (the translation of his name) in the 1700s. The subverted translations in this collection bring a modern sense to the poems, stylistically and thematically. They are loose, savouring the modern freedom of playing with the language in English and with social mores. There's no pulling punches here, but there is a beautiful sense of forbidden and furtive love throughout this selection,

I left you and you left
a burr of whispers in my head, 
a beehive of sex and nectar,

blocked up my nose
as I inhale lenten rose,

                    ('Crùnluath') 

As I can't read the Gaelic well enough to know what's been changed, how the music is different from the rhythms of the original Gaelic, how the poet has adapted them to English, I can only get caught up in his versions. They are like hearing one side of the conversation with the original poems. A chance to embrace being out of sync. They acknowledge their traditional roots, but subverting 'worthwhile' translations opens them up to new generations of poetry readers, those who speak Gaelic and those who don't. They made me want to explore more about the original poet and his poems which is always a sign of a good book for me.

Happy midsummer to you. 

Translating the Cooler Winds of Summer

School's out for the summer and it's such a relief. I've left June free of trips, so the kids can relax, I can catch up on appointments, studying and house stuff and we can enjoy sleeping in. Though a week in and our schedules are already turned upside down. 

We've had weeks of amazingly warm weather, unusual for Finland. But it's gotten a bit chillier, around 15C which doesn't bother me as I'm not big on extreme heat. Anything over 21C is too hot for me. The birch pollen has eased up, so I can go out and work in the garden and allotment. I've been building veg boxes, but a month without rain means the soil is rock-hard and I can't dig to clear a space for the last one. A bit of rain is always welcomed. 

The writing course I was doing in April for the GloPoWriMo is done, so I'm in the process of seeing what I can salvage and develop through editing. But I miss the excitement of prompts and trying to find a way into them every day. I've been wandering through various poets' and writers' accounts looking for something to inspire me. Even with all my free time, I'm not writing every day, but I still manage to scribble something regularly.  

Every summer I buy a pile of books when I'm travelling. I try to get through them during the rest of the year, but there are always a few that get set aside. I've seen a quote from Umberto Eco recently about not worrying about having unread books which appeals. I think it's kind of like knitters saying they can never finish all their projects or use their entire stash of yarn, it's comforting knowing there's always something I haven't read yet on my shelves. A little adventure waiting. I try to review some of the ones that really grab me. 

I recently picked up one of the books I bought last year and haven't found time to read yet. I originally heard the poet and translator Brian Holton on the Lantern Scottish Poetry podcast last summer and fell in love with his Scots translation of Chinese poets. The way he explained his decisions as a translator and poet just captivated me and the Scots versions brought the two cultures together in such an unexpected way. He drew me into his process which intrigues me with poets and I often wonder how translators work on poetry. 

So I had to buy a copy of his work, choosing Hard Roads and Cauld Hairst Winds from Taproot Press. The collection is translations of the Chinese poets Li Bai and Du Fu who I previously knew nothing about. I've only dipped in a few times, but every poem is so fun and evocative. 'Bouzin Ma Lane Ablow the Moon' is a series of four poems where the poet is drunk and considering the moon, the world around him and being alone. The Scots translation and the theme are reminiscent of Hugh MacDiarmid's poem 'Drunk Man Looks at a Thistle' or Robert Burns. With the translation of place names to Scots it's easy to forget this is a 7th-century Chinese poet who is speaking, the situation and emotion are so recognisably modern. I really loved the melding of worlds in these poems.

Publication news: I was recently published in thi wurd's anthology, Earthly Rewards, a mix of poetry, fiction and experimental writing. It's an honour to be included in such a brilliant collection of writers in such a beautiful, substantial publication.

I'm having a lovely, quiet weekend of writing and a slow working through of small jobs. I wish you some time to yourself as well. Relish it.  

Sharing a Personal Mythology

I'd like to say spring is properly here in Finland, but experience has taught me that it may still be premature. We had 20cm of snow on Tuesday, though it took only two days to melt. The roads were a disaster because I and too many others had already changed to our summer tyres. I was luckily on a school strike, so stayed home. Today it's up to 11C and we've had sun all weekend, so hopefully we're moving in the right direction. 

I've been able to work in the garden and allotment this weekend, so I have those dusty, scratchy hands gardeners get which is a good and bad feeling. I love getting back to work and planning for the new season, but I hate the dry cracked skin. And the sore back. I've been building raised beds over the last few years to avoid lots of digging, but even just bending over to weed hurts now. It's no fun getting old. 

GloPoWriMo is almost over and I've managed to write a draft of something every day of April. A lot of it is dross, but I spent 20 minutes or so every day writing, so that's worth celebrating. I no longer struggle to write something, it's just trying to find a way into the theme or to write something I like that is the difficult thing now. I have a pile of interesting drafts and bits of poems to play with once this month is over. 

In some ways, I like that part best, to try and push my original idea into something that stands on its own. I often know what I'm saying, but sometimes it becomes wrapped in symbolism and images that others don't understand. I have my own personal mythology and vocabulary, certain words and images mean specific things to me. Some of the images make sense or are easy to figure out, but often readers won't get what I'm doing, so I need to broaden my ideas and make things work without me explaining them. 

Part of the process is adding and chipping away at my poems, playing with form and theme, another part is sharing with my writing group to see what they get and how close it is to my original idea. Or to see if I'm happy with their alternative readings. Often I am. 

I think the personal language is for myself. I feel my poems are an internal conversation that I sometimes want to share. I could be working out a dilemma or having a moan or rant or just playing with memories or wishes. If I decide to share the poems, I want them to work without me, but I don't mind if my some of my personal references are missed if the general idea of the poem still works. 

I hope the sun is shining for you. Enjoy.

More GloPoWriMo and Writing Off Topic

The snow is for the most part gone. The piles where they dump what they clear off the streets will be around for months, but out and about there are only a few miserable, grit-covered piles on the side of the road. My croci are making an attempt at popping up. The long days mean that my tulips and alliums are growing a hand's breadth a day. It won't be long before the grass greens and the flowers are blooming. Once Finland decides on a season, she's serious about it.

I've had my job confirmed for next year so I won't have to worry about that over the next month and a half. Usually, they wait until the last week, so big relief. And I've signed the contract for my summer job, so I might be able to afford to take the kids on a break in the summer. I'd like to go to Ireland, but the loudest voice is shouting for Scotland. I'm also cool with that. It's nice to start thinking ahead a bit, instead of worrying. 

I'm still ploughing ahead with Angela Carr's Songs of a Pagan Place course. I've managed something for every day this month of GloPoWriMo. Some have been crap, some have really surprised me and some have potential. It's satisfying to press send on whatever rough draft I've managed. 

Though the course is about Irish mythology, I love how my mind takes weird leaps. For the Wooing of Etain, I wrote about James and Nora Joyce, for the Battle of Moytura I wrote about a nightclub. I just read all the texts, the poems, listen to the music and then just roll everything around my head and let the first words that pop up take the lead in my notebook, even if it makes no sense. I scribble there until I see something forming and once it feels like I have a direction, I start writing on the computer as it's easier to move things about.

For the Hound of Culann theme:

a dog to fill in the blanks

a reason to come home after work
a reason to walk out 
when it all becomes too much

I'm never bothered if I go off-topic, I enjoy how the mind finds a way of saying what it wants when you give it free rein. It's often how I find out what I want to write about, what topics are niggling at me. Sometimes I get stuck on writing the same thing over and over, but it never lasts. I find focusing my writing on a subject I feel I need to approach often restricts me, the writing seems forced. Allowing ideas to flow freely brings the most interesting results. 

I've been pleasantly surprised this month by the topics I've stumbled on, but also the emotion of my writing: unexpected anger, bitterness and grief. Not always places I want to go, but it's good to give them a bit of space to see what develops. Sometimes it's touching a wound I thought healed, but maybe I need to face it one more time before stepping away. Writing helps me do that. 

Today's poem from the course that I really enjoyed is Robert Duncan's Childhood's Retreat. It seems fitting for the beginning of spring. Enjoy.

Brightening into April - GloPoWriMo

Spring in Finland. There's a sense of the mood lightening, but we've just been hit with 20cm of snow. It's supposed to warm up next week, but I'm not holding my breath. I am changing my winter tyres on Monday, so I am whispering a few words to the weather spirits to stop with the snow.

I'd forgotten it's GloPoWriMo, Global Poetry Writing Month, or NaPoWriMo, even though I've started Angela Carr's writing prompts course, A Pagan Place. I've managed to write something every day, even though I'm back to work. The course is brilliant, based around Irish mythology, but the prompts include music, other poems and stories often inspire something totally unconnected. I don't expect to continue to write every day, but I like having the prompts for the days when I do get a chance. 

In today's prompt, I especially liked this poem by Mahmoud Darwish though my writing was inspired by the Big Country song In a Big Country.  I don't usually listen to music when I write, but have been stuck on a Big Country loop today. 

My writing group Helsinki Writers has produced its first anthology of members' poetry and short fiction. We're still figuring out the technology and formats, but we're very proud of the writing. We've done other smaller activities such as writing poems for events and recording our work for and with other organisations, but this was completely our own project and, to be honest, it was difficult to organise and produce. Those who did the work were unpaid and put in a lot of hours, but we're happy with our first attempt. Please check it out. 

Another bit of writing news, my Finland-inspired poetry collection Invocation Against Winter was short-listed for the Cinnamon Press' 2025 New Voices Award. Congratulations to all the finalists and winners. I don't usually try competitions, so it was nice to be recognised. It's also encouraging since I'm still sending out my collections to poetry publishers. 

I need to go shovel my drive and soak up the bit of sun we have today. Enjoy. 

Return of the Light

I've noticed my writing follows patterns that follow the season. Winter is often a fallow period and if I do write poems they are full of ice and darkness and grumpiness at both. It's been a tough winter, twice the car's battery has drained and twice the electric car has been stuck on the driveway because it's not powerful enough to make it over the 4cm of ice. A pipe has burst in the shed and I have shovelled a mountain of snow, over and over. I hate winter at the best of times, but this one can seriously get tae as they say in Scotland, with a colourful flourish at the end. 

Proper spring is still a long way off. Finland is still buried under a blanket of snow and the temperature is currently -15C and these both show no sign of easing up. However, the light has returned. My poems are starting to show hints of hope, sun and an activity that they don't show during my winter hibernation. I'm hoping that I'll start writing more and this will help lift my mood. 

I joined Angela Carr's January online writing course and though I don't have a lot of time or energy in the week to write, I have been dipping into her prompts at the weekend. I'm also considering Wendy Pratt's What to Look for in Spring course. I often find this sort of prompt-based online course gives me a boost to get back into writing after a quieter period and I've done various courses with Wendy and Angela over the years with good results. 

I need to get outside more, but with all the ice, the world is a dangerous place. We've had teachers and students breaking and bumping themselves over the past few weeks as every path and surface is an ice rink. So I will just soak in the sun from my couch, wrapped in my fluffiest blanket with my matching fluffiest cat.

If you need me that's where I'll be today, writing. At least until the Scotland Six Nations game begins. 

I've also been listening to a reading of Ulysses by the Friends of Shakespeare and Company, the bookshop that originally published the book. It's amazing, Joyce was a poet, weaving beautiful and alive language. 

Enjoy.

  

Submission Stats 2023 - Why Try?

Rather late, here's my stats for 2023.

wrote 32 new poems              
finished 2 poems from previous years                 

9 book submissions                                        
31 magazine submissions                                     

9 magazine acceptances                

10 book rejections                         
28 magazine rejections 

12 magazines published 22 poems                                                   

21% acceptance rate

Acceptances were much lower than in previous years, but it stands to reason, I submitted less work and as a result, had fewer poems accepted.

I did try to get my collections a home. I've given up on the publisher that accepted my Scottish collection back in 2019. Every year they'd send a group apology to all their unpublished poets with vague excuses and promises to publish in in the next year. I'm not even sure if I would accept if they actually said they were going to start work on the process. I have lost all faith in them. Currently, I have no other options, so I keep on submitting.

A friend in my writing group and I were discussing yesterday why we want to get books published. He writes fiction, I poetry. I accept I'll never make any money from my poetry, but he'd like to see some return. At least, not lose money trying to get his books published. He's self-published but now wants to try magazines and other publishers.

Traditional publishing has changed a lot since I worked in it. He was talking about rights, that fantasy and sci-fi writers don't have their rights protected anymore. I have no experience in fiction, but I'm not surprised. Big publishers have control of the market and little publishers just try to get by and get noticed.

In poetry publishing, it's become more and more that the poet does most of the publicity and sales. Small publishers expect you to pay for various services. Often they don't edit the collection. 

And yet, I still want to be published. To be considered part of the scene, to be considered good enough. I am published regularly enough in magazines and journals, but can't get a publisher for a collection. 

I mentioned that I'm probably not visible enough on social media and wondered if that was a possible reason. Publishers want someone who is a voice, that will sell their books through readings, on social media. I have struggled this year with posting on Twitter. I've joined Blue Sky and Mastadon (@grimalkingerry on all), but haven't gotten the hang of them. I guess that needs to be a goal this year tied into finding a publisher.

Publication news: my poem 'The Lake Swimmer' has been published in Alternating Current an anthology published by thi wurd. And I have two poems in the City of Poets 2023 anthology.