tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-327838042024-03-13T01:35:36.152+00:00Kevin CadwallenderThe Captain's BlogVOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-87541322469408004262008-09-15T12:32:00.002+00:002008-09-15T12:35:21.076+00:00Is this throwing your hat into the ring?Fleur Adcock: Noises Off (Independent)<br /><br />In 2009, Andrew Motion's 10-year stint is up and the quest for the next composer of poems for state occasions and royal birthdays is on. But who would want to do it?<br /><br />Sunday, 14 September 2008<br /><br /> <br /><br />This week Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate, complained, first, that his prestigious position had drained him of his muse and, second, that the Queen never expressed an opinion of his work.<br /><br />The job, he added, had been "very, very damaging".<br /><br />"I dried up completely about five years ago and can't write anything except to commission," he went on. I do sympathise.<br /><br />Andrew's 10-year tenure expires next year, and many poets, including myself, have been canvassed by newspapers and other media on whether we would take the role. I'm sure it's going to be difficult next time. I've never spoken to anybody who said: "Yes, I'd love to."<br /><br />It's not that I object to the Royal Family, or the Queen. She gave me a gold medal for poetry two years ago and does a very good job.<br /><br />Nor do I think the role of Poet Laureate is obsolete. It's like the monarchy: one wouldn't want to do away with it entirely. One good thing about it is it's attached to the palace, not No 10.<br /><br />Where I sympathise with Andrew is that it's now in reality two roles. It harnesses two rather uncomfortable partners, two different functions – one of promoting poetry and one of writing poems – and these attract two different types of personality. One thing Andrew complains about is that it's been damaging to his writing. If you're doing a lot of public promotion stuff, you can't do your own work. You think in critical mode rather than creative mode. To write, you need to sit down and just stare out of the window, waiting.<br /><br />When I started writing poetry as a child, I thought you hid quietly in your room and got on with it in private. Having to put on your best clothes and go to the palace, or get up on platforms with microphones, is a public thing and demands an extrovert personality. I'd rather slop around at home in my old jeans, writing. Of course, I do poetry readings, and I also read in schools and invite discussion. It's easier to answer questions on your own work than to initiate public projects and worthy schemes.<br /><br />I've been judging an awful lot of poetry competitions this year, and that also distracts you from writing poetry. Nor would I want to be constantly rung up by the people who must be always ringing Andrew asking him to appear somewhere or pronounce on this or that. I can see how it occupied too much of his mental space.<br /><br />I'm surprised he didn't foresee this. Surely it is inevitable that the laureateship would leave no room for the muse, or inspiration, or whatever you wish to call it. Nor does it pay very much in compensation.<br /><br />I think perhaps the Poet Laureate should be someone charged solely with promoting poetry, not necessarily with writing it. The person would have to be a poet – you can't get inside it unless you do it – but there are plenty of poets.<br /><br />The actual writing of poems could be commissioned on a case-by-case basis from other poets. It's perfectly possible to write to a commission. I'm quite often asked to write a poem for someone's birthday, good cause, charity, or whatever, and you just dredge around in your mind for something that's floating there already and attach it to the subject. There could be poems on some other national events – even the Olympics. But you wouldn't want to do too much of it.<br /><br />One of the difficulties when writing public poems is getting the tone right. Quite often you have to be solemn or reverent. When you're writing in your own natural tone of voice, you go through all the moods and types of language – you can be funny, rude, ironic, serious, and everything else. I can't imagine writing warmly about Prince Andrew's wedding, but I could have written about the Queen's 80th birthday because that's such a broad subject – you can bring in other aspects of her reign.<br /><br />Andrew said the Queen had failed to say whether or not she liked his poems. Among her many qualities, I don't think critical appreciation of poetry is prominent. But he did say that Camilla wrote a note thanking him for his poem about her wedding to Charles, and I know the Queen Mother was interested in poetry. It just depends who you get.<br /><br />I don't envy Andrew, but I think he's done a wonderful job promoting poetry. As for the poems he's had to write, all I can say is that I sympathise.<br /><br />Fleur Adcock's 'Poems 1960-2000' is published by BloodaxeVOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-16576338166242935412008-09-15T11:18:00.000+00:002008-09-15T11:20:09.146+00:00Expecting Angels (photo: Alan Sill)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZQc8pXwx2EhKygEW0POTQa0l0uyLqaEDsMCdnKYvliYYUZzxZMQwVp7aFLlyrBcpWfHqc8r2ocgwNn0z3x2uZqtxTGvo_aMEmFpEvomAvOTzpNeaX5jJdgKR-ky9vL6QprzsE/s1600-h/image001.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZQc8pXwx2EhKygEW0POTQa0l0uyLqaEDsMCdnKYvliYYUZzxZMQwVp7aFLlyrBcpWfHqc8r2ocgwNn0z3x2uZqtxTGvo_aMEmFpEvomAvOTzpNeaX5jJdgKR-ky9vL6QprzsE/s320/image001.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5246206230518466242" /></a>VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-83674578110396495982008-09-15T11:15:00.000+00:002008-09-15T11:16:12.354+00:00Bowel MotionThe poet laureate should be freed from the dreary royals and sent off to Bradford or Iraq<br />All comments (0)<br /><br /> * Mark Ravenhill<br /> * The Guardian,<br /> * Monday September 15 2008<br /> * Article history<br /><br />Up and down this green and drizzly isle, the poets are getting nervous. Nibs, once tranquil, are shaking. Wendy Cope is stocking up for a long siege. Craig Raine is exploring the possibility of moving to Mars. Linton Kwesi Johnson and Liz Lochhead are appealing for complete identity changes and round-the-clock police protection under a hastily drafted Poet Protection Scheme.<br /><br />The poets are panicking because Andrew Motion, the current laureate, is counting the days until his royal duties are over. At least the task is not as onerous as it once was: our national poet is no longer condemned to clasp the royal quill until death. Now it's a mere 10-year sentence, muzzled in a drafty palace. Truly, of all the rusty chalices that clatter around in public life, there is none more thoroughly poisoned than the post of poet laureate.<br /><br />After a decade in which he has miraculously given the post a little dignity, the poetry is, it would seem, no longer in Motion. Speaking at the Ealing arts festival recently, the Queen's pet bard revealed that the role had been "incredibly thankless" and had left him with writer's block. While many of us have admired the way Motion has used his position to promote the writing and reading of poetry, few are likely to remember with any great fondness the work he produced while in the post, particularly the rap-inspired offering he presented for Prince William's 21st birthday. And Motion's ceremonial verses don't seem to have done much to enthuse the house of Windsor either: the poet reported that, after Judi Dench's reading of his offering for the royal diamond wedding celebrations, all he got from the Queen was a curt thank you.<br /><br />Laureates have been a mixed bag over the years, from the few who were sublime - Dryden, Wordsworth - to the many who were ridiculous and are barely remembered. John Betjeman was the last laureate who truly seemed to fit the role of house poet for a family with no taste. And we're unlikely to find someone now who can combine suburban snobbery and jangling verse as Betjeman once did. Created by James I, the position was almost laid to rest in 1896. Following Tennyson's successful 45-year stint, many suggested that no one could better him. Gibbon had already written of "abolishing this ridiculous custom". William Morris turned down the invitation to succeed Tennyson and that, it seemed, was that. But then Alfred Austin (no, me neither) took up the quill. And so the "ridiculous custom" staggered into the 20th century.<br /><br />I'm not against the position of public poet. In fact, I think poetry could benefit from a more public role. Poetry has increasingly become a record of individual moments of private reflection and personal epiphanies, but it still has the potential to be a great vehicle for profound questions about national identity and our collective history. The Irish poet Brendan Keneally, in his brilliant collection Cromwell, creates a modern narrative that, with humour and anger, explores the echoes of history that ring around the streets of contemporary Dublin. It is as much a national epic as The Faerie Queen was four centures before.<br /><br />But we're not going to get national epics or searching questions about collective identity by shackling a poet to the House of Windsor. The link between God, crown, country and people was always, of course, a shaky one. But it was a great construct in which to write national poetry. And then Queen Victoria invented a new model of monarchy: a model that attempted to present the royals as just another cosy middle-class family. The ridiculous banality of this royal rebranding finally killed the potential of any serious poet being inspired by the monarch.<br /><br />So let's not twist the arm of one of our best poets and expect them to endure the same miseries as Motion. Instead, let's use the changing of the bard as a chance to rewrite the job description. We should start with the title: "national poet" would be better. And let's give the new national poet access to national life: from the forces in Iraq to the mosques of Bradford. Let's make sure they're present when we make discoveries about sub-atomic particles and host the Olympics. And let's invite him or her to the christenings, birthdays and marriages of ordinary people across the country. We couldn't, and shouldn't, dictate what they write. But, if we make a major poet part of our national life, we must surely end up with an artist who enjoys the post far more than Motion and who might just be inspired to write some great public poetry. But the "ridiculous custom" must come to an end as soon as Motion hands in his quill.VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-21791068026667116942008-05-31T12:30:00.002+00:002008-05-31T12:35:55.193+00:00Poem!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgr1VpOij18MhGNnO2HCoa47vv1j5ZRHDT8wHCi7gZKEpwbRZeklnq2jUmQcdljbWAdfn9rT_OxJlh0s67OIX-gdHhbKJkZpXumslg6uU_vvefmjF4-OBcPIqygGutEk574uEP/s1600-h/May3+051.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgr1VpOij18MhGNnO2HCoa47vv1j5ZRHDT8wHCi7gZKEpwbRZeklnq2jUmQcdljbWAdfn9rT_OxJlh0s67OIX-gdHhbKJkZpXumslg6uU_vvefmjF4-OBcPIqygGutEk574uEP/s200/May3+051.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5206519725306024226" /></a><br /><strong>Etcetera (for Ellis)</strong><br /><br />You reflect me<br />And the woman I love,<br />It makes me smile.<br /><br />We urge you<br />To stay <br />Breathe<br />Sleep<br />Feed<br />Etc<br /><br />Your feet are too small<br />For footprints.<br /><br />Our heads are too full<br />Of you to not feel<br />Your little weight.<br /><br />Etcetera is a better word<br />Than others I might use.<br /><br />We are yours if you want us.<br /><br />When you don’t need us<br />Let us down gently<br />Without the need<br />For lies and etc.<br /><br /><br />Kevin CadwallenderVOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-80536682143622410372008-05-31T12:18:00.003+00:002008-05-31T12:28:36.896+00:00Gigs for your Diary<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZsFFjTyDQbSjyS6CiAW0nBn7KwEQDzi8k5djfsjZBWmwamIiMtPcD-jVpNU_NOjwLKdFGan0VsOrd_xtZrQ2H5X-4wUD-1IhVemATCdUDIplrvMt1H0JPypOtrDHOLEprBUdJ/s1600-h/Kath+Kenny.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZsFFjTyDQbSjyS6CiAW0nBn7KwEQDzi8k5djfsjZBWmwamIiMtPcD-jVpNU_NOjwLKdFGan0VsOrd_xtZrQ2H5X-4wUD-1IhVemATCdUDIplrvMt1H0JPypOtrDHOLEprBUdJ/s200/Kath+Kenny.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5206517869880152338" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJpWvfP3ismjpegHyrS-_G3cGrM5gpLxILMvIqwWjYK-5cxGqtiEHRTKbjqd-LXInsFYP5syuWFC1Xq9y7PpjB8X6BF14neOGx4kafAAAtFfMS0j6nY2jcZvTkMmk46O_lWDaW/s1600-h/Martin+Stephenson.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJpWvfP3ismjpegHyrS-_G3cGrM5gpLxILMvIqwWjYK-5cxGqtiEHRTKbjqd-LXInsFYP5syuWFC1Xq9y7PpjB8X6BF14neOGx4kafAAAtFfMS0j6nY2jcZvTkMmk46O_lWDaW/s200/Martin+Stephenson.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5206516297922121986" /></a><br />Tuesday June 3rd ROYAL OAK 'Foakies' Edinburgh Martin Stephenson and Kevin Cadwallender<br /><br />Thursday June 5th Meadow Bar Buccleuch Street 7.30pm VOX BOX TEAM SLAM<br /><br /><br />Wed 18th June at Kath Kenny's Firesprung book launch BRIDGE HOTEL Newcastle<br /><br /><strong>Sat June 22nd</strong> Afternoon at the Angel of the North Ten celebration POETRY FILM : Angelus Septentrio by Kevin Cadwallender.<br />then at Bridge Hotel for Red Squirrel Drey Poetry night with Kevin Cadwallender, Kath Kenny, Steve urwin, James Oates, Alistair Robinson, Nancy Somerville plus the launch of Mike Dillon's book Child from Water.<br /><br />June 27th-30th Jockstock Festival<br /><br />July 4th London Launch of Kath Kenny's new book 'Firesprung' with reading by Kevin Cadwallender<br /><br />July 3rd Wicker Man FestivalVOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-54878362453196855472008-05-31T12:09:00.002+00:002008-05-31T12:15:46.382+00:00Everfall<OBJECT class=BLOG_video_class id=BLOG_video-fb6ff39086185043 height=266 width=320 contentId="fb6ff39086185043"></OBJECT>VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-47947313476669413472008-03-04T09:49:00.001+00:002008-03-04T09:52:20.952+00:00Give Poetry back to the people!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe9GnOp1cJwd7M9D713Aaer5S2v-gRU1xEhDbutc2hyphenhyphen8atH3YaPW1wxWEgJ2VPdhM9Q-6TqpUJzZ5TwxQWnyVZSQlDMkpilDnIRHelmuudCLY9s8I_anPyn-pOJd0RhqlnfwMQ/s1600-h/Neil+Astley.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe9GnOp1cJwd7M9D713Aaer5S2v-gRU1xEhDbutc2hyphenhyphen8atH3YaPW1wxWEgJ2VPdhM9Q-6TqpUJzZ5TwxQWnyVZSQlDMkpilDnIRHelmuudCLY9s8I_anPyn-pOJd0RhqlnfwMQ/s200/Neil+Astley.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173821900628890402" /></a><br /> <strong>New Statesman article by Neil Astley of Bloodaxe Books.</strong>It reminds us who we are, argues Neil Astley - but only if we shake off academic elitism and celebrate voices from our communities and around the world<br /><br />Poetry in Britain is both thriving and struggling: it is flourishing at grass-roots level while poetry publishing is floundering. Bookshops have drastically reduced their ranges of poetry. Publishers have scrapped or shortened their poetry lists and are taking on very few new authors. Small presses have folded. Yet, paradoxically, public interest in poetry has never been higher.<br /><br />More people write poetry than go to football matches, and poetry is popular in schools, at festivals and at the hundreds of readings staged every week in pubs, theatres, arts centres and even people's homes. Poetry has reached a wider audience through films, radio, television and the internet, as well as through initiatives such as London's Poems on the Underground, which has been imitated around the world. More people than ever believe, as Jackie Kay wrote in her National Poetry Day blog, that "poetry makes us think about who we are".<br /><br />And this is not just a British phenomenon. Big names in world poetry read to full houses at Scotland's poetry festival, StAnza in St Andrews, every March, and at Ledbury in July. This month, hundreds of poetry enthusiasts will flock to the biennial Poetry International at the South Bank Centre in London (24-29 October), where the international line-up includes Elizabeth Alexander, Martin Espada and Jane Hirshfield (US), Michael Longley and Paul Muldoon (Ireland), Tua Forsström (Finland), Tomas Tranströmer (Sweden), Arundhathi Subramaniam (India) and Gabeba Baderoon (South Africa). The following weekend (3-5 November), Aldeburgh Poetry Festival will fill the town's Jubilee Hall with readings by writers from Kurdistan and Catalonia to the US.<br /><br />Despite this obvious diversity and vitality, all the talk in poetry publishing is of crisis. The bookshops are blamed for declining sales - but this is not the whole story. The major chains have vigorously promoted poetry books aimed at a broader readership, with books such as my anthology Staying Alive selected for displays and offers. Yet broader-based initiatives are not working either. While in the US National Poetry Month helps sell thousands of poetry books, our annual National Poetry Day is far less successful in bookselling terms.<br /><br />Poetry is both flourishing and floundering in Britain because it has a split identity. If bookshops ignore their customers, they go out of business. When poetry publishers and reviewers ignore their readership, this is called "maintaining critical standards". And they still expect the public to defer to their judgement and accept their offerings, because they know best. The producers of poetry aren't in tune with the lovers of poetry. Many poets and publishers are actually hostile to the promotion of poetry - as the poet Michael Hofmann put it in the Times: "promotion violates the innocence and defencelessness of poetry". They see marketing as a dirty word instead of simply the means by which their books are made available to more readers.<br /><br />This reluctance to engage with readers comes at a heavy price. As bookshops stock less and less poetry, concentrating on safe bets such as anthologies and selected poems by big-name authors, publishers reduce their output of new titles. Cover prices rise as print runs fall, which further affects sales. Major bookshops derive 94 per cent of their income from 25 per cent of their stock. In accountancy terms, three-quarters of their stock is a waste of capital, taking up valuable shelf space - and that includes all the poetry.<br /><br />Given the large potential market, poetry publishers could stake a claim to some of that space - but only if they are publishing a range of books and authors that people actually want to read. Continuing to package their books to appeal only to an intellectual elite has severely disadvantaged them. If readers find a book visually unappealing, they won't pick it up. And if the back-cover blurb is a piece of turgid literary criticism, new readers will be scared off.<br /><br />Readers don't have access to the diverse range of work being produced, not just in Britain, but from around the world, because much of the poetry establishment is narrowly based, male- dominated, white Anglocentric and skewed by factions and vested interests. Too often, poetry editors think of themselves and their poet friends as the arbiters of taste, selecting only writers they think people ought to read. They are unresponsive to much poetry by women (who comprise more than two-thirds of poetry's readership) as well as to writing from Britain's rapidly growing ethnic minorities. Ignoring the readership would be commercial suicide in any other field, but this malpractice in poetry publishing and reviewing has survived into the 21st century thanks to "academic protectionism". This is something that has also tainted poetry reviewing: the few reviews that do appear are mostly of books by the same small group of mostly male, white British poets who also judge the main poetry prizes and are often either poetry editors or academics in university departments of English or creative writing.<br /><br />Editors' "personal taste" is too often an excuse or disguise for elitism and arrogance. In my view, my responsibility as an editor is to be responsive to writers and readers, and to give readers access to a wide range of world poetry. Publishers and writers who address a broader readership (as Bloodaxe has done with Staying Alive and other anthologies) are attacked by elitist critics for "dumbing down" - but receive overwhelming support from readers as well as from intelligent poets. Contemporary poetry has never been more varied, but what the public gets to hear about are the new post-Larkin "mainstream" and the "postmodern avant-gardists" (with their academic strongholds in Oxford and Cambridge respectively). More broad-based poetry expressing spiritual wisdom, emotional truth or social and political engagement is of little interest to either camp. Exciting new work by major American, European and Caribbean writers, from Martin Carter, Galway Kinnell and Yusef Komunyakaa to Jane Hirshfield, Mary Oliver and Adam Zagajewski, has been almost totally ignored by national-press poetry reviewers.<br /><br />But where print editors or their reviewers lag behind, radio producers, who have to be responsive to their audience, are much more in touch with the full range of what's current. Black and Asian poets with large grass-roots followings are frequently heard on national radio programmes. Radio has realised that modern English-language poetry is in fact a set of multiple interconnected traditions, including the oral-based and literary traditions of African-American, black British, Caribbean and south Asian poetry. The same changes in our idea of the novel have transformed fiction publishing - the recent success of Monica Ali, Zadie Smith and Kiran Desai would have been unthinkable a generation ago - and it is time for those changes to extend to poetry.<br /><br />The establishment must be responsive not to literary and academic cliques, but to readers, especially at a time when public interest in poetry is growing so rapidly. Poetry's dinosaurs have to realise that our country, culture and economic climate have changed, and so have their res ponsibilities. Their wake-up call needs to come before poetry publishing self-destructs. Internet sites are not enough. We need books.<br /><br />Neil Astley is editor of Bloodaxe Books, which he founded in 1978. His books include the bestselling poetry anthologies "Staying Alive" and "Being Alive"<br /><br /><br /><br />Poetry International is at the South Bank Centre, London SE1, from 24 to 29 October.<br />For tickets and further details log on to http://www.rfh.org.uk/poetryinternational<br /><br />The Aldeburgh Poetry Festival is at the Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, from 3 to 5 November.<br />For tickets and further details log on to http://www.aldeburghpoetryfestival.org<br /><br /><br />Read more articles from our poetry special issue at http://www.newstatesman.com/200610230055<br /><br />Tell us your favourite poems at http://www.newstatesman.com/yourpoemsVOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-36080986301599333382008-03-02T11:34:00.002+00:002008-03-02T11:40:06.853+00:00MINE : Poem<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkSJYMF2LWP_sHfY4Vhlc7-JT_KG2BkTcKF5cKRXl8MF0IcR9Rw3g7xN6aIjaq3gzzKGRqODDggBS-aootyRqMFX1YDePOOaGyGrnsNZDYhbF_b57Mw52r5dMiso2-Nnmu8Q6V/s1600-h/MINERS.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkSJYMF2LWP_sHfY4Vhlc7-JT_KG2BkTcKF5cKRXl8MF0IcR9Rw3g7xN6aIjaq3gzzKGRqODDggBS-aootyRqMFX1YDePOOaGyGrnsNZDYhbF_b57Mw52r5dMiso2-Nnmu8Q6V/s200/MINERS.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173107075333105570" /></a><br />Mine<br /><br />No it’s not for me<br />They closed down the colliery village<br />I was raised in two or three elections ago<br />And I moved on, never looked back.<br />It’s not for my children<br />Their plans will always be<br /><em>On bank.</em><br />It’s not even for my Dad<br />Who exchanged pits for ships<br />Who got out, never living to see<br />His friends redundant.<br />It’s not for my forebears of migrant miners<br />Following the coal dust trails<br />From Cymru to closure.<br />Most of us knew it was over<br />Long before 1984<br />And southern outrage<br />Was too little too late.<br />The rows of For Sale signs<br />Are rows of gravestones.<br /><br />Happy hour in the Trust<br />On Black Tuesday<br />£1 a pint<br /><em>Why thirty thousand pints<br />I’d be able to buy with my redundancy</em><br /><br />Thirty thousand pints.<br />Not enough to flood a seam with.<br /><br /><strong>Kevin Cadwallender</strong>VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1161703830013794682006-10-24T15:29:00.000+00:002006-10-24T15:30:30.036+00:0010 by 10 @ the Bridge Hotel, Newcastle.Zebra Publishing<br />Presents<br />Ten by Ten<br />Bridge Hotel<br />Nr High Level Bridge<br />Newcastle upon Tyne<br />Thursday 9th November<br />8.00pm onwards<br />Admission Free<br />Come along to the Bridge Hotel in Newcastle to see ten top performers<br />with spoken words,<br />words set to music, words shared between people, words on walls, words<br />in songs, words in<br />poetry, words in stories… each of the ten performers has ten minutes to<br />engage you, thrill you,<br />entrance you and hopefully inspire you.<br />The November Ten by Ten night will be hosted by New Word Order MC Karl<br />Thompson<br />We have a fantastic line up for the Ten by Ten; we have top poets, new<br />poets, singer<br />songwriters, poets putting words to music, published poets, unsigned<br />poets. It's going to be<br />FABULOUS.<br />The performers will be:<br />Claire Morgan: Domain Jane and Mother will be giving us a taste of her<br />unique poetry.<br />Kate Fox was our MC in October and now you can have a chance to hear<br />this award winning<br />poet do her own slot.<br />Shutlar & Spence who sound like a Music Hall act but are in fact a duo<br />of fine poets<br />Ira Lightman was on Radio 4 recently, and if you heard him you'll not<br />want to miss this chance<br />to see him live.<br />Kevin Cadwallender is a legend in the North East and one of its most<br />influential poets.<br />Ye Min will be reading many short poems around an embarrassing theme.<br />Katherine Farrimond. Aspiring academic, novice poet, popular culture<br />geek, and inept waitress<br />Is this another of Kate's relatives?<br />The Harlots: Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, we have<br />music from the Harlots<br />For more info contact <a href="http://uk.f865.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=jeff@zebrapublishing.co.uk&YY=53628&y5beta=yes&y5beta=yes&order=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b">jeff@zebrapublishing.co.uk</a>VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1161558237655136852006-10-22T22:41:00.000+00:002006-10-22T23:03:57.676+00:00SAND BOX<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/1600/Me%20and%20Ali.0.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/200/Me%20and%20Ali.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong>November 16th at the Bridge Hotel, Newcastle 7.30pm</strong><br /><br />Some Sand poets reading some poems with<br /><br />Kevin Cadwallender, Nev Clay, Tom Kelly & Alistair Robinson<br /><br />with music from Matt & Shani of Joe Byrne.<br /><br />ADMISSION ONE MEASLY QUIDVOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1161556775510275382006-10-22T22:29:00.000+00:002006-10-22T22:39:35.526+00:00Performance PoetryWhat is Performance Poetry?<br />Performance poetry as its name suggests is anything that is written especially with an audience in mind and to be ‘performed’ live<br />It is this word ‘performance’ that is the key here.<br /><br />What is the difference between performance poetry and poetry that is spoken?<br /><br />Generally poetry that is meant for the page and written with the idea of an audience that divides into many individual ‘silent’ readers and was not meant to be read out loud is read often as it appears on the page, i.e. it may follow poetic rules of rhythm, it may be delivered in what is called , ;’the poetic voice’ which enables listeners to capture every word but may not reflect natural speech patterns.<br /><br />In general performance poetry tends to be more naturalistic, reflecting speech patterns and with some emphasis on entertainment.<br /><br />Performance poetry then can be the way you read something rather than what you are reading.<br /><br />That is not to say that Poetic devices such as Rhyme, Repetition, Assonance, Repetition, Meter , Rhythm and Repetition (arf , arf !), and all of the other arsenal of poetic weapons are not present in Performance Poetry. They are but they will be used for their sound value (how the audience hears it) rather than their value visually (how a reader reads it).<br /><br />One of the more popular forms of Performance Poetry pieces that most poets have in their repertoire is called a ‘list’ poem. These usually employ repetition and may be humourous or not.<br /><br />This leads us to the question Should Performance Poetry be funny?<br /><br />Well, it doesn’t have to be. It might be angry, It might be polemic, It might be sad.<br />In fact it can do all of the things that poetry can do. It is more about attitude and delivery than a particular type of poem although humour is popular.<br /><br />Why is humour popular?<br />I would say that humour is popular because it engages an audience on an emotional level. Which is exactly what good poetry should do!<br /><br /><br />What is the difference between Stand Up Comedy and Performance Poetry.<br />Comedy in this context has a certain amount of crossover and many performance poets because of the comedy that they use , go down well in comedy clubs. The difference I think is in the end product. A comedian wants us to laugh. We may also think about issues that are raised but he wants us to laugh. A poet on the other hand wants us to think, primarily even whilst making us laugh.<br />Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between a thoughtful comedian and a less thoughtful performance poet. The human emotions they play with are common ground. Sometimes the edges overlap.<br /><br />What poems are best suited to performance?<br />Well you have to remember that the difference between a poet and a performance poet<br />Is that the performance poet is seeking to elicit an immediate response from the audience whereas a poet who is writing for the page can only elicit a delayed response. That is an audience may not have the time for prolonged reflection.<br /><br />How do you find something funny to write about?<br /><br />A tough question, but if you find it funny then the chances are that someone else will find it funny also.<br />And<br />Trial and error. Nothing is written in stone. Try your poems out at home read them aloud to friends, family. Note how they react naturally not what they say afterwards.<br />(They are after all your friends and family!)<br /><br />Audiences are strange beasts and will laugh where you want them to and where they want to.<br /><br />Ok let’s assume we have a poem to perform.<br />Before you go anywhere near a stage you must acquaint yourself with the tools of the stage. (You wouldn’t go and try to fix your car without the right tools so don’t do it with the stage).<br /><br />What have we got?<br /><br />A microphone, A microphone stand, A wire that leads to the P.A. from the microphone. Maybe a lectern, maybe not. Everything beyond this is not your concern. (unless it becomes your concern)<br /><br /><br />If you are going to be using a microphone at readings get your own and a little practice amp and get some practice in. Learn how to use the microphone. How it reacts to your own voice, how you can use it for effect.<br /><br />There are basically two ways to use a microphone.<br /><br />If the room is full and noisy you will need to speak in a stage voice into the microphone with the microphone within a few inches of your mouth.<br /><br />If the room is quiet you can let the microphone pick up your voice and stand a more relaxed distance from the mike, but still you are not talking in a normal speaking voice volume wise.<br /><br />Presuming we know how to use a microphone. Here are some pointers.<br /><br />1) Understand how you come across to other people. It doesn’t matter if you are shy. You can control how you are perceived. If you look nervous and shy and ‘amateur’ the audience will dismiss you as such.<br />2) Choose your poems before you arrive at the reading. Having said that, be prepared for any eventuality. If someone starts a theme in the evening and you have a great poem on that theme, do it and the audience will remember the theme and associate it with you.<br />3) Between poems, try to become familiar with the audience, learn where the laughter spots are, watch for anyone who might heckle, (you can do this as you watch the crowd interact with other performers and as they arrive, learn the ‘feel’ of the room.) learn where the quiet spots are. Between poems instead of saying ‘and the next poem is’ think of a unrelated incident, an anecdote or an explanation of why you wrote the poem. Remember these don’t have to be true, they can be written beforehand but tell them as if you have just thought of them. It looks more spontaneous.<br /><br />4) Eye contact. You don’t have to be looking at everyone . But if they think you are it helps the audience to feel a part of the proceedings. You all know what it feels like when you are talking to someone and they don’t look at you.<br /><br />5) Looking like you own the stage area is important. If you look like you belong there . People will allow you to be there.<br /><br />6) Never patronise your audience. They don’t want to be told every little obscure reference in your poem. If they want to know they might ask you later or buy a book!<br /><br />7) The classic paper shuffle comes from insecurity. Three ways to over come it.<br /><br />a) make it part of the act<br />b) Mark the poems in a reading copy of a book or only take the poems you want to read onstage.<br />c) Learn the poems by heart.<br /><br />8) Don’t mumble or fidget. Speak Clearly and if you hand is shaking your papers <br /> keep it away from the mike.<br /><br /><br /><br />A PERFORMANCE POETRY SET<br /><br />Ok you are reasonably happy with the poem and the microphone, you have overcome basic errors. What next.<br /><br />At a poetry reading there are what’s called open mike or floorspots. Usually a new poet gets to do a couple of poems or maybe only one.(5 minutes) Choose a poem with the most impact if you are doing one. Choose two memorable poems if you get two.<br />If you are asked to do three poems and only have two good ones put the weaker poem in the middle. People will remember your opening and closing . A good opener can carry the goodwill of the audience through a weak next poem onto your stronger third poem. Try new poems in the middle and then make them stronger .<br /><br />Say you are invited to do a 20 minute feature spot. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you can do about ten poems because you timed it at home. Look for six medium length poems and with introductions, interludes for anecdotes and audience interaction you will have you 20 minutes. If audiences are clapping between poems these will take up a couple of minutes per set of 20 minutes.<br /><br />Use a watch to time most poetry readings and everyone over runs.<br />Leave them wanting more not wanting you to get off.<br />What I am also saying is don’t overstay your welcome, know when to get off.<br /><br />About leaving the stage remember you are being observed as you leave the stage. Don’t break the spell by becoming a miserable sod straight away. Be approachable. Take the plaudits with grace and try not to let it go to your head.<br /><br />After you have read don’t dash off immediately have the good manners to watch the other acts. You might learn something and you might get another reading.<br /><br />hope this helps someone.<br /><br />Kevin CadwallenderVOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1161300961551979982006-10-19T23:32:00.000+00:002006-10-19T23:37:04.880+00:00Jo Byrne gig<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/1600/joe7.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/200/joe7.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Friday 20th October 7.30pm at The Royalty Sunderland with support from Kickin' Jane. (Photo: Alan Sill)VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1161294638192699372006-10-19T21:50:00.000+00:002006-10-19T22:02:56.116+00:00BBC - Wear - Features - The perfect performance<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/1600/kevin_cadwallender_203x152.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/320/kevin_cadwallender_203x152.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/wear/content/articles/2006/10/19/kevin_cadwallender_interview_feature.shtml">BBC - Wear - Features - The perfect performance</a><br /><br /><br /><br />Photo: Tony GriffithsVOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1161293831684957412006-10-19T21:28:00.000+00:002006-10-19T23:31:46.310+00:00Poetry Review Review by Nigel McLoughlin'North by North East covers forty-nine poets in 377 pages. If you want to know what's going on right now in the poetry scene in the North East, this is the book to buy. Like all good anthologies, it offers the reader a chance to discover poets they hadn't previously read. Among those who impressed me are Kevin Cadwallender and Valerie Laws. Cadwallender's poems speak from the inner city and the voice has a knowing humour which lifts the poems above their bleak surroundings. Laws's images are vivid and the language rattles and sparks. One gets the feelings she chooses her subjects carefuly, seeking the intense and the pregnant within them and offering the reader something of the 'real' experience they contain. Of course the anthology also offers generous selections of work by Harrison, Stevenson, Allnutt, Herbert, O'Brien et al ; as well as the excellent Brendan Cleary, S.J. Litherland and Katrina Porteous.'VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1160909403859306892006-10-15T10:43:00.000+00:002006-10-15T13:56:27.993+00:00What's bin hid and what's bin didI have been doing reviews for the Durham Literature Festival<br />view them at <a href="http://www.literaturefestival.co.uk">www.literaturefestival.co.uk</a> on the site blog.VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1160071504688739802006-10-05T17:50:00.000+00:002006-10-05T18:07:06.156+00:00Familiar<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/1600/th_russ2.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 108px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 108px" height="108" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/320/th_russ2.jpg" width="137" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/1600/CNV00056.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 139px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 92px" height="118" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/320/CNV00056.jpg" width="215" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/1600/30-04-06_1209.jpg"></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/1600/13-03-06_1659.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="98" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/320/13-03-06_1659.jpg" width="139" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />In response to questions from picture on <a href="http://honeyforthehead.blogspot.com">http://honeyforthehead.blogspot.com</a><br />of me carrying my daughter 'Charlie'. I have three kids from my marriage. I was married 18 years. I am no longer married. Here are the beautiful children Matt 18, Shani 17 and Charlie 7. Obviously they don't get their looks from me.VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1160004785988720402006-10-04T23:31:00.000+00:002006-10-04T23:33:05.990+00:00Peter Finch's Handbook<a name="howpotop">How To Publish Yourself </a><br /><br />advice from Peter Finch's classic handbook on self-publishing<br />"By far the best guide to self-publishing in print" Writers' Monthly<br />"thoroughly recommended" Freelance Writing And Photography<br /><br />The best up-to-the-minute advice for any author on the brink of going it alone. Information on setting yourself up, professional presentation, printing, design, desktop publishing and marketing and promotion, as well as much more. Savour the success stories of Timothy Mo and Jill Paton Walsh, and weigh up the pros and cons of publishing in other media, from CDs to videos to the World Wide Web. This a complete handbook that takes the total beginner from a scruffy manuscript to a finished, marketed and saleable book. If you have the ability to put up a shelf then you can produce the books to go on it. And the costs involved are not necessarily enormous.<br />Chapters cover:<br />Why get involved? Should authors publish themselves?<br />Historical precedents. Famous self-publishers of the past and their stories.<br />Present day self-publishing practitioners<br />The publishing scene<br />How to establish yourself as a publisher<br />What do books consist of?<br />How to prepare copy<br />Printing processes and how they work<br />Book design, not as arcane as you might think<br />How to make production cheaper<br />How to improve on basic print<br />Can't cope? Advice on where to get advice. There are helpers out there.<br />Desktop publishing is no such thing. How to use what it actually does<br />Selling. The most important thin in a book's career<br />Marketing and promotion<br />Alternatives to traditional book publication.<br />Poetry - a special case<br />If it can go wrong it will. Disaster recovery.<br />Plus two great appendices:<br />Organisations of interest (and use) to self-publishers<br />Book lists - what guide books are available and how can they help. An essential list<br />What readers said on Amazon:<br />"This is an excellent and very encouraging book written in a light, accessible style with just the right amount of humour. Every page has a wealth of useful tips and information and, having read it, I feel far more confident about becoming a self-publisher."<br />"I read this book from start to finish in two days, completely soaking up the information. It provides a guide on all the basics to self-publishing with enough information to explore the concept further. Peter Finch hits exactly the right note of encouragement to do it yourself."<br />"It is an almost step-by-step introduction that covers all of the important stuff you need to know ...... I wouldn't be without it"<br /><br />Revised edition is available now<br />published by Allison & Busby<br />ISBN 0749003014. Paperback. £8.99<a href="http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/peter.finch/bookspf.htm#how">ordering information</a>VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1160004474676398062006-10-04T23:26:00.000+00:002006-10-04T23:27:54.686+00:00Further Wikipedia information on Vanity PressesDifferences from commercial publishers<br />The term “vanity press” is generally derogatory, and is often used to imply that an author using such a service is only publishing out of <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/vanity" target="_top">vanity</a>, and that his or her work could not be commercially successful. Some vanity presses are in fact <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/confidence-trick" target="_top">scams</a>, including those identified at the <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/science-fiction-and-fantasy-writers-of-america" target="_top">Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America</a> (SFWA) <a class="external text" href="http://www.sfwa.org/Beware/" target="wpext">website</a>. In general, any publisher that expects the author to pay a large fee upfront (while promising or hinting at fame and fortune), is most likely dishonest, and certainly should be approached warily.<br />Some companies offer <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/printing" target="_top">printing</a> (and perhaps limited distribution) for a fee. If honest, such companies will explain their fees, what they do and do not offer, and how their service differs from that of a commercial publisher. Such services can be a viable way for an author to <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/self-published" target="_top">self-publish</a> without owning printing equipment. This is particularly attractive to an author of a work with a limited, specialized appeal which may not interest mainstream publishers, or to the author who intends to promote his or her work personally. However, the true distinction between vanity publishing and self-publishing is simple: who owns the books when they come off the printing press? If the answer is the printer, who then pays royalties to the author on the basis of books sold, then the book has been vanity published. If the author owns the books outright, and can thus dispose of them as he or she likes, then that author has self-published.<br /><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/academic-journal" target="_top">Scholarly journals</a> often ask authors to pay page charges but use <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/peer-review" target="_top">peer review</a> to keep a high scientific standard. Poets often self-publish, as their work is generally of extremely specialized appeal, and therefore risky to mainstream publishers.<br />A mainstream publisher traditionally assumes the risk of publication and production costs, selects the works to be published, edits the author's text, and provides for <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/marketing" target="_top">marketing</a> and <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/distribution-business" target="_top">distribution</a>, provides the <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/international-standard-book-number" target="_top">ISBN</a> and satisfies whatever <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/national-library" target="_top">legal deposit</a> and <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/copyright-registration" target="_top">copyright registration</a> formalities are required. Such a publisher normally pays the author a fee, called an <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/advance-payment" target="_top">advance</a>, for the right to publish the author's work; and further payments, called <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/copyright" target="_top">royalties</a>, based on the sales of the work. This led to <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/james-d-macdonald" target="_top">James D. Macdonald</a>'s famous dictum, "Money should always flow toward the author" (sometimes called <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/yog-s-law" target="_top">Yog's Law</a>).<br />A vanity publisher typically fails to provide any useful editing service, and is not selective, printing works by anyone willing to pay a fee. This lack of selectivity is the main reason for the low esteem in which most of the literary world holds vanity publishers. Many vanity publishers charge excessive fees, which are never likely to be recouped from sales of the books involved. Vanity publishers typically do little or no effective marketing. Formerly they did little or no distribution. Now vanity publishers may offer web-based sales, or make a book available via online booksellers, but they generally do no marketing. Furthermore, many bookstores -- especially large chain stores -- avoid self-published books.<br /><a name="Business_model"></a><br />Business model<br />Vanity publishers typically offer <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/contract" target="_top">contracts</a> that strongly favor the publisher, charging high fees while providing low-quality books. They often sell worthless add-on services related to editing and marketing, and are frequently charged with outright <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/confidence-trick" target="_top">scams</a>.<br />A <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/self-published" target="_top">self-publisher</a> is an author who also undertakes the functions of a publisher for his or her own book. The classic "self-publisher" writes, edits, markets and promotes the book themselves, relying on a <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/printing-office" target="_top">printer</a> only for actual printing and <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/binding-4" target="_top">binding</a>. More recently, companies have offered their services to act as a sort of agent between the writer and a small printing operation. In these cases, the distiction between self-publishing and vanity publishing is less obvious than it once was.<br />Many PODs (<a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/print-on-demand" target="_top">print on demand</a> companies) using modern digital copy machines are the most recent incarnations of vanity presses. Some have turned to scamming authors in order to keep their machines busy and to help pay for them. During the first years of the 21st century the mainstream printing business went into a slump and the gross oversupply of digital printing machines (like big <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/xerography" target="_top">Xerography</a> machines with add-on units to bind books) forced traditional printers as well as the new print on demand companies to seek new sources of revenue.<br />Vanity presses earn their money, not from sales of books to readers like other publishers, but from sales of books to the authors. The author receives the shipment of books and may attempt to resell them through whatever channels are available. In some cases, the copies are not even bound.<br /><a name="Alternatives_to_vanity_publishing"></a><br />Alternatives to vanity publishing<br />Writers considering <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/self-published" target="_top">self-publishing</a> often also consider directly hiring a <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/printing-office" target="_top">printer</a>. According to self-publisher and <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/poet" target="_top">poet</a> <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/peter-finch-poet" target="_top">Peter Finch</a>, vanity presses charge higher premiums and create a risk that an author who has published with a vanity press will have more difficulty working with a respectable publisher in the future.<br />Some PODs (print on demand companies) using modern digital copy machines have chosen to act as printers and sellers of support services for authors interested in self-publishing. Such firms are typically marked by clear contract terms, lack of excessive fees, retail prices comparable to those from commercial printers, lack of pressure to purchase "extra" services, contracts which do not claim exclusive rights to the work being published (though one would be hard pressed to find a legitimate publisher willing to put out a competing edition, making non-exclusivity meaningless), and honest indications of what services they will and won't provide, and what results the author may reasonably expect. The distinction between these firms and vanity presses is essentially trivial, though a source of great confusion as the low fees have attracted tens of thousands of authors who wish to avoid the stigma of vanity publishing while doing just that.<br /><a name="Libraries"></a><br />Libraries<br />The typical <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/library" target="_top">library</a> avoids stocking self-published books, since most vanity publications have not gone through selection, revision, copyediting and other critical steps which are normal for commercial for-profit <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/publishing-1" target="_top">publishers</a>. Most libraries will not accept such vanity publications, even when they are offered free of charge, since even then there are costs involved: all library books have to be described in a <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/library-catalog" target="_top">catalogue</a>, and require classification stickers and other elements. The total cost of cataloguing and general processing in 2002 was about $50 per book in the <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/united-states" target="_top">United States</a> regardless of the size or original cost of the book. Then, the cost of keeping the book on the shelves has to be added, each year. In any case, it is usual for books to be chosen for a library by the application of a <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/library-collection-development" target="_top">collection development</a> policy designed to meet the needs of a particular user community, and vanity publications only rarely meet those needs.<br />On the rare occasions when libraries accept the product of a vanity press, they usually require the donor to sign a form giving to the library the right to do what it pleases with the item. The item is sometimes then disposed of in a yearly book sale or by some other process for the distribution of unwanted items.<br />Exceptions include local histories, which are of specialized interest enough to be uninteresting to commercial publishers but which are sought out by libraries.<br />Many libraries and reviewers do not clearly distinguish between vanity publications and self-publications, and are apt to decline or resist any book that does not come from a commercial press. Indeed in some cases any book produced using POD technology encounters such resistance, even if it is from a small commercial publisher.<br /><a name="Vanity_presses_in_fiction"></a><br />Vanity presses in fiction<br /><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/umberto-eco" target="_top">Umberto Eco</a>'s novel <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/foucault-s-pendulum" target="_top">Foucault's Pendulum</a> discusses the inside workings of a vanity press publishing company. <a class="external text" href="http://www.elaineviets.com/" target="wpext">Elaine Viets's</a> novel Murder Between the Covers involves a self-published author attempting to set up a bookstore signing. The hero of <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/jonathan-coe" target="_top">Jonathan Coe</a>'s novel What a Carve-Up is commissioned over a long period to write a book by an otherwise vanity publisher. The company is satirized at some length.<br /><a name="Some_vanity_presses"></a><br />Some vanity presses<br />American Biographical Institute (see Scams Page, CAV, below)<br />American Literary Press, Inc.<br /><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/authorhouse" target="_top">AuthorHouse</a> (formerly 1st Books Library)<br />Booksurge (formerly GreatUnpublished.com)<br />Dorrance<br /><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/iuniverse" target="_top">iUniverse</a><br /><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/poetry-com" target="_top">Poetry.com</a>, aka The International Library of Poetry<br /><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/publishamerica" target="_top">PublishAmerica</a><br /><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/lulu-com" target="_top">Lulu.com</a><br />Melrose Press (aff. International Biographical Centre, Cambridge)<br />SterlingHouse Publisher<br /><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/trafford-publishing" target="_top">Trafford Publishing</a><br />Vantage Press<br />Watermark Press<br /><a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/xlibris" target="_top">Xlibris</a> - a notable <a class="ilnk" onclick="assignParam('navinfo','method4'+getLinkTextForCookie(this));" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/print-on-demand" target="_top">Print-On-Demand</a> provider of assisted self-publishing services<br /><a name="See_also"></a><br />SeeVOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1160004203143414922006-10-04T23:21:00.000+00:002006-10-04T23:23:23.156+00:00Vanity PressesI have been asked a lot about Vanity presses here is what Wikipedia has to say about it.A vanity press or vanity publisher is a <a title="Book" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book">book</a> printer which, while claiming to be a <a title="Publisher" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publisher">publisher</a>, charges <a title="Writer" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writer">writers</a> a fee in return for publishing their <a title="Book" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book">books</a>. <a class="new" title="Jonathan Clifford" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jonathan_Clifford&action=edit">Jonathan Clifford</a> claims to have coined the term in 1959 <a title="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_publishing#_note-0">[1]</a>. In its very simplest terms, while a commercial publisher's intended market is the general public, a vanity publisher's intended market is the author him/herself. Many authorities consider an <a title="Author mill" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Author_mill">author mill</a> to be a kind of vanity publisher. A vanity press is distinguished from a <a title="Small press" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_press">small press</a> publisher in that the small press acts as its larger cousins do, performing the traditional roles of editorial selection, binding and review, and marketing at its own expense, rather than at the expense of the author.<br />The so-called "vanity" companies often refer to themselves as joint-venture or subsidy publishers, because the author "subsidizes" (or finances) the publication. A vanity press will generally agree to <a title="Printing" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing">print</a> and <a title="Bookbinding" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookbinding">bind</a> any author's work if the author is willing to pay for the service; these fees typically form a vanity press's <a title="Profit" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit">profits</a>.<br />Commercial publishers, on the other hand, derive their <a title="Profit" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit">profit</a> from sales of the book, and must therefore be cautious and deliberate in choosing to publish works that will sell, particularly as they must recoup their investment in the book (such as an <a title="Advance payment" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_payment">advance payment</a> and <a title="Royalties" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royalties">royalties</a> to the author, <a title="Editing" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editing">editorial</a> guidance, <a title="Promotion (marketing)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotion_%28marketing%29">promotion</a>, <a title="Marketing" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing">marketing</a>, or <a title="Advertising" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising">advertising</a>). To better help sell their books, commercial publishers may also be selective in order to cultivate a reputation for high-quality work, or to specialize in a particular <a title="Genre" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre">genre</a>. Because vanity presses are not selective, publication by a vanity press is typically not seen as conferring the same recognition or prestige as commercial publication. Vanity presses do offer more independence for the author than does the mainstream publishing industry; however, their fees are often higher than the fees normally charged for similar printing services, and sometimes restrictive contracts are required.<br /><br />I will find other interesting viewpoints so watch this space.VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1158391858829328812006-09-16T07:24:00.000+00:002006-09-16T07:30:58.856+00:00Event at The Bridge HotelZebra Publishing Presents<br /><strong>Ten by Ten</strong><br />Bridge Hotel Nr High Level Bridge Newcastle upon Tyne Thursday 12th October 8.00pm onwards Admission Free For more info contact <a href="mailto:jeff@zebrapublishing.co.uk">jeff@zebrapublishing.co.uk</a><br />Come along to the Bridge Hotel in Newcastle to see ten top performers with spoken words, words set to music, words shared between people, words on walls, words in songs, words in poetry, words in stories… each of the ten performers has ten minutes to engage you, thrill you, entrance you and hopefully inspire you. The first Ten By Ten night kicks off at the Bridge Hotel and will be hosted by Stand Up comedian and poetry diva Kate Fox. We have a fantastic line up for the first Ten by Ten; we have top poets, new poets, singer songwriters, poets putting words to music, published poets, unsigned poets. It's going to be FABULOUS. The performers will be David Franks, Ian Watson, Kyla Clay Fox, John Cartmel-Crossley, John Quinn, The Plexus (featuring Karl Thompson and Ralph Stokes), Scott Tyrrell, Sheree Mack, Simma and Valerie Apted.<br /><strong>Ian Watson </strong>Have failed to set the world alight in 57 years but as my mother says, 'Who would want an arsonist in their family?' Originally from Isle of Lewis now living in Darlington where gannets aren't part of the staple diet. Gemini on a lot of medication. Pleased to meet you...<br /><strong>John Quinn</strong> John Quinn began as a spoken word performer back in the 80's at the height of the ranting poet era. His humorous and quirky style is both familiar and strange, blending poetry and prose with image and text.<strong>John Cartmel-Crossley</strong> John has been a cultural layabout for many years. He has contributed to over thirty small press Poetry magazines. In 2004 he gained an M.A. in creative writing (poetry) at the University of Northumbria, and is a winner of the Biscuit International Poetry Prize. He is the editor of OPENDOOR creative arts magazine.<strong>The Plexus: Karl Thompson</strong> - Words and gibberish Karl is one sixth of Newcastle's infamous Poetry Vandals, co-director of New Word Order and award winning performance poet. He's twice taken the team prize at The City of Culture 2008 poetry slam. He's performed extensively through out the UK and in Europe 'The Plexus' is his newest venture with <strong>Ralph Stokes</strong> - Music, guitars/effects and noise Ralph is an up and coming music producer, musician and party head. His musical styles range from ambient dub through to psytrance, waving hello at rock on the way. Ralph has appeared at Newcastle Green festival and other local events and gigs.<strong>Valerie Apted</strong> Valerie is Secretary of the Northumberland Writers and is currently studying for her MA in Creative Writing at Newcastle. She enjoys performing her poems, has had poems published in several magazines and on TV. <strong>Sheree Mack</strong> Sheree was born in Bradford, to a Trinidadian father and mother of Ghanaian descent. She is the creator and coordinator of Identity on Tyne, the only group in the North East providing a space exclusively for writers of colour. She is currently completing her PhD at University of Newcastle upon-Tyne, focusing on black British women poets and her own collection, 'Family Album'. <strong>Kyla</strong> <strong>Clay-Fox</strong> Kyla is the larger half of a set of twins. She has been writing poetry since she was published, aged eight, in a church magazine, despite being an atheist since conception. (Well, you try and have faith when you're in the womb for 9 months with your brother standing on your head!) <strong>Simma</strong> A songwriter/singer from Newcastle. He started gigging 12 years ago and is founder of Newcastle's Acoustic Circus. He has performed countless times in and around The North of England and Scotland. He is currently writing, gigging, selling Album Trouble Sleeping, and being funny on BBC Radio Newcastle on Saturday mornings. <strong>David Franks</strong> David will read and sing unaccompanied a selection of poems from his collection "Walkabouts: travels and conclusions in verse", which is in some libraries (along with a related C.D. "Chants from Walkabouts") and is free on the web at - walkaboutsverse.741.com <strong>Scott Tyrrell</strong> Scott is a member of the Poetry Vandals and a multiple national award-winning poet and comedian. His targets range from popular culture, useless technology, political and personal absurdity to the residues of childhood insecurity. All delivered with a healthy irreverence and world-weary exasperation of someone who's spent way too much time in queues.VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1157552172596835932006-09-06T14:12:00.000+00:002006-09-06T14:18:33.166+00:00Ten by Ten<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/1600/DOORS%20BOOK.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/320/DOORS%20BOOK.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong>Zebra Publishing presents<br /></strong>Ten by Ten<br />We are looking for ten people to perform in ten, ten minutes slots at<br />the Bridge Hotel in<br />Newcastle on the nights of Thursday 12th October, Thursday 9th November<br />and Thursday<br />14th December.<br />We want new material, new ideas, you can be a poet, rapper, writer,<br />singer/songwriter. All we<br />ask is that the material you perform is your own and your performance<br />is a maximum of ten<br />minutes long.<br />On the night there will be no door charge, no fee and no expenses, it's<br />just for the hell of it.<br />We held a trial night at the Cumberland earlier in the year and we were<br />amazed but not<br />surprised at the talent that came along and disappointed that we<br />couldn't give everyone who<br />applied a spot. You have three dates to choose from, so let us know<br />which dates you are<br />interested in and we will try and give everyone their ten minutes of<br />fame (If you can call<br />performing at the Bridge Hotel fame).<br />Email us now…<br />Jeff & Annie Zebra Publishing <a href="mailto:jeff@poetryvandals.co.uk">jeff@poetryvandals.co.uk</a>VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1157320201829092322006-09-03T21:39:00.000+00:002006-09-03T22:09:08.533+00:00What I am Reading (as if you care!)George Bernard Shaw<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/1600/GBS.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/320/GBS.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Oscar and Bosie (right)<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/1600/Bosie%20and%20Oscar.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/320/Bosie%20and%20Oscar.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/1600/Jackie%20Litherland.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/320/Jackie%20Litherland.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/1600/paris%20011.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/320/paris%20011.jpg" border="0" /></a> (my daughter Shani at Oscar's Grave in Pere Lachaise, Paris) (S.J.Litherland right)<br /><br /><br />Currently engrossed in Lord Alfred Douglas' correspondence with George Bernard Shaw. Fascinating stuff, Ego meets Tantrum, the Childe Alfred and St. Christopher. Snapshot of Victorian manners and literary dogfighting. Oscar must be spinning under all those lipstick kisses and concrete.<br />Draft of 'Mugs' by Paul Bodie. Haven't read it all but will comment further at a later date. Enjoying it so far!<br />The Silver Crown by Robert O' Brien, classic children's book he also wrote Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of Nimh I think. Enjoyable adventure romp.<br />Lord Cucumber by Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, Wodehouse style mucky farce.<br />Work of the Wind by S.J.Litherland (reading Mac Sweeney's Book of Demons too) A matched pair. Fabulous tour de force from Jackie, Review to follow for BEE.<br />Lots of books on Diabetes as I have just been diagnosed as having it. That should put paid to my drinking! Ah well it says nothing here about the sugar content of cocaine.<br />More later.VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1157319018002736612006-09-03T21:24:00.001+00:002006-09-03T21:32:18.973+00:00Two Poems for Mr.Bodie<strong>Both poems from up and coming collection,</strong><br /><strong>'The Lost Art of Catching Trains'</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>URBANAL<br /></strong><br />We have already bought the t shirts<br />they say<br />‘God Wears burberry’<br />They will appeal to all demographics,<br />youth culture , womens institutes,<br />they will sell like hot cakes.<br />we will sell hot cakes too,<br />(they will sell like t-shirts.)<br /><br />On the allotment someone<br />has pulled the head off a pigeon<br />it blinks once as its body attempts flight.<br />I don’t like this world much.<br />I throw up on Gary’s new combats,<br />he scrapes it off with a Bowie knife.<br />Named after the famous Byker Wall<br />frontiersman Bob Knife.<br /><br />I once pissed on a homeless gadgey<br />when I was an anarchist whispers Kieron<br />But I was younger then and full of principles<br />Time is elastic and stretches to fit me in<br />like a cervix states Gregg<br />who says he is a film maker,<br />although he has never actually made a film<br />although he has now made a poem<br />(although this is open to dispute)<br />although is an overused word and works badly under repetition<br />although...........<br />Billy is an Ulsterman<br />his accent does not give him away<br />who wants to know why we would assume he was a protestant.<br /><br /><em>What part of Ireland do you come from?<br /><br /><strong>The North!</strong></em><br /><br /><em>Yes, but which part of the North?</em><br /><strong><em><br />Erm ....Limerick<br /></em></strong><br /><em>Limerick’s in the South....I think</em><br /><br /><strong><em>Yes well, it’s a long way from Tipperary</em></strong><br /><br /><em>Actually, it’s just not!</em><br /><br />we reckon he’s half Irish.<br />Half Irish and half wank.<br /><br />Michael comes in and reminds me of a joke poem<br />that hardly anybody ever gets.it depends on a knowledge<br />of T.S.Eliot, Adam Faith and Inspector Jack Regan;<br />We call it Sweeney among the Budgerigars<br />‘Get your strides on Budgie, you’re nicked!<br />we laugh like pretentious drains.<br />I am explaining the joke to<br />a seventeen year old Darlington supporter<br />He looks at me with a blank expression<br />I look at him with an empty glass<br />neither of us takes the hint.<br /><br />Amelia is a woman of many faces<br />I don’t like any of them.<br />She looks like a young Glenda Jackson<br />Her mother looks like an old Glenda Jackson..<br />Amelia you are the ghost of alienation,<br />false as alarms you wear<br />the hexagram of the 7/11<br />plucking dayglo strings and feathers,<br />and I, am Icarus with Daedalus envy.<br /><br />The morning cracks under interrogation<br />the loaf I bought this morning smells of vinegar,<br />angels shoplift featherlite condoms from superdrug<br />wings hidden under coats borrowed from the<br />cursed and charmed and others of us who are truly alarmed<br /><br />Captain Black is leaving for the last metro<br />I drink up and follow.<br />A drunk teenager mistakes me for Troy Tempest<br />as I make for the exit.<br />I didn’t think her generation would remember.<br /><br />These are the days of indolence and expedience.<br /><br /><strong>Daedalus Envy</strong><br /><br />We fall from grace so easily<br />Cut Price Angels<br />with our little fuck off wings<br />We count the cost too readily<br />of stuff that doesn't mean a thing.<br /><br />We burn with anger too soon<br />Criticising others under a red nose Moon<br />We beg for forgiveness<br />When the drink is in full flow<br />We wait to go anywhere but here<br />when there is nowhere else or left to go<br /><br />Love and all its ridiculous rules<br />we settle for the commonplace<br />When Ignorance is blistering the<br />smiles from off our faces.<br /><br />Let's settle for anything and call it a dream<br />and keep our mouths wide shut<br />for our silent soulless screams.<br /><br />I know what you are saying is the truth<br />because you wouldn't lie, would you?<br />I know how I feel don't I? and you<br />would never intrude , would you?<br /><br />We push our bodies together<br />we pull our hearts apart<br />we end as we began, clueless in our art<br />and so wrapped up in ourselves<br />that we cannot see how clear<br />the answer is, somewhere not<br />too far away from here.<br /><br />We fall from grace so easily<br />Wingless unhappy fucks<br />under the heel of the god that made us<br />or under the wheelbase of a truck.<br /><br />I know what you are saying is the truth<br />because you wouldn't lie, would you?<br />I know how I feel don't I? and you<br />would never intrude , would you?<br /><br />I know what you say is the truth<br />you wouldn't lie would you?<br />I know what I said was true<br />and you would never lie, did you?VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1156104633388498522006-08-20T20:04:00.000+00:002006-08-20T20:10:33.393+00:00Not the AutobiographyKevin Cadwallender<br />Not so much an autobiography as an aid to memory.<br />The first publication I was featured in was a school magazine and I wasn’t too happy it was in. Dene House School, Peterlee in the early seventies 72 or 73. In about 1976 I had about eight poems in a cyclostat anthology produced by Peterlee Writers Circle. I have it! This group was tutored by two writers one called Richard (can’t remember his second name) and another writer who due to my poor memory will have to be anonymous. By 1980 I had joined East Durham Writers Workshop under the guidance of the poet Keith Armstrong who was the Community Arts Development Worker in those days. The Workshop published an anthology in 1981 called imaginatively ’81 and another in 1984 called ‘Anthology 84’ also a one off magazine called ‘Fall Out’ which was allegedly edited by an editorial committee. There was also a Easington Greenwich twinning book called E.G. (clever huh?) and a photocopied thing that Keith made with poets in including me and my brother John called ‘North Sea Poems’ , A pamphlet called ‘Kicking Around’ with poems from children in Dene House School and poems by me, Keith and others. East Durham Community Arts published;<br />Eager for Fire (Pamphlet)<br />Riot/East Durham Community Arts<br />My first pamphlet ! whenever I read it I think of the Bob Dylan lyric I think it is from ‘My Back Pages’ ‘I was so much older then I’m younger than that now’ I was an intense young man. I was mostly untouched by the Poetry world at this point.<br />When I think about all this now it just seems odd that I did it at all. My first poems were picked up by Mr. Cooper I don’t know his first name obviously we called him ‘Alice’. The English Teacher at Dene House Secondary Modern later Comprehensive in Peterlee. He left I heard and became a taxi driver , probably untrue but we liked to make up stories that made life a bit more interesting, maybe he got a job at another school. He was important in my life as a writer. I suppose that I wasn’t as important in his life and that was why when I saw him in the queue at Gregg’s Bakery in Peterlee I didn’t say anything to him. I would have liked to have said ‘Thanks’ or ‘you Bastard it’s all your fault!’ Depends which way you look at it really.I went back to my old school years later to present prizes but that’s another story.<br />Mostly in the early eighties I was perfecting the art of getting drunk at every opportunity, Keith Armstrong was my mentor in this at first but I soon graduated to other drinking buddies including Trevor ‘Legs’ Bentley and Bill Levitas. Trevor was an anarchist poet and Bill was a Ginsbergian character, looking like him and trying to be like him. Bill was Jackie Litherland’s step son from her marriage to Maurice Levitas who was an important communist leader in the region. We used to drink in the Gamecock in Peterlee (gone at present) and were once thrown out for talking in funny voices, the Goons as I remember. They were both writers and me and Trevor did a pamphlet together called ‘Spider in the Bath’ published by Toerag which was a poetry comic fanzine (only way to describe it) I ran in the early eighties. At some point Chris Storey (who now works for the BBC) who was a year or two younger than me joined the group. I had been to junior school with him at Blackhall Colliery. We met some interesting writers at this time I met Tom Hadaway, Roy Clarke (last of the Summer Wine) I think his Uncle Ron Oliver was in the group and that’s how we got him. I met J.B.Priestley when I was very young via Bill and Ethel Monck who used to run Peterlee Arts and Information Centre when it was in The Chare. I did an exhibition with Anton Hopkinson(photographs) and Chris Storey. I met Catherine Cookson, Frances Horowitz, Roger Garfitt, Benjamin Zephaniah, Adrian Mitchell, Atilla the Stockbroker, Linton Kwesi Johnson and others I forget. Pete Morgan judged a poetry poster competition and Keith and myself visited him in York . He had picked one of my poems ‘Pig’s Head’ which was illustrated by John Wagstaffe as I recall. I gave Pete Morgan a book of Abassid poetry called ‘Birds through a ceiling of Alabaster’ which he liked. Unfortunately Pete’s partner/wife? Took a dislike to Keith (surprise, surprise) and we left to wait in a pub for the train.<br />The early eighties saw our first trips to Edinburgh initially with Keith Armstrong but as my own ties developed, on my own and with a cast of thousands in later years. Those I took to Edinburgh or help arrange gigs for included Dave Brown, Steve Moore, Elle Ludkin, James Oates, Dave Calder, Paul Summers, Brendan Cleary, Ian Dowson, Kate Fox, Adam Fish, Angela Readman, Louise Dal, Richard Dawson, The Poetry Vandals, Graham C.Brown, Suzi Atherton, Neville Clay, Beccy Owen, Chris Oates, Jeff Lawson and many more.<br />I met a lot of interesting poets and people in Edinburgh including Kevin Williamson, Irvine Welsh,Hamish Henderson, Harry Young, Henry Normal, Barry Graham, Jim Ferguson, Bobby Christie and the late great Sandie Craigie. My best friend there was and still is Mike Dillon and other good friends included John McCauchie, Bob Shields, Billy Cornwall, Jan Coleman, Ziggy Sinclair(?), Maggie Jamieson, Ken Kelly, Ken Nelson, Jim Saunders (The People's Poet) and later Melissa Ross, Nancy Somerville and Tom Fairnie. There were lots of people a real buzzing scene and tremendous fun to be had of which I most certainly had my share.<br />Lots of tails from Auld Reekie so I will save them for the next instalment.VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32783804.post-1156102696307042642006-08-20T19:34:00.000+00:002006-08-20T19:44:12.090+00:00Bee Postcards<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/1600/Nightshift.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 116px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 75px" height="121" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/400/Nightshift.jpg" width="133" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/1600/The%20Light%20Programme.0.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 113px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 75px" height="111" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7757/3588/400/The%20Light%20Programme.0.jpg" width="177" border="0" /></a><br />A set of six postcards will shortly be available from BEE postcards. <a href="http://honeyforthehead.blogspot.com">http://honeyforthehead.blogspot.com</a><br />check out the site.<br />Here are a couple.VOXBOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13924199252499936209noreply@blogger.com1