One Night Stanzas

I am officially obsessed with the Life In Authoring tumblr. If you click nothing else in this post, click it!

I thought my words were spare and evocative and true
Little ominous blasts bursting from staccato notes.

I was really excited to see that one of my former creative writing students, the lovely Daniel Dowe, had a poem published recently by Bolts of Silk (whose praises I have sung here before)! Such a great poem, love the ending…

…and ONS’s good friend Kevin Cadwallender has a cool poem at Bolts of Silk, too!

I am LOVING Stephen Nelson’s new food-related concrete poems, especially the meat and toast ones!

On the whole poetry/fiction thing: if Olds is fibbing, and this is all a big scam, then she is capable of almost pathological imaginative empathy, and worth spending a lot of time over. Whether this is of the I-feel-your-pain species or the look-at-how-sad-I-might-be-maybe is trivial.

I always love Dave’s reviews, and he reviewed Sharon Olds’ recently-Eliot-Prize-winning collection, which I seriously wanted to read, and now seriously want to read even more. Great review.

My hand reached down her floss and then felt a soft touch of her labia majora while creeping through her pubic symphysis.

You think the Bad Sex Award nominees are bad? Check out this guy!

Ms Magazine have compiled a great list of 2012’s Best Poetry Books By Women. I’m basically making it an instant to-read list.

I tagged Helen McClory in my Next Big Thing post t’other day. Here’s her very intriguing response!

HELLO I WOULD LIKE TO LIVE IN ALL THESE HOUSES.

I hadn’t seen all of the latest lot of mystery Edinburgh book sculptures til now. The Treasure Island one is amazing!

Fuck Yeah Book Arts! has a great DIY section full of book-making tutorials!

Do you — like me — hate it when people misuse the word “literally”? If so, here are some hilarious examples from sports commentators. SO FUNNY/TERRIBLE. (Thanks, Billie!)

Maggi Gibson picked out her top 10 books for young feminists!

So, two things have been boiling my blood recently. The first is the whole Christian Ward plagiarism thing. I now can’t quite believe I gave Christian a platform here at ONS, and have since removed an interview he gave here, which was being quoted by a lot of news outlets covering the story. But there has been some interesting commentary on the issue. Paisley Rekdal’s open letter was furious, moving and wonderful, and I liked The Snarkist’s initially-flippant-but-actually-quite-incisive take.

The other thing that’s been boiling my blood? Suzanne Moore claiming that sane people rightly telling her she’s a transphobe = bullying mob, OMG!, and then just the entire the hot lemon-sucking mess that is Julie Burchill. I’m sure you’ve heard all about it and I sure as hell won’t link to La Burchill’s disgusting display of hate speech (still online in spite of the Observer’s retraction, btw). However, there’ve been some smashing responses. The best, for me, came from the freaking wonderful Laurie Penny, and the awe-inspiring Paris Lees. These are women who deserve your clicks, folks. Not a woman, but no less deserving, is Harry Giles, who also wrote a stellar response.

This slide-show of tattooed women through the ages is bloody excellent.

Did you guys see the Shetland ponies wearing cardigans? YOU MUST CLICK THIS.

Christopher Lee: better than you since 1922.

They’re a bit soap-box-y, and more than a little steely, but I kind of like these Rules To Live By.

Need cheering up? Tons of dog gifs. You’re welcome.

Also from Buzzfeed, the Funniest Autocorrects of 2012 made me howl with laughter.

Some brave folks respond to the Moore/Burchill BS.

Jane McGonigal is a freaking LEGEND.

The utterly wonderful Amanda Oaks made this spectacular video about hooping and healing. I love it.

I am also so loving this song lately.

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)

An earlier version of this post appeared at One Night Stanzas in September 2008.

Procrastination. You know, that thing where re-cataloguing your record collection or washing all the skirting-boards in your house suddenly seems really important? Here’s how to beat it.

1: Start.
When you have a task or tasks that you’re avoiding, for whatever reason, it’s often just the thought of getting started that’s daunting. It may be hard to do, but just sit down, shove everything else out of your mind, and start. Even if you can only write a title, or the first sentence, it’s something… you’ve given yourself something to work from. Get something done; knowing you’ve started can make all the difference, because that task is no longer “to do”, it’s “in progress” instead.

2: Make a timetable.
When I had my PhD thesis to write, I found I couldn’t empty my head of all the other stuff that I “should” be doing — laundry that I’d previously been happy to leave spilling over the top of the washing-basket, sorting out my bank-statements, writing to people I hadn’t been in touch with for years, etc. Of course, none of these things were essential, but my brain wouldn’t let me focus on my essay-writing until I’d removed these distractions. In the end, I made myself a timetable. I wrote up a mental list of all the “other stuff” I needed to do, and then spent a full morning completing these tasks. At 1pm sharp, forced myself to start writing. And eventually, I’d get into it… or maybe I just ran out of “other stuff.”

3: Unplug the internet.
Just about anyone you ask will tell you that the internet is one of the worst distractions there is. It doesn’t just eat into your writing time… all too often it disguises itself as a writing “aid”, so you feel justified in surfing when you should be working. If you’re reading writing blogs or other people’s poems, then surely that’s just research, right? That’s just helping? But you know, deep down, that it’s just not true.
Stop it! Pull the plug! Disconnect your internet… or move to another room, the garden, or anywhere out of range! If you don’t need the internet to do what you’re doing (and chances are, you really don’t), then there’s no reason for it to be accessible. For some people this feels like severing an arm, but try it, and see what a difference it can make!

4: Bitesize it.
As a tutor, I constantly get pupils complaining that they can’t concentrate for long enough to get their revision done properly, and I always send them in the direction of Bitesize. You can browse it by a subject - say, English Lit - and it will break your subject down into its modules: in this case, Reading, Close Reading, Speaking, Writing etc. The students find that it makes their essay-writing and revision sessions so much easier, because they are given managable amounts of work to do at once.
When you find yourself procrastinating, you have to do the same thing. Think about your task. Do you need to write an essay, put together a poem, do some editing? Think about how you could split the task into several smaller tasks. Could you edit a stanza at a time? Write your essay paragraph by paragraph? Doing something slowly is better than doing nothing at all.

5: Don’t go it alone.
You might think that having other people around would be even more distracting, but in fact, working in someone else’s presence can really focus you. Get together, have a cup of tea, talk things over, and then get to work. If someone else is keeping an eye on you, you’re less likely to leap up and say “I think I might just wash the car / clean out the kitchen cupboards / bake a cake” or whatever… and if the other person is working away diligently, you’ll feel the need to keep up. If you can’t concentrate with someone else sitting next to you, or if you can’t find anyone who’s willing to come and work too, just get your partner to look in on you every so often to see if you’re still working, or get a friend to text you for a word-count at the top of each hour. It might feel a bit like being in detention, but it’ll keep you going!

6: Take breaks.
I nag and nag and nag my students constantly about this. Your brain only works at its best for 45 minutes at a time… after that, your concentration starts to flag and the task you’re working on gets less and less of your attention. For that reason, you should only ever work for one full hour maximum before you take a break… and your break should be a proper break, where you set aside at least ten minutes to do something other than the task at hand. Not taking breaks can encourage procrastination, because if you work and work until you’re sick and tired of working, eventually you’re going to get to a point where you walk away from your task and don’t go back to it.

7: Go against your habits.
You may not like working in the evening (or in the morning, afternoon, whenever), but that’s tough luck if your deadline is looming. Your favourite library or internet cafe may be closed, your favourite writing pen might have run out. Deal with it! Don’t let these things become excuses not to complete your task! Procrastination is pressure enough without you placing further limitations on yourself. Even if you do have to work in the evening / in your living room / with a different pen, you’ll be glad you soldiered through once the task is finished!

8: Give yourself an incentive.
For some people, just the idea of getting a project finished is incentive enough. However, telling yourself that “eventually I will have a finished poem” or “some day I will get paid for this commission” or “perhaps this poem will get into a magazine once I edit it” might not be enough to get you worked up to the task. If so, you need some incentive, so think of a way to reward yourself once you’re done. Resolve to treat yourself to a takeaway, a long soak in the bath, a new book or whatever you think will make it all feel a bit more worthwhile. Sit down to work with your reward in mind, and you may well find that you suddenly feel more like putting your nose to the grindstone. No cheating though - don’t let yourself dial for a pizza or step into a bookshop before you’re done. Get the task finished… and then you can mix the relief of finishing with the sweet taste of a celebratory tub of Ben and Jerry’s!

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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)

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)

Right before I left the States for Europe, I dyed my hair bright red. In a poetry workshop at Cave Canem, Nikki Finney asked the other poets to describe the color of my hair as specifically as possible. Red like paprika, like Kool-Aid, like burnt sienna, like rust… I carry these colors in my head like memories of past lives.

This piece, by Saeed Jones, is really excellent. All about appearance, identity, race, place and loss. Fabulous.

Want to be able to read lying down without getting neck-strain or having all the blood run out of your arms? Now you can… as long as you don’t mind looking daft.

This tutorial on how to make your own small notebook is really cool.

OMG this is a newly-found photograph of (probably) Emily Dickinson! …and speaking of Emily Dickinson: O M G !!!

“Around 11:00PM I received 3 different calls, all blocked, with one leaving a “delete your review!” voicemail and the second stating that I should just kill myself for being such a miserable person for attacking poor Emily. REALLY? And yes, I’m talking with the cops about this already. I mean that’s Misery kind of fan territory. Not long after I heard a loud bang on my deck and I was legitimately scared that it was a gunshot. Far fetched maybe but this was quickly sinking into WTF territory.”

This girl received death threats for writing an Amazon review… and the novelist felt this was pretty OK. I’ve never heard of Emily Giffin but I am sure as hell boycotting her every book after this!

A peek inside the Sketchbooks of the Pros.

Got puns? You do now!

The world’s most beautiful literary magazines — and I’ve been published in one of them! Woo!

You’re thinking about skipping over this one without clicking because it’s called How To Use Google Search More Effectively, aren’t you? DON’T, I BEG YOU. It blew my tiny little mind.

98% of everything I own is second hand. My blow dryer, my picture frames, my sheets (not as gross as you’re imagining). They cost a fraction of what I’d pay for them new, and no one’s the wiser. At least until I tell the internet that I sleep on used sheets.

ME TOO, LADY. And all the other advice listed here is bloody excellent, too.

I contributed to this IdeasMag article on how to make a good impression in your University application. If you’re a prospective student, check it out!

Katja’s meditations make me want to say thank you for more stuff. So, thank you, Katja, for your blog. It’s awesome.

Allow me to teach you a new word.

OMG Starbucks bans screenwriters! So funny!

Yes, I was scared at times, but I had also been scared sitting on my futon watching “The Real World.” (Scared of the phone, scared of the future, scared of what people said about me.) The far more terrifying fate, as I saw it, was that I would fail to become the person I wanted to be. I still wasn’t sure what that was yet. I spent much of those five months feeling like a kite dangling on a string. Was I going to head to grad school? Write for television? Open my own school? My mind filled with clouds. But my God, it was fun. It was boring, too. I took eight-hour hikes and let my mind wander, or sang the “Xanadu” soundtrack for the 18 billionth time.

Why every woman should travel alone chipped quite a big block off my terror at the thought of doing just that.

I was chuffed to come across this database of great vegan cookery zines.

…and speaking of which, I am officially a disciple of the goddess Isa Chandra Moskowitz, and her guide to vegan activism is AWESOME.

Political Facebook discussions. So awful. So true. (I harbour a special resentment for “The Thoughtful One.”)

I am neither an empty man-socket nor a fucking venus flytrap. I am not looking to “attract a man.” I am just trying to do my stuff and then maybe meet a person who likes me because I am also a person. I didn’t want to get all serious right off the bat, BUT SORRY: Women’s grueling, lifelong, losing battle to transform themselves into magical, flawless creatures with Disney hair and 15-inch waists and massive ham-lips is not for the benefit of women. And when men say that they “love to see the woman underneath the makeup,” they’re not saying they want to see your leg stubble and greasy bangs—they’re saying they want you to be better at hiding your maintenance routine.

I utterly, utterly love Lindy West. My sister, my bloke and I all cackled hysterically at her take-down of stupid guys who comment on their ladies’ beauty routines.

OK, you might think I’m ridiculous, but this woman’s videos have CHANGED MY HOUSE FOREVER.

Is it terrible that, rather than buying things from this Etsy store, I am using it as inspiration to make DIY book-based projects…?

OI!!! Edinburgh Vintage is having a SALE! There’s also a FINAL CLEARANCE section! Go buy pretty things and help me empty my spare room!

Zoe Margolis looking HAWT and calling publishers out on their bullshit.

Amy Poehler being a magical badass goddess of wisdom.

& finally, I love this. Who said Etsy sellers don’t have a sense of humour?

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)

So firstly, it’s been a pretty horrendous week, in spite of my attempting to remain positive yesterday. Some highlights? Massive (and confidential, otherwise I’d rant) work drama, dentistry, and a huge Facebook fall-out with about 50% of my boyfriend’s closest friends vs me. Self, is there anything else horrible you’d like to start? Let’s hope not. All I can say is — thank goodness for silly stuff on the internets. Seriously — hours of cute kittens and other nice things on Tumblr was pretty much all that kept me from building a big sign and painting “F*CK YOU ALL” on it before retreating to bed with a bucket of ice cream to cry and never return. THANK YOU INTERWEBNETS.

Secondly, I’ve found very few writing-related links this week that I fancied re-posting. If you’re after that stuff, check out these first few and then go put the kettle on, because after a while, randomness sets in. You were warned!

OK, let’s start as we mean to go on. Here’s a photo of Neil Gaiman being random and awesome.

The blank white page. El Diablo Blanco. El Pollo Loco. Whatever you choose to call it, staring into the abyss in search of an idea can be terrifying. But ask yourself this; was Picasso intimidated by the blank canvas? Was Mozart intimidated by the blank sheet music? Was Edison intimidated by the blank lightbulb?

More writing-related hilarity from McSweeney’s.

There aren’t many poetry reviews convince me like this one did.

Do you make books? You should totally enter this contest.

“Ebooks: I hate them. It’s like making believe there’s another kind of sex. There isn’t another kind of sex. There isn’t another kind of book! A book is a book is a book.”

The great, grumpy genius that was Maurice Sendak has gone to the night kitchen in the sky. Sad times! Read his NYT obit here. There’s a great recent interview with him here, too.

This is a mind-blowing infographic. $875m in taxes dodged in the US alone? Yet more reasons to hate NewsCorp.

These amazing line work tattoos… flippin’ incredible.

“If you have social media profiles set up online, you should create a statement of how you would like your online identity to be handled. Just like a traditional will helps your survivors handle your physical belongings, a social media will spells out how you want your online identity to be handled. Like with a traditional will, you’ll need to appoint someone you trust as an online executor. This person will be responsible for closing your email addresses, social media profiles, and blogs after you are deceased.”

Have you ever thought about making an online will?

Camilla sent me this sweet photoset of laid-back capybaras. Thanks for brightening my crap week, C!

I just had a Cinco de Mayo party. I was worried about cultural appropriation. But this stuff hits my quiet Mexican dinner out of the park. [Trigger warning for extreme racism.]

Oh no please, please don’t give me a reason to dislike Tiny Fey…! Oops, too late.

Does this whole concept freak anyone else out, or am I just a technophobe?

Two really interesting — and contentious — and different — articles about activism. One from Furrygirl, who’s right-on as often as she’s wrong, and one from Kate Harris, who’s brave and honest and taking a lot of pretty nasty flak. Go read.

The great Allen Ginsberg once said,

“how can the bunch of hairdressers, ambitious laywers and used car-dealers that call themselves municipal government get off telling women - to whom they haven’t even been introduced - what they can do with their own vaginas?!”

Will Self totally agrees.

How commercial aeroplanes SHOULD be laid out. Thanks Amanda!

Inspirational — the amazing power of yoga! Blub.

I have no idea why this happened but I have to say I quite enjoyed it.

Oh Maurice. Bless you. Sleep well, fine sir.

I *love* Rufus Wainwright’s new song — and HBC is in the (library-themed!) video!

& finally: this! Tomorrow! I’m reading! So is Lovely Boyfriend! Come, one and all!

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)

Lovely links of loveliness.

“[Dorothy] Parker picked up two of Zelda [Fitzgerald]’s oils for a total of $35. And while Parker thought them of quality, she also found them too disturbing to hang—perhaps no surprise, as of the many things that Dorothy Parker was, champion nester was not one of them. According to Meade [Parker's biographer], “So phobic was her reaction to domesticity that she would rather have starved before boiling herself an egg.” Were you to do the equivalent favor to a friend’s artist wife in rehab today, you would plunk down $612.94.”

Such a weird, but great, idea for an article: what it cost eight women writers to make it in New York, over the past one hundred years.

I kind of like the idea of sending yourself a rejection letter.

Identifying the five types of work you do each day, and picking out the good stuff.

“But I forget the names, remembering them wrongly
Where they touch upon another name,
A town in France like a woman’s Christian name.

My childhood is preserved as a nation’s history,
My favourite fairy tales the shells
Leased by the hermit crab.”

Swiss posted a great poem by Medbh McGuckian this week. Read the rest here.

I’ve seen this done before, but this is by far the best example I’ve come across: poetry, written with book spines.

I have loved this poem since I read it in a children’s poetry anthology aged about six, before I had any idea who Lawrence Ferlinghetti was.

“The writers that I know and love are some of the hardest working individuals I’ve ever encountered. They spend years of their lives working on their books. They toil away at day jobs and then write when they’re not working. After their book gets published, they work their asses off to get it publicized, they do events, they write supplementary materials, they maintain websites, they talk to fans online, and they start writing their next book — A WRITER NEVER STOPS WORKING.”

Having read so many grim, I-don’t-really-like-e-books-but-I-have-to-pretend-I-do posts, it is so nice to have a kick-ass bookseller finally come out and tell it like it is about churned-out $1.99 fiction. I APPROVE.

Want some handy literary quotes to ink on your bedroom walls? Here’s Henry Rollins and Ira Glass over at Dog on a Swing.

Now, this is my idea of a mobile library!

“We park and walk up to the entrance. No running the gantlet between pickets shouting at me that I’m a murderer, no fear that someone will throw a bomb. The receptionist takes my name and says, “You just have to talk with a counselor first.” I don’t mind, I figure it’s part of the procedure. I tell the counselor I already have four children and I don’t want any more. I’m on a different track now. She nods understandingly and says they’ll be ready for me soon. No judgment, no showing me pictures of fetuses, no trying to make me feel guilty.”

Abortion: the good old days. This is really touching, sad and just plain great. Read it, all.

You’re not as busy as you think you are. Fact.

Oh hey, remember my Barcelona trip a couple of weeks ago? Well, my lovely friend and travel-buddy Ula is a street photographer — check out some of her beautiful images of the trip at her Flickr.

“[Obnoxious commenters] look around, see an internet reduced to a Giant Lavatory Wall, and decide to get in on the act themselves. [...] One of the most active cheerleaders of commenting is the Guardian, which employs a dozen or so moderators, plus another dozen “community co-ordinators” who monitor Facebook, Twitter, Tumblrs and so on (the paper doesn’t give out an exact number). Assuming these people are on a modest £20,000 each, that’s nearly half a million pounds a year spent on making sure that the “community” – 1 per cent of readers – is well-served.”

The always-great Helen Lewis on why you’re totally within your rights to shut down your comment thread and say FsCK YOU to the trolling masses. Applause!

Getting your books’ ISBNs tattooed on yourself? Personally, I think that is super cool.

Oh my goodness, Jon. Way to make my day by sending me NYAN WAITS. (Click it.)

Aaaand the obligatory cute posts: baby sea otter, anyone? And yes, naturally, there must and shall be A KITTY.

It was only a matter of time before Gala Darling had her own TED(xCMU) talk! It’s all about self-esteem, self-love, and (for me anyway) her odd-but-charming half-Kiwi-half-US accent (listen for how she suddenly says “writing on my blaaaahg”)!

OK, guilty confession — in spite of the awful lyrics and general cheesiness — I love this song. Perfect for hooping!

Grandparents discover Photo Booth. SO CUTE.

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)

^^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!

(Photo credit)

Hello 2012! There hasn’t been a Procrastination Station in these parts for AGES. Here’s a bumper round-up of my recent reading…

I know it says 31st Dec, but the James Kirkup Memorial Poetry Competition’s deadline has been extended to 31st JANUARY! If you like free entry (yeah!) and want to get your pamphlet published by my smashing publisher, get entering!

Got writer’s block? Try lowering your standards.

“How to read ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’? Why, very quickly, to begin with, and perhaps also to make an end. Why read it? Presumably, if you cannot be persuaded to read anything better, Rowling will have to do.” — Harold Bloom (and others) brings the snark.

Matt McDonald tells you pretty much all you need to know about writing poetry.

Want to see how much heat you generate when you type? There’s an app for that.

Have you guys ordered your HOT MALE LIBRARIANS calendar for 2012 yet?

“Well-read is not a destination; there is nowhere to get to, and if you assume there is somewhere to get to, you’d have to live a thousand years to even think about getting there, and by the time you got there, there would be a thousand years to catch up on.” … and who wants to be ‘well read’ anyway?

I always, always write longhand, so I emphatically get behind this.

& similarly: in praise of notebooks.

Classic Penguin titles’ bookcovers redesigned as tattoo flash. Throw in a typewriter and that is ALL MY FAVOURITE THINGS AT ONCE.

I know I keep saying this, but I seriously cannot understand how I lived my life for 25 years without knowing of the existence of HTMLGiant. Check out these great — and very frank — responses to the question, “how do I get a wider readership for my work?”

Keira Knightley and her evil quest to appear on ALL THE BOOKS.

“All songs ultimately are about love… with the possible exception of Pinball Wizard.” < -- A lovesong for librarians! If you click on nothing else in this post, click this!

What books do when you’re not looking… (Thanks, Sally!)

& I know everyone in the world has already seen this, but because I’m sure you won’t mind… here it is again. (Thanks, Martyna!)

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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