No I do not tango

I recorded another poem for the #internationalpoetrycircle, "No, I Do Not Tango", from my Nine Arches Press collection, "Terms & Conditions".

 "I have stepped off
that dance floor, and I am
relieved. Every part of me
is mine..."

 #LiveAloneAndLikeIt

What do we do when the water rises

I thought I'd read you 'What do we do when the water rises', a poem from my collection, Terms & Conditions, which takes inspiration from the fire ant in times of crisis. #InternationalPoetryCircle

New poem, The Aunts

I was lucky enough, as writer in residence at Manchester Southern Cemetery, to have a poem commissioned by the Manchester Poetry Library for the Radość Pisania: Manchester Polish Poetry Festival 2018. They asked me to respond to the work of Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, the “Polish Sappho” (born in Kraków 1891, died in Manchester 1945), who is buried in the cemetery, and it was such a joy to discover her work, and then take inspiration from it. I read the poem at her grave during the festival, it felt immensely special. Here's a teaser:

The Aunts

Goodness and badness, stray from them
equally, say the aunts, robust
as hens and tough as millet seeds. Some
look through the window, others

are solving puzzles in a corner, one
is painting my ceiling. Good
and bad? I say. The aunts shake
and nod their heads. Outside...


You can read the full poem here.

Bumper week of publications

I'm not sure in my 15 or so years of writing that I've ever had a week like this - three pieces (in different genres) published in seven days: an audio poem, a science-inspired flash story and my second ever published piece of creative non-fiction! Here are the links if you'd like to listen to/read them.

Spendid, First Draft Manchester



How You Are, science-inspired flash fiction in Synaesthesia magazine

Rewatching Grey's Anatomy, creative non-fiction in The Real Story


I also have three poems in the new issue of print mag Golden Handcuffs Review - details here if you'd like to purchase a copy.

Powers of Ten

I'm very happy to have found a home at the Blue Fifth Review for an odd little hybrid poem/fiction inspired by the wonderfully strange 1970s science film "Powers of Ten" ! You can read the piece here and watch the film below!

My excellent publisher, Jane Commane of Nine Arches Press, asked me to write a blog post about one of the poems in my collection, and the poem that came to mind was 'After Seeing Monet's Waterlilies And Then Hearing the News'. Here's an excerpt:

"When asked to write a blog post about a poem from my collection Terms and Conditions, at first I didn’t know which one to pick. And what to say about it? But when I leafed (on my Kindle, electronic leafing) through the book, this one stood out, the longest title and the feeling behind it still so raw, so present. And about what came after, what I discovered.

‘After Seeing Monet's Waterlilies And Then Hearing the News’ is exactly what happened. Let’s examine this like a journalist (which I used to be): Where, What, Why, When, Who.
Where was I? In the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon.

What was I doing there? I was in Portland taking a poetry course (with Sharon Olds. Yes, SHARON OLDS. I wanted only to sit at her feet. Oh my.)

Why the Art Museum? A few of us, my new classmates and their friends, decided to take time off, go into the city, see some art.

When? Now this is the question...

 Read the rest of the blog post here...

My poetry collection published today!

So happy to officially become a Nine Arches Press poet, with my first book of poems, Terms and Conditions - out today! Here's my 'Happiness' poem - more about the book here.

TaniaReads - April

 

Hello! This month I'm reading you a short story from my new collection, published next week by Unthank Books! Pop over to my website to find out more. Launch events coming soon!

So, here is my audio recording, I hope you enjoy it. (If you'd like to read the text of the the short story, it is online here, and the poem is here). Have a lovely rest of the month!
Best wishes,
Tania
www.taniahershman.com

TaniaReads February

I managed to record the February edition of TaniaReads just before the end of the month! Here it is below - sign up here to get it in your Inbox every month...

Hello! Apologies for the delay in sending out this recording, I had a very heavy cold, the hazards of audio recordings! Above is the cover for my forthcoming poetry collection, which will be published by Nine Arches in July. This month I'm reading you a poem from this book, and a longer short story from my forthcoming story collection. Here's the audio recording, I hope you enjoy it! (If you'd like to read the text of the poem, it's here, and the short story is online here.)



See you next month!
Best wishes,
Tania

www.taniahershman.com

Monthly audio poem or short story - or both!

In the run-up to the publication in mid-2017 of my new short story and poetry collections (oh my!), I'm going to be making a new recording every month of me reading one of my poems or short stories (sometimes both!). If you'd like to receive these directly into your Inbox, sign up here, and I will be reading to you from January...!

Kissing, Climbing and An Aubergine

So, it's been a record week for me in terms of publications, with two poems and a flash story published in different places online, which, between them, cover kissing, climbing and aubergines. (see below). It's a wonderful, miraculous thing, being chosen by an editor and put between (virtual or actual) covers. And being able to share the links online is also joyous, especially when friends and strangers choose to get in touch with kind words.

But it's also surreal - all the more so in this turbulent year, and in particular in these few weeks of turmoil and uncertainty here in the UK, which haven't ended yet and may not for a long long time. I often find the disconnect between tragedies around the world and good news in my writing life hard to navigate. (As I thought about this blog post I was going to say "tragedies in the real world", but then again, I am a writer, and my writing is real, it is my real world too.) I feel guilty for celebrating these personal things.

As I was thinking about this, I realised that when I'm in despair, I turn to books, to poems, to short stories, novels, science writing. They help me. And when I read some of the comments people have made about my writing, I think, I am perhaps adding to that well, and they might be useful for one other person. I don't think my writing is some kind of panacea for the world's ills (apart from to me when I write it), but it's what I have to offer. I'm not particularly good at anything else, so this is what I've got. And I love celebrating other people's publications, so am trying to persuade myself that it's okay to every now and then be the one that other people are celebrating!

So, with delight, a little ambivalence, enormous gratitude to the editors of The Pickled Body, the Wales Arts Review, and Anthony Wilson (whose Lifesaving Poems blog is such an inspiration to me, I can't quite believe I am now one of them) -  and with encouragement to go and read everything else they publish, here are the links to my 3 new works:

Kiss The First in The Pickled Body (final poem)
Fire and Granite in Wales Arts Review
By Any Other Name, one of Anthony Wilson's Lifesaving Poems

Jigsawed

I'm trying to write a new short story for Radio 4, so of course I have eaten a lot of biscuits, phoned the bank  - and recorded this, for your listening pleasure, all 50 seconds of it: Jigsawed, a poem from my new chapbook (did I mention I have a new book?! It's available here.)

Poem in the Irish Examiner!

I just discovered today that one of the poems from my chapbook, Nothing Here Is Wild, Everything Is Open - which is being launched next week at the Cork Poetry Festival! - was published in the Irish Examiner as their Tuesday poem! It's print-only, see below, hopefully it's readable! What a lovely surprise...

Yes It's All Me Me Me... new poem & new short story

Sorry for the trumpet-blowing, but here it
is - first, I have a new poem in Issue 6, published today, of the delightful Poems in Which, entitled Poem in Which I Learn That Some People Are Better At This Than I Am. It is entirely autobiographical! Check out the whole issue, it's wonderful. 

I also have a new SoundCloud page where you can listen to me reading some of my stories & poems. Any requests?

Talking of listening, this Friday, Dec 5th, I am thrilled to have a brand new short story on BBC Radio 4, About Time - which may or may not be a time-travel-themed romp, but will be read deliciously straight into your ear by the wonderful Stephen Hogan! I went to hear him record it, and he utterly captured the voice I had heard in my head as I wrote it. This is the joy of radio - your characters, who've been rattling around only in your own brain, are suddenly alive and out there, because you can hear them! I hope you like it. Do check out the other two stories on the theme of Slow Rides in Fast Machines, by the amazing Adam Marek and Toby Litt, very different takes! In a thrilling development, all the stories are now available for 30 days after broadcast, thank you BBC.

I will be available to answer technical questions on time travel after the broadcast, should you have any. My pleasure. (Or before the broadcast, of course, if you've already got the hang of it.)

Visual Verse

It's a real honour to have been invited to be one of the lead writers on this month's Visual Verse, for which I wrote a poem, Portrait of Couple with Dog. If you don't know Visual Verse, do check it out:

Visual Verse: An Anthology of Art and Words

One image, one hour, 50-500 words.

The picture is the starting point, the text is up to you.

Then send it in to them, and they will publish it! They end up with a fabulous plethora of work all inspired by the same image, such a range, from the funny to the poignant. Go on, try it!

Aloneness and Loneliness

Isn't it fascinating when everything you read seems to connect together even though chosen - apparently - at random? I am having one of those days, and wanted to share with you three things I watched and read today which I found fascinating. The first is this gorgeous video & poem called "How to be Alone"



Isn't that beautiful? I watched it this morning, I found it from this fascinating website, Rewriting the Rules, which is about love and relationships but from every angle, including loving ourselves, which is where being happily alone comes in.

Then, as part of an online poetry course I am taking part in which brings in philosophy and physics (and so much more) I was pointed towards this very interesting article on the science of loneliness - an excerpt:

Psychobiologists can now show that loneliness sends misleading hormonal signals, rejiggers the molecules on genes that govern behavior, and wrenches a slew of other systems out of whack. They have proved that long-lasting loneliness not only makes you sick; it can kill you. ... The psychological definition of loneliness hasn’t changed much...  not what the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard characterized as the “shut-upness” and solitariness of the civilized. Nor is “real loneliness” the happy solitude of the productive artist or the passing irritation of being cooped up with the flu while all your friends go off on some adventure. It’s not being dissatisfied with your companion of the moment—your friend or lover or even spouse— unless you chronically find yourself in that situation, in which case you may in fact be a lonely person. ... Loneliness - and this will surprise no one—is the want of intimacy. [The full article is here]

I also just finished reading an astonishing novel, The Woman Upstairs, by Claire Messud, which I devoured and which left me shaking by the end, so perfectly did it seem to address everything I am thinking about right now. It is about a woman my age living alone and feeling unseen, and her struggles about her anger at the way her life has gone, her desire to be an artist, friendship, family, relationships. It almost feels trite to try and summarize it this way, let me just recommend it to you highly, I think it's a masterpiece.

For me, all three of these - the film, the article and the novel -  tie up: being a creative person, I have a deep need for the proper kind of aloneness that enables me to delve into myself in order to write, and this never produces loneliness. But I have to watch out that I do what is necessary to avoid it tipping over into loneliness, if I don't ensure that I get enough social contact of the right kind  - as an introvert - with the people who feed me rather than deplete. It's quite a difficult thing to navigate, I am finding right now, living on my own without even a beloved pet for the first time for 16 years, alongside the promise that I will be able to immerse myself in writing in an entirely different way living alone, which both excites and somewhat scares me.

What do you do? Do you have strategies for "good" aloneness and avoidance of loneliness, whether with others or by yourself? How does that fit in with/feed/inspire your writing?