Blogs, Poetry and Notebooks

I’ve been wondering over the last few days what the best approach is for a blog this year. Do I read through everything written over recent days and consolidate the highlights into an essay with a few additional reflections; or do I just continue to key in daily scribbles? Do I pick a topic and let rip on that for five hundred words or do I just sporadically post progress reports.

   It’s only the first week of the year; besides making a few paperbacks by hand, uploading a video and writing a ‘to do’ list I’ve not done much yet. Hopefully when I get into workshop mode there’ll be more on my mind.

   I once heard poet Kate Fox say she doesn’t trust metaphor. I often wonder if I’m really a poet at all. Much of the time I just want to rant or record an experience in language as plain as possible. Marking time for my own peace of mind is often enough. I don’t ever try to force the use of metaphor. I have two poems, each around two decades old, where I’ve set myself the task of producing verse with multiple connections and found that although successful – published in respectable magazines and later housed in my debut collection – I found the approach to be somewhat false. I prefer the unexpected passage found in a notebook that startles me and demands a redrafting at the computer – I discover poems within my prose, that’s why I scribble so many automatic journal entries.

   I don’t think you can ever have too many notebooks. To my surprise at the latest count I realise I have six on the go this year already. The day starts with morning pages on unruled A4 sheets – much of this text came from what I wrote in bed today. Sometimes the pages record dreams, workshop plans and prose-poems, sometimes I just whinge in order to clear my head before the day starts proper. I’m making my own morning pages notebooks from A3 copier paper folded in half and stitched with needle and thread. I don’t want a repeat of last year with stray pages strewn about the bedroom floor for months on end.

   There’s a school exercise book style jotter for field notes and flashes of inspiration, preliminary journal entries on buses and other fragments.

   This year there’s an A4 lined hardback for random free verse compositions – it’s been so long since I actually drafted in lines rather than paragraphs and I need to get back in the habit of doing so. I’ll jot down workshops plans in this book as well.

   The A4 lined diary format I’ve been using for over ten years was becoming uncomfortable on the eye during typing sessions; my ‘regular journal’ entries are now reduced to a single A5 page a day in a chunky Paperchase diary – purchased on my third visit to the shop after trawling the internet and weighing up my options for a fortnight.

   I find it useful to keep a work-log in an imitation A5 moleskine – black for three years running – to keep track of my workshop outcomes, networking, online activity; and gig set-lists in the back so I don’t repeat work upon return to a venue.

   The last little book I take a pen to is, for want of a better term, a ‘Gratitude Book’. It’s a new addition to my routine. Anyone who has read my published output knows I tend to dwell on the dark side of life, so I’ve started to record a few positive reflections from my day. Thanks for a nice comment from a friend on Facebook, gratitude for a lovely meal or work opportunity, a few words on how pleased I am that a meeting went well or just noting the weather being pleasantly mild. ‘Steve’s Little Book of Joy’ would probably do no good do for my reputation as a grim existential diarist and performance ranter, but it’s nice as something to look back upon as a reminder that the sun does actually shine once in a while.

   And on that note I’ll cut it and finish another hand-made copy of There Are Easier Ways of Living Than Bleeding to Death. Made to order for £7.00 including postage, should anyone be curious.

   Happy New Year. Keep it going.

                                                            Steve Urwin, Moorside

                                                            Saturday 5th January 2013

Tuesday 1st January 2013

First day of the year, blue skies and dry pavements, first walk in the woods for ages. Black Metal Venom sweatshirt, big boots. The river trail was pretty muddy but didn’t spoil my enjoyment. Took my camera but I’m no photographer – all my colours will soon be black and white. I walked for a couple of hours. It was good to be outside after all the lethargy of the last week and calorific excess.

This year I want to say Yes to a healthier lifestyle; yes to creative opportunities. Yes to slim volumes of poems read in single sittings. Yes to walks in the woods, yes to reading more memoirs, autobiography and journals. Last year was pretty full-on. In 2013 I want things to do things a little differently. I have good vibes about the coming months though. Yes to community arts activity, Yes to memorizing my words for public performance. Yes to less is more. This new diary is proof of that. 9.55pm.

Wednesday 2nd January 2013

I thought some lingering paperwork from last year would only take till lunchtime. But you know what thought did – and when he looked he had. It was twenty past four when I got the envelope weighed at the post office. At least I had an easy evening. Read some poetic theory that I took with a pinch of salt and other clichés then me and Jenni played The Cube. Some of the games are easy, some require the skills of a juggler. Some involve balancing cylinders and little foam balls, some require hand eye coordination I never even had as a kid, much less a decrept forty-something with arthritic fingers and spectacles. Jenni got up to the final £250,000 game with six lives intact , but the little red ball  she had to fire through a hoop into the cube just wouldn’t hit the target. I bet she nails it next time though. After this entry it’s a DVD till bedtime. Maybe The Devil’s Carnival, maybe Stephen Fry in America. Decisions, decisions… 9.03pm.

Thursday 3rd January 2012

Incurred my first library fine of 2013 this morning. Was too busy to return the five overdue titles yesterday. But on the bright side they let me have Phillip Coggan’s Paper Promises reissued. It’s a book about money, debt and the new World Order that I never got round to reading during a thirty-week loan in the year of the apocalypse that never was. Funny! Tonight has been a nostalgia trip for me. Listened to Sweatbox by Rollins. Heard this album as a triple vinyl set in 1989, my first encounter with ‘spoken word’. Hank can turn on a dime from hilarious to painfully poignant. The story about the old woman in the grocery store still brings a lump to my throat. I also listened to BBC radio session versions of songs by The Mission. Then decided to glue up a copy of my early book ‘There Are Easier Ways of Living Than Bleeding to Death’. Jenni isn’t due back till after midnight. Who knows what papercraft shenanigans I get up to before then. 10 22pm.

Friday 4th January 2013

Didn’t go to bed till quarter past three this morning after more book building, so it was nice to have a lie in. Needle and thread binding this afternoon then some video editing. Really mild weather today. Would have been nice to get out on the bike for a while but I feel I ought to be concentrating on work-related activity. Listened to songs by The Damned, Sinead O’Connor  and Jarboe. I want to listen to stuff I liked in my twenties. A big Swans fan back then, I miss the intensity of their dark music. Jenni came over about half seven. She brought me a bottle of ginger beer. I don’t have much to write down the s evening. I read a bit more of Peter Sampson’s Writing Poems and made a big to-do list  for the coming weeks. Won’t be long before I’m really busy again and looking for pockets of time to keep on top of domesticity and stop myself from crashing out. Oh well… 9.21pm.