Tag: poetry

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A Second Spin at the Intercity Disco

Almost exactly two years ago, I wrote an entry titled The Attraction of the One-Off Piece. This was all about a one-night-only show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival titled The Greatest Literary Beef of the 21st Century.

My entry title has subsequently become redundant, since Ross McCleary and Stefan Mohamed.have done it again with another one-night show – Incubus Succubus Vengabus – that happened on Wednesday 12 August, two years to the day since the literary beef.

Even if I could recall every detail of the 45-minute script, it would take as long again to explain the context behind some of the gags and references, not to mention careful straddling of the spoken-word genre and the stand-up comedy scene.

Besides, I’m not sure I want to give too much away. The best comparison I can make is to imagine the offbeat comedy of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, but instead aimed at a audience almost entirely comprising their friends, followers and fellow poets who understand many of the in-jokes.

One thing I will let slip is a sketch where they searched the title of their last show and read out the automatic summary from Google. I’m reliably informed this was drawn entirely from my blog. This gives me ideas about hiding metadata in this post to influence search engines in the event of a third show, possibly in another two years from now.

Instead, I’ve already made my suggestion for a third show, pointing out that some of the lyrics from We Like to Party! (The Vengabus) on the left are strikingly similar to those from the Billy Ocean track When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going on the right.

I’ve got something to tell ya
I’ve got news for you
Gonna put some wheels in motion
Get ready ’cause we’re coming through

I got something to tell you
I got something to say
I’m gonna put this dream in motion
Never let nothing stand in my way

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This Isn’t a Music Blog, But…

Something incredibly exciting is happening with the top 40 right now. Last week, the track Rein Me In by Sam Fender and Olivia Dean reached 19 non-consecutive weeks at number one. In doing so, it surpasses the 18-week record set by the Frankie Laine single I Believe in 1953.

The last time anything threatened to come close was during the first half of the 1990s with Bryan Adams and Wet Wet Wet with soundtracks from popular films. These have been pushed into third and fourth place respectively. Conversely, Rein Me In is a slow-burning hit with no obvious cultural trigger, with the trade-off that it hasn’t yet bored everyone senseless.

For better analysis, I invite you visit the Chart Watch blog.

I mention this phenomenon because it leads nicely into the topic of this week’s entry: what do I listen to while writing?

The short answer is: nothing specific. My radio is generally tuned to BBC Radio 1 for the breakfast show every weekday morning and the chart show on a Friday afternoon. If I want a change, I might switch to an adult contemporary station like Absolute Radio or one of its offshoots.

I’m also a regular listener to the speech output of BBC Radio 4 Extra, but not while writing. Pop and rock music lyrics tends to fade into the background, whereas comedy or conversation can be distracting.

I used to have a specific playlist. The majority of it comprised music from the 2007 film The Assassination of Jesse James, composed by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, with additional Cave tracks to bring it up to one hour.

These days, I normally use the a resource like the music of Jason Lewis for longer projects. He makes mixes of up to there hours with isochronic tones that pulse on and off at regular intervals. These are supposed to affect brainwaves in a productive fashion. I can’t say whether that’s true or not, but I find they tend to support writing rather than distracting from it.

Sometimes, of course, you need to take the soundtrack you’re given, particularly at writing group. The pub where we meet commonly plays ambient music and/or sports commentary, both of which can be loud and not conducive to writing.

As I edit this, however, I can hear a mixture of classic hits at low volume, so I hope that continues until 8pm.

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A Fully-Booked Weekend

This weekend just gone, I made a point of going to the Dundee Book Festival.

It would have been easy to take in a lot of events. The festival ran from Friday to Sunday, inclusive, and its three venues were all close together. The Steps Theatre acted as the base location, with a few events at the adjoining Central Library, and a few more at the nearby McManus Galleries.

I was selective about my attendance, however, as I’ve previously found it’s easy to be carried away and tie up the whole day. I settled on four events, even if I ended up only seeing three. There was a misprint on the new writing showcase that the end time was 10:30am. This led me to miss the 10:30am start to the next event, about how to submit to My Weekly magazine. However, I’m pleased to report I saw the other two unhindered.

This particular festival is relatively new. It was first organised by Leisure & Culture Dundee in 2025. It also serves as the spiritual successor to the Dundee Literary Festival, which ran from 2006 to 2017 and was an initiative of the University of Dundee.

The literary festival enjoyed a close affiliation with the now-defunct Dundee International Book Prize, which was awarded from 2000 to 2016. As it stands, the university is in no financial position to bring back either the festival nor the prize.

It remains to be seen whether this book festival will match the longevity of its predecessor. However, I can see a lot of potential, so I look forward to its return next year.

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Back to Basics with Spell‑Checking

I’ve been using the free tier of Grammarly since 2017, but I’d disabled the extension in Firefox.

This was primarily because my old computer didn’t have enough RAM and couldn’t easily handle the extra work. Even once I invested in upgrading the memory, I simply didn’t think to turn it on again.

So for a long time now, I’ve been writing these entries without the aid of a spell-checker, and that’s led to a few errors that weren’t picked up manually.

Last week, I decided to switch it back on, and I was quickly reminded of the other reasons I’d disabled it.

When a suggestion box appeared underneath the text, like correcting suggesiton to suggestion, I found this useful.

But Grammarly also constantly pushed its Pro membership level through these boxes. The software was set up to reveal only a few advanced suggestions per day before blanking them out and telling the user to upgrade.

I found those few advanced suggestions would amount to little more than a find-and-replace with a thesaurus; found might be changed to discovered, or stay to remain. There appeared to be no way to switch these off or even to snooze them for a fixed period

I’ve been writing long enough to know I need a strong spell-checker but a low-level grammar checker that only looks for obvious errors like should of rather than should have.

Grammarly was already beginning to bloat with features even in 2017 and this has only continued to grow. It must be stated, however, that’s far from exclusive to this software, and there are writers who will benefit from that Pro level subscription. I’m simply not one of them.

After closing my account, it was time to take advantage of the spell-checker built into Firefox. By adding a third-party dictionary to ensure all words belonged in British English, I’ve been able to catch the majority of errors without the need for further suggestions.

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Digging into the Edinburgh Spoken-Word Scene

Continuing a recent trend, I’ve been going to more spoken-word events. This hasn’t been a conscious decision, but instead a combination of wanting to see my poetry pals in action and simply being available on the night.

My schedule worked out in such a way that I was able to visit the Athletic Arms in Edinburgh, known locally as The Diggers, for the two-monthly Graveyard Shift event. It’s further afield than I could normally manage.

One of the headline acts, Ross McCleary, brought this to my attention. I’d originally wanted to surprise him, but it was necessary to clarify some details, particularly as the poster showed the date as Thursday 7 May, whereas the Ko-Fi page initially listed Tuesday 12 May.

So with my train booked and a rough idea of where I was going, I arrived just in time for 7pm. Cards on the table, I would typically steer clear of any pub so closely associated with a football team; in this case, Hearts of Midlothian FC.

However, I found the place nothing less than welcoming to a variety of drinkers, almost none of whom were in team colours. I was particularly impressed by the snug at the back, sectioned off by a thick door from the noise of the main bar. It even contained a makeshift cloakroom.

These are not luxuries I’ve always experienced when running my own events, not by a long chalk.

Ross was the last headliner of the night, with Annie Brechin presenting a wonderful spoken-word set in the first half. I was able to speak to both of them throughout the evening. In between, we heard Grant B Robertson playing comedy songs on guitar. It’s a purely personal view, but what a welcome break from the navel-gazing I’ve come to expect from solo musicians.

The Graveyard Shift also opens its stage to a handful of open-mic performers, who are allotted up to four minutes apiece. Not every one of them was up my street, but grassroots poetry thrives on that mix of voices from the beginners to the seasoned, from the angry to the jaded, and all in between.

The next event in July is on a Tuesday evening when I’ll be running my own group, so I know I won’t make that. If the stars align again, however, I’d be delighted to go back and perhaps grab one of those open-mic slots.

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Join the ALCS Today

Year after year, there’s one topic I revisit on this blog, and that’s encouraging readers to join the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS).

For nearly 50 years, the organisation has been collecting royalties on behalf of authors. Unlike primary royalties, such as book sales, these are from secondary uses of creators’ works, including: photocopies, cable retransmission, digital reproduction and educational recording. Members receive a bank payment in March and/or September every year, depending on the types of work registered and how often the works have been requested.

If your work appears in at least one publication with an ISBN, you’re almost certainly eligible to join. You’ll need that ISBN, plus a few other details about the work.

Be aware of the one-off membership fee of £36, which is deducted from your first payment rather than paid upfront. There is also a commission of 10% taken from each annual payment, which allows the ALCS to continue to fund its work.

This year, writers received a total of £47.5 million. This is not shared equally, but is based upon the number and type of works registered. It almost certainly won’t be enough to live on as a passive income, except perhaps if you’re a prolific author.

Rather, it’s an acknowledgement of the principle that authors should be paid when a transformative or derivative work is made using someone else’s source material.

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This Year’s Visit to StAnza

About a month ago, I mentioned I was gearing up to visit the StAnza poetry festival in St Andrews. That took place from Friday to Sunday.

I’d booked two events in advance. The first was a virtual writing hour with Fife Writes during Friday lunchtime, so I was able to take part remotely. The other was a poetry walk along the coast on Saturday morning where we stopped every few minutes to hear a related verse.

I’d left a lot of slack time while the rest of the weekend came together. For example, one of the volunteers wanted to speak with me about a new spoken-word event she was setting up, but our schedules didn’t match up, even for a quick conversation.

However, I was able to catch up with a pal who lives in the town. We generally only see each other around once a year. He’d booked a Kate Ireland show for Saturday afternoon, so I followed suit. At the last minute, that was cancelled and replaced with an event by Dean Tsang, who chose the order of his poems using a spinning wheel. I enjoyed that a lot, probably more than I would have enjoyed the expected show.

I go back year after year because it’s a small festival with an ever-present sense of poets coming together to read and write poetry. I can only identify one area of criticism, around pricing, and I’ve said as much in my feedback form.

I understand the aim of their ‘pay what you can’ model to make it accessible to everyone, which comprises a range of up to four price points that could be £5, £10, £15 and £20. I find this to be too much choice. I’d prefer to see just one or two options: (1) the break‑even cost with a surplus, and/or (2) a concession rate. Additionally, that would give me a clearer sense of what the event actually costs to run.

The feedback forms normally include a section where you can specify how much you spent on travel, accommodation, food and drink. I’d kept a careful tally, but that section was missing this year.

For the first time since before the pandemic, I stayed overnight in St Andrews, partly so I could go to shows later at night. I ultimately didn’t go to other events because the times were awkward, but I did nosey around Toppings bookshop before heading to bed at a reasonable time.

There was one other reason I stayed overnight. In August, I’m taking part in a charity Kiltwalk, and the aim is to walk from St Andrews to Dundee via Tentsmuir forest. While I do walk long distances regularly, this is an especially long route, so I need to go on some training walks.

That was the second one I’ve done so for. Every time, I’m learning the best way to prepare and – importantly – what not to do.

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The Unpredictablity of Live Performance

In 2011, the joint premiere of the play White Rabbit, Red Rabbit was held at the Edinburgh Fringe and at the SummerWorks Festival in Toronto. Most playwrights would be left with the difficult decision of which one to attend, but for Nassim Soleimanpour, the decision was made for him.

At the time, he wasn’t allowed to leave Iran, having refused to take part in compulsory military service there. Performing a play usually requires a lot of discussion between the playwright, the director, the actors and the crew, so how was this one staged with one crucial element removed?

In short, the script travelled the world without him, and didn’t require a director nor a set. In front of an audience, the actor takes the script from the envelope and performs a cold reading. Of course, you have only one opportunity to hold a cold reading, so the trade-off with this method is that a different actor is required for every performance, with a 2024 revival attracting some big names.

Soleimanpour was finally granted a passport in 2013, but the format remains untouched.

While I haven’t yet had the opportunity to see White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, I was reminded of the unpredictable energy of live performance after seeing a recent reading of a different kind. This was done by my pal Luca Cockayne at Generator Projects in Dundee. He’s undergoing medical transition, which is baked into some of his work.

After his first poem, the unexpected surprise was to take his regular injection of testosterone live on stage. Furthermore, the vial had been hidden in plain sight under his artwork on the wall, so it was case of walking over to grab it. During the injection, a Bluetooth speaker played a selection of pre-recorded poetry with his voice electronically modulated into different registers.

The audience were, of course, warned in advance. However, nobody left; in fact, nobody even averted their eyes. What can I say? We were an arty audience who thrived on this stuff, however unanticipated.

I’m now rather jaded when it comes to live readings, so it really needs to be something special to stand out, but that performance was definitely in my top unexpected moments. To find an equivalent, I probably have to go back to 2014, when I was invited to perform on a bill at Dundee University Student Association. I wrote a little about that performance at the time, and it produced two highlights.

One former friend performed a piece as if he were a manager showing a new recruit around an office building. There were two microphones on the stage and after each paragraph, he wandered over to the other one. I thought this was a terrific idea to emphasise the wandering nature of the piece. I told him as much later on, although he admitted that was improvised upon seeing two microphones were available.

Another performer walked onto the stage with a rucksack. After his introduction, he ran around the room giving out chocolate bars from the bag. He dubbed my poetry as ‘awesome’, which I held in high regard as I was new to writing verse.

I also have one more lasting impression from that night. The purple mood lighting was so prevalent that it inspired a further poem the following month, although I didn’t have a chance to perform it on that stage under that lighting.

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Three Ways to Proofread in a Hurry

Other than the actual writing, there is another basic skill required from a writer, and that’s to look over back over the words at a later stage to ensure they have the intended meaning.

It can be tempting to edit immediately. With the exception of the most obvious errors, however, I advise against this. Proofreading and subsequent editing is best done cold, as if seeing the text for the first time. It’s also a good idea to keep Track Changes turned on during this time.

But what if you have a piece you need to finish? Below are three tips that have helped me.

1: Leaving enough time

My guideline is to leave the text aside for a minimum of one minute per word, or for 24 hours, whichever is longer. So a villanelle might be left 24 hours on account of its brevity, whereas a 4000-word story might be picked up again in around three days’ time.

I would not be offended if anyone picked up this formula and publicised it as ‘Cameron’s Rule’, or suchlike.

2: Changing the typeface

After reading and reading the same text over again, the words sometimes merge together. One way to counteract this is by changing the text to a completely different typeface and/or the colour of the text. Have a rake through the ones available on your machine and find a legible one in a different style.

If you prefer to make your first draft by hand, you’re already at an advantage when you transfer it to a computer. The same text can look different on a screen. I find I can write what seems like a long paragraph by hand but it seems shorter when viewed in type.

3. Ask someone else to read over it

This method comes with some risk, especially if you’re in a hurry. What if the other person fails to reply? What if it requires a detailed rewrite?

The trade-off is that it’s a often reliable gauge of how readers might view the piece. I’ve sometimes heard back from folks that some content needs to be explained more, or occasionally that they grasped the concept and the words can be cut back.

However, you choose to do it, it’s worth investing the time. You don’t want to find an error once you’ve had 1,000 copies printed.

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Warming Up for the StAnza Festival

As we step into February, the StAnza poetry festival in St Andrews is just six weeks away. This year, it runs for the shortest period I’ve ever known: from Friday 13 to Sunday 15 March. It’s typically four or five days long, with 2022 extending to seven.

Before the pandemic, I would make a weekend of the festival, booking accommodation and attending a wide range of events. The Byre Theatre remains the main hub of activity, but many events are hosted in other venues around the area.

The last time I stayed over was in 2020. Since then, I’ve become more selective, partly due to other weekend commitments and partly because it’s challenging to absorb a lot of intense poetry in one go. Staying over also allowed me to see the poetry slam, which finished after the last bus home, although it’s now held earlier in the day.

One of my other favourite traditions was to start Saturday morning with a panel event that included either a cake or a pie, plus a hot drink. That doesn’t feature this year, so I’ve instead booked a bracing coastal poetry walk, followed by a practical Writing Hour with Fife Writes. The festival atmosphere always nudges me to write a poem or two anyway, so it’s a good start.

These are just the events I have planned so far. There’ll no doubt be others that catch my attention once I’m actually there, and I’ll be sure to tell you all about it.