1 of 10: ‘Stories’ (poem, The Human Genre Project)

I resolved to get ten acceptances this year, and here’s the first, along with the publication: my poem ‘Stories’ is now up on the Human Genre Project. Chromosome 13, because that’s where BRCA-2 is – though it could just as well have gone on chromosome 17, in honor of BRCA-1, as I wasn’t exactly differentiating.

I read this at the Social Sessions 3 (Base Pairs and Couplets) and it turned out to have a nice – well, let’s say, an appropriate connection with one of the poems Kelley Swain read, which dealt with her father’s death from cancer. Unsurprisingly, even though the six of us who read work were all coming from completely different angles, words and language were crucial elements of how we approached science and poetry.

In my case, trying to write about the language of medicine kept turning into poems about family, which ended up focusing on being Jewish, and both this poem and “The Naming of Cancer” ended up at the Holocaust – which was disconcerting, but not wholly unexpected, and probably something I should continue to look into.

I was about to attempt a recap, but Ken’s done a great job here. Many thanks to him, my fellow poets, all the attendees, and the Scottish Poetry Library.

Feedback

Always such a strange thing, when you’ve been living with something in your head for so long, and then a person who’s never read it (or met you) strolls in to judge whether it works or not. And no matter how many times each of you acknowledges the subjectivity of it, that never matches up to the reality of reading feedback.

There’s a small Scottish work-in-progress program that allows writers to send in work to be critiqued by other writers – all done anonymously, though one assumes that in a literary community as small as Scotland’s (which often feels as though it’s about 68 people, tops), eventually someone will pick up a literary magazine and say ‘oh yes, her; didn’t I advise her that strophe was juvenile?’ I won’t link to it here in case they get randomly flooded, but anyone who’s interested can get in touch and I’ll send along the info.

I sent about twenty poems — everything I had that was either in progress and as polished as I could make it without shredding it, or ‘fixed’ but still unpublished. Not long ago, the evaluation arrived in my inbox, so while the .pdf was loading I was telling myself how calm I was WHILE OF COURSE I WAS NOT CALM IN THE SLIGHTEST.

Thankfully the response was fairly nitpicky, and overall quite positive. Those don’t contradict each other; whenever I’m critiquing things, I don’t quibble about word choice when the overall structure is a disaster, and the latter rarely occurred here.

So having skimmed through the criticism, wincing on occasion (especially with regards to some of the poems already in circulation — ooh, ouch), I need to sit down with each poem and think carefully about the comments. The final choice, of course, is entirely mine, but even if I don’t change a word, considering the anonymous reviewer’s thoughts allows me to mentally clarify what I’m trying to accomplish here.

Start as you mean to go on

Which in my case seems to be a) avoiding doing the dishes (the kitchen has no heat and Scotland has been frozen for a couple of weeks now), b) eating slightly stale pistachio nuts, and c) writing/revising poems. The last is at least fairly useful. One of my resolutions is to get at least ten pieces accepted by the end of the year – which in one sense isn’t a resolution per se, as I can’t decree what editors will like, but it does mean I need to keep enough poems in circulation to have a reasonable shot.

I’ve also gone back to keeping a paper journal – all hail Moleskine. The one I received as a present is red, which is more cheerful than the one I would have chosen if I’d bought it myself (= black). It’s an extremely nice notebook and at times I feel a bit guilty for all the angst it is about to contain, but I also received a gift of some Hello Kitty stickers (I am not entirely sure why), so the angst will be mitigated by sparkly cuteness. If anyone knows any Uplifting Quotations please feel free to share them in the comments.

Shifted novel projects. Worldbuilding was becoming too overwhelming and I need more time to think about it, so I’m back to something slightly less extensive. Not that this means the plotting is easy, and this could possibly explain why I’ve drafted something like a dozen poems in the last month, because while a good poem might be extremely tough to write, it is also much, much shorter.

Genomics & me

Ah, Ken’s put up the list of speakers for The Social Sessions 03: Base Pairs and Couplets, and I’m on it. Please do come along. Bits of information from the announcement:

The Social Sessions 03: Base Pairs and Couplets
13 Jan 2010 17:30-19:30

Speaker(s):
Genomics Forum Writer in Residence and Human Genre Project editor Ken MacLeod chairs a panel of new and established poets who’ll give us their readings and thoughts:

Ron Butlin, Edinburgh Makar, acclaimed poet, novelist, and short story writer

Brian McCabe, author of Zero (and much else)

Tracey S. Rosenberg, poet and literary scholar

Kelley Swain, author of Darwin’s Microscope, writer in residence at the Whipple Museum

Ryan Van Winkle, poet, journalist, organiser of The Golden Hour, Reader in Residence at the Scottish Poetry Library and Edinburgh City Libraries

Venue: Scottish Poetry Library, 5 Crichton’s Close, Canongate, Edinburgh EH8 8DT

Hugh MacDiarmid spoke the languages of geology and chemistry, Edwin Morgan brought space exploration and science fiction into poetry, and Gillian Ferguson has inscribed the human genome in her Poems on the Book of Life. The Forum’s own Human Genre Project, a website of gene-inspired writing, has already received scores of contributions, most of them poetry. Is science more inspiring to poetry than to prose?

‘Poet and literary scholar.’ I rather like that. I did put ‘writer’ as my occupation on my UKBA immigration card when I came back from Paris recently, but sadly I wasn’t asked about that. (After doing a data access request on my Home Office file last year, I found that back in the late 1990s I’d actually had enough chutzpah to write ‘poet’.) I suppose I could also put ‘novelist in search of agent’ but then I’d have to explain the querying process to a border guard and really, some things in life are just not worth it.

And now I shall have to think of intelligent, poetic, and/or literary things to say. This, combined with the Doctor Who Christmas special, should make for an interesting holiday season.

I meant to post this on National Poetry Day

However, I was distracted by those pygmy goats.

This is one of my favorite poems ever ever in the whole world. I can’t remember when I first read it, but I wasn’t any older than seventeen, so of course it embedded itself in my feverish teenaged brain. And given how peripatetic I’ve been as an adult, it’s not surprising that I’ve been using it as a mental touchstone ever since. (Though it took me a long time to track down this particular translation, and unfortunately I still don’t know who translated it.)

---

Ithaka

When you set out for Ithaka
Ask that your way be long,
Full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
Angry Poseidon — do not fear them;
Such as these you will never find
As long as your thought is lofty,
As long as a rare emotion
Touch your spirit and your body.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
Angry Poseidon — you will not meet them
Unless you carry them in your soul,
Unless your soul raise them up before you.

Ask that your way be long,
At many a summer dawn to enter –
With what gratitude, what joy!
Ports seen for the first time;
To stop at Phoenician trading centers,
And to buy good merchandise.
Mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
And sensuous perfumes of every kind.
Buy as many sensuous perfumes as you can,
Visit many Egyptian cities
To learn and learn from those who have knowledge.

Always keep Ithaka fixed in your mind;
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But do not in the least hurry the journey.
Better that it last for years
So that when you reach the island you are old,
Rich with all that you have gained on the way,
Not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
Ithaka has given you the splendid voyage.
Without her you would never have set out,
But she has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka has not deceived you.
So wise have you become, of such experience,
That already you will have understood
What these Ithakas mean.

- C. P. Cavafy (1868-1933)

Food Shark

Always lovely to check the New York Times and find a reference to someone you knew years ago. In this case, Krista Steinhauer, who is now the chef at the Food Shark in Marfa, Texas. Looks like we’ve both come a long way from Bucharest.

And about an hour ago, things took yet another odd turn for me, but as I’ve always insisted that this journal is never going to earn the subtitle The Angst That Is My Life, I’m reduced to muttering cliches under my breath. (‘Boy, isn’t life awfully strange at times!’) At least the trip to Paris next month is still happening. I intend to buy a cuddly version of le renard, having recently been reminded that while The Little Prince was never my go-to book, I managed to pick up a few ideas from it. And the fox is cute, and it’s nice to be reminded that at least one person finds me unique in all the world.

Some talk about knitting finally

Given that I’m not going to talk about querying until it’s all over (she says in a voice which is DARK and MOODY, which is how some celebrity chef the other week described his ideal chutney – seriously, dude, I’m glad you’re into it, but do ease off on the pathetic fallacy; it’s a condiment, not a Byronic hero), instead I will talk about knitting, given that I mention it in the tiny bio in the sidebar.

Not that I’m terribly good at knitting, but I enjoy it, even if my two-needle cast-on makes Scottish Women Of A Certain Age break out in hives. (I was recently taught a one-needle longtail cast-on but the other is embedded in my brain.)

(Of course, Scottish Women Of A Certain Age also have a tendency to assume knitting = babies, although all of my knitting on that count has been booties and hats for other people’s babies. Nor am I going to knit a Shetland Lace shawl that’s so fine it can be drawn through a wedding ring, though I am deeply impressed with anyone who ever has.)

Current project is the Yarn Harlot’s one row handspun scarf. I am not using handspun, but rather nice wool from the stash, though I’d love to spin again someday, having done it for a few summers eons ago. I like this pattern because it introduced me to a new stitch (I can knit into the back of the stitch! Go me!) and it’s very easy to remember so I can just zip through and it’s reversible and I joined the new ball without it looking too bizarre (thanks to the instructions in the Stitch and Bitch book) even though I had to frog and redo it.

It will be nice to alternate this scarf with my green mohair scarf, which was just straight garter stitch, and it’s a nice long scarf but it does tend to shed on my corduroy jackets.

The most complicated thing I’ve ever knit was a hat, on circular needles, and I once made five buttonholes.

How I explain the querying process (and everyone gets what I mean)

“It’s like trying to get married. Right now I’m in the speed dating phase.”

The books I’m trying to read

In an interview for a book-related job, the questioning went something like this:

Interviewer 1: What are you currently reading?
TSR: *takes deep breath*
Interviewer 2: Restrain yourself!!

[Yeah, Interviewer 2 had me dialed. And I did get the job.]

The sidebar ‘books I’m reading’ has been pretty static lately, mainly because I keep starting books and then not finishing them, or rather some other book gets in the way. I currently have on the go:

- George Gissing, New Grub Street. Someday I must determine why I love Gissing so much, even though his work is so depressing, whereas Thomas Hardy’s work is also depressing but makes me want to stab myself with a sharpened pen. The problem is that this will probably require me to read more Hardy, and that is something I do not wish to do. I am rereading NGS in the hopes that it will make me feel better to be reminded that, in fact, there never was a prelapsarian publishing era of joy, and authors have always had it tough. Status: just begun.

- Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey. Required reading. I like it, but I really want to reread Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility. Status: just begun.

- Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played With Fire. I mistakenly thought this was the first in the series, though as the library won’t be able to get me that one for weeks, I might as well start with this. I am trying to approach this book with an open mind, but given that the original title of book number one is Men Who Hate Women, I have the feeling I may finish the book solely to avoid ‘but you haven’t READ IT’ arguments (though these will undoubtedly be replaced with arguments that include the words ‘you feminists’ and ‘no sense of humor’). Status: just begun.

- Tom Brown and Henry McLeish, Scotland: A Suitable Case for Treatment. Am toying with writing something set in an independent Scotland (those cries you hear are the Scottish Nationalists a-whoopin’ and a-hollerin’), and picked this up in a quest to figure out how Scots view Scottish national identity. Still not entirely sure, though most seem to agree that the deep-fried Mars bar is an aberration. Status: a third finished.

- Tobias Smollett, Humphrey Clinker. I have a woefully deficient background in 18th century literature so I figured this would help fill the gap. Also, I can read bits aloud to my Scottish friends, who splutter amusingly when they hear nice things about Alloa and Greenock. Status: three-quarters finished.

And don’t even ask about the BTR stacks/shelves. No, really, please don’t….

Random thoughts

La Shark says it best, as she often does: “1. A query letter is a business letter.“

The novel is finished. It took longer than I expected, but the next one will be easier, if only because I’m a hell of a lot more aware of the stuff that shouldn’t been included in the first place and had to be removed at great cost.

Nothing to remind you you’re writing for the public than the blog hits shooting skyward, and finding that an ex-co-worker seems to have linked to you on her Facebook page.

Writing workshops are immensely helpful. Today’s reality check: “Great images, but I have no idea what the narrative is.”

I never used to listen to music while working. Maybe a CD or two, but always stuff I knew so well that it could just exist in the background. And I never bought a lot of new music. Then I got iTunes and started developing a writing playlist, which expanded to ‘anything not involving a heavy beat and/or wailing’ (which, given that I tend towards female singer/songwriters, isn’t much of the collection anyway). Then last month I got an iPod shuffle – yeah, I know, I can finally join the rest of the universe – and suddenly it’s my constant companion. The interior narrative now has a soundtrack, and I’m not sure if that’s entirely a good thing.

Given that I want to carry more upon my person than the iPod and a bottle of eyedrops, I am resigned to making most of my future clothing purchases in the men’s department, for one simple reason: pockets. Seriously, my corduroy jackets have dinky little pockets that I consider myself lucky to have, whereas if I could actually find a men’s jacket in my size, I’d be able to travel to London for the weekend without worrying about an overnight bag. A fishing vest, now, there’s something useful – I once fit in four paperback books….