tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50874105067845827752024-03-27T06:36:18.154+00:00Words & Fixturesbecause we all need to mind our languageSarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.comBlogger547125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-51570124138824328242024-02-12T17:53:00.004+00:002024-02-12T17:53:25.861+00:00Stockport Stories<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's all about Stockport this month as I'm currently researching the Town Of Culture for a new commission called </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stockport Stories </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">and I'm also reading there this coming Saturday, at the first-ever event at the brand-new Underbanks branch of Greenhouse Books – the showcase of Confingo writers, including myself, Elizabeth Baines, David Gaffney and Adrian Slatcher has now sold out!</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizFxzAtmTS5JhTfbndrHrrLpy9W23pnuXR9BOOTHEzNM6jIe9TIqkiOQW3Y9Lo6YEap9UJWqdFXb7kcdXUFksINgy2Ab66jBFkT1VpPoqYXjcGxRWXJL5Kkq8MbyF6YHCB8z7mqOyJ__65JyLp_c3XhMeC1TCF70VCEnTcy9-vFaXoWBzUS6ElIHsmudhM/s600/The%20Portwood%20Bridge%20and%20power%20station.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="600" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizFxzAtmTS5JhTfbndrHrrLpy9W23pnuXR9BOOTHEzNM6jIe9TIqkiOQW3Y9Lo6YEap9UJWqdFXb7kcdXUFksINgy2Ab66jBFkT1VpPoqYXjcGxRWXJL5Kkq8MbyF6YHCB8z7mqOyJ__65JyLp_c3XhMeC1TCF70VCEnTcy9-vFaXoWBzUS6ElIHsmudhM/s320/The%20Portwood%20Bridge%20and%20power%20station.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><p>Not to worry if you missed out on tickets to that, though – tickets have just gone "on sale" (they're free!) for our first Stockport Stories performance. You can get your mitts on them <a href="https://raremags.co.uk/collections/objects/products/tickets-for-stockport-stories-11-04" target="_blank">here</a>. The premiere takes place on Thursday 11 April at the awesome <span class="xt0psk2" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">Rare Mags in Underbanks; the second airing will </span>be at the wonderful <span class="xt0psk2" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">Mura Ma Art Gallery in Marple on Saturday 20 April. </span>See the lovely poster by creative Stopfordian <a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a>David Bailey for all the details – I can’t wait to meander among you with my watery words exploring the rivers swirling beneath your feet as you wander the Merseyway mall munching your Greggs pasty! </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhViCjLHo2yt-NKZ32tgSEtGGDt-zsHwCukiWiq9gm22omLcIt-7je20K1Y6j-nIdBkzGjHlg0tdEVmndG9VAGBfm_IgBqRhW-VA01s5UGh_JKbrkGONCkk5e1crB8_4ypnUkt7pICvqYfa-TwsNEQMxkIqr3r_GWJS0ADWslggwRJ9cC4HqmVJcDAFlcV-/s1125/bridge.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="1125" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhViCjLHo2yt-NKZ32tgSEtGGDt-zsHwCukiWiq9gm22omLcIt-7je20K1Y6j-nIdBkzGjHlg0tdEVmndG9VAGBfm_IgBqRhW-VA01s5UGh_JKbrkGONCkk5e1crB8_4ypnUkt7pICvqYfa-TwsNEQMxkIqr3r_GWJS0ADWslggwRJ9cC4HqmVJcDAFlcV-/s320/bridge.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p>A week or so back, I took advantage of a day swap with Jobshare Matt and jumped aboard a No42, heading off on a day trip to sunny Stockport (actually, it made an attempt to mizzle as we got off the bus). ‘Twas a writing project research trip to check out the rivers and find the confluence of the Tame and Goyt and the resulting source of the Mersey, as seen from a cobbledy road that crosses the nice old double span sandstone bridge shown here in various guises, including as a painting by the rather ovelooked artist Alan Lowndes (below), who was born in Heaton Norris. The confluence is right next to the M60 ringroad motorway, and the Mersey promptly turns a corner and disappears into a culvert beneath the shopping precinct, only to be spotted via a peculiar hole in the pavement near the British Heart Foundation, before disappearing again out of sight and mind.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPUyfXPO8xV8SVyUWMDvrBXpEdXftYqYN0rDK9zl9ABi2DpQ2XRiJ3_106TZmfohD11bhP5B_VPWrHtfuhyKIQDZLZhAWmIcPbqU96g034QHlrZc6aW1mCkEWLKOzdb77qCPXxpcdhHFDUaYUSCE_YKlP95M1mR_TF-DogN1_OyJoej4KNnbI5iIFXMovc/s389/The%20Portwood%20Bridge%201968%20Alan%20Lowndes.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="389" data-original-width="253" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPUyfXPO8xV8SVyUWMDvrBXpEdXftYqYN0rDK9zl9ABi2DpQ2XRiJ3_106TZmfohD11bhP5B_VPWrHtfuhyKIQDZLZhAWmIcPbqU96g034QHlrZc6aW1mCkEWLKOzdb77qCPXxpcdhHFDUaYUSCE_YKlP95M1mR_TF-DogN1_OyJoej4KNnbI5iIFXMovc/s320/The%20Portwood%20Bridge%201968%20Alan%20Lowndes.png" width="208" /></a></div><p>Once the Mersey re-emerges, down the bottom end towards the Pyramid and near the Weir Mill warehouses being developed under the viaduct, next to the bus depot, opposite Kwik-Fit, there's a weir and a beach I located from good old Google Earth, but no way of getting down to them. The trip also saw us locate a blue plaque giving a nod to Lowry having painted it on occasion (as in in paintings, not as in the Forth Bridge), pop in the Plaza and chat to a nice old gent in a red bowtie about afternoon tea, scoff a Greggs pasty (told you), procure some secondhand patent peeptoes for a dream, swing by the “new Berlin” Underbanks and Marketplace, and quaff a bev or two in the Cracked Actor. Good day out!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq3zk_INS91-rwPnwXSCuPEz3dL7Sehs97UzSB_4jKqk2lsgOKLQTt3iElCEKFSzF5ePhA7_oWF7cSgjxsOpiEUtzE8V8-qh94G48-xu4Y6_D6a5B73HWaLHqGQbJFZk7Hm0Q3-Ucw_u-AadanGpfb7BUWYQYvPKZfQ6HIa7RBmxM4fNu0d3YTIrG_jFoT/s8770/StockportStoriesMainFeedPost%20(1)%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="8770" data-original-width="7016" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq3zk_INS91-rwPnwXSCuPEz3dL7Sehs97UzSB_4jKqk2lsgOKLQTt3iElCEKFSzF5ePhA7_oWF7cSgjxsOpiEUtzE8V8-qh94G48-xu4Y6_D6a5B73HWaLHqGQbJFZk7Hm0Q3-Ucw_u-AadanGpfb7BUWYQYvPKZfQ6HIa7RBmxM4fNu0d3YTIrG_jFoT/s320/StockportStoriesMainFeedPost%20(1)%20copy.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p></span><p></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-27544664176833603672024-01-31T17:50:00.001+00:002024-01-31T17:50:20.251+00:00Up to much?<p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Just getting in before January becomes February (how is that even a thing?), here's the first post of 2024 with a wee round-up of things.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Over the moon to see <i>Lune</i> pop up as a Poetry Book Society Winter Selection <a href="https://www.poetrybooks.co.uk/products/lune-by-sarah-clare-conlon" target="_blank">here</a> and then for it to be picked by <span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">Will Mackie, Senior Programme Manager at </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="xt0psk2" style="display: inline;">New Writing North</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">, in his "New & Recent Poetry from the North: Winter 2023" round-up, where he says: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Inspired by rivers and seas, these are dextrous and playful poems that feel alive and urgent."</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Read that in full </span><a href="https://newwritingnorth.com/journal/new-and-recent-poetry-from-the-north-winter-2023" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">. (I contributed my own "best reads" to Northern Soul, <a href="https://www.northernsoul.me.uk/best-reads-2023-books" target="_blank">here</a>, if you want to read about people other than just little old me.)</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chuffed also to </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">be one of the 52 artists exhibiting in</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"> this year's </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blah Open</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"> with some concrete pieces about places you might live, called “Dwellings”, one of which is lifted from <i>Lune</i>. The show closes this Sunday (4 February), so I'm planning on swinging by Cafe Blah late afternoon/early evening to stage mine and David's finissage (someone snapped up his piece straight away, so I guess he deserves a drink!).</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">Delighted also to have a piece in the latest issue of <i>Blackbox Manifold</i>, which I've been wanting to work my way into for a while now. It's a collaboration </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">with Robert Sheppard, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">called "Untitled" (we tried really hard, but we couldn't land on what to call it!), originally created for </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="xt0psk2" style="display: inline;">European Poetry Festival in the summer</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">. And in such fabulous company, too, including </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="xt0psk2" style="display: inline;">Zoë Skoulding</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="xt0psk2" style="display: inline;">Jazz Linklater</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It's about the River Mersey, which is my next project. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">See </span><a href="https://blackboxmanifold.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/issues/issue-31/conlonsheppardbm31" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to read that and <a href="http://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2024/01/untitled-by-sarah-clare-conlon-and.html" target="_blank">here</a> to see Robert's blog about it.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">Coming up is an appearance in the rather brilliant Spelt Magazine – they've accepted a sequence of urban-rural poems offering glimpses of life from city centre viaducts and edge-of-town motorway bridges, of which another, separate one, has been published just now by Poetry Scotland. I have also been frantically writing more about </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">motorway bridges </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">this past fortnight to meet a deadline – specifically Jen Orpin's motorway bridges, including the one pictured below, which carries Pennine Way walkers safely across the highest point of the M62, at the aptly<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">monikered Windy Hill.</span></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1osi6aEg_y4qM2sCNVtHAjfqboEl8ahJnBRoErZomMBBSkdzOQ3Ahy3zcHpwvoCLVvAUMFqqo81uEifWt1Pch_f_TlcRAalMyc4oA87AV2Qeoa-VZ39LGYMVBg_1tefpLbJLtZlTWGKdAbC7IEBp-fv1H-ZoS6uYvAq4Q9VpWrs1eGNkjriFSVduojz-M/s620/M62-Footbridge-Oil-on-canvas-50x20cm-1175-scaled.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="248" data-original-width="620" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1osi6aEg_y4qM2sCNVtHAjfqboEl8ahJnBRoErZomMBBSkdzOQ3Ahy3zcHpwvoCLVvAUMFqqo81uEifWt1Pch_f_TlcRAalMyc4oA87AV2Qeoa-VZ39LGYMVBg_1tefpLbJLtZlTWGKdAbC7IEBp-fv1H-ZoS6uYvAq4Q9VpWrs1eGNkjriFSVduojz-M/s320/M62-Footbridge-Oil-on-canvas-50x20cm-1175-scaled.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">January has also seen </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">a new episode </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">drop </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">of The Reading Ramble (find it wherever you get your podcasts!) from Lancashire Libraries, and y</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">ou can now listen to my Lancashire Stories anthology commission "Proceed With All Due Caution" r</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">ead beautifully by </span><span style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer;" tabindex="-1"></a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">Karen Esposito. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">Performance wise, and 2024 opened with the launch at </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="xt0psk2" style="display: inline;">Manchester Cathedral</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (wow!) of a new anthology that resulted from the Doubt Wisely workshops run by poet-in-residence </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="xt0psk2" style="display: inline;">Tom Branfoot</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in conjunction with </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="xt0psk2" style="display: inline;">Manchester Writing School at Manchester Met,</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"> plus my first-ever visit to Manchester Poets, which is currently happening in Withington Library, so I might be putting in more appearances in future.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Closing 2023 was a headline slot at the last Verbose of the year in December and just before that the launch of <i>Lune</i>, </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">with </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">three fabulous guest readers </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tom Branfoot, Ian Humphreys and Lydia Unsworth, at </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Peste </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">in November, and, just before that, in October, F</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">our Poets at </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Saul Hay Gallery, </span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">reading </span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">with Petr Hruska, Jake Morris-Campbell and Jennifer Lee Tsai.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">Next up, I'm reading at a </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">Confingo Publishing showcase on Saturday 17 February at Greenhouse Books in their brand-new spot in trendy Underbanks, Stockport – tickets </span><a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/jonny-b-smooth-friends-presents-live-music-and-readings-tickets-801694488797" style="background-color: white; color: #1570c3; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">here</a> and see you there!</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq323jSjQUv4qbYUMWIL2fNJPMUzsyCRB7HeGysms_lYm7ZGu7yB_-yBgHK3M49Sa6mcIGN4EXoOgmRghtegxgkY2gTK_MdrNEP5Bv9Lu0-j3ssKkAt3NIuQ8ej_U1VZqX88CfMFPij0SeP1alqzWaR6uXSXK8_plSB9jv2qlCsw3G8vTdCitUH8egL2zt/s640/8%20Sarah-Clare%20Conlon%20Peste%20reading%2018%20Nov%202023%201.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq323jSjQUv4qbYUMWIL2fNJPMUzsyCRB7HeGysms_lYm7ZGu7yB_-yBgHK3M49Sa6mcIGN4EXoOgmRghtegxgkY2gTK_MdrNEP5Bv9Lu0-j3ssKkAt3NIuQ8ej_U1VZqX88CfMFPij0SeP1alqzWaR6uXSXK8_plSB9jv2qlCsw3G8vTdCitUH8egL2zt/s320/8%20Sarah-Clare%20Conlon%20Peste%20reading%2018%20Nov%202023%201.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqnuHE9q5AqkeYJXvTlQvtpzvY8rqqpaOTJrO1n2GhNJ34rGC8p1KCMRO5csXn3foncG1jO-O-2GdBEr9f9W_pXHsb5gI0X-azSwSJJmMXcUCOCDIUtbfbmlXszcnOrS8JHImnvS21zsmkJ-pe7h7e5cotagTO9UnFEYX__cG83R32Ex2xqs2yrHG9gaXi/s640/9%20Lydia,%20Clare,%20Ian,%20Tom%20Peste%20reading%2018%20Nov%202023%20landscape.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqnuHE9q5AqkeYJXvTlQvtpzvY8rqqpaOTJrO1n2GhNJ34rGC8p1KCMRO5csXn3foncG1jO-O-2GdBEr9f9W_pXHsb5gI0X-azSwSJJmMXcUCOCDIUtbfbmlXszcnOrS8JHImnvS21zsmkJ-pe7h7e5cotagTO9UnFEYX__cG83R32Ex2xqs2yrHG9gaXi/s320/9%20Lydia,%20Clare,%20Ian,%20Tom%20Peste%20reading%2018%20Nov%202023%20landscape.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKPkcLOFmQnVB66EQQx143Rn35FWDxkxCnuHorw7jgSX4iJvfD_Ko7rUX93v2Te4kejEsgGgI_bSBtCRw-aB8qVgO0VkhZw7qMk5AnPtNj0sOWrnh51UiR7dLaSlq26UaNuTtSezLXEjTP5ltZDyzMDfXTtX_FcLosUKJrqafeNYdPmfiHFykVskp1LoM6/s640/5%20Sarah-Clare%20Conlon%20Saul%20Hay%20241023.%20Photo%20David%20Gaffney.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKPkcLOFmQnVB66EQQx143Rn35FWDxkxCnuHorw7jgSX4iJvfD_Ko7rUX93v2Te4kejEsgGgI_bSBtCRw-aB8qVgO0VkhZw7qMk5AnPtNj0sOWrnh51UiR7dLaSlq26UaNuTtSezLXEjTP5ltZDyzMDfXTtX_FcLosUKJrqafeNYdPmfiHFykVskp1LoM6/s320/5%20Sarah-Clare%20Conlon%20Saul%20Hay%20241023.%20Photo%20David%20Gaffney.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMcA2EiZbo6_4Sp_83_qrOQLNApjMOoGncCvbEE8eRts1HIqtwTGHjI6hEOfpjoDWwQlFNN1P-5PNjs7PHjlFhHJfourq2OCJEve877HR1b4NatDVqdJ9i4oQ3ii09A1UYBU5y4zJSdNqyVvnI9CH6_cQUroxwSrS6eviE8hacUhKB_6PNakrJ21d6Vevv/s1080/1%20Four%20poets%20Saul%20Hay%20241023.%20Photo%20by%20Ian%20Hay%20Saul%20Hay%20Gallery.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMcA2EiZbo6_4Sp_83_qrOQLNApjMOoGncCvbEE8eRts1HIqtwTGHjI6hEOfpjoDWwQlFNN1P-5PNjs7PHjlFhHJfourq2OCJEve877HR1b4NatDVqdJ9i4oQ3ii09A1UYBU5y4zJSdNqyVvnI9CH6_cQUroxwSrS6eviE8hacUhKB_6PNakrJ21d6Vevv/s320/1%20Four%20poets%20Saul%20Hay%20241023.%20Photo%20by%20Ian%20Hay%20Saul%20Hay%20Gallery.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-74928298918585591632023-09-02T21:00:00.001+01:002023-09-02T21:05:47.523+01:00Lune has landed!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlekJJILO69logwmCHCmll-A8st6JDZzKGinEUrfFf1L3T1ZF7PhD83gZatWYWP6N2ieqMcxigkMlpkj4H19Fcmuep425yMOtNEBbTc0SYPcurm0EmoRVEpKqrvfMvVuzE5kJZhr85wz6YnnVIgFg1vO58uVqBa4ovy4SyTH0RWexw5bqFFxAaEwnG5kDC/s1165/Lune-%20Sarah-Clare%20Conlon.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1165" data-original-width="827" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlekJJILO69logwmCHCmll-A8st6JDZzKGinEUrfFf1L3T1ZF7PhD83gZatWYWP6N2ieqMcxigkMlpkj4H19Fcmuep425yMOtNEBbTc0SYPcurm0EmoRVEpKqrvfMvVuzE5kJZhr85wz6YnnVIgFg1vO58uVqBa4ovy4SyTH0RWexw5bqFFxAaEwnG5kDC/s320/Lune-%20Sarah-Clare%20Conlon.jpg" width="227" /></a></div><p>I'm over the moon to be on the launchpad with The Red Ceilings Press! <i>Lune</i> is here – and doesn’t it look swell? Perfect in the week of a once-every-ten-years supermoon… The fabulous cover shows the moon from Georges Méliès’ amazing 1902 short film sci-fi adventure “Le voyage dans la lune” (“A Trip To The Moon”), as spotted on telly on Monday (moon-day, Lundi <i>en français</i>) in the <i>University Challenge</i> picture round. You should watch it (“Le voyage dans la lune”, and p'raps also <i>University Challenge</i>).</p><p><b>Here</b>'s a bit of blurb... <i>Lune</i> is a mini collection inspired by rivers and seas. Three short sequences dive into erosion by water (“Lune”), the effects of the moon on mariners (“Moon”), and weather happenstances, shipwrecks and lighthouses (“Juxta Mare”). Currents might collide, but go with the flow.</p><p><b>Here</b>’s some blether wot I wrote for the e-missive that went out to announce <i>Lune</i>’s presence in the world: “I’m inspired by nature and the North, and curious about place and places. I’m fascinated by dialect and language, and the way my work sounds is as important as how it looks. I’m influenced by Oulipian and experimental ideas, and love playing with constraints and concrete, forms and found text.” All true.</p><p><b>Here</b> are a couple of lovely quotes, and thanks to Zoë and Vik for provision!</p><p>“At the heart of this playful collection is a deliberate unsettling of place that allows the reader to set off on multiple journeys.” Zoë Skoulding</p><p>“In <i>Lune</i>, Conlon captures the atmosphere of language with Blue Lagoon highballs and aqueous ice-pancakes, navigating storm surges with excitement and glee.” Vik Shirley</p><p>And<b> here</b>’s a <a href="https://www.theredceilingspress.co.uk/product-page/lune-sarah-clare-conlon" target="_blank">link</a> to order <i>Lune</i> from The Red Ceilings Press – and big massive huge thanks to publisher Mark Cobley for giving the book the nod and for his patience in the face of having to typeset concrete poetry (not to mention a bunch of other right daft ideas I had but subsequently scrapped). </p><p>Alternatively, order direct from yours truly and I can supply a *signed* copy in the next couple of weeks. You can even order some of my other titles. Look at them here together, four mates, all lovely. All out in just one year after producing nowt in the way of books for fifty years previous.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivFuytAi6JwhwapuyUZWNu_eFmAYDhehFcqWJlY-KTCfZUZnPLvWRxYzCc7bKycYLdzTdDv_xTEkm9LLYrPxohe_mljFOdKM-lSBl_L4YinFOdIEEqaPx2JyyFBahMH-ELkbgUowL0EiJasZ61xNyt4EDRhuqwujQzBlve5i5qDj6ZBfK-d8alKXyL-ZmV/s1011/four%20covers%20Sarah-Clare%20Conlon.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="1011" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivFuytAi6JwhwapuyUZWNu_eFmAYDhehFcqWJlY-KTCfZUZnPLvWRxYzCc7bKycYLdzTdDv_xTEkm9LLYrPxohe_mljFOdKM-lSBl_L4YinFOdIEEqaPx2JyyFBahMH-ELkbgUowL0EiJasZ61xNyt4EDRhuqwujQzBlve5i5qDj6ZBfK-d8alKXyL-ZmV/w526-h200/four%20covers%20Sarah-Clare%20Conlon.jpg" width="526" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-71852653457510076012023-08-28T17:04:00.008+01:002023-08-28T17:16:48.904+01:00August readings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuCfiq43WCBKJ0T1TGCz4MDz4o-Zv2LZjlvrnBu7vCwiyU4-ahaw90EEIw13Q2wxmZtyFtegmo9CL6ws2qMVqu6FwjXtKRsqYBkBZfjMbfbOiyiDNDvJUEPhbUUmWVObF2VFsDRXpFQ0nv2jQptY0yYa_SmW0jHLJTJqFW-F09V2UMoRLyNXWNNaRAxQPK/s1446/books%200.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1446" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuCfiq43WCBKJ0T1TGCz4MDz4o-Zv2LZjlvrnBu7vCwiyU4-ahaw90EEIw13Q2wxmZtyFtegmo9CL6ws2qMVqu6FwjXtKRsqYBkBZfjMbfbOiyiDNDvJUEPhbUUmWVObF2VFsDRXpFQ0nv2jQptY0yYa_SmW0jHLJTJqFW-F09V2UMoRLyNXWNNaRAxQPK/s320/books%200.JPG" width="319" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Sealey Challenge encourages folk to </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">read one book of poetry a day for the month of August – a massive 31 titles, which is no small feat. As I mentioned on FB, this isn't</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"> quite how I like to consume poetry, which is usually more of a dripfeed affair, but it’s been making me try lots of new stuff (I got quite a bit out of the library, which ended up altering the original pile pictured above) and also stuff that has been on </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a style="cursor: pointer;" tabindex="-1"></a></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">my to-read pile for ages and I’ve not been getting round to. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb1M1EDMDGSQcf3RyNTWHgX-ZgHCFfZd44y659_IbSRQdawJCWdmmmu_6e_3beqJIazWHomNksyN1CUGtlULCUDbbev0XxFlXB84me8UXJdBYb5F-fFSnMgMprDyg6pEcckyAuJVncI-XO1hzVOqXjUSzkyqOCqxTayk6v1Vpp5jtfmSaBDShWrTirV4Jj/s3997/books%2000.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3997" data-original-width="2707" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb1M1EDMDGSQcf3RyNTWHgX-ZgHCFfZd44y659_IbSRQdawJCWdmmmu_6e_3beqJIazWHomNksyN1CUGtlULCUDbbev0XxFlXB84me8UXJdBYb5F-fFSnMgMprDyg6pEcckyAuJVncI-XO1hzVOqXjUSzkyqOCqxTayk6v1Vpp5jtfmSaBDShWrTirV4Jj/s320/books%2000.jpg" width="217" /></a></div></span><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">I will admit something, which is that some days I haven't read the full collections (I have my own work to write – with more deadlines now I'm part of a poetry group that meets online at regular intervals – and I've been proofreading and signing off the manuscript to my latest book; aside from which, I do actually have to work for actual money), although I have done so for the library loans. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy2W4lyqCVljgDAyyD1_4haoXJIWa_qNUaovm0qwpnh-b6Xn4J9VbkX3doSHabIDqKh3_Ni7srBRq8FccmV58-hVwjfmw5ND8XqaacRcs31py50PBXy34m7wUHrvB0ZGPqsPF8M1KYnYzXVM2hP5dzz6SNz6GYIcmkc1uhOyzQCepW0jKYMgu0d9jDIt6r/s2048/books%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy2W4lyqCVljgDAyyD1_4haoXJIWa_qNUaovm0qwpnh-b6Xn4J9VbkX3doSHabIDqKh3_Ni7srBRq8FccmV58-hVwjfmw5ND8XqaacRcs31py50PBXy34m7wUHrvB0ZGPqsPF8M1KYnYzXVM2hP5dzz6SNz6GYIcmkc1uhOyzQCepW0jKYMgu0d9jDIt6r/s320/books%201.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-gLm2bXvPiKzAlKO6efB82_xQhvCcdIN5PPcmlqwlaIomm5EBaTrtg0_xsD_gIJ9dQwMtOMuzYKdLIYjWpZuk9LPP5Y5TVGDZXJE8wAVs-L6V4sV41-g-gUuovpRyzOIgrQazp7h99X1deyhaz_7MbIewawEXTRS9YWE2A8DD2oo27xIiKfKJbwPMXsje/s4032/books%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-gLm2bXvPiKzAlKO6efB82_xQhvCcdIN5PPcmlqwlaIomm5EBaTrtg0_xsD_gIJ9dQwMtOMuzYKdLIYjWpZuk9LPP5Y5TVGDZXJE8wAVs-L6V4sV41-g-gUuovpRyzOIgrQazp7h99X1deyhaz_7MbIewawEXTRS9YWE2A8DD2oo27xIiKfKJbwPMXsje/s320/books%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></span><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">nature + gardens > watery words + blueness</span></i></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">To be honest</span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">, on the whole</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">, it's some of the books I got out of the library that I've found the least rewarding. I suppose when I'm buying stuff, I'm going for poets I've read before or I've seen perform their work or they're on a publisher I rate or someone I know has recommended them. </span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPo6jLIQJBx0_n3Q8EfCEBmY96dy-OTK1uo_6lp8rYvAqGJSjepLbAwVtNzUM0rVL3If1whq-zpZ-W5XvI3GS89bzc8Q7E-q0Noc4Rzg_fWLdO7CMF5XkSY361vTwlQFkxBTpjr72sfUaF2VaD4L5PlHqBpiJOJq87_OU7JfXYsj9aislHjYWcGdoBWgAj/s4032/books%203.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPo6jLIQJBx0_n3Q8EfCEBmY96dy-OTK1uo_6lp8rYvAqGJSjepLbAwVtNzUM0rVL3If1whq-zpZ-W5XvI3GS89bzc8Q7E-q0Noc4Rzg_fWLdO7CMF5XkSY361vTwlQFkxBTpjr72sfUaF2VaD4L5PlHqBpiJOJq87_OU7JfXYsj9aislHjYWcGdoBWgAj/s320/books%203.jpg" width="240" /></a></div></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCgOOkXtPTQGlfFaF2JF4Xe5KL65PGGoJSneZB6AKppe6GbBII4VFhnoBrZy-4kIcBRmcRbV34FONHhwY3LBk4i6xTNvCF9XvvTS4Ur4lMN-DsJ3wTYsLlybE7yKN7z9ndAcb8l-uPkUkmpbf-RqxnVlLkBei3TlXYMnwPnSTzJofxjI3-A81p7B8xD-bY/s4032/books%204.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCgOOkXtPTQGlfFaF2JF4Xe5KL65PGGoJSneZB6AKppe6GbBII4VFhnoBrZy-4kIcBRmcRbV34FONHhwY3LBk4i6xTNvCF9XvvTS4Ur4lMN-DsJ3wTYsLlybE7yKN7z9ndAcb8l-uPkUkmpbf-RqxnVlLkBei3TlXYMnwPnSTzJofxjI3-A81p7B8xD-bY/s320/books%204.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></span><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">more nature wanderings + seashore ponderings > fab folk wot I know on indie presses doing good things</span></i></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of the books I own, where I've enjoyed them but not managed to get them fully read – sometimes because I want to do the dripfeed thing and not guzzle them all in one sitting – they have been placed in a special pile on my poetry bookcase (see above), from where I can in future just grab one and go when I'm leaving the house and am public transport bound. </span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVCN31amcIOj8tmdr2b2XZKgYBMq4fPZWtFg2nJidBswf08WcBnmnGKFdWnsxiPOC7xZCGAKnh0Nj_51Hoyy_4UqGcNfoxA4Uwlu41BmxzCTK5upZNYBfuoGmsn7EI7DeDbUP6kPUMfh88YlkFjpXC29AJN7DV3UW9xXWTOqcTzjyCnqOyliL5FejAVQwB/s4032/books%205.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVCN31amcIOj8tmdr2b2XZKgYBMq4fPZWtFg2nJidBswf08WcBnmnGKFdWnsxiPOC7xZCGAKnh0Nj_51Hoyy_4UqGcNfoxA4Uwlu41BmxzCTK5upZNYBfuoGmsn7EI7DeDbUP6kPUMfh88YlkFjpXC29AJN7DV3UW9xXWTOqcTzjyCnqOyliL5FejAVQwB/s320/books%205.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx0pzCipdE5xpoj-0aCLhRpGuPD_ucS-EsPpsEhIZcf3CrOzq37tKxZQmbCT__caw5qJ4Dmlld_wY5jKPtQtDwS-0yMElya-zhB340J5jfsyvY1WBWzJSyz8WtwWgjBHa6dRQ9TxdwdK2X0xr_XrXqLfEUfwwFAWE1coQaHV7HgAledEGzpRV54LLbTUzp/s3785/books%206.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3785" data-original-width="3011" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx0pzCipdE5xpoj-0aCLhRpGuPD_ucS-EsPpsEhIZcf3CrOzq37tKxZQmbCT__caw5qJ4Dmlld_wY5jKPtQtDwS-0yMElya-zhB340J5jfsyvY1WBWzJSyz8WtwWgjBHa6dRQ9TxdwdK2X0xr_XrXqLfEUfwwFAWE1coQaHV7HgAledEGzpRV54LLbTUzp/s320/books%206.jpg" width="255" /></a></div></span><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>"collections in sections" > months & years</i></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aside from the books in the various photos here, I've also continued my usual practice of consuming poems shared on Twitter, looking at the Poetry Foundation website when I want to find out more about a particular poet, dipping into anthologies to look at certain people, scrolling poems sent via enewsletters and wotnot, and reading the stuff in <i>The New Yorker</i>, cast-off issues of which are donated to me by David. (That habit started because I originally expressed an interest in doing the crossword, but even the beginner's puzzles are proving to be on the challenging side to anyone not immersed in US culture.) </span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifF7icUmSalR1TC8jtsj8IECYdlXUIAGOXZiBU96zFI3ei4R1JDOfS1vSnV8rxXoKAfPfdW2IvzTl4mciwfuLpS43Ezd0sUV0JMuKl66aYRF-kx24IixyQ5bzHEKI41L2kyok1AuPpQ5AOdhMcQhSjJGssMs_YIrsaDLF4dSiN7vX07aEeF7-MwALoWfor/s3739/books%207.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3008" data-original-width="3739" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifF7icUmSalR1TC8jtsj8IECYdlXUIAGOXZiBU96zFI3ei4R1JDOfS1vSnV8rxXoKAfPfdW2IvzTl4mciwfuLpS43Ezd0sUV0JMuKl66aYRF-kx24IixyQ5bzHEKI41L2kyok1AuPpQ5AOdhMcQhSjJGssMs_YIrsaDLF4dSiN7vX07aEeF7-MwALoWfor/s320/books%207.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtyDoLIEhACyXnrsddz9j8pjIsNWxtlKxSG-47kSclUMY96O4pVO1K1fL7TYX8KaPUdLlqMZ3NjEoIIHPP9SdzsD038-3z7k7i_PGQuTHDuy345BYrdf4FvfuKsdfIxBBUnPgDVgLkogu1_X5qOYLr50UlDjwgmvhLF9rNfOweIwWEELoH7bo5jhhn_sKm/s4032/books%208.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtyDoLIEhACyXnrsddz9j8pjIsNWxtlKxSG-47kSclUMY96O4pVO1K1fL7TYX8KaPUdLlqMZ3NjEoIIHPP9SdzsD038-3z7k7i_PGQuTHDuy345BYrdf4FvfuKsdfIxBBUnPgDVgLkogu1_X5qOYLr50UlDjwgmvhLF9rNfOweIwWEELoH7bo5jhhn_sKm/s320/books%208.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales > me me me</span></i></div></span><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyway, I've been reading in groups of four loosely linked tomes, to give the project some structure, and posting the photographic evidence to X. The final group is just three because that's how the maths of dates works, so to save myself too much homework on this bank holiday-abridged week, I'm posting a picture of my own three books to date, while we wait for the fourth to drop (imminently!). </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of my poet pals actually picked <i>Using Language</i> as one of her Sealey Challenge selections, and called it </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">a brilliant collection that made me feel excited about visual presentation and sounds", which is rather nice.</span></div>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-76608632330387604132023-07-30T14:34:00.003+01:002023-07-30T14:37:39.522+01:00July ramblings<p>July's been a busy old month. First, there was the premiere of my brand-new "Flight Patterns" commission at Didsbury Arts Festival, as mentioned previously. Completely sold out, we couldn't have fitted anyone else in the room – and there were even pictures of some feathered friends on the wall. Plus, the performance, complete with birdsong and church bells and Ladybird books and poetry map, and the new sequence of 12 poems seemed to go down well, with lots of lovely comments.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2IC_DbvNw6OkwRRUfsA4ZxO23Za_g1jagzG91jJNwqS0dKUa3i2fIAA2stafOWOefAfFwd-jc0RoNrCv_787NpmFZwmoEw72vYN8AE1fOcMLq0aN7pZcpQl60zt3m_mc0zkSpHmR_1ICpxhFNWNphelhxxpPyXyOh26cay8KcUoRJ_fP9rHM_0xkRFUjJ/s640/IMG_2097.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2IC_DbvNw6OkwRRUfsA4ZxO23Za_g1jagzG91jJNwqS0dKUa3i2fIAA2stafOWOefAfFwd-jc0RoNrCv_787NpmFZwmoEw72vYN8AE1fOcMLq0aN7pZcpQl60zt3m_mc0zkSpHmR_1ICpxhFNWNphelhxxpPyXyOh26cay8KcUoRJ_fP9rHM_0xkRFUjJ/s320/IMG_2097.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p>Partway through the month, I was to be found at Saul Hay Gallery interviewing Dave Haslam at his sold-out event promoting his new Confingo book, <i>Adventure Everywhere: Pablo Picasso's Paris Nightlife</i>. We chatted art, poetry, records, cancel culture, Montmartre versus Montparnasse, hidden histories, place as character and much more besides. Again, lots of lovely comments. And I remembered to wear my cool heels and Barbara Hepworth earrings (we were in an art gallery, after all).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPIvTB2IYWKSlSgEWChfiHfMeXJzv2ew7F59r-If4cfBwOyTFFJuIWVOglefdiLGk7PkVVyS_GmlfzjS-s2U1wKEBPCouFtOcaMV87DOLQjjaUHa5ky9BtimBOC9ulOD49uwDPHaLqRM12sT7plxQ94-zFF0YhACHkQMOD_6gYVfdcCkozFoCzPzt3gToU/s2048/Dave%20Haslam%20interview%20Sarah-Clare%20Conlon.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPIvTB2IYWKSlSgEWChfiHfMeXJzv2ew7F59r-If4cfBwOyTFFJuIWVOglefdiLGk7PkVVyS_GmlfzjS-s2U1wKEBPCouFtOcaMV87DOLQjjaUHa5ky9BtimBOC9ulOD49uwDPHaLqRM12sT7plxQ94-zFF0YhACHkQMOD_6gYVfdcCkozFoCzPzt3gToU/s320/Dave%20Haslam%20interview%20Sarah-Clare%20Conlon.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then, a hop, skip and a jump up to Edinburgh, and straight out of the car and into Portobello Books to hear from Kirsty Logan, then on Monday ourselves (me and </span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">David Gaffney)</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> reading in the lovely </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Typewronger Books (also well worth seeking out, this gem at the top end of Leith Walk), alongside Edinburgh-based poets Vik Shirley and Nicky Melville. Here's the blurb: "</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">In a journey through both poetry and prose, from the joyful Oulipian and conceptual, through to film noir and moribund miniatures, whether surreal-absurd, dark, uplifting or comic, play is at the core of all of this writing."</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"> L</span>ots of lovely comments once more! <span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">David and I shall be hosting Vik and Nicky in Manchester in the near future – watch this space. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguApjiMT5W0dqFJ9uQPf_-3QYOJWTPEsx-6QwZsbnZF-wn7ww5MWAVyEOUd8wxfmWAk95sdVy65I2nITbg6o7uixv7mwFBEobmHkvS8pPz8WTDipuKA8IMASLO_Q4hVo3HlQIYLvKk5l0Dht52dCc7lTAkFFg0hEaXgSDJ2UudvdQITez35rR7hiXAEa8u/s1079/1%20Sarah-Clare%20Conlon%201.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1079" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguApjiMT5W0dqFJ9uQPf_-3QYOJWTPEsx-6QwZsbnZF-wn7ww5MWAVyEOUd8wxfmWAk95sdVy65I2nITbg6o7uixv7mwFBEobmHkvS8pPz8WTDipuKA8IMASLO_Q4hVo3HlQIYLvKk5l0Dht52dCc7lTAkFFg0hEaXgSDJ2UudvdQITez35rR7hiXAEa8u/s320/1%20Sarah-Clare%20Conlon%201.JPG" width="222" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-92181494439634740252023-06-06T17:07:00.003+01:002023-06-06T17:07:21.283+01:00Flight Patterns<p>I'm busy working on a brand-new sequence of poems – "Flight Patterns" – that is a special commission for this year's Didsbury Arts Festival. Last week, I met up with Linda from the Friends of Fletcher Moss Park & Parsonage Gardens, and spent a very pleasant hour or so sitting on a bench in the new "spiritual space" (I'm not sure what it's officially called, but that seems apt) near The Croft, watching the birds (a jay, a magpie, a parakeet, a heron, and more, since you're asking) and chatting about all things nature – our feathered friends, seasonal plants, unusual trees, butterflies, all sorts.</p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">I also popped to Didsbury Parsonage, having decided to focus one of the poems on stained glass, prompted by my online poetry group's latest writing exercise, which was to write about someone else's job, inspired by Paula Bohince's "Among Barmaids". </span><span style="background-color: white;">My fascination with stained glass was piqued when I was writer-in-residence at Victoria Baths, and I had the opportunity to visit the studio in Lancashire where they revamp the "amazing glazing" – i</span><span style="background-color: white;">t was such a privilege to be able to see the craftsmen at work and witness the sounds and sights and smells. Anyway, </span><span style="background-color: white;">I spent some time at the Old Parsonage (where I'll be performing the poems) admiring the acorns and brambles and other flora and fauna and also the Luna and Sun depicted in the windows. </span><span style="background-color: white;">I was also at Manchester Cathedral for a creative writing workshop, when we were invited to study the architecture in relation to metaphysics and I got drawn into the misericords and, of course, the colourful glass, dappling the paved floor. This follows a detour on the way home from our Frodsham trip, nipping to </span><span style="background-color: white;">Daresbury, where Lewis Carroll grew up, to see </span><span style="background-color: white;">the <i>Alice in Wonderland</i> panes at the church</span><span style="background-color: white;"> there.</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi855mQXvSaKmnDiU6iRNP_DnRCF-7fr0QXp-Crfvu3DeibjvC2ehMtVyaCw5TF5mSf1l8TsCYLqQhX9IcfMYKW6qZRYf_4uwH1HqEDw4M_Gj1Gos0ThR3wyv-x0otWfAfgaaQs4E0FLQ-CTGgtO1oyqnJl7kNy5-1ImwZZUF84JhZ1dsqCGCHtsOi7PA/s420/Emily%20Williamson%20and%20birds.%20Pic%20Claire%20Huntley.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="420" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi855mQXvSaKmnDiU6iRNP_DnRCF-7fr0QXp-Crfvu3DeibjvC2ehMtVyaCw5TF5mSf1l8TsCYLqQhX9IcfMYKW6qZRYf_4uwH1HqEDw4M_Gj1Gos0ThR3wyv-x0otWfAfgaaQs4E0FLQ-CTGgtO1oyqnJl7kNy5-1ImwZZUF84JhZ1dsqCGCHtsOi7PA/s320/Emily%20Williamson%20and%20birds.%20Pic%20Claire%20Huntley.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emily Williamson and birds. Pic: Claire Huntley</td></tr></tbody></table></span><br /></p><p>Here's the brochure blurb for my Didsbury Arts Festival project: "Flight Patterns is a unique performance, premiering poems inspired by legendary local resident Emily Williamson and her Wear No Feathers campaign, created especially for the Festival by Didsbury-based writer Sarah-Clare Conlon. Join the poet in the atmospheric Old Parsonage as she reads the new work and shares the process of making it, exploring the life and legacy of Emily who co-founded the Society for the Protection of Birds (now the RSPB) at The Croft in neighbouring Fletcher Moss Park, where a statue is set to be unveiled in her honour."</p><p>I have half a mind to turn the pieces into a poetry map, not dissimilar to the sequence I wrote last year for my Ilkley Literature Festival residency (and which you can read <a href="https://www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk/new-writing/poetry-residences/2022-poets-in-residence/introducing-our-2022-apprentice-poets-in-residence/ilkley-moor-poetry-map-by-sarah-clare-conlon" target="_blank">here</a>), inviting the audience to join me on a journey, this time around Fletcher Moss Park. Whatever happens, I'll be reading the new work on Saturday 1 July, 2-3pm, at the Old Parsonage, and you can now get your hands on tickets <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/flight-patterns-by-sarah-clare-conlon-tickets-645418934407" target="_blank">here</a>. I'm really excited to share it, so do join me!</p><p></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-63534664896347252652023-05-12T20:21:00.007+01:002023-05-16T12:36:22.785+01:00Words colliding<p>It's all go here, as April flashed by in a deluge of wet weather and culminated in a rather splendid book launch at Peste bookshop-cum-bar or, more accurately, bar-cum-bookshop. Plenty came and listened so intently some of the photos look like they're taken during a church service (there are embroidered kneelers and lots of incense on the go, so it's not too inappropriate an observation), and tomes and money swapped hands – thanks to David for manning the bookstall and introducing the acts. I was ably supported by wonderful words from Jazmine Linklater – with whom I revived our European Poetry Festival collaboration that ended up in <i>PN Review</i> for extra amuse-bouchement – and Philip Terry, so it was a right proper Oulipian knees-up. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtd8UUbD2WgCD2hacFaJV7x6-g5-iRjmxOXH2Ep8HmB58ellRU-y4nu_cqWtE-Tl1JEIsT1jby4ov58TXRU3yIRTaQPo2WjDMQJ_ytn75h0XZyaJElYDNNQDyTEJPJ1A_3d9qzvLrhsRmjT6QTZx7b9EKz44FITGD3hr17ONK_Mw0wVfxl2dU_5D2FOA/s1541/Clare%20and%20David%20book%20launch%2019%20April%202023.%20Photo%20Helen%20Darby.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1541" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtd8UUbD2WgCD2hacFaJV7x6-g5-iRjmxOXH2Ep8HmB58ellRU-y4nu_cqWtE-Tl1JEIsT1jby4ov58TXRU3yIRTaQPo2WjDMQJ_ytn75h0XZyaJElYDNNQDyTEJPJ1A_3d9qzvLrhsRmjT6QTZx7b9EKz44FITGD3hr17ONK_Mw0wVfxl2dU_5D2FOA/s320/Clare%20and%20David%20book%20launch%2019%20April%202023.%20Photo%20Helen%20Darby.jpeg" width="299" /></a></div><p>So yes, my third book, <i>Using Language</i>, is out in the world, and currently being perused by reviewers, so I hope they like it as much as I do! As well as agreeing to hotfoot it up to Manchester from Essex, Philip provided a cover quote for the book (which you can order from Invisible Hand Press <a href="https://invisiblehandpress.com/2023/04/01/using-language-by-sarah-clare-conlon/" target="_blank">here</a>), as did the rather marvellous Helen Mort and Joe Carrick-Varty. Here you go (below)...</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSw4sqZGumUXd4qnPwcpiJJlLXdASo8l30Q2OHGqgZFUzCDghOnKx-gcNo3OeVh6-yZsgGWFIkGLcgclQlwm4KhZaKuqH_gVdxezEZHdS1olL-_aTcSfNk8BetWKxWwZTWL2T5ngOO5z3dLLi9g2w4S3R-Z0L3vsLs_Wk40WqQQYQdfdXa84DCxJzGnA/s1033/Clare%20&%20Jazz%2029%20April%202023.%20Photo%20Adrian%20Slatcher.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1032" data-original-width="1033" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSw4sqZGumUXd4qnPwcpiJJlLXdASo8l30Q2OHGqgZFUzCDghOnKx-gcNo3OeVh6-yZsgGWFIkGLcgclQlwm4KhZaKuqH_gVdxezEZHdS1olL-_aTcSfNk8BetWKxWwZTWL2T5ngOO5z3dLLi9g2w4S3R-Z0L3vsLs_Wk40WqQQYQdfdXa84DCxJzGnA/s320/Clare%20&%20Jazz%2029%20April%202023.%20Photo%20Adrian%20Slatcher.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p><i>"Using Language is an exploration of sound and speech. At one moment chatty and colloquial, the next deeply insightful and telling, the work here interrogates our ability to know ourselves through the noises we make. These poems stayed with me long after reading." Joe Carrick-Varty, More Sky (Carcanet Press)</i></p><p><i>"Sonic joy. Images that give you goosebumps. Infectious energy. Expect the unexpected: these poems will take you on a wild journey." Helen Mort, The Illustrated Woman (Chatto & Windus)</i></p><p><i>"Moorland fog as a wipe-clean canvas to conjure with, shape-shifting concrete poems where word becomes sculpture, poems that function like echo chambers where words collide and rebound metamorphosing as they do so, creels and crabs, Oulipian hi-jinks – whatever you’re into there’s something here for you. Using Language is a scintillating collection that reminds us what is possible in poetry today." Philip Terry, ed. The Penguin Book Of Oulipo & Extinctions (The Red Ceilings Press)</i></p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjABfb85YTujYTIDnSJUpl476PSPJX1iHVQ23ulK0hURMx8oZVzMZHt-Dx2bDl80QQK6TY1969CsMdKgVBcpZD23RlYZv2qnWt2F88nKOQEVnMCIcw2QOoSCzTLeqLqm_osZ3JS-GrZGV4THF-jEmo956anr200fUjVAeaMAEVnSaC-WVrdEN-_2P8xzw/s640/Clare%20reading%20Weaver%20Words%205%20May%202023.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjABfb85YTujYTIDnSJUpl476PSPJX1iHVQ23ulK0hURMx8oZVzMZHt-Dx2bDl80QQK6TY1969CsMdKgVBcpZD23RlYZv2qnWt2F88nKOQEVnMCIcw2QOoSCzTLeqLqm_osZ3JS-GrZGV4THF-jEmo956anr200fUjVAeaMAEVnSaC-WVrdEN-_2P8xzw/s320/Clare%20reading%20Weaver%20Words%205%20May%202023.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><p>Just before <i>UL</i> came out, I also got word that my fourth pamphlet, <i>Lune</i>, has been accepted for publication by The Red Ceilings Press, so Philip and are publisher stablemates for a second time (we both have books with Contraband). That'll be out some time later this year, and one of my jobs for next week is to draw some illustrations for it, so I'd better get on and do the online art course David bought me for Christmas... I also need to cobble together a set list for next Saturday, as I'm reading as part of a Confingo showcase at Chorlton Arts Festival (you can read all about it in my CAF round-up on Creative Tourist <a href="https://www.creativetourist.com/event/chorlton-arts-festival/" target="_blank">here</a>). That will be followed by a couple of performances on home turf at Didsbury Arts Festival, including a special commission, currently in progress (I scrawled the bare bones of a piece for it the other day at a creative writing workshop run by the writer-in-residence at Manchester Cathedral, Tom Branfoot; sat beside me, by chance, was another former European Poetry Festival collaborator, Lydia Unsworth, also published by Red Ceilings, as it happens, with a <a href="https://www.theredceilingspress.co.uk/product-page/cement-terraces-lydia-unsworth" target="_blank">cover quote</a> from yours truly, no less). A week ago, I was on old home turf, filling the role of guest poet for the Word Weavers event, alongside my old primary school teacher Andrew Rudd, at Weaver Words Literature Festival in Frodsham, which is where I moved aged 10 from the Wirral in order to have the Scouse accent grappled off me. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI69EDnQFQPqoZ9aq14dyxnWkGcxJ4upRfihSmFKhwn2wkwn1XziaSm7wU0vIjuuIpS89UJ3wGjAR-9Z83WW8ekt5d9dzeWTe4ZN86D7gP6J1itSRyA98AFuPf39At_dXjlAxaGoulaFFbKG0TP7-tLTYXybjeMlydz4vIz10l8qS0hja6XrKc0ydkYw/s640/Clare%20and%20Robert%20European%20Poetry%20Festival%2011%20May%202023.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI69EDnQFQPqoZ9aq14dyxnWkGcxJ4upRfihSmFKhwn2wkwn1XziaSm7wU0vIjuuIpS89UJ3wGjAR-9Z83WW8ekt5d9dzeWTe4ZN86D7gP6J1itSRyA98AFuPf39At_dXjlAxaGoulaFFbKG0TP7-tLTYXybjeMlydz4vIz10l8qS0hja6XrKc0ydkYw/s320/Clare%20and%20Robert%20European%20Poetry%20Festival%2011%20May%202023.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><p>Talking of which, last night saw a flying visit to Liverpool, amid more downpours and much Eurovision audience-member activity. Twas the European Camarade, when duos of poets are thrown together as if in a writing version of the large hadron collider (as with Jazz, and Lydia, aforementioned) – and for the final night of this year's European Poetry Festival, I was teamed up with Robert Sheppard, Emeritus Professor of Poetry and Poetics at Edge Hill University... so obviously we made a brand-new back-and-forth influenced, at least at the outset, by our rather hallucinogenic dreamworlds. It's about rivers and seas, and is, as yet, untitled. There's a video of us performing "Untitled" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8smowx2SvBc" target="_blank">here</a>. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIH-7nAtksUh8Ur4iwmFAbOlzDtx_ukR6HROaVgo3e_Ds8SY3RGCSBWeB431gUJSwISY7bhWEWJ9iVZZghWIG4XI8FjjwbmNILBWH8fptkzhaRVXeJ1w2ZoU54eun1dSUPOt0DD-6EN1bZ_Jg5R834eZA2vjO4JHEdUljXo4LBxKKSo0o9elgYq9-Ebg/s2048/European%20Camarade%20Open%20Eye%20Gallery%20110523.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1521" data-original-width="2048" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIH-7nAtksUh8Ur4iwmFAbOlzDtx_ukR6HROaVgo3e_Ds8SY3RGCSBWeB431gUJSwISY7bhWEWJ9iVZZghWIG4XI8FjjwbmNILBWH8fptkzhaRVXeJ1w2ZoU54eun1dSUPOt0DD-6EN1bZ_Jg5R834eZA2vjO4JHEdUljXo4LBxKKSo0o9elgYq9-Ebg/s320/European%20Camarade%20Open%20Eye%20Gallery%20110523.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-53298606948106096032023-04-20T19:03:00.005+01:002023-04-21T17:11:57.638+01:00The Journey Continues...<p>Well, March whooshed by, in part because of my mini residency at Saul Hay Gallery, popping in every Sunday afternoon to join painter Jen Orpin in situ at her easel. I chatted to visitors – a number of whom I knew and who had swung by because they'd seen my socials – and discussed different pieces in the show. I met some of the acquirers of the artworks and heard the whys and the hows and even the wheres. I sat quietly on a sofa in the corner near the bay window, taking down snippets of conversation and observations in my notebook. I quizzed Jen and Saul Hay's Ian about everything from paints and particular brushstrokes to signing front, back or side and when it's appropriate to frame. I found out lots of new things, unearthed various coincidences, disappeared down plenty of rabbitholes when reading around some of the subjects, and generally had a very jolly time. I hung out at a very busy PV (private view, natch), and I partook in my very first hang (the bit at the start) and my very first finissage (the bit at the end, complete with a flute of fizz). This had me in tears when Jen announced that she'd decided to name the piece she'd been working on throughout the show after the closing line in the first poem in my debut pamphlet. And here is "Distance Means Nothing And Everything"...</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaFkqG8gfn4XOhEDD0ytEYAeenDBpZQhj3uVFerFaBezcAxg_n2_OhvX6eKrjrgsV6rAhuEMMU3eEUchj1CzMcxxXNjqJF3AT9fqQtjLz6SMm6xmKLzy8r5B0bMXLG07gv-o4YoYxTiVzXCrCi6vL-uJP4_di6EylOQLGSmDrisPCJATb8F8aE6dJSeg/s3264/IMG_3612.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaFkqG8gfn4XOhEDD0ytEYAeenDBpZQhj3uVFerFaBezcAxg_n2_OhvX6eKrjrgsV6rAhuEMMU3eEUchj1CzMcxxXNjqJF3AT9fqQtjLz6SMm6xmKLzy8r5B0bMXLG07gv-o4YoYxTiVzXCrCi6vL-uJP4_di6EylOQLGSmDrisPCJATb8F8aE6dJSeg/s320/IMG_3612.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">"Distance Means Nothing And Everything"</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>I'm afraid I've still only managed to write one poem in response – which Jen and Ian kindly decided to put up on the wall next to its inspiration for the duration of the exhibition (see below); how amazing! – but I have a ton of notes and a lot of ideas, and once various things with deadlines are completed, I can't wait to get back to thinking about motorways and bridges and shadows and skies. This week, I went up the M6 to northernmost Lancashire, with a wee step into Cumbria. I was guest star on the ML2 Route A mobile library – or travelling library, as Alan Bennett calls it in "A Common Reader", or bookmobile, to quote someone else – and we toured lots of villages I've never set foot in prior, including Carnforth (where <i>Brief Encounter</i> was filmed), Warton, Yealands of different colours and the hinterland of Burton-in-Kendal. We brushed the lower reaches of the Leighton Moss RSPB reserve, and I spotted my first swallow of the year. It also meant I got to glimpse two Jen Orpin icons (and email them to her as a birthday present): the Snowhill Bridge, which I've already written about, and Forton Services, which I intend to write about, Jen's two takes of the space-age tower in <i>The Journey Continues</i> featuring birds (my next project).</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMzPhB4dNr6zyTSJPy_e9bEpVrXXm5A7IQcmmN-9qaABDkfLvoZG83yDjandPljnA86Vfx-tcPW_rF3LKtVQXZIVP-Lvbb1WFtQa2VJJRlu0jlFZyZ7QotvtOhwADPbtQIEzfD-ujyFyh809YmRQUGAZAuMxJa8lbjEbWLJsLauZx7GT1J7Ell8N2PmA/s3264/IMG_3632.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMzPhB4dNr6zyTSJPy_e9bEpVrXXm5A7IQcmmN-9qaABDkfLvoZG83yDjandPljnA86Vfx-tcPW_rF3LKtVQXZIVP-Lvbb1WFtQa2VJJRlu0jlFZyZ7QotvtOhwADPbtQIEzfD-ujyFyh809YmRQUGAZAuMxJa8lbjEbWLJsLauZx7GT1J7Ell8N2PmA/s320/IMG_3632.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jen and me at the finissage</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-58245672626317035272023-03-02T18:55:00.008+00:002023-03-02T19:02:25.457+00:00March + Art = Martch<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Martch is here, or March + Art. With it comes the very first issue of <i><a href="https://www.outcroppoetry.com/" target="_blank">Outcrop Poetry</a></i>, a new literary quarterly that is both printed and perfect bound, which is rather nice. It also has a lovely marbled cover (see below). Issue 1 launches on Monday 6 March – and if you're in Edinburgh, you're in luck as the event with readings and wine and all manner of lovely things is taking place at Typewronger Books from 7pm. The blurb tells me that <span style="font-variant-ligatures: none;">Typewronger Books is Edinburgh's smallest bookshop and Scotland's only typewriter repair shop, so, really, what's not to like? </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: none;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfAeG3FhuOQygvDucA3a8QXAVogbJKsOsWevXbEoG45ku4Zn1f_KF3mqZzXoqTmnBFyliDda6x8HhYaJpCoD2KOnlk0tmIWXaeHzXYhMTlHCxxZKXRnCFRuzP87x1S7E9dmqkjy6QDk3ZE5YGMU8MlbO1zDUKRTzrtlOF51j5IAbdyPjhkpy-faNbWgA/s582/Outcrop%20Poetry%20Issue%201.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="582" data-original-width="575" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfAeG3FhuOQygvDucA3a8QXAVogbJKsOsWevXbEoG45ku4Zn1f_KF3mqZzXoqTmnBFyliDda6x8HhYaJpCoD2KOnlk0tmIWXaeHzXYhMTlHCxxZKXRnCFRuzP87x1S7E9dmqkjy6QDk3ZE5YGMU8MlbO1zDUKRTzrtlOF51j5IAbdyPjhkpy-faNbWgA/s320/Outcrop%20Poetry%20Issue%201.png" width="316" /></a></div></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: none;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: none;"><br /></span></div>So the reason I'm telling you all this is that I have a poem in issue 1 and also a picture. Yes siree. The submission guidelines encouraged including "images relating to your work", so I thought huh... My poem, </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: none;">about Barbara Hepworth and the Yorkshire landscape and other stuff,</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: none;"> is one from my poetry map of Ilkley Moor, part of my commission written for and read at <a href="https://www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk/new-writing/poetry-residences/2022-poets-in-residence/introducing-our-2022-apprentice-poets-in-residence/ilkley-moor-poetry-map-by-sarah-clare-conlon" target="_blank">Ilkley Literature Festival 2022</a>.</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: none;"> My picture is a charcoal sketch what I did when I was researching my poetry map and wandering amidst heathers and bilberries and wotnot (actually, at that point, I was sat at a picnic table with a tipple, trying not to let my papers and pressed leaves blow away in a stripping wind). The sketch is of the formidable Cow and Calf Rocks, and the poem's shape mirrors the craggy outcrop – and that's how I thought <i>Outcrop Poetry</i> would be the perfect home. Best of luck to editor Haig and the other contributors for the launch!</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: none;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqdxea76ubPeUBDSs1JIk__osTk9KzAUv4wPtNd4BziiHE0AM1plqh54HJct9NGEnEnToNKGDaBz2JIjDQ5zG9o3XOXQXsjuMfNPcFDoQahX36rE2FikOw8elxKpIUqCgmH0FHo8p05DrBG5mjb9iv9kRBtC247-2aN4sc1eDnXap-rTqdN8BlA7YRGg/s4000/1%20Clare%20reading%20Saul%20Hay%2026%20Oct%202022.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqdxea76ubPeUBDSs1JIk__osTk9KzAUv4wPtNd4BziiHE0AM1plqh54HJct9NGEnEnToNKGDaBz2JIjDQ5zG9o3XOXQXsjuMfNPcFDoQahX36rE2FikOw8elxKpIUqCgmH0FHo8p05DrBG5mjb9iv9kRBtC247-2aN4sc1eDnXap-rTqdN8BlA7YRGg/s320/1%20Clare%20reading%20Saul%20Hay%2026%20Oct%202022.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: none;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-variant-ligatures: none;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Next up in Martch news, and poems meet paintings at <a href="https://www.saulhayfineart.co.uk/" target="_blank">Saul Hay Gallery</a>, where I've landed myself a month-long residency, responding to "</span></span><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px;">The Journey Continues, New Paintings by Jen Orpin".</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: none;"> Ian Hay generously hosted my book launch in October (above), so knowing that this spring the gallery was to welcome </span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jen's magnificent motorway work, with baited breath and fingers crossed, I dropped him a line... and the upshot is that Jen has very kindly agreed to let me go wild with my pen, grill her about process and paintbrushes and wotnot, and generally get in her way, which I began with aplomb yesterday as she and Ian cracked on hanging the 31 pieces (below). </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFWJxzfBkGAiiY8MC7kjSQSUQeAcasLN8tcbd5T8nrpneYk6OZ4MuyrCi0GfQZ1DHFcahsegBx8--SqNO_PA_3LD3l3U8FvuK9nwTGZWmlHXCOPV4R81B5Q7CRHRJNLrX0EppqE1zNn4oalRvXPokcGGw5TB13WDVWeRcSyI2XuV5hbC59GZavvw_OQQ/s3264/Jen%20Orpin%20hang%20Saul%20Hay%20Gallery%201%20March%202023%2012%20ACTION%20PHOTO.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFWJxzfBkGAiiY8MC7kjSQSUQeAcasLN8tcbd5T8nrpneYk6OZ4MuyrCi0GfQZ1DHFcahsegBx8--SqNO_PA_3LD3l3U8FvuK9nwTGZWmlHXCOPV4R81B5Q7CRHRJNLrX0EppqE1zNn4oalRvXPokcGGw5TB13WDVWeRcSyI2XuV5hbC59GZavvw_OQQ/w200-h267/Jen%20Orpin%20hang%20Saul%20Hay%20Gallery%201%20March%202023%2012%20ACTION%20PHOTO.JPG" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdIb9WL-LvUqsx66TnCi5StIsOq9Ljmesojmn9oR7NWcYKSsK0Nr5tGyz4NYd7IArWGsq0nmTilAAUdfDw295tdGE6uFdG-74RWKSH0lgu3EZNXldAPC1Kpg0lt8frx7dxoY1NIEQ7zKhwNYElJIZ_bstKEvBg8oMhPLliuTGYkLVLoPPS-j2GcQTyrw/s3264/Jen%20Orpin%20hang%20Saul%20Hay%20Gallery%201%20March%202023%202%20BLURRED.JPG" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdIb9WL-LvUqsx66TnCi5StIsOq9Ljmesojmn9oR7NWcYKSsK0Nr5tGyz4NYd7IArWGsq0nmTilAAUdfDw295tdGE6uFdG-74RWKSH0lgu3EZNXldAPC1Kpg0lt8frx7dxoY1NIEQ7zKhwNYElJIZ_bstKEvBg8oMhPLliuTGYkLVLoPPS-j2GcQTyrw/w205-h273/Jen%20Orpin%20hang%20Saul%20Hay%20Gallery%201%20March%202023%202%20BLURRED.JPG" width="205" /></a></div></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>Here's a bit of blurb: "exploring the importance of the journey – how it connects us to those we love and the emotions it provokes" [...] "</span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">the exhibition celebrates the journey by car – looking at its motorways and landmarks and how it forces us as individuals to confront memories and let our minds travel beyond concrete confinements." </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is Jen's first major solo exhibition </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">and the private view is tomorrow (Friday 3 March 2023), 5-9pm. The show of her fantastic road paintings runs until Sunday 26 March and she'll be</span><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px;"> in the gallery painting on all four weekends of its duration. I will be popping in on Sundays to take notes and photos (some might not be blurred, who knows), and ask questions and maybe do some actual writing. Why don't you pop in and bother us both? Find out more about Jen Orpin Paintings <a href="https://www.jenorpinpaintings.co.uk/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-82341568561732720202023-02-10T15:34:00.000+00:002023-02-10T15:34:44.033+00:00Book news<p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Two bits of book news as February unfurls. First off, my third pamphlet is out soon (yes, really! Like buses!). <i>Using Language</i> is a collection of some of my recent poetry and consists of three short sequences dériving through the days in ’grams, looking up at the sky from the deep end of a swimming pool, and wandering the streets of Paris under the influence of art, interspersed with musings on place and colour. There's a bit of concreteness, a touch of vispo, and this rather wonderful cover design, courtesy editor James Appleyard. <i>Using Language</i> will be published by East London-based Invisible Hand Press some time probably March, maybe April. I'm gathering cover quotes as we speak and I'll be thinking about organising a launch party at some point, so watch this space...</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQK9XbvkhHUvXv-pAL8wqP_LqG0ln2Dl_YfPi2sSreXmgsMzX4jwEqziEA0F-LEW1Q9Rj9X3AmQchVNLXZXrRBx_3qhTg8WeaB_29yptenRZ-jGTFnEQa3oD-p4MrIerLe2EMHisNPuM-_lujs5tVpFrmZwIe7IsT03-OY3fPduor2MspS2uZZGd79mw/s3515/Sarah-Clare%20Conlon%20-%20Using%20Language%20front%20cover%20Jpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3515" data-original-width="2203" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQK9XbvkhHUvXv-pAL8wqP_LqG0ln2Dl_YfPi2sSreXmgsMzX4jwEqziEA0F-LEW1Q9Rj9X3AmQchVNLXZXrRBx_3qhTg8WeaB_29yptenRZ-jGTFnEQa3oD-p4MrIerLe2EMHisNPuM-_lujs5tVpFrmZwIe7IsT03-OY3fPduor2MspS2uZZGd79mw/s320/Sarah-Clare%20Conlon%20-%20Using%20Language%20front%20cover%20Jpeg.jpg" width="201" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p>The second bit of book news is that I just tried and failed to renew a library loan (Thea Lenarduzzi's long-form essay <i>Dandelions</i>, out with Fitzcarraldo Editions, since you're asking; it's very good, but I'm nowhere near ready to return) via the online portal (so modern; I even bought some books via a website this week – <i>Flora Poetica: An Anthology of Poems About Flowers, Trees and Plants</i>, edited by Sarah Maguire, and Sylvia Legris' <i>Garden Physic</i>). I was refused, not because another library user had requested the title, which is the usual problem when computer says no, but because it turns out that my library card expires tomorrow. Expires! Who knew such a thing was even a possibility?</p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-50787024335264352132023-01-01T19:53:00.001+00:002023-01-01T19:53:36.292+00:00Happy New Year<p><span style="font-family: inherit;">A new year, and a happy one to all. I'm a Christmas-born person, so I have a birthday year as well as a calendar year to reflect back upon at this time, along with a whole twelve months stretching out ahead before I add a new digit to my age. Apologies for Insta followers, as some of the following might seem a tad repetitive; some, maybe, but not all – and the point is, as a natural sceptic and cynic (who wouldn't be, joining the world as all around focused on scrambling to bagsy last-minute stocking fillers), I nonetheless try and dig out a bit of treasure, shine some light in the dark, as it were. Think positive thoughts, I suppose. and hopefully spread some inspiration along the way. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4Mf8B-Nz7hcJQ4kkktyrbnE2NXXBWLHYV67okI5c2K4KHkEcUFdO3YLoL_yIoYUEBYf-_TycTDFXqgSwMtkBAUc-X4pvHhCx_ZzjFED5q8JAc5YoSDlIdr7cFFd3J0QyNITsExNh4__gsClBTm7R_ve6cZB4qGd7-eTEN60S0WG2H9j-3vcw-q3tsKA/s2443/cache-cache%20&%20Marine%20Drive%20yellow%20background%20crop%20horizontal.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2078" data-original-width="2443" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4Mf8B-Nz7hcJQ4kkktyrbnE2NXXBWLHYV67okI5c2K4KHkEcUFdO3YLoL_yIoYUEBYf-_TycTDFXqgSwMtkBAUc-X4pvHhCx_ZzjFED5q8JAc5YoSDlIdr7cFFd3J0QyNITsExNh4__gsClBTm7R_ve6cZB4qGd7-eTEN60S0WG2H9j-3vcw-q3tsKA/s320/cache-cache%20&%20Marine%20Drive%20yellow%20background%20crop%20horizontal.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626;">I've spent the last year quietly (mostly) getting on with being 50 and I think it's worth mentioning all the things I've managed to get done at such a ripe old age. I've published not just one debut book, but two, one poetry (<i>cache-cache</i>, out with Contraband) and the other prose (<i>Marine Drive</i>, Broken Sleep Books), with a third (<i>Using Language</i>, Invisible Hand Press) pushed into the spring because, y'know, buses, and the significant makings of a full poetry collection as well as a new short story, and various other bits and bobs writing-wise, to take me across the threshold into 2023. I've also published poems and prose pieces in journals and anthologies, and I've written features for some cool magazines, out soon. I've written a lot of copy, a lot of which I don't shout about because it's kind of my day job, so huh. I've also edited a lot of copy, which offers me a sneaky peek into other topics and thoughts and even worlds besides my own. I've shown work in two exhibitions, in the form of concrete poems. I've started sketching and painting and not being scared to muck about creatively. I intend to do more: David has signed me up for a watercolours course and I'm hoping to sign us both up for a bit of collaging. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgevH2Zh9QMMBUOIkDjKl7wsGq060Xdq-O54zTa9HVhbcQ1CSeQOSgL2WVFlSFd5V8L6Tbsr-lOpBheEbsCjR7T_t2yFGwmGHvU2hvYL66pAf2sYlEbkZtPhU8pjQ3qjDFlCgEU3KbNnqdA18PHRTtta5uhnzJFXeLJ2lBRrOiObHlSlMzb95u5DAlq0Q/s8382/12_StudioMorison_TheRVFurorScribendi_SBR_2020%C2%A9CharlesEmerson_LowRes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5504" data-original-width="8382" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgevH2Zh9QMMBUOIkDjKl7wsGq060Xdq-O54zTa9HVhbcQ1CSeQOSgL2WVFlSFd5V8L6Tbsr-lOpBheEbsCjR7T_t2yFGwmGHvU2hvYL66pAf2sYlEbkZtPhU8pjQ3qjDFlCgEU3KbNnqdA18PHRTtta5uhnzJFXeLJ2lBRrOiObHlSlMzb95u5DAlq0Q/s320/12_StudioMorison_TheRVFurorScribendi_SBR_2020%C2%A9CharlesEmerson_LowRes.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: inherit;"><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">I had an idea accepted for the Lancashire Stories project and was commissioned to create a brand-new piece and read some of it and discuss it at an event in a courtroom in a castle. As an offshoot of that, I got to stay on the Research Vessel </span><i style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit;">Furor Scribendi</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">, a pastel-hued canalboat-cum-library, complete with translations of Georges Perec and a bold as brass desk for scribbling and tennis balls for mugs and shells for plates. Being upon water and so close to it again was soothing. I also applied for a residency with Ilkley Literature Festival, the North's longest-running such event, and spent a good chunk of the year as Apprentice Poet-in-Residence, immersing myself in researching and reading and writing and performing and chatting and workshopping and mentoring. It was a fantastic experience, and you can read more about it in some of my previous posts.</span></p></span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhucq8NZ7y37rDkBHROmVm0JK_jmH2p7YGrDuiaJSsqCOORNaQ6ENcav0Ic-ckoMXQOJYfQBP9w83ZwowY4cwhQVSEfdB04IMvVTnnyJeuT_dF2R_s_JNL7FUrniGqJ-CMSFZKIAttZre0k0R7d7f83seaDyOmMYKv1ta-YEhJj28tz60lJMFHvP7s3sg/s1800/Clare%20quarry%20Ilkley%20Moor%2020%20Aug%202022.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhucq8NZ7y37rDkBHROmVm0JK_jmH2p7YGrDuiaJSsqCOORNaQ6ENcav0Ic-ckoMXQOJYfQBP9w83ZwowY4cwhQVSEfdB04IMvVTnnyJeuT_dF2R_s_JNL7FUrniGqJ-CMSFZKIAttZre0k0R7d7f83seaDyOmMYKv1ta-YEhJj28tz60lJMFHvP7s3sg/s320/Clare%20quarry%20Ilkley%20Moor%2020%20Aug%202022.jpeg" width="256" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626;"><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">I've taken up ballet, which has contributed to helping me recover from the fractured spine I sustained just before my 50th. It on occasion hurts my arthriticky hip like hell, but it's great for the old posture, and it's really good fun. It took a certain amount of courage to join a new class, but I did. I also joined an online group to discuss writing about place, and that proved fruitful and worth jumping in too, so, I suppose, face the fear, as Susan Jeffers kind of said in 1987. Don't get me wrong, not everything was great, and I had to fight hard to get justice in a couple of cases. I'm currently reading Rebecca Solnit's </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Recollections of my Non-existence</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">, a suggestion from someone in the place-writing reading group, and she says of the "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" adage (thanks, Nietzsche; see also 'Opportunity To Build' in </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">cache-cache</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">): "what tries to kill you takes a lot of your energy that might be better used elsewhere and makes you tired and anxious." So imagine what else I could have achieved, but maybe that's what 2023 is for...</span></p></span></span><p></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-4287474048666151802022-12-29T16:20:00.001+00:002022-12-29T16:20:06.829+00:00Best Reads of 2022, an outtake <p>I was asked to contribute to the webzine Northern Soul's "Best Reads of 2022", and happily offered some suggestions. You can read the full feature <a href="https://www.northernsoul.me.uk/northern-souls-best-reads-of-2022/" target="_blank">here</a>, including some of my favourite poetry books this year as well as David Gaffney's third novel, <i>Out Of The Dark</i>. I'd also written about another author that I've been quite obsessed with, although those words didn't make the final cut, so I'm sharing them here...</p><p>Annie Ernaux, <i>Exteriors</i> (Fitzcarraldo Editions)</p><p>It’s not every Nobel Prize in Literature announcement that sparks me to leap up from my lunch and punch the air, but hearing Annie Ernaux’s name did just that. Rediscovering her experimental hybrid creative nonfiction this year, after being introduced to memoir <i>La place</i> (<i>A Man’s Place</i>) studying French at the University of Manchester, I had been busy trying not to over-drip-feed myself the English version, <i>Exteriors</i>, I’d bought of<i> Journal du dehors</i>, so small but intense each passage, recounting almost infraordinary encounters stretching over a number of years. I had also just picked up her latest tome (hardly, at a mere 27 pages) <i>Le jeune homme</i> in a wonderful Parisian bookshop; this telling of Ernaux’s affair with a much younger man will be available in translation with indie press Fitzcarraldo (who produce a lovely package) in 2023 – her explorations of difficult situations, approaching the most personal of experiences almost completely disconnected, are toe-curlingly good. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN8M6ve8EJZLQ8XWtQg-YkxupLdnUUPhRkKkfq2QoVonEhI-DVOEOK_wdkdrG5hybV1_pZFesCi9N39J8xA67mcviydRfOGp_glRvb7J-7jIvHcbYfICLwdTkPJ7u8GMXmRs7Dg6oW17wmEwBIjdo6NRvJTSaEfLZhm1S12VNYStAeOkZRXDHWlLad6g/s3264/IMG_2967.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN8M6ve8EJZLQ8XWtQg-YkxupLdnUUPhRkKkfq2QoVonEhI-DVOEOK_wdkdrG5hybV1_pZFesCi9N39J8xA67mcviydRfOGp_glRvb7J-7jIvHcbYfICLwdTkPJ7u8GMXmRs7Dg6oW17wmEwBIjdo6NRvJTSaEfLZhm1S12VNYStAeOkZRXDHWlLad6g/s320/IMG_2967.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-31649835010647005682022-12-13T11:30:00.003+00:002022-12-13T11:30:35.466+00:00'Pearl-like phrases' and 'clear precision'<p>My debut prose pamphlet <i>Marine Drive</i> has been given a rather good review by Desmond Bullen for <i>Northern Soul</i>, in which he says: “These pieces catch the light in ripples … A kind of musical exactitude, like a shell whispering against your ear.” Read the full piece, 'Pearl-like Phrases', <a href="https://www.northernsoul.me.uk/pearl-like-phrases-marine-drive-by-sarah-clare-conlon/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Andrea Mason (<i>Waste Extractions</i>, Broken Sleep Books), who gave <i>Marine Drive</i> a great blurb – “prose redolent of the clear precision of Lydia Davis, the material evocations of Sheila Heti, the visceral spikes of Ann Berg” – featured one of the stories in <i>Mercurius</i>. You can read 'Let's Go Round Again' <a href="https://www.mercurius.one/home/veeu5i3atdhk2cwtviiiitseeplh9e" target="_blank">here</a>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Thanks to both of them for their kind words.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_hlnBpwp4nS4uFQaM3ss2a5pPZotjb43wBQnIHjhCz8-XFgwwgTndYLbMuguYPkN3l0yYzM6lQrCNzPDyZoCqnqaCQISLtE3ljWXTk12FqApPOpSFhCnlBhxdhzmtO0y5juggpbj1q9Yt1uMLLn06nF3IJLz4IXlremxr6iCcwnODjUwRpnPjkrh2BQ/s504/Northern%20Soul.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="504" data-original-width="499" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_hlnBpwp4nS4uFQaM3ss2a5pPZotjb43wBQnIHjhCz8-XFgwwgTndYLbMuguYPkN3l0yYzM6lQrCNzPDyZoCqnqaCQISLtE3ljWXTk12FqApPOpSFhCnlBhxdhzmtO0y5juggpbj1q9Yt1uMLLn06nF3IJLz4IXlremxr6iCcwnODjUwRpnPjkrh2BQ/s320/Northern%20Soul.png" width="317" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div><br /><br /></div><p><br /></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-35942565725349114042022-11-10T16:50:00.004+00:002022-11-10T16:50:33.335+00:00More from our Yorkshire correspondent<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; white-space: pre-wrap;">The good folk at </span>Ilkley Literature Festival <span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; white-space: pre-wrap;">quizzed me about my stint as Apprentice Poet In Residence for this year's festival, which you read on the ILF website <a href="https://www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk/new-writing/poetry-residences/2022-poets-in-residence/introducing-our-2022-apprentice-poets-in-residence/sarah-clare-conlon-on-being-ilf-apprentice-poet-in-residence" target="_blank">here</a>, reproduced below, and </span>they've also published my commission, as mentioned in the text, <a href="https://www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk/new-writing/poetry-residences/2022-poets-in-residence/introducing-our-2022-apprentice-poets-in-residence/ilkley-moor-poetry-map-by-sarah-clare-conlon" target="_blank">here</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivTzhEY66lfRQ70kW7cDx_DhFGvnVMlOh_JI0UgvohIWXwerVIbG3soVkstrJIjlcsWOG5f1hn4IuraeU1jquLUiTYef4dryOnNyHR_R_Btt47JLSVYaNxWkbPCf3RqsFOVtc9qOrX_rBMb3s_OENFjNflQ78pN5u3k-lMzBacRBStOCGs0en-nya0Qw/s640/IMG_0758.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivTzhEY66lfRQ70kW7cDx_DhFGvnVMlOh_JI0UgvohIWXwerVIbG3soVkstrJIjlcsWOG5f1hn4IuraeU1jquLUiTYef4dryOnNyHR_R_Btt47JLSVYaNxWkbPCf3RqsFOVtc9qOrX_rBMb3s_OENFjNflQ78pN5u3k-lMzBacRBStOCGs0en-nya0Qw/w217-h289/IMG_0758.JPG" width="217" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhruKKAEJmh00PBMRvxZkmNv4EBQrnClOFu4VcvoYUggcujvBXgn-Mnm_V7SsU16_dcDg8z-mvBn74MHPMuer4RYWlxjA_n0KXY2JEmsvpA6xhxsV5Q_Q_V-AxnZ6gAG7QmTDUj1oxe77inRgzQ4JPzYediChxARnAlKFjrYqekEp50jZcGFbF0Hg45tQ/s640/IMG_0761.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhruKKAEJmh00PBMRvxZkmNv4EBQrnClOFu4VcvoYUggcujvBXgn-Mnm_V7SsU16_dcDg8z-mvBn74MHPMuer4RYWlxjA_n0KXY2JEmsvpA6xhxsV5Q_Q_V-AxnZ6gAG7QmTDUj1oxe77inRgzQ4JPzYediChxARnAlKFjrYqekEp50jZcGFbF0Hg45tQ/w217-h289/IMG_0761.JPG" width="217" /></a></span></div><i><p><i><br /></i></p>Can you remember the first poem you wrote?</i><p></p><p>Not really, but I was first published aged 12 after entering the WH Smith Young Writers’ Competition. I sent in a poem about mashed potato and won a fountain pen.</p><p><i>Who or what has influenced your work?</i></p><p>As part of my French degree, I studied OuLiPo, renowned for ‘freeing literature by tightening its rules’, and my BA thesis and part of my Creative Writing MA was based on Georges Perec, so messing about with words and working with constraints is a big part of what I do.</p><p><i>Which poem or poet do you never tire of reading?</i></p><p>Ever since I was small, I’ve been interested in languages (I’m half Welsh, so maybe that’s why) and how words sound as well as read, and I love Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas.</p><p><i>What is your process of writing a poem?</i></p><p>Sometimes I start with a constraint and the poem takes shape (even literally) from there; sometimes a poem develops as a result of research or working on other writing, such as a short story or a piece of nonfiction or creative non-fiction, so the poem is a kind of offcut. Sometimes a poem just arises from an observation or an overheard that fits with something I’d jotted down in my notebook already.</p><p><i>Do you have any advice for someone wanting to write and publish poetry? </i></p><p>Read a lot, write a lot, edit a lot. Listen to other poets at readings or open mics, and share your own work that way as well as through journals and competitions; there are plenty, so find the ones that suit and follow the guidelines. Sign up for workshops and courses – there are quite a few online that are free or not super expensive – and join or set up a writers’ circle to try out new work. It’s very encouraging to get positive feedback but also be prepared to accept criticism, just remember that you have the final decision on what stays and what goes. </p><p><i>During your role, you focused on place writing, what drew you to this practice? </i></p><p>I’ve always been drawn to texts that include places and spaces almost as a character – for example 28 Barbary Lane in Armistead Maupin’s Tales Of The City series – and, as a lapsed sailor, the sea and water are recurring themes in my work. I was inaugural Writer in Residence at Manchester’s Victoria Baths and this year was a resident writer on board the Research Vessel Furor Scribendi as part of the Lancashire Stories project – I’ve contributed a story about Plover Scar lighthouse; I’m also writing about a lock on the River Rhône in France. I’m interested in geography and psychogeography, and in questioning our surroundings, observing the infra-ordinary, and looking for clues in the familiar and unfamiliar, be that urban or rural. This year I’ve also taken part in a Critical Reading Group via The Centre For Place Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and a symposium, Talking Place.</p><p><i>What did your role as ILF Apprentice Poet in Residence entail?</i></p><p>One of the main features was writing new poetry for a performance during the festival and I was also tasked with running a creative writing workshop, which I called Places and Spaces – our texts took us from Yorkshire in ‘Bridge For The Living’ by Philip Larkin all around the UK, and we looked at pieces by Suzannah V Evans, Padraig Regan, Alice Oswald, Ella Frears and Liz Berry. Along with fellow apprentice Rebecca Green, I judged the Walter Scott Writing Prize and mentored one of the winners, and we hosted two Poet's Corner Reading Group sessions together, discussing pieces by writers who appeared at the festival in 2022 – we covered this year’s Poet in Residence Kayo Chingonyi, Zaffar Kunial, Kim Moore and a previous ILF Apprentice Poet in Residence Andrew McMillan. </p><p><i>What did you enjoy most about your Apprentice Poet in Residency at Ilkley Lit Fest?</i></p><p>Being commissioned to create new work and share it with Ilkley audiences has been a real joy, inviting the audience to join me on a round walk – from the comfort of their church hall chairs – loitering at different landmarks to take in the scene. The opportunity has provided me with the chance to explore the town and the Moor, pour over maps and books on everything from Yorkshire dialect to Barbara Hepworth sculptures, and enjoy keeping lots of field notes, taking photos, pressing flowers and even making some drawings. I’ve also done a lot of writing, exploring some new approaches (including mirroring one of my charcoal sketches in the shape of one of my poems) as well as styles (haiku, for one), and pulling together the poetry map I set out to create. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinOPhdyM7a2CbzAGi_M3qJww4qWs4v_gzKl8g22OpwwGziuIji4bXBMLGwQ1iZXggN-Hv2gF7aIZemrKhX8MTrgF7SXOlgq5VQOyZgI4BBLYrSr5KLGWy4cwxuVg1C0Ys-ZaO_nGuSEfPJ_NJAScqjpq-93UsxjSpsD0xCvY2zzCAzMju3NBrsdAaNLg/s640/Ilkley%20poetry%20map%20Sarah-Clare%20Conlon.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="640" height="371" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinOPhdyM7a2CbzAGi_M3qJww4qWs4v_gzKl8g22OpwwGziuIji4bXBMLGwQ1iZXggN-Hv2gF7aIZemrKhX8MTrgF7SXOlgq5VQOyZgI4BBLYrSr5KLGWy4cwxuVg1C0Ys-ZaO_nGuSEfPJ_NJAScqjpq-93UsxjSpsD0xCvY2zzCAzMju3NBrsdAaNLg/w539-h371/Ilkley%20poetry%20map%20Sarah-Clare%20Conlon.jpeg" width="539" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-90151918869388524112022-11-01T20:18:00.002+00:002022-11-01T20:22:44.953+00:00Place writing – Ilkley Literature Festival<p>Ilkley Literature Festival 2022 has come to a close and, with it, the main responsibilities of my residency. I was delighted and honoured to be chosen as Apprentice Poet in Residence for the North’s longest-running literature festival, and being commissioned to create new work and share it with Ilkley audiences has been a real joy.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXCvvbemwIAcMGmyFrzs-8wlxnfclpDU_ARcYTL2-uTGq7zvaCKb0sqxppAMaAo2YI16D3WsmgVSB-kbKL8eU-1gAQV5GZa8ufzHJU4FkmTm5BFT6a2h4_IDyMusLnI34xhZLa6T8eQrS02i5EQavnrxU5f98yChD-UBsPoQzJXRY4tKi1F-UCUjI6fQ/s1800/Clare%20Ilkley%20Moor%2020%20Aug%202022.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXCvvbemwIAcMGmyFrzs-8wlxnfclpDU_ARcYTL2-uTGq7zvaCKb0sqxppAMaAo2YI16D3WsmgVSB-kbKL8eU-1gAQV5GZa8ufzHJU4FkmTm5BFT6a2h4_IDyMusLnI34xhZLa6T8eQrS02i5EQavnrxU5f98yChD-UBsPoQzJXRY4tKi1F-UCUjI6fQ/s320/Clare%20Ilkley%20Moor%2020%20Aug%202022.jpeg" width="256" /></a></div><p>The opportunity has provided me with the chance to explore and rediscover places and spaces in and around Ilkley, spend an enormous amount of time pouring over maps and books on everything from Yorkshire dialect to Barbara Hepworth sculptures, and get lost wandering the streets while staying in the town and down umpteen rabbitholes while carrying out research on the internet. I’ve learnt loads of stuff including plenty about art, and I even cracked open the charcoals and had a go myself. In other words, I’ve had a lot of fun.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRTjPQjlA7HlgZHsH0tHexmvOHHU2ZzzD0V0nhNDgagb8msOimDEH8_cb8wVKiZBqsC7fbBrFcnmBU5IqJnu0qDYH7tyQWb7WvfO6LPtSBbz6x9Z3TDJJIkwW0nXF1HxIFvv_EqZAPM1drP7uQXx7nliP1oKzOUSkReGfkCGXnu7Ddcna1oSWuwIsbEA/s640/Clare%20Ilkley%20Old%20Bridge%207%20Oct%202022.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRTjPQjlA7HlgZHsH0tHexmvOHHU2ZzzD0V0nhNDgagb8msOimDEH8_cb8wVKiZBqsC7fbBrFcnmBU5IqJnu0qDYH7tyQWb7WvfO6LPtSBbz6x9Z3TDJJIkwW0nXF1HxIFvv_EqZAPM1drP7uQXx7nliP1oKzOUSkReGfkCGXnu7Ddcna1oSWuwIsbEA/s320/Clare%20Ilkley%20Old%20Bridge%207%20Oct%202022.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><p>I’ve also, of course, done a lot of writing, exploring some new approaches (including mirroring one of my sketches in the shape of one of my poems) as well as styles (haiku, for one), and pulling together the poetry map I set out to create. My initial route turned out to be too ambitious less than a year after fracturing my spine, but an explore of the Moor in itself proved fruitful, producing a sequence of six poems for my festival performance, and a few extra for good measure. I invited the audience to join me on a round walk – from the comfort of their church hall chairs – loitering at different landmarks to take in the scene. At some point I will hopefully publish the series together (I think the pieces work for page as well as stage), perhaps even alongside the basic map I drew, so others can follow in my footsteps and read my poems in situ as they wander the trail. It ended up just shy of five miles with a detour to the Cow & Calf Hotel, and took about three hours – encompassing a not insignificant amount of evidence-gathering: taking photos, pressing flowers, keeping detailed field notes, stopping to listen to rustling beasts and beech leaves prospering in the breeze…</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx6mQDEFIq_9Lk58JfWBXFTONlFKNnLPPOyRQ1fpCV2zLRmWHZ6fkPYgIFKydUQwgN8HYdeEOMhFX9JEwXgcYayqSfDFF2UyWU1b3obbFL6Km6lDU9pjlyIxZwmHTl6tXFakvnWG_TsS3moHY-0iEo0HYhKhYV5lULvhEIGr-cCZ27lxho_Qvzyalo1Q/s640/Clare%20Ilkley%20Literature%20Festival%208%20Oct%202022.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx6mQDEFIq_9Lk58JfWBXFTONlFKNnLPPOyRQ1fpCV2zLRmWHZ6fkPYgIFKydUQwgN8HYdeEOMhFX9JEwXgcYayqSfDFF2UyWU1b3obbFL6Km6lDU9pjlyIxZwmHTl6tXFakvnWG_TsS3moHY-0iEo0HYhKhYV5lULvhEIGr-cCZ27lxho_Qvzyalo1Q/s320/Clare%20Ilkley%20Literature%20Festival%208%20Oct%202022.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><p>For the residency, I was also tasked with running a creative writing workshop, which I called Places and Spaces – in it we questioned our surroundings, observed the infra-ordinary, and looked for clues in the familiar and unfamiliar… Our texts took us from Yorkshire in ‘Bridge For The Living’ by Philip Larkin all around the UK, and we looked at pieces by Suzannah V Evans, Padraig Regan, Alice Oswald, Ella Frears and Liz Berry. The participants all contributed well and were happy to share work they made there and then, and I was told it was “a brilliant workshop – I go to many workshops, this was one great”, and I couldn’t ask for a better comment, really.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAZJGbDFIY7aSSb7b0VaBvFUM7EZbaA7dqK57lHen6jPmIjbNskRT2jGkRV3heZpwxEHs3SKaKARQmDqTwk-TIvdksr1g0z6ECCr_zkEAcoWpgfe4mmSolwbzhVgYtwQ2PHO38bXsAmLQ5o2AVhpC4HHeGAwOo7mopTqkY6TKak-KaLDVKxNJVuihgMw/s640/Clare%20Ilkley%20Grove%20Bookshop%2022%20Oct%202022.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAZJGbDFIY7aSSb7b0VaBvFUM7EZbaA7dqK57lHen6jPmIjbNskRT2jGkRV3heZpwxEHs3SKaKARQmDqTwk-TIvdksr1g0z6ECCr_zkEAcoWpgfe4mmSolwbzhVgYtwQ2PHO38bXsAmLQ5o2AVhpC4HHeGAwOo7mopTqkY6TKak-KaLDVKxNJVuihgMw/s320/Clare%20Ilkley%20Grove%20Bookshop%2022%20Oct%202022.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><p>With fellow apprentice Rebecca Green, I also judged a creative writing competition and we hosted two Poet's Corner Reading Group sessions together, discussing pieces by writers who appeared at the festival – our first group helped us with a close read of previous ILF Apprentice Poet in Residence Andrew McMillan’s ‘visibility’ and a piece from Kim Moore’s Forward Prize-shortlisted collection <i>All The Men I Never Married</i>; our second readers (some returning) looked at ‘Foxglove County’ by Zaffar Kunial and ‘St Guy’s and St Thomas’s’ by Kayo Chingonyi, another ILF Poet in Residence. Did I mention I’ve also done a ton of reading? And I even managed to get my two new tomes into the Grove Bookshop…</p><div><br /></div>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-53028307292829292222022-10-13T19:06:00.005+01:002022-10-13T19:07:19.335+01:00Lovely words about my words!<p>There's a great write-up just out in <i>Manchester Review Of Books </i>about my two new pamphlets, <i>cache-cache</i> (physical copies of which I hopefully get my mitts on tomorrow!) and <i>Marine Drive</i> (which looks as lovely in the flesh as anticipated).</p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thank you to Sally Barrett for this</span><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> generous review, "<a href="https://manchestereviewofbooks.wordpress.com/2022/10/10/the-words-are-like-gold-dust/" target="_blank">[The] words are like gold dust</a>", in which she mentions "deft use of language", "needle sharp in style" and "</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #373737; font-family: "Libre Baskerville", serif; font-size: 15px;">excesses of flair, flexibility and openness in the writing"</span><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></p><p>There's an in real life launch event for my books coming up on Wednesday 26 October, which you can bagsy free tickets for <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launch-blascsok-conlon-davies-tickets-429601348197" target="_blank">here</a>. It's taking place <span face="system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">at the lovely Saul Hay Gallery </span><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">canalside in Castlefield, Manchester, when I'll be joined by James Davies and Nora Blascsok, reading in front of some fab artworks. Doors 6.30pm, readings 7pm.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj94guQkFNZO6XG4pbuchDIn5vn_EJWCxeWFGWRmZTfqg4l7ODXYu-ZG2HIJNyipDfrHp524ndBtPnBoiBMKteOpo3YS2uZW8eXx5kypSFIgXCtjI18sbRaxL0hM7_oBd2Lb5qfW83BYUUUjx76q0QyEr9B_bah74zRKbUcgsCU1QzgS3s-fxUCp1e6Eg/s810/covers.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="810" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj94guQkFNZO6XG4pbuchDIn5vn_EJWCxeWFGWRmZTfqg4l7ODXYu-ZG2HIJNyipDfrHp524ndBtPnBoiBMKteOpo3YS2uZW8eXx5kypSFIgXCtjI18sbRaxL0hM7_oBd2Lb5qfW83BYUUUjx76q0QyEr9B_bah74zRKbUcgsCU1QzgS3s-fxUCp1e6Eg/w508-h264/covers.png" width="508" /></a></div><br /><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-51421619218053198012022-09-17T16:37:00.005+01:002022-09-17T19:12:33.221+01:00Another new book!<p>I'm excited to announce the publication of my second book!</p><p>It's like buses round here, as they say, and hot on the heels of my debut poetry pamphlet comes my debut prose pamphlet or chapbook, if you will, published by the rather marvellous Broken Sleep Books. Thanks to Aaron for selecting it and for creating such a beautiful cover, following my instructions to a tee! The book is released on 30 September and you can pre-order <a href="https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/sarah-clare-conlon-marine-drive" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here's the blurb... "Merging true tales of adventures on the high seas with imagined dips in magical pools and manmade ponds, <i>Marine Drive</i> is an immersive showcase of fifteen short stories and flash fictions with a watery notion. Sarah-Clare Conlon writes with a clear and powerful prose that allows us to dive to unexpected depths. Come on in, the water’s lovely…"</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHRSPHbZzXmXvsdGZCQcDU0k9y5aAyu9jj8VtZaf8HC48JP5kxDu3quFCZXrXqEsW4VbXvIXaTVeUgB1j9GNQQkMPf0ghZrOgfi9vrpg_jxZCHnPodpVC1uff2ZLmoIrxu5hDsdtoEBz6FppiSt2wd8Jt6IqvVtW3TG6a-x5rRA5rxktJ8KLtAwDNYgA/s2534/Marine%20Drive%20Sarah-Clare%20Conlon%20cover.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2534" data-original-width="1636" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHRSPHbZzXmXvsdGZCQcDU0k9y5aAyu9jj8VtZaf8HC48JP5kxDu3quFCZXrXqEsW4VbXvIXaTVeUgB1j9GNQQkMPf0ghZrOgfi9vrpg_jxZCHnPodpVC1uff2ZLmoIrxu5hDsdtoEBz6FppiSt2wd8Jt6IqvVtW3TG6a-x5rRA5rxktJ8KLtAwDNYgA/s320/Marine%20Drive%20Sarah-Clare%20Conlon%20cover.png" width="207" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Praise for </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Marine Drive...</i><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><div><br /><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“The sea will never let you create a desire line” Conlon tells us. And so it is in this exhilarating collection of short fictions which pulse with the rhythms of the sea as they shift us through “points of interest” from pier to shore to pavilion roof via starboard buoys, candle smut and heavy steel rings. Sentences rise and fall, like the pots and pans at sea set into cacophonous motion by a passing tanker, as Conlon deftly, humorously – “up to the church, down to the pub” – navigates the melancholy of faded towns and lost people, the “reckless” play of youth and commuter-carriage lives versus life “on the ocean wave”. In prose redolent of the clear precision of Lydia Davis, the material evocations of Sheila Heti, and the visceral spikes of Ann Berg, Marine Drive speaks brilliantly to the current convergence of ecological, political and social crises in which we are all bodies at sea. This collection soars!</i> – Andrea Mason, <i>Waste Extractions </i>(Broken Sleep Books)</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Her language as slippery and ungraspable as the contents of a pond, a lake, an ocean, Sarah-Clare Conlon captures the way that water transforms everything – and everyone – around it.</i> – <span class="s1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">Nicholas Royle, <i>London Gothic </i>(Confingo Publishing)</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b></b><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Broken Sleep are hosting an online launch, also featuring </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">Andre Bagoo, Taylor Edmonds, Kate Francis, James McDermott and </span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">Daniele Pantano,</span> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">on Friday 30 September at 7.30pm – sign up </span><a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/broken-sleep-books-september-launch-tickets-412406367547" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm also organising an IRL double launch for <i>Marine Drive</i> and <i>cache-cache</i> on Wednesday 26 October at Saul Haul Gallery, a lovely space on the canal in Manchester's Castlefield. I'll be joined by James Davies, launching his new book, </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>it is like toys but also like video taped in a mall</i>, out soon with Pamenar Press, and Nora Blascsok, whose book <i><body>of work<body></i> is out with Broken Sleep. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">It's <span style="background-color: white;">6.30pm doors for a 7pm start – hope you can join us!</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9sy9wX3oTZ3lD6zQUwD7BDrlGHGwR1W0YXxrjs4VRcmF5TPo0IDUK6IIMwu1513SvIAEa-xEEz-0UD8c6vWu5KG02W8qcsBbDqwGZZifsQB4NAE6X1zYV4RJyK4njOJlCQRWOj9A32VMzwLXPOdn9O9Flg1stgpa1idF0oyvO4yTCMXRG3CV8yyU6wA/s2048/Broken%20Sleep%20Books%20launch%2030%20September%202022%20flyer.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1152" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9sy9wX3oTZ3lD6zQUwD7BDrlGHGwR1W0YXxrjs4VRcmF5TPo0IDUK6IIMwu1513SvIAEa-xEEz-0UD8c6vWu5KG02W8qcsBbDqwGZZifsQB4NAE6X1zYV4RJyK4njOJlCQRWOj9A32VMzwLXPOdn9O9Flg1stgpa1idF0oyvO4yTCMXRG3CV8yyU6wA/s320/Broken%20Sleep%20Books%20launch%2030%20September%202022%20flyer.jpeg" width="180" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p></p><br /><br /><p></p></div>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-86184531197101816072022-08-29T12:00:00.020+01:002022-08-29T12:00:00.217+01:00Hide, and seek<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm excited to announce the publication of my first book! </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>cache-cache</i> (which means hide-and-seek in French) contains 21 poems plus an extra-special bonus track called "Index", which is in itself a poem of experimental proportions.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here's the back cover blurb... "Written under cover of lockdown, cache-cache draws on psychogeography, semiotics and systems to offer a knowing nod and unique rear window view into surveillance paranoia, borderline domestic goddess hysteria and paint colour charts. With an innovative lean intended to reflect the topsy-turvy new normal, expect OuLiPo-style constraints, found poems and cutouts, Calligrammesque concrete pieces and ‘easyread’ French. Hide, and seek."</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAo48V8Ef4RecPWXLmwkakikU_t30ZtxZmP0AH-aoaib0I_mqkRn--RLOoSZKsnbKcfHJfQwx4ivPgagxlC8hFt4s_D-NhCGYGCTwYH6EmKe7tasexE2cD48YeYC0ojTr2e5PV7tLyNy1skhdK50VztDHZ-5y7_-OyT_cc0MmuGQSKwm1McF8ISPtPOQ/s963/*cache-cache%20cover%20Jpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="711" data-original-width="963" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAo48V8Ef4RecPWXLmwkakikU_t30ZtxZmP0AH-aoaib0I_mqkRn--RLOoSZKsnbKcfHJfQwx4ivPgagxlC8hFt4s_D-NhCGYGCTwYH6EmKe7tasexE2cD48YeYC0ojTr2e5PV7tLyNy1skhdK50VztDHZ-5y7_-OyT_cc0MmuGQSKwm1McF8ISPtPOQ/s320/*cache-cache%20cover%20Jpeg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p></span><p style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It's out with modernist poetry press Contraband Books, a "publisher of New Modernist Writing". Thanks to Eve and David for giving it the green light and patiently putting up with lots of emails! I couldn't be happier, joining the ranks alongside the likes of OuLiPo expert Philip Terry, plus Camilla Nelson, Nat Raha, Rhys Trimble and Scott Thurston.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />Scott, whose tome <i>Phrases Towards A Kinepoetics </i>is out with Contraband Books, very kindly gave me a cover quote, saying: "Sarah-Clare Conlon’s <i>cache-cache</i> (hide and seek) plays with the beautiful collision of the generative constraints of OULIPO with the domestic constraints of pandemic lockdowns. Conlon’s distinct observational style is given a new spin as these crisp, incisive texts delve deeply into the infrathin of the everyday, finding ‘Comfort in the familiar […] / Inspiration in routine’. <i>Pensées amicales</i>, indeed!"</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />Scott's The Other Room compadre Tom Jenks said: “Question your teaspoons” Georges Perec said. Apart from explaining why it took him so long to eat a chocolate mousse, Perec’s enjoinder reminds us that, when it comes to inspiration, everything we need is already here, if we look closely enough. Sarah-Clare Conlon does just that in <i>cache-cache</i>, filtering the particles and particularities of the quotidian through shimmering prisms of Oulipian constraint to find mystery and meaning. Stylish and sharply observed, these pieces are also funny and melancholy, speaking to us of lockdown, confinement and the elasticity of time, as well as hats, dogs, haircuts, camellias and all the things from which a world is made. Those teaspoons really do have the answers, if you ask them nicely."</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />Meanwhile, my European Poetry Festival co-conspirator Lydia Unsworth wrote this: "<i>The day they added a full stop to our lives, a comma butterfly nested in my hair and the sky was as blue and crowdless as the 1970s.</i> So opens Conlon’s charming response to the collision of the world with 2020. Between two languages, and in a fog that glitters with the rain, there’s a magical sort of survival at work here. Make a rule, let it take you to another world; observe, escape. Even the collection’s title, <i>cache-cache</i>, like a child with a ball – the world <i>will</i> be fun, the rising sadness will be transformed into a game. There’s a heartbreaking serendipity to be found within Conlon’s constructs."</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />Thanks to all three for their lovely words!</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><span style="background-color: white;">Available for pre-order, <i>cache-cache</i> will be shipped out week commencing 12 September 2022. </span>You can pre-order / order (depending on when you read this post) <a href="https://www.contrabandbooks.co.uk/product/cache-cache-sarah-clare-conlon/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></p><div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p></div><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-3232945495636670472022-08-15T10:30:00.003+01:002022-10-31T14:52:38.234+00:00Exciting news from across the Pennines<p><span style="font-family: Cambria;">A Yorkshire lass by birth, I’m delighted to have been chosen as Apprentice Poet in Residence for this year’s Ilkley Literature Festival, the </span><span class="s1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">north of England's longest-running literature festival.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">For the residency, I’ll be creating brand-new work to perform during the festival, running a creative writing workshop, and, alongside fellow apprentice Rebecca Green, judging a competition and hosting two Poet's Corner Reading Group sessions, when we’ll discuss pieces by writers appearing at the festival (programme <a href="http://www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk/whats-on" target="_blank">here</a>)<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’m excited at the prospect of exploring new and rediscovered places and spaces to write<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> pieces for both page and stage.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizgZPfpIOH39S8bKu32nMgzQ5o-Pf57X60BrZ-ZEdLhQ6oLmnwbotenU_R9NW1lmKf6W3IKa4_j79R_opbzhQlHf_2wZiDkR2iXMoNlaZidTkOVUCZ8-38gyoqNJOMhxwvhw4rNWHcMnbdcxEP35rLJoRs1gj-L8OfADg-D_YkkcingB2fjTBg8Drjng/s3023/Yorkshire%20pic%20for%20socials%20this%20one.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3023" data-original-width="2441" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizgZPfpIOH39S8bKu32nMgzQ5o-Pf57X60BrZ-ZEdLhQ6oLmnwbotenU_R9NW1lmKf6W3IKa4_j79R_opbzhQlHf_2wZiDkR2iXMoNlaZidTkOVUCZ8-38gyoqNJOMhxwvhw4rNWHcMnbdcxEP35rLJoRs1gj-L8OfADg-D_YkkcingB2fjTBg8Drjng/s320/Yorkshire%20pic%20for%20socials%20this%20one.JPG" width="258" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Cambria;"><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;"><br /></span></span></p>For my commission, I’m going to take a dérive around Ilkley and write about different stopping points, hopefully ultimately creating a poetry map. The idea is that the audience joins me on the wander – they (you) can either follow in my footsteps and read my poems in situ at each point on the walk or enjoy them from the comfort of their (your) own armchair (or indeed at the live event)</span><span class="s1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">.</span><div><br /><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">To tie in with this, I’ve called my workshop Places and Spaces, and in it we’ll examine the role of location beyond being just a setting to action or backdrop for characters. I invite you to question your surroundings, observe the infra-ordinary, visualise the bigger picture, consider the imagined, look for new clues as you read old maps…<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">I’m hoping the opportunity to be Ilkley Literature Festival Apprentice Poet in Residence will allow me to develop new approaches</span>,<span class="s2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> styles and themes, and I’m excited at the chance to create</span> and share new work.<span class="s2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>I’m also looking forward to being able to pass on some of the amazing support and advice I’ve been lucky enough to receive, to attend festival events, and <span class="s2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">to work alongside Rebecca</span> and 2022 Poet in Residence Kayo Chingonyi.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><br /><p></p></div><div><b><u>Events:</u></b></div><div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="📚" height="16" referrerpolicy="origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/t49/1/16/1f4da.png" style="border: 0px;" width="16" /> Saturday 8 October, 5.30pm, Church House, Ilkley: Ilkley Literature Festival - with Michael Schmidt & Peter Sansom - more <a href="https://www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk/events/14-peter-sansom-michael-schmidt" target="_blank">here</a></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Also: </div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="📚" height="16" referrerpolicy="origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/t49/1/16/1f4da.png" style="border: 0px;" width="16" /> Saturday 8 October, 4pm, Church House, Ilkley: Ilkley Literature Festival - Poet's Corner Reading Group - free - more <a href="https://www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk/events/9-poets-corner-reading-group" target="_blank">here</a></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="📚" height="16" referrerpolicy="origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/t49/1/16/1f4da.png" style="border: 0px;" width="16" /> Tuesday 11 October, 6.30pm, online: Ilkley Literature Festival - Places and Spaces creative writing workshop - more <a href="https://www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk/events/92-sarah-clare-conlon-places-and-spaces " target="_blank">here</a></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="📚" height="16" referrerpolicy="origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/t49/1/16/1f4da.png" style="border: 0px;" width="16" /> Saturday 22 October, 4pm, Church House, Ilkley: Ilkley Literature Festival - Poet's Corner Reading Group - free - more <a href="https://www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk/events/72-poets-corner-reading-group" target="_blank">here</a></div></div>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-58229321607614944672022-06-06T18:11:00.004+01:002022-06-06T18:11:51.242+01:00Let there be... lighthousesI've had such a great time researching and writing about Plover Scar Lighthouse (pictured, with geese) for the Lancashire Stories project that I'm sad to stop. I even reached the maximum word count of 5,000 words, which is unheard of. I've found out lots about all kinds of things, from cotton trees at Sunderland Point to salt marsh lamb, and from the adaptability of plovers to the fact that of only 60 tidal bore phenomena world wide, eleven are in the UK, six are in the North West and three are in Morecambe Bay. I've written a poem about shipwrecked cargo and I've even read a Psalm.
<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBjs5xibCg_EmQyOv1TyWfu1i5AdARtajdklZEanYqvE0jtmw9wWM2okCJ3_k_DRLxIauLgXYVGVKctzmGu4zdoE7WKBS0_lL0Jt56w7AOkUkvsOygj5qSp9j62MewhPrDVoF2L9Ywm3I2zy2dkCO1nbAYtPPY2bEm25agUljE4t5pVmJBEG-iagyb-A/s601/Plover%20Scar%20Lighthouse.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="601" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBjs5xibCg_EmQyOv1TyWfu1i5AdARtajdklZEanYqvE0jtmw9wWM2okCJ3_k_DRLxIauLgXYVGVKctzmGu4zdoE7WKBS0_lL0Jt56w7AOkUkvsOygj5qSp9j62MewhPrDVoF2L9Ywm3I2zy2dkCO1nbAYtPPY2bEm25agUljE4t5pVmJBEG-iagyb-A/s320/Plover%20Scar%20Lighthouse.png" width="319" /></a></div><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">My desk is adorned with pictures of lighthouses, including Leasowe, Point of Ayr and one on the River Mersey that's no longer there; Ince Lighthouse was a casualty of the construction of Manchester Ship Canal, and was demolished in 1891, 68 years after it was built. I might keep them up and perhaps ponder some poems or shorter stuff. I'm off to the seaside next week, so will try and gather more inspiration in my nautical notebook; see where it takes me.
The Lancashire Stories anthology will be out in November, launching to tie in with Lancashire Day, and will be produced by Uclan Publishing in conjunction with Lancashire Libraries. There will be readings and events and so on, so watch this space...</span></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-76038825165677159872022-05-04T12:18:00.000+01:002022-05-04T12:18:01.348+01:00One Minute With... me!<p>This week sees the start of my book tour, when I'll be reading different bits and bobs from my debut poetry pamphlet, cache-cache. On Sunday, I'll be performing on the line-up at Switchblade Society, when guests read some of their own work and a piece by one of the other people on the night. Michaela and Will at Switchblade Society asked me to answer some questions for their One Minute With... interview, which I duplicate here...</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhzuSMFoFeo88vJVaFEmclFJL0sGF5R2McpsVuobzfpj3Iuq6jiIymMG8gD0SoXsEZ8JeaG3GLmk9oK-2pTKURQGZaV1PSJw-oqe2GquE68rZhW36r616yrVy3bmFoSLaPa56skt_Ek2Sh5CPTx9Mjb3H1NQDTFNIZNd-Dx3Y5Vtgpw2FOZCIpcrIgXtg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="402" data-original-width="415" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhzuSMFoFeo88vJVaFEmclFJL0sGF5R2McpsVuobzfpj3Iuq6jiIymMG8gD0SoXsEZ8JeaG3GLmk9oK-2pTKURQGZaV1PSJw-oqe2GquE68rZhW36r616yrVy3bmFoSLaPa56skt_Ek2Sh5CPTx9Mjb3H1NQDTFNIZNd-Dx3Y5Vtgpw2FOZCIpcrIgXtg=w495-h478" width="495" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieS6OOz5lqWnO8fpqFa3WzCSyrxhCeS67bN942O-gYUtm0q2pCSa3YEdECs1IoB1TiPWA251i_fKV62-2lnJfZTDAU6tdForxUjgqLtVuqJvN0AYvwH3AQPGXz7Go0sC1Dg8ROjtEz4zHJaqfrtY-ffJOEbBxYcvrcU_D2OC_WofAhmOKFOPgGFGaOxw/s1440/Switchblade%20Society%20One%20Minute%20With.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieS6OOz5lqWnO8fpqFa3WzCSyrxhCeS67bN942O-gYUtm0q2pCSa3YEdECs1IoB1TiPWA251i_fKV62-2lnJfZTDAU6tdForxUjgqLtVuqJvN0AYvwH3AQPGXz7Go0sC1Dg8ROjtEz4zHJaqfrtY-ffJOEbBxYcvrcU_D2OC_WofAhmOKFOPgGFGaOxw/s320/Switchblade%20Society%20One%20Minute%20With.jpeg" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5FGjIjlEiUCIqNk7jdLDCi_VBEKul3FN0X-3pZbqc4alG2J4Fe_sf2sz4c9zWXnlg5U0yeuXJusC7V_CGEH43F1-ld8bvrAZD8gpjEqJgLBqVlnW6oa8HrRBxvBNQ_O-OSy-c8PaHSsR6w0twN-E1y_bKOi-xCtHT1n3GxST9BJnIQhZBLMaUM4i2zA/s1440/Switchblade%20Society%20Session%20XV.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5FGjIjlEiUCIqNk7jdLDCi_VBEKul3FN0X-3pZbqc4alG2J4Fe_sf2sz4c9zWXnlg5U0yeuXJusC7V_CGEH43F1-ld8bvrAZD8gpjEqJgLBqVlnW6oa8HrRBxvBNQ_O-OSy-c8PaHSsR6w0twN-E1y_bKOi-xCtHT1n3GxST9BJnIQhZBLMaUM4i2zA/w263-h321/Switchblade%20Society%20Session%20XV.jpeg" width="263" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-34641555190124311832022-04-21T16:48:00.002+01:002022-04-21T16:48:11.296+01:00Book tour!<p><span style="font-family: inherit;">All my upcoming performance dates in one handy place... may I present "sarah-clare conlon's cache-cache book tour flyer". <i>cache-cache</i> is my debut poetry pamphlet, out with modernist poetry press Contraband Books very soon, and I'll be reading bits and bobs from it at all these fabulous dos! I'll try and read different extracts at different events, if that's possible, just in case you have the misfortune of being at them all. cache-cache is hide and seek in French; thanks to David Gaffney for this photo peeking through a hole in a door at Victoria Baths, where I've had the pleasure of being their first-ever writer-in-residence.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXHW7h1aVqNsPZEV-uhb_Y7Bnwoi2W9YURRtJHNLJPzRGEXeOw9K6NPaaZQSFAQ6rZTd_4p6cvBGdlbse9hDW4nfMRm0pvXJwDsaHaGYU3rg43rDXyUfVjaJXht9buwzqhY3BvlVBKxjVSMXR-TXImA8JmdI7gacvAMkXdFVmNF9qtSgn8dV1tUGXfLQ/s663/sarah-clare%20conlon's%20cache-cache%20book%20tour%20flyer.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="663" data-original-width="603" height="659" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXHW7h1aVqNsPZEV-uhb_Y7Bnwoi2W9YURRtJHNLJPzRGEXeOw9K6NPaaZQSFAQ6rZTd_4p6cvBGdlbse9hDW4nfMRm0pvXJwDsaHaGYU3rg43rDXyUfVjaJXht9buwzqhY3BvlVBKxjVSMXR-TXImA8JmdI7gacvAMkXdFVmNF9qtSgn8dV1tUGXfLQ/w600-h659/sarah-clare%20conlon's%20cache-cache%20book%20tour%20flyer.png" width="600" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-70334617611426761662022-04-02T14:20:00.001+01:002022-04-02T14:20:17.549+01:00March into April<p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yesterday was 1 April, so the annual event of Daily Permissible Exercises In Style – one hour of observation, from the window where I work onto the street where I live. I note down everyone who passes on foot, on bicycle, <i>en voiture</i>, and any birds and planes that fly over, and if no one passes I note down any other points of interest: washing on a line, flowers in bloom, cats atop walls, noises off, the weather. I then, eventually, type it all up, condense it down to a specific wordcount, and play… swapping nouns, messing about with translations, relating the “story” backwards, that kind of thing.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvqnSJj8cNUBxkjvpYx75-dXFZj5FjtubLw0M3yTT1LE7v9oAXNqbvpjxMuAv45g0zqo8Jwst4MtRRk2jNHcbQ7VqrBYKQcYv4UZBGG6hTD84XtrrHfTVgDnj-AyzPclgyIrNU6C72RokDY8CSpdEG9LctFww7nOYnwQVoSTKAq2oDsvVqdaspMCaevg/s2048/Clare%20&%20David%202022.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvqnSJj8cNUBxkjvpYx75-dXFZj5FjtubLw0M3yTT1LE7v9oAXNqbvpjxMuAv45g0zqo8Jwst4MtRRk2jNHcbQ7VqrBYKQcYv4UZBGG6hTD84XtrrHfTVgDnj-AyzPclgyIrNU6C72RokDY8CSpdEG9LctFww7nOYnwQVoSTKAq2oDsvVqdaspMCaevg/s320/Clare%20&%20David%202022.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is the third year I've done it, having started during the first UK lockdown (lockdown measures legally came into force 26 March 2020, I’m sure you’ll remember), <span class="s1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">basing it on Georges Perec’s <i>Tentativement d’épuisement d’un lieu Parisien </i>(available in English as </span><i>An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris</i><span class="s1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">) and then sprinkling over some of Raymond Queneau’s<i> Exercices de style </i>(Exercises of Style) magic. </span>Some of the results from 2020 and 2021 will soon be available for your delight and delectation in my debut pamphlet, <i>cache-cache</i>, due out with Contraband Books next month!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxlFuKEg7FQeoKCRk6fDir8lIeZErhVNQbmRXrGb1iEQbY3kDJT-wnMZQwrKWJprQjPjHxy0IvWK1xlNwF577sKa0v3EC2gIPrauvmhXiXiskzYKtooityihYgBaNA0PzmGn_ZST4MJ7DRnXSsbH_zaSK50feqENpCnCN2HV_WQvphMPHex-eW58U1Jg/s2048/Clare%20&%20David%202021.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1574" data-original-width="2048" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxlFuKEg7FQeoKCRk6fDir8lIeZErhVNQbmRXrGb1iEQbY3kDJT-wnMZQwrKWJprQjPjHxy0IvWK1xlNwF577sKa0v3EC2gIPrauvmhXiXiskzYKtooityihYgBaNA0PzmGn_ZST4MJ7DRnXSsbH_zaSK50feqENpCnCN2HV_WQvphMPHex-eW58U1Jg/s320/Clare%20&%20David%202021.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It's interesting, and <i>très</i> Perecian, to record specific places on an annual basis, and the other thing I've been doing three years running is pose for a photograph down by <span class="s2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">the river Mersey in Didsbury, Manchester, near Simon’s Bridge</span>. The photograph is taken each year in the dying days of March by Nicholas Royle, after we met him there the first year to swap DVDs and gather wild garlic, obviously with a suitably spatially aware, socially distanced gap. Nick sits on an adjacent bench; David and I sit on the Bench Of The Two Susans, a bench <span class="s2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">bearing two plaques, both dedicated to people called Susan</span>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgki4czFRhJmxgl0rIyWYu11WmOfXOk5Xbw2U6-jeEZawfjJyDQf8QiOX3cX0hFJjZ5DKxBcXsq-lqkb2MBQzNpPdjzMA03WjGDtAL6KFgOJ-m3nkCdOXlt0OSLKr_W6wmWdhqHAAdJX-0dTOPgpYaOyAAuIxEmLMBRxPu1OtbjUZM90k10ffPXpSjqpQ/s2048/Clare%20&%20David%202020.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgki4czFRhJmxgl0rIyWYu11WmOfXOk5Xbw2U6-jeEZawfjJyDQf8QiOX3cX0hFJjZ5DKxBcXsq-lqkb2MBQzNpPdjzMA03WjGDtAL6KFgOJ-m3nkCdOXlt0OSLKr_W6wmWdhqHAAdJX-0dTOPgpYaOyAAuIxEmLMBRxPu1OtbjUZM90k10ffPXpSjqpQ/s320/Clare%20&%20David%202020.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">I wrote a poem mentioning the Bench Of The Two Susans</span>,<span class="s1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> partly written there. </span><i>Will Finches Inhabit Me?</i><span class="s1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> appeared in </span>The Interpreter’s House <span class="s1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">last October </span>(submissions are currently open until 14 May, and I recommend sending something over – they are a joy to work with, taking such time and care typesetting my piece) and it<span class="s1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> has also found its way into <i>cache-cache</i> (you really must buy it; pre-orders available 29 April!)</span>. Pictures, top to bottom: March 2022, </span>March <span style="font-family: inherit;">2021, </span>March <span style="font-family: inherit;">2020.</span></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-32861699335593108622022-03-02T16:35:00.008+00:002022-03-02T16:39:53.093+00:00All aboard!<p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">In a couple of months, as April converges with May, I'll be donning my galoshes, salopettes and sou'wester and taking to the water, as I have been lucky enough to have been picked for one of the Writers Residencies on board the rainbow-hued narrowboat </span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Furor Scribendi</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">. </span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria;">This forms part of my research for the Lancashire Stories project, for which I have been commissioned to contribute a piece relating to water and waterways; I'm currently exploring lighthouses and the lives of lighthouse keepers, and thinking about shipwrecks and shorebirds, tidal bores and coastal flora…</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><br /></span></i></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYdrQNwmAxso5zW1ZiRkW0lhrAdyWhfMM96SB_jRolMvbow_TKFSNJzn0hUjKP-0gYWGrEjoZcPvop7bKYL30Rl53GjWx8nhEB8TIVe4gYCUbxwrKJLrYcVyZ2fV_LbdJ277AyVYC_WHHn90gV5XevgFYaXAeyjM2oALqEhYvlik6oCxZP5A6V8-TA0w=s8382" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5504" data-original-width="8382" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYdrQNwmAxso5zW1ZiRkW0lhrAdyWhfMM96SB_jRolMvbow_TKFSNJzn0hUjKP-0gYWGrEjoZcPvop7bKYL30Rl53GjWx8nhEB8TIVe4gYCUbxwrKJLrYcVyZ2fV_LbdJ277AyVYC_WHHn90gV5XevgFYaXAeyjM2oALqEhYvlik6oCxZP5A6V8-TA0w=w511-h335" width="511" /></a></i></div><span style="font-family: Cambria;"><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Picture, above: Studio Morison, </i>The RV Furor Scribendi<i>, part of Small Bells Ring, 2020. </i></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photography by Charles Emerson. Image courtesy the artists.</span></i></span></p><div><span style="font-family: Cambria;"><br /></span></div></span><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">In related news, my poem about the painter Joan Eardley's seascapes at Catterline, where she lived up to her death, has just been published in the </span><i style="font-family: Cambria;">All Becomes Art</i><span style="font-family: Cambria;"> anthology to celebrate the centenary (last year) of her birth, complete with a ripple-like blue cover – a slightly more recent version (with the inexplicably missing line breaks reinstated) will appear in a third pamphlet I've been chipping away at, and I'll be reading this and other watery pieces at an immersive art reading at Cheadle Village's Greenhouse Books on the afternoon of Sunday 13 March...</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEij4Hs79cfawALFUMFnmjyBot_ZaJYFjJq5BI3-hxxUVmzKKssizjpM6JB5s38SssAtHSmZPZd5YE21oBZegwQPs1JrlYQw-DY9NTvAK0QaGgEiMRO8NbbBnQzOTLCH-27x4faZ-mkp2Jw4e_ZlmbbeXkY3xjbrtqIs_GYmWl5BiTYXDD8vcfegfHUxng=s3264" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEij4Hs79cfawALFUMFnmjyBot_ZaJYFjJq5BI3-hxxUVmzKKssizjpM6JB5s38SssAtHSmZPZd5YE21oBZegwQPs1JrlYQw-DY9NTvAK0QaGgEiMRO8NbbBnQzOTLCH-27x4faZ-mkp2Jw4e_ZlmbbeXkY3xjbrtqIs_GYmWl5BiTYXDD8vcfegfHUxng=s320" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRc5KJ-cQeWLbn3-ZBku2hyB3EclUh3xEDyAvGm0ytXMqu0fb97f0PtHIMMBbzGm-wv39e_NV94pKmSrTWhsYZ9-Am-WRvSVJ11ow1WefJyMHfcQrC0Pgjm0T67yviTsClWIMJ440vS7RpZyWnIyxdXX-GO2kdvUDhPEi7igsxn1H75jdxXopJY4eYcQ=s3264" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRc5KJ-cQeWLbn3-ZBku2hyB3EclUh3xEDyAvGm0ytXMqu0fb97f0PtHIMMBbzGm-wv39e_NV94pKmSrTWhsYZ9-Am-WRvSVJ11ow1WefJyMHfcQrC0Pgjm0T67yviTsClWIMJ440vS7RpZyWnIyxdXX-GO2kdvUDhPEi7igsxn1H75jdxXopJY4eYcQ=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So, back to my residency afloat <i>Furor Scribendi</i>, I'm hoping to re-spark the strange feelings of bobbing about up and down and from side to side and the unique sounds and patterns and colours tied up with being so close to the water. We'll see what comes of it!</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Here's a bit more about <i>The RV (Research Vessel) Furor Scribendi</i>... she's a fully functioning sculptural narrowboat operating as a living research vessel and a retreat for writers and readers, housing a floating library of short stories for members of the public to visit and borrow books from. <i>Furor Scribendi</i> forms part of Small Bells Ring, an artwork created by artists Heather Peak and Ivan Morison of Studio Morison, and co-commissioned by Super Slow Way and Coventry City of Culture Trust in collaboration with Lancashire and Coventry Library Services and their communities, and Canal & River Trust and British Council. In 2021, Small Bells Ring joined the Coventry City of Culture celebrations (you might have heard a feature about it on BBC Radio 4's Front Row in September) and, in 2022, the project will cruise the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, the longest canal in Britain built as a single waterway<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhTEacwerbfoPLIhJfU1yFxMj5tA5-sMX7iq6aYwINQJhWVe0JYV7qAhwT0GU99n9G09tV_mk3mYE988k3tqzask7CR7kU9FTh3hcF1Qu6dd0_5bVupPX0M4fsXAtLmcSfubROoeZ9lAGca762RYCMR1xYNBRX8auURqXg3dydMsVSIYZZkKJoprysXQg=s1081" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1081" data-original-width="1081" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhTEacwerbfoPLIhJfU1yFxMj5tA5-sMX7iq6aYwINQJhWVe0JYV7qAhwT0GU99n9G09tV_mk3mYE988k3tqzask7CR7kU9FTh3hcF1Qu6dd0_5bVupPX0M4fsXAtLmcSfubROoeZ9lAGca762RYCMR1xYNBRX8auURqXg3dydMsVSIYZZkKJoprysXQg=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">Check out @Superslowway on Twitter, Super Slow Way on Facebook and @smallbellsring on Instagram for more on the project as a whole and the Small Bells Ring Writers Residencies. </span></p><p></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5087410506784582775.post-38518696413776396632022-01-21T18:44:00.005+00:002022-01-21T18:45:45.218+00:00An open Open<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #040404;">Can’t quite believe it’s the preview weekend of an exhibition that includes work by me… the Manchester Open 2022 at HOME is now officially an open Open, and I shall be visiting tomorrow – and I’m pretty excited about it! I made a visual / concrete poem, a kind of calligram (after Guillaume Apollinaire, forefather of Surrealism and coiner of the term Cubism) that can be viewed as well as read. It's called ‘Saturnine Night’, and is an approximation of the shape of Saturn, my starsign’s ruling planet, if you’re down with that kind of thing. If you’re not down with that kind of thing, you won’t know that we’ve just like two days ago taken leave of Capricorn’s chunk of the year (as an aside, when I worked on ELLE, my lovely boss let me change the dates in the horoscopes as they weren’t quite aligned properly and made me a Sagittarius, so, y’know, life goals and all that). Anyway, if you’re not down with that kind of thing, the artwork has nothing to do with that kind of thing and lots to do with other kinds of things, including Saturday nights (one of the reasons why I’ve booked my preview slot for 7pm on a Saturday), which you’ll find out if you hop along from Monday and have a look. The pictures are of my artwork all wrapped up when I dropped it off on 11 December, plus a snippet of Saturnine Night along with a bit of Saturn, from the Twitter account Bits of Saturn (which is real trippy if you scroll through lots, like I just did) </span><span class="s1" style="color: #121a21;">taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which man… </span><span style="color: #040404;">Anyway, even if you don’t want to have a look at my planetary exploration, it’s one of 400 artworks (chosen from a staggering 2,271 entries!), so there’s plenty more to feast your eyes upon. The exhibition is free and runs from Monday 24 January until Sunday 27 March, and during the first five weeks you can put forward your three favourite pieces for The People’s Choice Award. Book your timeslot <a href="https://homemcr.org/exhibition/manchester-open-exhibition-2022" target="_blank">here</a>, and enjoy...</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqRe0wOMFPzuQO61KDYH9Vf6SKcQovTzwV1-02zjviebi5n4hlC0dHFmY7-_8R6fncoGPR4DVPTz7Egvyfr9vFPmvvX42gLY4NDDe32CarPKRD-hCp592QeOeemoT8ujTDccogVkEEzbki21E6ohCO5YvqeWWS-CsW7W1Y0A1O8IwRGRORmZQY6wjzvg=s1080" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqRe0wOMFPzuQO61KDYH9Vf6SKcQovTzwV1-02zjviebi5n4hlC0dHFmY7-_8R6fncoGPR4DVPTz7Egvyfr9vFPmvvX42gLY4NDDe32CarPKRD-hCp592QeOeemoT8ujTDccogVkEEzbki21E6ohCO5YvqeWWS-CsW7W1Y0A1O8IwRGRORmZQY6wjzvg=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9SsY36RMRNYd-nxwnieuiXQNlQePhA1b9x0ffPWfKBxulStLXAVbkNiCP1FuU6XqWLsAiEE-kEZAq2kCdBmuEY7GKvSJ15ximoZ5WB6PLywMlG57wZa34jHlzA5zofYx4M-5bl7shmaVQ4SxEnxm_Uz8XfUnZiJmaP02XEokM278Vcu7vte_SJoW9dw=s3264" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9SsY36RMRNYd-nxwnieuiXQNlQePhA1b9x0ffPWfKBxulStLXAVbkNiCP1FuU6XqWLsAiEE-kEZAq2kCdBmuEY7GKvSJ15ximoZ5WB6PLywMlG57wZa34jHlzA5zofYx4M-5bl7shmaVQ4SxEnxm_Uz8XfUnZiJmaP02XEokM278Vcu7vte_SJoW9dw=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgVHEDkutM0OKxyGU3RuJfJe1eaZVK8x3lZELIaZaC9Rxn2FSZcmdZF-Rg1YlbR_DEIfNdOWdxh4yH_Xb9v1NVb0PBRduImUexUv5Kxx0AL8VpiTb5IBETS42IndGP4wle-pBpL8bLvzlm0bMIhaXy11O2uyRwYBYWIsDLp-ARssQUCN_ndavjcNsDqPw=s1184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1184" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgVHEDkutM0OKxyGU3RuJfJe1eaZVK8x3lZELIaZaC9Rxn2FSZcmdZF-Rg1YlbR_DEIfNdOWdxh4yH_Xb9v1NVb0PBRduImUexUv5Kxx0AL8VpiTb5IBETS42IndGP4wle-pBpL8bLvzlm0bMIhaXy11O2uyRwYBYWIsDLp-ARssQUCN_ndavjcNsDqPw=w276-h223" width="276" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEizpOwT0z40FnkB8-BJLobHsdP2hBGgIu6CqZYnD_XfRW-imzSGziVLy0ha35CG3nYkG2hyQnitt3dQqrMK6tqwjE_nW9fkywbpti8NKJnWGnNq92eesRQNBy6a9gy-j2kzeO867q_wv2fn8-aXIx0zCL5qV9CxXEyoxuHkVr5qIm2tEpeqKKl5Yl9nFg=s680" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="680" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEizpOwT0z40FnkB8-BJLobHsdP2hBGgIu6CqZYnD_XfRW-imzSGziVLy0ha35CG3nYkG2hyQnitt3dQqrMK6tqwjE_nW9fkywbpti8NKJnWGnNq92eesRQNBy6a9gy-j2kzeO867q_wv2fn8-aXIx0zCL5qV9CxXEyoxuHkVr5qIm2tEpeqKKl5Yl9nFg=w280-h224" width="280" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Sarah-Clare Conlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801763600565435806noreply@blogger.com0