One Night Stanzas

Want to bind your own books but think it’d be too difficult? Check out this easy peasy tutorial — and this even easier one — at Fuck Yeah Book Arts!

I’m rather a fan of this “profane calligraphy“!

Are these the worst book covers ever? Photoshopped kitten!

I read Celine. I swim a lot. Swimming a mile a day helps. Any time I spend with my kid sets things straight. He’s a very funny guy and he’s a composer. I listen to his music and learn interesting things about theory from him and that certainly helps mitigate the darkness. I teach in the Bronx a couple days a week, and being up there with my students makes me feel more at home in the world. I don’t know if these things make me hopeful really. But they’re necessary.

I don’t know the work of Cara Hoffman, but I loved this interview she did with The Rejectionist. Great questions, great answers.

Just a few of the Banned Books Week posters, but they show exactly why the concept of banning books is a massive and utterly ridiculous joke.

I utterly love the idea of doing a bookstore roadtrip. Perhaps I will draw one up!

I know I’ve said this phrase before, but this is the best bookshelf ever.

You guys — the lovely Amanda Oaks, of whom I am a mega fan, is LAUNCHING AN UNDERWEAR LINE with her friend Jenn. It’s called Positive Panties (or maybe Cheery Knickers, for us UK folks!), and you can contribute to the Kickstarter that’ll get it off the ground right here. Please donate a dollar or two… or ten, or twenty!

I heard a lot of people slagging the now-infamous Photoshop toolbar tattoo… but now I’ve seen it for myself I actually think it’s quite lovely.

Ah yes, because that’s really all we feminists aspire to, funny or not. Forget about gender inequality and patriarchy and the War on Women and racism and ableism and homophobia and every other shitty thing feminists fight against, this is just about having a great train ride and a few LOLz!

I loved this concise and elegant response to Katie Roiphe’s typically-anti-common-sense trolling.

Melissa says, “I love everything about this picture. Everything.” And I agree.

Yes, I’m a baptized Sikh woman with facial hair. Yes, I realize that my gender is often confused and I look different than most women,” wrote Kaur, who is the president of the Ohio State University’s Sikh Student Association. “My attitude and thoughts and actions have more value in them than my body… by not focusing on the physical beauty, I have time to cultivate those inner virtues and hopefully, focus my life on creating change and progress for this world in any way I can.

This woman is a supermassive inspiration and I love her for telling her story this way.

The comments left on passive-aggressive notes are almost always the best part. Case in point!

Once again I am linking to Katja’s blog… but I just love her autumnal photographs here!

I love love love this graffiti.

Tattoos = wisdom? Why yes they do.

This is sweet, heartwarming and awesome, and I want to forcibly make all my students watch it and take note!

I saw something very like this when I was in Athens — it’s A GREAT IDEA and I def want to get involved in some paint-bombing now!

I agree with this man’s EVERY WORD.

I desperately want a house boat.

A short, fascinating video on why it is we procrastinate!

Have a great weekend!

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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)

It’s been several months since I did my last TiLT, and I’ve had quite a summer! Here are just a few of the things I’ve been loving loads since I last expressed my gratitude here!

Long, summery days in my sunshine-filled living room, crystals in the window throwing tiny rainbows everywhere, drinking tea, reading books, writing poems, not having to go to work.
(Like my mug? I got it from Rust Belt Threads, perhaps my favourite Etsy vintage store after Edinburgh Vintage!)

Hydra, Greece — Lovely Boyfriend and I stayed there for a week, holed up in a tiny whitewashed-stone cottage, writing, reading, occasionally going out to swim in the sea or scratch the noses of the town donkeys. This^ was the view from our living room window!

My SUISS class of 2012 — Jill, Joanna, Linda, Dan, Daniel and Sarah, thank you so much for all your hard work and inspiration!

I MET GEORGE WATSKY, and it was amazing! Thank you a million billion to McGuire, Ryan, Jenny, George and Paul for making One Night Stanzas presents Watsky x2 such an amazing success.

A great summer for Edinburgh Vintage with tons of lovely new stuff being added to the store all the time, nearly 200 sales and some really lovely customer encounters! Thank you everyone who’s browsed, bought, clicked, liked, re-tweeted and given feedback!

Yet more delicious vegan food — since my last TiLT, Lovely Boyfriend has also gone vegan! This means even more delicious vegan meals for my very happy belly. ^These are sweet potato pancakes with maple syrup, and they were UTTERLY LUSH.

Autumn arriving — my favourite time of year. I have already started taking autumnal walks, foraging for early brambles, sitting in the blustery Meadows with my boy watching cute dogs chase leaves, drinking amazing Chocolate Tree vegan hot chocolate, and planning my Halloween antics.

What are YOU loving right now?

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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!

OK, it’s another visual TiLT today… but there are reasons. Honest.

Stuff I love this week:

LOWTHER CASTLE & GARDENS
Last week/end I took a trip Southwards across the border, supposedly to perform at a poetry reading in Durham (more on that in a minute). But I took the opportunity to go and visit my parents, who live in Cumbria. While I was there, we decided to go and visit Lowther Castle, which has recently begun a massive, multi-million pound renovation.

When my mum was a child — and visiting Lowther regularly as many of our relatives lived there — the Castle was a ruin, and the gardens totally overrun by undergrowth and trees. The estate was basically bankrupted in the early 20th century, and the grounds were hired out first for tank testing during WW2, and then later as a conifer plantation. All the beautiful, manicured gardens — the Rose Garden, the Countess Garden, the Japanese Gardens — were lost under tons of soil and overrun by trees and plants.

Lowther holds a special place in our family. Not only did my relatives live in the village — many of them were also in service at the Castle, across several generations. My great uncle Des worked in the Castle’s sawmill, and my great auntie Vi was the only person the Earl would trust to press his trousers! Further back, we’ve discovered that my great, great, great grandfather, Aaron Lloyd, worked as a joiner at the Castle… which means it’s very possible that he built/helped to build this little house!

Happily, both the Castle (which has been without a proper roof for several years) and the grounds are now being slowly rebuilt as part of a huge renovation project. I was lucky enough to visit about two years ago, when they opened the place up for one day so people could go and get a “before picture” of the place. It was heartbreakingly desolate — the grounds were swampy and filled up with bracken and brambles. There were a lot of places you couldn’t get to. Mounds and bits of stone poked up here and there, so you could see that there used to be statues, summerhouses, etc — I couldn’t wait for the project to start.

There’s still a lot to be done. Over the past two years the main work has been making the Castle safe, and opening up a visitor centre space and cafe in the outbuildings. In the grounds, the main work has been to clear the rangy conifers that covered so much of the ground, and to shift out the tons of soil that had covered up many of the landscaped gardens. Now, with only the original, mature trees remaining, it’s possible to see things starting to appear again.

Above is what was the Japanese garden. When I visited before it was thick with conifers, very dark and without paths. Now, they’ve excavated out many of the old paths and they’ve found little stone shelters, stone seats, ponds, ornamental stream-beds and bridges.

There are some amazing finds — people are free to wander anywhere on what is essentially an excavation site, so you come across all sorts of things. There are no ‘keep out’ signs or tapes… you can even go into the still-wrecked summerhouses (at your own risk)!

The plan is for work to carry on over the next few years. I don’t know if the gardens will be fully restored to their incredible, highly manicured original state (you can see some photos of what the Castle and grounds used to look like — as well as a few interior shots of the Castle before its renovation — here).

Personally, I kind of hope they won’t turn things back entirely. I really liked clambering around and discovering these half-wrecked, half-rescued secret gardens…

THE OLD CINEMA LAUNDRETTE

So, the aforementioned poetry reading. It’s one to add to my list of Totally Weird-Ass Places I Have Read Poems. I’ve read poems in a medieval tower, in the Smoking Room of a gentleman’s club, in churches, in muddy fields… but this might be the weirdest venue ever. It was also possibly the all-time coolest: The Old Cinema Laundrette, Durham.

Once — you guessed it — an old cinema, the space is now a fully functioning laundrette (all of the washers are named after movie stars! We met Errol, Bette, Clark and Grace), a retro coffee shop, and a live events venue, hosting poetry and music nights. It’s run by the truly lovely Mr Wishy Washy, who made us very welcome and acted as an excellent compere for the proceedings.

Lovely Boyfriend and I were invited to read by the great Mr Kevin Cadwallender (who, by the way, is almost entirely responsible for the existence of The Mermaid and the Sailors), who, in collaboration with the aforementioned Mr Wishy Washy, had cooked up the idea of taking some Scottish poets over the border to read alongside some North East locals. Our reading-mates were Theresa Munoz, Jo Brooks, Colin Donati, James Oates, Aidan Halpin and the one and only Colin McGuire.

The gig was amazing — and not just because I was reading, obv. The crowd was small but everyone there was a proper, die-hard poetry fan, and all the readers were on top of their game. Lovely Boyfriend read better than I have ever heard before, I think, with a set including his ‘Benghazi’ poem about the Arab Spring, his four-part poem about the 2011 London riots and his page 3 girl haiku. He finished the set with the now-quite-infamous “Prince Philip poem” which always has me weeping with laughter. I was a proud girlfriend, I must say.

My second-favourite reader of the night was — predictably — the great McGuire, for whom my fangirlishness is well known. I was extremely happy to hear him read a poem I’d never heard him perform before, from his self-published collection Riddled With Errors, as well as some old favourites (the “white” poem! I love that poem so much!). He was on last, and capped off a night that was truly brilliant — one of the best poetry nights I’ve been to in, possibly, years.

As for the venue — if you’re ever in Durham, please go and find the Old Cinema Laundrette (< -- like them on Facebook!) and support it. This is one of those niche small businesses that you just desperately want to survive and thrive. I liked it so much that I'd be tempted to get on the train with my duvets piled around me just to get them cleaned by Mr Wishy Washy! I mean, look at this place. You just have to love it!

HONOURABLE MENTIONS:
My book is well and truly into its second printing and now available for purchase — here or here. It’s the equivalent of buying me a pint! // The Wetheral Animal Refuge. Whenever I visit Cumbria I visit this place. You can wander around, say hello to cute kitties, scratch a pony’s nose and feel horribly sad about the fact that you cannot adopt any of the adorable dogs because you’re always at work and anyway your flat is totally unsuitable, dammit. // Freecycle. The greatest thing ever, officially. I got a new hula hoop from a lady up the road and it’s so perfect for tricks! // The Baked Potato Shop. Edinburgh’s greatest eatery, bar none. Curry rice + baked beans (no, really) = the win.

What are you loving this week?

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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!

Link love!

“Your cousin/friend of a friend/former classmate will get a major role. Write/direct/manage/create/invent a Hollywood Internet Silicone Valley thing. They will instant message all available social satellites: Never stop chasing your dreams. Hard work will pay off in the end. You have to fall before you phoenix. They will be 23.”

If you read nothing else this week, read Fielden Nelson’s Failure Map over at McSweeney’s. You will relate.

Chris Scott, one of my all-time favourite photographers, took a photo of Colin McGuire, former ONS Featured Poet and one of my all-time favourite poets. Dream team!

Rachel McKibbens has done something not unlike I just did recently and put some of her online poems together in the same place. GO READ HER GENIUS WORDS, FOR SHE IS AWESOME.

“Do you know what that is, sweet pea? To be humble? The word comes from the Latin words humilis and humus. To be down low. To be of the earth. To be on the ground. That’s where I went when I wrote the last word of my first book. Straight onto the cool tile floor to weep. I sobbed and I wailed and I laughed through my tears. I didn’t get up for half an hour. I was too happy and grateful to stand. I had turned 35 a few weeks before. I was two months pregnant with my first child. I didn’t know if people would think my book was good or bad or horrible or beautiful and I didn’t care. I only knew I no longer had two hearts beating in my chest. I’d pulled one out with my own bare hands. I’d suffered. I’d given it everything I had.”

A beautiful and heartbreaking call-and-response between two female writers over at the Rumpus. Bravo.

Also at the Rumpus: the Beat Generation and their outrageous heckling. (who sent me this? Mr Derry? I think so. Thanks, anyway!)

21 women write love poems to Adrienne Rich, over at VIDA. So brilliant. Watch this space for Read This Press’ own take.

“Who decides if your work is good? When you are at your best, you do. If the work doesn’t deliver on its purpose, if the pot you made leaks or the hammer you forged breaks, then you should learn to make a better one. But we don’t blame the nail for breaking the hammer or the water for leaking from the pot. They are part of the system, just as the market embracing your product is part of marketing.”

A bit corporate-y, but potentially useful for writers: Don’t Expect Applause, by blog guru Seth Godin.

Sixty poets celebrate each year of the Dear Old Queen’s reign. Yay? (I love Liz Lochhead’s one.)

OH NO HE DIDN’T — Roddy Shippin being a total punner over at a handful of stones.

This is a really cool interview with Rattle editor Tim Green, in which he talks online vs. print poets and all sorts of other interesting stuff. (Thanks, Heather!)

“Sometimes when a person sells a book, once the elation and sheer joy has settled a bit, and the person receives that person’s editorial letter, and sets cheerily to revising, that person might realize suddenly that the book that person wrote is in fact THE STUPIDEST BOOK IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, LIKE FOR REAL, and must be REWRITTEN ENTIRELY, preferably by SOMEONE ELSE, since clearly that person is TOTALLY INCAPABLE OF WRITING A BOOK THAT IS NOT STUPID, and maybe other well-meaning people are all like “Obviously your book is not stupid since it is being published and anyway didn’t you say your editor was really smart and awesome so why would she buy a book that wasn’t good” and the person is all like HAVE YOU BEEN IN A BOOKSTORE LATELY OR EVER IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT “PUBLISHED” HAS ABSOLUTELY NO RELATIONSHIP TO “NOT STUPID” AND POSSIBLY THE EDITOR WAS DRUNK WHEN SHE BOUGHT MY BOOK THESE THINGS DO HAPPEN and that person may become inordinately stressed for a time re: the stupidness of the person’s book.”

I so freaking love the artist formerly known as The Rejectionist, aka Sarah McCarry, so much.

I was really interested to hear Tracey S Rosenberg’s thoughts on the comparisons to be made (or not) between US and Scottish slams.

The Joy of Reading. < -- Click this. Seriously. (Thanks, Camilla!)

Larkin hoarded like the miser he was, collected mild bondage magazines, and occasionally used the “n” word — hardly laudable traits, but not exactly war crimes either. Persona or no persona, didn’t he make it clear in [his poems] that he was no model of mental health? The argument seemed to be that if someone used the word “n—-r” in his correspondence (which he did — half mocking his own bigotry, but only half), the poetry he wrote must reflect the same racist, rancid prejudices. But it doesn’t. Larkin, who was very far from confusing art with life, knew that his prejudices and pettinesses were inassimilable to his poetry.

This article is the best thing I have ever read about the great, flawed genius that is Philip Larkin. Read it, read it all. (Thanks, Mark!)

I was really interested in these professional photographers discussing the worst shot they’ve ever taken.

Need a present for a book geek? This is pretty damn sweet!

“Through the Wire”… told the true-life story of how the aspiring star fell asleep at the wheel of his Lexus and woke up in Cedars Sinai hospital with half his jaw lodged in the back of his throat. He rapped the story three weeks after the accident, in highly original rhymes delivered with his jaw wired shut. The accident occupies the triumph-over-adversity space in Kanye’s biography that being a former crack dealer occupies in Jay-Z’s. Kanye embodied a more emotionally blown-open mode of existence, and relished playing the role of Jay’s wide-eyed little brother and boundary-pusher—“The Lyor Cohen of Dior Homme,” as he billed himself on the single “Devil in a New Dress,” adding, “That’s Dior Homme, not Dior, homie.”

Kanye West is one of my all-time favourite recording artists ever, so I loved this article so, so, so much. I plan to now direct EVERYONE who says “ugh, you like KANYE WEST?!” to me RIGHT THERE.

Last week the HuffPo reprinted the pretty depressing cult “30 before 30″ article from Glamour. I’ve been watching the online responses with interest. This one is best read with the often pretty right-on comments, but my favourite was Hugo Schwyzer’s male equivalent.

Did you guys hear about the roof dog? TOO CUTE.

This is really good advice - and so pretty! Want!

Life getting you down? Feel like there’s something you’ll just never be able to master? Watch this video. Then shut up.

The Book Of The Future is amazing!

You guys know Taylor Mali’s ‘What Teachers Make’? This is a great adaptation of it for the classroom.

I love Kevin Cadwallender’s take on the writing process!

Remember this? Still a whole load of love for this poem/video!

Have a great weekend!

What are you loving this week?

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)

A bit of a heavy post this week, perhaps. But what I’m loving right now is activism.

If you’ve been paying attention to the links in my Procrastination Station posts, you might have got the general gist that I’m a bit of a feminist. You’ll certainly have got that gist if you follow my Twitter. If you’ve been my Facebook friend for a while, you might also have seen one or two angry feminist rants up there, too. Maybe — if you’re a real die-hard fan of mine — you’ve even spotted out my little-used feminist/political blog, Girl Poems. And yes, it’s true — I am a feminist, and more than just a little bit.

It’s happened quickly. Had you asked me two years ago, I’d have said HELL YES I AM A FEMINIST, but I wouldn’t really have been able to tell you all that much about why. At that point, I hadn’t really woken up to the massive discrimination that still comes with identifying as female. Then I had my “click” moment: I watched Jean Kilbourne’s “Killing Us Softly 3.”

As the women on my training weekend this past weekend (which I’ll talk about in a moment) pointed out, when you get your “click” moment, it’s like coming out of the Matrix. You start seeing misogyny and discrimination everywhere. You start realising that things you say and do — things you’ve always said and done — are really not cool. You see that you have friends — really good friends — who are part of the problem. You get really, really, really angry. And other people get really, really, really angry with you.

Over the past two years, since watching Jean Kilbourne, I’ve kind of done a DIY women’s studies degree in my spare bedroom. As well as teaching and reading for my PhD, I’ve also amalgamated a pretty huge collection of academic feminism textbooks, pop feminist polemics, women’s anthologies and women’s studies tomes, and read them hungrily. I follow more feminist/political blogs than I do poetry and writing ones. I’m no longer lazy about this stuff — as well as identifying as feminist I am also trying really hard to be a good trans ally, to rid my students’ (and, sometimes, my colleagues’) vocabulary of homophobic language like “that’s so gay”, and I’m also trying extremely hard to stop being ableist (I’ve only recently realised how gross my use of the word “lame” to mean “rubbish” really is). In terms of the kind of feminist I am? I want intersectionality so badly. I try as hard as I can to check my white, cis, able-bodied privilege, though I’ll admit, sometimes fail. And I am way, way pro-sex (ask me some time about my plan to kick the shit out of the sex industry’s status quo. Seriously).

Twitter has become my safe space. I post anything I like there, and I’m generous with my use of the ‘block’ button. I’ve also built up a sweet network of feminist Twit-buddies of all genders, which is really nice. But I’ve still felt bad about not doing enough. Not talking about this stuff enough. Not trying hard enough to exercise change. Not explaining myself properly. Not really making a difference.

So this past weekend, I went along to Scottish Women’s Aid’s all-weekend “Stop” training. The “Stop” campaign, or Together We Can Stop It, is about recognising that domestic abuse affects everyone, but that — as one of my training-mates put it — we can all affect it right back. It is designed to spread the message that domestic abuse is disturbingly prevalent, and that it’s so not OK, as well as aiming to provide everyone everywhere with workable ways to tackle the problem. The training weekend took me and seven other smart, angry young feminists and taught us how to become Community Champions: we’re now qualified to go out into the local community and help SWA and the “Stop” campaign to spread the message.

The training was a truly amazing, eye-opening and inspiring experience for me. Because I’ve taught myself all this women’s studies stuff, I’ve never been in a space before where everyone just ‘got’ it. There was no mansplaining, no ‘explain yourself to me!’, no ‘what about the men?!’, no arguments about how you can’t be feminist if you’re white and Western, or if you like sex, or if you’re straight, or if you’re a trans woman, or blah blah blah blah. There was no ’stop being hysterical!’, or ‘nobody really cares about this!’, or ‘it’s just a joke, lighten up!’ No one in the room said anything was ’so gay’ or referred to another person as ‘a total retard’ or suggested that ‘girls who dress slutty ask for it.’ There were no rape jokes; no one wanted to whine that Julian Assange or Roman Polanski are awesome, stand-up guys and so great at what they do and therefore everyone should forget about the fact that they raped women and hey who says they even did it I mean these stupid women make shit up all the time. I’m wary of using this word because I know it makes some people queasy (feminists included), but it felt like sisterhood.

There were a lot of opposing views in the room. We talked about tons of issues around and outside domestic abuse including intersectionality, classism and general feminist stuff. We had heated discussions. We disagreed about things. But we all got it, we were all working towards a common goal: to make women’s lives, which are so often hard and frightening and downright depressing, better. In two days I learned so much about women, about feminism, about society, about activism and about myself. It was utterly fantastic.

Now, come to my comment thread and ask ‘what about the men?!’ I dare you.

Honourable mentions: Bare Hands Poetry. Thanks a million for taking one of my poems, loves! // Working on editing together Creatrix. So many great submissions, so many difficult decisions. Watch this space for a post about it. // Being in a play! OMG! Come and see me at the Traverse, in “Dear Glasgow.” // The second printing of my book has landed — let me know if you want to buy one! // Real Foods. Greatest grocery store ever // The lovely Lovely Boyfriend. Better than all the other boyfriends combined.

What are you loving this week?

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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)

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Disclaimer: I am not this Claire Askew. That Claire Askew has been a vegan and vegan activist for many years, from what I can see. I am by no means trying to hijack her bandwagon, and I do intend to buy her book. You guys should, too.

The thing I’ve been loving a whole load this week is also something you can read. I LOVE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS.

Isa Chandra Moskowitz
This lady is the thing I am loving, and I am loving her a whole, whole lot. As most of you probably know, I recently — and rather inexplicably — became vegan, and wrote a post about it right here. Some lovely folk came to comment on said post (and on my Facebook and Twitter), to give me words of encouragement, hints and tips. All of this was much appreciated, but a special shout-out must go to Regina Green. Not only did she give me a ton of feel-good encouragement, she also pointed me in the direction of Isa Chandra Moskowitz. AND I AM SO, SO GLAD that she did.

Ms Moskowitz — who you can learn about in this kick-ass interview from the New York Times — is a tattooed punk chef who believes in culinary activism and cupcakes for all. She’s written several extremely popular vegan cookbooks including one that’s all about pies, another that’s all about cookies, and for those of you for whom those are dirty words, there’s also a low fat book. When I hit the website, The Post Punk Kitchen, I really was spoilt for choice.

However, I eventually decided on Vegan Brunch. One of my all-time favourite things in life is breakfast, and one of the things I’ve missed most about becoming vegan is breakfast pastry. I thought I’d never eat a croissant ever again, until I came across the Gopal Deli in Barcelona and discovered that actually, vegan pastries are in fact possible. But although Edinburgh has plenty of places that’ll whip you up a lovely vegan lunch or dinner, the only place I know of that’ll make you a vegan breakfast or brunch is David Bann’s. (And they only do it at weekends. And yaknow, eating there twice every week is probably not good for my wallet.) Therefore, I was very happy to find a cookbook that would enable me to provide my own vegan breakfast goodies without too much fuss.

The book arrived last week and, as you can imagine, last weekend was a massive brunch-fest as a result. On Saturday morning, Lovely Boyfriend — even though he’d been off work sick for two days, bless him — got out of bed to make me Isa’s Perfect Pancakes, a vegan take on the traditional American fluffy pancake. While he was whipping up batter and manning the frying pan, I put together some of the cookbook’s Chocolate Drizzle to go on top. Both recipes were extremely simple, required a few cheap and easy-to-get ingredients, and were ready pretty quickly. The fact that I made enough Chocolate Drizzle for about ten people was the only real issue. Tip: if there’s just two of you, halve the ingredients suggested! The result of our labours is in the photo at the top of this post. It was one lush brunch, I can tell you. (Neither of the recipes are online, but Isa does have another pancake recipe, for super-fluffy cakes that look amazing, right here.)

Next, I tried the recipe for Cinnamon Rolls. I am obsessed with anything cinnamon-filled, cinnamon-topped or cinnamon-scented, and I was beyond delighted to discover that the aforementioned Gopal also did a great line in huge swirly cinnamon buns. I never thought I’d be able to make such things myself, but of course, Isa proved me wrong. These were time-consuming, but easy to do — I am a very basics-only kind of cook, so if I can do it, anyone can — and a lot of the time was down-time, waiting for the dough to rise. The rather dark (sorry) photo above shows the rolls fresh out of the oven, before they were iced. Lovely Boyfriend and I tried one at this point and were worried it was too breadlike and not sweet enough. However, the next morning I iced them (and not heavily, either), and it made all the difference — suddenly they were sweet, sticky and perfect. You literally can’t tell the difference between these and their all-butter non-vegan cousins. The recipe for these isn’t online either, but it’s worth buying the book just for these babies! Excellent with a good cup of tea.

Finally, on Sunday morning the loveliest Lovely Boyfriend decided to tackle Isa’s standard scrambled tofu, with with a Lovely Boyfriend twist. As well as Isa’s cumin and thyme spice mix — which sounds a bit curry-esque but actually works beautifully for breakfast — he also added some broken-up mushrooms, finely chopped onion and torn spinach. The end result was one of the best breakfasts I’ve had in my life, vegan or otherwise. The recipe calls for extra-firm silken tofu — we could only find the firm stuff, so as a result the pieces broke down quite small while cooking. However, the chunky mushrooms kept the consistency from being too bitty. On top of a wholemeal bagel it was utterly lush, I tell you. There are plenty of other uses for tofu in the Post Punk Kitchen, too.

So yes — I’m in love with this cookbook, and with its author. You can guarantee that I’ll be buying more of her books in the near future, and I cannot wait til next weekend when I can try out more brunches (look out, waistline…).

If anyone loves me or ONS enough to help keep me stocked with Things I’m Reading Thursday fodder, you can check out my Amazon Wishlist!

Honourable mentions:
Sunshine. It’s still disturbingly cold outside, but at least it looks pretty // Starry Rhymes — you can finally buy it in the Read This Press etsy store! As I was listing it, I was re-reading some of my favourite poems, and oh my goodness, it’s good // Thrifting with my mad and lovely sister. Morningside has all the best finds! If you’re a fellow thrifter, check out my vintage store, Edinburgh Vintage, for some pretty bargains // feeling busy and productive, but not stressed. This is a rare feeling — long may it last! // Lazing under my duvet and plotting for the future. So much stuff, so little time! // Netflix. We just got it. Goodbye, what spare time I formerly had… // The West Wing. We’ve been trawling through every episode ever in order and we’re nearing the end of Season Six. Only one more to go! I never want it to end!

What are you loving this week?

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!

Lovely lovely links I have loved lately.

It’s hard to say whether this slam was so exciting just because it was an all-female slam. Certainly, a sense of purpose and solidarity united the audience behind every performer, and gave each performer a definite support and welcome to play to. Certainly, a slam setting out to improve diversity will always have a better chance of surprising us with something fresh. But in the end, the success is down to something much more basic: great performers, speaking directly to the audience with skill, style and originality. That’s something that every slam needs.

Huge, huge thanks to the great Harry Giles, for giving my slam this great write-up at Sabotage.

Which are the most studied writers, and how do we know?

Buildings vomiting books? You know you want to click it!

[There is] a dearth of female voices on the entry-level of slam/local scene which means less aspiring female poets in the audience. This also means poetry audiences/slam judges have to “get accustomed” to the female voice and experience. This is also why there is usually “the darling” of a poetry scene: the sole, doted-upon “girl” slammer who never gets to become an actual WOMAN slammer.

And speaking of slam: the utterly brilliant, wonderful Rachel McKibbens being utterly brilliant and wonderful on the subject of women in slam.

Are you a book fetishist? Book Riot has pretty things you will like.

I was consumed with doubt. Was it possible that I had found my calling only to discover that I really sucked at it? Could the world be that cruel? I was certain it could.

Eugene Cross on the power of doubt at Glimmertrain.

Beautiful writing machines (I have an Empire! Two actually…)

Super cool, often pretty bookshelves.

I loved this poem in Rattle — thanks Heather!

Publishers need to understand that “Author Care” is not a euphemism for “Care in the Community”. Authors who are valued, understood, appreciated, included, nurtured and spoken to like an adult will experience a phenomenon called Trust. Trust breeds loyalty; loyalty means longevity; longevity means sales.

In this unholy maelstrom: an agent’s manifesto.

How do you design a book cover when the book’s about genitalia…?

Ever get sick of gloomy weather? Next time, try this: it’s awesome!

Seth Casteel’s underwater dog photos make me super happy. Especially this one.

A big archive of literary tattoos, and their stories. Awesome!

Did I show you guys these super-cute bats? They will make you smile.

It’s the Boss, with some advice — great for writers (thanks Ryan)!

This is great (thanks Rachel).

This never gets old.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

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!

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Links I love a lot lately.

Tomorrow’s my birthday, BY THE WAY. If you feel like doing something to make me happy, you could buy a little something from Edinburgh Vintage or the Read This Press store. I also have an Amazon wishlist, if you’re feeling mega-generous!

Can you not then treat poetry as one vast department store, and pick and mix, guided by a sense of ‘craft’ or something else? Indeed you can, and I think probably you should, rather than throw in your lot with a singular option. The most culturally threatening aspect of the situation is that most of these camps claim a central position, from which all others are peripheral or negative. Not only do we then have a state of permanent internecine warfare, but… we no longer know what ‘the truth’ is. All we have is versions or opinions.

I agree with pretty much all of this.

You guys. WORDS DANCE IS ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS AGAIN.

I really like this wee concrete poem from Stephen Nelson.

forgotten / green teas cooling in the crush • the silver-brimmed / purse slinks out of sight • melt perfect spheres of ice / • cherry stalks idle in the bowl • every loaded thought / teased out

I utterly loved this poem from Amy Key.

Lovely Boyfriend specialises in newspaper blackout poems. Next step, this?

A tad creepy, and a very bizarre selection of characters, but… want to see an identikit picture of your favourite literary character? Go here!

It’s not a matter of as easily inhabiting the night-time as the daytime world; more that in the night-time world, the sleepless person is the sole inhabitant. If two insomniacs were to meet in that place of displacement, each would assume that the other was a ghost, or a creature peering in from the threshold of a parallel universe.

Lovely writing on insomnia from David Harsent.

A site dedicated to Liz-Lochhead-related media? I like.

Cool and compelling diagrams and scribbles by famous writers.

Did you know Terry Pratchett has launched a novel writing contest? Yes, yes — he actually just got more awesome.

In every comic novel of the 1930s, there’s a stock flighty female character with red lips and long beads who leaves her husband before the ink is dry on the marriage certificate and she’s always known as The Bolter. That’s me

dear John Travolta.

I just died and went to anti-love-poem heaven, thanks to Julia Bird.

If you click no other link in this post, I beg of you, click this one: Sharon Olds in conversation, with advice for young poets.

Like jazz? I guarantee you will like these t-shirts.

Barbie: The Princess Shoe Party Fashion Show and Cinderella: A Sparkly Royal Thanksgiving… [these books] are EVERYWHERE and are just as soul-crushing as they sound. While I hide those titles behind the periodicals at the local library, I spend a good deal of time searching for really engaging princess stories.

Tried-and-tested kickass princess stories for worried feminist mums. Brilliant.

Photos of the insides of musical instruments. Cooler than it sounds.

I don’t really believe in marriage, but it might be worth getting married just for this.

I simply cannot afford to continue mopping up after the trolls who crawl among us, itching to bring down the tone at every available opportunity.

It’s snark-tastic… and that’s why I love this Suspension of Comments notice.

Yesterday was International Women’s Day, so let’s celebrate some great women…

Breastless from Terrier TV on Vimeo.

This is so brave, beautiful, honest and poetic. I love it.

Lucille Clifton Reads ‘homage to my hips from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

I also love Lucille Clifton, with a burning fiery passion.

What a voice. What a heartwrenching shipwreck of a poem.

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!

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Stuff I love this week.

Lovely Boyfriend getting old
Last weekend, Lovely Boyfriend turned 27 whole years old, which gave me an excellent excuse to turn the whole weekend into one long parade of cool stuff. I spent my Friday off building a birthday tent in the living room, for example: LB and I have a long-running joke/tradition of tent-building indoors after I scoffed at the idea of winter camping and flatly stated that the only way he’d ever get me to sleep in a tent between the months of November and April would be to build said tent inside my flat. This tent was built in the middle of the living room and was festooned with balloons, bunting and fairy lights and filled with presents. It was an excellent venue for cake-eating and movie watching, and I was pretty sad to finally take it down on Tuesday morning. I was also brave enough to cook LB, an accomplished chef, a fancy dinner on Friday night, and miraculously I managed even the choux pastry without a hitch!
The rest of the weekend was spent taking in some heavy-duty bookshopping; the newly-revamped National Portrait Gallery; cupcakes from Bibi’s; a screening of the fantastic “Apart Together“, followed by a somewhat awkward audience discussion!; bento boxes and veggie sushi at Tang’s; Sunday brunch at the nom-tastic veggie heaven that is David Bann’s (pictured); a mega West Wing marathon (we’re well into series four and I’m slowly changing my mind about Amy Gardner!); and pints and craic at the Brew Dog Bar. What presents did I buy him? Among them were a tea-and-chocolate hamper from the world famous Betty’s, the super fabulous Middle Eastern veggie cookbook Veggiestan, Four Tales by Philip Pullman and a signed copy of Alasdair Gray’s Collected Verse. I know, I know — he’s a lucky boy.

Gifts from the Universe.
After the ups and downs of 2011, I was in need of a boost at the start of the new year — some kind of omen to suggest that maybe in 2012 things were going to get a bit better. And holy cow, did January knock my socks off in terms of positive goings-on! At the start of the new year, my poem Male Privilege won the Mookychick 2011 FemFlash contest, which handed me a few very-handy-indeed post-Christmas quids, as well as a subscription to the frickin’ excellent BUST Magazine. I was approched from all sides to read my work at all manner of cool literary later-this-year events, including March’s Literary Death Match Edinburgh and Trashed Organ’s forthcoming Belonging Fest. After a handy nudge from a super-cool Edinburgh feminist and live literature promoter (you know who you are), I started proper plans for a mega-exciting poetry event to celebrate International Women’s Day (more info soon). Towards the end of the month received a very lovely acceptance email from Popshot, which is pretty much my all-time favourite literary journal (even more so now!), to say one of the poems I sent them had been picked from over 3,000 submissions to grace the pages of their “Power” issue, out in April (squee!). Finally, just as January was drawing to a close, I received some hyper-exciting but still-top-secret writing-related news that just dropped a perfect, shiny cherry on the top of the whole Excellent January sundae (I’ll tell all soon, promise!). I’m also ahead of schedule with my PhD thesis and, for now, my supervisor seems pretty happy with me. Thanks, January! February: bring it on!

Honourable mentions:
Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner — such a sweet, sad, happy, wonderful, original first novel. Read it, everyone. // Book-buying sprees with Lovely Boyfriend — so much new poetry to consume! // Talking with baby-boomers about how their generation made the best pop music ever // Getting my teeth into this semester’s new classes // TED Talks — the greatest classroom resource of all time, bar none // Twitfolk, and their hilarious, aggravating, oh-so-useful fabulousness // Oulipo — look out, poetry, this is about to be My New Thing // Lie-ins, early nights, naps, and all manner of excellent natural sleep! // Croissants // This song.

What are you loving this week?

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!

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^^My lovely work canteen!

So, normally for my not-really-weekly Procrastination Stations, I give you a big list of links I’ve liked over the past week or so. These usually come from the absolutely EPIC list of bookmarks I keep on my little pink netbook at home. However, this week I was looking for inspirational articles (and posts, videos, etc) to discuss with my students and realised that, although a little different to the usual, my bookmarks folder at work is also pretty shit hot. So here’s a slightly different list of links for you, all from my ‘work’ folder… see what you think.

“Don’t talk about how, as a child, you loved to read and write. Everyone says that. For perhaps the first time in your life, you’ll be with your kind of people! I know that it’s important to YOU that your journey started when you were a kid, but it is not as important to me as what happened to you from that point on.”

Making a personal statement for a MFA programme: some excellent DOs and DON’Ts.

“Dinosaurs rule our house.”

Poet Ian McMillan talks to the Guardian for Pieces of Me.

“When I am sitting with a writer friend at dinner and he tells a story about running a porno magazine rental service as a child, I acknowledge that he might use this for a story at a later date and thus, I should not take it for my own work. I could view it as fair game and try to get to it first, but that would just be kind of a dick move.”

What happens when all your friends are writers.

Are YOU a geek when it comes to pie charts and bar graphs?
This site is so for you.

“She has perfect hair, she wears great dresses, and who cares if she has thick ankles? Certainly not her paramour, Kermit, who would sleep on railroad tracks if she asked.”

Miss Piggy: Style Icon

Natural disasters, protests, Steve Jobs and Snowpocalypse: The 45 Most Powerful Photos of 2011
(Trigger warning for police brutality and violent scenes)

“As a conventional dad, hunter, and former Republican, it took me longer to understand that I never had two sons.”

The remarkable story of a young woman who always knew she was inside the wrong body.

Miss Representation Trailer

Miss Representation 8 min. Trailer 8/23/11 from Miss Representation on Vimeo.

Carlsberg stunt: assumption and inclusion

Geoff Trenchard prose-poem: The Long Holidays At Denney’s

How you start a movement

Have a great weekend!

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!

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