Bikes, Boards, Books and Bigly Thanks

Monday 31st March 2014

Lazy day. Good to watch people older than me on YouTube riding trials bikes and skateboards. Concerned about NaPoWriMo. Not really in the mood to do it. Would like a couple of weeks to myself really. No gigs, no journals, no fucking house mess. Weather is shit. Foggy and cold. Watched a YouTube video of UCI World Biketrial Championship 2012 from Belgium. Also a documentary about rip-off ticket bastards who buy up premium gig seats then double, triple, quadruple the price. Watched The Widower on television. Lazy evening, copying up bits and pieces, a few emails, laughing at Osborne’s aims to have full employment, and one of his minions trying to dodge Paxman’s bullets. Jokers! 10.43 pm.

Tuesday 1st April 2014

Well, today’s been pretty good. NaPoWriMo poem posted, enjoyed reading work of fellow participants on the group page. Had a superb time performing at Consett Golf Club tonight to a private audience. Forty-five minute set and full-on meal afterwards. The audience were attentive, quite traditional sensibilities, but Lorraine who booked me said they’d never experienced anything like it before. So pleased I accepted the invitation to do a full-on retrospective set with anecdotes and speech about creativity. Wasn’t sure about the full-throttle material mid-way and was holding back, but then thought; fuck it, I’m going to just open it up. Could easily have extended to an hour. Loved it. Gonna do pretty much the same thing at Gateshead library. Very tired now. Hope ideas keep coming for NaPoWriMo. This week. Okay. Done. 10.40 pm.

Wednesday 2nd April 2014

Only six hours sleep last night. Didn’t go to bed till two. Was scribbling notes about skateboards first thing then typing up daydreams but they didn’t make my heart sing. Thought a migraine would black me out again. Took a couple of ibuprofen and in time felt right as rain. Was at Jen’s late this afternoon, helped with some Anti Slam flyers. Had a good time at the Radikal Words gig. All the acts were class – Ditti Elly, Rowan McCabe, Arabella Arnott, David Lee Morgan, Mandy Maxwell and Disraeli. Had to leg it straight after the encore to make the 10.15 pm bus back to Consett. Workshop tomorrow that I haven’t yet planned for. Maybe a big cut-up poem. I put a poem online at lunchtime coz I didn’t want to go with official NaPoWriMo prompt. Morning Pages works better for me. We’ll see. 10.44 pm.

Thursday 3rd April 2014

Session at MIND a bit loose but we got there. Will probably work on a new booklet with the group over the next few months. I’ve written some notes for NaPoWriMo, done a couple of things already. But I’ve no idea what the official prompt is. Won’t find out until I hit the library. I’m in Wetherspoons waiting on my burger and chips. Gonna sit here for an hour then off to the Read Regional poetry event. 12.25 pm.

LATER: Enjoyable afternoon in Consett library at the Mark Robinson / Tara Bergin Read Regional event. Bought books, was nice to see my friend Enid there. Then down to Waddy for Poetry Jam. 10.30 pm.

Friday 4th April 2014

MASSIVE THANKS to everyone who made last night’s Poetry Jam so awesome. Great sets from our special guests JM Weeds, Juli Watson and James Oates. And some outstanding open floor performances from the jammers. The atmosphere, electric last night, just keeps getting stronger month by month. Special thanks to Fergus who sets up the space and works the café single-handedly, a mammoth task these days due to the increasingly high turn out. I never envisaged a time we might have to consider advance tickets for our little night. Thanks so much to Waddington Street Centre and everyone who has graced the space since our first Waddy Slam back in April 2009. So many voices, so much talent. Thank you all for the last five years, here’s to the next five. Keep it going!

Nice to have the day at home. Last night was great and I was so chuffed with the response to Poetry Jam. Put the pix up this afternoon. Listened to a Geek Apocalypse podcast conversation between Steven Heslewood and Jane Burn this evening. Very inspiring. Admire Jane’s creativity and work ethic. Very warm and generous comments about the NE spoken word scene. The link is on Jane’s Facebook page (and mine) should anyone wish to listen to it. 10.38 pm.

Saturday 5th April 2014

Can't stand form
Though teaches it to others
Fickle Steve Urwin! – Jenni

"…not sure stringing lunes together really works unless each part stands on its own as well." - Mica.

Stringing lunes for yesterday’s NaPoWriMo was the bit I found hard, and in the end failed at it really.

Jenni is right of course. I question myself all the time about my role as a facilitator as many of the techniques I'm obliged to make students aware of leave me cold - but it's pretty impossible to come up with a set of prescriptive aims and outcomes for merely spilling guts into a journal, automatic ranting or streams of consciousness every two hour session for a whole term. Although as far as personal creativity is concerned, that's what works best for me. Hence the writing marathon. But that would be like trying to teach someone to have the same colour eyes as you.

I prefer to capture a moment in passing, or give an emotional response to a theme. I'm fascinated by the way a seemingly random passage can, through trial and error of line-breaking, find it's own shape - quite startling to see it happen during the onscreen editing process; line length, number of lines per stanza, changing words to enhance the rhythm, assonance and consonance - but shoe-horning things into a shape coz tradition says so - building poems like Meccano or Lego - just breaks the signal for me and feels completely artificial. Using form just to prove technical competence means little to me, on a personal level. Sure, I admire it greatly in others, but doing it to prove it can be done isn't a good enough reason for my doing it. I'm mainly concerned with an author's own emotional honesty. That's why I prefer poetry and autobiography to fiction. But do people actually think and respond to their life in sestinas, for example? I once saw David Dabydeen being interviewed and he, quoting another poet whose name I forget, said "The hurricane does not roar in iambic pentameter." - That was twenty years ago. And my position hasn't changed much since then - nor my limited range of subject matter, either, probably. A poet by default, then, perhaps. Don’t actually know why I wrote this. Rant over. 12.20 pm

Always great to listen to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds whilst typing. Love letter from No More Shall We Part is just beautiful. Must see them again some time… 4. 05 pm.