In the Bleak Midwinter
This photo was taken up in Hardcastle Craggs this week to inspire a new personal writing project I have just started. I have decided to do the same route once a week for a year and write about this walk from different angles - observation, sensory details, diary thoughts and research. I am going to see what kind of material comes out, but I started this week in appalling weather and came across this extraordinary wall of icicles half way down the main route into The Craggs. It looked like the entrance to The Underworld!
I am also going to be working in South Leeds Academy this term with year 11 pupils. I am looking forward to meeting them all on the 25th January. I am running a writing project in Warrington for Anna Wenlock which will be open to local writers (and non writers). It is based at Birchwood Library and will look at unlocking creativity, helping new writers get started and building confidence and self esteem. I intend to do a mixture of poetry, creative non-fiction and short stories with the group.
I did a project last year at Birchwood as part of a ‘Some Girl’s Mothers’ tour, and had the best workshop experience I have ever had! It was a very mixed group of young people and retired people and they all clicked. The evening flew by.
Review of my first pamphlet
Here is a snippet from a review of ‘Slug Language’ by Christopher Horton. If you would like to read the whole review, please follow this link. I am really pleased with his perception and obvious enjoyment of the work. Slug Language was published last autumn and is now out of print, but I still have a few copies left if anyone would like one!
‘Anne Caldwell’s Slug Language is a seductive, though at times chilling, pamphlet that demonstrates careful craft and a deftness of touch. The word ‘touch’ seems particularly apposite here because Caldwell so frequently expresses meaning through the human senses, bringing to bear the rawness of physicality.’
Here is the link:
http://www.saltpublishing.com/horizon/issues/03/text/horton_christopher.htm
I hope you enjoy reading it!
A new term starts
I am teaching for the Open University this year and for Bolton University and have a really interesting bunch of students in both institutions. Teaching poetry is challenging how I write myself. I have always using voice, rhythm and half rhyme a lot in my own work. Trying to explain exactly how to two different groups of students is proving quite a challenge!
I am also beginning to put together my collection. The first step is to get all the possible material together and lay it out on the bedroom floor/bed/windowsill etc. Wish me luck!
The Poetry School’s guide has been recommended to me - on how to put together a first collection. So I am going to take a look at that this week.
Poetry Success!
I have just found out that I have won the Cinnamon Press first collection award today. I am delighted. The book will be published early 2011. I am joint winner alongside Sally Douglas and my draft title is ‘Talking to the Dead’.
Here is some further information from Cinnamon on their current submissions:
We also currently have a submission call for an anthology of poetry sequences and one place left on our women’s writers course at Hebden Bridge in November. You can find full details at www.cinnamonpress.com
Boys and Reading
I have been working with animation artist Jack Lockhart this year in a number of different schools, looking at the connections between animation and poetry, and encouraging boys in particular to get into reading by making their own book trailers. It has been great fun! The biggest lesson we have learnt I think, is to allow the young people involved to really take the lead and create their own film material. Sometimes things have therefore not turned out in expected ways, and there are a lot of ’special effects’ and references to Star Wars in some of the work produced. In one primary school in Oldham half way through a session, I overheard a pupil say ‘This is the best fun I’ve had at school all year.’ Whether or not you can really encourage a love of reading in just five short sessions is a tall order. But many pupils reported that they had a leap in confidence because of the project, and some tried books they would not have attempted before the workshops this summer.
Conversation on-line with writer Sarah Hymas
I have been having a really fruitful conversation about my work with poet Sarah Hymas this week, shortly to appear on her blog. http://sarahhymas.blogspot.com/
It has made me think about the roots of my own writing, and be able to articulate more clearly what I am trying to say in poetry, particularly around the idea of writing about the environment.
She has asked me about my first pamphlet collection - Slug Language.
If you would like to read some reviews of this collection, here is a sample:
A Sample of Feedback from Poets and Readers of ‘Slug Language’
‘We also enjoyed reading Slug Language - we both spent a happy hour on
Saturday morning reading it. It really is excellent, Anne, you’re an extremely talented writer, teacher, performer …’
Kaye Tew MMU
‘Congratulations. You’ve got a book of treasures in print. Such wonderful words coming from Slug Language – some making me goose-pimply – slime also very much appreciated!’
Susan Heyhurst
‘I’m so enjoying ‘Slug Language’ I think it’s a very strong pamphlet. I particularly liked
‘Touched’…Lovely’
Alicia Stubbersfield
‘What a stunning reading and luscious book!’
Mandy Coe
‘Love the chapbook. It is beautiful. Enjoy it’
Amanda Dalton
‘A strong collection. Takes your work to a new level’
Sarah Corbett
‘Just read your book cover to cover and think it’s genuinely beautiful. I haven’t read poetry I enjoyed so much in years.’
Beverley Ward
‘I love your poetry – sensuous, delicate, delicious’
Cheryl Moskowitz.
‘I very much enjoyed ‘Slug Language’. I have a terrible habit of turning down the corners of pages so that I can easily find my favourite poems again and your lovely pamphlet is sadly defaced. My favourite poems were Feral; My Mother’s House Falls into the River, Kist, Longing is Opened by the Wind and Mid Summer II. So glad Nell decided to publish this excellent collection.’
Maggie Butt.
‘I’ve read your pamphlet – and I really like it, especially the poems about your son (the reference to chisels and light bulbs was familiar/chilling!).’
Jonathan Davidson
Two events coming up this summer
I have just had a poem published in Magma no.44 and I am delighted as I think it is such a good magazine. I am going to its launch event at The Troubadour in London 8pm on the 22nd June. Please come and join me if you are around that evening. I will post up the poem once the magazine is in production.
I am also doing an event with Nell Farrell, Char March and others at the Lowdon Literature Festival on Saturday 20th June at 6.30pm. We are reading from ‘Some Girls’ Mothers.
I have been following quite a lot of material in the papers about the Poet Laureate and want to congratulate Carol Ann - this seems a very important step forward for women and poetry in particular and I am really pleased to see the raised profile the art form has. I just hope the actual Laureate post does not have a detrimental affect on her work. I wonder if there is a better way of celebrating poetry in this country? It seems such an archaic institution. I would prefer something that did not focus on one person and had a wider spread. I would be interested to hear what other people think.
Working in Schools
I have been doing quite a lot of new residencies this year -both with animation artist Jack Lockhart and by myself. A lovely primary school in Wetherby called Lady Elizabeth Collingham employed me to work over a number of days with their pupils on the theme of the second world war - which was quite a challenge. A year three class wrote fantastic poems on the theme of evacuation and a creative teacher called Pauline Ross came up with the idea of putting these poems inside suitcases made of paper:
I have also been working in a primary school in Oldham on the theme of encouraging boys to read more books where the boys have worked separately from the girls. This process was interesting, as the boys freely admitted they were keen readers without the girls present!
New 2009 poetry
The River Ure in Spate, January 2009
I have just been on an amazing visit up Wharf dale in search of waterfalls. I had not done that trip in winter and the landscape was very bare, beautiful and most of the rivers were near to flooding point. I do not think this photograph does the scene justice!
I seem to have had a dry period over the festive season when it comes to writing, but here is something that I have managed to finish. I began this poem in a workshop run by the fabulous Ann Sansom at a National Association for Writers in Education’s retreat last year. Ann asked the group to write in the first person from the point of view of a baby about to be born, and read us a poem by Sharon Olds. I hope this is not too derivative of Sharon Olds (who does this kind of intimate poem so well it is difficult to know where you start yourself after reading her work, I think!). Please leave me a comment if you have a view on this topic.
Worcester Park General Hospital
I’m kept in a box. I blink.
Smell hot plastic. Stretch out my hand
to watch a pattern of light redden.
I’m a glow-in-the-dark; half-fish
with slithery lungs in a ribcage supple as a slipper.
My skull’s pointed, yet to harden.
My hold on life is lax.
Mother’s face rises like a full moon
and her eyes cloud over with green.
I’ve lost her metronome heartbeat.
I’ve no idea of the comfort of her milk-tipped
nipple, nor the crook of her arm,
nor the rhythm of a walk in the park
with sycamore leaves to soften the sun’s stare.
Anne Caldwell
Happy New Year
I have done very little writing over the Christmas Period but lots of reading. I would recommend two new books of poetry that I have really enjoyed for different reasons.
The first is Womens’ Work (seren) with a great introduction by Eva Salzman/Amy Wack and the other is ‘Answering Back’ edited by Carol Ann Duffy - which includes poets responding to another published poet and was a great way in to re-thinking some old favourites as well as discovering new work by people really enjoy reading.
I have also just read ‘Waterlog’ by Roger Deakin and absolutely loved it. That’s it on the holiday reading front. I am back to work tomorrow.
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About
Anne Caldwell is a poet and literature consultant. She works for NAWE and the Open University, Bolton University and runs workshops in schools and community settings.
Contact Tel. 07818 052108
email a.caldwell@nawe.co.uk
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Read This
'A Wilder Vein' edited by Linda Cracknell
