Cyprus Well Stories: January 2009

Friday 23 January 2009

Stephen King

Thinking about the Bridport Prize, Cyprus Well Stories is asked every now and again to recommend a book on writing. When it comes to advice and comradeship in the field of prose writing, one book that truly stands out is Stephen King's On Writing. We're massive Stephen King fans at Cyprus Well Stories, of course, but even still, we recommend it unconditionally. We love it particularly because it is so inspirational and so okay-why-don't-you-get-on-with-it-if-you-really-want-to?

The knowledge is clear and offered with a perfect blend of friendly encouragement and experienced realism. As Stephen King says, "someone who has sold as many books of fiction as I have must have something worthwhile to say about writing it ..."

And he does, and then some. It's a brilliant book.

The Bridport Prize 2009

The Bridport Prize 2009 for poems and short stories is open to all. There is a £5000 top prize, 2nd and 3rd prizes, and 10 runners up in both categories and all prize-winning entries will be published in the Bridport Prize Anthology 2009. This year the judges are Jackie Kay (poetry) and Ali Smith (short story). To download an entry form go to www.bridportprize.org.uk.

The closing date is 30th June 2009, and Cyprus Well Stories says, good luck everyone!

Saturday 17 January 2009

Career by Penelope Shuttle

Send me to study for years
in a school for lace makers
till every yard I work
can bear an angel's weight,
a single inch change anyone's mind
about heaven,

my Point de Venise black gloves
be fit only for Ash Wednesday,
my white Needlerun veils
the best friends of British Summer Time.

See how openly I retire into my calling.

In time nothing
will rival the cautionless caution
of my Crown Prince's christening robe,
a delight of twelve-legged spiders and luck-diamonds,
or my Honiton mantillas all flowers,
snails and slugs.

The patrons of my lace -
let them be fox of the north wind,
egret of the dusk,
owl-man limned in stone.

Come on, you teazy little day, let me wake
to a pricked-out pattern, my work pillow waiting.

I'll quell love
with a relic-scarf of beggar's lace
fashioned from threads
thin as eyelash of snipe or curlew,

you'll prefer your heart
to be broken when you wind such a scarf
as mine around your throat,
making thrice the winding of it.

I'll bobbin joy and grief into such lengths,
such exhibition pieces,
lace magnificats fit for the highest bride,
her sheer train seething with grace,

or a shroud too perfect
for anyone but you to don
so subtly will I have created
its rose, its diamond, its honeycomb ...

Poet of the Month: Penelope Shuttle

Cyprus Well Stories is delighted that Penelope Shuttle is our poet of the month. Her eighth collection, Redgrove's Wife (Bloodaxe) was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and for the Best Collection Forward Prize.

She is a tutor for the Poetry School, Second Light Network and Lapidus, leading many workshops - including a five day residential at Almaserra Vella in Spain this April - and has been a judge for many competitions, including the Arvon and the National. Her new collection, The Repose of Baghdad, is in preparation.

Penelope lives in Cornwall and is the widow of Peter Redgrove.