Things my tutors made me do

[Jennifer]

I just thought it might be interesting to see what some of you thought about the fruits of my tax-sapping degree in writing so far! We're doing poetry at the moment so that's what you'll get. Please do bear in mind that I'm usually writing to a deadline here, on dictated subjects or in dictated forms.

For example, here we had to write a poem about Natascha Kampusch, which I found incredibly difficult - what gives us the right to do that? Anyway, here is my childish attempt:

Natascha

They tell me of the things that I have missed,
My education ended, no more friends -
Lost in captivity for twisted ends.
One man for all the boys I never kissed,
A cellar for the home I should have had,
That broke before I ever went away,
And all the childish things I’ll never say.
Oh please, think of your daughters and be sad,
You readers of the Star and the Express,
The voyeuristic urge to know my tale
Will give me my salvation through the Mail
Wherein I spread my pain and each caress -
Perhaps for every single tear you weep
I’ll chance a single second’s stolen sleep.


Or perhaps one where we had to shamelessly rip off an existing poem, in this case Sylvia Plath's 'Edge':

Edge

The man is ruined.
His sleeping

Form too peaceful,
The violence of accomplishment

Gone from hands, feet, sides.
The blood

Of salvation swirled
In the bowl of water.

The women cradle head and feet
Of three-day woken

Corpse, milk-white
Hands folded.

Mother at head
Happy to defy the Father

In claiming back, with sweet
Tears: she will not let go again.

The other has nothing to be pleased about,
Sure things were intended differently.

She is used to the shame of defiance;
Clutches the feet, just in case.


Actually, this one didn't have a dictate, just had to fill up space on the page for an assignment...:

On Not Being Heroic

I have a sense of missing out somewhere,
On dragon-slaying, saving maidens fair,
Translations from the Latin, Malory:
So many nights spent reading fev’rishly,
From childish longing for ancestral lore -
That learning not intended for the poor –
Not to be a scholar, but to dream,
Of chivalry and myth, the hero’s theme,
Despite the feminist within who cries,
At every cardboard damsel’s scripted sighs.
I loved the stilted speech, the pageantry,
I read of blood and violence casually,
And learned to look on death with heartless ease,
For heroes’ deaths, died well, are bound to please.
The pleasant roll of those familiar names,
Achilles, Lancelot, assorted dames,
Can still recall that lost schoolboy delight.
Every pointless quest and endless fight
Produces that forgotten sense of something right.
These are the things we should have learned at school:
A man tells truth, and doesn’t play the fool,
He honours ladies, acts with gentilesse,
Post-battle, lets the serfs clean up the mess
(For these are games intended for the few),
And, in the final testing, be thou true:
Falter not, in speaking final words,
And die for nothing less than twenty swords.
This is the youngster’s list of ancient saw,
That stood, in better times, in place of law,
When ‘just not cricket’ plainly would suffice,
And one could curb a Hitler just by being nice.


Apologies for the length. Feedback welcome.

[gil]

Two of these poems actually rhyme and scan! That'll never do.

Actually, I'm quite impressed. They're making you create. The effort of doing so inevitably improves your ability to appraise others' output.

[Colyngbourne]

All three are pretty impressive. I especially liked the last one, which grew steadily from the start and was at its most meaningful at the end. With the Plath I don't know the original but your version was startlingly striking.

I appreciated the Kampusch one the least - though it was good too - I suppose because each of us has our own thoughts and interpretation on what that abduction meant for her.

It's great that you're getting to do inspiring creative stuff as part of your degree (which I didn't get to do - and would have failed miserably at the poetry without a doubt).

[Hekaterine]

You readers of the Star and the Express,
The voyeuristic urge to know my tale
Will give me my salvation through the Mail


I like this part Jennifer, it feels very insightful.

As does this:

When ‘just not cricket’ plainly would suffice,
And one could curb a Hitler just by being nice.

[Lucoid]

The first section Hekaterine has isolated could easily be a Manics lyric. That comment is neither meant to be negative nor positive, it's just an observation.

I think these show real strength, Jennifer, and I know for certain I could never have achieved anything like this in my first year at uni (or second, or third). The third poem is especially impressive, and seems to be much more natural, I guess because it's not written to fit a certain theme or style that's been forced upon you. Keep 'em coming!

[Noumenon]

I like.

[Jennifer]

Thanks for the kind comments folks.

Col, I agree with you on the Kampusch one - I hated writing it and only the fact that it was a chance to dust off my sonnet skills kept me going.

gil - scansion is my friend. No-one else in the seminar will countenance actual form, so I'm the lone defender. Villanelles and all. (That reminds me, I've got one of those kicking around, might stick it up here for feedback).

Thanks again guys - we've moved on to flippin' 'life writing' now which I don't seem to have a talent for. Will throw up anything I want criticism on though, you people have brains and know how to use them, which is more than can be said for myself, writing poetry, usually drunk, always knackered...

[gil]

Life Writing - Is that (auto)biography, reportage etc.?

[Jennifer]

It is - and I must now settle down to 'take a journey round my room' - this is apparently travel writing.

Ah, life is hard.

[Jennifer]

Got my first assessed load of poetry back today - got a first. Well chuffed. I shall now inflict upon you my villanelle:

Identity (stupid title)

A chance to rise above the northern mass,
The dirty wrangling of the family war,
Of fish and chips, flat vowels, broken glass.

And all the casual racism, the crass
One-sided fights, and always waiting for
A chance to rise above the northern mass.

The wishing death on all the men who pass,
The ghostly echoes of the slamming door -
Of fish and chips, flat vowels, broken glass.

How dare you pour your scorn on the morass
From which you came? Or want for more –
A chance to rise above the northern mass.

Like oily scum on water floating past,
No better than your dirty northern core
Of fish and chips, flat vowels, broken glass.

Oh hear all, see all, say nowt, let it pass,
Or sell your soul and body waiting for
A chance to rise above the northern mass
Of fish and chips, flat vowels, broken glass.


Somewhat vitriolic, in retrospect. Anyway. I promise I will comment on some other people's work soon. After I've dealt with Edward Said. Bloody hell.

[Noumenon]

Interesting, although I know little of poetry. Would you mind defining the rules for the form?

[Digger]

Yes I was wondering that. I really liked it, having spent some several years up north I love it dearly but this did ring true.

I've been really impressed with these Jennifleur, as one who writes atrocious poetry whenever I've tried... but I do love reading it every now and then.

[leyla]

Jennifer, Nou and Digger have echoed my own thoughts - I really liked the poems but since I know so little about poetry, didn't want to post an uninformed complimentary response. Well done, they roll off the tongue very nicely.
PS Digger, I like your new name for Jennifer - Jennifleur - beautiful and French and flower-like!

[Digger]

Hmmmm, yes, me 'n my fat fingers - and I think Jennifer's flickr id is ...fleur... but I may be really confused. :oops:

[gil]

That was absolutely first-class, Jennifer.

[Colyngbourne]

Interesting, although I know little of poetry. Would you mind defining the rules for the form?

The Wikipedia definition is thus - Nineteen lines long, they are poems written in tercets with only two rhymes, the first and third line of the first stanza alternating as the third line in each successive stanza and forming a couplet at the close.

A famous example is Dylan Thomas's Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. Leonard Cohen uses this one - Villanelle for Our Time - by FR Scott for one of his songs on Dear Heather:


From bitter searching of the heart,
Quickened with passion and with pain
We rise to play a greater part.

This is the faith from which we start:
Men shall know commonwealth again
From bitter searching of the heart.

We loved the easy and the smart,
But now, with keener hand and brain,
We rise to play a greater part.

The lesser loyalties depart,
And neither race nor creed remain
From bitter searching of the heart.

Not steering by the venal chart
That tricked the mass for private gain,
We rise to play a greater part.

Reshaping narrow law and art
Whose symbols are the millions slain,
From bitter searching of the heart
We rise to play a greater part.

[Jennifer]

(Jennifleur's been a nickname for ages, it is my flickr id, you're not going mad Digger!)
You're all very complimentary so I suppose the only thing to do is be self-deprecating and point out that I messed up in one part - spot the tetrameter! (Line of four iambs instead of five).

I love villanelles although they're stupidly hard to write. You start with two strong refrains and put them as the first and third line, making sure they fit well together for the final stanza. After that, you need an easy second rhyme. And a good subject! Hard to explain though, Col's wiki definition sums it up but the best thing to do is look at some as a model.

[Jennifer]

Random few more for your delectation. I realise I'm just bombarding this thread with poems but hey, you don't have to read them. Less formal this time so don't bother, gil! (We have to show 'range and variety' apparently so I'm not allowed to write a few hundred sonnets...)

To this one, my tutor just wrote "ha ha". Well, he gave me a first, who's laughing now?!:

Untitled

Last night
My eyes were full of you.

This morning
My bed was full of you.

This afternoon
There’s still the shape of you.

Stop stealing the covers.


Haikus are not an easy option. Hush:

Bird in a church

Came on silent wings
Unnoticed in the rafters
Heads down for the Word.


Even I have no idea what this one's about:

Still

Still the urge to violence;
The dim blue afternoon enshrouds,
Shutters up the passionate –
I, trying to be peaceful, sit.
Tainted metal taste of blood,
And still the urge to violence.
(Do sit still and behave yourself.)

[Noumenon]

I like untitled a lot...

...and I've removed my work because I was feeling guilty for usurping Jennifer's space...

[Digger]

So do I, brilliant - can I borrow it (all credit to you of course...)? Not that I know anyone who steals the covers mind you.... :roll:

[Jennifer]

All attempts at humour are copyright Jennifleur, but open to all...

[gil]

I read them, sans rhyme sans scansion. They were still, all the same, evidently poetry.

[Jennifer]

gil you are most kind.

Yes, it's prose time ladies and gentlemen. Observe as I wander, lost, amid a sea of empty word documents...

This assignment was supposed to a be piece of travel writing, but the journey taken around one's room. Voila.

Rooms

My room is a mess. From where I sit, a refugee, on my computer chair, I see contact lens cases, bottles of perfume, single shoes and endless hair products barring my way to the door. It is, however, a cosy room, always warm and artfully strewn with books I haven’t read.

[In the other room the mess is similar, but the books are leather-bound, the shoes are Victorian lace-up boots and I have perfect vision, rendering contact lenses unnecessary. The Other Room is where my mind lives. It accrues the mess of centuries, of the person I wish I was and, in the corners, the person I really am. Here I am Byron, I am Toulouse-Lautrec, I am Austen. I sit, lotus-legged, on a pile of embroidered cushions, surrounded, perhaps, by trailing opium clouds.]

In particular, due to a lack of storage space and the urge to acquire, I have more clothes than my wardrobe can comfortably accommodate. My comfy chair is a pile of jeans and jumpers. Anything delicate or recently washed is hanging on the outside of the wardrobe doors. There is also a fat black bin bag taking up much of the floor space in which I store any clothing not fit to be worn again.

[In the other room I reorganise myself. The assortment of cabinets and little boxes creates a delicate order, and although it might take one years to find something under the trailing scarves and paper fragments, one would find, in the searching, the thing one really needed but never knew existed.]

Thus one proceeds outwards through the room, from window with computer to corner with bed. On the way one might pause in front of the pile of cosmetic bags at the foot of the bed, or perhaps take in the sweeping vista of empty notice board. Upon reaching the safe haven of bed, the traveller is confronted by the mass of pillow and blanket against the wall, which edifice I have carefully constructed to prevent unfortunate coincidences of head and wall.

[There is no bed in the other room. The cataloguing instinct represented by ever-changing configurations of storage does not accommodate sleep. An ear pressed to my head at night would be greeted by a rustle of old paper, or the slide of velvet over wood. There is a lingering perfume reminiscent of candle shops or dried flowers, mixed with a hint of the outdoors. Somewhere a window is open – one can tell from the movement of the air. But in the corners the dust lies still.]

Resisting the urge to collapse on the red duvet, the now-weary traveller avoids tripping over the nest of handbags by the bed and moves towards the door. And out – the door resists, the twist of the lock sticking, but the journey is over and home fires beckon. Rooms are for people who don’t have enough to do.

[wshaw]

It is - and I must now settle down to 'take a journey round my room' - this is apparently travel writing.

Ah, life is hard.

Of course if there are any of your classmates who want to try out "life writing" as you put it, here (http://www.unmadeup.com), they're very welcome.

Wonderful poems, by the way. I wouldn't know where to start.

[Jennifer]

Ok, this is actually rubbish but I had to finish an assignment and I got distracted by those 'American Taliban' quotes (in the 'God Delusion' thread). I kind of went a bit mental to fill up space. Hey, it made me giggle.


A middle-aged housewife was watching television one day when she heard these words spoken by a preacher :

"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians." *

She was horrified. After all, she’d been there at the start, enthusiastically tossing her capacious bra on to the flames. And even though she’d eventually got married and settled down, she went dutifully to vote in every election, major or minor, because that was what equal rights were about.

And then to find out she’d been wrong all these years! She immediately ran upstairs to the bedroom of her teenage daughter and opened the wardrobe. Armed with some of its contents, she went downstairs, wrote a note for a husband, and left. She’d found the mission again, and although she wasn’t sure about killing off her children, the rest sounded like a damn good idea.

The local community was shocked at first at the sight of Doreen capering about, usually and mercifully clad in black velvet (mercifully because otherwise she was naked), chanting in some foreign tongue. The woman at the store suggested that she’d become a Catholic, but her customers disagreed. Gradually, though, husbands suddenly found themselves forced to accept a new status quo. Within a month, Doreen had all the local women staying out on full moon nights and refusing to pay at the store – which was fine, because the woman who ran it was taking home her groceries for nothing too.

Local news soon caught on, and titillated its audiences with more and more bizarre images, as the women got bolder and more prone to take their clothes off. National news only took up the tale after tentative forays into public orgies and ritual sacrifice (generally of vegetables, but a stray cat got it too). But by then it was too late. Women across the country were catching on to Doreen’s message of true feminism, seeing that the ordinary kind had never really resulted in freedom from oven cleaning and diaper changing. Men were too bewildered to offer up any kind of resistance, preferring to meekly stay and home and order pizza with their children, while their wives and older daughters were busy cavorting round a bonfire and finding companionship and pleasure in conservative lesbianism and a cardigan-clad approach to the black arts. And capitalism and the male hegemony were no more.

There is another version of this tale in which Doreen stayed at home, made the dinner, and quietly endured her husband’s furtive fumbling next to her in the early hours when he thought about his secretary. In another, her revolution was taken as proof by the right-wing that women were truly descendants of Eve and was strangled in its early days, either by a few strong words from the local preacher or a few strong bursts of gunfire from the National Guard. I like my version better. It allows me this ending:

And hurt and suffering were no more, for the bonds of repression had burned away and the dawn had come. Yea, the voice of woman speaks and the world awaketh. And there shall be coffee mornings and the pine-fresh scent of polish for evermore. And man shall toil in the field once more, for all things are subject to the will of woman. And war shall be cast out, in favour of sensible discussion. And all shall be equal, though women will be more equal than men. Hear the voice of the prophet Doreen, may she live forever, and tremble.

*Pat Robertson. Credit where it's due.

[Noumenon]

Funny! I would like to offer some editorial suggestions, please accept and dismiss them as you see fit:A middle-aged housewife was watching television one day when she heard these words spoken by a preacher :

"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians." *

*Pat Robertson. Credit where it's due.I would remove these sections entirely, reasons to follow.

The middle aged housewife/She was horrified.If you lose the opening paragraphs this becomes your first line, so insert a little primary identification of your character here instead.

And then to find out she’d been wrong all these years! She immediately ran upstairs to the wardrobe of her teenage daughter. Armed with some of its contents, she went downstairs...Armed... sounds a little clunky - perhaps "Fully armed/well prepared for the first time in years she..."

Also, without the opening paras we are being drip fed bizarre details - killing her children? What? What kind of monster is this woman? To be continued.

The local community was shocked at first at the sight of Doreen capering about, usually and mercifully clad in black velvet (mercifully because otherwise she was naked)...Again, you could rework this line although the humour is fine. Maybe "Often mercifully... (because...)"

Men were too bewildered to offer up any kind of resistance, preferring to meekly stay and home and order pizza with their children, while their wives and older daughters were busy cavorting round a bonfire and finding companionship and pleasure in conservative lesbianism and a cardigan-clad approach to the black arts. And capitalism and the male hegemony were no more....children... How about "...sons, and failing to adequetly explain to young daughters why their mums and sisters were cavorting..."

And capitalism... I would clip this line. See below.

There is another version of this tale...I think you should reposition this paragraph closer to the actual end. See below.

...Thus/And capitalism and the male hegemony were no more.
...
And hurt and suffering ceased/were no more, for the bonds of repression had burned away and the dawn had come....were no more... You repeated this phrase. Instead, maybe combine the two into a stronger opening for the latter paragraph:

Thus capitalism and the male hegemony were no more and hurt and suffering ceased, for the bonds of repression had burned away and the dawn had come....her husband’s furtive fumbling next to her in the early hours while/when he thought about his secretary. In other worlds/In another, her revolution proved to/was taken as proof by the right-wing that women were truly descendants of Eve and was strangled in its early days, either by a few strong words from the local preacher or /a few strong/ bursts of gunfire from the National Guard. I like my version better. It allows me this ending:I like my... I didn't like this line because it breaks the reader out of the narrative - it feels like you are writing a post, not a story. You As The Author only become a presence here so I would remove yourself completely. Instead, I would summarise that what is important is what The Individual does with their life, not what happens in Worlds That Could Be. Doreen chooses to Act and thus becomes powerful, which leads to your final lines (tampered with by me again, I'm afraid).

Hear the voice of the prophet Doreen, may she live forever. Fear the voice of the prophet Doreen, and tremble. In the name of Our Lord, Pat Robertson. Ah, men...I like your original ending, I just wanted to make more of a rhythmic prayer chant out of it. I added the last bit as a back-handed nod to Pat Rob - creditting him not with his own bigotry but with the creation of everything he hates! You could take the details of his quote and insert them into the story bit by bit, so anyone who goes looking for the original quote would discover all the twistings of his words you have perpetrated...

There's a whole lot of blah going on there, but it's well meant if not articulated. What do you think?

[Jennifer]

Thanks a lot Nou, actually I think you have a point about the beginning. I don't know how it would work without the explanation of the quote though, I'll have to play around a bit.

I know what you mean with breaking the reader out of the narrative; we'd been studying that sort of postmodern, self-aware fiction and I think I caught the bug...

Anyway, thanks - sorry it took me a while to reply, I read it drunk one night and then forgot I had!

[Hekaterine]

I like the quote and think it works well. It makes the throwaway remark about killing the kids being a little extreme wonderfully humourous I think.


conservative lesbianism and a cardigan-clad approach to the black arts


I love this line.

And capitalism and the male hegemony were no more.

...but I'd lose that one - it's already implied in what you've put before.

It's a great tale and a great fantasy Jennifleur.

[Noumenon]

I don't know how it would work without the explanation of the quote though, I'll have to play around a bit.After reading my own notes again I think I gave flawed advice. Maybe an alternative - if you were to flesh this out into a slightly longer piece - would be to set up Doreen's normal existence first by showing her usual taste in telly (by quoting a fictional presenter whose words epitomise everything Pat's sort would want her to be), then have her wide housewifey arse (uh-oh) accidentally crush the remote control and change the channel for her, thus revealing Pat and his quote in all his horrible glory and sparking the r/evolution which also sees her become what the magazines would term A Fitter Happier You. Or 20 Tips For Losing Pounds And Changing Society.

I know what you mean with breaking the reader out of the narrative; we'd been studying that sort of postmodern, self-aware fiction and I think I caught the bug...Nothing wrong with it in principle, it just seemed odd with it only happening once.

Anyway, thanks - sorry it took me a while to reply, I read it drunk one night and then forgot I had!Not a problem. Thanks for tolerating my presumption!

[Colyngbourne]

...then have her wide housewifey arse (uh-oh) accidentally crush the remote control...

Ooh, treading on dangerous ground there, Nou...;-)

[Noumenon]

( )( )
I was thinking
of you as I
said it
X
:-D

[Colyngbourne]

How generously housewife-ist of you....

[John Self]

Those colour-coded size-varying characters are darned close to counting as multiple smilies in one post, Nou, and you know what we think of those... :evil:

[Noumenon]

Ah. Okay. No more, you have my word.

[Jennifer]

Pish. Smilies. Shameful.

Well, rapidly approaching the end of my first year and having to do an 8000 word portfolio, which means dashing things off very quickly without much revision, because I'm lazy and started too late. Here's a couple of short poems for you guys, bit dodgy but only took me minutes which was a bonus!

Relativity

You pass me by,
And to yourself stand still.
You in your carriage and I
In the dust.

Stretched-out moments,
And you step into the dust
A thousand times.
Every time a little younger,
A thousand times older.

You pass me by,
So small, your arm’s reach contracted,
Seeming to yourself to pass the carriage lantern’s light,
To me looking greater, slowing,
And the lantern goes on ahead.

And I in the dust growing older,
To your eye stand still, still smaller.

You to me is relative:
The way you pass me by,
And to yourself stand still.


Nocturne

The thing sought hour on hour slips first from hands
Too swift. Unready, they receive not this
Thing – it cannot so easily with bands

Of flesh be trapped. Not for me mute bliss;
I seek too desperately. Some nights it seems
A false tempting idol: such a thing is -

Hush, it flies when named. These, then, must be dreams;
The waking thoughts my still-wake mind will keep
To taunt me.

Such a thing is sleep.

[Jennifer]

Oh, and I did my first ever poetry reading a few weeks ago. It was terrifying! But I got paid and got plenty of applause. Anyone with any experience of this kind of thing? I've done public speaking before but this was much harder. Maybe not if you're any good though!

[aemy]

Jennifer, hope your exams aren't too miserable ... the year's been escaping and I'm afraid I didn't look in on your excellent poems often enough.

Will you be doing more of this next year?

I think the scope and diversity of what you've been writing is really outstanding.

I liked them all - perhaps esp. "On Not Being Heroic" - and the "Birds in Church" -is that the correct title? (I would have gotten myself all tangled up with an image of the Holy Spirit - too predictable and probably goodbye, haiku.)

Your "Relativity" poem is clearly a fine stand-alone piece. It reminded me also of Emily Dickinson ... I'm sure you know the one. Perhaps I'll indulge myself and just throw in the first and last stanzas?

"Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me -
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality. ......


Since then - tis Centuries - and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity."


Another relative point of view?

Do triumph over the exams -I"m sure you will - and keep the lovely verse coming our way if you can.

[Jennifer]

aemy you are good for my spirit as I mindlessly churn out 3am rubbish! I've even just pointed out the Dickinson thing in the companion essay, we are on the same wavelength. Actually got the title from Einstein, you think he'd mind...?!
You are far too complimentary to a scribbling teenager. Have no fear, I am the queen of procrastination and will spend far more time on the internet than worrying about exams. More coming to this thread very soon in all likelihood. And keep posting your stuff so Nou isn't holding this end of the forums up on his own!

[aemy]

aemy you are good for my spirit as I mindlessly churn out 3am rubbish! I've even just pointed out the Dickinson thing in the companion essay, we are on the same wavelength. Actually got the title from Einstein, you think he'd mind...?!

He'd be delighted ... I know it!

You are far too complimentary to a scribbling teenager. Have no fear, I am the queen of procrastination and will spend far more time on the internet than worrying about exams. More coming to this thread very soon in all likelihood. And keep posting your stuff so Nou isn't holding this end of the forums up on his own!

Will try ... I wish I had something like your course(s) ... not the exams though! (I'm a slow writer ... if a bit obsessive once I get going.)

All best,

a.

[Jennifer]

You'd love it, I'm evangelical about it. I get a degree for (as one tutor put it) wussying around with poems!

One more to put up then I really should get off the internet.

The thing you’re not supposed to say (From a bit of journalism for an assignment).

I don’t understand Freud. When I see crowds
Of young men, I’ll cross the street if they’re black.
I could kill housemates for being too loud,
But only the ones I don’t like. My lack
Of sympathy is bottomless. I hate
God, and blame him for not existing when
He could make life easy. I imitate
People who make cruel jokes, admiring them,
But wishing I had the guts to construct
A personal fantasy of a world
Where everything wasn’t completely fucked,
Where I could live a year not being hurled
Into someone else’s Red King sport,
and I could kill a man, and not be caught.


Might as well link this here too: http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/jennifermclean

[Noumenon]

Nou isn't holding this end of the forums up on his own!He certainly isn't. My writing has been very slack recently, I'm being overwhelmed by lifestyle seachanges.

[aemy]

I'm being overwhelmed by lifestyle seachanges.

Sounds a bit traumatic, Nou.

Sympathies. (Anything friendly Palimpers can do to help?)

[Noumenon]

No, all good ones!

[aemy]

Oh, good.

[Jennifer]

So, update on the portfolio. Got a first, which dragged my overall first year mark up to 66, or a very respectable 2:1. Yay! And I've just read it back and it's not all drivel (though some may disagree - I am deeply paranoid about the quality of my output on this thread and kind of hope no-one reads it, despite being arrogant enough to have created it in the first place...)

Anyway, a couple more. As always, copyright Jennifleur, but seriously, if you ever see me in print it will not be anything I wrote while full of this much caffeine so heh.

Atheist’s Sestina

I have spent my life looking for God -
Seeing the contentment of the saved,
I thought it was the thing to do.
Looking back I suppose I lost
Sight of my doctrine of reason.
I still feel perhaps I missed out.

It’s not as if the faithful kept me out.
Over the years so many tried to bring me to God,
And if majority opinion was a good enough reason
To believe, I’d probably now be one of the saved.
Religion makes much of its lost
Sheep, and I always supposed they wouldn’t do

It if God was a lie – it’d be much ado
About the biggest nothing ever. Out
Of nowhere, though, came the thought that I’d lost
The part of me which hated the God
Of the Old Testament, and didn’t want to be saved,
By people who didn’t base their morals on reason

But on faith. But then I went in for unreason -
If Christianity wasn’t for me, I might as well do
The fashionable, look into the kind of people who saved
Up superstition and cast logic out,
Believing quite honestly in faeries or the kind of god
I thought went out when Mount Olympus was lost.


They had spells for when you lost
Your keys, invocations for any rhyme or reason;
They knew which kind of sprite or god
From which culture it was best to do
A sacrifice for, out
Of some dusty tome or article they’d saved

From Which Witch. I saved
My disbelief for later, and later came when I lost
The need for real-life fiction: when I found novels about
What these people thought was true. That was reason
Enough to finally grit my teeth and do
What was right for me: to say goodbye to god.

What reason have I to believe in a God
Who couldn’t save himself? Who out of nothing
Created all, and let us do what we needed to become lost.

[Jennifer]

Open Letter to the Nation

We used to be a green and pleasant land –
Not just in leaf and tree, but in the grand
Tradition of Victoria, and all
Those ideals in history books that appal
Us so much. I don’t mean that the Empire
Was such a good idea, or that the fire
On which we burned the patriarchal shite
Of yesteryear was lit too soon. It’s quite
Clear that slavery was shameful; the belief
That we were somehow better than the chief
Citizens of any nation on earth
Will not be missed. But do we know our worth?
My family say they’re Celts; England’s long
And fruitful past of siding with the wrong }
Causes makes them unhappy to belong.
Can’t we be glorious again? I want to say
To any future offspring that my day
Was better than theirs, not just a footnote
In the roll of bigotry and turncoat
Politics. Perhaps we could just pretend
That we still think we’re the best, that the end
Of Rule Britannia is apocalypse,
Not this harsh, slow decline by endless drips.
I’ll admit my citizenship again
When we let ourselves righteously proclaim }
Our latest try at enlightened, Britannic reign.


Laura’s reply

I’ve never been in love, I never will.
I wouldn’t believe anyone who tried
To tell me they loved me, because you lied
About everything. Well, I’ve had my fill.
You left me far too long without the will
To love myself: that part of me has died,
And every tear I could have wept has dried.
All that remains to me now is to kill
The image of you, pressed into my art.
I don’t want to have to do it this way –
It seems far too easy, to write you out
Then simply forget. But you put your heart
In poetry, and left no room to say
Out loud what you were actually about

[Jennifer]

Bloody hell. I suppose this is nothing new to the more experienced folks out there, but every time I look back at this thread I cringe. I used to be ashamed of things I wrote years ago - now it's more like last week. Anyway, I've got another sestina I'm fiddling around with so thought I'd throw it up, cos it might be better by next week, and then I can tell myself 'look, you are learning something!'

Sestina

I am the parson’s child, the ugly girl
Who kept her secret world under the bed,
Or fretted, hot housed, always in silence.
Tight-skinned and growing, failed to bring forth child
Of father-figure, so he took her work
To write ‘my wife’, to father her in death.

My character will marry into death,
In a black dress, next morning still a girl.
I will do in his lace nightmare the work
Required, take his corrections, find in bed
The agony I dreamed of as a child,
The sweetness of a scream born in silence.

Colder than his hands, this rigid silence
Will be the cloak I wear, and bitter death
In every word I write. As for the child
I will bear and not bear, it is a girl,
Whose attic room will not contain a bed.
I write her unconsciously, my life’s work

Contained in this single girl-word. I work
For him, nevertheless, trained to silence.
On warm and velvet nights I flee his bed;
Disparate lines conceal the little death
Planned for her. I almost pity the girl,
But she is not me, nor my nameless child,

Though she is written to preserve the child
From his cold hands when he shall take my work.
I have drawn up my battle lines. Bad girl,
Who speaks through me when, frozen with silence,
I set in motion enigmatic death -
I see myself already on the bed,

But she will not acquiesce, and the bed
Remains empty. Frankly, she is the child,
The words defend against the little death
I know must come (how can I know? My work
Is not begun; this poem lies by silence).
This is the future of the ugly girl –

To write herself a girl before the bed,
With silent rebellion to kill her child,
And after work, console herself in death.

[bakunin_the_cat]

Missed out on all this in my self-imposed exile.

Let me just say WOW and leave it there.

Knew there was a reason why I came back.

[wshaw]

WOW

Seconded. Thanks for bringing this back to the top of the pile, Bak.

[Jennifer]

Thanks so much guys.

And on a totally unrelated note, have a curse:

When you walk I will scatter caltrops
--When you smile I will smile you wider and crack
At your birth I will govern your breathing
--On your wedding day I will make you fall out at the root

For your mornings you shall have flyclouds
--For your evenings you shall have bites and lesions
For a child you shall have sorrow's birthing
--For a parent I will make you a tyrant

Inside you are blisters and shards
--At your hind is my watchdog and before comes the horde
I have your guts on leading strings
--And your last hour will be my first

[Jennifer]

Quintus— after Horace

Why waste years in idle musing
on death’s country? His wine
is ashen. Take your cup while you may;
the wind in the pines is priest
to our solemnities.

Fool— after Martial

uitium peius habes: fatua es.

I will mock, but it’s your shit,
hypocrite, in which I wallow.
That’s why you keep reading
when I call you a cunt.

Ignorance— after Sappho

I know as much as you
about how to lie in the grass
or smile through smoke
but when you [...]
and maybe it’s time to end.

Dactyl— after Juvenal

This is the gate of the city; I am without it, because I can’t
Follow the endless fools in their dance to gain entrance: in six feet
I travel further than all their cartwheels or laughter will take them.
Gatekeeper don’t fear – happy out here, I won’t try to come in.

For Eternity— after Catullus

But alas I have eaten and drunk in your company before
now I can only drink to remember
when I take the bottle down to the seashore
or all the lights are out
and we laugh in the smallest rooms
and the hearse stumbles down the track
father of my father, drink with me

Arms— after Virgil

Of the harsh times before the sunrise I sing,
the battles in sheets or dressing-gowns
or exile on floors. In the dawn southern voices
and you are cast out. I tell of how you
return to build a city, to expunge
that offence with stone – of your gods,
whom you restore to glory in my house.
But not yet.

[Jennifer]

The Magician

Shifting in the dark
wing his gloved hands tap and tremor.
Unbodied dresses fly

through dry air as girls scream and change
to clatter on white legs
into men’s fantasies. Blood rising

in the floorboards,
his shoe soles stick to bare feet
dove-soft and swollen.

Takes his feather and conducts the unseen choir
at curtain rise and night fall
a sharp point sticking above his eyebrow

at the twitch of each finger.
A rod runs down his frantic spine: shivers,
and stands still.

[Colyngbourne]

The Latinate poems are superb, every one of them. (The Magician is good too, but the impression of the individual authors of the first is tremendous; of the six, the Juvenal is perhaps the least distinct in tone and style but still good.)

[Jennifer]

Thanks a lot Col, really appreciate it. Yeah I agree about the Juvenal, I probably found that one the hardest (it was an exercise which just about everyone else in the class hated! Latin not so popular among the Plath-ites apparently.) I was fiddling with dactylic hexameter and got a bit bogged down in the form rather than tone. Shows what happens when you get too 'clever' about poetry ('in six feet'? Yeah, we get it Jenny, you know your metres, now shut up!). Thanks again, comments always useful and welcome.

[Jennifer]

Haiku

I want to write a
poem about you but I
don't think you'd read it.

[Jennifer]

I'm not even sure if this will fit in one post, or how much sense it makes since it represents part of a 10,000 word caffeine-fuelled weekend, but it's the longest piece of imaginative prose I've ever written and as such I'm proud of it. Was part of a submission for a narrative vs anti-narrative class, if that helps.

Parts

[Welcome to my story. We will have time later to introduce ourselves and make small talk, but just now I must press on, as my main character is about to make his appearance.]

Sam Thorpe, fifty, lined, impatient, stood up amid the rubble of his office and swore. What a day. In thirty years on the beat he’d never felt like this; like the powers that be were watching his every move, waiting to sweep some honest copper into the rubbish for a simple mistake. [Do you understand him now? Do you like him? Yes you do, for you have read him before. Behind every frosted glass office door there is one like him, and you can relax now, knowing you are in safe hands.] Now, for whatever reason, he was struggling out from under what used to be his desk, and somebody was going to pay. Starting with whoever was laughing outside.

Thorpe opened the door with a snarl, dusting off his mac and fiddling with his tie, only to be greeted with the last thing he expected to see in the world: a party. [Perhaps you have come across this trick before. I have set up some expectations for you and immediately dashed them. Where is my detective tale, you cry? Well, read on, for you have also read this before.] Where the sergeant normally sat, a waiter was pouring champagne. Girls in strange, short glitzy numbers glided past on the arms of men in evening dress. Everything was velvet and chandeliers, the old poky partitioned offices and corridors transformed into high-ceilinged splendour. No-one so much as looked at the angry, dishevelled Sam or the ruins of his office behind him. As he watched, an older woman approached a diffident-looking man right in front of him. The woman was caked in powder and her dress was cut just a little too low in front. [I like this one. Can you tell? She is not very well-developed, certainly not as likeable as Sam, but the Author’s affection for her will shine through and make her more interesting.] She took the young man’s arm.

‘I never thought to see you here tonight, Mr Hemsley.’

‘Really? I should have thought after so many nights, always the same, you would have been somewhat better acquainted with the usual crowd.’

‘I find it generally best to preserve the fiction, you impudent man. We all have our parts to play. You know that as well as anyone here. But don’t just stand there, Mr Thorpe. I’m sure you’re just dying to ask us a few questions.’

[Of course, having only read a page or so, you don’t really think you’re going to get any answers yet. Stories don’t work like that. Still, you couldn’t help reading onwards quickly to find out what the hell is going on.] Sam started, eyes narrowing suspiciously. The woman’s voice was unpleasant, as though she was trying to cultivate a sweet, girlish laugh and failing constantly. He couldn’t quite believe she had spoken to him, but the young man picked up another glass of champagne and waved it at Sam. He went over.

‘Alright then, what’s the deal?’ Sam couldn’t quite keep the slightly hysterical note out of his voice, but he thought he’d done ‘gruff, down-to-earth copper’ quite well.

‘This may take some explaining, Mr Thorpe. I’m afraid you’re going to have to be patient with us for a little while. I’m Miss Arabella Wimslow, Belle to my friends, one of which I hope you will be very soon. Please have a drink and make yourself comfortable. How are you feeling? I often find a little sit down helps with the confusion. This is Mr Hemsley, by the way. Would you like to ask us anything before we begin?’

‘Do you always talk so much?’ Sam said, as he dropped into a chair. Hemsley chuckled into his glass. [You know, because you know his type, that Sam is A Wit. Not actually funny, because novelists as a rule are incapable of being funny, but he is intended to raise the odd wry chuckle in the other characters, if not in his readers.] Arabella looked a little put out, but carried on.

‘You know, Mr Hemsley, I think it might be easiest if we took Mr Thorpe for a little walk. Would you accompany us, Mr Thorpe?’ She took Hemsley’s arm and headed for a door.

‘I’ve only just sat down!’ But neither of them turned. Growling, he stood up and followed, trying not to hurry.

*

Through the grand double doors was a small room, all peeling wallpaper and ripped furnishings. Sam looked around in surprise as Arabella and Hemsley picked their way over discarded toys to where a man in a stained vest was slumped in front of the television. A thin woman with dark circles under her eyes poked ineffectually at something burning on a tiny electric hob. From a cot sounded a couple of idle, screaming voices, as though the children they belonged to had been crying for so long they no longer expected any response. [I am saddened by this. Unlike Arabella and the others, who I have made strong enough to survive on their own, I have deliberately created an unhappy family and will abandon them to their fate in a paragraph or so. I am almost moved to write them a separate happy ending, but that would be a weakness.]

‘This, Mr Thorpe, is the opening scene from an unfinished family drama. It was felt that the clichés were made too apparent in this version of an introduction, so the creator went instead for a depiction of the tragic outcome, and told this part only in flashback. Hello, Karen’ she said to the thin woman. She lowered her voice, ‘They love each other very much, really, but we all have our parts to play.’ She conducted Sam and her escort back towards the door.

*

They were not back at the party after closing the door behind them, but Sam was too tired to wonder about this. In front of him a bearded man sat on a golden throne. Robes flowed down from strong shoulders to a richly tiled floor, where knelt a young, fair-haired man with a sword. The hall in which Sam found himself was tall and expressive of great wealth, if a little crude. They were surrounded by a great crowd, shadowed and indistinct. [Fantasy is difficult, and I was unable to spare the time to write you a proper crowd scene. Like every story, however, it has its own rules and allowances, and I have always thought that considered background characters are rather to the detriment of fantasy. A tale cannot be heroic if the hero is not more real, somehow, than his companions.]

‘My son,’ boomed a great voice from the throne, ‘you are honoured for your deeds. Our land may be safe for many years to come due to your bravery. I--’
At this the voice was cut off, and Sam saw a great serrated knife sticking out of the bearded man’s chest. Blood grew dark in his white beard as commotion stirred the still-vague audience, one dark shape momentarily visible as it flitted away.

‘Treachery!’ screamed the young man, drawing his sword. Arabella turned to Sam with a rueful smile.

‘A little embarrassing this one, but I suppose it takes all sorts,’ she said. Hemsley looked at her, clearly annoyed.

‘Look, Belle, I really don’t think he’s understanding this yet. Maybe I should explain.’

‘Oh go on then,’ she said, irritably, ‘it’s not as if I’ve been here longer than you or anything.’

‘That’s not exactly something to be proud of, is it Belle?’ said Hemsley with a smile. ‘Now, Mr Thorpe.’ He drew Sam over to the steps of the great throne, ignoring the people still running wildly around them. [You are now entering Exposition. Bear with me, for it is necessary. It is also acceptable in this situation, for the character being informed is just as confused as you are. It is unforgivable to write this kind of information into a conversation where both parties already know it. Still, I recommend scanning this scene quickly. I only include it for those who cannot be bothered to read to the end and figure everything out for themselves.] ‘You will have heard it said that life is a play, or a fiction. That we all act out our parts until the curtain falls. In our case – and I include you in this – these feeble sayings are more than true. You and I, Belle, these ridiculous figures around us – all are merely toys invented for the amusement for others. We are characters, Mr Thorpe. Somebody, someone real, wrote us, dreamed us up in an idle moment. Do you wonder that some of us are a little jaded by now? For it is worse even than that. We are discarded! Our scenes or tales were not even worthy of some cheap novel. We have been cut. Somewhere there is a novel for each of us with a gap where we could be – but the story was too long, we didn’t fit, or in many cases, the novel was never finished at all. Every day we live the same scenes, for we can only really do what has been written for us. We all have our parts to play, because we know no other way to live. I may rail against it, explain the whole thing to you and be explicitly aware of our situation – but come to find me tomorrow and I will be at that party, drinking champagne and trying to flirt.’

Here Hemsley stopped as a body crashed on to the steps between them. Arabella screamed then tittered at herself. Sam ran his hands through still-dusty hair. The other two waited a bit while he stammered out a few ‘Buts’ and groans.

‘My life – I remember it all. I know I’m real. What is this all about?’

‘Ah, you’re so lucky!’ said Arabella. ‘You have backstory! Some of us only remember what was written in the scenes we play, but your author cared enough to write you a whole life.’ [This is not true, my dear Arabella. You have a whole life, but it exists only in my mind. In this way you are freer than Sam, as you will see.]

‘Lucky?!’ yelled Sam. ‘I went to work this morning as usual, my office fell down around me and I wake up here, with you lot, totally insane! Is it drugs? What is it? Are you saying that my office was destroyed because someone screwed up a ball of paper and chucked it away? Is this it?’

Hemsley and Arabella exchanged glances. ‘Your office was destroyed in the cut, you say?’ said Hemsley darkly. ‘That’s not usual. The scene is supposed to play out as written. In fact, everything about you is different. Normally characters accept this quite quickly. They can’t remember life beyond the page – even the ones with backstory. But you have a full set of memories – and a temper to suit.’

‘Why do you look so worried?’ said Sam. ‘If this is all normal, if people wander into this crazy world every day with yet another crazy story, why should it be strange that I’m a bit pissed off?’ [That is because, Sam, I could not think of another way to worry Hemsley and Arabella enough to introduce the next line.]

‘I think we’d better go and see the Librarian’ said Arabella.

*

...This early atmosphere was not one in which we could have survived – unhappy thought! These foetid skies contained no life-giving oxygen, but diverse other gases that are poisonous to us and baleful in their toxiferous issue – I speak of those such as hydrogen sulphide, which the reader may know as the putrescent exudation resultant from the rotting of eggs. Nevertheless there are, as a careful student of the Necronomicon may discover, other primitive forms of life that can and do flourish under such conditions. It is thought that their foul inception came about in the uncharted, desolate and lawless belly of the oceans...

The Librarian sighed and replaced the book on the shelf. Its spine read ‘The Dawn of Time, and other Horrors’. [Do you like this? I’m working on it for another project. I did not mean for the Librarian to happen across it in this way, but she will go fussing around in dark corners. Perhaps I should look upon it as free advertising.] She thought she recognised it for some reason, like a dream version of a well-known film. But then every book here was horribly familiar - unfinished, forgotten or staggeringly successful. With each volume was a sheaf of papers representing, in some cases, decades of addition and subtraction, revision and dithering – the sad mathematics of storytelling. Here, somewhere, was a slim volume with the copperplate beginnings of Arabella and, later, Hemsley, discarded outside its cover. Another, brightly coloured, was accompanied by a lost exposition scene in which the murder of a father spurs a son on to great deeds. [This is, of course, a metaphor. Books are so much more than the cuttings on the Author’s floor. But you already knew that. I fear the Librarian does not.]

The Librarian did not like books. She did not remember ever doing anything else, but books had long ago ceased to amuse her. They were all so very much the same. She knew (for how could she not? She had read it all) about archetypes and the necessities of narratives, but she longed for a book she did not feel she had seen a thousand times before. Still a young woman, at least to all appearances, the Librarian had begun to hate her job. [I do not like this Librarian, but at this point I wish you to sympathise with her a little bit. Try to bear that in mind.] As she went to fiddle with the catalogues for want of occupation, the door opened and a great wave of water crashed in. Behind it, two men and a woman stumbled in, the woman in an inappropriately glittering frock, one man in evening dress – both of these unfamiliar to her, but the man in the mac she thought she knew a little better.

‘Terribly sorry about the mess, darling – had to go via that scene with the lovers on the beach, you know, the one that sounds terribly romantic until you get there and there’s sand in your... well, anyway.’ [Arabella is indeed faintly ridiculous. You know this is supposed to endear her to you, which annoys you slightly. But you love her anyway.] The woman subsided, looking at a loss. The man in evening dress strode forward, holding out his hand.

‘Delighted to meet you, Librarian. I’m Hemsley, my verbose companion is Miss Wimslow’ – ‘Belle’ she hissed –‘ and the untidy man here is Sam...’

‘Thorpe, yes, I know. I am the Librarian, after all,’ she said, settling her clothes and sitting primly on the edge of her desk. She could not, in fact, claim to remember every character on her shelves, but it occasionally paid to have people believe that she did. Though when she’d last had a visitor, let alone one on whom she wanted to make an impression, she could not remember. She flicked absently through some papers as Hemsley explained Sam’s predicament, nodded sympathetically as he ranted and raved, and finally promised to look for Sam’s story in the hope of finding some kind of explanation. But she looked so, so tired.

*

Sam was downcast as they struggled through several different stories to find somewhere quiet to sit. Eventually, in a peaceful suburban garden, he sat down, removed a fish from his shoulder, and sulked. [That fish appears according to the laws of this kind of storytelling, especially when written by the young. Its very ‘randomness’ is considered. You are supposed to fill in the gap implied by that asterisk above, and muse on what situations could result in a fish on one’s shoulder. You are also supposed to feel the Author as a kindred spirit, aware of the utter pointlessness of life and able to laugh at it.] Arabella and Hemsley stood a little way apart, speaking quietly and worrying about him. Parts of them were also anxious to get back to the party, as their dim personalities could not survive too long without the comfort of familiar surroundings. Though better equipped than some to live outside their stories, they longed for champagne. [I did mention, did I not, that Hemsley and Arabella were self-sufficient? You know, then, that if we are forced to leave them at any point, they will simply make their way back to the party and carry on as usual. Unlike the family from a few scenes ago, you do not need to worry about them.]

Eventually Arabella came and sat next to Sam, tucking her hands under herself to protect the dress that looked even more ridiculous in daylight.

‘I understand,’ she said, ‘that all this has been terribly confusing to you. I remember when I got cut I was frantic, but since I didn’t have anything else to be, anything to compare this with, I came to terms with my situation fairly quickly. It must have been infinitely worse for you, but I just wanted you to know that we understand a little and we care.’

Sam looked up. That was the most articulate Arabella had been since he’d met her. [This is necessary. Although it would be unrealistic for him to settle to being merely words on a page immediately, we need Sam to snap out of it fairly soon for the narrative to progress.] ‘Thank you,’ he said. He sighed. ‘I think what we need to do now is figure out how I’m going live the rest of my life here. After all, my office is a mess. I can’t just live out my scenes like you do. For one thing, I haven’t seen any criminals around here,’ he said, trying to smile. Arabella patted his arm.

‘Terribly sorry to interrupt, but I was just wondering what you both thought about that,’ said Hemsley, pointing. Arabella and Sam stood up. Beyond the picket fence was a moving mass, creating a huge howling noise. As the three stared, they could just about make out that it was composed of individual animals, all slavering mouths and glowing eyes. There was something faintly inky about them, the hair standing up on their backs looking sketchy like a rough cartoon. [Do you know where this is going yet? Maybe you don’t. I’ve dropped a few clues but perhaps it isn’t adding up yet. I’m rather proud of these creatures though.]

‘I think we ought to run,’ said Sam calmly.

*

The chase was short but made its way through at least seven genres of tale before Hemsley [conveniently] remembered a scene set in a prison cell, and only just in time: a horrible, black muzzle forced its way through the bars after them, all sinewy and composed seemingly of writing standing in mid-air, hateful words like ‘destroy’. Though they double-locked the doors, they were still unsure that this would stop the beasts – after all, the characters loose in this strange world seemed to have no problem moving around at will. Why should these creatures be any different? [Because it suits me.] After some aimless wanderings without any pursuit apparent, they eventually decided to make their way back to the Librarian to see what she could tell them.

The Librarian was at her desk again, scribbling furiously at something. [You must be getting it now. No?] She looked mildly surprised as they walked in; her eyes had that faraway look of someone concentrating hard. They told her all about the creatures and asked again if she’d found anything useful, or if she would know why they might be under attack from some nameless horror. She stood up.

‘I’m so sorry. I’ve been trying to find Mr Thorpe’s book all day but I just can’t seem to put my hands on it. As for those creatures... well, I don’t remember a story with them in, but I’m sure there must be some reasonable explanation. Maybe it’s a new one, one of the fantasy collection and they’ve strayed in the confusion. If you’ll excuse me a moment, I’ll go and have a look.’ She disappeared between the stacks. [Not very helpful, is she? And who speaks like that? Well, she’s a very confused woman. Perhaps you’ll understand her a little better soon.]

She was gone for a while before Sam reverted to his usual habits and started sifting through the papers on her desk. He didn’t really know what he was looking for, but there was something about the Librarian that bothered him. He shuffled a big pile of notes and stopped short, rifling frantically back through the pile. He’d just seen his own name.

...Sam Thorpe sat down in the garden looking bleak. The ugly woman came over and comforted him, while beyond the horizon the horde grew and grew. They were wonderful creatures, strong and fast, built only to destroy. Their blackness swallowed sight, drew the attention even of the stupid young man standing nearby. The pack leapt the fence and kept coming, wave after wave until the whole world was black...

Sickened, Sam looked for another page.

...Sam lit a cigarette and studied the witness carefully. He knew it would take time to break this one, and time was exactly what they did not have...

‘What’s wrong, Sam?’ said Arabella. Too horrified to notice that she’d called him by his first name [Did you notice? I suppose you did.] he replied:

‘She’s been writing me.’ Arabella grabbed the sheets, comprehension dawning as Hemsley looked over her shoulder.

‘Yes, Sam,’ said a warm voice from behind him. ‘I know you. I have written you. You are my character, the only one of these that is truly mine. I do not have to catalogue you or take care of you – you have been out there, as long as I intended to publish you, kept writing you. But there came a time when... it just got too lonely in here. I cut you. To protect you. To meet you.’ The Librarian was strangely quiet, almost happy. [I pity her a little, and I hope you do. Imagine spending a lifetime among the creations of others, unable to create yourself. Having no story of your own, no friends. Then one day you realise that you could have a world of your own, a person of your own. But you get too caught up. The characters become all too real. And one day you start to wish they were in your sad little life with you.] She was holding a great book in her hands, covered in chains. ‘I know you will forgive me, Sam, because I wrote you. In fact, I can write any of you I choose. I just open your books, find the notes that were you and add to them. I have been so alone, though. Because there is one book alone in which I cannot write.’ She held up the chain-bound book. On its cover were the words ‘The Librarian’.

‘I have a story, but I cannot read it. I can’t change myself. I don’t even have any scenes. But I will keep you for myself. These sad shades will not have you!’ She snatched up a blank piece of paper from the floor and began writing. Hemsley, who seemed to have grasped the whole thing the fastest, lunged towards her and managed to catch her round the waist, but before he could stop her another of those great creatures appeared and engulfed his arm in its mouth. Suddenly they were everywhere, snarling in great lumps around Arabella and Sam.

[It’s here I must introduce myself properly. I am the Author. I cut in when all seems hopeless and find a way out. My characters are mine, and though readers may possess them for a while, when they close the book, the story is all mine again. I have the power to create and to destroy.]

On the floor the book titled ‘The Librarian’ flew open, chain links scattering. The pages were flicked over one by one, as though by an impatient reader, and a large black X appeared on each one. At the same time ink flew out of the Librarian’s pen and drenched the page on which she wrote. The monstrous creatures sank into black puddles on the ground with a reluctant hissing noise. Dark scored lines appeared all over the Librarian’s face and hands, ink dripping down in awful bloody gouts, until she too finally dissolved into nothing, weeping in torrents of shadow.

The papers that Sam had dropped in his confusion now flickered, and new lines in a different hand appeared at the bottom.

Sam took Arabella in his arms. ‘How about we get back to that party now, Belle?’ he said. Hemsley, his arm miraculously fine, snorted. ‘I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, and I think we could all do with some of that champagne,’ said Sam.
‘I’ll agree with that,’ said Hemsley, but he was ignored as Sam and Arabella shared a passionate, if inky, kiss.

Sam looked up. Arabella was blushing under her powder and Hemsley was laughing rudely. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘What are we waiting for?’ He took Belle’s hand and moved off into the future. A future. Any future.

[A future I have yet to write. I still think about the Librarian sometimes. After all, an Author cannot do without one, so she must be out there somewhere, hidden in the pages of redrafts and edits. Of course, Sam was never really hers – I wrote her, so therefore I must have written him. But it does make me wonder sometimes just how much control I have over my creations, and if they live another life when I close the book. Now, there is a deprived family waiting for my attention. I hope the story allows them a happy ending. Because in the end, it is the Story that controls all.]

[Jennifer]

Ham and Heroin (Super Size Me)

You will have to move up, I’m afraid,
if I sit next to you – I have created a personal space
so large I believe it has attached itself to my thighs.
Ham is not the same as heroin though there’s
very little to choose between them.

[Jennifer]

Blank Verse

And so every morning I lie, making
time stop with the flickers of my eyelids
until I’m biting the damp flesh of my
upper arm trying not to scream. Last night
I ran to the bathroom, to the applause
of a thousand grinning spectators, black
looks round every doorframe and seething out
of keyholes. I have seen all their faces
dark on curtained afternoons and known that
while they watch each unbalanced footfall, it’s
probably best not to leave my bed. But -
Stand on top of the hill, at the corner,
with rain in your trainers and you’ll under-
stand. It’s a different world out there and you
are not its least part, but I know where you’re
coming from when you say that you feel a
little blank sometimes - ‘All those people all
those lives where are they now?’ where am I now?
Like a crack in the wall, it seeps into
everything.

(the last few are from exercises so not really my usual stuff. This one was pretty much 'write and don't stop or edit or be tempted to add a narrative'. Obviously I couldn't have that so it's got a form at least.)

[Noumenon]

I'm not even sure if this will fit in one post, or how much sense it makes since it represents part of a 10,000 word caffeine-fuelled weekend, but it's the longest piece of imaginative prose I've ever written and as such I'm proud of it. Was part of a submission for a narrative vs anti-narrative class, if that helps.

PartsI found this entertaining stuff. Did you actually adapt discarded thoughts, or create fake ones? And, did you call it narr or anti?

[Jennifer]

All made up on the spot, I don't think any of those ideas were floating around in my head before it was 3am and I was thinking 'shit! Come up with more potential stories!'
I think I concluded in my commentary that I didn't think it could be anti-narrative, since most of the 'unusual' aspects in the story have been so well-used in more niche fiction as to become conventions.
Thanks anyway Nou! Fiction definitely not my strong point.

[Jennifer]

Hello, flying visit, it's exam term and my life is hectic in many hilarious ways therefore not gracing these hallowed halls much. Just thought I'd drop a couple of poems in case anyone is still reading.

Lust poetry is about as close as I ever get to love poetry. I think I’m ruining it by trying to make it too romantic when I should just enjoy my niche market. There’s not enough poetry in Ann Summers.

Coffee-Time Poetry

You probably don’t remember
but that wave you did
when I was lying on the wooden floor
snarling at everyone
made my heart burst.
Imagine, then, how I feel
eating an apple in a room of
conferencers and cleaners and
thinking of what you said last night and
your hand on my knee
and looking at the orange on the table.

On a Train

If I’m honest, it’s you I’m thinking of.
the man across from me lowers his book –
Suddenly sure he knows, I’m leaning back,
Trying not to smile. But it’s just too good
To remember losing control one night
To think you were honest that time, at least.
And all those other nights trying your best
Not to touch me, and failing. I will wait
‘Til the sensation passes, but for now
I indulge this dirty moment, crossing
My legs, almost feeling your hands, among
Other things. A strange desire just to show
Everyone here what I’m thinking takes me –
To tell everyone you once wanted me.

Lust-hangover

I probably won’t think about much else
but in the dusk
I’ll count up all the moments I
didn’t think about you
and feel each one a victory

[Jennifer]

Exams are death for the soul. Have a few more poems. Ooh and I should update my palimplist as well, bugger. Jennifer: slackest Palimper of the year.

My first series. Bit like My First Pen, but with pretensions.

Paris, 1899

These troops are
Over-exposed. They are the old regime

Ranked for your parade, your standstill
Poetical imitation. Here once they turned

In your image, top-booted, laced tight in the uniform;
The flounce and ruffle of your lifted phrase their armour.

They are made for destruction, your bodyguard,
Rive gauche, by the left, quick march, turn again.

Have them line up again, come together -
Strophe, antistrophe, epode.

 
Paris 1900

Last year you were an artist.
I met you on the corner

and we drank outside because
we didn’t have anywhere else to go.

This city strips me bare
rubs the skin from my face and makes

the picture of you the Italian insisted
on drawing look like someone else.

Last year I came in the winter
and in a black coat I met

my worst fears and took a picture
to prove it, to you, to myself.

Today it’s not quite spring
and everyone I knew has gone home.

 
Paris 1901

I missed the show last night.
I told the other girls it was

just the wrong time of the month
but really it’s the wrong time of year.

I’ve patched this skirt too many times
though I still have the knickers

you bought to go underneath.
I wonder how you feel –

I see you in the bar sometimes
watching me flash the legs

I still think of as yours. I don’t
think I was real until you painted me.

[Jennifer]

Blank Verse

And so every morning I lie, making
time stop with the flickers of my eyelids
until I’m biting the damp flesh of my
upper arm trying not to scream. Last night
I ran to the bathroom, to the applause
of a thousand grinning spectators, black
looks round every doorframe and seething out
of keyholes. I have seen all their faces
dark on curtained afternoons and known that
while they watch each unbalanced footfall, it’s
probably best not to leave my bed. But -
Stand on top of the hill, at the corner,
with rain in your trainers and you’ll under-
stand. It’s a different world out there and you
are not its least part, but I know where you’re
coming from when you say that you feel a
little blank sometimes - ‘All those people all
those lives where are they now?’ where am I now?
Like a crack in the wall, it seeps into
everything.




An example of the drafting process. Aren't you lucky?!

Blank Verse

And so every morning I lie, making
time stop with the flickers of my eyelids
until I’m biting the damp flesh of my
upper arm trying not to scream. Last night
I ran to the bathroom, to the applause
of a thousand grinning spectators, black
looks round every doorframe and seething out
of keyholes. I have seen all their faces
dark on curtained afternoons and known that
it’s probably best not to leave my bed.
The day lines up in front of me, with its
endless list of things to do, and I don’t
have any reason for this apathy –
the bright colours should be enticing but
it’s just so much easier to wait for
dark. I am cheerful, but I know where you’re
coming from when you say that you feel a
little blank sometimes -

[Jennifer]

A challenge from a friend: write a poem about daffodils, in less than 24 hours, that is in no way twee. Hmm.

Daffodils

After three days he brought daffodils in
a vain
attempt to make her look him in the eye.
This time
she lies down, head lolling over the end of the bed
muttering fucking
Yellow. He finds it hard to keep pounding her
headless
with hate.

[aemy]

Drat, just lost a post.

Jennifer, was going to congratulate you on another great group:the classical ones,and the "Paris" series.

A little draft ... thinking of Toulouse-Lautrec:

"Environs du Moulin Rouge"

Le Moulin Rouge and the brothels
have become home.
So many of these girls care for each other,
and for me.

Their medical conditions
also require
Close examination.

Sometimes I allow myself a little fantasy:
For instance, the laundry girl has escaped
from a well-known Dutch studio,
and is - merveilleuse - still here,
or the delicate blue creature
contemplating her toilette,
will never need to turn,
to show her face.

We are all imperfect here.

[Jennifer]

Thank you aemy, really pleased you've enjoyed reading them.

On your poem: I like. Would you forgive me for offering a little practical criticism? I always feel like a fraud if I don't go into specifics on other people's poetry...

I'm not sure about 'So many of these girls care for each other'. It rings a little ironic and I'm not sure if that's what you were going for.

I'm a big fan of the single last line, yours is a good example.

The whole feels a little... bitty? I like it very much, just to reiterate, but personally I would see if one of the three ideas you've gone with - the friendships, the diseases, the art - could stand alone in this poem.

Just a couple of thoughts, feel free to ignore. Trying to become a better reader as well as writer :)

[aemy]

Thanks, Jennifer.

You're probably right about the poem ... I had just been looking through a collection of Toulouse-Lautrec's paintings, and found some surprises. I was going for a kind of collage effect, but it really needs the paintings to make its various points - and it should be able to stand alone. Maybe?

Re: the "So many of these girls..." line, ... it wasn't ironic, again based on some of the paintings, but in the poem it sounds as though it could be. Actually the first stanza coud use a more stringent re-do.

It's fun trying out early drafts though.

Looking forward to more of yours, early and otherwise.

Cheers :-)

[BeccaK]

Jennifer, some of the lines from your Blank Verse remind me a little of Prufrock.

I have seen all their faces
dark on curtained afternoons and known that
it’s probably best not to leave my bed.

Possibly these lines:

I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

or the eyes or the arms that come later. I think it's the perfect tense, coupled with 'known' that brings it to mind. Is it intentional? It sounds like the kind of echoing that's born out of a familiarity with another poem.

I read your Daffodils poem on your blog the other day, and enjoyed it, and have to add my praise to aemy's for your Paris series. I think it's my favourite of all the poetry you've posted on this thread.

[Jennifer]

I'd like to see another draft aemy if you're up for some general sharing. Keeping up the poetry corner all on our own... :)

Nicely spotted Becca, in fact in the original you may also see Damien Rice. I think I was consciously doing the Eliot and also a bit of Easter 1916 but I really had to get rid of the pop references....
Huge thanks for the praise, I live for it ;) And for reading my blog - shameless self-publicising seems to work! Most of what's on here is cross-posted to be honest.

settlement

he cannot find his way
i am jungle

he charts my rivers
i have no source

he knifes his way through me
i yield


Visiting Hours

You never think you’ll come to this –
The dead-eyed watching through the blinds,
The people you no longer miss.
You never think you’ll come to this,
At twenty inside; outside, piss.
In slow decay of once-strong minds,
You never think. You’ll come to this:
The dead eyes watching through the blinds.

[aemy]

Darker stuff, these last two, Jennifer. I think "settlement" is effective - "finding" and "charting" don't work, but violence ("knifes") does. What we do to countries, what we do in relationships?

And "Visiting Hours" is very strong.
The only line where I lose a connection is line 5 ... but I'll work it out.

Haven't redrafted the Toulouse-Lautrec poem yet... sometimes they're perverse and come in their own time. (EDIT: I was trying to link the relationships, the motif of disease, and the paintings, but a bit more is needed.)

[Jennifer]

aemy check your inbox :)

A prayer from complacent perdition

God gave a secret, and denied it me,
And I have gone to war hoping to be
Lauded for the strength of my conviction,
Or blasted to my core by His decree.

If he strike me down, oh how I rejoice,
And lend to that immortal choir my voice,
Scream unending ‘God hath given me tongue!’
The silent desert howl this dream destroys.

Burn my heart out, cauterise my soul,
Let Abraham slay Isaac, tear down whole
My palace of reason, let the churches
Lay waste this cold-flamed fire to the coal.

I will not cease: I beg of Him, make known
Your awful power, demand that I atone,
And I will recant all that I have thought.
The cage is empty, and my spirit’s flown.


[credit and apologies to Omar Khayyam for the first line]

[Jennifer]

Ok, so I've written nothing new and should probably therefore not post. But I got my results for this year - second and third years making up 50% each of my degree.

I got a freaking first.

Only need to keep my average reasonably high and get a first in one out of four modules next year to bag a first overall, cos I did so well this year.

Thought if I wrote it down it might seem more real :) And make me write more...

[Beth]

I got a freaking first.



Of course you did! Here's to you, Jennifer!

[John Self]

Well done, Jennifer!

[Colyngbourne]

Fab results, Jennifer. Well done!

[Digger]

Congratulations Jennifer, well deserved - now head out and get blotto and then call your parents - if you haven't already done that, it's the correct way to go about these things dontcha-know!

[ono no komachi]

Many congrats Jennifer!

[BeccaK]

Woo! Well done, Jennifer!

[Noumenon]

Congratulations Jennifer, that's great news!

[Stradlater]

Yay!! Brilliant stuff!! Well done!!

[Jennifer]

Haha, thanks a million guys!
Well, as I say, it's only for my second year.. but that's half my degree so I figured I was allowed to be over the moon :)
Now, onwards. New house, new year, new life in a couple of weeks.

[Noumenon]

Buh - whah - only the second year? Pah. If your third year is anything like mine, you're boasting about a Desmond Tutu right now...

[Jennifer]

Yeah sorry Nou, thought I'd made that clear. I realise it doesn't seem that exciting but I only need one first out of four modules now. Saw a tutor the other day who said 'your first's pretty much in the bag'.

Pressure much.

ETA: Also that's why I posted on my own silly thread - this time next year I could well be boasting (or whingeing) all over General Chat!

[Noumenon]

Only joking, I mean it!

[Jennifer]

A poem, to distract from my self-aggrandizement.

Fell War

Heather, spit and smeared, drags at my thighs.
I am too short for this landscape.
A cairn, pieces.
And all uphill.
Fir to blind me, twist to false summit.
You stand. Wait. Hairline salt, breeze, flies.
Your hands, my throat
(now I know what you meant by it).
Red of the valley,
run to mill.
A fence. Fleeces.

[Jennifer]

(Another challenge set by a friend. These are often lower in quality due to deadlines...)

Quick-Change

She has replaced me, the blonde.
Not that I want that role any more –
not that it hurts all that much. I’ve gone,

and I understand it’s still a little sore.
I’m happy she makes you feel like this –
I’m jealous, I’ll admit, but before

you go reading too much into this
I suggest you remember I chose to leave.
I suppose you felt betrayed; I expect

it helps that she’s unlike me,
but fits the mould. I’m only sorry
you had to go to the little girl next door
to find the grandchild you lost in me.

[Jennifer]

Challenge again. Trying to be prolific. At least twenty lines on crime and punishment.

The Listener

Who did you make the mistake on this time?
I can hear it in your voice; and in mine,
the knowledge I can’t make a difference.
You’ll still want those fingers on your wrist,
the grip that keeps you here, the lick
and cold of pain bringing you back
from black hole mornings. He’s your safe word,
you’ve always needed that, someone to hurt
and maim you because they really care.
---------------------------------------There,
in the steel ownership of arms, you feel
you’ve got what you deserve. And when you bleed,
as I know you will, when he breaks you, that’s
not enough. You want the deadwood crack
that’s your neck breaking, only the gallows
for your guilt. What did you do? I know
your flesh has become the rap-sheet, that each
mark of love slashed deeper is a charge
you gave yourself. He’s how you expiate
the crime of loving more than you hate,
of being too innocent for this game,
and only having yourself to blame.

[Jennifer]

I realise I'm just lobbing endless poems up here. Just replicating my blog really so no-one has to go there if they fancy a look in an idle moment :)

Challenge this time: about or addressed to love, without using the word love or any sentimentality. Also using kennings.

You

throat’s catch, chill
waking’s warmth, fetch
of heart-witch

hurt herald, hurl
cobweb-skirl of quarrel
at my hind

soul’s hound, soon follow
close behind