One Night Stanzas

I’ve always liked these — I like doing them, I like the headspace they send me into — and I like seeing others’ answers. So I’m not going to apologise for posting this here. Click through tomorrow for more of the usual if you’re not keen on such things. But thanks to the lovely Katja for supplying this. Check out her serene and beautiful blog.

Your favourite virtue
Honesty.

Your favourite qualities in a man
Humility, loyalty, intelligence, passion, empathy.

Your favourite qualities in a woman
Straightforwardness, kindness, open mindedness, patience.

Your favourite occupation
Writing.

Your idea of happiness
Self-sufficiency.

Your idea of misery
Idleness.

If not yourself, who would you be
Marina Warner.

Where would you like to live
In an eco-house I built myself from scratch.

Your favourite colour and flower
Orange, dog daisy.

Your favourite prose authors
Margaret Atwood, Marge Piercy, Marina Warner, Russell Hoban, Robert Louis Stevenson.

Your favourite poets
Dorianne Laux, Patricia Young, Kim Addonizio, Kerry Hardie, Sharon Olds, Paul Farley, Jacob Polley, George Watsky, Edwin Morgan, William Letford, millions of others.

Your favourite heroes in fiction
Boromir, Withnail, and Barry.

Your favourite heroines in fiction
Marianne Dashwood, Lady Harriet Cumnor, Iris Chase-Griffen, Clementine Kruczynski.

Your favourite heroes in real life
My gampy (grandpa).

Your favourite heroines in real life
Hillary Clinton, Jean Kilbourne, Betty White, my friend Martyna, my sister, many others.

Your favourite food and drink
Fresh crusty bread, broccoli, mashed potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, puy lentils, spinach, sea-salt and caramel chocolate from The Chocolate Tree, ImproV’s “uncheesecake”, strawberries; tea, berry juices, red wine, a dry Manhattan.

Your favourite names
Willa for a girl, Dashiell for a boy.

Your pet peeve
Misogyny.

The change you most anticipate
Getting to a place in my life where I can be greener and more self-sufficient.

A gift of nature which I would like to have
Proper real confidence.

How I would like to die
Quickly.

What is your present state of mind
Sleepy, and craving cuddles.

Of what fault are you most tolerant
Ambition, if ambition actually is a fault.

Your favourite motto(s)
I have many. Wiccan folks, who say “an it harm none, do what ye will” are pretty sensible. My mum always says “if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well,” and my dad always says “do your best,” both of which have informed my thinking quite deeply.

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

Over the summer I was teaching creative writing at the Scottish Universities International Summer School. All our lovely students were from overseas and most of them had never been to Edinburgh before. The festival was in full swing, they were all finding the course extremely intensive (’cause it really, really is — but in a fun way!), and scrabbling around for a free hour or two each day to write. And they were all asking me the same question: which Edinburgh coffee shops are the best for writing in?
Weirdly, this all coincided with my procurement of a copy of David Mamet’s Make-Believe Town — a collection of essays on everything from what David Mamet thinks of screenwriting to what David Mamet did during the 1995 deer hunting season. Now, (< — classic Mamet start to a sentence right there) I love David Mamet a whole load. Although I have yet to see or even read one of his plays, his non-fiction is just so up my street. And there is one essay in this particular collection that not only spookily amplified my students’ questions… it also made me snort-laugh, and in places, nod furiously.

The essay is called “The Diner”, and in it, Mamet asserts:

“Writing, in my experience, consists of long periods of hanging out, punctuated by the fugue of remorse at the loss of one’s powers and wonder at occasional output in spite of that loss.”

This is my personal writing process in a nutshell, and so I was extremely excited when Mamet not only endorsed the behaviour I shall henceforth refer to as “hanging out” (rather than “dicking around” or “procrastinating”, which were the terms I used to use) — he actually suggests that it is a necessary and perhaps even vital part of being a writer. “We’ve got to write, and to read, and to do so, we get out of the house and get into the coffeeshop. [...] We, readers and writers, must hang out.”

And it has to be the coffeeshop. After all,

“Where else would one go? The Lounge seems to have degenerated into the Sports Bar, that is, a spot one can go to watch television. That is not hanging out; no: we cannot say it. [...] That frantic and forced consumerism of the Sports Bar will not do; neither what has become the muddled and tense obsequiousness of that proclaiming itself the Restaurant. No.”

It has to be the coffeeshop. The coffeeshop, as Mamet points out (and this is one of the parts where I furiously nodded), is more than just an establishment that sells hot, usually-brown-coloured beverages. It is a refuge for those of us who are stupid enough to have decided to dedicate our lives to the creative arts, and who therefore have little money and not much of a plan and who need a safe place to go, where we won’t be judged by normal people or told to get a real job.

“In larger towns we’ve seen the budding writer at his or her table, frowning into a notebook; and in the cities themselves, the actor and actress with their flimsy scripts — outsiders all, at home in the diner, coffeeshop, cafe.”

Having read this essay (three times, enthralled, as I almost always am by Mamet’s ramblings), I started trying to think about coffeeshops of my acquaintance that particularly lend themselves to hanging out, especially writing. I was spectacularly failing to help my students with their questions, telling them that during the Festival most of the city centre coffeeshops are out — too busy and noisy — and that they should wander Stockbridge, Bruntsfield, Morningside, Leith, and find their own preferred spots. I realised that Mamet gives numerous examples of coffeeshops across America that he thinks make perfect “hang outs” (in fact, one very sweet and only-ever-so-slightly creepy blogger made a pilgrimage to one of them)… but he gives very little information on what, exactly, might make a certain coffeeshop more conducive to hanging out than others in the same town. He mentions only that they are places “of reading, writing, gossip, mutual observation”, and that ideally, there should be a “beautiful plastic covered menu,” made all the more beautiful if it includes “that most liberal phrase, ‘Breakfast Served All Day’.” To be honest, that doesn’t give me much to go on. But I think, from the general gist of the essay, that the ideal writing coffeeshop hang-out should provide the following things:

– an atmosphere that somehow wordlessly conveys to you that once you have bought your one cup of coffee, you can sit and read/write there for as long as you like without disturbance/expectation of further purchases
– music that is not going to bug you… but probably not no music at all, as that’s a bit weird
– an unspoken hostility towards yummy mummies and their unsupervised buggy-mewling brats (so pretty much any Costa is immediately ruled out)
– long-serving staff who know your “usual”, and who aren’t hipsters
– a conspicuous absence of wifi or wall-sockets (Mamet does assert, “can we take our computers there? Thankfully not.”)
– a total ban on TV of any kind
– people-watching opportunities

(Personally I’d also add: tables that are the correct darned height for a seated human adult; soya milk at no extra charge; juice, not smoothies; properly late opening hours; dim lighting, and booths. Oh my goodness, booths. But yaknow, that’s just me.)

Based on these criteria, I had a sudden, terrible realisation. There are so few proper, decent hang-out spots in Edinburgh that I am actually a bit embarrassed on Edinburgh’s behalf.

There are a few contenders. Word of Mouth, just off Leith Walk, is pretty fabulous, though small. They’d make my list. The Cameo Bar might, too, but it depends on the time, the day and whether or not a big movie is opening. The new Forest Cafe on Tollcross Junction ticks the box for their one-cup-of-tea-and-you-can-stay-all-day vibe… that’s rare these days, so props, Forest. Unfortunately, they do lose out on the music front. Sometimes it’s super-chilled, one-man-and-his-uke stuff, which is perfect… then other times it’s an actual member of staff actually banging his actual fists on an actual piano two feet from your actual head while you’re trying to write. Just no.
Then there’s Black Medicine. There are three in Edinburgh. The biggest, on Nicolson Street, instantly loses out because of its pot-luck weird-ass music, and its UBERHIPSTER counter staff (anyone else remember the days of Kyle and Kyle? I had such a crush on the dreadlocked Kyle. It was WAY more of a hang-out in those days). The Marchmont one has been found by the yummy mummies and the laptop wankers. The newest one, Tollcross, is definitely the most promising (one of the veteran BM staff still works there! Hello, twin mohawk guy!) and may actually make my hang-out list. Soya milk’s extra, though. Boo!
Where else? City Cafe on Blair Street is technically a bar, but they have booths and dim lighting and candles and some of the staff are hot, friendly chubby tattooed girls. Unfortunately, there are TVs. Schoolboy error, City Cafe. Remember before you decided to go for a revamp and become a pseudo fifties diner? YOU WERE WAY MORE AWESOME THEN. (Also, since when did fifties diners have huge-ass TVs almost always showing the BBC News 24 channel? Illogical, Captain.)
And then I kind of run out of options. Cafe Class, also on Tollcross Junction, is cool, but you feel like you have to order more stuff if you sit there a long time. At Kilimanjaro on South Clerk Street once, one of the waiters actually demanded that my friend and I order more drinks after less than an hour, so screw you, Kilimanjaro. Favorit used to be freaking amazing (open til 3am on weekends!), but then it changed hands and now seems to be trying to imitate a Caffe Nero. And the Filmhouse Cafe-Bar is cool, but EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK there are TV screens showing mesmerising trailers for artsy movies, meaning concentration on what you’re doing (reading, writing, conversing, eating their delicious chickpea curry) is pretty darned tricky. And… that’s it. Only two (maybe three. Maybe) real proper definite hang-outs in the whole of Edinburgh.

Given that David Mamet has informed me that hanging out is, in fact, a legitimate — nay, important — activity for the budding writer, it is now really rather important that I find suitable venues in which to partake of it. Therefore, I want to hear about your hang-out spot. I don’t mind where you live — I might be coming to your town someday, and this is vital information I will need to know. I already know of one or two good international hang-out spots… the Bean Around The World in Victoria, BC, for example, might well be the best hang-out in all of Canada. But I am hungry for more! Particularly if you know of hang-outs in Glasgow, London, Portland OR, Barcelona, Krakow, San Francisco, Oslo or Vancouver (these are all places I either really love and want to go back to or am visiting sometime soon). You can also totally please yes do tell me what characteristics your ultimate writing hang-out needs to have. As Edinburgh is so surprisingly poor on the hang-out front, I may need to start my own coffeeshop just to meet demand…

Get thee to the comments box!

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

So… he’s appeared in so many One Night Stanzas posts over the years that — if you visit this site even vaguely regularly — you must know by now. I AM A HUGE GEORGE WATSKY FANGIRL. I’ve thought his poems were awesome since his Def Poetry Jam appearance in 2007. I’ve listened to his self-titled album on countless bus-rides to work to keep my spirits up. I’ve shown his poetry performances to students in my writing and literature classes, because they always dig his stuff. He’s one of my favourite contemporary poets.

So, you can probably imagine the level of SQUEE that happened when George contacted me on Twitter in response to an excited tweet I wrote to say I had tickets to his sold-out London show in August. I added the daft, only-half-kidding hashtag #pleaseplayaScotlandgigtoo. He responded, asking if I knew a venue that might host. Naturally, I leapt at the chance to organise the whole shebang myself, and One Night Stanzas presents WATSKY x 2 was born…

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One Night Stanzas presents WATSKY x 2: an evening of spoken word with George Watsky, Paul Watsky and special guests.

Tuesday 7th August 2012
Doors 7.15pm
Henderson’s at St John’s
Tickets £7 from the Eventbrite page

One Night Stanzas is proud to present an evening of spoken word starring two very different, very exciting poetic talents from the USA.

This is an exclusive, one-off event to mark the end of George Watsky’s multiple-city summer tour. This is the first time that WATSKY x 2 have performed in Scotland and it is their only Scottish tour date.

Come along and enjoy an explosion of spoken word in the beautiful “vaulted dining room” at Henderson’s at St John’s.

George Watsky is a rapper, writer and performer from San Francisco now living in Los Angeles. He won the Brave New Voices National Poetry Slam in 2006 and appeared on the final season of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry in 2007. He has subsequently performed at over 150 universities across the country.

Rapping all the while under the name ‘Watsky,’ George self-released the barely-heard jazz-hip hop record ‘Invisible Inc’ in 2007 and the self-titled ‘Watsky’ in 2010, which peaked at #7 on the iTunes hip hop charts. In January 2011 George’s fast rapping went viral and led to two appearances on the Ellen Show, a slot on Last Call with Carson Daly, and an exploding online profile.

George has performed at the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal, the NAACP Image Awards on FOX, three times at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and has been featured in XXL, Billboard Magazine, and the New York Times Magazine. Find out more about George at his website.

Paul Watsky lives in San Francisco, and earns his living as a clinical psychologist. He began writing poetry while he was a teenager, and his work has been widely published in literary journals over the past eight years. In 1996 and again in 1997 he was awarded Second Place in the Haiku Society of America’s Gerald Brady competition.

Paul published a full length book, entitled Telling The Difference, in 2010 (Fisher King Press, available through Amazon UK), and in 2006 he was co-translator with Emiko Miyashita of Santoka a collection of work by the well-known 20th century haiku poet (PIE Books, Tokyo). He has a couple of poems in the current issue of The Carolina Quarterly, and online in The Puritan, which is published out of Toronto. Find out more about Paul at his website.

This event will also feature special guests — details TBC.

Henderson’s at St John’s is a fully licensed vegetarian and vegan cafe, and is open until 1am.

Tuesday 7th August 2012
Doors 7.15pm
Henderson’s at St John’s
Tickets £7 from the Eventbrite page

TICKETS from Eventbrite

TICKETS from Eventbrite

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

“I have never been sympathetic to the idea of inspiration. [...] I always think of myself as working at a rock face. Ninety days out of ninety five, it’s just a rock face. The other five days, there’s a bit of silver, a bit of base metal in it. I’m reasonably consistent and the consistency is a help to me. It helps me stay in contact with my failure rate, and unless you have a failure rate that vastly exceeds your success rate, you’re not really in touch with what you are doing as a poet. The danger of inspiration is that it is a theory that redirects itself towards the idea of success rather than to the idea of consistent failure. And all poets need to have a sane and normalised relationship with their failure rate.”

– Eavan Boland, from Sleeping with Monsters: Conversations with Scottish and Irish women poets, Polygon, 1990.

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

Those of you who stop by ONS regularly will know that it was once the sister-blog of the sadly-now-defunct Read This Magazine, which later morphed into Read This Press. In order to financially support these three creative projects (and in order to clear out my overflowing wardrobe), I set up Edinburgh Vintage — a funky Etsy-based store selling vintage clothes, accessories and other bits and pieces.

Although Read This Magazine is no more, Read This Press is still going strong — good news! We finally sold out our first ever anthology, Skin Deep! And naturally, ONS is still plodding along nicely. I’ve also found that I kind of enjoy running my wee vintage store. So for those of you who’ve never paid a visit to Edinburgh Vintage, check out the latest update…

I’m pretty excited about these two lovely bags — the one pictured at the top of this post is in perfect vintage condition, made from 100% hand-woven wool and has colours to die for. Check out its finer points, including more photos, here. And as for the bag above — well, who can resist an owl, let alone three? It’s big, roomy and waterproof — the perfect book bag. See more here. Someone had better snap these up or they may well be staying in my wardrobe!

The store is also taking me on a trip down memory lane right now, as I’ve picked up some quintessentially nineties bits and pieces. Does everyone remember these funky fork cuffs, for example? I had one of these beauties back in the day, didn’t you? This one’s a particularly nice one — loving the rather spooky engraving of “Gonville”. And then there’s the scandalously short, totally typically grunge micro mini below. Think Courtney Love, or Siobhan from Shakespeare’s Sister. Sadly it’s way too small for me, but I can just see it paired with a pair of New Rock boots and some ripped tights… see more here.

I’m also kind of in love with this lovely, billowy summer smock — another contender for ’staying firmly in my closet’ if no one buys it! For those of you who, like me, love owls, these are pretty sweet. And hey, anyone out there have really small feet? If so, these tiny, hand-woven lace evening shoes might be just your thing.

If you’re a vintage clothing fan, I’d love it if you’d give me a few clicks, and check out my stuff! If you like what you see, you can also follow Edinburgh Vintage on Twitter or ‘like’ the shop’s Facebook page. Enjoy!

Watching some of Allen’s poems and thinking of him today, the 15th anniversary of his death.

I talk here about why Ginsberg is my literary hero, in spite of everything.

Some Beat Generation poems I posted a while ago.

Why you should read Ginsberg, in case you haven’t already decided.

Just a few of the great man’s words of wisdom.

A little snippet of Allen, for Peter Orlovsky.

And if you want to do something to celebrate Allen’s anniversary, allow me to suggest buying a copy of Starry Rhymes: 85 Years of Allen Ginsberg, or giving some money to the Beat Museum. Or both.

Sleep well, Allen.

One Night Stanzas loves mail. Say hello via claire@onenightstanzas.com. NB: I am physically unable to reply to non-urgent stuff unless I have a free afternoon and a cup of tea in my hand. Please be patient!

The lovely and talented Hayley Shields, reading in Round 1.

So, this happened on Tuesday 6th March.

It almost didn’t. In the 72 hours prior to the event, I had three performers drop off the bill, which obviously threw everything into flux and got me in quite a flap. Luckily, I’m fortunate enough to be acquainted with two extremely classy, very brave and super dedicated female poets who were willing to step into the breach with less than 48 hours to prepare. They are Rose Ritchie and Elizabeth Rimmer, and without them the slam might well have been cancelled! Thank you so much, Rose and Elizabeth. You literally saved the show.

So cancelled it was not. We arrived at the Banshee Labyrinth to find our room beautifully set up for us: chairs set out, a projector screen with my hastily-felt-tipped poster glowing upon it, and even candles lit on stage to provide some ambience! Edd, who runs the Banshee, is the coolest, most laid-back, and most accomodating venue manager I have ever worked with. He’d even rigged up a TV link in the next bar, so folk who couldn’t get a seat in the main room could still watch the action and hear the poems — by my next event (which will almost certainly take place at the Banshee — I can’t imagine ever going elsewhere), he says the bar will have the capability to record performances, too. SO. TOTALLY. COOL. Thank you, Edd, and all the lovely staff at the Banshee. You, quite literally, rock.

It was evident that folk were pretty keen about this whole slam business, because by 7.15pm we were already running out of chairs and the space was full of excited chatter. All my performers showed up, some of them very nervous, but all with notebookfulls of great poems to share. As many of them were slam virgins, I’d emotionally blackmailed three brilliant male poets to volunteer as “sacrifices” — to read first at the start of each round, break the ice and warm up the room for our competitors. This was a pretty intimidating gig for these guys, I’d imagine: a room full of poetry feministas vying for prizes of wine and chocolate! But they stepped up to the plate with aplomb. Total pro Harry Giles went first, followed in the second round by Matt McDonald. Matt took the opportunity to declare himself a rape survivor ally, and his piece was poignant, quietly angry and beautifully hopeful. Many an audience member came up to me to say his was their favourite poem of the night. Finally, Colin McGuire came up to introduce the final and brought the house down, as usual. Thank you a million billion, guys: you are legends.

Then, of course, it was the turn of my wonderful bill of competitors. They’re all people I’ve seen read before, at open mics, stand-up readings or “quiet” slams, and they’re all people whose work I’ve been desperate to hear more of. I wanted the focus of the event to be the promotion of lesser-known female poetic talent first and foremost, and if possible, I also wanted it to be as intersectional — something that can be problematic in Scotland — as possible. I’m happy to say that I think the event succeeded on both counts — no thanks to me, but thanks to the bravery of the women who were willing to say “yes” to my invitations. The stage played host to explorations of such themes as nationality, sexuality, gender orientation, relationships, travel, writing and creativity, and of course, food! The poems we heard were by turns hilariously funny and deeply touching, seethingly angry and sweetly loving. Above all, the quality was consistently, breathtakingly high.
Thanks upon thanks upon thanks upon thanks to Gayle Smith, Hayley Shields, Tracey S Rosenberg, Rose Ritchie, Elizabeth Rimmer, Theresa Munoz, Katherine McMahon, Rachel McCrum, Sally Evans, Katie Craig, Camilla Chen and the last-minute ever-so-nearly-wildcard Lara S. Williams. You were all so excellent — the judges must’ve been tearing their hair out…

…and yes, the judges. Slam aficionados, all of them, and yet scoring these ladies’ words must have been a damn hard job. A great big tip of the hat to Kevin Cadwallender, Jenny Lindsay and Sophia. You did well, young Jedis.

Big thanks too to Stephen Welsh, who helped put up posters, carried things, calmed me down when I raged and fretted, made endless bar trips on the night, and acted as primary score-keeper. And to Helen Askew, who worked as secondary score-keeper, keeping Steve right, as well as taking photos of the event while I bobbed up and down to and from the stage all night. (She also carried some things.) You were INVALUABLE, you two.

Finally, last but by no means least — in fact quite the opposite — THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who sent words of encouragement, who promoted the event on their Facebook or their blog, who spread the word to other interested folk, and who came along on the night. Best of all were all the people who dropped some pennies into our fundraising bucket. From your small change, we managed to make £70 for Scottish Women’s Aid. THANK YOU A MILLION GAZILLION SQUILLION!

The excellent and extremely deserving winner, Rachel McCrum.

One Night Stanzas loves mail. Say hello via claire@onenightstanzas.com. NB: I am physically unable to reply to non-urgent stuff unless I have a free afternoon and a cup of tea in my hand. Please be patient!

I’ve already written about how 2011 was a bit of a tricky year for me, and as you can probably tell from the date on this post, I almost abandoned the idea of doing my now-customary “In [year], I…” run-down. However, this is my fourth year of blogging at ONS, and not only have my year-end lists become a tradition in these parts, they’ve also prompted loads of other people to write their own. In spite of some wobbles during 2011, things did happen last year that deserve to be remembered and celebrated. And I stand by the idea that this kind of cataloguing exercise is useful for all sorts of reasons. You can see previous years’ lists here: 2008, 2009, 2010.

So. In 2011, I…

… saw in the New Year at a massive house party hosted by Lovely Boyfriend, and met pretty much everyone he’s ever known in his entire life at the same time. If you’re nervous about meeting your new partner’s friends, let me advise you: getting it all overwith in one night with lots of alcohol involved is a really good way to go!

… worked as a reader for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the third year running.

… had my portrait, and my poem “The sailor”, featured in Chris Park and Thom Laycock’s “Dualism” project, which launched in Forfar in January and is now touring nationwide!

… went to see Daniel Watkins‘ brilliant debut pantomime, Robin The Hood (though I still insist they should have gone with the working title; The Hood, The Bad and The Ugly), and utterly loved it (in spite of the fact that I “got” very few of the inside, Northumberland-locals’ jokes)!

… dressed up as Susan Sto Helit for Lovely Boyfriend’s 26th birthday party, the theme of which was “characters from your childhood.” In her usual “EPIC WIN!” kind of style, my sister went as a Pacman ghost.

… inspired an entire slam! My oft-performed poem, “If You Don’t Want To Be In A Poem” lent its punchline to the Don’t Fuck A Poet slam, organised by Inky Fingers and won by Caitlin Cummings!

… survived the HMIe inspection at my place of work, which threw all of my colleagues into a (totally unnecessary) guddle for about five months. (It all went fine, obv.)

… placed fifth in the Scottish Slam Championship Finals at Aye! Write.

… turned 25, and held a fabulous afternoon tea party at my flat, surrounded myself with friends and ate a LOT of scones.

… worked on my first ever translation project, with the gorgeous Ellen Deckwitz and Alex Bengtsson, for City2Cities‘ “poetry tripletting” project.

… organised my first ever slam, the this collection “friendly” slam, which brought together page and stage poets and gave the poets themselves control over the scoring! Responses came in from all over. Just a few: McGuire // Andy Philip // Russell Jones

… was interviewed by The Observer about typewriters and poetry, and spent one mad March evening climbing trees and power-lifting heavy typewriters as part of my eventually-unused photoshoot with Murdo McLeod!

… had my author photo taken by the fabulous Chris Scott.

… represented Edinburgh at the inaugural City2Cities Festival in Utrecht, the Netherlands. This involved staying in a lush hotel, reading a lot of poems at a lot of gigs, meeting tons of truly awesome poetry-obsessed folk, staying in a lush loft, having a vintage typewriter gifted to me by a very sweet old man, joining in with a massive paper-bag-bursting flash mob (seriously), falling in love with Utrecht, hanging out with the aforementioned gorgeous Ellen and Alex, visiting Amsterdam for the first time, writing lots, and eating a lot of chips. The high point of my year, for sure!

… undertook a massive Muppet movie marathon with Lovely Boyfriend, seeing six consecutive movies in two days as part of Filmhouse’s Muppet Season!

… had my photo taken with Lovely Boyfriend by the lovely and talented Ms Sally Jubb, for her “Mimic” project

… saw, and adored, the Howl movie.

… produced, with Lovely Boyfriend, the chapbook “Starry Rhymes: 85 Years of Allen Ginsberg”, featuring 33 poets‘ responses to the great man’s works. We launched the pamphlet at a great event in the Bristo Hall at Forest Cafe, which Chris Scott very kindly photographed for us!

… judged the Swale Life Poetry Contest.

… passed my PhD second year review without a hitch!

… went on strike for the first time ever.

… dressed as “the sea” (meta!) for the 2011 ECA Underwater-themed Art School Revel. The motley band I attended with included an angler fish, a penguin, Ursula the Sea-Witch and two folk who dressed as “polution”. Needless to say, it was amazing.

… moved from rather-too-well-heeled Comely Bank, back to Tollcross, where I lived when I first moved to Edinburgh eight years ago. I’ve always loved Tollcross and pined for living here again. Hooray!

… marched in the Edinburgh Slutwalk, with Lovely Boyfriend at my side! I also gave my comment on the legitimacy of the event in several pieces for the Scotsman.

… spent July backpacking round the Pacific Northwest with Lovely Boyfriend, via the Greyhound bus network. Visited Vancouver, where we swam in the Pacific at Kitsilano Beach, found foodie heaven at the Granville Island Market, and I got a tattoo from the scarily excellent Hilary Dawson of Electro LadyLux! Stopped off in Victoria BC, where we attended SkaFest 2011, before heading to the tiny, super-rural San Juan Islands (mainly Orcas), where we slept in a forest cabin at the edge of the ocean. Then on to Seattle, then San Francisco, then Lake Tahoe, where we stayed with the lovely Lucy Florence. Finally we ended up in Portland, now one of my all-time favourite cities, where we ate amazing breakfasts and stayed at The Crystal Hotel & Ballroom, where every room is themed around a different classic song!

… taught for a second time at the Scottish Universities International Summer School, where my brilliant creative writing students were Alyss, Phil, Freesia, Tammy, Kate, Martina and Penny. Love you guys!

… sold my books and jewels at the Zorras Small Press & Zine Fair at Forest.

… was asked to judge the BBC Edinburgh Festival Fringe Poetry Slam at The Baby Bubble. Congrats to worthy winner Cat Brogan!

… edited a novel, for my former student, Vic. Buy “Rig Moves” here!

… defended my title at the University of Edinburgh LitSoc “Refresher” Slam 2011.

… won the StAnza / Inky Fingers Risk-a-Verse Slam, where I competed against, among others, Lovely Boyfriend!

… had my article, “A Different Beat: 50 Years of Counter-Culture in Edinburgh”, published by The Edinburgh Review.

… entered an article, “Hapless Straight Ladies: the dangerous semantics of pop feminism”, into the 2011/12 FWSA Essay Prize (still awaiting the result)!

… went on strike again.

… won the Mookychick 2011 Feminist Flash contest with “Male Privilege“!

Places I Read Poetry: Words Per Minute, Glasgow, January < -- video! // the StAnza 2011 preview event < -- photographed by the lovely Chris Scott // StAnza Festival’s “New Poets Showcase”, alongside the almost-too-brilliant Billy Letford // iPoetry, City2Cities Festival, Utrecht // Young Poets’ Society, City2Cities Festival, Utrecht // ACU’s DeadBeatSociety’s Music&Madness Night, April, Utrecht // Scottish Universities International Summerschool, August // Blind Poetics, August // SAVE THE FOREST “Reforestation” gig at 3rd Door, September // UoE LitSoc “Refresher” Slam, September // StAnza / Inky Fingers Risk-a-Verse Slam, St Andrews, October // Blind Poetics, October

Gigs in 2011: Broken Records, Liquid Rooms, January // King Creosote, Caves, February // Iron & Wine, HMV Picturehouse, March // Broken Records, Bristo Hall at Forest, April // Rocking for Heroes, HMV Picturehouse, November

What did YOU do in 2011?

One Night Stanzas loves mail. Say hello via claire@onenightstanzas.com. NB: I am physically unable to reply to non-urgent stuff unless I have a free afternoon and a cup of tea in my hand. Please be patient!

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A day or two ago, thinking myself highly witty, I posted as my Facebook status: “how do I love tea? Let me count the ways.” It was a matter of about three minutes, however, before a far superior wit to mine appeared in the form of the fabulous Daniel Watkins, who hangs out over at Nothing to Report. It seems my little quip had inspired him to entirely re-write the original, classic poem as a full-blown ode to our mutually favoured beverage. The parody was so fabulous that I couldn’t help but share it with you. All props to Daniel: send your praise via @danielthew.

How Do I Love Tea? Let Me Count The Ways.

I love tea to the depth and breadth and height
my biscuit can reach, when dunking out of sight
for the dregs of being and eternal grace.
I love tea to the kettle of every day’s
most quiet need, by spoon and candlelight.
I love tea freely, as men strive for right.
I love tea purely, as they stir from praise.
I love tea with the passion put to use
in my old briefs, and with my teapot’s faith.
I love tea with a love I seemed to lose
with my lost milk. I love tea with the breath,
smiles, Digestives, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love tea better after I’ve just got in and it’s really cold outside and I can’t wait to get in and stick the kettle on and have a nice cuppa.

*

One Night Stanzas loves mail. Say hello via claire@onenightstanzas.com. NB: I am physically unable to reply to non-urgent stuff unless I have a free afternoon and a cup of tea in my hand. Please be patient!

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Happy New Year, ONS readers!  Are there any of you left, I wonder?  2011 was a quiet year for One Night Stanzas; a bit of a muddled year.  2012 will be a better one.

As the long-time readers among you will know, ONS started life as a kind of informal how-to Q&A blog for young, inexperienced writers. At the time, I was running Read This Magazine and receiving endless emails from folk asking about all aspects of writing and publishing poetry. I got so tired of being an unpaid email-answering advice service that I stuck it all online instead. For those of you who’ve arrived since then, you can check out the best of ONS: Year One here.

It’s weird looking back at that Year One post and seeing how productive and organised I used to be. A post a day, every day? That seems like insanity, looking back. At around that time I finished my English Literature undergrad degree and went straight into a Creative Writing MSc — I was also working as a private tutor of English, Creative Writing and Drama and living in a tiny attic bedsit (I miss that flat — can I just say, roofgarden! — so much, even now!). I was still running a magazine, and started a small press soon after. I made jewellery and ran a vintage shop. And still had time to go to the pub. Where did that life go?

Fast-forward to 2011 and One Night Stanzas is a barely-updated wasteland. I pop up every so often to talk about the books I’m reading — usually only the ones that have made me feel strongly about something — and to post the odd Procrastination Station. My vintage shop has been “on hiatus” for months, Read This is no more now the editors have all graduated and scattered to the four winds. I gave up on the jewellery thing because I couldn’t handle breaking up typewriters, however broken beyond repair, any more. I have irate poets emailing me constantly, asking to be considered for the Featured Poet posts that haven’t existed for ages, and then sending me snotty call-back emails when I don’t reply. I still don’t reply. I’m reading for a PhD in Creative Writing but I’m barely putting pen to paper. I’m burned out doing a challenging, tiring, rewarding job that I used to love but have come to resent. My friends have all moved away — to different cities, countries, continents — and most of them don’t return my sporadic Facebook messages or texts any more. By the end of the year, I’ve been diagnosed with stress and insomnia: my body is in survival mode, shutting down bits of itself to try and keep the rest going. 2011 has felt like walking along a mineshaft: it’s got increasingly dark and narrow as I’ve gone along; I lost the coal seam but just kept wandering.

Thankfully, I haven’t wandered far enough that I can’t find a way to climb back out again. I feel like I’ve woken up, and looking in the mirror I’m pretty shocked to find that I’ve turned into one of those people who lives to work, who has become their job and can’t find the energy to even think about anything else. A person who gets up at 6am, goes to work, gets home by 6pm and collapses in front of the TV, then goes to sleep… and I never even noticed it happening.

So no more. I don’t care what everyone else thinks of New Year’s Resolutions: I make them. Usually in a kind of sneaky, abstract way. This year I am only making one:

IN 2012, I AM GOING TO RECLAIM MY LIFE.

One Night Stanzas is coming back, with a vengeance. It’s not going to be a writing advice blog again, nor is it going to continue to be the Serious Poetry and Writing blog I tried to turn it into more recently. It’s just going to be MY blog, and I’m going to fill it with whatever I fancy. So I’m guessing you should brace yourself for owls, tea, typewriters, tattoos, cute animals, cool Youtube videos… and some poetry. If you want serious ruminations on the latest petty poetry squabbles (e.g. OMG your anthology sucks and you’re clearly STOOPID!), or if you want your collection to be reviewed by someone who definitely won’t use excessive CAPSLOCK and the word “awesome,” then you should probably go elsewhere. But if you fancy sticking around and watching while I try to re-inject some positive, fun, POETIC energy into my life, while I remember what it means to get properly excited and inspired again, then fantastic. You rock. Watch this space.

One Night Stanzas loves mail. Say hello via claire@onenightstanzas.com. NB: I am physically unable to reply to non-urgent stuff unless I have a free afternoon and a cup of tea in my hand. Please be patient!

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