WRITING AND SAILING RETREAT - SPAIN

Adm Wyeth

Here's something marvellous from writer Adam Wyeth. He is conducting this magical writing and sailing trip around the Balearic Islands this October. I spent two weeks on Majorca many years ago (one of two 'sun' holidays I have taken) and it is a stunning part of the world. All details below:

If travel turns us into storytellers, what better tale than a story of the sea. From the birth of Western literature with The Odyssey, to contemporary narratives, the sea continues to inspire. For those who dream of being a writer, Kingfisher Sailing is offering the ultimate travel package to help unlock that potential.

Family-run business, Kingfisher Sailing, has announced the first in a series of new sailing experiences available this year. Whether you’re an aspiring writer looking for practical tips or a complete beginner looking to find your voice, the company is offering a unique opportunity to enjoy a week’s sailing combined with a creative writing workshop devised and facilitated by an award-winning writer. Sailing among the beautiful Balearic Islands on the 3rd – 9th October 2016 (£895 per person, full board) the trip includes the opportunity to become an active member of the yacht’s crew, no previous sailing experience is required.

The package comprises of a week on-board a beautiful yacht with award-winning poet and playwright Adam Wyeth, author of two books Silent Music (2011) and The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic Mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry (2013), and just ahead of the publication of his third book The Art of Dying.

The Balearic Islands, rich in history and myth, have been drawing writers for centuries. The trip combines a sense of exploration, along miles of unspoilt coastline, with specific locations designed to support the course material. With onshore visits to ancient sites and villages, such as Taulas of Menorca with its ancient stone megaliths and the cultural centre of Palma, there will be plenty of opportunity to fire up the imagination.

Drawing inspiration from these stunning locations, Adam will explore key writing topics, including general hints and tips, plot development, characterisation, sensory perception in descriptive writing and the role of metaphor and myth, to name a few. The workshop will be conducted through a series of group sessions and one-to-one tutorials, with Adam on-hand to help with any problems. Under his expert eye, participants will have the opportunity to explore style and ideas with someone who understands the process, whilst getting a unique insight into the life of a writer and his much anticipated third book.

Accommodation is on-board the beautiful 65 foot yacht, Klaus Störtebeker, recently launched back into service following an extensive refit which has returned the boat to her former glory, creating contemporary accommodation for up to ten people. As well as writing and sailing, there will be plenty of time for other activities, as the pace is set by each individual. There will be time to swim, explore or simply relax.

Adam Wyeth comments:

“In literature the sea is a symbol for the unconscious so the connections with writing run very deep. The course aims to give practical advice whilst allowing time to explore different texts. Like an ocean voyage to new worlds, every writing exercise is a trip to the unknown, you never know quite where you’ll end up but you know you’ll come out of it a new person in some way. Writers are navigators of the imagination. The trip promises to be a fascinating experience and the ultimate escape.”

This could be you in October!

Creative writing Balearics

7 days • 3-10th Oct 2016  • £995pp • 8 places available

Great writing is all about imagination and surprise and there’s no better way to free your mind than to escape to sea.

On this unique vacation you’ll be an active crew member as we sail around the beautiful Balearic Islands while taking part in a exciting creative writing workshop devised and facilitated by award-winning poet, playwright and essayist Adam Wyeth. No previous sailing experience is required.

These islands, rich in history and myth, have been drawing writers for centuries. Adam has created a unique series of workshops with fun exercises and games, many of which will be inspired from the sea and mythology. With onshore visits to ancient sites and villages, there’ll be plenty of opportunity to fire up the imagination.

The atmosphere will be inclusive and creative, and as intensive or laid back as participants wish to make it. Group sessions will be complemented by one-to-one tutorials. Adam will be informally on hand to help with particular problems that students may encounter.

This creative writing sailing holiday is suitable for those with some previous experience and for complete beginners. All you need is paper and pen and your imagination. As well as writing and sailing, there will be plenty of time for other activities: to swim, explore or simply relax.

Some of the of the workshop exercises will include:

• The art of speed writing or stream of consciousness writing
• Finding your voice
• Keeping it symbol. Exploring how symbolism can deepen your work.
• Plotting and shaping a short story or novel
• Characterisation, conflict and angle
• Avoiding cliché and subverting it
• The importance of myth and giving it a modern twist.
• Tackling poetry forms
• Looking at metaphor and simile
• Rewriting, editing, polishing
• Using literature as models and springboards for writing

An unforgettable week exploring the imagination and the beautiful Balearic Islands. Prepare to be inspired.

Please note, we require a minimum of 4 guests to run this retreat. If you're interested in joining us and would like to receive more information once dates are confirmed, then please contact us.

For further information or to make a booking visit Kingfisher Sailing.

HOWTH LITERARY FESTIVAL - pics

Adam Wyeth and myself, signing books after our event

The festival at Howth Castle was great on Saturday. What a venue! Adam Wyeth and I had a great public conversation, in the Lutyens Library, about poetry, myth, houses, influences and all sorts of things.

We had a warm welcome from Eleanor Griffin and her team, and a lovely, engaged audience. There were brownies, scones and superfood salads in the courtyard café, mmmmm. And a giant Aga to swoon over.

A few pics.

The enviable Aga

TDF brownies (there's a cookery school onsite)

We sampled the berry scones too :)

The yard houses the National Transport Museum

The castle

Harebells in the grounds

Eleanor Griffin with Juno

Juno in the green room

Me in the green room - the nicest GR ever

Roses on the grounds

UPCOMING GIGS

John MacKenna and I are at Writers Week in Listowel on Friday 3rd June at 1pm, reading from our historical novels based on poets (John Clare and Emily Dickinson) and discussing historical fiction. Details here.

I am in conversation with Adam Wyeth at Howth Literary and Arts Festival on Saturday 11th June at 12 midday. We are talking myth, poetry and historical fiction. More here.

MISS EMILY REVIEW AT DBR

Writer Adam Wyeth has given Miss Emily a beautiful review in this essay at the Dublin Review of Books. I am posting it in full here in case it disappears from their site.

THE THING WITH FEATHERS

Adam Wyeth

Miss Emily, by Nuala O’Connor, Sandstone Press, 350 pp, €8.99, ISBN: 978-1910124550

Nuala O’Connor’s novel Miss Emily is more than a portrait of a poet executed with exquisite precision. It offers a fresh, enhancing approach to Dickinson’s inner life, showing a woman with zest and independence of mind.

One of the big mysteries that continues to dog Emily Dickinson critics and biographers is why one of America’s foremost poets spent most of her time indoors, never married and indeed hardly left her childhood home till the day she died? Was she depressed, agoraphobic or bipolar? While there is no conclusive evidence that she suffered from any such condition, this hasn’t stopped critics from drawing a myriad of conclusions. While speculation is well and good, the level of scrutiny and diagnoses in recent years has often tended to be reductive, taking from the work and the poet herself. So it is refreshing that in Nuala O’Connor’s meticulously honed new novel Miss Emily the story avoids any labels and instead offers a fresh, enhancing approach to Dickinson’s inner life – showing a woman with zest and independence of mind and an artist absorbed in her work and art.

This is not to say that Miss Emily doesn’t explore deeper and darker aspects. Everything in the novel is touched with a darkness that recoils and simmers under the surface of everyday life. While Miss Emily is fiction, O’Connor’s research on the poet is extensive and we get a strong sense of Dickinson’s true personality. Enthusiasts will recognise many poetical strands and biographical titbits woven into the narrative. As an accomplished poet herself, O’Connor is well versed in metaphor and telling the truth slant. Indeed it is her lyrical gift at skilfully lifting daily domestic activities into something almost mythical, rich with resonance and suggestion that makes Miss Emily such an engrossing read.

The novel opens in Amherst, Massachusetts. Homestead, the Dickinson family home, is in disarray after their long-term Irish maid has left to create a family of her own. The smell of burnt potatoes presages another Irish maid to follow. Each chapter alternates between Emily Dickinson and her maid-to-be Ada Concannon. We first meet Ada, on a sunny day in June, aged seventeen, soaking herself in the river Liffey, against her parents’ wishes. The bucolic image linked to the river goddess is the first of many interlaced mythological symbols. The river also signals a longer journey to follow across the water to the New World.

Despite the upstairs-downstairs scenario, Emily and Ada immediately strike up a close friendship, both sharing a sense of mischief and a love of baking. Although the American poet and Irish maid may appear to be poles apart the dual point of view creates some intriguing parallels and insights. Dickinson describes Ada as having, “a superior, petulant face, but when she smiles, she glows like a window opening on a bright day. I want to make her smile.” Does the final line offer a slight hint of something else desired, as well as friendship? The hidden suggestion also extends to the intimate relationship Dickinson has with her sister-in-law. Miss Emily loves to spend time with Ada and says how she admires the Irish, “ … how they spin a narrative around every small thing. I feel somewhat Irish in my core.” However, Emily’s brother Austin is less enamoured of Ada and offers the more common prejudicial attitude towards the Irish. “Do not be fooled by her mellifluousness — all Irish people lie … You have to understand that there is a certain island madness about the Irish; they are unhinged and vicious.”

At times the intimate friendship and psychological drama that unfolds have intimations of a Strindberg play. In fact, Strindberg’s similarly titled haunting masterpiece Miss Julie takes place in one domestic setting, mostly in the kitchen – as does Miss Emily – between the lady of the house and her servant. No doubt the author is more than aware of this relation and the similar title is a nod in the play’s direction.

It takes a writer of keen perception to portray and capture a life in a whole novel within a confined setting; O’Connor does so with remarkable tenacity and panache. Her sheer relish for rendering nineteenth century American domestic life and her gift for finding the mot juste brings the Dickinson home to life. “I am in the habit of this house, and it is in the habit of me,” Dickinson says. Homestead becomes almost a character itself. In Freudian analysis the home is a symbol of the self. Thus every item and room of the house can be seen as a different part of the poet’s psyche.

Exquisitely detailed descriptions of home care and cooking ripple and steam off every page. Every domestic moment is magnified with the crisp artistry of a Vermeer painting. But the level of intense, sensory detail displays more than just atmosphere. As well as conveying Dickinson’s intense and piercing perception, each description lends itself to an ever-deepening tapestry of patterns and symbolism, revealing the darker emotions and unconscious stirrings beneath. The zoom lens clarity and visual storytelling become a superb and subtle plot device foreshadowing traumatic events to come. Moreover, like so many period dramas, it is the stiff-collared, hemmed-in Puritanism that makes each scene all the more tantalising, as when Ada puts her lips to her admirer, Daniel’s, cup, to “drink back the lukewarm dregs of his tea”. As much as O’Connor does an assured job for capturing the language of the period, she avoids getting entangled in any antiquated purple prose. The carefully selected concrete details within descriptions are poetry enough.

This bright window into Dickinson’s private world also offers many insights into her poetical development. A key moment is when Dickinson decides to wear only white. “My very whiteness will be my muse,” she says. It acts as the foundation of her poetic vocation, much like an actor embodying the character in a play when he or she puts on the costume. She is born again. “Like a revenant,” her mother remarks. Rather than seeing Dickinson’s sartorial decision as some mental infliction, O’Connor shows it as a moment of artistic epiphany, turning Dickinson’s desire for crisp white clothing as a moment of metamorphosis. It is as if she has turned herself into a clean white page. Such epiphanic moments are well recorded with many major writers. For Synge, it was when he was encouraged by Yeats to go and live among the people of the west of Ireland, to learn their language and write about their ways. For Beckett it was the decision to write in French that allowed him to purify his prose and move out of Joyce’s overbearing shadow.

Instead of getting caught up in the impossible task of diagnosing the poet as having a mental illness, critics might be equally attentive of the mad world she retreated from. No man is an island, but all artists need to withdraw from the world to create their work. “Hope is the thing with feathers” is one of Dickinson’s most famous lines. It is that delicate, elusive thing in her work that continues to inspire succeeding generations. Executed with exquisite precision, Miss Emily is more than a portrait of a poet. Like a Dickinson poem itself, it is a rare bird of radiant plumage darting through the air, striking and transcendental but impossible to pin down.

ADAM WYETH INTERVIEW

A big welcome to the Women Rule Writer blog, Adam, I always love to host poets here.

Tell us a little about your new poetry collection Silent Music.

The title poem 'Silent Music' refers to an experimental piece of silence by the avante garde composer, John Cage. I was struck by this idea of an orchestra taking to the stage with instruments and then not playing them, as was British composer Mike Batt, who did something similar. In one of the most bizarre cases Cage's music publishers tried to sue Batt. You would think copyrighting silence would be impossible, but Batt ended up paying an out of court six-figure sum. So silence really is golden. So there are poems in the collection which explore these different aspects of silence, which is an element of poetry in itself - as Coleridge said, 'heard melodies are sweet but those unheard are sweeter; - and there are poems which explore different aspects of music, which is another another element of poetry.

Music is referenced hugely in your poetry, with name checks to the likes of Bob Dylan. Does music influence your poetry?

I love music and used to play various percussion instrument before poetry. So I suppose it has to influence my poetry somewhere. At a very early age I enjoyed learning the lyrics from songs from my mum's record collection. Often I would write down the lyrics so I could learn them off by heart and then I would have ago at my own music lyrics and then later rap songs, when hip-hop came along. I suppose that was my start into creative writing, although I didn't know it then. But music is not something I use consciously to inspire or influence me. I find reading, walking and silence more conducive now.

The music referred to in the collection is often how music is used in more bizarre, profound and terrifying ways. Such as the poem 'Chamber Music' which is about Nazi officers listening to Schubert as they sent Jews to their death. As for Dylan, he's one of my favourite poets but I think our styles are very different! - That said I'm sure one or two of his amazing one-liners have seeped into my subconscious and have been recycled and regurgitated somewhere along my lines.

You like to play tricks with form – some of the poems read from bottom to top. One poem, ‘Telepathy’ is a title only with a blank page as the body of the piece. Can you talk a little about this kind of experimentation?

Yes I enjoy experimenting trying to make up new forms. Part of the fun of poetry is that you can experiment and play with ideas and stretch the notions of what language and literature can do.

It's also one of the challenges of any artist, I think - to try and do something different. I think when we read we naturally enter the psychic part of our imagination. I thought the idea of a telepathy poem being blank on the page would be fun and fitting with the collection's theme. The collection also has a mirror poem in it where the second stanza is a reflection of the first stanza with the lines reversed. I also invented some upside-down poems that have to be read from the bottom-up. The sequence are all about things that travel up, such as bubbles in a glass of champagne, smoke from a pipe and  a snake being charmed etc... I like the idea of a poem moving up the page, as often inspiration seems to bubble up from inside.

To me, your poetry is modern and urban. Does this description sit well with you?

Yes I'm glad it comes across as modern. Pound's sound advice has always stuck in my head: 'Make it new'. I think it's important that writers talk about the world as it is around them. Whitman, Shakespeare, Dickinson, Lawrence, Woolf, Yeats, Joyce, Beckett - the list is endless - were modern for their times so we must surely do the same in our day and age. There are still a few people who believe that to write poetry you must use trite rhyme, archaic words and inverted sentences - which I think is wrong. As wonderful as Mozart is - you don't get modern composers trying to sound like him. That said, poets and writers from the past have formed the foundations of where literature is today, so they still speak to us. That's one of the wonderful things about writing - although writers may be dead for hundreds of years we can still be in dialogue with them through their work.

The urban feel you speak of is intriguing, as while I've visited many cities I've never lived in one. I've spent most of my life in the country. In England I lived on the edge of Ashdown forest - and for the last eight years during the making of this book I was living deep in the wilds of West Cork.  I think you are right though, there is an urban slant to the poems. Just because one lives in the country doesn't mean one is a Luddite though. With modern technology we can be in the bustle of a city in a matter of a few hours, or within the comfort of our home with the press of a button we're connected to the world. The first poem in the collection 'Google Earth' for example, came from going on the computer programme for the first time at a friend's house in London. The idea for the poem came to me afterwards when I opened up A Midsummer Night's Dream and my eyes fell on this monologue by Theseus in which he says, 'The poet's eye in fine frenzy rolling doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.' I was immediately inspired after that, it seemed the perfect description for what I'd just experienced. I pilfered some line from the monologue which fitted into the poem. As Desmond O'Grady says - if you are going to steal, steal from the best!

You teach creative writing. For myself, I find teaching very time consuming but I always learn from it and enjoy it. How do you feel about teaching? Does it help your own work at all?

Yes teaching can be a bit time consuming. I'm not sure if it helps with my own work, but at least it's in tune with what I do. I enjoy teaching but I wouldn't like it to become more prominent than my own writing time. To help people with their writing is a privilege. I believe in the old mentoring system, many Irish writers have been so helpful and encouraging towards me as I was beginning, so it's nice when I can give something back. At the moment I'm teaching creative writing solely online at www.creativewritingink.ie. It's fun, as from my home I can be in touch with people all over the world. At the moment I have students in Korea, France, Canada - as well as Ireland.

Why do you write?

That's a good and strange question - as writing is such a big part of my life, it's become part of the fabric of my being... Gosh that sounds pretentious, but I can't imagine a life without it. I love reading and writing poetry there is nothing more engrossing. I strongly believe in the magical quality of words, that they have transformative and transcendental powers. So I write to try and capture some of that magic - I suppose. That said it can drive you crazy sometimes... it's easy to think that there are so many more talented writers out there and that you are wasting your time. And then out of nowhere you produce something and it feels right, complete and inevitable. And something tells you inside that you are doing the right thing... And you go along with it and keep chasing that feeling - that momentary concentration of consciousness, awareness - again and again and again! It's very addictive! 

What’s your writing process? Morning or night? Longhand or laptop? etc.

Morning usually. I keep office hours, though I'm on 24 hour call, ha, ha. I think it's important to have a routine with writing to go about it as a sculptor would day to day with a piece of clay. But the morning time is when I do the most creative writing usually, things slow down after lunch.

I always begin in longhand. Writing very fast and roughly letting my imagination go off on tangents and run wild. It's harder to do that if you are doing it straight on computer I find. The trouble with seeing your work on a screen immediately is that it can look too finished too quickly.

Who is the writer that you most admire?

I admire so many living and dead, I can't get enough of Ted Hughes at the moment! But I suppose if I was pushed to pick one today I'd say Seamus Heaney. He is not just one of the finest poets who's ever lived but also one of the art's finest ambassadors; a truly humble and gentle man. - And his essays are as sublime as his poetry. There is a deep earthy truth and integrity to Heaney, I feel so lucky to be alive at the same time as him. He is the high priest of poetry, the top file.

Which poet/poem would you like to see on the Leaving Cert course?

I'm quite happy by the selection of poets on the leaving cert, I think... there are a good number now of contemporary poets which is a good thing. I wouldn't mind being one some day! I would be more concerned though with how poetry and many of the creative arts are taught generally at secondary level. There isn't enough creativity in education!

What/where is your favourite bookshop?

Kinsale bookshop Co Cork. In Cork city, Vibes and Scribes. in Dublin, Books Upstairs (opposite Trinity) has a vast selection of poetry and drama. In the UK Hall's bookshop Tunbridge Wells - a  beautiful old world shop that's been open for over a hundred years. In New York, Strand. I love old book shops.

What one piece of advice would you offer to beginner writers?

I don't think reading can be stressed enough as advice! Poetry is one of the few arts where many beginners think they can be successful poets without reading it.

But as advice for writing it I'd say – take risks, be brave on the page.

A poem from Silent Music, which is available from Salmon and Amazon:

Google Earth

The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.

Theseus from A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Act V Scene 1

We started in Africa, the world at our fingertips,
dropped in on your house in Zimbabwe; threading
our way north out of Harare into the suburbs,
magnifying the streets – the forms of things unknown,
till we spotted your mum’s white Mercedes parked
in the driveway; seeming – more strange than true,
the three of us huddled round a monitor in Streatham,
you pointed out the swimming pool and stables.
We whizzed out, looking down on our blue planet,
then like gods – zoomed in towards Ireland –
taking the road west from Cork to Kinsale,
following the Bandon river through Innishannon,
turning off and leapfrogging over farms
to find our home framed in fields of barley;
enlarged the display to see our sycamore’s leaves
waving back. Then with the touch of a button,
we were smack bang in Central London,
tracing our footsteps earlier in the day, walking
the wobbly bridge between St Paul’s and Tate Modern;
the London Eye staring majestically over the Thames.
South through Brixton into Streatham –
one sees more devils than vast hell can hold – 
the blank expressions of millions of roofs gazing
squarely up at us, while we made our way down
the avenue, as if we were trying to sneak up
on ourselves; till there we were right outside the door:
the lunatic, the lover and the poet – peeping through
the computer screen like a window to our souls.