All entries for August 2008

Poetry Reading at Hogwarts

Writing about web page http://www.towerpoetry.org.uk/

I was at Christchurch College last night, giving a reading in Hogwarts to the participants of their annual poetry summer school - for Tower Poetry that is, although there was something Potterish about the evening.

Tower Poetry is a poetry project at Christchurch College Oxford. Endowed by the late Christopher Tower, the project run summer schools for promising young writers, produces an annual anthology and much else beside. In their words, 'the aims...are clear: to stimulate an enjoyment and critical appreciation of poetry, particularly among young people in education, and to encourage people to write their own poetry.'

Christchurch is more than a venerable college. As everybody knows it is also Hogwarts. The great hall. The staircase. The cloisters. The place is ghosted by wizards and poets.

I had a sublime few hours, not least because of the magical quality of the company of the tutors Frances Leviston and Jane Draycott; the skill and warmth of the organisers Kathryn Grant and the poet-critic Peter Mc Donald (readers of this blog will know I am a fan of his poetry); but also through meeting an amazing bunch of younger poets who made up the audience. They were like intelligent, talented, graceful and distinguished unicorns. Rather like Ledbury Poetry Festival, you felt you were among your own kind and that made you want to work even harder. One of the highlights was dining with them in an almost empty Great Hall, talking nothing but poetry. They reminded me whyI am in poetry.

I am very impressed by Tower Poetry - the website is linked above - and I want to encourage more younger poets to try to gain a place on the poetic Hogwarts summer school. Here are the details, somewhat bowdlerised from the website.

Tower Poetry offers young poets between the ages of 18-23 the chance to attend The annual Tower Poetry Summer School.  The residential school will give 12 young people the opportunity to develop their own writing and critical skills through a series of exciting and challenging workshops run by experienced tutors.  The course also offers readings by guest poets as well as visits to places of literary interest in Oxford.

The summer school will be held at Christ Church, Oxford, usually August.  All tuition and accommodation costs will be paid for by Tower Poetry (yes, it is free).  The course offers its students a unique and challenging opportunity to work with other writers.  At the end of the summer school, the students’ work will be collected and edited for publication in a poetry pamphlet.

To be eligible for the summer school, students should be usually resident in the UK.  Students will be selected for the course on the basis of written work. 

Just to add here that, as Dumbledore said, 'Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also'. Take your talent to Warwick in October. To the Poetry School in Spring. Then take your talent to Christchurch next summer.

David Morley : 28 Aug 2008 10:24 |  Tags: The Practice Of Poetry |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A Poetry Magazine Launches in Warwick

Such a blog silence! No WiFi in the Woods. I have been in Wharfedale's woodland for poetry walks, climbs, showers and swims as part of the Strid Wood commission – and have come up with about 82 poems, from one-word poems to one-line poems to deciduously leafy and long pieces. I’ve invented a few strange forms: poetry in waterfall form, in Wharfe and Oak form, as well as Wood Worms, Bard Boxes and Ankle-High Haiku. This work is being realised and placed now, and will be launched on 26^th September.

That aside, the night before I travelled I attended the launch in my home town of Warwick of a new poetry magazine, “Under the Radar” at a new chi-chi wine bar in the town centre.

Now, poetry launches in Warwick are as rare as meetings of the Communist Party so I went zealously and was not surprised to find some fine poets at play.

The wine bar sold wine; I bought a glass in error, extreme error. It was vile; my head wilted. It was as corked as Cork, but I was overly well brought-up to offer the barman the glass and the challenge to down it in one. Mercifully, the poets sweetened this acidic adventure.

I bought a copy of “Under the Radar", not an error. It’s a pleasantly produced magazine, well-edited and keenly chosen. I was enjoying its contents immensely and enjoyed the performances by the poets in the first half of the evening’s line-up, which included a mesmeric, almost dangerous, performance by a madly inventive accordionist – a kind of Kurt Weill meets Tom Waits, a poisonously true set of lyrics and delirious beldlamic music.

Jane Commane and Matt Nunn edit “Under the Radar”, and were also launching a new poetry press – Nine Arches Press. Their first book is by Jane Holland and is called “On Warwick”. Jane is the town’s laureate and I guess, since I live here, write here and bring up my children here, I kind of take an interest in what might be written so Jane kindly sent me her work in manuscript. I was taken with it, especially the long historical poem ‘On Warwick Castle’.

Anyway, I applaud both these ventures - not that my applause is needed - just as I applauded the poets and accordionist that night in the Kozi Bar in Warwick. I was keen to hear more but I had to leave at the interval defeated in body and mind by the rankest Chianti in Christianity.

David Morley : 26 Aug 2008 16:30 |  Tags: The Practice Of Poetry |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A Nightmare for Journalism: An Open Letter to Johnston Press

I was copied into this Open Letter to Johnston Press from the NUJ in Blackpool. It is very concerning to many writers to see how some of their fellow writers are being treated and I reprint the letter here in full, above an article about The Johnston Press.

Letter Begins:

We, the NUJ chapel of The Blackpool Gazette and allied publications, wish to make it clear to management, at all levels, that we deplore the systematic destruction of this newspaper, the erosion of our craft as journalists, and the undermining of the quality, credibility and prospects of this newspaper, in print, on line, and, accordingly, the community it serves.

Centralisation has destabilised an excellent, award winning local newspaper which, given the paltry investment per individual worker, out performs bigger centres. This remains a vibrant news area. The potential for richer pickings is actively attracting investors in tourism, economic infrastructure, and manufacturing.
Johnston Press repeatedly reaffirms “local” commitment with each new acquisition, but it needs to invest in its staff too.

The outcome? This fine hard working and historic newspaper now faces the worst crisis in morale, and conditions, in working memory of all involved.

A recruitment freeze is redundancy by any other name and via the back door. It drives others out and engenders illegal working practices, in hours worked, and rest periods and shift breaks not taken.

Health and safety laws were designed to protect workers’ health. Most staff are contracted for 35-38 hours and have not opted out of such. Some work well over 40-45 hours, others 50-55 hours, and a few up to 65. Subs, specialists, newsdesk, photographers, and multi tasking reporters are all subject to this exploitation of goodwill, or pressured into it. However, the legal limit is 48 hours a week, aggregated over a reference period. It includes working lunches, time spent on call, and travelling between assignments.

Instead, unrealistic demands are made of line managers, given the recruitment freeze., and that policy cascades upon their staff.

Before we detail examples from all departments let us state that no journalist expects to work regular hours. But nor do we expect to work irregular hours regularly, for no reward, curbed expenses, no acting up pay, or time owing.

Particularly given the related impact upon our sleep, health, families, peace of mind, finances and quality of life. A tired worker is more likely to make mistakes, in print, on line, in quality, and judgement, in and beyond the office. Consequences could be catastrophic, tragic - and actionable.

We know the forces ranged against us are powerful, in terms of the economy, influence and prevailing culture. But we also believe we have some influence within the community. You cannot centralise LOCAL news. It is a contradiction. It is false economy. It costs quality, content, loyalty, community commitment, continuity, contacts. One size does not fit all. Cuts made to date strike at the very heart of the extended family we call The Blackpool Gazette.

We mourn the loss of valued colleagues in other departments, the talent, productivity, commitment and loyalty lost.

We have lost internet staff, IT, artists, elements of advertising, accounts, and, most significantly, newspaper sales and promotions. Hard working productive individuals - and team players.

*NEWSDESK will soon be down to one man, two staff gone, including one who recently worked a 65 hour week; with reporters “acting up” for no extra pay, while expected to upload the internet, cover specialist, diary, breaking news, night and weekend duties.

* SPECIALISTS now routinely work 50 hour weeks, one averages 65. They advance write to cover holidays, time owing, even ill health, when able to plan for absence. A colleague who left some time ago has not been replaced. There has been no pay rise for those taking on the work concerned. It is calculated that individuals give at the very least an extra, unpaid, day of work each week, often far more. Pressures will rise when a key member of the team takes long term sick leave for an urgent operation. He, too, will be expected to write some of his work in advance, when already under stress. Colleagues will be expected to absorb and compensate for the loss of his expertise. This is unrealistic given present working conditions.

* SUB-EDITORS - Four news sub editors work illegally long hours on a regular basis. This situation will worsen when the dept, already three permanent staff down, loses a fourth in the near future forcing subbing for district weekly titles upon already over burdened Gazette subs. All four have experienced 55 hour weeks. Three also suffer illegally short breaks between shifts. Juggling resources sometimes leads to subs working a late shift one day followed by an early the next flouting laws of at least 11 hours between two consecutive shifts.

The subs concerned rarely finish before 7pm after a 9.30am start. A “normal” finish has become 7.15pm and later 9pm. One states that midweek shifts frequently last until 7.45pm and are now “established practice and considered acceptable.” Another, who frequently works 11 hour days, has taken unpaid managerial duties for four months, with no prospect of relief given the recruitment freeze.

REPORTERS: Staff were assured that Gazette TV would not impinge on day to day work. Four reporters are currently trained to use video/audio but untrained reporters have also been sent out, including at night, to film for the internet.

Specialist reporting roles have suffered, as specialists cover for others. Others are assigned ND duties, given the staffing shortages there, ensuring the internet is uploaded regularly with breaking news and sports, while attempting to cover their own roles, again with no acting up pay.

Junior reporters become victims of their own enthusiasm, expected to work from 8am to between 5pm-6pm, without little more than half an hour, if that, for lunch. They miss out on training too, either structured, or by experienced colleagues and there is little guidance on when they can expect rises, in spite of a rationalised banding system in place.

One junior recently worked seven days in a row, until around 10.20pm on the seventh day, having worked alone all weekend after a full week. The following week the individual assisted in uploading news to website which meant an early start. It worked out at 110 hours in 11 days.

PHOTOGRAPHERS will soon be down to three men, the chief having early retired, citing pressure. His replacement is on long term sick leave, having suffered a life threatening illness. Another has just handed in notice. Take one out for holidays or ill health and two photographers could be left covering the whole of the Fylde, for all publications around the clock. Reporters are discouraged from taking photographs but some feel they have to. Photographers work from over 40 hours – to more than 50. One recent Sunday duty lasted 14 hours.


In all, we are sick at heart of the sweatshop culture, the callousness of company chiefs, the illegality of routine flouting of working hours regulations, the lack of effective rota systems, and the freeze on recruitment.

We remind management that journalists are not paid overtime. We are lucky if we manage to claim £6.30 (tea and supper allowance) for an entire evening’s work. Or £2.90 for a “supper” from 7pm to midnight. This is well below national minimum hourly wages. And we put ourselves at risk, often working alone, carrying expensive equipment, following breaking news wherever it occurs – including some of the dodgier districts of the Fylde.

Time owing has to be actively sought, and pursued, rather than volunteered, presumably because line managers can ill afford staff to claim it, or have time to maintain and update the rota.

We therefore call on Johnston Press to halt centralisation before it halts this newspaper and costs its shareholders – and the community of Blackpool and the Fylde Coast - dear.
We also call on Johnston Press to lift the recruitment freeze on this centre and urgently replace staff who have left, or are about to do so, and provide freelance and casual cover to ease immediate pressures.

This protest is not an act of betrayal but of unity in the face of real risks – including to the newspaper we value.

The letter stops here. I was also sent this piece to give the letter context.

NUJ reps from across Johnston Press’s main publishing centres have unanimously backed a motion of no confidence in the company’s senior management – and urged shareholders and communities to act to save their local papers.

As redundancies, recruitment freezes, budget cuts, title and office closures and the axing of freelances hits

Johnston Press newsrooms across the UK and Ireland the NUJ is to stage a co-ordinated, group-wide day of actions to highlight the damage being done to local papers. MPs will be urged to get involved in the day alongside community organisations and individual shareholders will be lobbied.

Union reps, who met on Wednesday to plan a campaign against job cuts and title closures, have also backed calls for industrial action across the group as part of the campaign against the effects of the latest cuts. Chapels across the UK and Ireland will be consulted over possible strike action in the coming days before final plans are drawn up.

The NUJ Johnston Press Group Chapel, representing all NUJ members across the company, will also seek meetings with the group’s management to urge a rethink on the cuts in a bid to avoid strike action.

NUJ members complain that job cuts and the widespread non-replacement of staff are putting intolerable pressures on remaining journalists or leading to situations where papers are unable to cover their local areas.

One title is restricted to just 12 photographs a week because of the lack of money to pay photographers, another cannot send a photographer to jobs after 5.30pm because of budget cuts. Another title has almost 25% of editorial posts currently unfilled and reps report that morale across the group is at rock bottom.

NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear said: “A tipping point has been reached – and the latest cuts are now threatening the very future of the papers. If you continue to deny resources for editorial you inevitably produce worse products and why would business advertise in or readers buy such products.

“The strategy of cut, cut, cut in editorial budgets has been shown to be a failure and it’s time it was reversed. Shareholders should be fearful for their investments and local communities should fear for the future of their papers.

“We won’t sit back and allow jobs and quality journalism to be threatened. The mood amongst our members is one of determination to actively oppose cuts which damage quality, lead to increased workloads, threaten the future of the titles and put at risk more jobs”.

David Morley : 25 Aug 2008 10:00 |  Tags: The Practice Of Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Strid and Sessile 9

Writing about web page http://www.chrysalisarts.org.uk

Idea # 11: Slow Art and Slow Poetry

Above: 'A Crunch of Snails' by Pengannel (copyright)

I'm back but while I was abroad I continued to make many notebook sketchings of concepts for North Yorkshire’s Strid Wood’s slow art trail. I have also come up with a lot of poems, some of which are epiphanic, many of which are concrete poems or visual poems.

I have the ankle-level haiku in the bag – next to my feet.

Given your feedback while I was away (thanks folks) I think I need to come up with concepts which (a) are more permanent within this landscape; and (b) reflect more fully the notion of this being a “Slow Art” trail.

So what is Slow Art? It mimics the concepts for Slow Food. I had a pleasant time among Slow Foodies last time I was teaching in Torino – a Slow Food superpower (if such a term can be applied without revulsion). I led a slow writing workshop in a slow time of day.

So, by OuLiPo-like transformation of nouns and verbs I have transformed the Wikipedia entry on Slow Food to open some doors on how Slow Art and Slow Poetry might be described and obtained. Although the slow tongue is in the cheek (as the sloe is in the gin) I actually think the ideas below – and the Slow Poetry Manifesto – make a lot of sense. In fact they describe the UK poetry scene more accurately than I thought...

Slow Art

The Slow Art movement is a resistance movement to combat fast art. It claims to preserve the artistic products and their associated authors and artists, domestic poets, and sculptors within an artistic/eco-region. It is now an established part of the broader Slow Movement.

Slow Poetry

The Slow Poetry movement incorporates a series of objectives within its mission, including:

1. forming and sustaining poetry banks to preserve heirloom poetics in cooperation with local writing schools

2. developing an “ark of taste” for each poetry region, where local poetic traditions and poetics are celebrated and experiments are encouraged

3. preserving and promoting local and traditional poets, along with their lore and preparation

4. organizing small-scale publishing (including facilities for “murdering one’s darlings” and short run products like haiku and tanka)

5. organizing celebrations of local literature within regions (e.g. The Ledbury Poetry Festival, Aldbrough Poetry Festival)

6. promoting “taste education” (my friend Peter Davidson would have to be in charge of this)
7. educating readers about the risks of fast poetry (a job T.S.Eliot would have warmed to)
8. educating citizens about the drawbacks of commercial publishing and factory farms (i.e. Writing Programmes in which writers are not the teachers)

9. educating citizens about the risks of literary monoculture and reliance on too few poetic examples or varieties

10. lobbying for the inclusion of ecopoetry concerns within cultural policy

11. teaching poetry skills to students and prisoners

12. encouraging ethical buying of poetry in local marketplaces

Rhetorical question for the Slow Poetry Banner: isn't most good poetry Slow Poetry?

David Morley : 05 Aug 2008 14:43 |  Tags: Poetry The Practice Of Poetry |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem