Written on March 15th, 2010 by adminone shout
At the request of several participants we are constructing a chapbook of poems written during WoPoWriMo for those who took part. The e-book will be only be sent to the mailing list so will not count as ‘published’ for those seeking publication in journals and the like. It would just be fun to share what we have all done with each other.
There is also work afoot to make an anthology of poems written during WoPoWriMo. This will be available as both an e-book and a physical book, and will very much count as published! Any profit from sales will be split between WoPoWriMo (to do site maintenance and the like for next year) and the Wikipaedia Foundation (they have an awful lot of infrastructure that costs money and they give us a valuable resource! Plus they are involved in many smaller projects that should help relieve poverty in the long run).
We hope you will wish to take part in one or both of these projects! Send up to five of your poems in the body of the email to books@wopowrimo.org with the subject line Chap and Anthology or if you wish to only take part in the Chap book just Chap. A short bio or informative bit about yourself complete with any personal blog links etc. would be good too. The maximum word count is 500 for the biography.
We are very excited about these projects and hope you will be too!
From Team WoPo
Written on February 24th, 2010 by adminone shout
There are many advantages to expressing yourself creatively. Have you ever wondered why for example poetry and art is so expressive, why it brings about such strong feelings in the person reading/seeing it? When you’re angry, upset, frustrated – or happy for that matter – do you ever grab a pen and just write it all down? A letter to a friend, a journal entry, a poem…
We were asked by WoPoWriMo to write something about the advantages of using poetry to express creatively some of the struggles faced by those suffering from mental health problems. Many of those reading this will already be poets – experienced or budding – so you will already be aware of the advantages writing creatively can bring to your own mental wellbeing, whether you suffer from mental ill health or not.
There are many studies highlighting the positive effects of writing or expressing oneself creatively to overcome difficult times – and indeed art therapy seems to be increasingly popular. That creative outlets are so encouraged in many branches of care speaks volumes to its effectiveness. An example of such a study is Mcardle, S. & R. Byrt (2001) “Fiction, poetry and mental health: expressive and therapeutic uses of literature” in the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, Volume 8 Issue 6, Pages 517 – 524; however there is an abundance of literature out there supporting these advantages.
The National Self Harm Network’s ‘Silent Voice’ poetry book is an anthology of poems written by members of the charity’s support forum. It is a collection of works, written by those with personal experience of self harm, exploring a variety of topics and feelings. It is a collection, which encompasses both the positive and negative emotions which may be felt, exploring both the despair of darker days, as well as hope for the future. As stated in the foreword, it’s a book in which ‘the reader is invited to follow a journey from the darkest time through recovery from self harm – through times of sadness and happy moments, with humour and compassion.
“Self-harm happens when we can’t communicate our feelings, when words fail us, and pain is written out instead upon the body. But words don’t fail these young writers; they deal honestly with the pain, frustration and anger that lie behind such desperate acts. I hope the writing itself has helped them come to terms with their feelings; I’m sure it can go on to help others, whether self-harmers themselves, or the people who love them.” – Jo Baker, author of ‘Offcomer’,’ The Mermaid’s Child’ and ‘The Telling’, and lecturer in Creative Writing at Lancaster University
The idea for the book was conceived from the support forum’s Creativity board, a place in which people are encouraged to find alternative outlets for emotions, through the use of poetry, words and art. Self harm is complex and an individual’s relationship with self harm will vary greatly. However the charity takes a pro-active stance in trying to help members find an alternative form of expression and outlet for emotions and believe that activities like poetry can be an effective aid in helping a person move towards recovery and help reduce the incidences of self harm.
We have seen from many of our online members how writing – in general, although poetry seems to be the most popular way of expressing oneself on our Creativity board – has helped them express some of the thoughts and feelings they never dared talk about elsewhere. It’s helped many come out of their shell and eventually express themselves (through poetry or otherwise) to family, friends or health professionals which has meant they have been able to get the help they need and deserve.
It is hoped that Silent Voice will highlight the link between creativity and mental health, in a positive way, highlighting a productive outlet for emotions as well as raising awareness and understanding around the subject of self harm.
You can purchase the book for £5.99 including free postage and packaging within the UK. Please contact us for details of postage and packaging outside of the UK.
Cheques and postal orders can be sent to PO Box 7264, Nottingham NG1 6WJ, made payable to National Self Harm Network. You can also pay via PayPal: if paying by PayPal please note that you are required to also send an email to info@nshn.co.uk to inform us that you have made a payment.
Written on February 10th, 2010 by adminone shout
I don’t remember when I began writing poetry, but when I’m asked why I write it, I generally say that it’s an itch I feel periodically obliged to scratch. Certainly I started in what must be a fairly standard manner, inflicting my efforts firstly on my family, then in the magazine of Friends School, Lisburn, in Ireland. From about the age of 12 I appeared periodically on BBC Radio Children’s Hour, broadcast from Belfast. There was no payment, but for each performance you received a book token for seven shillings and sixpence.
At 15 years old, I joined the Royal Air Force and served in it until I reversed the numbers and left at the age of 51. During the majority of my service career, my poetry output was limited to ‘crew-room verse’, very parochial and purely for the amusement of my colleagues, who liked their verse (a) to rhyme (b) to be about them (c) to be funny and, for preference, rude.
However, in the early ‘90s, I discovered the small poetry press and began to subscribe and submit to a variety of periodicals such as Iota, Smiths Knoll, Orbis, Envoi, etc. At first, I imagine like many others, I fired off poems, machine-gun fashion, in all directions, gradually discovering which magazines seemed most inclined to accept my work and which wouldn’t. I also began to send work off to written competitions and found that I could gain some success in that field as well.
The notion of performing in public never occurred to me at that time. You can’t blithely tell a promoter that you’ll appear at such and such a venue on such and such a date in the future, only to find that Her Majesty would prefer you to be in some remote part of the world instead.
However, four days after leaving the R.A.F., in April 1996, I hopped onto the stage at the Gloucster Guildhall, took part in my first Performance Poetry Slam and discovered a competitive and exhibitionist streak I didn’t know I possessed. There is something particularly appealing to me about Slams. A lot of it lies in the total unpredictably of what’s going to happen, what you’re going to hear and who you’re going to meet. I never tire of them, although though they rarely earn you any money on the night. But right from the beginning I found that a good performance might (and did) earn me support slots with established figures such as Brian Patten, John Hegley and Attila the Stockbroker, or invitations to appear as a featured artist at a poetry evening, or even, in one memorable instance, to be presented with an expensive sex toy donated by the Ann Summers company (which I contrived to sell to an appreciative audience member before I left the stage!).
More conventionally, within a couple of years, I began to acquire a smattering of invitations to appear, not only at literary festivals, but at an eye-watering variety of disparate events, ranging from the W.I. to jails, from an Air Guitar Championship to a classical music festival. I’ve performed poetry from the back of a flat-bed truck in a Welsh field, a ferry boat bobbing around Bristol harbour, a knitting convention,a couple of comedy clubs, several schools and goodness knows how many pubs and clubs between Devon and Yorkshire.
Particularly pleasing has been a stint as the Poet Laureate for the Gloucestershire1000 project, a brace of nominations for the National Poetry Prize and reaching the final of Radio Four’s first ever broadcast Slam. I’ve produced eight slim volumes of my work, the latest of which, ‘Not All Men are from Mars’ I sell in support of the charity Women’s Aid. Poems of mine have found their way onto the BBCs Poetry Please and Something Understood, into national papers like the Daily Express and the Daily Telegraph.
A decade and a half since I first climbed onto a stage, I’ve enjoyed and am continuing to enjoy, innumerable evenings in good company all over the place. I’ve indulged in poetic collaborations with a number of talented individuals including Emily Wills, Jo Bell, Paul Eccentric and Alison Brumfitt. I’ve met a fair proportion of the great and good on the contemporary poetry scene and have every intention of carrying on for as long as I can put pen to paper, or stagger up to a microphone.
Lately I’ve started to pay more attention to poetry on-line. I’ve contrived to inveigle myself into some very good company appearing on webzines such as Chimaera, The Flea and the wonderfully named Shit Creek Review, thereby putting my work before audiences in America, Australia and beyond.
If you’re interested in knowing more about what I do and where I do it, try www.myspace.com/peterwytonpoet