When ideas have sex

 Do you know about TED?  "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world."  Every year, this organization runs a series of conferences bringing together some of the world's most interesting people for a sharing of ideas.  Some of these are held in Oxford, and the most recent one was held this month.  These conferences are far from free, but once the conferences are over, the talks are posted on the internet for anyone to watch.  I absolutely adore these and find them incredibly inspirational.  I've posted some of these before, here, here and here.  Now here's one I just recently viewed from the most recent conference.  I thought you might like to see it.  It's just over 16 minutes, so watch it when you're not in a rush.  Enjoy:

 Matt Ridley: When ideas have sex | Video on TED.com

Introducing "A Clash of Innocents" by Sue Guiney

Welcome to the official yes-it's-really-happening blog post about my newest novel, A Clash of Innocents.  The picture on the left is the first draft of the cover.  It will be tweaked some more, but I'm thrilled with the image which was taken by a young fellow-traveler, Elizabeth Lowey, who was a teenager during our Cambodian adventure and is now an art student in the States.  It shows a stall selling puppets with the giant central lake of Cambodia in the background.  I love the richness of the colours.  For me it really captures the beauty and innocence of the Cambodian people and takes you into the heart of my story about hope that perseveres beyond horror.  I'm also thrilled that Fiona Robyn agreed to read an advanced copy of the manuscript and I'm truly grateful for the lovely quote she gave us to use on the cover.  The official launch date isn't until September 30, but Ward Wood has just made it available to pre-order.  Please go to their website here, read about the book, see Fiona's review, and if so moved, feel free to be among the first (though not the first) to pre-order it. 
You'll see that the publisher's page is also set up to list readings and events that I'll be doing to publicize the book.  I'm just beginning to schedule those now.  As I did with Tangled Roots, I'll be happily traveling anywhere and everywhere to meet my readers and find new ones.  If any of you would like me to come talk to your book group or organization or have a contact at a local bookshop that might be interested in hosting a signing, do let me know.  I have to admit, I'm quite proud of this novel. I think it is a beautiful story, and I know that Cambodia is a sad and magical place which deserves our attention.

Poetic Arguments

Yesterday morning, instead of settling into a few good hours of research, I found myself lost in the latest hub bub coming out of the poetry world.  It started with the announcement of the Forward Prize shortlist and the fact that Derek Walcott's latest collection was not included, whereas Seamus Heaney's was.  Then there was the statement, as discussed on Tania Hershman's blog, that too many poetry collections are being published.  It ended with my discovering on Carrie Etter's blog a fascinating roundtable discussion by UK and US poetry publishers about the future of publishing poetry. By the time it was 10.30, the muscles in my hands were tensed into claws and reaching past my third cup of coffee for my computer so I could write what you are reading now.

As some of you know, besides novels and plays, I also write poetry.  Quite a lot of it, really.  Many have been published in magazines.  One collection, the poetry play Dreams of May, was published and has been performed dozens of times.  I have just finished a second collection.  This does not make me an expert, by any means.  I don't teach poetics in an MFA program.  I have never won a prize that anyone has ever heard of.  But poetry is something I do and care about, and something I have been thinking about for so long now that I have a certain perspective that comes with time and attention, if nothing else. So here it goes....

Poetry, at it's best, is the art form that links modern man with his ancestors.  From religious recitations of epics like The Odyssey to tomorrow's slam competitions, poetry is man's way of finding connections with an intangible past and an inscrutible future. It is also the link between music and language -- which, for me, are the two sides of the human heart.  Poetry belongs to all of us.  I believe every human being has, at one time or another, felt that urge to write poetry.  Like the urge to laugh, no human being should be denied the experience.  Yet most people do not write poetry and, so they say, even fewer read it.  I believe it is fear that keeps people from approaching poetry and it is the fault of "Poets" that that fear exists.   Notice, I have put those obnoxious quotation marks around the word because there is and has always been an intellectual snobbery within the poetry community.  From a young age we are all taught that poetry is "hard."  "Real" poetry is hidden within a cloud of forms and theories. You have to be brainy to understand it, much less write it.  This insidious form of intellectual elitism is rampant in the poetry world and always has been. The fact that I felt the need to proclaim my credentials at the start of this discussion shows how much this still holds true.  

Who's to say that a poetry collection should or should not be published? I think the only person who has a right to say that is the person who decides, for whatever reason, to actually publish it. If someone is moved by a body of work, and believes that others would react the same, and believes it strongly enough to want to put their time and effort into bringing that collection to the public, then - to me - that means the collection ought to be published. Everyone bemoans the fact that nobody reads (and therefore buys) poetry. If the poems themselves were more accessible or more varied or less fearful, than they would be read by a greater number.  If poet's stopped closing the doors on other poet's work and stopped metaphorically measuring who's dick is larger, then the poetry world would be healthier, both artistically and financially.

Poetry that demands time and thought not only to write it, but also to read and understand it, is important.  There must always be a place

for that sort of work.  Very often it is that most difficult sort of poetry that is the impetus for moving the artform forward.  But academic poetry (for want of a better word) is not the only sort of poetry that is to be valued.  Believe me, I am not so much a republican as to say that any bit of dashed off drivel has a right to be published.  Writers who decide to devote their artistic time to the creation of poems need to study and practice as much as any other practitioner in any other field of art.  Standards can be maintained and judgments need to be made.  But although, for example, the violinistic artistry of a Joshua Bell is very different from that of a Stephan Grapelli, I don't think anyone would say that one is more correct or of greater value than the other.  I believe music has become more comfortable within it's own skin, more open to its varied styles.  Poetry needs to finally, finally, after all these generations of moaning and sniping, get to that same level of acceptance of itself.

UK poetry publishers say that sales of 250 copies of a collection is considered excellent.  I'll end my rant by saying that although I'm sure no one in the poetry establishment has ever heard of Sue Guiney and that they may not like her poetry very much even if they did, I will humbly point out that Dreams of May sold nearly 400 copies in two printings.

The Peoples' Choice

So the votes are in.  Although there was a surprisingly wide range of opinions, the majority believed that the best new head shot was the one referred to as 'C', but in a cropped version.  And here it is:

So that's the me you'll get used to seeing in various places like facebook and my website.  What ends up on the book cover is yet to be decided, but it's nice to know that between the last set and these new ones, there's plenty to choose from.  What a funny process, though, and one I was not completely comfortable with, believe me.  All in all, I think I'd rather stick to a cartoon fantasy of myself like the one I could make on MadMenYourself.com.  Thanks to the clever Alex Johnson of Shedworking fame for pointing me towards this great link.   So much more fun than the real thing!

Special Announcement Blog Worth it's Salt

As many of my beloved readers may have realized, I post new blogs on Thursdays and Sundays.  But today, Saturday, 17 July at exactly 3 pm London time, I am posting this special announcement.

Salt, the independent press that has been publishing beautiful cutting edge works of poetry and fiction for ten years, is suffering some financial difficulties.  Right now, at 3 pm London time at the South Bank, a "flash mob" is gathering to celebrate Salt's achievements and perseverance in the face of this economic adversity.  If I was in London, I'd be there with them right now.  But I'm not.  Happily, though, the internet is and so I can participate virtually by being there in spirit, and on the internet, with my friends from Salt at exactly the same time.   Right now they are performing a group recitation of Pablo Neruda's poem, Salt.  And all of us here now can join with them.  Let's read it all together and then, go buy a Salt book or two.  There is so much to choose from.  You won't be sorry.

Congratulations on your decade of service, Salt.  Here's to many more:

Ode to Salt

This salt
in the salt cellar
I once saw in the salt mines.
I know
you won't
believe me
but
it sings
salt sings, the skin
of the salt mines
sings
with a mouth smothered
by the earth.
I shivered in those
solitudes
when I heard
the voice
of
the salt
in the desert.
Near Antofagasta
the nitrous
pampa
resounds:
a
broken
voice,
a mournful
song.

In its caves
the salt moans, mountain
of buried light,
translucent cathedral,
crystal of the sea, oblivion
of the waves.
And then on every table
in the world,
salt,
we see your piquant
powder
sprinkling
vital light
upon
our food.
Preserver
of the ancient
holds of ships,
discoverer
on
the high seas,
earliest
sailor
of the unknown, shifting
byways of the foam.
Dust of the sea, in you
the tongue receives a kiss
from ocean night:
taste imparts to every seasoned
dish your ocean essence;
the smallest,
miniature
wave from the saltcellar
reveals to us
more than domestic whiteness;
in it, we taste finitude.
Pablo Neruda

I'm Ready for My Close Up (but I need help)

I did a fun (or is it funny) thing this week.  I had new head shots taken.  Yes, the new book needs a new head shot.  Plus, I'm sporting a new haircut these days so I need to look a bit more like my present day self.  Though I did, of course, keep my signature denim jacket....

It could have been worse. I could have been smiling for the camera of a complete stranger.  But my good friend's good son was on the Island, and since he's an extraordinarily talented professional artist (everything from photography to painting to graphic design to video installations for rock bands), I asked him to shepherd me through this particular ordeal.  (By the way, he's based in New York City, and if anyone out there needs some work done by a visual artist, you couldn't go wrong with him - Sam Muglia. Contact me for details).

We stood in the back garden in the late afternoon and he snapped away.  I tried every look I could think of - serious, studious, feisty, angry, reprimanding, frivolous, sweet, fun, intense, distant.  He took over 150 photos and we narrowed it down to three.  Here they are:

A  (left)                              B  (top right)                             C (bottom right)


Okay.  Now here's where you can help.  Which do you think is best?  Which one do you think should be on my book cover, on my facebook page and website, in (we hope) magazine articles and interviews?  I think I'd like to use one for everything -- mainly so I don't have to think about it each time.  Sam the photographer has a definite opinion, as does his mom.  What about you? 

Thanks for your kind attention.
Embarrassingly yours,
Your Humble Servant.
Sue

"A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees," by Clare Dudman

One of the great joys of writing a blog is that you get to "know" people you never would have come across in your normal life.  Some of these people have become friends in the flesh.  Clare Dudman is not one of these.  I've never met her, although I have been following her blog, and therefore her travels, her work, her weird enquiries into snails and other scientific peculiarities for several years.  Although she has written several novels, this new one, "A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees" (published by Seren Books) is the first that I have read.  I read it because I felt that I knew her, wanted to support her as I do every writer I come to know, and was curious.  I was completely carried away and overwhelmed, and although I purposefully do not write book reviews here, it is a novel which I feel I must share.
Here's what it is about, according to the jacket blurb:
      It is 1865 and, impoverished and oppressed in their own country, a desperate group of Welsh emigrants sets sail for a land flowing with milk and honey; a place, they have been promised, of meadows and tall trees, where they can build a new Wales. What they find after a  devastating sea journey is a cold South American desert already occupied by tribes of nomadic Indians, possibly intent on massacring them.
  This narrative about the Welsh colonists of Patagonia would be a ripping yarn, as they say, in the hands of any competent writer.  It has danger, dashed dreams, fears, jealousies, romance -- everything you could want in a novel.  But in the hands of a writer of the calibre of Dudman, this has become much much more.  The fictional world she has created spans the centuries to grab the reader's heart.  The characters she has created, some based on fact, some totally made up, become a part of the reader's own world and portray examples of hope, perseverance, stubbornness, loss and love that stay with you long after you have picked up your next read.  Plus, it is written exquisitely.  Add to this the fact that Dudman has a Ph.D in Chemistry, and I found the experience of now getting to know her through her extraordinary novel completely humbling. How's that for a recommendation?

Back to Poetry

It somehow feels appropriate that the work I'm doing first off this summer is poetry.  My writing life really began with poetry, and that poetry found it's first home here on Martha's Vineyard.  "Martha's Vineyard Magazine" was one of the first to publish my work, and for several years I belonged to a poetry writing group which was crucial to my growth as a poet and writer.  There were about 6 of us at various times - some "seasonal" residents like me, others year-rounders.  Of all of us, I was the least well-versed, so to speak.  Everyone else had been studying and writing poetry for years.  And they all had known each other, seemingly, forever.  But they welcomed me and my fledgling forays into poetry with patience, humour, and critical perseverance.  Although that group disbanded a few years ago, I remain indebted to them, and when I think of my summers here, I always think of those afternoons on my friend's deck, sipping tea, arguing about syntax, and gazing over the pond.  Martha's Vineyard is also where I did my first poetry readings.  Long before I was able to gather up the courage to read at an Open Mic in London, I was participating in readings here.  This is a safe and welcoming place full of artists, and in some ways, the "greener" you are, the more welcoming it feels.

After the craziness of my life in the theatre over the last few months, working on my poetry is proving to be the best way to get me to slow down.  Yesterday was the first day without guests since I've been here, and my plan was to start doing the final edits of the poetry manuscript I've been working on for the past year.  I have been very lucky to find Katy Evans-Bush and to have her edit my work, getting each poem to be the best it can be, and therefore getting the manuscript into the best possible shape before I start showing it around.  It's made me think, too, about the difficulty I have editing my own poems.  Editing yourself is always hard, but for me, editing my own poetry is even harder.  Problems that I can easily see in others' work, I just can't see in my own -- or rather, I can't hear in my own.  The more times I read a poem, the more firmly its rhythm gets lodged in my ear.  And once it's there, I can't shift it without a strong external hand.  And I know that, whereas I find it helpful to read my prose out loud, reading poetry out loud only seems to set it more firmly in concrete.  So yesterday, I spent the day reading each poem to myself, sotto voce.  Only then could I imagine changes.  It was a rather surprising realization, after all this time. Like when you grow up with a specific version of a piece of music, it becomes for you the "correct" version.  Any change, any reinterpretation, seems almost physically uncomfortable.  At least it does to me.

Do other poets out there find this to be true? Does reading your work aloud only make it harder to edit? I'd love to know.
--------
thanks to artslink.wordpress.com for the great photo

July 4th

Greetings from Martha's Vineyard.  I've arrived and begun to get into the rhythm of my island life, despite the busyness of the last few months and the difficulty of extricating myself from it.  As I've mentioned before, this schizophrenic aspect of my life can be confusing.  I don't go away from London on holiday during the summer.  Rather, I relocate my life to someplace else, bringing all the complexities of my life with me.  There's family, there's friends, there's work, there's a household to organize, an arts charity to run -- everything that I do in London, I also do here.  But it's summer, the sun shines, I'm surrounded by beautiful scenery and, of course, the beach.  Believe me, I'm not complaining.  I know how lucky I am.  But there is one nagging issue that always comes to the fore during the summer, and that's the British vs American issue.  Which am I? Where does my allegiance lie?  Generally, I can keep that question to myself, simmering under the surface, ignored unless I feel like hauling it out and looking it over.  Generally.  But not on Independence Day.  And today is July 4th.

July 4th is a big deal, at least it is here on Martha's Vineyard -- flags everywhere, parades, "Happy 4th" signs in shop windows, patriotic music on the radio station.  And it's a big deal among the Guiney clan.  The eldest hosts a cookout and bonfire, often with fireworks, sometimes with a dramatic reading of the Declaration of Independence.  It's fun and, of course, wonderful to get together with everyone.  But it does also make me a bit uncomfortable.  Although I tend to keep my ideas to myself, I find myself siding with the Red Coats a little too often.  Don't get me wrong.  I do believe in American independence, no taxation without representation and all that.  Not to mention the drama of the Boston Tea Party.  But, you know, over the centuries, the Brits have been pretty good too and, well, I've come to love them and, yes, become one of them.  So it's a bit awkward.  But it's also the story of my life, bringing disparate things together and forcing them to live side by side.  Religion, nationality, poetry cum fiction cum theatre.  So I'll head into today's celebrations with my head held high, my tongue in my cheek, my eyes wide open and, when necessary, my fingers in my ears.  Here's to independence! (thanks to tripsounds010rhcp for this)

Here I Go Again

As you read this, I'll be winging my way to the States, to my summer home, to my favourite island in the world.  It's hard to believe it's that time again.  My life still seems to run along an academic schedule, so this time of year also marks the end of a year and a time when I usually look back to see what I've been through before preparing myself for what's yet to come.  By any standards, this has been a very full year.  It's the year when one of my closest friends died.  It was the year of negotiating the empty nest.  But it was a year which saw the acceptance of my new novel by a new publisher.  The year of CurvingRoad's fourth production.  The year of the first draft of my second full-length play, and the completion of my manuscript for a new book of poetry.  There was lots of organizing, lots of travel, lots of words.  It was a good year, and now I'm off for a quiet month of -- yes, more work -- but less franticness, and hopefully, a few lazy hours on the beach.  Then comes the craziness known as August, and then the hysteria which will be September.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  You see how much I need to slow down?  But through it all, I'll continue to be here with you, Dear Readers.  And until I'm writing from the other side of the pond, here's a little traveling music (thanks to splaif for this video, whoever you are):