One Night Stanzas

UPDATE: guys, these books here in the photo? These aren’t the books I’m giving away — this is just a pic off Flickr! Scroll down for the full list in the blog text!

So guys, I’m likely moving house soon (VERY EXCITING), and between us, Lovely Boyfriend and I own at least a metric ton of books (really. I think this might be quite an accurate figure). Once I own a book, I am generally extremely loath to part with it again (hence the metric ton thing), but the prospect of carrying all the books we currently own down five flights of stairs and all the way across town has forced me to seriously consider the creaking, slightly-bowed problems that are my various bookshelves.

The list below is only a tiny fraction of my book collection, but it’s also only phase one: when my PhD thesis is finally finished, I’ll likely have a load more academic tomes and textbooks to offload. However, what little there is here I am throwing open to you lot before just sending it all to the charity shop. Would you like a free book? A bunch of free books? If you can come and collect them from Tollcross, they’re yours. Have a browse:

Poetry

GONE, SORRY!The Invisible Mender by Sarah McGuire (Cape)
GONE, SORRY!Looking Through Letterboxes by Caroline Bird (Carcanet)
Trouble Came To The Turnip by Caroline Bird (Carcanet)
Orphaned Latitudes by Gerard Rudolf (Red Squirrel Press)
GONE, SORRY!Cascade Experiment by Alice Fulton (Norton)
GONE, SORRY!Sensual Math by Alice Fulton (Norton)
On Purpose by Nick Laird (Faber)
Not In These Shoes by Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch (Picador)
The Janus Hour by Anne Stewart (Oversteps Books)
GONE, SORRY!Lyric/Anti-Lyric: Essays on Contemporary Poetry by Douglas Barbour
The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America by David Whyte

Fiction

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad (Oxford World’s Classics)
Wieland: Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist by Charles Brockden Brown (Oxford World’s Classics)
GONE, SORRY!Wetlands by Charlotte Roche (hardback)
GONE, SORRY!Ten Women Who Shook The World by Sylvia Brownrigg
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos

Essays

GONE, SORRY!Wallflower at the Orgy by Nora Ephron
GONE, SORRY!Complete Prose by Woody Allen
GONE, SORRY!Mothers by Daughters edited by Joanna Goldsworthy (Virago)
The Bastard on the Couch edited by Daniel Jones

Women’s Studies/Feminism and Literary Criticism

Dropped Threads: What We Aren’t Told edited by Carol Shields and Marjory Anderson (2001)
GONE, SORRY!Flux: women on sex, work, love, kids and life in a half-changed world edited by Peggy Orenstein (2000)
Men Writing The Feminine: Literature, Theory and the Question of Genders edited by Thais E Morgan (1994)
GONE, SORRY!Is The Future Female?: Troubled Thoughts on Contemporary Feminism Lynne Segal (1987)
GONE, SORRY!The Female Gaze: Women as Viewers of Popular Culture edited by Lorraine Gamman and Margaret Marshment (1988)*
The Fragile Male by Ben Greenstein**
Critical Approaches to Literature by David Daiches (hardback) (1956)

Other

The Best of Cosmopolitan: The 70s and 80s (I know, wtf? I can’t remember when I bought it or why the hell.)
A Handbook of Games and Simulation Exercises edited by GI Gibbs (inexplicably, given to me by my parents, who’ve had it in their book collection — which makes mine look PUNY — since 1974, when it was published. Fascinating if you’re interested in the education system of 1960 & 70s Britain, I’m sure.)

I also have a bunch of 12″ spoken word LPs if you’re interested — mostly ‘great poets’ (Hardy, Pound, Robert Graves) and a few random kitsch things I bought on whims in thrift shops (an LP of the juicier scenes from Dracula, for example, and an LP of a totally trippy reading of Alice in Wonderland). Totally let me know if you’re into weird-literature-on-vinyl!

*Just to show what a small world Edinburgh is: I just noticed that this book has “Hannah McGill, Christmas 1994″ biro-d into the front flyleaf. It became mine via an Edinburgh charity shop.
**OK, this is a book by a Men’s Rights Activist, which I bought because I, stupidly, wanted to hate-read it. Thankfully, I never got round to it, but it looks HEINOUS.

Finally, NB: I haven’t actually read some of these books, so if you ask for a review first, I only might be able to provide one.

Drop a comment in the comments box or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com to let me know if you’d like any of these!

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!

Anyone who’s been reading this blog for any amount of time will know that I am a huge fangirl of zines. From late 2007 to early 2010 I ran my own, Read This Magazine (currently in the process of being dismantled in order to make way for something new, by the way); I am a follower/subscriber of many other small independent literary zines (including The Letter Killeth — see work by Chris Lindores in their latest! — and Words Dance) and will always encourage others to follow my lead. About eighteen months ago I was gifted a huge stack of vintage music fanzines by local Edinburgh zinester and blogger, Nine. All of this somehow led to me leading a zine-making workshop at Tollcross Community Centre on behalf of this collection on Tuesday night.

I just want to say a huge thanks to everyone who came along — not least my sister and Lovely Boyfriend who didn’t have a great deal of choice in the matter. Thanks also to Sean Cartwright, Sue Steele, Julie Logan and Dave Forbes for your attendance and enthusiasm, and thanks of course to Stefanie Tan and everyone at TCC for the inspiration/organisation side of things.

Overall, the workshop was a massive success. I introduced six total zine virgins to a brand new artform, and we created seven beautiful Xeroxed and hand-bound creations to promote poetry, crafting, recycling and counter culture. It was such a success I might even run more! Give me a shout — [email protected] — if you’d be interested in such a thing. Some photos and a fab timelapse from the evening below…

Assembled zinesters: Steve, Dave, Sue, Julie, Sean, Stefa, Helen and myself.

Sean checks out some old 90s music fanzines for inspiration.

The cutting and sticking begins!

Steve, aka Lovely Boyfriend, working on some (rather fabulous) blackout poems

My zine coming together — this collection needs you!

Dave’s finished zine — complete with glitter!

Print media is dead: long live zines!

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this collection are teaming up with the fantastic Tollcross Community Centre and their Adult Learning Programme, and throughout Spring 2011, we’ll have access to the centre’s space and resources for three days of every working week. We’re hoping that we can fill this time with exciting collaborative opportunities, providing a space for artists of all walks of life to come together to create and discuss under the umbrella of this collection.

And that’s where YOU come in. We are throwing open the doors to allow access to anyone who’d like to join us in organizing an activity for local artists and/or writers. We’re looking for people to:

- host workshops in anything from creative writing to sculpture
- lead meetings, panels or discussions in the space
- host and co-ordinate events (remember our poet/filmmaker speed-dating?)
- give readings, performances or recitals in the space
- use the space for anything and anything artistic, collaborative and creative!

What’re the conditions? We don’t ask for much in return. Only…

- that your event MUST be inspired by or related to the this collection project
(e.g. you could give a masterclass on writing poems of 100 words or less, host a filmmaking workshop to adapt some of our poems, get together and discuss the concept of community collaboration, etc)

Interested? We’re looking for suggestions, proposals and pitches, and nothing is too small, too big, too weird or too ordinary. If there’s something you think you’d like to organise and you like the sound of a totally free space, get in touch!

Stuff to bear in mind:

- your event can be one-off, or one of a series. Let us know what you’re planning, and we’ll do our best to accomodate you.
- some materials/resources we may be able to provide; others you may have to bring yourself. Again, let us know.
- the space is available from 10am to 8.45pm every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Want to use the whole day? No problem. Just want an hour or two? No problem. We can be flexible!
- the space is ours to use until at least the end of March, so if you’re busy for the next little while but still fancy doing something, fear not! We can fit you in!

Basically the message is, if you’re interested, GET IN TOUCH! We’d love to hear from you. We’re hoping to gather as many proposals as possible before the space is opened up to us, so if you’d like to be involved, drop us an informal line by 15th January and let us know what you’d like to do.

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

Get thinking, get emailing, and have a fantastic New Year!

PS: we will also be holding community meet-ups in the space on Friday nights, as of the middle of January — more on this soon! So if you want to talk to us about your thoughts for the project rather than emailing, drop us a line and we’ll let you know more!

PPS: A few T&Cs before we go…

this collection and the Tollcross Community Centre ask:
- that you take responsibility for the majority of the organisation and promotion of your event. this collection is anti-curatorial, which means we won’t do any of the tricky stuff for you, like making sure that people show up! We will, however, happily plug your event as widely as possible, put you in touch with helpful people if we know of any, and provide resources if we have them to hand.
- that, if you need to cancel your event for any reason, you let us and the venue know as soon as you possibly can, so we can try and give someone else your spot
- that you’ll credit any references to this collection in work that comes out of your time in the centre
- that you’ll allow the this collection crew to attend, promote, talk about and document your event if we want to
- that all work produced at your event is produced under creative commons (i.e. the artist retains the right to their work, but the work can be shown/referred to by this collection with their permission and with due credits)

(Photo by allybeag)

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