Tag Archives: titles

The Devil drives ’til the hearse arrives . . .

First post of Sunday. I’m planning several more today – let’s see if the result lives up to the planning. (I’ll give you a clue – it’s not working well at the moment).

So, poetry news. I had an email from Butcher’s Dog this morning They have decided not to select my work for publication this time (as they put it), and have sent a very pleasant and upbeat email to tell me that. As you know, I have become slightly blase about rejection over the years, but even if you have become immune to it, it’s still nice to be rejected in a cheery manner, rather than the way some people do it.

It also makes commercial sense, as everyone needs to sell magazines, and one of your best markets is the people who want to write for you. I have twice stopped subscriptions to magazines on the basis of the quality of their rejections. There are always plenty of poetry magazines out there who need the money.There are no such worries for Butcher’s Dog, they are doing a good job and I will be there in the queue next time they have a submission window open.

The other one wasn’t actually a rejection. It was worse than that, it tells me that they like the prose but they think I should rewrite or drop the first haiku and that the title needs work. Some magazines accept or reject without alteration, some ask for, or suggest, small changes. Others always seem to ask for more work. In this case, they ask for the work to be done and the only commitment they make is to look at it again. Most editors either accept and suggest edits or tell you that they would be happy to accept if you make the changes.

I’ve actually been thinking about this for a day or two. In these circumstances it’s sometimes easier just to thank the editor and withdraw the poem. With this one I’m going to give it a go. The opening haiku will be cut. I can’t guarantee writing a better one in the next few weeks so I may as well take the easy way out. The title had been developed after extensive thinking. It wasn’t great, but it was better than the original, and it had several features which were obviously too subtle. The new one is much more in your face and I’ve added a couple of lines to the prose to connect it to the title.

And now it’s time to throw it back and see what happens. If it is accepted it’s just a number, if it’s rejected, it’s no big deal. Regardless of the decision, next time it goes out, it will have the first haiku restored.

Now I just need to decide on whether I add a footnote about the title or not. I hate them, but sometimes you just need to drive the point home.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Day 100

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I know there’s nothing mystical about the number 100, but it seems like a good day to have a serious review of my titling practice. It feels like a growing panic is engulfing me as I see the days fall away, and though it’s undoubtedly quicker and easier, it also feels like I’m leaving the blog unfinished. On the other hand, when I write titles by number it hides the fact that some days I just can’t be bothered, wher5eas titles don’t hide it so well. By tomorrow I will have reached a conclusion. The conclusion could be that I carry on numbering, or that I start using titles again. Or simply that I can’t be bothered to make a decision. Watch this space . . .

Another proper step in my poetic progress has been taken. Nothing major, so don’t expect too much. It’s just that so many of my poems are just marking time – same sort of poem, same magazines, more of the same . . .

Last month I submitted some tanka to an Australian magazine called Eucalypt. It’s a well known magazine, which specialises in tanka. I’ve never submitted to it before, and I’ve never sent tanka to a specialiost6 tanka magazine before. Result – an acceptance.

Second result – a feeling that I have advanced a little further along the road to getting better. I know it’s not a very precise measure of either progress or my targets, but it does feel like progress, all the same. Of course, I’m now left wondering what I need to do next to feel more like a serious poet. In the 1950s I could just have worn a beret, but these days it’s not so easy to look distinctively poetic.

The Curfew Tolls

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The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,

Thomas Grey – Elegy in a Country Churchyard

It’s a dull and mournful poem at the best of times, and when it was first crammed into me about the age of 13, I didn’t appreciate its finer points. Even in my maturity I tend to think of the lines Far From The Madding Crowd and Paths of Glory as being useful in a trivia quiz, rather than appreciating its finer points as a poem.

However, if Hardy and Kubrick can steal bits of it, my title problems are over for months. It’s a very long poem…

It’s also, according to an article I read, not an elegy, which just goes to show that poets know nothing about poetry.

So, I hear you shouting, it’s all very well having a pop at Grey’s Elegy, but what masterpieces have you written today?

The honest answer is none. I looked at my notes, I set to with enthusiasm and I’m currently looking at the smoking wreckage of one haibun and the lifeless corpse of another.

I’m not sure whether it was the weight of my expectations or my attempts to write on then screen that caused the problem. After eating (Julia is just putting the finishing touches to a roast dinner), I am going to revert to pen and paper.

If that fails then I will have to admit that the weight of expectation and the amount of planning has probably stifled the work.

This, unfortunately, leads me to the conclusion that my best work is all don by accident and I am, as mentioned before, a fraud. A lucky fraud, but still a fraud.

If, on the other hand, the work does flow, I will be making work for myself, ad I hate the labour of typing out my notes. Labour? That’s a very privileged definition of labour.

Footnote: I ate the roast dinner then watched the The Great Pottery Throwdown. Then I had apple crumble. Later, I will write…

The picture of the country churchyard is Southwell MInster.

Tuesday – Thoughts on Titles

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Does the title give it away? I’ve been having to think about titles recently as part of my general “upping the game” policy for haibun. With WP you can just throw a few words in the title box and you are done. If I can add some alliteration I consider it a good day and if I can work a pun into it I turn mental cartwheels. But with haibun they expect much more.

A haibun title should draw the reader in and enthuse them to read on, It should link to the prose and haiku, without giving it away, and it should, after the reader has finished, add a further dimension or other meaning.

That’s slightly different to the way I generally view a title, which is a way to identify the work when I want to find it again. I can see a major reassessment is needed.

I’ve actually looked at the titles of a few haibun by people who have criticised my titles. Guess what? I just read half a dozen haibun. One title drew me in. Several were dull. One linked to the haiku but neither the title nor the haiku linked to the prose. A couple seemed to have nothing to do with anything that followed. None of them changed meaning after I finished reading the haibun, though several puzzled me by, as mentioned above, seeming to have nothing to do with the haibun. I could go on.

My point? Some of these simple things are harder than they look and even the great and the good struggle to get it right.

It might be that they are getting it right and I am just too plodding to recognise the fact.

So – three things to learn from today.

One – work harder on titles, using these guidelines.

Two – develop critical reading skills.

Three – editors don’t always follow their own advice.

That, I think, is enough for now. I’m now going to apply these lessons to my latest haibuns “Crap haibun I threw together between games of Freecell” and “Number 82”. It’s likely that they can both be improved.

An Interesting Day in the Shop

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We had an interesting day in the shop today, but I expect you gathered that from the title. I really need to work on my titles. They should tantalise rather than tell all in the first few words.

Last week, which I don’t think I have told you, I switched on my computer in the shop and it wouldn’t go. We eventually narrowed this down to a power supply issue. Apparently the flashing amber lights that happen when a computer breaks down aren’t random, they are a coded breakdown message.

We rang the customer who attends to our computer needs and he was on his way to the airport for a holiday. He said that we should disconnect the computer from the mains, take the cover off, look for a silver box, take the serial number off it and see if we could buy another on eBay. Even an idiot can replace it, he said. No chance. I’ve done that sort of thing before and I know how the story ends. Tears, regrets and the smell of burning…

So this morning, being first in, I switched the other computer on. A few minutes later I noticed it didn’t seem to be working, so I did it again in case I had done it wrong.

Again, nothing. So I tried a third time and sat and watched the screen. According to the message that flashed briefly onto the screen before it went dead, it can’t find the hard drive. Seems simple enough to me, and if I can do it you’d think something with a brain like a computer would be able to do it.

I tried switching it on and off a few times. Disconnected all the plugs and stuff, then plugged them all back in. Tried again. Administered a good sharp tap to the top of the case. All the usual.

I am developing a bit of a reputation for breaking computers.

I decided to make a cup of coffee, but having developed a sixth sense about these things over the years, sniffed the milk first. We had black coffee. After years of inadequate refrigeration on farms and in shops you soon learn that the question “One lump or two?” doesn’t always refer to the sugar.

The Mask of Borro

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I’m doing some research for an article which I am writing, when I came across a reference to Zorro. In my mind this was translated to Borro, as Boris the blonde buffoon is always in my thoughts. As the government is now threatening to fine people for not wearing masks on public transport the title of the post took shape in my mind – The Mask of Borro!

To be honest, that is as far as it goes. I don’t have the enthusiasm to pursue the Prime Minister and lambast either his advisor, his lack of leadership or his disorderly life.

The government policy on face covering, like many features of their handling of the lockdown, has not reflected credit on them. I don’t mind them making decisions, even wrong ones. But I do mind them flapping and vacillating and wobbling about. That’s it. I now wash my hands of them.

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation – Lobby Card

I note, in passing, that it’s also possible to write lambaste and adviser and still be correct. Spelling is a remarkably flexible area, even in the twenty first century.

I have been storing a title in my drafts for several years now – Polishing, Pondering and Plagiarism – because I liked the alliteration. It would be hard to assemble all the necessary elements for a post. Over the years I have thought of adding and subtracting – Pontification and Procrastinating both being considered for inclusion at one time – but I’ve never managed to write a post that drew the elements together in a convincing matter.

Yesterday, as I was thinking in the car, I decided that I really ought to use it, even if I only used it to introduce a post on titles I would love to use. Unlike the Corvid 19 joke, where I knew that I would get a photo of a crow sooner or later, it is unlikely I will ever need this title.

It will now never be used as a title because, although I was going to use it for this post, I then thought of the Borro title.

I have several others stored away too.

Vandetta was going to be a post about the way white van drivers seem to have it in for me when I’m out driving. I’m not sure if they bear a grudge against all car drivers, the Highway Code or just me, but it does seem like it’s personal.

Cyclots was one I was storing up for a post about one-eyed cyclists doing stupid things. I don’t actually remember seeing any one-eyed cyclists, so I’m thinking it’s unlikely that I’ll be needing it in the near future either.

I’m currently working on a post merging the worlds of politics and astronomy. There are, unfortunately, too many politicians and only one planet with comedy potential (and even that comedy potential is limited for anyone over the age of 14). I will therefore keep my fingers crossed that Michael Gove is made Minister for Space Exploration, because only when that precise combination of unlikely circumstances coincide, will it be appropriate to write a post titled Michael Gove looks like Uranus.

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