One Night Stanzas

The other day I had a rant on Twitter, sparked by a couple of poets being kinda big-headed in my @ thread. It was pretty standard poet stuff — look at all the places I’ve been published, etc. No great crime, but I started musing on the political issues underlying the weird-ass publication hierarchy we writerly folks seem to be all too keen to reinforce: a hierarchy that often overlooks — and in some cases, silences — marginalised voices while over-valuing privileged ones.

This rant lost me a handful of followers, gained me a few more, and sparked a bit of discussion. Several folks were interested in seeing an in-depth blogpost here with more of my thoughts about the issue. I headed out to the Forest Cafe with the rant still rattling around in my head, and half a blogpost sketched out in garbled scrawls in my notebook.

I never wrote the blogpost, though. That evening while I was out on my travels, I found out that a person I know well and greatly admire has recently become homeless. Not only did this happen to this person through no fault of their own — they’ve been told they could remain homeless for up to a year while they’re “processed” by the system.

Over the course of the evening, I learned a whole load about the realities of being homeless. I learned a bit about what homeless shelters are really like; a bit about the financial support (or lack, thereof) that’s provided to people who unexpectedly find themselves with nowhere to live. I started thinking about all the things I just do without thinking about it — cooking, laundry, taking a shower whenever I want. By the end of it, a bunch of snotty poets and their pathetic literary pissing-contests seemed pretty irrelevant.

I still think dodgy stuff goes on in the literary world. I still think writers who brag about their publishing credits are… well, kind of missing the point of writing, really. But I’ve realised that me ranting about it here will do very little to stop any of it from happening. So instead, I’m writing a Things I Love Thursday, below, about the simple stuff. ’cause that’s a much better use of my time.

I am grateful for my home.
I have somewhere I can go and be safe — I don’t have to leave by a certain time or stay out til a certain time, and I don’t have to share it with anyone. I never have to worry that there won’t be space for me some nights, or that I’ll be kicked out. I have a bed that’s mine and I know no one else has slept in it without me knowing. I have all my things around me. I am grateful for that.

I am grateful for my friends and loved ones.
I have a loving partner who respects me, communicates with me clearly, and takes care of me. I have the best sister and the best parents in the whole world. I have smart, eccentric, caring friends who look out for me, make me cups of tea, recommend books to me, and make me origami animals (thanks, C!). None of the people I love want to hurt or exploit me. I am grateful for that.

I am grateful for my safety.
I live in a city that is (largely) safe for me to move around in. If something happens to me, I know where I can go to get help, in pretty much any situation. I am free to come and go as I please. I am free to study for a PhD, do a job, volunteer with a women’s organisation, go to poetry readings, meet other people, and spend money I earned myself. I am grateful for that.

I am grateful for my education.
I can read and write. I am a native English speaker, which means I can communicate my needs successfully pretty much anywhere in the world. I can express myself to my satisfaction. I can write a blog. When I’m annoyed about something, I can rant about it, or make a complaint. I can make my voice heard. I am grateful for that.

Apart from getting your poetry in some big journal (’cause dude, no one’s impressed)… what are you grateful for 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!

As some of you may know, I have just gone into my third year of study for a PhD in Creative Writing. As well as putting up with being told numerous times that Creative Writing can’t be taught, much less turned into a legitimate subject for postgraduate study (a whole other story), this means I have to do a lot of writing. And a lot of reading. And some more writing. By the end of my studies I must produce 70 pages of poems, and an academic thesis, which I have chosen to write on contemporary female poets (primarily Scottish contemporary female poets) + history, tradition, identity (personal, social, political, national, international) + Margaret Atwood. All that stuff = a lot of writing.

However, it was only a few weeks ago that Lovely Boyfriend and I agreed that it might be a good idea for me to have “a writing room.” And frankly, I’m already finding the whole thing a bit weird.

Well quite. How pretentious and hipster-y of you,
says the cynical voice in my head. A bit like the eighteen typewriters and piles of records and CDs I own, a writing room feels like a horribly privileged, self-indulgent and, let’s face it, rather hipster-y thing to have. Have I really come so far in five years? I used to live with The Artist Formerly Known As The Boy in a tiny one-room bedsit: a flat so small that if one of you threw something you were pretty much guaranteed to hit the other person (we tested this theory sometimes when there was nothing on TV). I barely had a cubic foot of space to call my own, let alone an entire room (although, I did have a kick-ass roof garden), and yet I managed to get my writing done just fine. These days I have a great big living room with a huge bay window complete with panoramic view. Why can’t I just sit there and write?

But then… what about Virginia Woolf?
She did, after all, pen the immortal line, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” OK, so I’m not writing fiction, but bear with me for a second. Good old VW claimed that the lack of women’s writing in the canon was down to the fact that women were never given access to the time, space or means to write in the same way that men were. If a man decided he wanted to become a poet, he was admirably committing his life to serving the Muse. If a woman decided she wanted to become a poet, she got a straitjacket. For the big bad Woolf, a room of one’s own in which to write was something women ought to demand. I daresay if she caught me feeling sheepish about my “writing room,” she’d give me a damn good dressing-down.

So wait… having a writing room is a radical gesture of literary sisterhood?
No, not really. I think Virginia Woolf’s ideas about building designated women-only spaces as a way to facilitate female creativity are still pertinent, but if I’m honest, I don’t think those ideas really apply to privileged college grads converting their lofts and filling them with cushions and “inspiration boards”. We should still be demanding that creative women have rooms of their own, but women who are homeless, impoverished, deprived of education or otherwise unfairly disadvantaged are more the kind of people who should be first in line for these kinds of spaces. If anything, I have a room of my own and then some: I should be offering up some of the space I’m hoarding to women for whom the idea of “a room of one’s own” is nothing more than an indulgent daydream.

Oh come on… like anyone would want that space anyway!
Well, true. It’s pretentious of me to refer to it as a “writing room” anyway, as actually, it’s just the spare bedroom and it’s not exactly inspiring. It’s a handy place to keep all my piles and piles of academic books, but it’s also kind of handy for hanging laundry and storing boxes and clean bedding. “Writing room” is a pretty glamorous term for a glorified boxroom with a lot of damp socks hanging in it. We’re back to the pretentious thing all over again.

Er yeah… not to mention the fact that it’s “your” writing room.
This bothers me too. Lovely Boyfriend pays exactly half of the rent on our flat, but he doesn’t get a space of his own. And what’s he supposed to do when I shut myself in the spare room with a big stack of books and a warning not to disturb/distract me? I guess he probably welcomes the opportunity to play Assassin’s Creed. But when The Artist Formerly Known As The Boy turned our then-boxroom into a “boy room”, into which he would retreat in order to spend hours focussing on his F1 sim, I got kinda resentful. What makes my “writing room” any different?

So why have a writing room at all then, you weirdo?
Well… it’s handy to have all my academic books in one place, within reach, and sitting at a desk rather than on a comfy chair makes me feel more productive and focussed. Our wi-fi connection is patchy in the spare room, which means that trying to distract myself with Twitter is very annoying rather than very appealing. And I can control how light/dark or quiet the room is: Lovely Boyfriend doesn’t have to turn off the TV just because I’m working, and I can seek out poetry readings on Youtube without bothering him. Also, I’m a terrible procrastinator and would sometimes rather clean my skirting boards than devote a full day to writing my thesis. So by giving myself a space to go into and write, I’m trying to make it feel like “going to work” — like it’s something I have to do whether I like it or not.

I’m still not 100% sold on the idea. What do you guys think? Do any of you have specific spaces set aside to write in? How do you feel about that? What are the pros and cons? I want to hear your thoughts — get thee to the comments box!

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