Back with Stylistics and the Pantoum is Queen. Wednesday 28 February 2009

I’ve learnt about syllabic metre and iamb iamb iamb – but I’m still not sure how to hear the difference between iamb and trochee. I’ve become entirely addicted to pantoums I’ve gained weight, mostly because I’ve been so engaged writing piss-poor pantoums that I haven’t moved around at all. I like pantoums because I’m a rubbish rounder-offer and with the pantoum form once you’ve written your first line you’re sorted with your final line. And I enjoy the way that unexpected collocations of lines seem to make the poem say something profound that you’ve only just realised that you think.

I’ve delivered a ‘poetry’ workshop. I had to give a 30 minute presentation at the culmination of a library orientated Training and Learning course. I’d every intention of reviving my web evaluation set-piece but an evil shoulder-demon was whispering: “pantoum” in my ear when I was sleeping. Once the idea was planted there was no hope of shifting it; setting myself up for maximum humiliation and I was powerless to intervene. We’re British librarians; generally speaking we’d rather eat own nasty liver than participate in the most innocuous of ice-breaking exercises, let alone render our soul. I went into a session promising 12 librarians, well 11 librarians and a conservator, that in 30 minutes they’d leave with the first draft of a poem (a pantoum). I didn’t give any prior warning as I presumed I’d fail automatically if no one turned up; at least if everyone just fainted I’d get marks for trying.

We did it in three stages (and I gamely modelled each stage as we went along, wot a trooper):
First: a childhood remembering, a room, a teacher, a den, anything, and the senses and emotions associated with the memory – scary carpet, fingerless gloves, cheesy wotsits, muddy smell. Then they talked that memory to just one other person (essential that it was as discreet as possible) for one minute;
Second: they noted down 8, 4/5 syllable phrases used in their description. This was the bit I was most terrified of; I reasoned that if they’d spoken about a topic for a whole minute they’d easily have 8 phrases but I’d absolutely no proof of that or contingency plan if they didn’t; but they were a match for me and they’d plenty to say;
Third: they reordered the 8 phrases in pantoum form. Two people allowed me to read theirs out, bloody fantastic – two tightly coiled memory-bombs, really moving. So now the Pantoum Appreciation Club has 13 members – 14, if you count my tutor’s 10 year old daughter; my tutor took the notes home for her to use. She’s like me – ideas, but a weak finisher – not any more.
The irony of me, Tin-ear Tamara with a portfolio of piss-poor pantoums and a whiney piece about not being understood, isn’t wasted on me. But 11 British librarians and a conservator and the tutor’s little girl came out happy and I’m happy.

Stylistics is very hard; metalanguage encompassing language. It seems ok – identify the adjective, adverb and noun premodifiers in a noun phrase. For example in: “my new friend from Mars”, ‘new’ is the premodifier.
Then there’s a test. Identify the premodifiers in the noun phrases in a given text. And the text contains phrases like: “was furnished with voluptuous grandeur in approximations of various styles, predominantly those of several Louis, with late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century additions”. Well. I’m sorry, that's just messy, you can’t write that. You’ll just have to make do with one or two simple premodifiers – otherwise it’s just going to make me cry and probably faint.

We’re going to start fieldwork; keeping an artist’s sketchbook to record still-life and movement in language. I’m very taken with the idea of sitting outside Bruciani’s recording life with my gimlet eye and my Moleskine. I’m a bit concerned I’m going to look a just a tad shifty and risible and I suspect I’ll keep catching myself writing my birthday wish-list, but I’m off uptown as soon as I’ve posted this.

Good week bad week. Wednesday 3 December 2008

First you bond then you don’t; seemed to spend a lot of time talking about my life writing Funeral piece (as it were - I suppose death writing funeral piece even). It made me feel guilty and overbearing for monopolising the time and actually just emphasised my deficiencies. Not so much my inability to write, but my incapacity to understand what’s the sod's going on; stylistics I suppose. Anyway I’ve bought the book by Laura Wright and Jonathan Hope; now I just have to osmosis in the understanding. And I was mildly brassed-off that I’d spent loads of, well - minutes, writing feedback to give to the others; and no one had written any feedback to give to me. Don’t think I mean you Joe! And I’m over it, and I know it’s hard – hell, not so over it then.

I was driving home very unsafely on 1 December because I couldn’t stop looking at the moon and Venus and Jupiter; although I didn’t know that was what I was looking at until I got home and looked it up. Well I recognised the moon, obviously.
Gareth Edwards from Cardiff took this picture.

Ali and I went to meet Frankie in Birmingham to shop and eat Bratwurst. We went inside a sports shop which was hard on us all, and then we went with Ali into an out-of-doors shop because Al needed to buy some four seasons socks for John. Transpires it‘s also possible to purchase three seasons socks, which set us wondering, which season aren’t you supposed to wear three seasons socks for? And what’ll happen if you do?

When I had my hair cut, not the last time but the time before, I tuned into a conversation without realising. What caught my attention was, “that milk float’s the ideal cover”. I had to overhear extra hard to get this into context. Transpires some flags have gone missing from the back of premises somewhere at Lostock Hall. Flappy flags or sandstone flags I can only speculate, but I like the idea of the getaway milk float. Ideal wouldn’t be the description that would spring to my mind, overlooking its obvious limitations as a vehicle for hurried departure, the back of a milk float strikes me as a tad exposed for transporting swag.

I've preordered a book written by my friend, Jenn Ashworth from Amazon; it's called A Kind of Intimacy (that isn't going to be the cover). I can't read Jenn's blog at the moment because I just copy what she writes, word for word. When I did go on to it a few days ago to check out what the real cover will be I was reminded that Jenny Diski has reviewed her book, very positively. (And I did start to copy and I'm not actually having any problems with my internet provider).