One Night Stanzas

At the end of 2012, I wrote, “it’s been a great year. I feel I am a million miles away from the place I was in this time last year — phew! I am also extremely excited about 2013 and all that it holds for me. I plan to finish my PhD, put together my first full-length poetry collection (at last!), get more tattoos (yeah!), and start work on a ton of exciting new projects. Wish me luck!” Did I manage all those things? I freaking well did! Check it out!

In 2013, I…

* saw in the New Year with loads of lovely friends around me, shimmying on down at the Summerhall New Year bash. Amazing night! (If you can go to this year’s one, I highly recommend it!)

* re-joined the Making It Home Project for our ambitious film-making phase, thanks to funding from the wondrous Creative Scotland! Keep reading to find out how it went…

* began a year of mentoring sessions with Sarah Ream, poetry ed at Polygon and total and utter superhero, funded by the Scottish Book Trust. With help from Sarah, I began taking nervous little baby steps towards creating a first collection MS.

* spent a very cold few days in and around gorgeous Oslo in the new year: negotiating several feet of snow, discovering the incredible TV show Borgen (and becoming totally hooked!), and writing plenty of poems.

* baked a lot of stuff.

* celebrated my 27th birthday: there was snow! In March!

* celebrated my first veganniversary by pledging to continue to eat as much delicious cruelty-free dessert as I can find. Win!

* repeatedly apologised to everyone for not doing more poetry gigs… when actually, when I look back, I did quite a lot.

* spent Easter in beautiful, deliciously warm Barcelona: revisiting all my favourite vegan restaurants, sunbathing in parks and on rooftops, and again, writing lots of poems. Hooray!

* became suddenly able to afford to buy a house with Lovely Boyfriend. Began immediately and excitedly house-hunting!

* successfully co-edited (alongside the gorgeous Jane McKie) the Making It Home Book, with thanks to all of YOU for your generous crowdfunding!

* spent over nine hours under the needle to have my Oliver No. 9 typewriter half-sleeve tattooed. It is so lush! (Scroll down!)

* escaped one heck of an evil manager, and immediately boosted my self-esteem, by negotiating a transfer to teach at a different campus. (He’s since been demoted and is no longer anyone’s manager. Thanks, karma!)

* went out filming with the brilliant media co-op and our gorgeous groups of Making It Home women. I learned all about how hard film-making is (needless to say, the women were all flippin’ geniuses at it), held lots of things, and ran around with coats keeping our actresses warm!

* I went to lovely London for a few days and discovered Foyles. HOW HAD I NEVER BEEN TO THIS MAGICAL PLACE BEFORE?! (I bought so many books. So many.)

* successfully negotiated the purchase of our new house, a sweet two-bed semi off Inverleith Row (no less)…

* …and immediately began the process of completely re-vamping this never-modernised house. The phrase “no idea what we were getting into” doesn’t even start to cover it!

* learned how to work a belt-sander, learned how to plaster, and wielded a sledgehammer (oh hell yeah!) for the first time ever, thanks to the above!

* went on tour around Edinburgh and Glasgow, showcasing Making It Home. Thank you so much to the many magical people who supported us on our whistle-stop tour!

* finally drew a line under three-and-a-half years of study, and submitted my PhD.

* started the serious work of putting together my manuscript.

* was selected for the Contemporary Women’s Writing Skills Development programme, and attended the amazing first session at the University of Southampton.

* re-launched Edinburgh Vintage as a jewellery store and saw a fourfold increase in sales!

* successfully interviewed for, and accepted, a brilliant amazing fantastic wonderful new job (basically, my dream job, I’m serious) at Scottish Book Trust. I am now their Young Adult Project Co-Ordinator!

* spent four great days in beautiful Munich: eating vegan food, petting lots of kitties, and being constantly surrounded by pretty autumnal foliage. (We also visited the memorial camp at Dachau, which was exhausting, but I now believe that visiting a concentration camp is something every privileged human ought to do at some point.)

* completed a first draft of my first collection manuscript, and began test-driving poems from it at various events… including at Book Week Scotland!

* organised and judged the inaugural One Night Stanzas Poetry Contest! Have you read the winning poems yet?

* had a wood-burning stove put in as part of our new house renovations. Imagine how good that might be, then double it.

* successfully defended my PhD thesis to examiners Miriam Gamble and Dr Leontia Flynn at my viva. I passed! You may now call me Dr Askew!

* finished building and renovation work on our living room only just in time for Christmas, and spent my first Christmas morning with Lovely Boyfriend — after four years of being together! Blissful.

The year in photos…

Chilling in Oslo…

…but warming up again in Barcelona!

27th birthday cupcakes!

A storyboard from one of the amazing Making It Home films.

The half-sleeve! Six months on and I still swoon when I look at it.

Out filming with the gorgeous Sheena, Elaine and Stacey of Making It Home. Such pros.

Celebrating a successful Making It Home tour, with a triumphant boogie at North Edinburgh Arts!

House flippin’! Sanding, sanding, so much sanding…

Hanging out in autumnal Munich.

My new neighbourhood!

Sparkly stuff goes live at Edinburgh Vintage!

Book Week Scotland 2013!

The thesis-beast: SLAYED!

FINISHED IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS!!! …just.

Wishes for 2014?
You know what? I am so freaking happy right now. In the past year, so many amazing things have happened — passing my PhD, buying my first house with my gorgeous man, landing my dream job. I feel greedy wishing for anything else, really. However, I do like to have goals, so here are one or two hopes for the year ahead…

*Shop my poetry MS around some cool publishers, and hopefully place it somewhere fantastic (I know, I know. Poetry is dismal right now, especially for first collections. But we can but try).
* Gather my strength to continue the great renovation and finish off the kitchen, tackle the bathroom and create a veggie garden!
* Adopt a dog… or two! Probably greyhounds!
That’s basically it. Oh, and write some good poems. That’d be nice, too.

If you want to see what I got up to in 2008, 2009, 2010 2011, or 2012, just click on each year!

I hope 2014 brings you everything you could possibly wish for, and more besides. Happy New Year!

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Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. 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!

Dear everyone, but especially those of you I promised a BWS 2013 blogpost to,

I am sorry this post comes nearly a full month after Book Week Scotland actually happened. The fact I did not blog about it immediately after has nothing to do with the quality of BWS 2013 (it was utterly awesome, in fact). It does, however, have a great deal to do with the fact that my PhD viva (yep) came very swiftly after BWS 2013, and went from “that thing I am working hard at not thinking about” to “that thing that is consuming my whole life right now.” Terribly sorry about that. Hopefully, late is better than never. Here’s how I spent my Book Week Scotland 2013. How about you?

xo, Claire

Sunday night: Shore Poets November
OK, so at this point BWS 2013 was still about four hours away from its official kick-off, and I should probably note that SP November wasn’t an official Book Week Scotland event. It did make a nice literary appetiser for the delicious wordy smorgasbord that was about to follow, however.

The event featured the ever-witty Tracey S Rosenberg in the New Poet slot — among other cool stuff that happened during her set, she wore a great skirt with kitties on it, and read a really excellent poem about and dedicated to the infamous Shore Poets lemon cake. Nice work.

Christine de Luca was the Shore Poet, and her reading was incredible as ever. She mostly read poems in Shetland dialect, which was a delight to hear. My favourite was her poem about the Canadian First Nations woman who made a purse out of swan’s feet. And me a vegan!

The headline poet was Gerrie Fellows, who I’ll admit, I’ve never seen read before — nor have I read any of her work in print. But she was on fine form and read on a variety of subjects. Her poem about coming across the ruins of a crashed aircraft was especially great, as was her sound poem about pointing out deer to a small child.

I should perhaps mention that I once again reprised my role as Scotland’s most awkward literary MC at this particular event!

Monday: Making It Home for Book Week Scotland, “Words Against Violence.”
Book Week Scotland officially began on 25th November 2013! And I was READY FOR IT.

If you’ve even glanced in passing at this blog in the past year, you’ll know all about the Making It Home Project, aka Possibly The Best Thing I Have Ever Been A Part Of In My Life Ever. Well, because the Book Week Scotland team are excellent, they decided Making It Home needed its own space at BWS 2013, so we teamed up with Glasgow Women’s Library to create the “Words Against Violence” event. I read the project poems — including some of the poems written by our gorgeous participants — and we watched the project films, then had a brilliant, thought provoking discussion that was supposed to be panel-format, but ended up just being everyone sitting in a circle with a cuppa and having a really, really good chat. So my kind of event! Here are some pics:

This is the GWL volunteer tree. I utterly love the concept, and the execution! So lovely.

It’s a great way to mark the vital contribution of each volunteer.

GWL’s Gabrielle kicking off the event. (Thank you so much Gabrielle, for your warm welcome and all your capable assistance!)

Making It Home’s project manager Esa, aka Wonderwoman.

Thoughtful faces as the films play…

Oh, Glasgow. Never change.

Tuesday night: Talking Heids (for Book Week Scotland)
Talking Heids is Edinburgh’s magical new(ish) spoken word night on the block, hosted by one of my all-time favs Colin McGuire (pictured here):

It happens on the third Tuesday of every month (I think? It’s once a month and it’s on a Tuesday night, anyway) at Sofi’s in Leith, and each month two poets are featured. For the BWS event, the two poets were Rob A Mackenzie and Rachel Amey. Rob took us on a brilliant chronological tour through his works, starting with the first poem he ever had published, and ending with brand spanking new hot-off-the-printer work. Rachel, meanwhile, read 100% from memory as always, and as always, blew my mind. Her NHS poem never stops giving me chills.

There is also an open mic at the end, and among the acts at the BWS one were yours truly, and the really great Mr Roddy Shippin, lurking rather suspiciously by the door in the photo above. Also up at the mic was the barman, who read a Philip Larkin poem rather excellently, and then, emboldened, took out one of his own poems and read his work in public for the first time ever. The poem (he insisted it was not a poem, “just some lines I wrote on a train,” but if that’s not a poem then my whole writing career has been a huge lie) was great, and I always love it when such things happen. Things like that happening are why tiny open mics in pubs are awesome, and why people who pay to listen to poetry are awesome, and why Book Week Scotland is awesome. Yay!

Wednesday night: The 2013 Margaret Harris lecture.
OK, this was not a Book Week Scotland event. In fact, I had to not go to a Book Week Scotland event in order to go to this! But it was for work, and it was fascinating, although I disagreed with a whole lot of it and found the speaker, Tom Devine, somewhat maddening. Fun fact: ten minutes into the lecture (at a kind of pivotal moment, too) we were all evacuated and lots of firemen called because some mime artists set off a smoke machine in the next room. Dramz! Also, my first ever trip to Dundee!

Thursday night: night off.
(I needed to regroup. Also I’d temporarily run out of BWS pin badges to give out.)

Friday night: Communal Dolphin Snouting
Probably the less said about the title of this event, the better (there were lots of squeaky inflatable dolphin-shaped fairground hammer things hanging from the ceiling when I arrived, and as one of the performers I felt somewhat nervous. Fortunately, said dolphin-hammers were not used to attack me, so I must have done OK). Mainly because it means I can say more about PhiFA — full name, the Berlin Philosophical Football Association.

(Photo credit Andrew McCue)

Wait, what? I hear you cry… yep, philosophical football. It’s basically a live philosophical debate, wherein pro philosophers team up with citizen thought-mongers picked from the crowd, and are timed, refereed and commentated upon as in football. A Muse provides topics to be debated, and ninety minutes of debate follows. Free kicks can be given for cliches and sentimentality, while yellow and red cards can be handed out for things like cheesiness or plagiarism. All the while, a match photographer rapidly makes colourful drawings of the participants, or renders their ideas and arguments into visual form. And scribbling away simultaneously is the match poet… on this occasion, you guessed it, me.

The match poet writes up the match report in the form of a poem — in real time, as the debate is going on. The poem must be finished by the final whistle, and performed live in front of the spectators. As you can imagine, the pressure was pretty intense… but actually, the lovely philosophers provided me with plenty of material, and I managed to come up with a two-part poem (for a two-part match, natch) that I was actually pretty pleased with. The audience seemed to like it, too! So thanks, Book Week Scotland, for putting me way out of my comfort zone, but in what proved to be a good way!

Saturday night: The Inky Fingers / Book Week Scotland Dead Poet Slam
One night.
A dozen dead poets.
A time machine.
A stage.
An audience.
One amazing gig…

(In all seriousness: this great event, fronted by the aforementioned and excellent Tracey S Rosenberg, was a slam with a difference. Each competitor had to perform not their own work, but the work of their favourite dead poet, preferably in costume and ideally with props and a funny voice, where applicable. I was one of the judges — dressed as Dame Edith Sitwell in the spirit, if you’ll pardon the pun, of the evening — and let me tell you, this was a TOUGH contest. Finally won by the utterly brilliant Anne Connolly, who, as my fabulous fellow judge Alice Tarbuck pointed out, could become a professional WB Yeats impersonator.)

Here are some pics:

Alice Tarbuck and I as Aphra Behn and Edith Sitwell respectively, sitting at the judging table of doom.

MC Kurt Schwitters, aka Ali Maloney, aka Harlequinade.

Defending champ Charles Bukowski, aka Colin McGuire.

Hostess with the mostess Dorothy Parker, aka Tracey S Rosenberg.

The new champ WB Yeats, aka Anne Connolly!

Top secret judging paperwork.

Scary judges Edith Sitwell (aka me), Aphra Behn (aka Alice Tarbuck) and Vita Sackville-West (aka Jane McKie).

Thanks Book Week Scotland, for the words, the books, the banter, and OVER 600 EVENTS SCOTLAND-WIDE! Already looking forward to 2014!

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Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. 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 by Neil Thomas Douglas

Well folks, the PhD is submitted. It’s in, gone, there’s no longer anything I can do with, at, to, or about it. Which means I have to start doing poetry events again, because I no longer have an excuse not to. Here are a few you should come along to. Not (only) because of me, but because Book Week Scotland, Making It Home and Inky Fingers are all super fabulous, and need your support!

Monday 25th November 2013
Making it Home for Book Week Scotland: words against violence
The Glasgow Women’s Library, 1200-1400, FREE

Book Week Scotland is a totally amazing initiative — and I’m not just saying that because I’m paid to. I’m so happy that BWS have recognised the amazingness of the women of Making It Home, and teamed up with us in order to showcase the work we’ve been doing. At this event, I’ll be facilitating a showing of the Making It Home project films, and reading the poems that inspired those films. There’ll also be a discussion around the power of poetry and writing to conquer violence (especially violence against women). Very excited about this one.

Tuesday 26th November 2013
Talking Heids for Book Week Scotland
Sofi’s Bar in Leith, 1900, FREE

Talking Heids is a brand spanking new monthly poetry night invented and hosted by the magical Mr Colin McGuire, who as you probably know by now is my #1 favourite Scottish performance poet. This month he’s joined forced with Book Week Scotland to bring you feature slots from Rachel Amey and Rob A Mackenzie. There’s also an open mic, at which yours truly will be reading, and which you can sign up for at the Facebook event.

Wednesday 27th November 2013
Making it Home for Book Week Scotland: “Writing Home” creative writing workshop
The Scottish Poetry Library, 1800-2000, FREE

Come along and see the Making It Home project films, then write your own poem inspired by one or all of them. The lovely and talented Jane McKie will be on hand to encourage discussion and thought on the topics of home, belonging, identity, nationhood, sanctuary and displacement. Come along with a pen, leave with a poem.

Friday 29th November 2013
A Philosophical Football Match for Book Week Scotland
Transmission Gallery 2000-2300 (doors 1930), FREE

What is a philosophical football match, I hear you cry? Well, you get some philosophers, they sit around a table, and a Muse drops in and gives them a topic to debate over. Whoever comes up with the best argument scores a goal, and the philosophers move onto the next topic, until time runs out or the Muse gets tired or the philosophers run out of arguments or… something. And a trusty poet is on hand to record all of it, and create a great work of literature at the end. Sound intriguing? Well, it’s happening on Friday night in Glasgow, and guess who the aforementioned trusty poet is? Please come along and cheer on your favourite philosopher!

Saturday 30th November 2013
Inky Fingers & Book Week Scotland Revenge of the Dead Poets Slam
The New Bongo Club at 66 Cowgate, 1900-2200, FREE

OK, so many things about this event are exciting. One: all the performers are reading poems by dead poets. Two: all the performers will be dressed as dead poets. Three: I get to dress as a dead poet BUT NOT PERFORM! Four: the dead poet I will be dressed as will be DAME EDITH SITWELL (Oh. hell. yes.) Five: I’m one of the judges, along with Alice Tarbuck and, er, Jane McKie (we are each others’ friendly poet-y stalkers), so I have ALL THE POWER MUAHAHA. OK, just kidding. I am a nice judge. Anyway, it’s going to be totally fabulous, and you should really come along, and you should really dress up. Really.

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Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. 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!

I’m really excited to be announcing — on the Shore Poets blog, on Twitter, on Facebook, and to anyone who stands still for long enough — that the new Shore Poets season is about to commence.
Why am I so excited? Well, I’ve been a Shore Poet for nearly a year… but this is the first season where I’ve actually helped to choose the programme. I’m part of the New Poets sub-committee (oh yes, it’s complex stuff. No, really), which means that all the New Poets hosted by Shore Poets between now and June 2014 have my official seal of approval.

I feel very humbled indeed to be given such responsibility, and greatly appreciate my fellow Shores for taking my thoughts and ideas on board. At our programme-creating meetings, I tried as much as possible to consider the issues I raised in my last post, as well as thinking about the various poets out there whose work I really, really like. Over the course of the new SP season, we’ll be hosting in the New Poet slot people like the excellent Tracey S Rosenberg, and the lovely and talented Theresa Munoz. There’ll also be some really exciting names headlining our events and providing the essential live music… as well as, of course, a great set from one of the Shore Poets to round off each month. (Date for your diary: I’m up on 27th October.)

That’s all to come, but in the meantime, here are the details for the first event of our new season, this very month! It’s going to be all-round brilliant, but I am especially excited to be welcoming Roddy Shippin as the New Poet. I’ve published him here at ONS before, and am always keen to go and hear him read, because he’s great. Just one of many reasons to come along on 29th September… read on to find out the others!

SHORE POETS: September
Henderson’s at St John’s, Lothian Road, Edinburgh
7.45 pm to 10.00 pm
Sunday 29th September 2013
Bar from 7.15pm
Admission £5 / Concessions £3

Our headline poet this month is Chrys Salt. Chrys is an incredibly prolific writer, with drama and nonfiction titles to her name as well as several poetry collections, including Grass (Indigo Dreams, 2012) and Home Front/Front Line (Roncadora, 2013). She is also an important figure in Scotland’s literary arts scene, working as Artistic Director of arts venue The Bakehouse, and Literature Convener for The Dumfries and Galloway Festival. You can find out more about Chrys, and read some of her poems, by visiting her website, chryssalt.com

September’s Shore Poet is Angela McSeveney. Angela’s first collection of poems, Coming Out With It, was published in 1992, after she received advice and encouragement from fellow writers Liz Lochhead and Ron Butlin. She has since published several other books of poetry, the most recent of which, Slaughtering Beetroot, was produced by Mariscat Press in 2008.

Our new poet this month is Roddy Shippin. Roddy is an exciting new voice in Scottish poetry: his work has been published by Poetry Scotland, Ink Sweat & Tears, a handful of stones and One Night Stanzas, among others, and he is one half of the creative team behind the popular monthly spoken word night Blind Poetics. You can read one of Roddy’s poems, Casebook, here.

Our live music for the evening will be provided by Colin Donati and his band, Various Moons.

We’ll also be playing host to our now-regular SP Wildcard Poet… that could be YOU! If you fancy entertaining us with a poem, just put your name in the hat when you pay at the door. One name will be drawn, and that person will get to open proceedings with a poem. Be sure to bring your best work with you!

And of course, a Shore Poets event wouldn’t be complete without our infamous lemon cake raffle.

We hope you’ll come and help us kick off our new season with a bang! Let us know you’re coming — and invite your friends — using our Facebook event!

7.45 pm to 10.00 pm
Sunday 30th June 2013
Bar from 7.15pm
Arrive early to nab a good seat!
Admission £5 / Concessions £3

If you would like to receive regular news about Shore Poets — including being notified of our events — send an e-mail to: newsletter (at) shorepoets.org.uk. You can also contact SP by emailing publicity (at) shorepoets.org.uk

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Budding writer? Creative person in need of a fun job? Check out the various resources and services at Bookworm Tutors. 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!

Hey you guys. I know this basically never happens now (and — sshhh! — I actually kinda like that), but I am going to be reading Some Poems in Some Places over the next few weeks, and I just, you know, thought you might be interested in knowing about it. If so, read on. If not, go and make a cup of tea, or hug someone, or look at this cute panda, or do all or none of those things.

Shore Poets
Sunday 25th November 2012, 7.30pm
Henderson’s at St John’s, Edinburgh
I recently joined the Shore Poets committee, and I must say, I am loving being a part of what must surely be one of Edinburgh’s longest-running poetry nights. This month, my Shore Poet job is to read a set of poems, and I’m super looking forward to it, as this is my first proper poetry gig since before the summer. I’ll be guinea-pig-ifying the audience and offering up some hopefully tasty new poems to see what they make of them. If you fancy being part of this experiment, then come along! Doors open at 7.15, it finishes before ten (so you get to bed early), there’s cake for sale, and indeed a raffle where you could win FREE cake. If you don’t fancy the idea of listening to me waffle on, you’ll be happy to hear there are other, most excellent poets and some music. It’s a damn fine time and it costs a measly £5, or £3 for students.

The Edinburgh launch of Where Rockets Burn Through: Contemporary Science Fiction Poetry From The UK
Thursday 29th November 2012, 6.00pm
Blackwells, Edinburgh
My motto always used to be “never knowingly anthologised,” ’cause no one ever seemed to want me for their “young, upcoming, exciting poets!” type anthologies. I kinda liked the motto, actually, but then some people asked me to be in their anthologies and offered me some money, and you know, I’m a starving poet so OBVIOUSLY. And although I lost my motto, I did end up getting five poems placed in this badboy, a collection of stellar (har!) science fiction poetry from across the Universe UK. I will be reading those poems alongside some other very cool people (Jane McKie! Andrew C Ferguson! Pippa Goldschmidt! I’m exclaiming their names ’cause they’re fabby!), at this lovely free-to-attend launch. There’s a Facebook event here to tell ‘em you’re coming. There will PROBABLY be free wine. There will definitely be fun and frolics. I promise!

Book Week Scotland Pop-Up Festival
Saturday 1st December 2012
Mitchell Library (Cafe Bar), Glasgow
I’m really happy to be reading at the Book Week Scotland Pop Up Festival, which promises to be a day-long cavalcade of literary delights. It starts at 10am and goes on til late with all manner of cool and quirky stuff going on. My small role in all of this will involve sipping tea and reading some poems in the cafe bar with my fellow Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award recipients. This will be happening sometime between 4pm and 5pm. I’m extra psyched because we’ll be joined by the World’s Greatest Compere (really) Ryan Van Winkle, without whom no poetry show is quite complete. Seriously, it’s worth the train fare to Glasgow for a glimpse of his beard alone. Here’s the Facebook event. Please do come along and sip tea with me!

Want me to come and read at your event? I MIGHT JUST SAY YES! Catch me in the comments box or use the email address below!

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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)