Wonderful new edition of Poetry Review out now, edited by Moniza Alvi & Esther Morgan — and featuring one of my poems.
The poem’s called ‘Petra visits the Citadel of Aleppo’.
* picture not of Aleppo (or, indeed, Syria) – unfortunately I lost a lot of my photos of that area in a computer crash.
http://channel.louisiana.dk/video/anne-carson-performing-antigonick
The wonderful poet-translator-classicist-essayist-etc introduces her play Antigonick and reads a beautiful introduction.
I’ve just created a Twitter account @petrakamula … finally. I’ve been somewhat reluctantly considering it for a few years now. Nonetheless, I’m on, I’m there, I’m reading tweets… and mostly just retweeting for now so that I can get in the groove.
I’m mostly following poetry/writer-folks.
If anyone has any wise Twitter-related advice (or, really, just any wise advice in general – one can always use that), please tweet at me, or leave me a comment!
Here are a few guest blog posts I wrote for the Writers’ Centre Norwich, as part of Worlds 2012.
It was a pretty electric week of writing/thought/discussion/drinking/summer solstice/swimming in lakes/etc. All the good things.
And, happily, I got to meet my hero — Michael Ondaatje. Alongside that, I was lucky enough to meet a myriad of amazing writers and arts professionals — hopefully I’ll have time to write up some of my reflections. Until then, here are the blog posts:
Cartographer, Sculptor, Thief: Michael Ondaatje in conversation with Kamila Shamsie at Worlds 2012
Jeanette Winterson and Jo Shapcott: Truth in Writing
Face of an Egyptian Mummy in the Louvre, Paris
This post originally appeared on the Writers’ Centre Norwich website.
Everybody knows the opening line of a novel has to be a total killer. Authors draft and redraft the first line, desperate to get the perfect reaction from reader and publisher alike. But what exactly is it that makes a great first line?
I had the opportunity to listen to Lee Brackstone, Publishing Director for fiction at Faber and Faber, talk on this topic last night. Brackstone argues that the first line of a novel should not only draw the reader in, but it should also be able to encapsulate the novel in a single sentence. That’s a lot of pressure for just one sentence. Brackstone insisted the best opening sentences inform, anchor and let the reader know just what sort of story they’re about to enter in to. What an exiting and thrilling thought – after hearing him talk I wanted to rush to my bookshelves and see just how many novels achieve the perfect opening line!
Brackstone went on to argue that the art of the sentence is the first thing a writer should focus on. The idea of ‘encapsulating’ the book inside a sentence is a great way to think about how sentences and paragraphs enact the story they’re telling. The style of the work can certainly inform and engage the reader just as much as narrative or character. There is a real art to making a sentence fizz and shimmy into life; there is certainly a difference between simply telling a good story, and telling a good story really well.
I thought it would be interesting to consider Evie Wyld’s debut novel – After the Fire, A Still Small Voice, which is coming up next on our cracking Summer Reads programme. Wyld, I think, achieves a strong opening line. It draws you straight into a rich world, while hinting at the story to come.
The opening line is: ‘The sun turned the narrow dirt track to dust.’
(Have a read of the opening pages of Wyld’s novel.)
Does the line work for you? Deceptively simple, perhaps. I’m a fan of the line’s directness and punchiness. The images evoked are sun/heat, dust, dirt, air, narrowness/being closed in. These images all give the reader a feel of place and mood straight away. The line also has a sense of ‘the Fire’ from the title of the novel.
Moreover, I love that a transformation is enacted in the line – the turning of dirt to dust seems to hint at the transformations that will go on to occur to the main characters in the novel, and the impact of those transformations. The viciousness of the sun enacting the transformation is also key here – landscape and the elements play a big part in the novel, and have a profound effect on the characters – particularly the main characters of Frank in Northern Queensland and Leon during the Vietnam War.
What do you think of the opening line of After the Fire, A Still Small Voice? Come and let us know on our Facebook page.
What you think makes a great opening line?
A few of my favourites:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” – Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.” – Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)
“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” – Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas (1971)
Grafitti, Paris
In a post that first appeared on the Writer’s Centre Norwich website, I talk about the joy of listening to a work, as opposed to just reading.
With Simon Armitage coming up in conversation this evening at the Norwich Playhouse, I’ve been thinking about the pleasure of listening. I love curling up with a good poetry book and a cup of tea, but there is something altogether different and invigorating about listening to a poet perform their own work live, right in front of you.
Poems are voice, and are brought alive by voice. When read aloud language, rhythms and sounds are able to take on a life of their own, revealing things you could never have experienced by simply reading them on the page. For me, it is like sitting on the sea shore, watching the waves roll in. Each line rolls over my mind, breaking, taking shape. Each line is distinct and different from the previous, but connected and connecting.
I was lucky enough to see Alice Oswald in her recent appearance at UEA. Oswald is a poet who is particularly attuned the aural rather than the visual. On picking up Simon Armitage’s Seeing Stars I was immediately struck by the sense of an oral, bardic tradition in the way the poems are constructed. The poems seemed made to be listened to! As Sam Ruddock pointed out in his recent review, Armitage’s poems plot a line between narrative drive and playful, revealing line breaks. The poems are written in the voices of a number of different characters, almost like tuning into a series of rich monologues, or tuning though different radio channels. And yet, for all the different characters that make up the poems, Armitage’s own voice is never far away – there is a wildness and a quirkiness to the way he unpacks the stories. I’m looking forward to a suspenseful and exciting reading tonight.
Plus, there is a real joy to listening to poems in a shared environment. Where else can you hear where people laugh (as was the case with Wendy Cope last Thursday), or when an audience sucks in a collective breath in response to a beautiful line, or when the room is so silent each word falls like a single drop of water into a pool. The participative experience of listening to a story unfold is one, in my opinion, not to be missed.
Do you love listening to a poet perform live?
How do you find the experience of listening as opposed to reading?
I love travel. (Well, I suppose most people do!)
I am lucky enough to have been born into a family where traveling is encouraged by whatever means are open to you. I grew up listening to stories my parents would tell about all the wild and fascinating places they’d explored in the world. Mum would talk about working in a kibbutz in Israel or traveling through Afghanistan and India. Dad would tell me about the years he spent criss-crossing Africa in a beat-up old Land Rover called Elsie. And that is just the beginning.
I’m pretty good at loading up my well-loved backpack. It’s an art, and, occasionally, a frustration. (You just can’t fit that many souvenirs when you’ve got to schlep them around like a snail for the next week/month.) I’ve been to some amazing places — both great and small — and I hope to go to many, many more. Plus, I’d love to share them with you on this blog. (Also, I’d love to hunt down some of my parent’s old photographs and tell some of their stories.)
Last year I was lucky enough to revisit some classics, and explore some new, quirky places. I’ll go on in further posts to expand some of the places I loved in 2010, but I’ll start with a tantalising (hopefully!) peek into each one.
The Art Monastery, Labro, Italy
Amazing, artistic, fascinating collective of people based in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. Perched atop an Italian hill town, the former Franciscan monastery hosts musicians, artists, actors, writers – all in the hope of melding art and spirituality. I could only stay a week… but I’ll be back. Find out more about them on their website.
Paris, France
I’m greedy with Paris. It is just far too easy to hop on the Eurostar and spend time in one of the world’s greatest cities. Beautiful, quirky, fantastic. And the food. Oh, the food. I’m sure I put on a cushy layer of new fat each time I visit.
Rome, Italy
One of my favourite places in all the world. I keep throwing a coin in the Trevi fountain to ensure I’ll be back. I studied Roman history throughout my Bachelor’s degree (particularly the Sullan period through to the late Julio-Claudian period) and walking around Rome gives me a thrill like nothing else – in no other place do I feel the aliveness of thousands of years of human history.
Grantchester, near Cambridge, UK
Another fast favourite of mine (and, happily, just down the road from Norwich). When the sun is shining in England (rare, I know) there really is no better place to be than the Orchard, eating scones with jam and cream, and reading Rupert Brooke. (I also have a fascination with Rupert Brooke and his crowd: stay tuned for more to come on the blog about that.)
Dartmoor, near Exeter, UK
I had my first proper explore of Dartmoor last year — what a beautiful spot. Incredibly elemental and vast, it feels like another world. Hopefully this year I’ll have a chance to explore and find Ted Hughes’ memorial stone. Also related is Alice Oswald’s stunningly beautiful and adventurous poetry volume Dart. A must read.
