fiction: the quest

I almost feel a little bit guilty about how much I’m enjoying my optional module this term; it’s as though I’m betraying my first love (poetry) by having a bit on the side with her younger, cooler, better-paid brother (fiction). But it’s so exciting! And so new!

This week we’re looking at stories, plots and narratives, and it’s my turn, along with another student, to give a presentation to the rest of the class. I think I managed to swipe the easy stuff: I’ll be talking about the difference between story and plot according to E. M. Forster, whose thoughts on both in Aspects of the Novel are, I think, pretty hilarious; (tragic) plot according to Aristotle in his Poetics, which of course I read last term; and finally the seven stories that make up all literature according to Christopher Booker in his magnificent The Seven Basic Plots. This last is an absolutely fascinating read. The seven basic plots, according to his taxonomy, are:

• overcoming the monster (Beowulf, Jaws)
• rags to riches (Cinderella, David Copperfield)
• the quest (The Odyssey, The Lord of the Rings)
• voyage and return (Alice in Wonderland, Brideshead Revisited)
• comedy (Much Ado About Nothing, Pride and Prejudice)
• tragedy (Dr Faustus, Madame Bovary)
• rebirth (A Christmas Carol, The Secret Garden)

Of course not all stories fit neatly into just one of these categories: there’s lots of overlap between them, and many stories draw from more than one; The Lord of the Rings, for example, contains elements of all seven. And then there are the stories that show one or more of the plots ‘going wrong’ – not because they’re badly written, but because in the last couple of centuries ‘dark’ versions of each of these plots have developed; they still obey the same rules, they just don’t come to the same satisfactory endings. (At this stage I’m just taking Booker’s word for all this, as I haven’t got that far into the book. But I’m convinced by his summary so far.)

In terms of the book I’m writing, it’s very definitely a quest, with a little rags to riches and comedy thrown in. It’s so interesting thinking about all this stuff, because for Booker (and Freud, and Jung, and Northrop Frye etc etc) the fact that all the stories we tell as humans fit into such similar shapes gets right to the heart of why we tell them.

And of course it’s this question of plot – what comes next, and why – that differentiates fiction from poetry on a very basic level. As our tutor last term said, in fiction, the question is ‘what happens next?’ In poetry, the question is ‘what is this?’ Both compelling questions, but despite my dallying with fiction this term, I think it’s the latter question that haunts me…

turning letters into numbers

Today we got the marks back for last term’s poetry, which was edited and handed in as coursework at the beginning of this term. I was feeling pretty anxious about picking up the marks, especially as I knew I really hadn’t got there with quite a few of the pieces I handed in. Given that, I’m feeling quietly pleased with my percentage; according to the marking scheme, it means I’m at the upper end of ’solid work, with evident lyric ability’. Of course, as one tutor reminded us earlier this week, at this stage it’s not about ranking: it’s about the progress we’re making. And as the other tutor said to me a couple of weeks ago, there’s no universal arbiter to these things. As if to underline this, the same poem was praised as being the best by one, while the other thought its tone was too contained.

All that sounds as though I’m not that happy… but I am. It’s a good mark and I know I have a long way to go. The written reports were very helpful and I do feel that I have a little bit more of an idea as to where I’m going with my writing in a broad sense, as well as a much greater idea of what I need to do to get the technical stuff right.

Here’s a really nice comment from one of the reports:

Your poems focus on the activation of metaphor in order to describe a subtle but profound adjustment in perception or realisation. They are moving, complex, intellectually ambitious and skilful in their deployment of form… Your tone is authoritative and you have a musical ear.

And here’s some excellent advice from both:

Make yourself dig deeper here and work through yourself. Trust the imperative that made you write the poem in the first place and trust your images – don’t explain them.

Stand back a little and let image and narrative do the work. The reader will go the extra mile if that is in place.

So, encouraging stuff. But I’m glad to have it out of the way. It’s not about brownie points, but when your work is being marked, it kind of is.

keep your eye on the prize…

… readership.

This was one of the many tasty morsels of advice that Don Paterson gave in a pre-reading Q&A for some students when he opened the UEA literary festival last week. It’s a good one, I think – because what is poetry if it’s not one person speaking to another? – and I’ve been rather wrestling with the question of readership over the last week or so. Connected to it is something else Paterson suggested: that poetry will always be a marginal artform because it requires so much from the reader. But how much can you require from your reader? And what do you do with your disappointment if you feel that your (or others’) work is just not read carefully enough to be understood? Is that a failure on the part of the poet, or the reader? Of course there isn’t an answer to that question, not really, but it’s something I know I need to keep in mind as I write.

The writing’s coming hard at the moment, it has to be said. I got some very helpful criticism in the workshop and my tutorial last week, but the amount of work to do feels overwhelming: I know I need to do a lot with the pieces that were workshopped, and I feel I need to do that sooner rather than later; but then of course I also have to generate another batch for the end of next week…

But it’s not overwhelming purely in terms of amount; it also feels very demanding – just the fact of going back to the old stuff and going into it, deeper, and writing better; rather than just tinkering with it, or editing. Our tutor this term has been quite strict about that: she’s firm that we need not just to edit but to go back to the impulse that created the poem, and go deeper into it, push our writing further. Ask ourselves what is it about this that is important to me? I’m absolutely convinced that she’s right, but I feel exhausted just thinking about it. I’ve talked about the difficulty of editing before, but this feels different. It’s as though you’ve made a great big jelly in the shape of a rabbit, and you’re proudly watching it glisten and wobble when the pâtissier walks up and says, great jelly, but I think you’ve chosen the wrong mould for it. How about you turn it into a fish, and strolls off, whistling. If they’d just said that one of the ears was a bit wonky you could have maybe tried to fix it with a knife; but apparently the entire shape is wrong, and you have to somehow turn it into a fish. How are you going to do that? It seems impossible to turn it back into a liquid form and start again. So you’re stuck with the rabbit, knowing there’s a fish in there that needs to get out, or you take a knife to it and it’ll probably all end up on the floor, or somehow you work out some strange alchemy of making it malleable again.

So. Some alchemy needs to happen and I’m not sure I have the tools, the determination or the temperament to manage it.

In the meantime I’m sketching out roughs of new poems: the sestina, and a poem about running and writing (boring, yes, I know). And I’m digging my inspiration (none of it’s coming from within right now) from two finds that I’m delighted with: Ferber’s Dictionary of Literary Symbols and Cirlot’s Dictionary of Symbols. They’re each like a super-charged Brewer’s (my favourite reference book and source of many, many treasures) for poets and if I’m not careful everything I write is going to end up full of obscure folklore. More than it already is, I mean.

To finish: go and read Paterson’s latest collection, Rain. It’s brilliant.

This post brought to you by coffee with cream, smoked paprika, more snow, Handel’s Harp Concerto in B flat major, strange dreams and Graham Swift’s devastatingly good Waterland.

a poem is not a story…

… and it’s not an atmosphere.

So said our tutor in last week’s workshop, and I’ve been mulling it over since then. It’s not enough just to recount an anecdote. And it’s not enough just to evoke a certain feeling.

All of which leaves me a bit stuck for the piece of writing I’m now working on: a sestina, which is a really demanding form, and one I haven’t written before. I can’t work out if the fact that my endwords have already been chosen for me* makes it harder or easier. Both, probably. Easier because I don’t have to worry about choosing words that I’ll be able to repeat six times. Harder because, well, I have to hang a poem on those six words and I have no other cue – no feeling for what I want the poem to do, other than work.

I’ve written a first stanza, just to force myself to start playing with the words, but it hasn’t really led me anywhere. Hopefully reading some exemplary sestinas will nudge me along; otherwise, I’ll just have to hope that, with time, some ideas will start to percolate… Wish me luck.

*It was one of those late-night, rather tipsy conversations, and Paul decided that I should write a sestina, and picked my six endwords for me by making me give him random numbers, which then pinpointed specific words in Keats’s collected letters. They are: thread, one, heavenward, have, world, surprised. Very Keatsian, I’m sure you’ll agree.

psychic creative territory

Apologies for missing the last two scheduled posts. No excuse, really, aside from the battle to get into good working/writing/studying rhythms. (And, er, meeting with mixed success.)

Speaking of which, one of the many fascinating things about my optional module this term – the theory and practice of fiction – is hearing about other peoples’ writing habits. As the name would suggest it’s a very practical course, and we began last week with the real nitty gritty of discussions around exactly how and when we write, for how long – all that kind of stuff. And it was very encouraging to hear the range of responses, with some people clocking on religiously to write four hours a day, others working in bursts, and some writing to deadlines. Profoundly reassuring that there’s no one regimented way to do things.

The first thing we were encouraged to think about – and share with the class – was our own ‘psychic creative territory’: that bit of you that creates the impulse to write; the things you’re interested in. Our tutor suggested that that’s one of the things that can’t be taught, but has to be discovered for yourself, and that it’s good to keep a hold on it – recognising too that it can and does change over time. I think that perhaps that’s quite a prose/fiction-based question, and I find it difficult to answer in terms of the poetry I write, although if I were forced to say something I’d probably say something about the beauty of things fitting together. Or perhaps the relationship between beauty and loneliness. But from the little fiction that I’ve been working on for the last few years, the answer is immediate: ideas of escape and of finding home, and the relationship between those two impulses. Perhaps that applies to my poetry too, to some extent, but I’m not sure. Hmm. I’ll continue to ponder.

Next week will be my first turn to be workshopped this term, and with a new group and a new tutor it’s bound to be quite different from last term. I’m looking forward to it. I’m just about to send round three poems: my Plough Monday piece, a short piece called ‘Cam Ceiliog‘ and a sonnet about the Broderers’ Guild at Norwich Cathedral. It feels good to be writing again, after the sweat of finishing off last term’s work to submit as coursework. Although it feels just as agonising…

I’ll leave you with something that this term’s tutor mentioned in our workshop this week, which could be a possible answer to the question of my emotional terrain in poetry: all art is about sex, death or the making of art. And once you realise that, you can get over yourself a little bit.

plough Monday

Towards the end of last year a sermon got me thinking about ploughing as a metaphor for various things… I can’t quite remember the order now but when I found out about Plough Monday marking the beginning of the agricultural year I decided it could be a nice conceit for an Advent poem – though it’s more of a new year poem, really. Today is Plough Monday – it’s always the first Monday after Epiphany – and appropriately enough it’s the first day of term, too. So here it is:

Plough Monday

and celebration’s set aside again,
gives way to steady, head-down stamp and sigh
of turning up the earth, the year’s field
curving to meet a blank page of sky.

The broken soil clogs, then numbs, cold like steel.
But remember this as you walk the loam:
you’re hitched to an older beast, who knows his work; yield
to his pace as he pulls the plough to its mark – home.

It hasn’t been workshopped yet so no doubt this is an early draft and I’ll make some changes. But it kind of does what I wanted it to. It went out with my Christmas cards (what few I sent) – and hopefully people liked it.

So – new term, new year, new decade. I wish I felt more excited about all of the above, but to be honest I feel rather flat. Not particularly down, just not particularly up either; not especially engaged or full of enthusiasm (hah – in writing my poetics essay I’ve only just discovered the derivation of the word ‘enthusiasm’, which is to be possessed by a god, and so linked with ideas of inspiration). Hopefully that’ll change this week: my coursework’s nearly due and after that I can get stuck into this term’s workshop, and this term’s optional module, which I’m doing on fiction.

various portents

Happy new year! I’m slugging away at my Poetics essay (on ideas of inspiration in Alice Oswald’s work), and as it’s Epiphany today, I thought this poem by Oswald, ‘Various Portents’, would be an appropriate post:

Various stars. Various kings.
Various sunsets, signs, cursory insights.

Many minute attentions, many knowledgeable watchers,
Much cold, much overbearing darkness.

Various long midwinter Glooms.
Various Solitary and Terrible stars.
Many Frosty Nights, many previously Unseen Sky-flowers.
Many people setting out (some of them kings) all clutching at stars.

More than one North star, more than one South star.
Several billion elliptical galaxies, bubble nebulae, binary systems.
Various dust lanes, various routes through varying thickness of Dark,
Many tunnels into deep space, minds going back and forth.

Many visions, many digitally enhanced heavens,
All kinds of glistenings being gathered into telescopes:
Fireworks, gasworks, white-streaked works of Dusk,
Works of wonder and or water, snowflakes, stars of frost …

Various dazed astronomers dilating their eyes,
Various astronauts setting out into laughterless earthlessness,
Various 5,000-year-old moon maps,
Various blindmen feeling across the heavens in Braille.

Various gods making beautiful works in bronze,
Brooches, crowns, triangles, cups and chains,
Various crucifixes, all sorts of nightsky necklaces.
Many Wise Men remarking the irregular weather.

Many exile energies, many low-voiced followers,
Watchers of whisps of various glowing spindles,
Soothsayers, hunters in the High Country of the Zodiac,
Seafarers tossing, tied to a star…

Various people coming home (some of them kings). Various headlights.

Two or three children standing or sitting on the low wall.
Various winds, the Sea Wind, the sound-laden Winds of Evening
Blowing the stars towards them, bringing snow.

nine poems & carols

For the last couple of years I’ve been thinking about putting together my own take on the Nine Lessons & Carols. Finally, here it is. All a bit last minute, so forgive the quality of the spoken bits. Many, many thanks to all the readers, and to my brother Matt who basically made it all happen.

Nine poems & carols

Happy Christmas!

Launch by Jonny Baker (http://jonnybaker.blogs.com/)

Nine Poems & Carols

Processional hymn / Once in Royal David’s City – Alexander/Gauntlett
First poem: Fall / Forbidden Fruit – W.H. Auden
Carol / Adam Lay Y-Bounden – Ord
Second poem: Promise / Sarah’s Laughter – Gillian Allnutt
Aria / Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe – J.S. Bach
Third poem: Coming / Advent Calendar – Rowan Williams
Carol / Winter Lent – Venn/Dobson
Fourth poem: Saviour / Seven Advent Antiphons – K. Venn
Antiphon / O Weisheit – Pärt
Fifth poem:  Annunciation / The Annunciation, Tintoretto – Rhian Gallagher
Carol / Gabriel’s Message – Basque, arr. Willcocks
Sixth poem: Birth / Brother Hare – K. Venn
Carol / Balulalow – Britten
Seventh poem: Shepherds / The Shepherds’ Carol  – anon
Song / Do You Hear what I Hear? – Regney/Shane Baker
Eighth poem: Starlight / BC–AD – U.A. Fanthorpe
Motet / In Dulci Jubilo – Scheidt
Ninth poem: Incarnation / Canal Lock at Winter – K. Venn
Carol / A New Year Carol – Britten

shadows & reflections

Couple of quick links, both over at Caught by the River:
– a few thoughts on 2009, shadows & reflections;
– poem for the fourth week of advent, Seven Advent Antiphons

… and a hearty plug for Terry Eagleton’s fantastic How to Read a Poem (extract from it here). Highly recommended and I’ll probably post on it further at some point.

This post brought to you by The Carpenters’ Christmas Album, Mum & Dad’s sofa, and snow still on the ground

your whole body’s response to the whole world

Eaton park, where I've been learning to put one foot in front of the other... on this morning's run

Well, term ended last Friday so I thought I’d give the blogging a rest over the holidays – especially as, with freelancing, coursework and all the usual Christmas preparation, I somehow feel busier than ever. The wall next to me is covered in post-it notes as I try to thrash out the structure of my Poetics essay; there’s a big freelancing job that needs to be finished urgently; I’m still (!) working on my advent poem – will it ever be finished? – and then there are the rest of this term’s pieces that need more work.

It’s been a funny old term. I’d like to write a longer post summing it all up, but I don’t think I can really do that online, to be honest. So I’ll settle for saying that it’s been much harder than I ever imagined it would be – but then that’s as much to do with moving to a new city and being a student again as the writing itself. Complete ontological freefall, as my dad described it. Still, in the same way that the running has just been a question of putting one step in front of the other and gradually getting better, here’s hoping that this term has shaped me and taught me somehow…

I may well post a link or two if I find anything entertaining or interesting poetry-wise over the holiday (and my advent poem if it ever gets done – I’ll be sad to break a four-year tradition the one year I’m taking a poetry course!). For now I’ll leave you with the link to my poem for the third week of advent over at Caught by the River, and this fantastic quote from Alice Oswald, which I’m using a starting point for my essay…

You should never write a poem till you can feel it in your bones. Because poetry is your whole body’s response to the whole world, not just your head’s response to a thought or a glimpse.

This post brought to you by post-it notes, Friday nights in and beautiful snow