READING LIST

I'm writing a post now because I said that I would in my previous post and if I left that as the most recent one then I would just confuse everyone since I make a big deal out of how I don't want people to read just that and then hate me for being inane, self-deprecating in a quite annoying way and ultimately pointless. Since you shouldn't really have a blog just so that you can update it with posts about how rubbish you are at blogging.

I AM DOING IT AGAIN. Wow. Okay, moving on swiftly: yesterday I got my third reading list emailed to me. I think this is my final reading list for Michaelmas (for the unindoctrinated, this is the autumn/winter term at my university) since there are three papers so three reading lists, while terrifying, seems to make sense.

I got my first of the three just over a month ago now, on about the 17th or 18th of August (I think). The three papers I'm doing are Victorian Literature, An Introduction To Literary Studies (or something, it's got a name like that and it's about theory and criticism I think) and Medieval Literature, where we get to choose between Middle and Old English. I'm going with Old English, I think, but I don't decide until I've done a couple of classes in each.

There's little point in keeping it massively secret so I might as well say where I'm going, which is Oxford. The reading lists, together and separately, are all rather formidable; if I was going to read all the primary Victorian texts alone, disregarding all the other stuff, then we'd be looking at a book every two days or something from this point on. I have not read as many so far as I would have liked. I am currently working through Bleak House... I kind of like it, actually, but it is not going to be finished in two days.

I'm liking the look of the lit theory, although I haven't really done much reading for that yet (since the Victorian list goes on about everything being vital and the theory list being recommended for dipping into I think I've decided to prioritise) and I'm also really, sadly excited about the medieval stuff, possibly largely because the other day I remembered studying Chaucer's The Miller's Tale and decided to send friends who aren't Middle English-nerds some funny bits of the tale, such as when Absolon works out that he didn't kiss Alison's face because women don't have beards and when he keeps bringing her all the food and money in a really hilarious, yet stupid, way. My friends were bemused, I was laughing. I want to do Old English because I hear all the cool kids know dead languages, and also it may be my only chance to lean about the hronrad or the other cultural references that other friends of mine sometimes make to anglo-saxon while I desperately try to look like I'm totally up on my medieval knowledge. Anon, anon, anon. See what I did there? I'll be writing blog posts in runes in no time, just you wait.

Know what else I've discovered? I do not get on with most of the Victorians. My Mum (who I promised I'd be in bed hours ago - sorry, Mum! I just wasn't tired!) lovea the Victorians for some weird reasons of her own and I know a lot of people actually like the Bronte sisters three (top points if you can spot the cultural reference there, I'm on fire tonight with my indie cred) and all the other people who wrote about governesses trapped in their own biblical, fiery nightmare but I don't want to sleep with Heathcliff or Mr Rochester (which a disturbing amount of people do, if the number of facebook groups devoted to them is any indication) and would rather not read anything where every page has to contain at least three references to hell or fire (or preferably both, which a healthy amount of good piety thrown in) for the author to be able to move on. OKAY, YOU GOT ME. Jane Eyre isn't quite that bad. I was exaggerating for comic effect. I don't think it worked though, sorry.

I do like what I've read of Hopkins, largely because he was really weird and doesn't read like yr typical Victorian - there's all that sprung rhythm (which I still don't really understand, although I also don't really get how people spot whether something's iambic or trochaic etc., so really, I'm a bit fucked when it comes to analysing the metrical aspect of poetry) and wanting to have sex with Jesus and all that other stuff. I prefer him to the other Victoriana that I have read, although, as I said, I am enjoying Bleak House. I'm not sure if I'd be able to analyse Dickens though, there's too much there! In this way maybe i'll be better at the Brontes. I guess I will find out with time.

My problem is that I finish a book by one of the Victorians and then want to read something different - I generally have quite a short attention span and so I don't want to just read the same sort of stuff over and over. I got a Glyn Maxwell book that I ordered second-hand in the post today, his debut collection, Tales of the Mayor's Son. It's incredible, he's got to be one of my favourite poets ever.

I start university in 16 days, or something. It now seems quite close, although loads of my friends go tomorrow (/today, since it's half two in the morning now) and so by comparison it is an age. I am going to bed now. Whine at me in the comments about how pointless I am, you kno you want to.

Pomegranate

Some of you (okay, okay, let's face it, only people I know read this, so, all of you) know that I am the webmistress (is there a gender-neutral term I can use? WEBMONARCH, maybe? No?) of the poetry ezine, http://www.pomegranate.me.uk. In case anyone I don't know has stumbled upon this blog (hi!) then I'll give a brief run-down: it's an online poetry journal for writers under 30, published quarterly. It's been running since last autumn.

Last night and this morning, I finished coding and uploading issue 3: time. The next issue's (optional, always stress the optional) theme is "Suck", which is a bit different and quite fun, I think. Anyway, the coding is... I'm not going to lie and say enjoyable or anything, but it wasn't hard - just a bit mundane, because I'm a bit obsessive and code by hand, which means a lot of manual tags for linebreaks. This issue is great, though - 20 poems, 5 articles, an interview and a great cover photo. It's always really exciting getting an issue up, and I'm still on a bit of a high from uploading this one - it's out there for people to see! Yes!

For some reason before I started this blog post I thought that talking about coding Pom would make a satisfying post on its ow. I WAS WRONG. Obviously I forgot that no one actually wants to hear me rambling on about tags and so on. Be glad that I have remembered.

In a way, though, I think the internet's quite bad for me. I always end up spending my evenings refreshing facebook and on the forums - I mean, I'll read as well, but I won't get as much done as I would if the internet wasn't an option. But then, the stuff I do isn't quite as useless as it was a few years ago, when I was just keen on doing rubbish pixel art - I do read a lot of poetry on the internet, and without it I'd never even have really got involved in poetry at all. So it's a bit of a double-edged sword. Hopefully I'll get better at juggling my time - I've been reading a lot recently (largely Neil Gaiman and China Mieville) and I'm hoping to read a lot of Auden over the next few weeks, because I'm sort of on the cusp of realising why people like him so much and I'd like to properly understand.

Mmm, anyway this is becoming one of those posts where I just sort of talk about poetry in general without actually really saying much of consequence. I'm going to read some more of this 1973 edition of The Penguin Book of Love Poetry and enjoy having a lazy Saturday night.

Arvon

On Saturday I spent more than 9 hours travelling from the depths of Shropshire back to Ipswich. I got stuck with Richard in Birmingham New Street for like, two hours, my phone ran out of battery, I ended up at Ely station, realising only after about twenty minutes that there wasn't another train to Ipswich for more than an hour and a half. I stumbled into the phone booth, called home and got my Dad to pick me up by sobbing (I totally hadn't meant to cry, I'm such a loser). The journey was hell, and once I was by myself it was just boring boring boring. But you know what? It was worth every second, and would have been worth many more.

I was travelling back from an Arvon course, which had been incredible. Somehow, it was my third - I've been on two others, all three through (somehow) winning fyp a number of times. I don't know if I'll ever get to go on any more - I mean, hopefully I will, but I can't really afford any and it wouldn't be the same anyway. The fyp ones are always so incredible because everyone's about your age and you're thrown together and they turn out to be awesome so you end up with great friends that happen to be into poetry. Sigh. Obviously I was incredibly lucky to win as many times as I did - 3 - so I've had way more than my fair share of being an idiot at the Hurst, but still, I'm sad that that was my last time.

I think I was going to regail stories about the course here, actually, but I don't really know what to say. I don't think it'd be all that interesting to people that weren't there, although I do urge all of you to play Adverbs the next time you're at a party. It's magic. Try 'sadistically' or 'morbidly' if you really want to have a good time...

Anyway this blog post is a bit nothing but I largely wanted to let you all know that I am alive, if not well then passable and that last week was one of the best weeks of my life (along with the other two courses, naturally). A proper, thoughtful blog post coming soon - promise!

Yesterday the winners of the Foyle Young Poets 2007 were announced. I'm in the top fifteen again, and I guess I can officially post about it now. It's my third year in the top fifteen (I was top 100 the year before that) and as it was the last year I could enter it's quite nice to end it on top, or something.

The awards ceremony was in the evening, and it was lovely. I left school at about lunchtime (after a slightly bizarre session with an Oxford outreach officer in the careers office) and caught buses home, got changed as soon as possible and then dashed back in to catch the half two train to London Liverpool Street. I was wearing a dress and some very sequinned gold shoes, and if any photos exist of me that aren't completely hideous then I'll possibly put one up here to demonstrate. Don't hold your breath, though, I am recovering from a cold and I am not very photogenic.

You'd think that as this was my fourth FYP awards thing (well, fifth, really, as there were two events in 2005) I'd be used to it by now. I'm really, really not - I was still ultra-nervous and probably very annoying. I did talk to a lot of people, and I drank too much of this weird ginger and elderberry drink and I didn't eat much at all (although I did accidentally insult the food while someone was trying to give us caviar or something, so that was embarrassing). The worst part was when we were sitting down and our poems were being read out and my eyes suddenly started being like OH MY GOD THE PAIN ETC so I was trying to like, stop them hurting while crying with laughter at a man reading out Annie's poem, which you should all read here (you should read all the rest while you're there, although I'm not going to force you to read my rather twee effort) and it was a bit of a crisis. But then my eyes stopped hurting and it was okay again.

I was also interviewed for a podcast by Tom Chivers of penned in the margins, which was a bit weird, as I'd never been interviewed before. It was nice, though, I think I went went on about books a lot. When the podcast surfaces I'll try and remember to post a link here, if anyone's interested.

Anyway, then it was onto networking. I haven't posted about pomegranate here yet, which is utterly shameful, and I think that everyone should go there NOW and read everything (although again, feel free to miss out my poem there too, it's really twee again, sigh!), but we handed out lots of flyers for it and told people to read it and submit to us, like, NOW, so hopefully we'll hear from a few new voices and stuff. If you're reading this and you somehow haven't yet been and marvelled at Pomegranate, then where have you been?! Go there now, anyway.

I was a bit sad about coming home again. Rosie and I sat on the train and moaned about Ipswich - it's not a very exciting place ever, really, and especially not if you want to be involved in poetry. There are never any poetry readings here anymore (PoetryIpswich mysteriously died, not that it was very exciting anyway) and I can hardly ever get to them in London (I've been to ONE, and that was ages ago) and much as I love Waterstone's (I work there and it's awesome) it doesn't have any poetry magazines other then Poetry Review and so I can never get Magma or Smiths Knoll (?! I can never find it ANYWHERE, and it's based in Suffolk! What is going on?!) and all the poetry reading groups in Suffolk are ages away and full of old people and I can't get there anyway. When you look up Suffolk on poetry websites for listings or whatever, Ipswich usually isn't on there. It's all Aldeburgh and Felixstowe and Bury St. Edmunds, which are nice places but they're all posher than Ipswich and it's not plausible for me to get to them for events in the evening, as I can't drive and the buses here are particularly rubbish. So Ipswich, poetry-wise? It's dead.

It's dead for pretty much everything else too, as there are no alternative nights (oh I think there might be one actually, but it's very late and I have school / work and god I hate being young sometimes) and there's only one cinema and there are no second-hand bookshops (although obviously Waterstone's has everything anyone needs) and the Wolsey Theatre is nice but small and the library has a patchy selection of books and ugh.

In just under a year I'll be out of here, I hope.

On a less whingey note - I read Luke Kennard's The Harbour Beyond the Movie cover to cover today, after flicking through it last week. It's completely amazing, original and sharp and beautiful and also really really funny in a really strange way. I'm really gutted that it didn't win the Forward. When I get paid, I think I'll have to buy his first collection!

So, just now I got reminded of this thing by Emily asking me for a list of poetry blogs. I was happy to oblige, but then a little sad that I'd never really done anything much with this. So, anyway.

So, today my Mum picked up two books for me from the local library. One of them is The New York Poets II (edited by Mark Ford and Trevor Winkfield), and the other is Making for Planet Alice (edited by Maura Dooley). I'm a big fan of Maura Dooley (which is probably the reason I got the book out - I'm still working my way through 'Modern Women Poets', a more extensive Bloodaxe anthology of, well, women poets) and it looks pretty good so far. I haven't really looked at the New York one yet - I had the first one out for a while, but never really worked my way through it. I'm a big fan of Frank O'Hara, so I feel like I need to research more into the poets working at around the same time as him, and those that took up the gauntlet after he'd gone. The problem is that I'm really supposed to be buckling down to work now (I have a three hour English exam in just over a week) and so I don't really have time to read; anthologies are pretty good at this sort of time, because they don't require you to work all the way through, but frustrating - I want to work all the way through, really, but I can't.

Still, soon enough all of my exams will be over. I think my last one's on the 12th and 13th (or is it the 11th and 12th?) of June, and that's Art. Then I'm done with AS, done, done. And I do three days on either Arabic or Russian (don't know which of the two language courses I got onto yet) before being launched into the murky waters of A2 English Lit, History and Government and Politics. I'll probably have to continue Art until the summer holidays, actually, but I can't really see me carrying it on after then - to be honest, I'm not really good enough at it. If I want to apply to some good universities then I need to focus more on getting As in my other subjects, not on getting at least a B in art at the expense of my main three.

Anyway, I'm trying to think of a poem to sign this off with - the problem with being a big fan of modern poetry is that it's all in copyright! So I'll leave off a poem for today, but I'll try and post something in the next few days.

Maybe I'll give this a try

I actually quite like blogger - the problem with LJs is that they're really for having a good moan, that sort of thing. I think I'll use this as more of a poetry blog; I can write about competitions & submissions, as well as do my own mini-reviews. I would write a nice long post now, actually, but I have a history essay to do. So, instead, have some Rupert Brooke:

The Hill

Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,
Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
You said, "Through glory and ecstasy we pass;
Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still,
When we are old, are old. . . ." "And when we die
All's over that is ours; and life burns on
Through other lovers, other lips," said I,
-- "Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!"

"We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.
Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said;
"We shall go down with unreluctant tread
Rose-crowned into the darkness!" . . . Proud we were,
And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.
-- And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.