Poems wanted from Lincoln MA writing grads for Siren Radio.

This is a message to all former and current grads of the MA.

I’ve been talking with Alex Lewczuk, founder of Siren Radio, the University’s community radio station, and one of its regular presenters, about getting some creative writing input to the radio.

My initial idea is to invite grads to submit some short pieces of their writing to be recorded for transmission on Siren. Poems fit the bill because they’re short, but there’s no reason we can’t think about longer prose pieces as well. Grads could read the work themselves or we could get someone else to do that for them. We can also consider the idea of having grads talking about their writing.

Recorded material would be preserved as a podcast on Alex’s radio site, Southside Broadcasting (and therefore available for replay on the internet), and you would have the benefit of the podcast as a promotional tool.

If you have any pieces you’d like us to consider, just email it to me at my University email.

More publishing success for Shirley.

ourshirley
One of our grads, Shirley Bell, has a poem in The North 52 AND she is a Poet of the Week on the Poetry Super Highway (Facebook group) – “online during the week of June 23-29… and then forever thereafter on the Past Featured Poets archive section.”!

More about Shirley at her blog.

The Shakespeare’s Birthday/St George’s Day Field Trip.

Our Shakespeare’s Birthday/St George’s Day Jaunt to Tupholme Abbey; followed later by visits to the bookshops of Horncastle, including The Most Dangerous Bookshop in the World (Tim Smith Books).

Ranin and Chelsea selfie

Ranin and Chelsea selfie

Frank thinks of Britt Ekland

Frank thinks of Britt Ekland

Joel looks at a pond

Joel looks at a pond

We eat pizza

We eat pizza

This is another pond

This is another pond

Ranin gets to go into an English field

Ranin gets to go into an English field

The Fourth Lincoln Drift

Photos from the Fourth Lincoln Drift:
whoyoulookingat
“Who You Looking At?
Weird Beastie
Weird Beastie Looking On.
Reflective Students
There’s more to this than meets the eyes (ie, you can see two students reflected in the window).
Student Accomm
At the back of student flats.
Get Writing
You may be having a coffee but you’ve still got to write something.
Get Writing 2
That includes you.
Studious Student in Bookshop
How to look studious in a secondhand bookshop.
It Always Ends With Cake
It always ends with cake. Today, for Ranin’s birthday.

Two poems by Susan Flower: “Homecoming” and “Bolsover Castle”.

HOMECOMING

I take the Romany’s sprigged heather,
tuck its pink tight buds curled like
baby fists tight as a talisman,
blue with longing, into my bag.

I am pierced mid-flight
by a hint of traveller she sees
within – an Irish woman
on the grandmother side,

Ellen Glancy unschooled, catholic
in tastes and religion,
pawned her soul for potatoes
that lay rotting, bleeding
into darkened sod.

Her pilgrimage to England
and Alfred, then retracing steps
to Enniskillen for the wedding,
returning to peg washing
not in a whipped north-easterly
which cut the souls.

Back across grey waters
fretful and choppy, till her own
broke a tidal wave, her firstborn.
Homesick for emerald patches,
a mercurial sky tilting meniscus,
struggling for freedom.

Iron rain lashes my face,
her slashed smile a rent petticoat.
Merging the troubles one with another,
I take her hand in mine,
it lies still but warm, without
need for words.

*****

BOLSOVER CASTLE

I stride the battlements; crenelated Portland stone,
Sheer five hundred feet below grassy fields.

A twenty-mile fish-eye panorama of peaks;
Arkwright’s Sutton Hall, Bess’s glass Hardwick.

Beyond receding greens to softened hues, greys
Through anthracite, slate, to a sooty-blue meniscus

The wind moans the miles, traps whispers in
An ancient avenue of limes to the riding stables, keep.

I descend eroded limestone steps, scoured clean
By tides of serfs; stranded in landlocked Derbyshire.

by Susan Flower (alumna 2010-2011)

The Black Path free literary event, Wed 23 October.

Don’t forget that there will be a free reading of work from The Black Path by last year’s students on the MA Creative Writing course.

The reading will take place in MC0025, 12.00 – 1.00, Wednesday 23 October (2013). Work will include poems, flash fiction and extracts from longer pieces.

Everyone welcome.

Remix Culture and the Literary Mashup – Alluvium Journal.

janeasutenzombies

2009 saw the release of the first mainstream literary mashup – Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Graeme-Smith. This particular book has produced a prequel (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, published in 2010) and a sequel (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After, published in 2011), effectively turning Austen’s classic into a commercialised franchise opportunity. All of this raises the question as to whether this particular genre of fiction can be classed as serious, or whether it is just another excuse to create a profit. Indeed, some sources have stated that ‘Quirk Books is planning to capitalise on the popularity of the genre’ (Flood par. 6). In this article, I am taking the term “literary mashup” to refer to a piece of fiction which has combined with a completely different literary genre to create a new narrative – essentially a hybrid text.

Jacob Murphy in Alluvium.

Also check out Kirby Ferguson’s video series, Everything Is A Remix.