Poetry Reading: Martina Evans

Martina Evans, as the youngest of ten children growing up alongside a petrol station in Cork, uses all such life experiences in her poetry. Today Martina read some of her poetry and discussed her writing life with a Royal Literary Fund reading group in the Whitechapel Ideastore,

Why Poetry?

Although, also a novelist, Martina says she prefers poetry, partially because, as she says, she is 'better at it.' She talks about how people say that everyone has a novel in them, she, more realistically believes 'Everyone has a poem in them.'

Audience/Reader

When asked, 'Would it matter if no one read your poetry?' she answered, that she would still write, 'but it would be different.' This is most apparent considering her recitation of her poems for the audience that day. Carrying on an oral tradition, Martina's poems, especially came to life with her Cork accent and the particular tones and rhythms she had had in mind when she first wrote them (with a little poetic license taken, in an organic editorial). This coupled with the insights into her stories joins the audience more robustly in the contract or relationship, that is other side of the balance of writer and reader. 

Form

Although Martina's poetry is mainly freeverse, she told her audience 'I hear a very strong rhythm'. This,  she considered to be from her mother. She said, 'I sometimes think my mother is speaking out of me.' 'I like the music of voices,' she told her audience, 'like Joyce.' Martina recalled overhearing her mother, a widow amongst widows, saying, 'Now we can talk openly about men'  and realized later how this was iambic pentameter, a form she is working with at the moment. The physical shape of the poem on the page is also a consideration for Martina's when it comes to form. It is part of her process, as she said, 'like building a house on a page.' When talking about how conscious she had been of falling in recent times, she mentioned a poem she wrote about going down into the basement with some rhyming couplets like the steps going down into the basement. 

Memory

Memory plays a large part in Martina's work. From the memories she uses of her childhood in Cork to those more recent of London. Research into first-hand accounts are the backbone of some of her more historical or political poetry while at the same time Martina talks of how her mother would freeze in the middle of a story realizing, if she was not careful her words would appear in print in one of Martina's poems. Martina even talked of the initial  difficulties of memorizing her poetry, and the benefits of this kind of activity as a brain exercise and to prevent memory loss in the long term,

Personal Stories

I talked to Martina about my own difficulties with memory, ie; that I could recall very little of my childhood, like she was able to. And that her work inspired me to make those 'links' she talked of. When she spoke of a poem 'Horses in the Basement', I thought of one I had in mind called 'Turkeys in the Attic'. I had a memory of a nightmare I'd had as a child where I could hear the movement and trilling of turkeys overhead in the attic and the appearance of white feathers at strange times. However I found out this wasn't something I imagined or dreamt but did happen. The turkey's ended up killed and plucked and I had thought it was just a dream (perhaps to disassociate). I have been inspired by Martina's poetry to investigate my memories more deeply and ask the questions of family that might be part of some stories of the future. Like Martina's ones of taking cats to the vets in velvet bags or run ins with dentists or 'anti-erotic' oysters. Martina's stories are those celebrated in Kavanagh's poem Epic where the local stories of times, places and events are promoted to a glory, in her poetry, on a par with any epic story.

Note: Martina is also a teacher of creative writing and suggests using the exercise 'I remember...' as a memory jogger. Write the words 'I remember' and write whatever comes to mind (example here).

The Short Story Salon: Macleod, Hadley and Greengrass

Waterstones on Gower Street London hosted The Short Story Salon with authors Alison Macleod, Tessa Hadley and Jessie Greengrass. Chaired by Alice Slater from Mslexia, the evening explored the short fiction form including readings and discussion of aspects from inspiration and writing styles to the authors' own tastes in short stories.

The Readings

Mcleod read from All The Beloved Ghosts (2017), a collection of short stories which blended real life characters into fictional stories. Hadley read from the story 'Her Share of Sorrow' from her collection Bad Dreams (2017). And Greengrass read the full title story from 'The Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It' (2017) a fictional narration based on real accounts.

On Research & Inspiration

Both Greengrass and Macleod relied, they said, on a tremendous amount of research and for the rest of the story, as Mcleod said, 'You imagine between the gaps.' Hadley on the other hand almost never did research, and would 'just make it up'. 

 

Short Story to Novel

When questioned on the movement between short and long forms, from short story to novel, all three authors recognized the difficulties and differences. Hadley, after six novels admitted that she had been relying on her ability as a short story writer, using an episodic approach and that she was only now finding her 'flow'. One of the differences between how she approached a novel and a short story, she said, was that as she was sixty-five thousand words into a novel she wondered 'Am I leaving anything out' whereas in a short story, she said, 'You leave everything out.'

Greengrass considered the short story to have something specific to say, 'like an essay', she said, whereas a novel has a 'territory' to cover. Macleod considered a short story to be a 'relationship between two things and something is born' whereas 'a novel needed architecture'. 

The Short Story Comeback

When discussing the resurgence of the short story form it was suggested that there could be many reasons for its rise, from the culture created by an abundance of creative writing courses to increased media presence in magazines and online and even ease of production due to technology.

What the Authors Read

The authors' own tastes varied from Macleod's enjoyment of the 'yearning', comedy and characters of Chekhov to Hadley's fondness for Mavis Gallant to Greengrass' keener interest in less fictional short form

such as essays and such pieces as John Donne's sermons.

Review:

An excellent inaugural salon and wonderful celebration of the short story form. The readings were appropriate and enjoyable and the discussion was managed skillfully by a very passionate and knowledgeable Alice Slater who kept the evening going at the right pace to leave the audience awed and inspired.

(Tickets were £6 and included a glass of wine and the cost of the ticket could be redeemed against any of the books read from that night)

On Writing: Planning & Possibilities

Possibility & Catching Ideas

I am warned, in The Craft of Novel-Writing, that if I 'linger at the planning stage' that I 'may never start the book at all' (Doubtfire, 1982, p.12). Any planning needs to leave room for the kind of organic development that can't be planned. A book should be 'fluid' and 'a voyage of discovery' that is 'full of surprises' and that it is more likely that the reader will be surprised if I (the author) am 'continually surprised' (Ibid).

This, Stephen King describes as 'an immense feeling of possibility' with which he wrote his very first story as a child (2000, p.28). According to King, 'good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere' and the writers job 'isn't to find them but to recognise them when they show up' (2000, p.38).

Doubtfire (1982) advises keeping note books handy in the planning stages, to catch the ideas as they come (p. 9-12). In 1982 when the book was written, mobile phones weren't as prolific so wouldn't be available, as they are now, at that moment you want to jot something down.

Words, Numbers & Discipline & Freedom

When planning to write a novel its good to keep in mind the average length being anywhere between 60,000 and 100,000 words (Doubtfire, 1982, p.10) and according to Writers & Artists a 'typical paperback' will be 80,000 to 100,000. 

Doubtfire (1982) looks at a book of about 70-80000 words and suggests breaking it into 30 chapters of around 2500 words (p.11). The 1-30 method, as advised by Winston Clewes, involves writing 1-30 down a margin of a page and by the 1 put a 'possible opening' and by the 30 an 'idea for an ending' and by the other various numbers 'brief notes on some highspots of the story' (Ibid). It doesn't all need to be planned, but as you write, more notes by the chapter numbers and changes and more notes again will help to sort any 'muddle' out, and help to 'plan a strong back bone for your book and build towards a powerful climax', which can also change as appropriate (p. 12).

Irving Wallace (1969) in The Writing of One Novel considers that 'Every author prepares for a book in the way that best suits his psyche' (p.56). Wallace liked to plan using an outline, which he considered to have the 'virtue of being creatively thought out, worked out, disciplined, in the authors mind and on paper...' (1969, p.60). However he recognises that a novelist 'who plans too carefully in advance' could create such a 'rigid mold that he leaves no room for hisimagination to soar freely or for new ideas to root and grow...' (Ibid).   

Marathons, Toolboxes, Training & Work 

When Guy de Maupassant (1888) showed Flaubert some of his early writing, Flaubert saw 'a certain iintelligence' but wasn't sure if he would go on to develop any talent. Flaubert (Ibid) advised him: 

'Talent...is nothing other than a long patience. Work.'

Francesca Bell in Being a Writer, uses Haruki Murikami's analogy for writing a novel as running a marathon and considers the 'writer has to be fit for purpose and stamina is part of that fitness' (2015, p.268).

How do you train to be a writer? William Boyd in Notes on Becoming a Novelist considers that he found the 'right thing' to do to be a writer was 'writing as hard as [he] could, fulfilling [his] apprenticeship, making mistakes and learning from them' (2015, p. 291).

This apprenticeship carries with it a toolbox. Stephen King (2000) talks about the writer's toolbox of skills in vocabulary, grammar, style and form and says if you want to write to the best of your ability that 'it behoves you to construct your own toolbox and then build up enough muscle so that you can carry it with you', then he says when you are faced with something hard 'instead of getting discouraged, you will perhaps seize the correct tool and get immediately to work' (p. 111). 

Do Two Things

Stephen King's  (2000, p.145) advice is:

'[I]f you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot' 

King reads 70-80 books a year. I looked at my list since starting this blog in September and wondered if I was in the right ball park. By the 19th of February in Reflections on Reading I had read 19 books and since then I have read Timbuktu, The Drowned World, The Guest Cat and The Rosie Project. That's 23 books in 6 months, so in a year, at the same rate, I will have read 46 books. It looks like I have some catching up to do.

When it comes to writing, in the last six months I have attended a writing class, been editing my novel, have written a short story, some poetry, essays for an MA and written over 80 blog posts like this. King (2000) likes to get in 10 pages or 2000 words a day (p.154). However, if that is his only job I would imagine it being easier than when he wrote Carrie in between wash cycles at work. I feel like that's what I am doing and its hard work. I want to be writing all the time but when your eyes are closing and your head is dropping over the keyboard its hard. But there you go - no one ever said it was going to be easy. And all the cliches I drag out to young people I work with about hard work and achievement come to mind and I am chastened.

And I plan to read a lot and write a lot...more.

 
References: 

Boyd, W. (2015) Notes on Becoming a Novelist, Writers' and Artists' Yearbook 2015, Bloomsbury, London
Brill, F. (2015) Being a Writer, Writers' and Artists' Yearbook 2015, Bloomsbury, London
Doubtfire, D. (1978, 1982) The Craft of Novel-Writing, Shocken Books Inc, New York

King, S. (2000) On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Scribner, New York
Maupassant, G, (1888) 'Le Roman', Preface to Pierre et Jean, cited in Allott, M. (1959) Novelists on the Novel, Routelege, London
Wallace, I. (1969) Writing One Novel,  The New English, Library, London

We Are Our Book Shelves

'If you don't have time to read 

you don't have time (or tools) to write.'

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller gives a great insight into the reading practice of a writer who writes about it. The title The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life tells the tale.

Andy Miller, in his late thirties, in an effort to reclaim his identity as a reader (in something akin to a pre-mid-life crisis), decides to go on a journey of self-betterment by reading 50 books in a year.

I loved the idea immediately, not surprising considering my own challenge which I've set myself to explore my life and learning in 52 quotes over a year. However what it reminded me of mostly, was my 25th birthday. I remember at the ripe old age of 24, when my daughter was a toddler, being ashamed of how little I'd read since school and feeling a sense of disappointment in myself for not being the kind of reader I wanted to be.

On my 25th birthday my partner gave me 25 books. They were mostly secondhand, as we had little money but every single one had a slip of paper in it to tell me why it was chosen. There were old classics, some were books I said I wanted to read and others were ones which were books 'one should read'.  I can't remember if I read them all but I still open a book now and then and find one of those slips of paper reminding me of one of the best presents I've ever got.

 “As Schopenhauer noted a hundred and fifty years ago, 

‘It would be a good thing to buy books if one could also buy the time to read them; but one usually confuses the purchase of books with the acquisition of their contents.” 

Andy Miller 

I think of all the books I have either got as presents or bought and which still sit, unread on my bookshelf. I think I can at least try to find all the books on my 25th birthday list and check I've read them. I wonder if my life would have been any different, like Miller's, if I had.

Yesterday's Fear

So its Thursday and I still haven't submitted my book for consideration to any agent or publisher. I have looked up 'calls for submission' and 'how tos' on submitting but I haven't actually submitted anything. I have re-read my first three chapters, synopsis and covering letter and attempted a final edit...and then that was it. Crisis. I read it and it was awful. I couldn't remember what was good about it. It seemed dull and lacking in forward momentum. I tried reading aloud. That was worse. All the sentences seemed to catch. I went back to not reading aloud, hoping if I read fast I would just fall back into the groove. Fade to dull. I had read it so many times I felt less than nothing for it. It was 'blah'! 

Under the Pier on Brighton Beach

I could not in any way, shape or form imagine how I could do a final edit when all I could read was 'blah'. It probably didn't help that I wasn't feeling well but I allowed for that. I could think of no other way past it apart from leaving it in a drawer for a couple of years so I could forget it and come back to it fresh again.

I discussed my crisis with Tim. He understood how it felt. He is a writer. He didn't however come up with an answer. He said I would. I didn't that night and went to bed desperately reading Stephen King's book On Writing. He probably said something in the book somewhere about the 'blah' but it wasn't the bit I was reading. I turned to Ted Talks for inspiration. I couldn't find any so went for catharsis instead and chose on the basis of 'funny' ratings. I watched Ken Robinson hilarious description of how schools kill creativity. He convinced me, and more importantly he made me laugh. I was able to sleep.

I felt worse in the morning. I hadn't had any divine inspiration or even a dream that might have given me some ideas. I read some more from Stephen King On Writing (2000). Still nothing on the 'blah'.  I got to the bit on telepathy. Yes telepathy. It tickled me. The idea that when we read we can see into the mind of the writer. I love the idea. It didn't help me with the problem but it did inspire me to try again.

I sat down at the computer before work and started to read aloud again. This time I tried to read it differently. I wasn't sure how, but I read it with a strong and harder voice (possibly in an attempt to conjure up some interest). It was working. I tried to not be myself. Or at least the self that had read the day before. I think I started to read as the character, an older man describing childhood events or maybe that's what I'm imagining. I don't care - I was able to edit. Some of the writing sounded right and some was off and with a little tinkering sounded right, or at least sounded like what had gone before. I was able to imagine a voice again and what that voice would and wouldn't say and how they would say it.

Now its Friday and I still haven't submitted my book. I am feeling pleased that I have found a way forward but haven't moved on from that. I went back to the Stephen King book before breakfast. Lo and behold what does he say but whatever you do you should come to the page 'anyway but lightly'. I remembered what I wrote in the previous paragraph about going back to editing and reading it in a 'strong and harder voice' - not lightly, but with purpose. Ok he was talking about the blank page but all my pages might as well have been blank. 'Blah' pages are worse than blank pages.They make you step back and disengage. Force you to take the heat off. To turn the dial down. To tip toe around the problem. To try to tinker with a light touch when the life is gone out of it because you extinguish it as you go along like a wet rag. I stopped being the wet rag as soon as I got fired up about it, whether it was the fear or the anger it didn't matter. I was switched on again. 

Come to it any way but lightly. 
(Stephen King, 2000)

King, S. (2000) On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Scribner, New York