Free Download Of Me

Cartoon Superman (Photo credit: ssoosay) He’s pretty dumb – he still uses a phone box…

English Pen ran a competition: make up a word; use it as a title in a poem or piece of flash fiction.  I did; I didn’t win; but I was a runner-up – one of thirty, from over 400 entries.

That was some weeks ago.  I received an email with the news; then another, telling me where to access a free download of the anthology e-book, The Dictionary Of Made-Up Words.

Cue weeks of frustration.  I could NOT download that damn thing.  I can’t tell you how I struggled, trying to access it.  I have no idea how I ended up with seventeen downloads of the same document on several computers (I thought it might be something to do with the Windows package), but so it was.  It appears I could download it; I just couldn’t read it.

The email offered me a MOBI version for Kindle.  I was told I needed to download a MOBI package to access the e-book.  I was too scared to do that – I’ve heard about these exploding viruses that wipe your hard drive.  The Hub has warned me ever since I learned to switch on a computer by myself: NEVER click ‘Yes’ on an executable file if you don’t know the source.  I don’t know if it was an executable file; I don’t know who this MOBI is, but I suspect he’s a bit of a dick, so I played it safe and that is possibly why I have seventeen downloads of a file I can not access on all computers in the house and even one in Peterborough with Tory Boy.

English Pen asked us to publicise the e-book, but how could I ask you to face the same trials I was facing?

I could not.  I like you all too much to want you to stand beating your heads against a brick wall (or tin wall, for those of you who live in less traditional structures; but it’s still got to hurt).

Ma.ture Technology (Photo credit: ncomment). I think I know why this is funny but I don’t understand most of the language.  Rather like my relationship with computers, actually.

Round about the time I was ready to take a screwdriver to my laptop to see if the book was lurking about in its entrails, the Hub stepped in.

Much shouting ensued, because I was telling him how to do the thing he was doing because I didn’t know how to do it (c’mon ladies…we’ve all done it).  Here’s the gist of it:

HUB (in capitals because he’s yelling): It’s not for your computer, it’s for your Kindle!  All you’ve got to do is transfer it from your laptop to your Kindle!

ME (in capitals because I’m yelling because I’m wrong): Oohhhhhhh….

Me (in lower case because I’m an idiot): And how do I do that?

*

You know what the irony of this story is?

My poem is about my inability to use technology.

*

piano hazard (Photo credit: Zemlinki!)

You can download the whole book for free (if you need a Hub to hurl abuse at you while that’s happening, mine’s available), for your Kindle, Nook or something else, here.  

They will send you an email with a couple of links.  Don’t ask me for help.

Take some time to read the comments about the winning poem.  They make the Hub and I look like we’re blissfully in love.

For those of you who don’t have an e-reader (or the technology gene), here’s my poem:

*

Techneptitude

 

The science 

of misunderstanding an appliance.

 

The groan 

accompanying a new phone.

 

The cry
as an elderly computer dies.

 

The ache
for a simpler age,
when a book had a page.

 

Techneptitude -

technological stupidity

with a hint of decrepitude.

 

 

Best Of Manchester Poets 3

I forgot to mention – I had a poem accepted for the latest Best Of Manchester Poets anthology.  That means I’ve had a poem in each collection.   Poems are judged anonymously.  

This year’s poem is called Tsetse Rat.  It’s one of my favourites of all I have written: it was inspired by the sight of a dead rat at the bus stop.

If  you happen to be in and around Manchester tomorrow night, the book’s launch is taking place at a free event at the Eighth Day Cafe, Oxford Road, M1 7DU, 7:30-10.  Poets in the book will be reading from the collection and it is hosted by Dominic Berry.

Find Dominic Berry on Book A Poet

I can’t make it, unfortunately, because I’m feeling a little slimsy at the moment; but I was at the launch of the first anthology and it was great fun.

The book is available to buy on Amazon or from the publisher, Puppywolf, but you can read one poem for free:

(

Tsetse Rat 

Poor rat and your pedestrian end:
was it death by cat?
I hope it was old age; you fell asleep.
Dark comfort in your long rest.

Dangerous praise to resent your passing,
forlorn corpse; scorned by
heels and prams and bicycle wheels.

Sleep peacefully, rat, on your dull part
of the dirty path; curled like an idle moon.

*

*

The previous word was ‘rutilant’: Glowing or glittering with ruddy or golden light – what I do each time I have a poem accepted.  It never gets old.

 

The Next Big Thing? I Wish!

south africa (Photo credit: rafiq s)

Regular readers know that, while I am always grateful to receive awards, appreciating the compliment and the kind thought, I never act on them.  I consider them well-intentioned chain letters – without the threat of death and disaster if they are not forwarded, but chain letters all the same.

‘You’ve been tagged’ posts are just as bad, as a rule, but I have decided to play along with the latest because it’s about self-promotion, and you all know I’m in favour of that.

Robin Coyle tagged me.  You should visit her blog to read about her book; it sounds fascinating, though she is a little too ready to give away the plot.  We have had words about it.  

The premise is simple: write a blog interview about your book, using the following questions:

*

What is the title of your book?

Apartheid’s All Right If You’re White

*

Where did the idea come from for your book?

I lived in South Africa during and after Apartheid.  It took fifteen years to get the experience out of my system.  I had a lot of poems that I first posted on a now-defunct blog.  Viv nagged me to do something with them.

*

What genre does your book fall under?

Poetry.  

I make no apologies.*

Brad Pitt in 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Which actors would you choose to play in your movie rendition?

Me: Sandra Bullock (I wish) or Julie Walters (realistically)

The Hub: Brad Pitt 

Nelson Mandela: Morgan Freeman (obviously)

Maid: Eve Sisulu (a joke for Madam & Eve readers)

Violent Policeman: Arnold Schwarzenegger

Terrorists: The IRA

Madam & Eve (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

*

What is a one-sentence synopsis of your book?

A book of poetry like South Africa itself: colourful, violent and a little bit crazy.

*

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I will be sending it to several publishers but I will self-publish if necessary.  So yes, it will be self-published.

*

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Twenty-two years.

*

PHILIP LARKIN (Photo credit: summonedbyfells)

What other books would you compare this story to?

I don’t know of any.  Unless you count any poem Philip Larkin wrote about his parents.

*

Who or what inspired you to write the book?

My sanity.

*

*

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

It’s not really poetry.

*

The rules of the tag require me to name five more people who might be The Next Big Thing.  I have opted for bloggers who have or should have a book in the works.

Please feel free to ignore the tag; I won’t be offended.

*

• Doodlemum
• Laurieanichols
• Pseu
• Vivinfrance
• WeeScoops

A Labled Easy To Follow Leg

It’s that time of the month – here are the searches that found my blog in October:

 

Searches are the only times I love grammar (grammatical?) and spelling errors

Grammar police (Photo credit: the_munificent_sasquatch)

• tour the france accidents
• why dont americans like electic kettles
• plumber onliners

I’d like one of those

• bearhug in sweden
• dobermans backside

I know that feeling

• my butt is big

We’re better behaved than that

• yorkies eating poo

It’s all about the emphasis

• fat moped girl

I despair of education today

• what sounds does owl makes

Yorkie puppy (Photo credit: http://www.petian.net)

An impossibility

• ugly yorkie puppies
• im still mad at you wife

*

That’s a strange place to get one

• man with bump in head

*

The weirdos are back

• i saw the ghost of gloria gaynor standing at the foot of my bed
• australian and nudist and tumblr
• poo humour poems
• male stripper running credit card thru butt
• vamps by love in deaths arms

I thought I had a morbid sense of humour

• funny heart attack cartoons
• cartoon cooking children and parents
• a labled easy to follow leg
  

  You put your left leg in, you put your left leg out…. (Photo credit: foxypar4)

*

The pickings are feeble so it’s time for a poem.

Last month, Bluebee invited her readers to make poems from searches.  She posted my first attempt here.  Be warned: there’s a lot of hair.

I enjoyed the exercise so much, I’ve had another go.  You should try it!  

Here is today’s poem:

*

why dont americans like electic kettles

i saw the ghost of gloria gaynor standing at the foot of my bed
a labled easy to follow leg
fat moped girl my butt is big
bearhug in sweden man with bump in head

 

I Feel Like Dancing

The first rule of self-promotion is to keep your audience in the loop, so here’s me being loopy:

The first edit of Apartheid’s All Right If You’re White is finished!

You know, my book of poetry memoir about my time in South Africa during and after Apartheid.  Pay attention, people.  How can I self-promote if you’re not listening?

I say ‘first edit’ but it has been edited to the nth degree.  The first poem was probably written about 1992.  My skills have improved a little since then and the poem is probably quite different to how it started life.  Poems are never finished; they are simply polished to the level of my ability.

The poems first appeared in public on a short-lived blog dedicated to them.  I added the memoir for context.  That would have been that but Viv nagged me to gather and edit them for publication.  Her reward is to critique the finished product.  Pseu is also being punished.  Thank you, ladies.

I feel like dancing because it has taken about six months (and twenty years) to get this far.  Summer interrupted; visitors interrupted; new sheds interrupted; illness interrupted…i.e. I did anything but work on it.  

I write, therefore I procrastinate.

My intention was to self-publish, as you know, but Viv insists that I first try submitting the collection to unwary publishers.  Look out for a slew of despairing posts on yet another rejection.  

I write, therefore editors assassinate.

Once Viv and Pseu have done their evil but essential work, I will re-edit and begin submitting.  Look out for my next post on the subject in 2014.

*

I might as well get all the poetry stuff out of the way in one post:

You may remember in the summer I had three poems displayed on the Bolton Arts Trail.  All of the poems on the trail have been gathered together into one anthology.  Look:

I was excited to find one of my poems was first in the anthology – that’s never happened before.  It was dumb luck, of course: the poems are arranged alphabetically, according to the name of the shop in which they were displayed.  

I’m a writer; I need dumb luck.  And a little dancing.

In fact, that’s what I did when my edit was done: I put on some Mango Groove and gave it some wellly around the living room.  And I’m going to do that every time I complete a book stage.

Poeming Bliss

What a great weekend for me (though possibly not for poetry):

Friday Afternoon:

Poetry reading by Suzanne Batty, followed by a Q&A session and workshop, at Stockport Central Library.

Suzanne read some of her poems (not enough; I could have stood to hear more) and members of the audience (not me) asked intelligent questions (I rest my case).  Then she had the group analyse a couple of poems by other poets, based on National Poetry Day’s [4 October] theme, Stars.  It was like being back with the Open University.  Better than eating Maltesers.

Finally, we had to use the theme to write our own poem.  Ten people produced ten very different poems.  Mine was a complaint about the retirement of the space shuttles.  I’m not talking to NASA at the moment.

The high point of the whole afternoon was wholly unexpected.  A middle-aged man next to me had come along to the reading to experience something new.  He was taken aback to find himself part of a workshop.  He has never written anything in his life, and was embarrassed to admit he only managed three lines. Three lines that proved to be a beautiful haiku.  I was thrilled for him.

I took some pictures of Suzanne but my camera and I disagree about the use of lighting, so they didn’t turn out.  The camera always wins.  Fortunately, Suzanne had given me permission to lift her photo from her Facebook page.  She really is as nice as she looks.

Saturday Morning:

Poetry workshop at St Peter’s Church Burley Memorial Hall in Waverton, Chester.

Not as grand as it sounds – we drove past it seven times and only found it by accident: stopping to ask directions, I looked out of the window to find we had parked in front of a sign saying, St Peter’s Church Burley Memorial Hall.  A squat but pleasant building.  The vicarage was a manor house and looked bigger than the church.

We had thirty minutes to kill so we popped into the beautiful church to look around.  It is 900 years old, we were told; and we got to touch stone that still has the chisel marks from when it was quarried almost a millennium ago.  A brilliant feeling. I enjoyed it so much, I forgot to take a photograph.

The workshop was fantastic.  Offered by the Church of England and run by the rather sweet Julia McGuiness, it introduced us to ways of writing our faith, using our faith to write (not the same thing), and cinquains.

I think I’m in love.  Cinquains are such fun!  I can’t believe I’ve never written one until the four I now have in my notebook.

Monday Evening:

Write Out Loud at Stockport Art Gallery, while it’s still open.  Poems for the reading of.

Part of the Write Out Loud network, we meet on the second Monday in the month to read our poems aloud and sort world affairs.  Not every WOL group is like ours: many of them are proper open mic events.  Our group is small and everybody knows everybody else and it has simply fallen into this particular pattern.

We might not be around much longer.  Stockport Council wants to close the art gallery Monday-to-Friday, including our indoor War Memorial, and install just the permanent collection and nothing else.

I intend to write a poem in protest.

If you think stabbing a knife into the heart of the arts in Stockport is outrageous; and closing a War Memorial five days a week is a slight to those who fought and died in several war, then please sign this e-petition: 

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/stop-the-closure-of-stockport-art-gallery-and-war-memorial-during-the-week

The Council’s perfidy aside, I had a lovely weekend.  

Net Result:

• 4 Days
• 3 Events
• 13 Poems (unlucky for some)
• 1 Happy Tilly
• 1 Gushing Post

Weekly Photo Challenge: Happy

 

[Writing a renga with Viv]

Six Word Saturday

(also includes Friday)

in which Tilly

thinks she’s died and gone heavenwards

[Poetry reading at Bramhall Hall]

Yesterday afternoon I was at a poetry reading by Suzanne Batty, in Stockport Central Library, which was followed by a workshop.

This morning I am at a different poetry workshop.

What a great week I’m having!

Details to follow.

I am never happier than when I’m writing or doing writing-related activities.

[Promoting my writing group]

This week’s response to the photo challenge is supposed to include a new gallery feature that WordPress have introduced – they are as happy with that as I am with my workshops – but I only have 11% space left and all of these pictures have been on my blog before, so I have copied and pasted these photos instead of uploading.

To compensate, and to keep to the spirit of the exercise – which I am happy to do – here is a photo of me, happy (ecstatic, actually) in a gallery:

[Standing with a piece of art work inspired by a poem of mine]

For more Six Word Saturdays, go here.

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Poo Picks

 

Time to vote:

pick a title

If you have arrived here from Six Word Saturday, here’s a quick catch-up: I intend to publish a book of poems about poo and I need a good title.

Thank you to everyone who left wonderful and funny and wonderfully funny suggestions.  I had intended to include them all in the poll, but I was showered with names and the poll would have been too long, like those cold calls you get that swear it will only take five minutes and by the time you get off the phone your children have grown up and left home.

I had to make an arbitrary selection and this judge’s decision is absolutely final. Unless you want to take a look at the original post, see what I’ve left out, and make a formal request to have your favourite included.

 

 

On Poo

Cow Pat (Photo credit: b3ardman)

I wouldn’t say the tone is particularly high around here, but I’m going to lower it to about as low as I can go without swearing, nudity or hairy armpits.

You know I am currently editing my South Africa poetry collection and I intend to publish it as an ebook.  The editing is going well and I will soon have to start thinking about the technical aspect of the operation.

No, that’s not where the poo comes in, but I am sweating at the thought of it.

Actually, that is where the poo comes in: as I am a complete novice at epublishing and will have to learn from the bottom up, I thought it might be a good idea to have a trial run with a small collection of poems that I wrote for fun and don’t mind giving away for free because I can’t imagine anyone in their right mind would pay for them.

I may have mentioned that I have written a collection of poems about poo (you see, dear readers: a literature degree is never wasted); the collection is small and manageable, unlike the South Africa poems, and I think people might enjoy the lighter side of excrement.

I have the following titles in mind:

• On Poo
• Feces Theses
• NO.2 Cycle
• The Lighter Side of Excrement (that one came to me when I typed the previous paragraph)
• Turd Words
• On Poo Corner
• Crap Poems
• The Allure of Ordure
• Poop Poems
• Manure Musings

I would like – with some trepidation, I must confess – to invite you to suggest further titles: vulgarity is acceptable; levity is encouraged; rudeness is not.

Please leave your suggestions in the comment box.  Once I have a few, I will put a poll in the field (watch where you step…).

An interesting aside:

While researching the correct spelling of faeces (the English, naturally; but I went with the American for the visual rhyme), I came across a fascinating site which tells you how things should look; and why they look like they look if they don’t look good: 
http://www.faeces.org.uk/

Wrinkle your nose all you want – like death and gaining weight, we all think about it.

Or is that just me?

Poetry Pleased

 

I received my copy of Flavoured as Much as Coloured:

Published by Clitheroe Books Press, it has one of my South Africa poems in it.

From their website:

Clitheroe Books Press publishes poetry pamphlets

The Press is publishing a series of pamphlets called Poet’s Dozen.The editors are Theresa Robson and Jo Harding. The first one, Flavoured as Much as Coloured, was launched on the 26 July just before the Food Festival with the theme of food.  [...]  Anyone living in or connected to the Ribble Valley may submit a manuscript to the Press and we are always looking for new voices.

Please email Jo Harding info@clitheroebooks.co.uk

A little ray of sunshine on a dark and rainy day.

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Find Me On The Bolton Arts Trail

I am a member of Write Out Loud, an organisation bringing poetry to the masses.  Sometimes the masses don’t want poetry, but we bring it to ‘em anyway.

In practical terms, what this means is I check the website every day and enter all free competitions.  I was a regular at the Stockport monthly WOL meeting until last year, but life got in the way; as well as my fear of reading my writing out loud.  Then Julian Jordan, the WOL founder and a very nice man, guilted me into attending the June meeting, and I enjoyed myself so much I am confident I will once more be a regular.

Write Out Loud have meetings all over the country.  The aim is simply to encourage poetry performance, and everybody is welcome.  I keep a link in my blogroll, so check it out.

WOL works in creative partnership with Bolton University, which is where the title of this post comes in; I’ll let Julian explain:

One day, perhaps all towns will be like Bolton, which had an original poem on display in each of 36 town-centre shops, cafés, hairdressers and the theatre, so as to bring poetry to a wider audience. It was all part of a town-wide arts festival running from 15-21 June [...] The poems were selected from 175 total entries submitted by members of the Write Out Loud website online poetry community which was created in Bolton in 2006. Though most are locally-produced, displayed work comes from as far afield as Chicago…

Other arts stuff was going on, of course; but I am a self-absorbed poet (aren’t we all?) so I was only interested in the fact that three of my poems were selected.  I dragooned the Hub and Spud on Thursday afternoon so we could check them out.  I know many of you can’t make it to Bolton, or travel back in time, so here is a mini-trail, created especially for you:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Sigh.  As usual, my techneptitude slaps my self-promotion into place.  Picture no.12 should read:

12. Finally, pose with the warm and friendly man, Ishtiaq: Amore furniture store manager, who offered us tea, coffee and discount on anything we buy, as well as professing to love my poem.  The treasure at the end of the trail!

And the tapestry photo should read:

9. Stop to admire the art work.

What a great idea Bolton had; it gave me the best day out I’ve had in ages.

UPDATE: If you can’t read the poems in the photographs and would like to, click on this link.

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  http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=30246
   
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Job Done! Sort of.

Poetry is an... (Photo credit: liber(the poet);)

Thanks for your patience this past two weeks.  I finished my project and have now caught up with your comments and visited your blogs.

It wasn’t an exciting project; and I say it is finished, but it isn’t properly finished, not like a varnished table, a girl at a posh Swiss school, or a gross of Maltesers.  It will never be properly finished because I will keep adding to it.

It was one of my 101/1001 tasks:

Type up and print out for folder and notebook over 150 poems I’ve written.

It started life as Type up and print out for folder and notebook over 100 poems I’ve written.  Then I wrote some more poems.  Then NaPoWriMo 2012 started…  I lost count around the 204 mark.  I had poems going back to NaPoWriMo 2011 and before, beginning in March of last year.  I didn’t dare leave it any longer.

My reason for doing it is that I want to start properly submitting to poetry competitions, anthologies, magazines and publishers.  I have been rather half-hearted up to now.  It is difficult to enter a poem in a competition when this is what the publisher will receive:

Hi Handsome/Beautiful Publisher! 

Please accept my submission for your competition on the theme, Dragonflies: Myth or Fruit? 

As you can see, there’s nothing attached.  That’s because I know I wrote something on that very subject last August, but I can’t find it scribbled in one of my 47 notebooks so it may not be typed up yet; and if it is, it’s got a title that has nothing to do with the subject matter – possibly along the lines of Kill Me Before I Die – and is hidden amongst the 800 or so poems I have typed up but haven’t put into collections yet and I can’t find it, despite wasting a whole morning on it when I could have been cleaning.* 

Would you mind including me in your comp even though I’ve nothing to show for it except this polite letter and twenty quid with your name on it?

Thanks.

I. Wannabbee-Faymos

*At this point, dear reader, you will know it’s fantasy but the publisher will not.

Sorting over a thousand poems was harder work than I anticipated – even harder than typing them up - because many of them fit into more than one category.  I managed to get it down to thirty-one themed collections.   My hope is that, when I want to submit, if I haven’t written something especially for the theme, it will be easier to find a suitable poem if I can narrow it down to a broad category.

National Poetry Month Display @ Forest Hills (Photo credit: mySAPL)

Here are a few of my collections with their possible titles:

THEME:            TITLE:

Death                  Grief Is An Itchy Scab
Celebrity            The Cult Of Self-Absorption
Forms                 Forms
Religion              Bad Christian
Britain                This Grim, Unpleasant Land
M.E.                    What About M.E.?
Pairs                    Strange Couplings
Poo                      No. 2 Cycle
Haiku                  Seventeen Syllables
South Africa      Get Out Of Africa: An Ex-expat Perspective on South Africa,
……………………..During and After Apartheid

I know what you’re thinking: with titles like that, how can a publisher say no to me, right?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Self-Portrait

This is me, holding a copy of Best Of Manchester Poets 2; I have a poem in it: 

This is me, trembling with excitement at seeing my name on the first Contents page:

This is me, about to faint at seeing a poem of mine in print.  It’s not my first, but I always react like it is:

If you’d like to read the poem without going blind, pop over to my poetry blog, I’m Not A Verse.  It’s a little too bleak to post here.

New item on my Christmas List: photography lessons for me and/or interpreting spectacles for my readers.

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1.12.11

 

Another interesting date. 

Yawn. 

The year’s been full of them; I’ve done them to death.  What more is there to say?  11211 is:

• A zip code from Brooklyn.
• A palindrome.
• A comprehensive guide to over fifty bars and lounges in Williamsburg.
• A media management company.
• A binary number?  Possibly.  I started a Google search but fell asleep before I’d even reached a third of the way down the list.  Like a driver who can’t fix a car, I don’t need to know how it works to show me how beautiful it is.

Instead, how about something that’s happening on this date?

If you are in the Manchester area tonight, there’s free entry to a poetry book launch.  I have a poem in it (no disinterested promotions on this blog, maties) but I won’t be there, for various reasons, one of which is the fact that I still haven’t bought new shoes after the horror of getting to the launch of last year’s anthology.

Related Posts:

• 
  http://thelaughinghousewife.wordpress.com/2011/01/01/1111/
  
• 
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How Exciting!

You may remember, if you’ve been reading me that long, that last year I had a poem accepted for the Best of Manchester Poets Anthology. 

I had an email yesterday to say I’ve had another accepted for this year’s anthology, Best of Manchester Poets 2 (not an original title but I don’t care – I’ve had a poem accepted!)

Thanks to my 101/1001 challenge, I am making more effort this year to submit poems, and it seems to be paying off.

Here’s the cover of this year’s book:

 

If you are interested, you can read here about how I went to BoMP 1′s launch and almost lost the ability to walk.

More recent readers might be surprised to learn I write poetry; you can check it out on my other blog.

 

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