Gill Andrews – Unsuitable Blog and HappenStance News

Gill Andrews and the Forty Thieves

I didn’t think it was funny until after she’d gone away. But then I realised that I’d handed her forty thieves in a box. I should have put them in a big jar, like Ali Baba. I have a jar. . . .

The thieves were for the London launch of The Thief, which is at seven pm on Monday 25th October in the second floor suite of the Old Crown in new Oxford Street. The Old Crown doesn’t have a sign outside showing its name, but it is the pub on the corner of New Oxford Street and Museum Street, about halfway between Tottenham Court Road and Holborn tubes. If you think you can go along (please do), email me on nell@happenstancepress.com and I’ll let her know. That’s if I manage to get this blog post to appear. . .

I didn’t think it was funny until after she’d gone away. But then I realised I’d handed her forty thieves in a box. I should have put them in a big jar, like Ali Baba. I have a jar. . . .

The thieves were for the London launch of The Thief, which is at seven pm on Monday 25th October in the second floor suite of the Old Crown in new Oxford Street. The Old Crown doesn’t have a sign outside showing its name, but it is the pub on the corner of New Oxford Street and Museum Street, about halfway between Tottenham Court Road and Holborn tubes. If you think you can go along (please do), email me on nell@happenstancepress.com and I’ll let her know. That’s if I manage to get this blog post to appear. . .

But now I am sounding silly, and there is a reason for this. I’m typing on the new machine, the little bijou Inspiron which allows me to use Windows 7 and do things that I don’t seem to be able quite to do from my Mac.

New machines are always lovely in one way and HORRIBLE in another. They do things you aren’t expecting. They do things too fast. Their mice aren’t the same as the mice you’re used to — in this case it’s a touchpad which seems to move things before I know I’ve touched it properly.

To such an extent that I just finished this entry and then lost it when I somehow got to the previous webpage by accident. Oh hell. I had just successfully uploaded a picture of berries in the garden (to prove it really is autumn now) and was about to save everything with a sense of triumph, when I lost everything with a sense of exasperation.

Then I got to the end, repeated the process, got the nice picture, tried to resize it — and blow me down, did I not somehow close everything? I somehow had logged myself out and was responsible for Windows closing down, then starting up again, installing its updates — all beceause I did something (I know not what) with this ‘floating touchpad’. Floating touchpad, my foot.

I had mentioned, before that, the point HappenStance is more or less up to. Kate Scott, and the three Samplers nearly off to the printers (about to finalise pdfs and send them to authors), the first two publications in the Po-Lite series in draft form and posted them to their authors, Martin Parker and Graham Austin, yesterday. I hope to start type-setting Alan Hill today.

I know some of the reviews have got lost in the Sphinx area. It was to do with the changeover. I’ll put them back as soon as I can, if I can get this new machine to be my friend. I probably can. I’m getting used to the keyboard. Just not to making the window I’m reading in look like the right size and resolution for me.

Okay. Let’s try putting that picture in again now. . . this has only taken an hour and a half so far.

Getting and spending

What a week. Ooya-hun — what a week! I warn you — this blog entry is much too long.

No post last weekend because it was the fifth birthday party. Family were staying, including my sister sleeping in the study where I write this blog on a Sunday morning. It was the most complicated event I’ve ever attempted to organise. Mid-preparations, Gina Wilson’s pamphlet was in its final stages — I took a mock-up to the party itself to give to her for final checking.

What a week. Ooya-hun — what a week! I warn you — this blog entry is much too long.

Gillian (artist daughter) made an amazing cake. More than 60 people, about 20 of these being HappenStance poets, came along. Robin Vaughan-Wiliams did a Risk Assessment. Poems were read from past pamphlets, recent pamphlets, pamphlets out of print, pamphlets in process and pamphlets which haven’t even got as far as a contents list. Jamie Rose of Reeds (son-in-law made music and sang one of the poems, a ballad). I nearly cried. I was able to say my bit about poetry, whatever it may be, being less about the art of the individual than the mystery of language (to which all poets subscribe). I think I said it less pretentiously than that.

At the party, I didn’t mention being shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award for the second year. However, on Monday there was a mysterious email from PBS about jpgs.

On the Tuesday, there was an email to check whether I was coming and if so, bringing how many guests. I replied to say I couldn’t come — working flat out in college — but that two of ‘my’ poets would be there.

On the Wednesday (day of the award ceremony) there was another email, asking me to call as soon as possible, and even including a mobile number. And a similar message left on the message machine (not on my mobile though). I didn’t get home on that Wednesday until 7.45 (the college work really is driving me demented just now and it’s end of term next Friday) and when I picked up the message I thought, hm, that’s interesting (see post of 5th May).

About ten minutes later I got a text message which read: Congratulations! Hope your ears are burning!

Even more interesting. I wasn’t sure who the text was from (changed my phone recently and not all my contacts, for reasons not understood, transferred from old phone to new one). So I texted back: Congratulations on what?

And it was Davina (D A Prince), who was at the Michael Marks Event in the British Library, and with her Clare Best, who also texted me. And we had WON. So there was much jumping up and down in the HappenStance household, phone calls hither and thither. Descriptions from Davina and Clare on the phone. Tessa Ransford had picked up the cheque on my behalf and made a nice speech.

Anyway, I won’t go on about this further, except to remark that five thousand quid is a huge sum of money in terms of pamphlet publishing. My annual turnover is about eight thousand pounds. Last year there was a loss of about two. For 2008-2009 I should have come closer to breaking even but I haven’t done the books yet. So five thousand extra?! I will be thinking very carefully how that money can be spent, apart from upgrading my Imac which will be step one. And I’ll report on that too, in Chapter Five of the Story, which goes out to subscribers.

I feel proud and pleased to get this money. And at the same time . . . pamphlet publishing is obviously important to me, and although I willingly entered this competition for cash and kudos, this niche of publishing is not competitive in the ordinary way (except with itself, in the desire to get better and better).

The other publishers on the short list (and many who either didn’t enter or weren’t short listed) are not competitors; they are — what is the word? Not exactly ‘colleagues’ but close to that. Perhaps fellow workers, slogging away in slightly different territory. I admire the work of Templar, for example, very much. And Oystercatcher who won last year. I know little about Veer Books, would like to know more, but nothing of theirs has come in for review by Sphinx even . . . And there are some wonderful people who won’t have entered, doing remarkable work (see all the stories told in Sphinx over the last four years).

Think what a difference the Smith/Doorstop pamphlets have made over the last decade! And the publishers of the short-listed poets — tall-lighthouse, Roncadora Press, Flarestack (whose Selima Hill took the prize), Nine Arches. So far as I am concerned, there is something terrific about the activity, the dynamism that represents a small press. Without the inspiration of James Robertson’s Kettillonia, I would never have started. In Scotland alone, think of the late Duncan Glen’s Akros imprint, the very much alive Hamish Whyte’s Mariscat and Colin Will’s Calder Wood Press, and Koo Press in Aberdeen! Think of the work of Hansel Press and the amazing letter press-artist-poet Len McDermid! Think of the gorgeous pamphlets done by Sally Evans and Ian King of Diehard Press last year! Think of the marvellous range of publications celebrated on the Scottish Pamphlet Poetry Website!

There is plenty of celebration of individual poets — prizes galore. This publisher’s award isn’t about an individual — it’s about the whole process of bringing the work to readers, bringing it into the light.

So it does occur to me that such sums of money, rather than going to a single prize winner, should perhaps be shared round a bit. What I want is to support this kind of activity, uphold high values of production and enterprise, increase good opportunities for aspiring and established poets, keep this bit of poetry activity vibrant and interesting. Winning is not about me as an individual — at least I certainly hope not. It’s about all the poets I’ve worked with and am still working with, the two excellent printers I use, the local post office, the man who sticks the stamps on the envelopes, Sarah who does (among other things) the website and email newsletter, Gillian who does the cover images, the subscribers — the hugely important subscribers, without which the thing wouldn’t even keep afloat.

Which is where I will stop for the moment. Much more to be said, but not yet. Thank you to all those people who have enthused, supported, helped. Thanks to the Sphinx reviewers who carry out this activity without recompense, except in appreciation and respect. Thanks to the amazing poets I’ve had the privilege of working with. And of course boundless thanks to Lady Marks for munificence and generosity towards this area of the arts.

Party preliminaries

It’s complicated. In 2005 I bought ten ISB numbers. To my surprise I’d used them all up within two years and I bought another hundred.

Three years later I’m over half way through that hundred. The idea at the birthday party, Saturday June 12th, is to do a kind of ‘This is your life’, recalling all that’s been and indicating a bit of what’s to come. But there’s a lot of it.

It’s complicated. In 2005 I bought ten ISB numbers. To my surprise I’d used them all up within two years and I bought another hundred.

I think about twenty of the poets should be there, all reading little bits or in one case quite a lot. Some is happy, some is sad, some is performancey, some is music, some is cake. It will be grrrrrrrreat.

In preparation I am making lists and lists of lists. Up to now I have been making electronic lists upstairs, and sending out more invitations to people I think I might have forgotten or whose reply I think I have managed to lose. Soon I am going downstairs to make more lists on pieces of normal paper.

Meanwhile, the Ruth Pitter Selected came home this week and so did David Ford’s Punch. The former is cheering and consolatory: Pitter has that effect. She is a magical poet. Punch, on the other hand, is one of the darkest collections I have done. Many of the poems have stunning impact: they are also often sinister and somewhat scary. Neither David nor Ruth can be at the party (though for somewhat different reasons) but Gina Wilson and Gill Andrews (the next two pamphlets) should be there.

Also expecting a whean of others – a plethora of poets including, Andrew Philip, Rob A Mackenzie, Clare Best, Jeremy Page, Alison Brackenbury, Janet Loverseed, D A Prince, Sally Festing, Jon Stone, Robin Vaughan-Williams, Ross Kightly, Paula Jennings, Jennifer Copley, Stewart Conn, Christine de Luca, Margaret Christie — and MORE! Honestly this is THE poetry event of the year.

Do join us, (Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh, 3.00 for 3.30) but let me know because numbers are swelling (and swell). nell@happenstancepress.com

: Ruth Pitter cover

Savouring Salt

Yesterday was the Salt Cellar opening at the Scottish Poetry Library — a lovely event, full of verve and entertainment and interesting people. Wena Poon, author of Lions in Winter, flew from the States to the UK to read, and a most memorable reading at that (I love all writing that focusses on cake)! So there were two American voices because Crashaw-Prize-winning Ryan Van Winkle read too. And Scottish: Rob Mackenzie, Andy Philip and Sandy Hutchison. Singing kept creeping in. Rob sang a couple of lines. Sandy sang a whole song. Ryan became Springsteen and deserved a toast for that alone. There were north of England voices too: the remarkable Tim Turnbull looking so good with that amazing moustache and of course Chris Hamilton-Emery himself. Really lovely to meet him and Jen in person, not to mention the kids.

I had a rendez-vous with Gill Andrews an hour or so before the Salt event to go through poems in her pamphlet (which is going to be marvellous, by the way, once we settle on the contents — and the title). Possible titles so far:

Profit and Loss
Where I Am At
Fabric
For All the Wrong Reasons
Webs
Passport to Anywhere
Further

We sat on high stools at the window of the Starbucks just around the corner from the poetry library so we could spread the poems out sideways. When you sit here, you have the advantage (among other advantages because this is a nice cafe) of seeing visitors to SPL walk past you.

Two especially memorable moments. First seeing Rob Mackenzie walk past the window on the way to the reading. I attracted his attention (waving) and he stopped and turned. He was wearing a brilliant, beautifully blue shirt which perfectly matched the packet of Doritos he was eating. On the packet: COOL, ORIGINAL.

Second Starbucks moment: while waiting to get into the Ladies, glanced at the bookcase of free books for reading in the cafe and saw a hardback copy of Ariadne’s Children, a novel by my brother-in-law Roddy Beaton (or ex-brother-in-law, if you want to get technical). I have it in paperback, not hardback. Naturally, I seized it, opened it. It was Angus Calder’s copy. Angus’s library, spread all round Edinburgh now he is gone. I wonder if he reviewed it? I had to have it, of course. They let me take it away and I left Jeremy Page and Sphinx 12 in its place.

Where will all our books go after we’re dead? Who will find them and pick them up and take them home?

All set for the birthday party in SPL in two weeks time. Saturday June 12th, three for three thirty. Are you coming?

Dark Wood goes out

This week lots of Jeremy Page chapbooks went in the post to those and such as those — a flurry of orders through the Zen shop.

: Jeremy Page’s pamphlet

At the same time, David Ford’s Punch went off to Dolphin Press and so did Ruth Pitter’s Selected. I’ve been busy with all the associated bits and pieces: flyers for all, updating the ‘in print’ list, doing the poet bios for the website, printing flyers, attacking the sticky willie in the garden . . . Oh no, the last of these wasn’t exactly at the same time.It’s just the fact that the sticky willie gets everywhere.

So far (apart from Ruth Pitter who, though with us on paper, is absent in body) it has been a very male year. Four guys. I’m now working with two women: Gina Wilson and Gill Andrews. Very very different from each other. Also very different from anything else I’ve published.

I’m not sure these can be ready for the HappenStance Birthday Party on June 12th (in the Scottish Poetry Library at 3.00 ish), but we’ll see. I hope their authors will be there and reading a poem or two, as will lots of other HappenStance authors and subscribers. My mother and sister are coming from Sussex. There will be a cake made by my daughter. There will be music (son-in-law). Do put the date in your diary. It’s an open event but let me know if you’d like to come (nell@happenstancepress.com) because the library is not gigantic and the cake might not be big enough.

It was suddenly Summer here in Scotland yesterday. The old lady in the queue in the post office in front of me had to sit down. People were flapping leaflets in front of their faces to keep cool. Matt got the fan down from the spare bedroom and sat in front of it. Some of the new bedding plants went limp and keeled over. The tiny crab apple ‘tree’ (really a sprig) that I got for a fiver from Aldi burst into blossom.

This morning I woke to the sound of heavy rain. Back to normal.

PS Here’s an interesting review of Robin Vaughan-Williams’ The Manager by Ben Wilkinson