Nevertheless, today's been a good day. And, bonus, Aaron Ramsey hasn't scored any goals; celebrities can sleep safely till tomorrow.
Poetry
The poetry world seems to be thriving. Weds night saw another "Mash-up" style merging of two poetry nights - Sage & Time and Come Rhyme With Me - and it was an enjoyable one with mixed energies; I like that. I managed an open-mic spot at the end and left with a warm feeling.
The next poetry gig I'm attending on Sat sold out earlier this week (Poetry events selling out! And way in advance! Who would have thought?) but managed to wing a couple of tickets. The idea is, various poetry collectives are going to be battling it out for the WWF Page Match title! I happen to know people in different collectives so I won't take sides, but it'll be fun.
On the TV side of things, Channel 4's Random Acts have been showcasing a lot of spoken word... one of the most recent was David Jay, seriously talented performer of "makes me wanna give up poetry" legend.
So it really does looks like UK audiences are more receptive to poetry (although remind me to add a few clauses to that statement tomorrow).
I have a few gigs coming up... more info later, but I've updated the upcoming bar above.
I have a poem in my head... I may post this later/tomorrow/not at all... we'll see.
And that's it for now, folks.
Prose
Progess on THE NOVEL = not bad.
I haven't been counting words this week as I'm editing one section and beginning another, but my target is to have one big, workable chunk to play with in the Spring, with first draft complete - finally - in the Summer. (No, I do not believe in writing a novel in a month. Yes, I'm sure others have done it but that's not how I get down.)
I also plan to be blogging more on Huffington Post in the next few days, so keep checking there. Last post - my first - had a mostly positive but mixed response, which is the whole point of these things. I still stand by my neutrality on Ken - and neither Ken or Boris should be London Mayor again, in an ideal world - but the way in which we pick on certain words/turns of phrases should receive as much scrutiny as these arrogant characters who use them.
Going off on a tangent, it reminds me of something I once read by (whats-his-face - insert name when less tired) about the whole signifier/signified relationship to culture. The example given was a tree, I believe: if I read the word "tree" now in a poem, my cultural conditioning - having lived most of my life in Old Blighty - means I usually have something oakish in my mind, even though the writer may have a palm tree in mind, or a yew, or something completely different. While we pride ourselves on "language" per se, and the mot juste and the "sophistication" of expressing ourselves through words, most of the time our heads are doing guess work. All that to say that it's not what we say but what we choose not to.
Life...
is a series of doors waiting to open...
Yep. You may have guessed... I've been clearing some of my computer files to make space: photos, random extracts of poetry and chunks of paragraphs from things I've written.
This particular gem feels like yesterday, although it was mid-Autumn, as can be deduced from the leavage.
Time flies. Space hovers.
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