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2023 Content/Art/Poetry Projects/Weekly Poetry/Writing as Therapy/Writing Projects

Coming Around Again

“Who controls the past controls the future;
Who controls the present controls the past.”

George Orwell, 1984

A phenomenal amount of my life is spent writing: it has become the constant, therapeutic heart of existence. When it is difficult to explain something, or a subject invokes anxiousness or unhappiness, that’s a sure-fire sign that there’s a part of the past which has not been reconciled with the present. Most times that also means attacking the issue head on so that life can continue unabated. Except, for a long time, there’s been a period of the past which has been left alone for a very good reason. Last month, all that changed.

I’ve written about the precise moment that altered my outlook on Substack, but it’s not the whole story. There is so much complexity involved in this and the time period around it that, even fourteen years on, there are knots of emotional terror and uncertainty that are yet to be unpicked. So, it seems like the right time to do something about it. I’ve set up this mini-site with one intention: to allow myself the space and time to explain what happened around the period of my life in 2009 when I came close to committing suicide.

Warcraft was my life at that point: as a mother and wife, self-esteem was non-existent and there was depression unlike anything I have experienced since. What happened to change this was the belief that writing might yet give me a purpose, and it did. If it were also as simple as that, then this would not require an additional narrative, but there is a lot more at play. As the poetry is written about that time and what happened afterwards, there is already the beginnings of acceptance and closure.

When people were asked via social media what was the first thing they associated with Warcraft, friends and friendship was the top answer. It’s easy to forget sometimes just how many people there still are in my life who first found me via Azeroth (the home world on which the Warcraft factions, the Horde and the Alliance exist) and that countless people still live and play there. The reasons for my final departure have very little to do with the game itself, and a lot to do with the people who run the company. It does not mean those times are tarnished too, a fact that’s only just beginning to become apparent.

There are a lot of stories to be told, too: some of them reflect the early days of internet stalking and online abuse. Others document the terror of how online relationships can suddenly and unexpectedly go sour. These moments however are massively outweighed by generosity, camaraderie and sheer brilliance in both heart and spirit that were encountered across multiple virtual continents, in situations that still have the potential to make me cry unprompted, or laugh until there are tears of joy. It truly was the best and worst of times, and it is time to accept both for what they were.

In time, issues can begin to be reconciled, in a manner that makes me feel comfortable that the right road has finally been travelled.

This is a story of how a virtual world allowed one neurodivergent to live better in the real one.

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#IBuyYourPamphlet: WEEK 5

‘a girl in a blue dress’
by Rachel Burns

they’re upsetting the dolls / and that makes her cross

Rachel Burns completed a screenwriting talent scheme with Northern Film and Media and has subsequently been longlisted in several playwriting competitions. She is an alumnus of the 2018 Jerwood/Arvon Mentoring Programme in playwriting, and also has had short stories published in Mslexia, Here Comes Everyone and Signs of Life anthology. She is widely published in literary magazines including The Moth, Butcher’s Dog and Ink, Sweat & Tears, and is currently participating in the Creative Future/TLC development programme, where she is working on her debut novel.

Rachel and I encountered each other during a poetry course last year. Her ability and brilliance were immediately apparent, and this collection packs a hefty punch. It is, for me in places, a salutatory reminder of my own childhood and of how moments and experiences in childhood are a key to future direction and development.

What’s in it for Me?

Here are literal slices of Rachel’s history that have been shaved from her imagination and presented to the reader for examination. She pulls absolutely no punches with subjects either: from the uncompromising horror of Teenage Pregnancy to stark reminders of poverty and motherhood in Demolished via an identifiable, detached calm in The Dolls that you’ll immediately recognize if you lived in a similar world.

In-between the starkness however are incredibly accomplished, beautifully photographic moments of brilliance: I challenge you not be able to smell and feel the atmosphere in Sacriston Girls on the Night Bus, or the slow creeping horror of Sean. There’s not one bad poem in here either, everything combines to paint a stark, unrelenting picture from an imagination that knows all too well how to tell stories in the most compelling means possible.

How we become the adults we are inevitably is painted and tainted by our early life experiences. Rachel’s true talent is to not be afraid of those moments on the page: a masterful command of language and an unerring attention to detail make it impossible to look away, which in turn gives each piece of work added impact and significance. This is a pamphlet you must own, for no other reason than it’s a brutally brilliant mirror on how the past pushes us to escape its terrors in the search for a better future.

Personal Favourites

Rachel and the Seven Wonders of the World for the imagery
Hail to the Library and the Thief for the inference
Abecedarian for When Hell Freezes Over for the impact

Any Other Business

It’s been a while since I’ve seen Rachel online, what with social media exploding and everything, and it’s always satisfying to find out more about a writer when you’re writing about their work. I had no idea of how well she’s done as a scriptwriter, for instance, and that she’s currently working on a novel. Poetry is a fundamental part of both those other professions too, and I’m suddenly very much looking forward to seeing what that debut novel might read like… and indeed whether Rachel would then adapt her own work…

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#IBuyYourPamphlet: WEEK 4

‘Random Trail’
by Vron McIntyre

we climb / and the pain is healed

Vron McIntyre (they/she) is a queer, disabled poet, who has in their life been a peace camper, a fat liberationist and a DIY editor and publisher. They live in Nottingham and are part of the DIY Poets Collective and the Social Model Writers.

I was lucky enough to encounter Vron at an online event and having heard them read their work, I wanted to know more. This pamphlet is a rich, earthy slice of an existence that I have only ever seen in pictures or as part of other people’s narratives. It was, therefore, a fascinating and enlightening experience to read from the poet’s viewpoint.

What’s in it for Me?

The opening poem, Patterns, gives so much and resonates though me as can only happen to someone who fundamentally connects with a poet and their work on a molecular level. Whether it is domestic appliances or the risk assessments of her own mother, everything possesses just enough precision and the exact amount of compelling detail to keep me reading the poems, time and again. Here are a complex and compelling set of snapshots.

The photographic brilliance in Rollercoaster and repeat many times evoke shared experience in the most vivid means possible: you can indeed write anything you want, and when your business is DIY subversion and protest, women’s rights and protesting nuclear proliferation, those moments take on a significant and substantive historical resonance of their own. You are not simply recording your own history, but that of thousands of others who use protest as their lever.

However, it is in poems like the superlative Pareidolia (the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one sees an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none) or the incisive and telling Ghosts where Vron’s true mastery and cohesion comes to the fore. These poems may again be the life of someone else, but their telling has a familiarity and accessibility which allows you to truly immerse in the moments and experience their brilliance for yourself.

Personal Favourites

Pareidolia for the imagery
Twelve Months for the inference
my life is an apple tree for the impact

Any Other Business

There are a number of pamphlets that I have which are well-read and often returned to, and Random Trail has already been added to that pile. The best poetry encourages you not just to read, but learn from each word. This is poetry steeped in history and activism, the narrative of a life lived very much in the moment. It is also a reminder of what other women have provide and fought for in order for us all to stand here with a measure of confidence.

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#IBuyYourPamphlet: WEEK 3

‘HATE, LOVE, HATE’
by Carson Pytell

if you are born, you’ve been screwed / into existence

Carson Pytell is a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net nominated writer living outside Albany, New York. He serves as assistant Poetry Editor of Coastal Shelf and has had a number of other chapbooks published in the last few years.

As part of a package deal with the excellent Back Room Poetry (who, for full disclosure purposes, are publishing a chapbook of mine in April) I have purchased all the small press’ output for the next twelve months. This is the final of three releases I’ll be reviewing in January, and there’s a far more mellow feel to this collection than its predecessors.

What’s in it for Me?

Welcome to a microcosm of reality, where our author’s history and narrative collide in an often understated but never predictable fashion. The clues to what you’re experiencing are here to unearth and take in, between the stanzas and hidden in the white spaces, as to why Pytell’s work deserves your attention. His history is written with care and often surprising attention to minutiae over spectacle.

There’s a surreal lens at play too: The Pangea Complex and At this point have their words placed squarely in the poet’s gaze, and it takes time and effort to adjust yourself to the positioning. Once you get comfortable, though, American nostalgia, personal histories and late nights alone are all illuminated in an unassuming, singularly remarkable gaze, and a lingering sense of personal isolation remains that is as sobering as it is well-constructed.

However, it is in the process of stark narrative (Nails on a Dry Erase Board being the standout poem) where motivation and world view start their slow, controlled staining of everything else. There is a necessary discomfort in this world of mundane wonder: it doesn’t have to make sense, but it absolutely needs to exist. As Roulette states: Life, like colour and taste is subjective / as comfort and these poems are very much here to challenge what your definition of comfort really means.

Personal Favourites

Stars for the imagery
Roulette for the inference
I named my right hand Sonny for the impact

Any Other Business

When I’m reading work, I tend to find myself looking for music to accompany the business of poetic absorption. In this case, I found myself being pushed back to a film that I’d not seen for many years. I’d be interested to know if the poet thinks of this association, as I find myself feeling an awful lot of my reactions to his work in the narrative. Paris, Texas also has one of the most evocative soundtracks I’ve ever loved, and going back to Ry Cooder’s work on Spotify was very much like returning to an old friend.

Poetry is meant to make you think: these poems allow an experience of life that you never knew existed.

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2022 Content/Art/Poetry Projects/Poetry/Poetry Performance/Writing Projects/YouTube Content

Pejorative Terms Video #8

This is the eighth of twenty videos both written and produced by me as part of my ‘Pejorative Terms’ Project. You’ll find the central hub for the poetry by clicking here.

I’ll be providing information on the inspiration and production of this video this week, which will again be linked to the central hub. There is also a portion of this content which will only be available to those who subscribe to me on Ko-Fi.

Click here to go to my Ko-Fi Page.

Thank you for your support.

#IBuyYourPamphlet/2023 Content/Art/Poetry Projects/Poetry/Poetry Review/Writing Projects

#IBuyYourPamphlet: WEEK 2

‘Total Rhubarb’
by J. Archer Avary

this information superhighway is clogged up / the questions never stop…

J. Archer Avery (he/him) is a former TV weatherman and champion lionfish hunter. He was born in the USA, became a household name in the Cayman Islands and now lives in South Tyneside with his wife. He has a window full of cacti and an enthusiastic interest in Newcastle United FC.

As part of a package deal with the excellent Back Room Poetry (who, for full disclosure purposes, are publishing a chapbook of mine in April) I have purchased all the small press’ output for the next twelve months. This is the second of three releases I’ll be reviewing this month, and it could not be more different than last week’s offering.

What’s in it for Me?

I say that total rhubarb is different, but there are clear parallels between this chapbook and Ford Dagenham’s, and it indicates that Back Room Poetry clearly know what they like and are ready to promote it. Archer Avary is a master of disappointment and escapism, a wizard with disassociation and regret. The accomplished and surreal nature of these poems are, at times, a thing of utter joy and what is presented here is a vast, sprawling album of random moments connected by an inescapably strong thread of narrative quirkiness.

Whether its instructional voyeurism mixed with terror/horror (and possible autobiography) of It’s Best to Fire an Employee on a Friday or the reflective yet eminently hollow/travesty of existence in Poem written the Night Before a New Job, we find a poet almost hyper-fixated on the minutiae of his life, and what that really means in the bigger scheme of reality. Form and function are both in abundance, too. There’s almost too much to take in sometimes, especially true in the superlative Items Lost in Transit, almost a parody in itself of the Onion headlines it in part peels apart as content.

This becomes a series of well-loved Polaroid snapshots, a narrative of a life lived and viewed from the obscurer angles, from spaces between success and depression, where joy and regret are never more than a stanza break away. Look between the lines here and the grief is palpable, the elation unbounded as you are ultimately left wanting. There’s also an inescapable, depreciating humour laced around this work, the kind you only recognize when you’ve lived life in highs and lows. I see a lot of myself between these covers.

Personal Favourites

The Bus is Late and so am I for the imagery
Sort of a Love Story for the inference
Items Lost in Transit for the impact

Any Other Business

I appreciate anyone who follows a team or a genre with a focus that allows their own passion and personality to emerge. Archer Avary’s support of Newcastle United tells me as much about them as a poet as their words have, and it’s always useful to have insights on what makes people tick outside the printed word. To be a true team supporter you will endure a lot, and often none of it is much fun, but you will always find a good story to tell. I think football fans make the best poets as a result.

These stories are beautiful, often brutal slivers of a life lived loud.

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if you enjoyed this review, please consider a donation using Ko-Fi

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2022 Content/Art/Poetry Projects/Poetry/Poetry Performance/Writing Projects/YouTube Content

Pejorative Terms Video #7

This is the seventh of twenty videos both written and produced by me as part of my ‘Pejorative Terms’ Project. You’ll find the central hub for the poetry by clicking here.

I’ll be providing information on the inspiration and production of this video this week, which will again be linked to the central hub. There is also a portion of this content which will only be available to those who subscribe to me on Ko-Fi.

Click here to go to my Ko-Fi Page.

Thank you for your support.

#IBuyYourPamphlet/2023 Content/Art/Poetry Projects/Poetry/Poetry Review/Writing Projects

#IBuyYourPamphlet: WEEK 1

‘Nostalgia opera & streetside meat’
by Ford Dagenham

waiting
backstage
in the calm
before the rock

Ford Dagenham has run the poetry blog Hatchbacks on Fire since 2011, where he posts poems in both 2 and 3D, as images and as drawings. He lives at home with his wife and cats.

As part of a package deal with the excellent Back Room Poetry (who, for full disclosure purposes, are publishing a chapbook of mine in April) I have purchased all the small press’ output for the next twelve months. I thought I’d start with this as my inaugural review.

What’s in it for Me?

Dagenham is a place I know very well. In my early years my father spent several years at the Ford plant there (overseeing construction of the Fiesta, if memory serves) and so I was curious: does Mr F. Dagenham share some of my world view? The answer is a resounding yes: the smell of dirt and petrol, cigarettes and 1970’s nostalgia is very much a surreal and heady mix, combining both past and present on the page.

From the musical resonances of Opera in the Streetside Buzz to the unique and very visceral response to sub-orbital flight in Plus Ultra, I can see these poems in their natural habitats with a vivid and inescapable grittiness. The snapshots of childhood memory effortlessly juxtapose with surreal, uncomfortable glimpses of a mind that has honed itself by repetition to expose the brutal mundanity of daily life.

So much mainstream poetry prides itself on its looks, the way it feels, that to be accessible requires a style or a particular method. Dagenham is a sinister and uncompromising poet, and his world will not come to meet you halfway. I know you shouldn’t blaspheme in reviews, but this is reality in sharp fucking focus, and I AM HERE FOR IT ALL. Not everything looks and tastes as real and honest as this does between covers, and it should.

Personal Favourites

Hardcore Blinkers for the imagery
I am the Meat Form for the inference
Screen Burn Fading for the impact

Any Other Business

Reading this, I had an almost compulsive need to dig out a copy of Second Toughest in the Infants, which remains a vital soundtrack from Romford’s finest electronic music group, Underworld. This poetry did for me what the album still does: drags me back to an East End long since passed and overbuild, where grey was the only palette and everything seemed about thirty seconds away from disintegration.

This is an evocative, necessary read.

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2022 Content/Short Stories/The Great Social Media Experiment/Writing as Therapy/Writing Projects

The End

On Saturday morning I posted the last part of a ten-month-long opus to Twitter. A lot has changed since this began in March, most notably on Twitter. With the way things are heading, I won’t be posting any more original work on the platform again. The risks do not outweigh the rewards any longer. Still, it was a cracking experiment.

It seems a long time ago, too, and the idea did alter significantly as we went along: the key however was it was written daily. Therefore, if it were ever collated as a Thing, there’d need to be some significant editing along the way. However, that wasn’t the point. I’m here to push my own creative boundaries, and that’s what this did. Nobody uses social media as creatively as they can, with a very few exceptions. In 2023 the job here is to make sure I keep pushing the boundaries.

Innovation does appreciate a bunch of risk-taking.

If you enjoyed this adventure in storytelling?

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2022 Content/Art/Poetry Projects/The Craft/Writing as Therapy/Writing Projects

Build

2023 is where I try and make a serious fist at building a digital audience away from social media. Looking at the state of Twitter in the past week, it’s not the place to do this on. So, we’re gonna try a new direction.

Welcome to the Substack Poetry Project.

The 2023 Substack Header: on a purple background of raised letters, the words 'No Gloss, No Veneer, No Filter' appear

If you are part of Ko-Fi, free paid access to all of this is provided as part of your package. For everybody else, there’s this link:

CLICK TO SUBSCRIBE TO SUBSTACK

Paying £5 a month or £40 a year ( which is a 33% saving) which will get you the following:

  • Two posts a week, which will be based on current affairs, my brain space at any given time and may yet involve me being more open about my experiences as a digital creative. (If you pick the free option, there’s still one post a week you have access to, it’s just the extra stuff you’ll miss)
  • I’ll also write, discuss and then build a poetry collection EXCLUSIVELY for subscribers. No using stuff from submissions elsewhere or recycling old content. this is JUST FOR YOU. A mock-up of the cover can be found below. I’ll also illustrate the whole thing myself because, well, I can.
  • In December 2023 I’ll release a digital chapbook of the content exclusively for subscribers. It will not be sold ANYWHERE ELSE.
The cover of my 2023 digital chapbook, NOT A TOY. These words are seen on the screen of a Laptop, shown in close-up.

The Substack will also include exclusive access to video and audio. There will probably be a physical version too, and I can guarantee you’ll get a badge of some kind. You can blame my mate Darren for that new obsession. The plan is to finish off with 23 poems, give or take, by the beginning of December. It’ll be a lovely Christmas gift to look forward to.

You can also sub as a Founder, and if you do… I’ll provide you with all my work. That means Free, physical copies of EVERYTHING I MAKE going forward. No questions asked, I will be good to my word, promising 100% lack of grift. This tier will be extended to everybody who has supported me on Ko-Fi over the last few years.

If you choose to join as a Free Sub I will offer you discounts on individually generated, published work and anything I personally offer for sale via either Ko-Fi or the website.

CLICK TO SUBSCRIBE TO SUBSTACK

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