One Night Stanzas

My last post was kind of a heavy one, and I am DETERMINED not to end up with another massive gas bill next spring. Therefore…

Make your own draught-excluders. I just made one this weekend out of bits and pieces of fabric I had floating around the house. You can even just make one with one leg from a pair of old tights, knotted at both ends.

Dance wildly in your living room. If you’re too embarrassed to dance wildly, get on Youtube and find a tutorial for actual dance steps. Charleston is a nice easy one.

Support your local library. They need you! They (hopefully) also have central heating! That you don’t have to pay for! Some even have coffee shops in them!

Ditch your car. It too is expensive. Go for a brisk walk / run / cycle.

Sorry to get all Gala Darling on your ass, but… go through your clothing. Dig out all your thick socks, long sleeved shirts, sweaters, scarves. Practice putting together pratical outfits that make good use of layering! My current fav: layer one is leggings, thin skirt, long-sleeved top. layer two is a frock, layer three is a cardigan and a wooly scarf…

…you could totally take this concept to the extreme. Make a video of you trying on every t shirt you own.

Volunteer. Charity shops always need more folk in the run-up to Christmas, as do The Samaritans, homeless shelters, animal shelters and most other charitable organisations. You get to be in a warm place, give back a little something to society and it looks fantastic on your CV.

Hug more.

Have a campfire. Why do people think this is a summer-only thing?

Quit chucking things away. Paper, envelopes, magazines, cardboard, wood, and even some food waste can be burned on your aforementioned campfire. If campfires aren’t your thing, get this stuff put on Freecycle — other people are trying to heat their houses, and anyone with a multifuel stove would probably be happy with the free kindling! Anything made of fabric can be used to sew curtains or a quilt, or stuff a DIY draught excluder. You should also take up mending things. There really is no excuse to chuck away a jumper that has a hole in it when you can learn how to darn in minutes. The internet can help you fix pretty much anything.

Go vegetarian, or even better, vegan. Your carbon footprint will shrink dramatically, and I bet you any money the amount of energy you use to prepare food will also decrease.

Do as much of your daily work as you can in bed. This is your excuse. Take it! Grasp it with both hands!

Did you know that November is not only Movember (keeping your upper lip warm while raising money for charity!), but also No Shave November. If, for you, No Shave November is not just ‘business as usual, then,’ November, consider it! Cultivate your own cosy fur!

Move your furniture around. If you’ve got stuff in front of your radiators, the stuff will soak up the heat they give off.

Drink water. Hydrating yourself helps circulation which keeps you warm. True.

Build a blanket fort. I just Googled this and it actually does appear on some energy-saving websites as a genuine way to save on heating bills! It’s also lots and lots of fun to do. I am a veteran blanket-fort maker and always try and out-do my last effort.

Adopt a kitty. They’re like tiny cute hot water bottles.

According to this website, “turning your thermostat down just one degree can cut your energy consumption (and your bills) by 10%.”

Buy some ugly-but-thick curtains from your local thrift shop… if they’re too ugly you can always use them to line your existing curtains (NB: as long as they’re long enough, curtains beat blinds hands down for keeping out draughts).

Find a coffee shop that does free refills. Grab a book. Go there.

My gran used to swear by shrink-wrap window insulating film…

…you can also insulate your windows with bubble wrap! I plan to do this in my spare room, where barely anyone ever goes anyway.

Take a long bus-ride. If Lothian Buses are anything to go by, buses are always toasty warm, and there are plenty of good people-watching opportunities to be seized!

Candles. Seriously. When I lived in a one-room, totally-unheated studio I used to light a ton of candles and they’d actually heat the place.

Did you know you lose the most body heat from your head and feet? Therefore you need: a) good slippers and b) a wooly hat. I hear your local thrift shop calling.

Take inspiration from Cat and learn to crochet.

Apparently, this stuff really works.

Get a hula hoop. Choose carefully. Now challenge yourself. Learning tricks and improving is addictive and it most definitely keeps you warm!

I recently discovered that leggings are magical. I have always loathed and cursed tights with their terrible rip/ladder/hole tendencies and their stupid uncomfortableness. I also, until recently, shunned leggings because people say mean shit about those who wear them. However, I have finally got hip to the legging groove and oh my goodness: they are super thick, warm, comfy and you can get ones that make your legs look like Marc Bolan. Everyone should get on this: menz included.

Door sweeps are pretty bargainous.

& finally, I’ve heard that putting chili powder or cayenne pepper in your socks makes your feet warm. Anyone want to try and report back?!

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You can also visit Read This Press for 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, my easy peasy vegan profiteroles have proven so popular with everyone I’ve made them for, that I decided to post another of my recipes here for your reading pleasure. Halloween is TOMORROW, and if you haven’t yet made yourself a pumpkin pie then U R DOIN IT WRONG. Happily, I am here to help you. I stitched together this recipe from bits and pieces of several other recipes I found online but didn’t like 100%. It results in a truly finger-lickin’ pie, even if I do say so myself.

Fiendish all-vegan pumpkin pie
(Serves 8-10.)

Pie crust base:
125g (half a pack) Lotus caramelised biscuits
A quarter of a cup of rapeseed or groundnut oil
A splash of sweetened soy milk

Pumpkin filling:
Half a cup of dark brown sugar
One third of a cup of icing (confectioner’s) sugar
Ground cinnamon
Ground nutmeg
Ground ginger
The zest of one lemon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
Half a cup of sweetened soy milk
1 tsp cornflour
1 tbsp rapeseed or groundnut oil
250ml soya cream
1 tin of pumpkin puree
Half a tsp vanilla extract

Pre-heat your oven to 220°C, 425°F, or gas mark 8.

OK, first — the base! Lotus caramelised biscuits are fantastic, because they’re totally vegan and extra super tasty. To make the base, the first thing you need to do is whizz up roughly 125 grams of these biscuits — or roughly half a pack — until they’re broken down into a fine, sandy powder.

Tip the biscuit crumbs into a large bowl and stir in the rapeseed or groundnut oil (personally I prefer groundnut, but if you’re potentially feeding a person with a nut allergy as I often do, it’s good to have an alternative). Add your splash of soy milk and you should end up with a shiny, sticky, but not-too-wet paste. Press this into the bottom of your pie dish to form your crust base, and stick it in the fridge while you create the filling!

In a large, clean mixing bowl, sieve and mix the brown sugar and icing sugar together, then add ground spices to taste. If you’re unsure, I’d say one teaspoon of cinnamon and one of ginger, and maybe half a teaspoon of nutmeg. But personally I like my pie spicy, so I’d up the cinnamon and nutmeg, personally! Once you’ve sorted your spices, grate in the lemon zest, and add the salt and baking powder. Mix everything thoroughly!

OK, slightly tricky bit now: this pie is vegan, so no eggs allowed. But you can mimic the consistency of eggs! Grab your sweetened soy milk, stick it in a pan and put over a low heat. As the soy milk begins to warm, add to it the teaspoon of cornflour and continue to heat, stirring constantly. As the milk heats, it should thicken up. When it gets to roughly the consistency of beaten egg, remove from heat and pour into the dry mix. Add the tablespoon of oil and mix thoroughly. Once mixed, pour and mix in the soy cream, too.

It’s finally time for the essential ingredient — pumpkin! Some recipes insist that you use actual hollowed-out pumpkin, and yes, if you’re hollowing a pumpkin anyway, it’s smart to make use of the flesh for this. But if, like me, you have three hours before your Halloween party starts and you need to get a move on, then reach for the canned stuff! I use Libby’s myself as it’s relatively easy to get hold of. Pour the can of pumpkin into the mix and add the dash of vanilla. Mix, mix, mix — once you have a thick, gloopy batter, your filling is done!

To bake, pour the pumpkin batter over your refrigerated base and place in the top half of the oven at 220°C for fifteen minutes. Once that time has passed, and without opening the oven (however tempting!), turn the temperature down to 180°C and bake for another 50-60 minutes.

Your pie should come out looking only ever-so-slightly wibbly, and golden brown right across the top. It should be allowed to refrigerate for several hours — ideally overnight — to firm up. Then you can carve up and dig in!

Happy Halloween!

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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!

So, I as I mentioned last week, the British Library were kind enough to send me a copy of The Spoken Word: British Poets, a great CD boxed set of modern poets reading their work, to feature at One Night Stanzas.

The Spoken Word: British Poets is a three-CD set featuring “historic recordings of British poets reading their own poetry.” The full list of poets included is at the bottom of this post, but highlights for me were Edith Sitwell, Stevie Smith, Edwin Morgan and Ian Hamilton Finlay. There are a staggering 115 tracks in total, plus a booklet featuring an introductory essay by Andrew Motion.

One lucky One Night Stanzas reader will get their hands on this cornucopia of poetic delights, free and gratis, as a little present from me and the British Library. All you have to do to be in with a chance is leave a comment at the bottom of this post. It can be literally anything — tell me which poet’s work you most love when read aloud, tell me what spoken word pieces you’d include on your ultimate compilation CD, or just leave me a little ‘hello’! You just need to put something in the comment box before noon on Friday 19th October. After that, I’ll get the magical interwebpipes to generate a random winner, and the CD will wing its way to your door!
(NB: ONS now has comment moderation, so your comment won’t appear immediately, but don’t worry — I know it’s there!)

If you like the sound of The Spoken Word: British Poets and want to make sure you get a copy — maybe you don’t like this gambling malarkey! — then you can buy yourself one at the British Library Shop. There are also others in the Spoken Word series: American Writers looks particularly excellent. Here’s the full listing for the giveaway CD — get commenting, and good luck!

DISC ONE: Alfred Tennyson // Robert Browning // Laurence Binyon // Walter De la Mare // John Masefield // Edith Sitwell // Hugh MacDiarmid // Robert Graves // David Jones // Basil Bunting // Stevie Smith

DISC TWO: Cecil Day Lewis // John Betjeman // W H Auden // Louis MacNeice // Stephen Spender // Sorley MacLean // R S Thomas // George Barker // Dylan Thomas // David Gascoyne

DISC THREE: John Heath-Stubbs // W. S. Graham // Edwin Morgan // George Mackay Brown // Kingsley Amis // Philip Larkin // Ian Hamilton Finlay // Thom Gunn // Ted Hughes

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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!

So, I mentioned last week that I kind of out-of-the-blue invented my very own recipe for vegan profiteroles! I say ‘kind of’ because the process was actually this: I recalled a fancy vegetable bake with a cheesy choux-pastry-type topping that I used to make… then I successfully veganised it for a dinner party. That night I lay awake toying with the idea of making the now-vegan choux-ish pastry sweet somehow. Next day I tried it in a small quantity, baked a few small, vaguely-biscuit-shaped pieces as a test, and melted some odds and ends of dark chocolate I had around the place on top (because, you know, chocolate). Initially, still-warm and choco-melty, I thought they were tasty but slightly odd, so I shoved the remaining ones in the fridge. Next day, I took a bite and suddenly, I knew what they were. Vegan profiteroles! And what’s more, they’re SUPER EASY and don’t make a ton of washing up! Here’s the deal:

Easy peasy vegan profiteroles
(Makes 12 profiteroles)

4 level tablespoons of vegan margarine (I think Pure Sunflower is the most flavoursome one)

5 floz hot water

3.5 oz of self raising flour

2 oz soft dark brown sugar

1 level teaspoon of baking powder

Half a teaspoon of vanilla extract

Dairy-free chocolate for the topping

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C, 175°C for fan-assisted ovens, or gas mark 6.

Melt the vegan margarine in a large-ish saucepan. Once melted, add the water and allow the liquid to come to the boil. Once this happens, remove from the heat and leave to cool for a couple of minutes. Sieve in 2.5 ounces of the self-raising flour and stir slowly, allowing the mixture to thicken. You should end up with a thick, glossy paste that cleans the sides of the pan.

To make the mixture sweet, sieve in the 2 ounces of sugar and mix until the dough is an even colour. The mixture will become stickier, so to regain the original consistency, at this point add the last ounce of flour and stir in. At the same time, mix in the baking powder and vanilla.

Grease a shallow baking tray, or line it with greaseproof paper. Break the dough in the pan into twelve even pieces, and gently pat them into ball shapes — try not to squidge them too much! Place them on the tray, leaving space between each. Place in the top part of the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes.

The profiteroles should come out feeling crispy on the outside but still squidgy on the inside. Put them on a cooling rack and let them cool completely. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate to add as the profiterole topping. The amount is up to you — depends how chocolate-y you like your profiteroles! I used about half of one 100g bar for these babies.

A tip: I always always melt mine the way pros do before they temper chocolate. That is, put the chocolate in a bowl and suspend it over boiling water, rather than melting it in a pan or in the microwave. This results in much smoother chocolate that won’t burn and pours easily. As for choosing your chocolate, as long as it’s vegan it doesn’t really matter. My chocolate of choice always comes from The Chocolate Tree, but I’ve also used Green and Black’s and Lindt in my baking.

It will be SUPER TEMPTING to eat these little delights once they are chocolate-d up, but as I said before, they’re not at their best warm. Stick them in the fridge for two hours minimum to let them cool down and firm up. THEN you can scoff them any way you like!

A final note for non-vegans: when you veganise something, it’s never quite the same as the original (often it’s better!). Therefore, the texture of these babies is not like classic profiteroles. They are not hollow or flaky — see the photo above! BUT they do taste exactly like the real deal, which I think is the main thing. Sure — there are veganised recipes out there that involve all sorts of jiggery-pokery to try and get close to the ‘real profiterole’ texture and appearance. But personally, I’d rather have less washing up, less ingredients to buy, and more time to read books. So this recipe suits me fine. Try it yourself and see what you reckon!

Om nom nom.

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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!

Today I had a very exciting and highly informative meeting with one Mr Nic Cameron, a graphic design student at Edinburgh’s Telford College (full disclosure: for my sins, I work here). Nic is a music enthusiast and former scribbler of poems, and for one of his big course projects, he’s decided to do something very ambitious and pretty darned innovative: create his own hybrid poetry/spoken word and music magazine.

In our meet-up, Nic outlined his reasons for choosing this particular path. Although he hasn’t written poetry himself for a while, he is still very aware of the question, “why don’t more people read poems?” Like many youngsters, he’s bugged by how inaccessible the poetry world sometimes seems. He’s also aware that music magazines can and do attract the kind of people who might like poems, if they only had the chance to see and hear some. His project aims to kill all these problematic birds with one stone. Music magazines have the ability to pull in loads of readers — why not add some poetry into the mix? That way you’d introduce poetry to a new, young audience — and vice-versa.

Personally, I think thought this was a great idea — even more so when I heard a few more details. Article-8, as the magazine has been dubbed, will be a long way from your standard print poetry journal. Nic showed me examples of concrete poetry that had got him fired up, and then talked to me about the potential for changing the way poems interact with the page. In short, he wants to put his graphic design skills to use when editing the magazine together: he’s looking for poets who’d be cool to have their words snaked across the page or ribboned through videos in weird and wonderful shapes… shapes determined by a graphic artist’s eye.

Nic is also looking for poets who’d be willing to supply audio recordings of themselves reading their poems. As well as a print magazine, Article-8 will also become a website and a smartphone app. Performance and sound are two things that link poetry and music, and it seems they’ll be integral to this publication. Nic can help you record good quality audio if you’d be willing to meet with him — or if you’ve already got your own clean recording, you can send it to him with your written work.

In short, Article-8 is looking for brave, open-minded poets who are willing to put their words into the hands of a smart, ambitious graphic artist and see what the results might be. This is a great chance to collaborate and learn about how the shape of your poem changes how it’s read and seen. It’s also a chance to get involved in a conversation about how we make poetry more relevant and interesting to young people — a conversation that really needs to be had. If you fancy offering up some of your work (and, if you’re willing to meet for a recording session, a wee bit of your time) for this excellent cause, then read the blurb below, and submit some stuff to nicholas[dot]cameron[at]live.co.uk.

I’m Nic Cameron – a graphic design student from Edinburgh’s Telford College and I have this mad idea… as a working title I’m calling it ‘Article-8 Magazine’ and here’s the gist:

What would the birth-child of a spoken word/poetry journal and a music magazine look like? Could clever typography and design let words speak in the absence of a voice – would bold features, useful articles and engaging content allow the format to reach out to a new, younger and broader audience?

These are questions I’m trying to answer in my final project but I need writers on board to help generate content and volunteer their work for this venture. If you’d like to see a visual interpretation of your writing - now’s the chance. For the project I’d be looking to produce 8 double page spreads, 2 front covers, 2 kinetic type videos, a website and a smart phone app and I need relevant writing/performance for all of these. I’d ask that those who want to donate audio for the videos could arrange with me to be recorded on a good microphone - I’ll take care of the technical side, you just need to read into the machine!

Unfortunately - because this is to a limited timescale there is a chance that not all the work submitted will be used - that said, if this prototype receives positive reviews it may become a much larger beast in the future. I had completely underestimated the excitement this would generate.

This would be non-profit and unreleased. However, if I use your work, you will be able to use the visuals wherever you see fit.

Interested in this idea? Please email a short bio (150 words or so) and two samples of work to nicholas[dot]cameron[at]live.co.uk”

I’m sure Nic would be more than willing to answer any questions you might have about the process, too! Happy submitting, and GOOD LUCK to Nic for what I’m sure will be a great project!

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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’ve been here a while will remember that once upon a time, One Night Stanzas used to have a frequent-ish feature called ONS Featured Poet.

Every week (roughly) for a good while, I’d feature three poems by a poet I’d taken a fancy to, and an interview with that poet about how they felt about their work, other people’s work, etc.

I featured some great folk as this trend continued — everyone was great, but some favourites of mine include Ryan Van Winkle, Eddie Gibbons, Kerri Ni Dochartaigh, Suzannah Evans, Cindy Emch, Charlotte Runcie, the great McGuire, William Soule, Chris Lindores and of course, my all-time favourite Heather Schimel (now Heather Bell).

After a while the whole thing shut up shop — submissions were hard to keep track of, doing the interviews every week was time consuming, a lot of the stuff I started to get wasn’t really right for ONS. I kept on promising to bring the Featured Poet thing back properly — I even put out a submissions call at one point — but I never actually got round to it. Sorry about that. Some cool folk submitted some cool work and I promised to get back to them and never did. I am a rubbish human.

HOWEVER, all is not lost. I have missed the presence of other people’s poetry on this blog, and it’s time for me to get over all my rubbishness, pull my socks up and sort things out. Therefore, I am revamping the whole Featured Poet thing. It’s back.

But this time it’s different. I kind of became aware that a lot of people weren’t fussed about the poet interviews — and although vital and important and relevant, a lot of the authors said very similar things anyway. Some of the poets expressed hindsighted frustration about the fact that I’d used three whole pieces, some of which could’ve been sent elsewhere. Other folk didn’t dig my pick of poets. All reasonble criticisms.

Therefore, it’s no longer ONS Featured Poet. I’m now going to be running a Featured Poem section instead. Every so often (unfortunately I can’t commit to ‘weekly’, and right now I have no submissions anyway, so this is partly down to YOU GUYS), I will put up a single poem by a cool poet, and a bit of info about that poet. If you want to read more, you can then go and buy their book, frequent their blog or Tweet manically at them. If you don’t like ‘em, you can just wait and see if you like the next one. Less work for me, less work for you, just good poems. Fair?

ALRIGHT. SO HERE’S HOW TO SEND ME YOUR WORK!
The rules are few, and they are simple. Please don’t ignore or break them, or you won’t get featured.

1. Don’t send more than 5 (FIVE. One more than four. One less than six. FIVE, ‘k?) poems at once.
2. Send them in the body of the email. Attachments make me cry.
3. Include a SHORT bio. Let’s say 150 words max.
4. Tell me of any links you’d like to send people to. Blog? Twitter? Whatever. Several is fine.
5. Send all this stuff IN ONE EMAIL to claire [at] onenightstanzas [dot] com
6. Don’t query me til at least six weeks have passed, please. PLEASE. I BEG YOU. (People always ignore this. Just watch.)

Other than that, no rules. I’m happy to have poems of all forms, styles, lengths etc, but bear in mind that if it’s really long or the formatting is particularly bizarre I might not be able to accomodate it. Yes, I’ll take prose-poems. Yes, I’ll take concrete poems. Yes, I’ll take sound and vispo and whatever else kinda poems. I’ll read literally anything once.

And any questions? claire [at] onenightstanzas [dot] com is your place, or hit me up on Twitter.

(Photo credit)

(Adrienne Rich — right — with Meridel Leseur and Audre Lorde in 1980)

On 27th March 2012, modern poetry lost one of its true giants. Adrienne Rich — poet, essayist, feminist, activist, thinker — passed away at the age of 82 following a period of illness. Rich was one of America’s most decorated and celebrated poets, the winner of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Wallace Stevens Award and a Griffin Poetry Prize Lifetime Recognition Award, among many others. She was also one of the fiercest and bravest voices poetry has ever seen. Described as “a poet of towering rage,” she wrote for women’s rights, for gay rights and for human rights and confronted sometimes vicious challenges from the literary and political establishment. Her poetry is angry, graceful and timeless, and her writings on women artists and female literary tradition vital. I have no doubt that her work will continue to chime with writers — female or otherwise — for as long as it is read.

One of my all-time favourite essays of Rich’s is the pseudo-manifesto — which Rich referred to only as a series of “notes” — Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying (1975). In this piece, Rich observes just some of the many lies women have been told over the course of history; she notes that many lies have been so socialised into women that we become willing vessels for them ourselves. She points out the unnerving result of accepting and socialising these lies.

To lie habitually, as a way of life, is to lose contact with the unconscious. It is like taking sleeping pills, which confer sleep but blot out dreaming. The unconscious wants truth. [...] This is why the effort to speak honestly is so important. Lies are usually attempts to make everything simpler — for the liar — than it really is, or ought to be.

Rich believes that only women can possibly take hold of the key to this problem of socialised lies. They must pass through what Virginia Woolf called the “dark core”, and speak the truth — the ugly, difficult, freeing, empowering truth.

When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.

That is what Read This Press is asking you to do. We want to create an anthology of writing by women — women of all ages, nationalities, and walks of life — on the theme of truth. Tell us a truth you’ve never told anyone. Describe what it feels like to tell a lie. Write anything you want on this theme, and send it to us. There are no rules beyond these:

1. You must be female-identified. (We recommend that anyone who finds the concept of an all-female creative space in any way upsetting move quickly away from this blog.)
2. Your piece must be in some way recogniseable as poetry or short fiction. (We don’t want to impose word-limits, but bear in mind, this’ll be a chapbook publication, so if you send us something very long we may ask if you’d be willing to excerpt it or work on cutting it down.)
3. Please write on the theme. (The theme is Truth. Interpret that however you like.)

The final chapbook will be entitled Creatrix: Women Writers on Truth (for Adrienne Rich). It will be published as a limited edition chapbook by Read This Press, and edited by Claire Askew. Contributors will each receive one free copy of the chapbook.

To submit, please:

1) Email up to five pieces to claire [at] onenightstanzas [dot] com
2) Do this before midnight GMT on 1st May 2012
3) Include a few sentences of biographical information about yourself
4) Point out if any of the poems you’re submitting have been submitted or published elswhere

Please note that there may be a public launch for this book, or some other kind of promotional reading (or there may not — we’ll see), and we might ask you to read. Just a heads-up.

You can also email claire [at] onenightstanzas [dot] com with any questions. Please do pass on this submissions call to anyone you think might be interested in submitting — and feel free to spread the word on your blog, Twitter, Facebook or anywhere else you fancy.

One Night Stanzas loves mail. Say hello via [email protected]. 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!

(Photo credit)

I meet a lot of poets — I mean a lot — in my work as a lecturer and tutor, and in my own literary, writing-related travels. I like hearing and talking about other people’s writing processes, and in particular, their creative comfort zones. I believe that good creative writing teaching is all about encouraging students to venture into new, and sometimes intimidating, territory; encouraging them to use techniques they never thought they’d master. And something I hear again and again from the poets I meet is, “I wish I had a better understanding of form.”

Poetic forms can be intimidating. They can appear very tricky — and to some people, they also appear stuffy and outdated. But there’s more to poetry than just free verse. The use of a specific poetic form introduces a new kind of challenge into the writing process. Working in this way lends discipline to our creative practice. It also informs our subsequent writing, giving poets a newfound understanding about and confidence with rhyme and rhythm; even with the shape of the page and what it means.

Perhaps you’re like many of the poets I meet: comfortable working in free verse but intimidated by more fixed, traditional forms? Maybe you’re primarily a performance poet and the world of the page is a mysterious place for you? Perhaps you’ve already tackled sonnets but you’re curious about their strange cousins, the sestina and the villanelle? Or perhaps you just fancy meeting with like-minded writers and getting some feedback from an experienced, published poet and creative writing teacher.

This course is for writers who are already somewhat familiar with poetry, but who are looking for a new challenge. It is designed for a small group of six to ten people, and will be delivered in a sunny, book-filled flat in Tollcross, Edinburgh, just off the Meadows. Each week, you’ll learn about a different poetic form, from ancient haiku to super-contemporary vispo. Sessions last two hours, and a significant part of each will be given over to allowing you time to write your own poems using the forms you’ve learned about, and to experiment with new ideas.

The course costs a total of £96 per person, which works out at £16 per two-hour session. It will begin on Thursday 3rd May and run until Thursday 7th June. Classes take place on Thursday evenings between 6.30pm and 8.30pm.

For more information or to sign up, please contact [email protected]

Course outline

Week One, Thursday 3rd May: THE SONNET
An introductory session focussing on the sonnet form, from Petrarch to Shakespeare to Billy Collins and beyond. Learn how to construct the perfect love sonnet, or expand on your sonnet-ish knowledge and learn how to use this old form with a new twist.

Week Two, Thursday 10th May: THE VILLANELLE
Find out why Dylan Thomas chose the villanelle to craft what must be one of the world’s most famous poems, and try your hand at choosing your own timeless refrains.

Week Three, Thursday 17th May: THE SESTINA
One of the trickiest forms out there — get this right and you’ll earn serious poetic respect. This class will challenge you but hopefully also delight and enlighten you as we de-mystify the six-headed beast.

Week Four, Thursday 24th May: CONCRETE AND VISUAL POETRY
Form isn’t just about counting syllables. Scotland is famous for its brilliant, innovative concrete poetry courtesy of Ian Hamilton Finlay, Edwin Morgan and others. Find out what all the fuss is about and build your own concrete pieces.

Week Five, Thursday 31st May: OULIPO AND THE LONG FORM
Never heard of Oulipo? It’s all about setting yourself challenges to see how your writing responds. Rather like choosing to write your own epic or book-length poem. Come and see how it’s done.

Week Six, Thursday 7th June: HAIKU AND THE SHORT FORM
Find out what the shortest poem in the world is, and see if you can beat its tiny word count. Learn about short forms from ancient haiku to the American Sentence. Write (and, if you want to, share) your own tiny, perfect poems.

Getting to Grips with Poetic Form is taught by Claire Askew. Claire is a widely-published and multi-award winning poet, whose work has appeared in The Guardian, Poetry Scotland, The Edinburgh Review, PANK and Popshot, among others. Her debut pamphlet collection, The Mermaid and the Sailors, was published by Red Squirrel Press in early 2011, and was shortlisted for a 2010 Eric Gregory Award. A poem from the collection also won the 2010 Virginia Warbey Poetry Prize. Claire was recently awarded a 2012 Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award.
Claire graduated summa cum laude from the University of Edinburgh’s MSc in Creative Writing in 2009, for which she was awarded the William Sharpe Hunter Memorial Scholarship. She is now reading for a PhD in Creative Writing, also at the University, and she has a PDA in Adult Education. As well as teaching creative writing privately, Claire also tutors in the subject for the University of Edinburgh’s Scottish Universities International Summer School. In addition, she has worked as a Lecturer in Literature and Communication at Edinburgh’s Telford College for the past three years. You can find out more about Claire and her work here.

Testimonials

“Claire is super helpful, friendly and very communicative… never a dull class. Very informative and easy to follow!” — Jules, illustrator

“The best thing was Claire, the teacher! I enjoyed the methods that she used. I thought she was awesome.” — Alan, trainee primary teacher

“Always constructive feedback!” — Persia, student

To sign up, or for more information on any aspect of this course, including payment, please contact [email protected]

(Photo credit)

International Women’s Day is fast approaching, and I for one didn’t want to be caught unawares this year with nothing to do celebrate (like I was last year — the centenary year! — when all I managed was this post). So, I started thinking: what would I really like to do to celebrate International Women’s Day 2012? I reasoned that I should definitely keep up my tradition of giving as big a chunk of money as I can afford to a women’s charity… and that gave me an idea. Why not do something to encourage other folk to give their money to a women’s charity, too?

And thus, the International Women’s Day 2012 Edinburgh All-Female Slam (catchy, no?) was born.

At first, I wanted to hold a poetry slam simply because I know they never fail to get a good crowd through the door, and that would mean more pennies in the bucket for whatever charity I decided to pick (also, I just love a good slam). But then I realised that a poetry slam might also be a good place to raise awareness about women’s issues within the poetry community.

I’m not for a moment suggesting that female poets have it as bad as, say, the ladies in the photo above. Thanks to the pioneering work of ladies like Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, Sharon Olds, Maya Angelou, Margaret Atwood, Carol Ann Duffy, Liz Lochhead and many more, these days being a female poet is considered no weirder, really, than being a male poet. Female writers — although we still have a lot of catching up to do — no longer have to fight tooth and nail to be allowed to write, publish, perform and be reviewed. Most of us, I think, just get on with it.

What’s more, my local literary community plays host to a vibrant performance poetry scene that boasts some of the UK’s finest female performance poets: among them Jenny Lindsay, Sophia, Laura Hainey, and numerous others. We’re in Scotland, of course, so things aren’t as intersectional as they are in, say, Leeds or London… and they’re perhaps not as intersectional as they potentially could be. But there’s still a lot of poetry buzzing around and a lot of ladies getting involved.

However: Scotland’s poetry slam scene does still seem to be dominated by men. Our current Scottish slam champion is Young Dawkins, and when I try to think of the really great performance poets Scotland has to offer, I find myself coming up with far more male names than female ones (to mention but a few, Scotland can boast the vocal stylings of Bram Gieben, Colin McGuire, Kevin Cadwallender, Harlequinade, Robin Cairns, Jim Monaghan, Tickle McNicholl, Tim Turnbull and Harry Giles). Furthermore, slam itself could be described as somewhat chauvinistic: the focus is on competition, on “knocking out” one’s opponents in “head-to-head” finals. What’s more, slam has gained a bit of an unfair rep among non-slammers as being all about shouting the loudest or rapping the fastest.

Understandably, this view of Scottish slam puts a lot of performers — and mostly, it seems, ladies — off. I know many a female poet who just “won’t do slams.” And I think this is extremely sad, given that a) slam is a super cool movement with a huge and growing audience and b) Scottish performance poetry is crying out for a greater variety of voices, and is, in my experience, always friendly and welcoming.

Therefore, this slam is about faciliating the female performance poetry that I know is out there. I’ve seen all the poets on our spectacular bill performing at open mics and at traditional stand-up readings (and sometimes at “quiet” or “friendly” slams), and each time I’ve thought, THE SCOTTISH SLAM SCENE NEEDS YOU, LADY! Contrary to what several poisonous detractors (now blocked, don’t worry) on the event’s Facebook wall have somehow decided, this event IS NOT about bashing men and it IS NOT about favouritism towards women. It is about welcoming twelve exciting performers a little further into the performance poetry scene, and providing them with the encouragement they need to get out there and take the world of slam by storm.

If you like the sound of a FRIENDLY, ALL-INCLUSIVE slam featuring poetry from both male AND female performers; if you like the sound of raising a ton of money for Scottish Women’s Aid while sitting in a pub and listening to some fine verse; if you like the sound of discovering some new poets you never knew existed but whose work is guaranteed to blow your tiny mind… well then, get yourself to:

THE BANSHEE LABYRINTH
on
TUESDAY 6TH MARCH
at
7PM (doors) for 7.30PM (start)
and
BRING YOUR FRIENDS, YOUR APPLAUSE, AND YOUR GENEROUS DONATIONS

Check out our Facebook event for more details.

One Night Stanzas loves mail. Say hello via [email protected]. 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!

(Image source)

So although I promised myself at the New Year that I’d have a quiet year in terms of performing, it seems I’ve managed to get myself signed up for all manner of interesting literary shenanigans in the coming weeks. If you fancy coming to see me read poems, talk about poems and generally Witter About Stuff, here are the places to be…

10-RED, Wednesday 15th February, 19.00, The Persevere Function Room, Edinburgh. £3.00 entry.
10 RED is an evening of poetry in the beautiful Victorian Lounge of the Persevere Bar, Easter Road, Edinburgh. All the poets performing are published by Red Squirrel Press, who kindly published my pamphlet, The Mermaid and the Sailors, early last year. I’m hoping to try out some new material on a friendly crowd! Some great folk on the bill, too — worth coming along for McGuire alone! You can see a trailer for the event right here:

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“Making Poems, Writing Histories, Excavating Myths”: a lecture by Claire Askew for the Melrose Literary Society, Tuesday 21st February, 19.30, The Ormiston Institute, Melrose. £3.00 entry, non-members welcome.
The truly lovely people at the Melrose Literary Society have asked me to come and talk about my current research, and I am incredibly flattered, very excited and utterly terrified all at once. Come and hear me grapple with the question of Why We Write Poems, and investigate the ways in which poetry informs history, history informs myth and the two inform all kinds of creative writing. You’ll also get chance to ask me probing questions!

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Edinburgh Literary Death Match: March, Tuesday 27th March, 19.00, Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh. £5.00/£8.00 ticketed — get tickets here!
You’ve probably heard of the massive worldwide phenomenon that is Literary Death Match…? If not, get on it, because it’s a big deal! I’m super flattered to have been nominated (by the fabby @LynseyMay) and invited to perform at Edinburgh’s hippest literary outpost. The Voodoo Rooms is a gorgeous venue and I’m up against some serious talent… Gavin Inglis = legend! Grab your tickets, quick!

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Three Red Squirrel Poets at Trashed Organ’s “Belonging Fest” Opening Night, Monday 30th April, venue and time TBC, Newcastle
Details of this one are still TBC, but let’s just say it’s going to be good. Watch this space!

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Got an event you’d like me to read at? Talk about? Attend? Email me via claire @ onenightstanzas.com and tell me about it!