Poetic surgery

Up lateish, and strangely anxious about meeting Brendan Cleary today. What if he thought all my poems were dire?

Spoke to Mum about skeletons, then was picked up by Lorraine who had Maureen and Pat, her parents, with her. Lorraine drove us down to the seaside to have a pleasant chatty lunch in the sun at The Meeting Place cafe. I had a cheese and ham toastie, (but was careful not to go mixin' ma toasties seeing what that does to rabbits). We then wandered down to the pebbles and Pat and Maureen bask in the sun, and were dozing happily. As I had to go, Lorraine walked with me along the seafront, being generally reassuring as I was feeling twitchy again.

I'd sent Brendan my poems after arranging for a poetry surgery through The South. I was trying not to feel too much like I'd done an exam and was going to get the results.

It turned out however to be a very useful process indeed, and I was delighted with our conversation. His comments were very astute and extremely practical. He pinpointed a couple of characteristic tics I have in my work, plus helped identify the sheep from the goats. He saw quite quickly that there were two types of poem in the collection. He very much preferred the more personal work, and with his help there is one strand that is easily separable, and could I think quite quickly form a strong pamphlet.

I had spent some time recently making the "I" in my poems into a "you" - moving from first to third person. His opinion was that the poems would work much better in the first person, we discussed this at some length, and I have been completely persuaded that my first instincts of writing them in the first person were in fact correct.

This was a fantastically useful session for me, and I was very grateful for his help. And he thought several of the poems pretty good, so no anaesthetic needed. A cheery farewell, then home and feeling a bit braindead. Lots to think about and process - but I will definitely come out of this with a tighter, more focused manuscript, and this is priceless for me.

Home to a Greek salad and sparkling water. And a virtuous night in.

Below the sun returned to England at long last. Brighton busier than I can remember seeing it.