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Thursday 26th April 2012 – 7pm at Europe House, 32 Smith Square, London SW1P Damir Sodan – Tomica Bajsic – Dorta Jagic – Ivan Herceg – Sonja Manojlović Jeff Hilson – Tom Warner -– Tim Atkins – Mark Waldron – Marcus Slease – Andy Spragg – Claire Potter – Saradha Soobrayen – Joe Kennedy Day Thirty-Two (winner of the Plough Prize 2011) has been added to the Poems page. Click here to visit the Sabotage website and read Sean Hewitt’s review of the Escalator winners reading at CB1 in Cambridge on 28 February 2012. The poem below is new. It’s dedicated to a close friend from my childhood who suffers from an acute stammer. Tongue For Nick The jolt in your speech The Saint of Forest Town, worked itself free a queue of wheelchairs I’m very pleased to have won The Plough Prize 2011. You can read the winning poem and others at The Plough Prize website here. ‘My upbringing among so-called “inarticulate” people has given me a passion for language that communicates directly and immediately. I prefer the idea of men speaking to men to a man speaking to god, or even worse to Oxford’s anointed.’ - Tony Harrison Writing is difficult when I forget to play. Tomorrow I shall play and enjoy the writing. Here’s some play from my notebook: Doodle Imagine the art of doodling dies out Fully digital, there’ll be no escape, How will we visit our corners without the pyramids Hear David Ferry reading the poem. Wearing a tawny lion pelt upon Chain looped around your toe, pull the plug I start with paper, pencil and words (as many as I like – they’re free), writing until some vague shape comes into focus. Watching a poem crystallise on a computer screen feels too solid too soon, looks too much like a page for publication. I start my poems in pencil on scrap paper or in cheap exercise books I buy in packs. It’s important for me that this stage of the process is as free from consequence as possible, and expensive notebooks and Times New Roman seem to ask, Are you sure? It’s too early to be sure. The poem begins as mine – handwritten, scruffy and scribbled out – but through the process of its forming – redrafting and editing – the poem becomes its own thing. Now the poem can ask, Am I sure? A new poem, Magician, is available to read at The Manchester Review.
I wrote the poem thinking of those magicians I grew up watching on Saturday evening television in the Eighties, and where they might be now that karaoke and celebrity chefs have taken over the schedules. WARNING: This poem contains strong language. There is no flash photography. My ‘Yoga’ sequence has been published on the very new #New Writing website, alongside poems by George Szirtes, Moniza Alvi, Esther Morgan, Sandeep Parmar and Joyelle McSweeney. #New Writing is a collaboration between the University of East Anglia and Writers’ Centre Norwich showcasing new writing from UEA (students, faculty and alumni) and commissioned work from Writers’ Centre Norwich’s national and international literature projects. Body of Work: 40 Years of creative Writing at UEA (Full Circle Editions) will be launched in London on 1 December. The ‘Toe’ poem I posted here last month will appear in the anthology. It’s a great honour to have my poem included in Body of Work. I’ve seen the proofs and would recommend the book to anyone interested in literature and creative writing.
Here’s a video documenting a project I worked on last year. Well Versed was a pilot project bringing poets and teachers together to improve the presentation of poetry in primary and secondary schools. Well Versed was managed by Writers Centre Norwich in partnership with Creativity, Culture and Education. I spent National Poetry Day (yesterday) at St. Augustine’s Priory School in Ealing, West London. I was at the school for a reading and Q&A with sixth form students, followed by a workshop with Year 9s. The students asked some interesting questions about constraint and the creative process. In July I was asked to write a poem for an anthology celebrating forty years of creative writing at the University of East Anglia. I’d bumped into the Creative Writing Professor in Norwich and he’d asked if I’d have a go at writing in response to a Derek Mahon poem called ‘Head’. Mahon’s ‘Head’ would appear last in the anthology and my poem, should I choose to take up the challenge, should be titled ‘Toe’ and would appear first; a kind of top and tail, or tail and top. So, ‘Toe’… and it needed to be about inspiration/creation, either stubbing a toe or building a golem beginning with the toe. So, ‘Toe’… and I had little over two weeks to write it. Two weeks in which I was working in schools and away at Latitude. Not long. So, ‘Toe’… A few days from the deadline I considered requesting an extension, but, as I said yesterday, deadlines are good, as are constraints on subject; they squeeze and steer the writing. I still don’t know how I feel about my ‘Toe’. It’s kind of mine and not mine, but it is there. Thank you to the students and teachers at St. Augustine’s for an excellent National Poetry Day. Here’s ‘Toe’.
Toe It makes sense to start with the toe and work up. When he’s complete, I’ll prop a ladder against his chest I’m reading at the Wymondham Words Festival on Friday 16 September at 8pm at the Ex-Services Club in Wymondham. I’ll be reading with Kate Kilalea, Andy McDonnell and Tim Cockburn. The festival is on all weekend and has an excellent line-up, including Mark Cocker, Richard Mabey, Helen Ivory and Elspeth Barker. Further details here. After an excellent week working with students and teachers for Stalham High School’s literature festival last month, I’m honoured to be adopted as the school’s honorary poet. I look forward to working with Stalham again in the new academic year. I have a poem in a forthcoming collection of essays and poems celebrating forty years of creative writing at the University of East Anglia. I was asked to write a poem about writing/inspiration and using the title ‘Toe’ in response to a poem by Derek Mahon called ‘Head’. Click here to read Molly Naylor’s article on the Well Versed project at The Rialto blog. The idea behind Well Versed was poets working with teachers to improve the presentation of poetry in primary and secondary schools. It was great to work with Molly and all the students and teachers at West Earlham Primary, Wicklewood Primary and North Walsham High School. New review of my Faber pamphlet by Joey Connolly here. |
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Copyright © Tom Warner 2012 - All Rights Reserved |
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