Back to Work and to Barnhill

I've started back into writing slowly after my long break. I'm not currently doing a poem-a-day prompt, but working everyday on older poems. I'm editing those started on my last two month-long courses, focussing the language and intent. A few are ready to submit to journals, along with the pile of rejections that came in while I was away. I've noticed most American magazines seem to be on hiatus, but the British ones are still working on backlogs. 

I'm also going through some of my old journals for details of poems I've had on the back burner because I couldn't remember what actually happened. It's lovely how they have jogged my memory and taken me back to those places and times. Little details I have forgotten or placed onto different scenes brought into firm focus. Unfortunately, I didn't write about everything. Moments that seem important now often didn't get mentioned in my journals at all, either because they didn't seem of consequence at the time or life just got in the way of writing. I've never been one for writing every day which would help to rebuild moments later. 

I'm starting new poems on specific subjects that I decided I wanted to write about when I was travelling. I will start a new poetry course in August, so this seems to be a good way to get back into that more intensive work.

I finished reading Norman Bissell's Barnhill and it was a surprise as I bought it mostly on the connection with the place, rather than anything to do with George Orwell. I thought it would be more of a biography, but it's a biographical novel based on George Orwell's later years, especially those in connection with Jura and Barnhill and the writing of 1984. Less dry quoting of dates and details and more trying to capture the writer and his obsessions with writing, Jura and creating a strong family for his son.

I knew very little of Orwell's life, so learning about his connection with the Spanish Civil War, his marital and other relations and his illness were all very intruiging. Bissell also included the point of view of Orwell's second wife Sonia Brownell whose voice unexpectantly pops up and gives the reader new insight. The book also illustrates how Orwell might have drawn details from his own experiences when writing 1984.

While Barnhill tries to stick strongly to the facts of Orwell's life and there is a list at the end of known details which contribute to the story, it's the scenes where Bissell allows himself to imagine Orwell that the man really comes alive for me, spending Hogmanay in Glasgow, his worries about finishing his book when he knows he's dying and the connections he had with his friends. 

Though Bissell is a poet and director of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics he doesn't get caught up in the romanticism of Jura and life alone there which must be difficult to do as I was overawed by the place when I visited. The attention to Orwell's physical life there, taking care of the garden and fixing machinery sometimes taken from entries in Orwell's journal feels very focussed and fits in with the George Orwell drawn in the novel. I could very well remember my journey down the 'Long Road' to get to Barnhill from Ardlussa as I read Bissell's description of cars and motorbikes breaking down while trying to get along it.

I could occasionally feel a modern voice of hindsight coming in which felt as if it wanted to make sure the reader could see how spot on George Orwell was in his predictions of Big Brother and his fears of government control. When they came from George's mouth they worked, felt in character, but sometimes the narrative pushed too much. But I have to admit with the way current media and politics is going, I would have found it hard to resist pointing out the connections as well. I recently reread 1984 and was gobsmacked about how much closer we were creeping towards Orwell's nightmare vision than when I first read it in 1984 in high school in America . 

Overall, I enjoyed the book, it was informative, but it created a rounded and interesting view of Orwell's character and the time he was living in. The novel manages to illustrate the complexities of a difficult man who allowed little of his personal life to be seen by adding a greater depth to his novel masterpiece.

Holiday Break and Barnhill

I've just spent two weeks on holiday in Scotland, out of routine, barely writing. The first week I was away from my family, relaxing. I wrote in my journal about my trip and took notes of images and lines that popped into my head about what I was experiencing, but I didn't work on any poems. A lot of rejections came in, unsubmitted poems piled up. It felt weird and strangely liberating. I missed my daily routine, but enjoyed soaking up the new experiences which I will hopefully work into poems in the future.

While on the island of Jura, I took a long walk to Barnhill, George Orwell's house, where he wrote 1984. We got lucky to manage the 12 miles between the rain showers and had a beautiful view to eat our lunch just below Barnhill. Twelve miles was too much for me, I was pretty tired and sore by the end, but earned my shower and wine reward at the hotel. My friend walked all three Paps of Jura the next day, so I feel like a total weakling. 

I've ordered a copy of Barnhill by Norman Bissell to read when I get back home. It's about Orwell's time on Jura, writing the novel 1984. I had hoped it would arrive before I left for Jura, so I could read it while I was there, but it will be a nice chance to relive the place. I'm looking forward to it.

I also took a boat tour to the Corryvreckan where Orwell almost drowned saving his young son's life. One of my friend's son was planning on taking part of a yearly race across the Corryvreckan whirlpool gulf. Not for the faint of heart, but I'm told it's well-supervised. I learned it's not just one constant whirlpool but an area where the tides from the loch rush out over a sea bottom that goes from super deep to shallow in a short space, so the water becomes very rough and changes constantly, causing standing waves and whirlpools. Here's a small whirlpool on a calm day. 

One of my holiday's highlights was rescuing my childhood/ youth's diaries from the attic along with a pile of old writing journals and favourite books. The books and journals are being posted, but I carried the diaries in my carry-on back to Finland. I really feel like I've been missing a limb with them being gone. Hopefully I have all of them, but with 36 years worth it'll take a while to sort through them and check. Hopefully there will be lots of material there for me to reconsider.

Both Angela Carr and Wendy Pratt are running online courses in August. I can highly recommend both and have joined one to help me turn my experiences and old writing into new poems. 

I'm back to the grind this morning. Need to get into writing again as well as admin.

Writing Your Life

I used to run a memoir/ autobiographical writing class called 'Writing from your Life'. I loved reading the stories my students wanted to share, a 90 year-old writing for his family, a woman coping with chronic pain, a man involved with the quest to prove life on Mars to name a few. They learned to open up and share their passions through words, real bravery. 

My own poetry is rooted in my life stories; joy and pain, discovery and regret. But when my tutor asks me to focus on myself with her prompts; to examine ourselves in a mirror, to label my personality, to greet myself as a friend head on, I find it immensely difficult. I can write about aspects of my life, pick them apart, but looking at myself clearly, recognising who I have become is painful. Not even because of the pain of recent events, just that up-close scrutiny. It is easier to treat myself as a character in my poems, to allow that distance before facing difficult moments. Am I who I want to be, am I a good person, a good friend, do people want to be with me? That microscopic analysis of my personality, of my self is uncomfortable. It may only be my weary view, others will see me differently, but we never like ourselves when we examine too closely.

Not sure where I'm going with this. While I'm comfortable writing about my life, I'm not comfortable with opening my self to being explored in my writing. Cracking open a nut to find the insides too bitter. I'm trying not to shy away from the challenge these prompts are placing before me, but I can feel myself resisting. My writing is too pat, contrite lines trying to sum things up when there's no exact answer. 

It all depends on my mood, what's happening around me, a multitude of things that can tip my attitude one way or the other. Writing daily on a variety of subjects can capture this, the wildly swinging up and down of my moods, my opinion of my self.

I've been meeting online a few writers who write a daily haiku or short poem and post them as a kind of diary. My daily writing works in the same way, I guess, though I don't always share them. It's interesting to see the ebb and flow of my thoughts. This blog written over the last weeks also shows that flitting. 

I've been talking on here about struggling to find outlets and my support for my work. I find sometimes when you complain about something out-loud, verbalise the frustration or pain, the knot eases in some unexpected way. I started this blog originally to lay out some of the issues I was having with conceiving my last child, the guilt and grief, but shortly after starting, I conceived after years of trying. So the blog eventually changed to be about writing.

I thought writing here and speaking to other writers at the Lahti conference would help me in practical ways to find out about resources I was unaware of. It was kind of helpful, but the group I was pointed towards is aimed at supporting writers working in languages other than Finnish and Swedish, the two national languages of Finland, but the group is primarily focussed on languages that aren't English as they feel languages such as Arabic, Russian, Spanish, etc, have less support than English here. While again, I understand and agree to some extent, it does leave writers such as myself out of the loop. I'm going to meet up with one of the organisers after my holidays and see what they can offer or suggest. 

But after the slight disappointment of contacting this organisation, I woke to an email from Hedgehog Poetry with the results of the 'Neglected or Selected Competition' I entered. I had won, a total surprise. I don't usually enter competitions, especially ones that require a fee, but the Press has intruiged me for a while. I was hoping to join their Cult which gives members special challenges, but also allows them to enter competitions for free once I had some money, a great deal, but now it looks like my collection Totems, which is a smaller version of my huge Scottish collection, is coming out with Hedgehog Poetry in 2020. I can't wait to begin the whole process. 

So it's worth plodding on, seeking out new opportunities, pushing past your reservations and speaking out even in small ways. 

LIWRE, Writers in Lahti, Finland

This weekend, I attended the Lahti International Writers Reunion LIWRE in Lahti, Finland. A colleague from Scotland contacted me on all the various social media I have recently joined and finally I noticed, so I arranged to go up for the last session and the poetry reading in the evening. The theme was Nature and Writing and it lead to an interesting and varied discussion that talked about the Death of the Author and distancing the author from their work, the role of social media, the difference between nature (ie the world around us) and nature (our character) and how they come together and are kept apart in writing. 

I really enjoyed the reading; eight writers from around the world with very different styles, but at times similar themes. I really enjoyed Kätlin Kaldmaa's singing in Estonian and bear poems and Kári Tulinius's energetic Icelandic poems. It would have been nice to have some kind of social gathering that the audience could also join in after the reading, drinks or something, as the writers all ran off to a dinner and I didn't get much time to speak to anyone, including my friend. I know the event is mostly for the writers, but it would maybe attract more guests if there was chances to speak to the writers.

They did a great job of translating all the speeches on paper beforehand (though some went off script) and translating the discussions and even the poems for the poetry evening were translated into English and Finnish, but all the social media announcements I could find on Facebook and Twitter were in Finnish. It would be good to have someone providing a bit of English social media commentary as I've been struggling to find literary events in English. It's a biennial event, so I hope to be able to see more (and maybe be included) in 2021. 

I did get to chat to an non-Finnish author based in Helsinki who made me aware of a group called Sivuvalo which helps non-Finnish authors, so I will contact them next week and see what they offer. 

All in all, an interesting day and hopefully the beginning of more literary things for me. 

Writing with Monkeys

It's the summer holidays here, kids everywhere and I don't know if I'm coming or going with my writing. We've all been sick with various bugs so I've been too tired or ill to focus much on the Wendy Pratt course I've joined though I'm enjoying the different focus of the prompts. I'm not able to write every day, but I'm trying to grab time here and there. I hate not being able to join in on the Facebook page as much as I would like, though we had a good online group chat last week. Wendy's releasing a new course soon, so keep an eye on her site for details. 

The current course is focussing on 'Writing with a Beginner's Mind,' offering techniques that help you lose that critical voice that often plagues writers, the worries that the work isn't good enough, the guilt that we never will be able to balance our lives and writing. I do struggle with the later most, trying to be a single parent and a writer and find a real job to support my family has more than its share of guilt. I need to try Wendy's meditation and focus excercises more, my monkey brain has monkey brain and I can never turn all the noise off. Even more so with four monkeys climbing around the house. 

One of my favourite prompts so far has been to think about the idea of 'banned words' in poetry, words that are too dated, over-used, purple. I went and found a list of archaic words and wrote a poem playing with them. I love dictionaries and thesaurus and using them to find new words and meanings. It makes you see language in a new light. What do you think, should words like shard and gossamer be banned from contemporary poetry?

My poem 'Dripping Winter' has appeared in Crossways Literary Magazine. I hope you take a wander over and check out the issue and maybe purchase a hard copy.

And finally, Happenstance Press is having an interesting challenge to write a rhyming poem on a wrapper. I'm not very good with rhymes, but thought I could try something short, maybe with some Finnish words. What rhymes with suklaa?

Take the Good with the Bad

I've had five poems published on the Dodging the Rain online magazine. The site is beautifully laid out, but I also like the fact that they publish a larger selection of poems from each poet and the poems I've read seem to flow so well together and it gives a really immersive feel for the poets' work. I'm pleased to have my work included.

I'm feeling even more isolated than with my last post, Twitter may not be good for me. It does have its good sides; finding out about calls for submissions and upcoming opportunities, but often I cannot take advantage of the grants, readings, etc, because I'm in the wrong place. I'm not bothered by other poets' successes and actually enjoy seeing them, but my lack of a local writing circle and opportunities being an English poet in Finland means I don't have those chances myself. But I'm trying not to wallow and figure out ways to help myself.

Writing has always been a more solitary occupation which I'm fine with in terms of the actual process, but social media means that writers can connect and share their experiences and opportunities through blogs and places like Twitter. 

I'm enjoying being part of the Poetry Blogging Network, reading different blogs and seeing how we're alike in so many ways with how we deal with issues that affect writers and artists. I enjoy my writing group when I can attend, though that's been more difficult lately and things will quiet down over the summer. I need to find a way to find out about and be more involved in local writing events, readings, book launches, but it's difficult with my toddler Finnish skills. I'm considering organising something myself, but it's still just a thought at the moment.

But enough of the negative, my American Submittable magazine submissions keep getting rejected, but a slow trickle of UK acceptances continue to come in. I've had more acceptances and publications this year than I can ever remembers, so I am thankful and will keep chugging on. 

Writing as a Woman of a Certain Age

I finally get a quiet day to sit down and work. I'm aching and tired and just want to go back to bed. But there's only one week left of school and no summer camps booked this year, so I need to make use of this me-time while I have it. I'll soon need to balance it with entertaining four kids, mostly on my own. 

I've broken the 400-poem mark this week. I've written over 400 poems in my writing life, that just blows me away. This is only counting the proper, grown-up poems that I think are worthy to share and try and get published. Over half of them are published in my books or in journals. Over 150 of them have been written in the last two years. Just imagine how much I could have written if I could have figured out the secret of writing a poem daily earlier. I used to write every day pre-kids and even a bit after they were born, but I was slower at sculpting my poems and have spent a lot of the last decades writing novels that went nowhere.

I feel like I've found my stride in what most people would consider middle age, though I don't feel middle-aged. Or at least what I thought middle-aged meant before I got here. I just feel like me, maybe more tired and achey though. 

But then I looked at a list of competition calls yesterday and realised once again that I don't fit into so many boxes in publishing. Most of the competitions I couldn't even consider because of my age, I'm over 30 or 37 or whatever random cut-off they choose. I get it, publishers and grant bodies want to support young, struggling, up-and-coming writers. I also read recently that more poetry is being read by under 35s these days than any other age group, so they want to appeal to that audience. But what about us older, struggling writers, there must be a group of us searching for support and an audience ready to read us. 

I'm also the wrong nationality or live in the wrong place or have the wrong career or write the wrong genre. Does anyone have a call for poems from a 48-year-old white cis-women US poet living in Finland?

I worked at Chapman Publishing in Edinburgh for many years and while there we published a book of poems by Magi Gibson called Wild Women of a Certain Age. It was a brilliant, fierce and powerful book and I loved being involved with it. I was in my late 20s while my editor and Magi and some of the other women we worked with were almost a couple of decades older and though I loved the fire of their writing and intensity of how they approached the issue, I couldn't understand why this idea of fighting against the constraints of this 'certain age' was so important to them. I get it now. I need to find my own tribe of wild women soon.

Joining Twitter has opened my eyes to the new network of writers out there, I've discovered Maggie Smith recently through her empowering tweets. Her book Good Bones is the next book I plan to buy, her poem of the same name is a heart-shattering force, especially if you have young children. She's definitely a Wild Woman I'd invite. 

Good news for my old bones, two of my poems have been included in this online anthology from the course I did with poet Wendy Pratt. I really enjoyed all of her courses and it was nice to have this as the cherry on the cake at the end of this one from April. 

https://wendysaprilwriteathon.home.blog/2019/05/22/gerry-stewart/

Another Wild Woman, Wendy is running another course in June. I'm still debating whether to do it due to time and money constraints. And Jen Hadfield, another amazing poet and friend, is running a free 5-day online course with Arvon which even though it falls while I'm on holiday I am definitely doing as I've never had the pleasure of working with Jen and am really looking forward to it. I'm not sure if the Arvon course will have the sharing element that Wendy's course does, but I'm sure her prompts and ideas will be worth trying. 

So I'll keep writing daily and churning out my work in the hope that I will soon find my niche, my tribe, my audience. 

Keep going.