Tell us about your poems.
I don’t really know what to say about them that I have not already said in them. They are honest which is all that matters.

How long have you been writing?
I started writing poems and short stories about a year and a half ago. Before that I had only written songs for the band I play in: Sublime Banoffi.

Do you have any publications to your name? What’s the next stage for your work?
Myself and my mate publish our stuff wherever and whenever we want. We print poems and leave them in public places, typically on buses, on the Luas or inside free newspapers. It’s guerrilla poetry. It works well because you can write really personal things with total anonymity and not have to deal with the inevitable pitfalls of fame. Ginsberg said “if we don’t show anyone, we’re free to write anything”. What was he on about? The next stage for my work will be to do this on a larger scale in cities worldwide.

What do you think is your biggest poetic achievement to date?
Writing my first poem.

What’s the best thing about writing poetry? And the worst?
The best thing about writing poetry is the release and knowing that you got it down on paper exactly as it happened. I am sure I enjoy reading my own poetry more than anyone else ever will. The fact that someone else might get something from them is secondary to the actual writing process, and a bonus if it happens.
The worst thing is the hangovers.

Got any suggestions for young, upcoming poets?
90% of the published poetry I have read is really bad and an absolute struggle to read. It is written by people who are trying to write something that sounds like poetry. My suggestion would be to try and avoid this, write down whatever you need to in order to survive daily life, and call it a poem.

Who/what influences your poetry?
Ladies and gentlemen,
I did not expect this, really,
But since I am here, there are
Some people, places, ideas and animate objects I would like to thank.
The dinner 11,
Canadian Mike,
Mom and Dad,
Tom Petty for accompanying me through my mental tour of middle America,
Tom Waits for Closing Time and his piano for drinking,
Tom Dunne (my granddad) for teaching me how to play chess,
Thomas the Tank Engine,
Anyone who ever blew my mind when I was sober,
Captain Morgan,
My brothers and sister,
Jameson,
The village of Linden,
Charles Bukowski (a great man for a few boozes and a laugh),
The single mother on the platform at Barbarossaplatz,
All the bouncers who did not let us in and expanded our horizons,
My room-mates, neighbours and landlords for the smashing, complaining and understanding,
The back page girls of the Now magazine,
The countless after hours rooms of Toronto and their empathetic, pathetic denizens,
The gold digging men and women of Africa, in the mines and the bars,
The toilets of every office I have ever worked in for the respite and soul saving,
Any man who feels he got the better of me on the pitch,
The few that actually did,
The sushi chef for his art,
The fish for their endeavours,
Shane MacGowan and John Boy for a brown eye each,
New York for the rotten core of the apple,
The girl who took me down to the tool shed,
The overnight bus journey through slaying sleet,
Repetition for The Beat,
Repetition for The Beat,
The locks on the doors,
The airports for the hope and despair,
The polar bears,
Everyone who stayed in Lara’s cottage,
Borders everywhere for their indecision,
The day for the night,
Bob and Jimi for taking shifts along the watchtower,
Amsterdam for the …museums,
Ambition for leaving,
Man for the burn,
Women for the yearn,
Women for their bodies,
Women for their differences,
Women,
The lion for the eyes of a blood-crazed tiger,
Dublin who made all of this possible (without your help I never would have made it this far),
And finally Nadine
for putting up with me and gibberish like this
daily.

Hindsight
I should have asked her out.
Or that tackle I backed out of.
The worst was when I knew the answer in class and was too afraid to put my hand up in case I was wrong, or in case I was right and gave the cruel schoolyard an excuse.
All those missed chances, I think of them now and the crippling fear that was always hovering above my curly mop in those early days.
Now it’s different. Now I flirt and punch and shout.
Now I am 27 and fear is a calloused hand resting on my bald head.

Want to see your poems featured here? Drop me a line to claire@onenightstanzas.com

(Photo by Plastic Sergio)

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Which words make you wince? (never mind that, tell me here and maybe win a book!) // Don’t build your relationship on books // Behind Purple Ronnie // Poem of the week… // some great (and not so great) Wuthering Heights covers // Beware the writing masterclass…

Think YOUR rejections suck?!

Found online this week: Juliet’s recs for Open Air Poetry this summer… // New work from former Featured Poets Alex Williamson, Heather Bell and Kerri Ni Dochartaigh // & a story from regular reader Beth!

Urban decay: Moscow tunnels // abandoned motels // stubborn little houses // underwater ruins

The guy who kept Polaroid in business.

Amazing photos: fighter jets // rain

Before they were music stars…

& finally…

Have a great weekend!

(Photo by Supercapacity)

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Killing Kittens

I used to think I
had
to be
completely
honest with people… family, friends, girlfriends.
Or at least that everything bad, good or indifferent I had done was known by various souls. Around the age of 12, I had spasms of guilt that sent blinding pain through my contorted conscience. Killing kittens, masturbation and other things that I suppose are
standard enough fare for yesterday and today’s unaccompanied minors had me reeling.
Then one day I told a lie and was able to live with it.
A whiplash life of amorality
followed and now nobody really knows me anymore.
The people from my past are for all intents and purposes gone, and the ones who know me now have no idea what I was like.
It is better this way though.
The last one at the party harbouring thoughts like helium balloons.

Want to see your poems featured here? Drop me a line to claire@onenightstanzas.com

(Photo by alwaysawake)

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However, right now I just want to remind you all that because this year marks the Festival’s fifth anniversary, an anthology called The London Poetry Pearl is being created to honour the occasion. Submissions are free and open to any poet from the United Kingdom. Submission guidelines and further information can be found here, but the deadline is this Sunday, 12th July — so get your submissions in!

Remember to check out the London Poetry Festival blog for more information, or if you’d like to read at the event, drop me a line and a couple of poems to claire@onenightstanzas.com! You can also follow the festival on Twitter.

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My new job at the London Poetry Festival: I am Residency and Education Director, which sounds very important and terrifying, but which actually just means I book the poets to read at the event. In London from 7th - 10th August? Want to read? Check this out then drop me a line! You can also follow the Fest on Twitter.

My new baby. Yes, once again the Boy and I have welcomed the tiny pitter-patter of typewriter keys into our ever-more-cluttered flat. I really need to quit, but it’s hard when Freecycle is offering up such delights as this. It’s a Litton Imperial Safari, and I freaking love it. A few of you have asked where I store all the darned things — I now have eight — and the answer is this: whenever I get new one, I make myself Freecycle/thrift store a bunch of other stuff to “make space.” Four of them share a shelf-unit with my records and a few books, and one takes up the entire chest of drawers in my bedroom. But the other three are kind of tucked away — The Beast is currently in my wardrobe as it is too big to put anywhere else (sad face), my Silver Reed is stuck on a random shelf, and there’s also one of the brood at my parents’ house…

Edinburgh adventures. This past weekend, Boy’s mum and her bloke, Ledger (who live at the other end of the UK) visited us in Edinburgh for the first time. It was great showing them around — the weather was absolutely beautiful and we walked round pretty much the entire city, stopping for many cups of tea along the way! One of the highlights was wandering around a deserted Greyfriars Kirkyard, reading all the ancient graffiti and creepy poems on the tombs, and — according to Boy — getting inspired for tattoo designs…
…and speaking of tattoo designs, Boy got some new ink! I also spent a few days out and about with my delightful sister, which is always eventful — good lunches at Black Medicine, messing around in toy stores and bathrooms, buying brilliant steampunk glasses that make you look like a fly, and dancing around in the respectable Stockbridge streets at the dead of night, plotting a potential joyride…

Finding old photos on my camera I’d forgotten about: minor detail I know, but how cool is this photo?

Honourable mentions: creating to-do lists and then storming through them, Twittering like mad, Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Cosmopolitan Greetings’, getting tasks that I put off ages ago done, prepping for the interview of my LIFE (no joke, everyone cross their fingers, toes and everything else for me at about 11am tomorrow please!), writing new poems, selling a bunch of my vintage stuff!, going on holiday next with with a view to just chilling out and writing heaps, bus day-tickets, cool Freecyclers.

And you…?

(Photo by Re(Becca) Tabor Armstrong)

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Driving

Driving to work today,
I got a sudden urge to crash the car.

I was doing about 100 and there was a
3 foot drop to the left into a ditch.

I did not want to kill myself but I
thought I could manage to crash without doing serious damage, maybe dislocate a shoulder, a few cuts and bruises, maybe even a permanent scar on my cheek.

I would garner sympathy from people,
miss work and have some time to write.

It would also give me something to write about,
something real and shocking, some damage.

I even drove as close as I could to the edge, holding my breath, to see if some sudden impulse would do the rest.

In the end I bottled it and now I am sitting in some meeting with mineral water and mints in front of me looking pensive,
telling you this.

Want to see your poems featured here? Drop me a line to claire@onenightstanzas.com!

(Photo by iwillseetheworld)

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The Festival has a brand new look this year — you can get more information on this, and read our mission statement, on the Festival blog. You can also meet the new team!

Some London Poetry Festival info:
When?: 7th-10th August 2009 (Friday to Monday), 7.30pm - 10.30pm
Where?: Waterloo St John’s Church, Waterloo SE1 (right opposite Waterloo Underground)
What?: Four night of poetry, spoken word and music, plus an extensive bookstall!
Tickets: £5, or £3 for concessions (to see our list of concessions — there are lots! — click here). You can also buy a weekend ticket (Friday and Saturday nights) for £8 and a Festival ticket (all four nights) for £15. Please note! The Festival is not-for-profit and the ticket prices cover only the hire of the venue. All our staff are volunteers. The ticket price also includes liquid refreshment!

What happens at the Festival?
– Each year we find 5 Poets in Residence to represent the Festival: these five poets open each night of the Festival and their work is showcased online, too.
– As well as the Poets in Residence, we aim to promote the work of other poets from all walks of life and all levels of experience too. After the Residents read, we invite these poets to come to the stage and share their work.
– There is also a short open mic set each night for writers who are unsure about reading a long set.
– Each evening closes with some great music.
– The London Poetry Festival also provides a merchandise stall for all poets taking part to sell their work and promote projects and events they may be involved in. 100% of the takings from this goes to the poets themselves.

What else?
– Because this year is the LPF’s 5th anniversary, we’re also producing an anthology of great UK contemporary poetry, The London Poetry Pearl. This book will feature poems by all of the 2009 Poets in Residence as well as work submitted by poets all over the UK. It’s free to submit and you can send up to five poems — but be quick! The deadline is 12th July.
– If you’re a reader at the Festival, your work may also be showcased on the LPF blog!

We need poets to read at the event!
We already have a fantastic line-up which includes Aiko Harman, Christian Ward, Rebecca Atherton, Bryan Oliver, Tony Fernandez, Simon Freedman and of course, yours truly! But we’re still on the lookout for poets to read at the event.

If you’re interested, please send 2-4 poems and a bio to claire@onenightstanzas.com — I’ll then fill you in with some extra info and hopefully give you a reading slot!

Remember to keep an eye on the London Poetry Festival Blog to keep up to date with what’s going on. There’ll be more info, and some poems, coming up here on ONS, too. Hope to see you at the Festival!

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And what a find! The Fat Plant is a brilliant collection of highly original and distinctive poems — narratives that speak plainly, grab your attention and refuse to let go. It opens with an absolute gem — a child’s eye view of heavy industry and working class hardship which is grim and unflinching but also darkly funny, deeply moving. At the other end of the scale there’s a lighthearted piece about the perils of laundry — there’s no doubt that JoAnne’s work is wide-ranging. For a slim collection containing only sixteen poems, it’s amazing how far this book take you.

My favourite pieces in this collection, though, are the ones in which JoAnne talks about her father. There is a real deftness here, emotion pulses through every word but is kept in check by the poet’s steady hand. The father figure looms large in the background of most of these poems, but in every case he is beautifully drawn, complex. My firm favourite is the three-part poem, “Mourning” — the bittersweet humour in the “cortege of Satanists” following a coffin piled with “chrysanthemum-clustered / lambs, dogs and sheep,” the poignancy of aftermath: “Mum, shoeless, sitting in shadow.” This series is unapologetically honest, brilliantly paced and ends with a real cliffhanger: “We look at each other and think, / ‘I know what you did’.” Brilliant stuff.

JoAnne is holding a reading to launch The Fat Plant on Sunday 12th July, and I’d really recommend that if you’re in the area — or hey, even if you’re not — you should go along! The venue is Thomas Tosh in Thornhill, Dumfries and Galloway, and the reading begins at 3pm. As well as some fantastic poetry, drinks and canapes are also on the menu!

On my death

When I die do not celebrate my life.
I have done enough of that myself.
No, you may: weep; wail; keen;
gnash teeth and rent garments
and be very sad that I am gone.
That is fitting.

Know of a poem, poet, project or resource that needs some promotion> Drop me a line to claire@onenightstanzas.com!

Don’t forget to visit The Read This Store, and its sister store, Edinburgh Vintage!

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It’s been a while since I wrote anything about poetry readings, perhaps because I haven’t been to or read at any for a while. Anyway, I am gearing up to doing five nights at this year’s Utter! Festival as part of the Edinburgh Fringe so I need to get back into the game! I started thinking about all the things that can go wrong when you’re reading your work, and then of course how to prevent them! And I reckoned this might be handy advice for you lot, so read on…

1: Thou shalt not sneak out before everyone has read. Biggest poetry reading crime there is: getting up, reading your stuff and then leaving immediately. It’s incredibly rude and suggests that your ego is way too large, but it’s also counterproductive. Poetry readings are not just vehicles for you to plug your stuff — they are really good ways to meet people in your local poetry community and to get involved in stuff you might not otherwise have known about. In fact, I always advise people to stay to the bitter end — this is when people get chatting! And if you have to run out right after your set, say so while you’re on stage… don’t leave people scowling at your departing back!

2: Thou shalt not be a bitchy audience member. I have seen a LOT of nastiness at poetry readings — people heckling, people refusing to applaud for poets whose work they didn’t like, people talking through readings. Do not do any of the above!! Heckling is for inadquates, and most hecklers end up looking like morons. If you have a genuine beef with the person reading or the event itself, talk to the poet or organiser in person afterwards (if you’re just heckling because you think it’s funny or because you want to draw attention to yourself… you’re in the wrong place). Not applauding — or applauding sarcastically with your eyes rolling around in your head — is just plain childish, and anyone who sees you doing this will probably think so. It takes serious guts to get on stage and read your stuff, so whether they’re stellar or not (and remember, it’s all just your opinion!), every poet deserves a big hand. And as for talking through readings — at Read This events, we have a zero tolerance policy. Former Editor Lucy Baker once got onstage at a RT reading, pointed directly at the chatterboxes and yelled HAVE SOME RESPECT! into the microphone. They were afraid. And some poets will shame you themselves if you talk through their set. Don’t risk the wrath — if you want to chat, get the hell out!

3: Thou shalt not be a meanie. Poetry readings, like all other events, cost money to put together. Sure, getting a load of people together in a room with a mic might sound like no big deal, but there are costs. Lots of poetry readings offer to pay travel expenses for poets who come from out of town. Others provide refreshment of some kind, or a merch stall for people to plug their books and whatnot. Events always need PR, too — trust me, printing a few flyers costs more than you’d think. So if you’re asked to pay an admission fee, put some extra corkage in the till for your beer, or if someone passes the hat around, freaking well pay up. If you’re a poet — or even if you’re not! — you should recognise how important it is to keep these events going. Not being a meanie extends to merch too — if you liked a poet, buy their book. Chances are it’s only a fiver or so, and you’d want them to do the same for you, right?

4: Thou shalt not hog the limelight. When it comes to actually getting onstage to do your thing, remember to stick to your time limit. Of course, it’s easy to get into the swing of things and lose track, but you should really try not to… and as for deliberately stringing it out, don’t even think about it! It’ll make you look inconsiderate and it’s unfair on the other poets — plus if you do it, everyone who reads after you will start chancing their arm and you’ll all be there til the wee hours. The best thing to do is to time yourself reading your stuff beforehand, until you find a set that fits within your time limit (I always like to read a little bit under mine, in case one of my preambles runs away with me or I have a technical problem), then stick to that set. If you don’t know what your time limit will be until you get there, have a flexible set — find one that runs three minutes, one that runs five, one that runs eight, and one that runs ten. Bring the poems for all of them, that way you can adapt — and bring some extras in case it turns out you’ve got twenty minutes in the spotlight!

5: Thou shalt not over-preamble. Take what I just said about preambles with a pinch of salt: I actually hate long preambles and so do most other people. If you need to take half an hour to explain your poem, it’s not a good poem and you shouldn’t be reading it! If you’re just a blabber-mouth, practice a short preamble beforehand (hey, write it down and take it along if you like) and make yourself stick to it — or just don’t preamble at all. The last thing you want to do is lose your audience before you even get to the poetry. Keep your preambles short, sweet and preferably a little intriguing, so they’re all the more eager to hear the piece itself.

6: Thou shalt not read off the cuff. This means two things: first, you should preferably have a vague idea of which pieces you’re going to read before you show up. Turning up with your notebook and then leafing around in it looking for something good isn’t going to keep your audience’s interest. Second, you should probably have a bit of a practice beforehand. OK, not all poets do this, but I always run through my set at least once before going out of the door. Why? Because sometimes when you read your set aloud, you realise that poems that work really well on the page might be lost on an audience, or a sequence which seems to link perfectly might actually fall flat on the stage. To save blushes and last-minute improvisation, it really does help to have an idea what you’re going to do before you go.

7: Thou shalt not be pressured. If you don’t feel ready to read your work but you’re being pressured by an event organiser, take your time — go along as an audience member first to see what you reckon, or agree to do the open mic rather than a definite slot in the reading. If you get told that you have to read from memory (personally I think insisting on this is very unreasonable — some people are page poets, but they deserve stage-time just as much as anyone else) but you’re not happy, find a different reading. Basically, if reading your work over a slideshow of nightmarescapes (I went to that poetry reading) or dressing up in drag (and this one!) isn’t your thing, say so. It’s just a poetry reading — if you get there and don’t like the look of it, don’t do it. But maybe stick around to watch… it might be very interesting!

8: Thou shalt not underestimate your audience. These are the guys who will make or break the success of your reading — and they’re the reason you’re there in the first place, so a few tips: first of all, read to them, that’s what they’re there for! Poets who bury their head in their book or stare at the ceiling never make much of an impression, so make eye contact! Secondly, get them involved through your preambles if you feel confident enough — don’t be afraid to encourage a bit of audience participation! Thirdly, make it interesting for them — mix it up a bit in terms of your set. Don’t read ten poems about the same subject and expect them to stay the course — mix serious themes with funny poems, minature haikus with longer pieces. Fourthly, don’t be afraid of them. Generally, the audience wants you to succeed, otherwise they wouldn’t have come along. Chances are no one is going to fling rotten tomatoes at you, so relax!

9: Thou shalt not over-plug. There are lots of reasons why you should sign up for poetry readings — not least because they’re a good platform from which to tell people about your book/website/latest project etc. However — and as weird as it may sound — yelling BUY MY BOOK or COME TO MY EVENT every time you draw breath will actually make people less likely to get on board. If you have a book sitting on the merch table, draw the audience’s attention to it at the beginning of your set — same goes for the site you’ve launched or the project you’re plotting. Once you’ve done this, forget about promoting yourself and get on with your set. When you’re done, you can give a quick “thanks for listening, remember to check out my stuff,” and that’s enough. Making sure you read a good set might actually be crucial for your sales/site hits — if people like your poetry and your delivery, they’re way more likely to check out your stuff than if your reading’s not that hot.

10: Thou shalt not nitpick afterwards. It’s becoming a bit of a thing these days for people to blog about the poetry readings they’ve been to after the fact — a sort of round-up of the event, as it were. This post-event PR is a really good thing, I reckon — a good write-up is bound to snare new audience members. However, all too often these poetry reading roundups are used as a medium for sniping and bitching, and indeed, I’ve seen experienced poets get themselves into hot water by slagging off their fellow readers the morning after. My advice is, just don’t get involved with this. Apart from anything else, all publicity is good publicity, so even if you write a 3000 word essay on how terrible so-and-so’s reading was, you’re probably still doing them a favour in the long run. If you want to do a write-up of a poetry reading, then go for it — but if there was a poet you really didn’t like and you can’t bring yourself to say anything nice about them, don’t say anything at all. It’s an old adage but it works. If on the other hand you hated the whole event and want to vent about it, I suggest you take your concerns to the organiser before hating on their reading all over the internets!

Couple more thoughts: thou shalt not sabotage thyself — ie, don’t do anything that’s going to make your own life difficult or embarrassing when you’re on stage. Don’t get ridiculously drunk or drop anything potent before you go on; try to avoid props as they’re generally comedic/problematic; in particular avoid taking your beverage on the stage with you (yes, heaps of poets do this and look really cool, but you’re asking to get your self/book/audience/mic wires wet); think carefully before wearing impractical clothing or shoes you can’t walk in; and golden rule — always check your fly before you go on. Saves the blushes!

Got any more poetry reading don’ts? Or questions about readings? You know where the comments box is… or you can drop me a line, as always, to claire@onenightstanzas.com!

(Photo by -Marah)

Don’t forget to visit The Read This Store, and its sister store, Edinburgh Vintage!

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Tell us about your poems.
My poems are nearly always very personal: they’re usually about my relationships with my friends, boyfriend, and self. Honesty is central to my writing, and I’ve had to accept that whenever I do a reading or submit work to magazines I’ll be giving people a lot of information about myself. The last time I read my work I covered my last break-up, self-esteem problems, my religious background, and my dad issues, in less than ten minutes. I’m envious of people who can write poems about interesting moments in history or imaginary characters, but I don’t feel like I could be genuine when writing about something like that.

I tend to focus quite closely on the body, and lately I’ve been writing a series of poems centred upon specific body parts such as navels, earlobes and hip bones. I’ve also been challenging myself to write about love, which I think is a really difficult topic if you’re trying to write something original and interesting, and on painful personal topics, where it can be difficult not to be melodramatic or to shy around the issues. So it doesn’t look like I’m going to stop shouting about my personal life any time soon…

How long have you been writing?
I’ve been writing since I was seventeen, so about three and a half years. It feels like a lot longer though – I can’t imagine my life without it. The prominence of poetry in my life is always increasing. I began by scribbling a few things in my journal at school, and didn’t really know why I was writing or think about how I was doing it. Winning a commendation in the Foyle Young Poet of the Year Award in 2006 gave me an enormous confidence boost and encouraged me to write more. Now I’m constantly writing and reading, attending poetry readings, and sharing my work.

Do you have any publications to your name (apart from this one)? What’s the next stage for your work?
I’ve been published in a few magazines run by students in Durham . I’ve also been in the ezine Pomegranate a few times, and I’ve been in Read This, Angelic Dynamo, Spark Bright and Rising magazine. I also have work forthcoming in Cake, the Cadaverine and the Glasgow Review. I think the next stage is to just keep reading my work to audiences to improve my confidence and reading style. And I’d be pretty excited if I had work accepted by a well-established magazine.

What do you think is your biggest poetic achievement to date?
Being accepted for the 2008 Tower Poetry Summer School was very encouraging for me. They take poets from the age of 18-23, and I found out about it when I was 18, so I’d planned to apply every year for five years. I was accepted on my second try, and I was over the moon. I also recently found out that one of my poems made the top 100 shortlist for the Mslexia competition, and as it’s an international competition I’m really happy about that.

What’s the best thing about writing poetry? And the worst?
The best thing has to be the moment of writing itself. Few things are as exciting to me as when I get a new idea for a poem, and the lines start developing in my head. I know it’s a total cliché, but I love it when I’m writing and the rest of the world fades away, and I feel like the idea is taking shape and looking good. The next best would be reassurances that the hours spent writing and editing aren’t for nothing – the Foyle commendation, having work published, the Tower School , encouraging rejection letters. Having strangers compliment you after a reading is amazing too. I am always so grateful to people who do that.
The worst… Well, looking at a poem the day after you wrote it and realising that maybe it’s not so great after all can be quite depressing. But I’d have to say the worst is how isolating it can be. Until recently I didn’t know anyone who wrote poetry; I can’t really bring it up in conversation with friends or family because they wouldn’t know what to say. And it can be very difficult to improve your writing when you don’t know anyone else who writes.

Got any suggestions for young, upcoming poets?
It’s hard to come up with something valuable that hasn’t been already been said here, although the three tenets (read, write, share) can’t be stressed enough. If I could give advice to my seventeen-year-old self, I would say:

1. Don’t hide too much in metaphors. They can be a great way to express ideas, but they can also be an easy way to avoid coming to grips with a topic.
2. Don’t keep your work to yourself because you’re afraid people might not like it. Poetry is a highly subjective art form, so there will always be people who dislike your work – it doesn’t mean you’re a bad poet.
3. If you find it difficult to find poetry you enjoy, then shop around until you do. Don’t feel embarrassed that you don’t know anything about the “great” poets — a lot of people don’t know anything about contemporary poets.
4. Consider carefully everything you write — every metaphor, simile, word, even punctuation. Think about whether they are appropriate to what you’re trying to say, whether they fit with the rest of the poem, whether an idea actually works. When I look back at my older poems I think the biggest weakness is that I didn’t think about these things, often I simply wrote what came into my head and consequently there’s a lot of clichés or ideas that simply don’t work if you take a moment to think about them.

Who/what influences your poetry?
As I said, my friends, boyfriend and family have a big influence – they send me to the heights of happiness and the pits of despair, so they’re what I write about most. Talented young poets like the winners of the Foyle award and the poets in the tall-lighthouse’s “Pilot” series are a source of inspiration, because their poetry is often so original and brilliant they prove that age has nothing to do with writing fantastic poetry. I recently bought Jay Bernard’s pamphlet from the tall-lighthouse website and some of her ideas and imagery are stunning. I also love reading Kathryn Simmonds and Catherine Smith right now. They both take everyday topics and shine a light on them, showing how extraordinary they are. Their poems show that you don’t even have to leave your front door to find something beautiful.

Kid Cygnet

I wore my uniform long after the school bell’s
startled cry. That sagging material became my skin,
I couldn’t tear it away.
The years were narrow corridors
lined with carefully-placed legs,
Coke bottles making hollow sounds
as they hit my head. Each day hoping
my friends wouldn’t have to peel
another crusted sanitary towel from my back.

There were more ways to get things wrong than I could comprehend.
Hot pink ankle socks, Woolworths shoes
with heavy soles. I didn’t understand
how the other girls could fly through school
- their swan-white Topshop shirts, weightless laughter-
when I couldn’t find space to lift a wing.

They took off when the bell rang.
I remained, searching each bathroom mirror
for change, stealing bits of sky
from the windows.

But today I have looked down
to find a single brilliant feather.
And found the sky pressing
against the glass, so close
I could reach out and clench the clouds,
swing myself into the air.

Want to see your poems featured here? Drop me a line to claire@onenightstanzas.com!

(Photo by Sasha of www.birdsflyphotography.com)

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