Foreword (text)
Whenever someone asks me what advice I can give to help them get published, I always advise them to go on a course...
Foreword
The MA in Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University was a turning point for me, and not only because it enabled me to meet my agent, and to get published. What I really value about that experience was that it gave me the space and encouragement I needed to develop as a writer, and the confidence to tap into my own well of creativity. Now, in the mad whirl of being a published author, I often miss those quiet afternoons, the sudden intense conversations with strangers, the grimy teacups, the snippets of brilliance photocopied and passed around, the jaffa cakes.
Those Wednesday afternoons in Montgomery House were a magical ‘time out’. All the stresses of the week would slip away as we focused on the absorbing process of annealing thoughts in language, with the support of fellow students and guidance from tutors who were distinguished writers themselves, who shared their own skills and creative insights with great generosity. Instead of the frenzied rush to cram yet another report or meeting into an overstretched week, you could spend a whole hour crafting a single sentence.
That focus, craft and creativity are all evident here in this edition of Matter. This wonderful collection of poetry and prose demonstrates the painstaking eye for detail and care in choice of words of each of these contributors. It is work that is honed, un-rushed, thoughtful and deeply imaginative.
The eight poems in this collection have some common themes, but each has a particular voice. Susan Burns’s Blossom in Acre Lane, Brixton leads us into the world of another artist’s vision, gently dissecting each element of the painting, encouraging us to look again, to see ourselves in that figure fixed in time. In Fortune Telling Amongst Women Factory Workers Julie Lumsden enters into the lives of other women, inviting us to imagine what it would feel like to live somebody else’s life, to dream their dreams. Liza Wallace, in St Lucia Recalls Her Conversion evokes the anguish and anger of a young woman choosing sainthood; a woman choosing the spiritual path is also the theme of Sally Goldsmith’s Mahadevi, a potent tribute to the 12th Century Indian poet and seer. The close imaginative sympathy of women for each other is also superbly caught in Suzanne Batty’s Landing, Plymouth Rock, which takes us back in time to the women pioneers who sailed on the Mayflower; however, her focus is not on the grand sweep of historical events but on the inner lives of women struggling with hardship and personal tragedy. Jessica Penrose’s wonderfully evocative Safe Passage takes us on a different kind of journey, bringing to mind the intense claustrophobia of dark places through a language of texture and sensation, while Beverley Nadin’s poem Ascent captures perfectly the intense enhanced vision and quality of light as the climber or hill-walker nears a summit. The intimate interchange of humanity and nature is also the theme of Jill Burdall’s lyrical Winter trees.
The rich collection of prose writing included here, four short stories and an extract from a novel, also demonstrates the same confidence, precision of language and attention to detail. In The Shoes with No Soul, a section from her novel, Sarah Broughton dryly captures the madness and the sadness of families through this perfectly observed account of a young woman taking her new boyfriend back home to her mother’s funeral. “It’s hard to believe that both Coke and crisps are bad for you, isn’t it?” says the boyfriend at one point.
The short stories are impressive in the range of themes they cover, as well as the range of tones. Suzanne Batty’s The Conservatory is a desperate soliloquy of a young woman contemplating her hideous marriage. Trudi Suzanne Taylor’s Rapture, set in an off-beat but familiar Sheffield, introduces us to the delightfully confused and unattractive Michael Venator as he struggles with the complexities of being an angel while queuing for a roast pork sandwich. In her beautifully measured Room Service Cathy Bolton has written an oblique tragedy of a woman adjusting to the loss of her son. Crazy Cows and Bullshit, Jude Brown’s witty and poignant meditation on life and death, juxtaposes human and animal experience in the shadow of an abattoir.
There is something very exciting about the virtuosity and freshness of undiscovered talent. This collection introduces you to the work of some of tomorrow’s best writers before they got famous. There are also some better-known names. Liz Kettle, who is like me an alumnus of the course, contributes her perfectly-pitched short story Give Me the Moonlight. David Harsent and Frances Leviston have generously allowed us to print their poems Spatchcock, Tinnitus and Clean. It is also a huge privilege to have an exclusive preview of a chapter from Hilary Mantel’s forthcoming novel Wolf Hall...
Page(s) 6-9
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The