Publications – Jay Whittaker, Edinburgh-based poet

Cancer, How I came to write ..., Practice / Craft, Publications, Sweet Anaesthetist

Egg Case: a poem about being a DES Daughter

Dried-out whelk case in close-up — Whelk egg case, beach-combed some years ago

My long prose poem sequence Egg Case was originally published in Sweet Anaesthetist. I’m thrilled that a recording of me reading it is now available on the excellent Iambapoet (Wave Ten)

I started writing Egg Case when I found a dried-out common whelk egg case on Sandeels Beach on Iona – not that I knew what this desiccated husk was, but I was fascinated and pocketed it. This was summer 2018 when I faced further surgery to remove my ovaries and Fallopian tubes, a procedure initially planned as a risk-reducing measure (given my family history of cancer), but more urgent when pre-surgery checks revealed an ovarian cyst that needed to come out.

I found the egg case sparked a rich variety of connections. I birthed a knotty lump of secrets and miscommunications, family secrets, the guilt of mothers and daughters onto the pages of my notebook. Egg Case is a very personal piece, albeit (as always) lightly fictionalised. It draws on the story of how my mother took diethystilb(o)estrol (DES) in good faith to prevent miscarriage, which left us both with a whole series of unforseen complications and consequences.

Hopefully you’ll find some belly laughs, too.

In Sweet Anaesthetist, Egg Case sits at the end of the collection, glossing and throwing additional light onto some of the earlier poems. But it was always intended to stand alone. It’s a bit long for most readings, so I’m delighted to share it in Iambapoet. I’m hugely grateful to Iambapoet’s editor and curator, Mark Anthony Owen, for his work in bringing this (relatively long) piece to your ears.

How I came to write ..., Publications

The shock of rat shit on the camshaft: a poem about finding rats in your car

Cartoon line drawing by JW of 2 rats on a pile of stones. One is saying to the other, *I wouldn’t nest in that* *car.* *She’ll write a poem about us.*

If you have a phobia about rodents, I apologise for this post.

It’s almost a year since the strange rattling in my car was revealed to be an engine full of stones placed there by rats. There was a lot of semi-hysterical banter about rats wanting a hot stone massage, the Andy Goldsworthy of the rat world (etc) but we concluded they were stashing bird food in the crevices and covering it in loose gravel from the drive. “Happens more often that you think,” said the mechanic, which wasn’t very reassuring.

I knew this was likely to provoke a poem and lo, Clearly, something was up spilled into my notebook in the initial horrified aftermath. I am majorly chuffed it was published in The Rialto 97 this December, along with another poem about living alongside rats, Rubbish day by Jo Bratten.

There’s a wealth of great poems in this issue of The Rialto – well worth getting your hands on a copy.

</End of rat post>

Cancer, How I came to write ..., Practice / Craft, Publications

We were all agreed … a poem about cancer, dementia and love

When I saw the call for submissions for Hair Raising, a fund-raising anthology of poems in support of Macmillan on the theme of hair, I knew the poem I wanted to write, on the intersection of dementia and cancerland.

Like some of the poems in Wristwatch, We were all agreed is a poem about visiting my late aunt Lillian in her nursing home, set during the time I had lost my hair to chemo. Lillian and I were close, and she spent her final years in an Edinburgh nursing home near me. During my cancer treatment she was my nearest family member, and this poem is a tribute to the support she unwittingly gave me. I chose not to tell her about my cancer, which led to some interesting moments. I have only recently felt able I could write about this in the way I wanted – connecting with the humour latent in the situation, which was absolutely in keeping with Lillian’s personality (and my own!).

Selfie of Jay and her aunt Lillian, laughing heartily, in 2015. Hair poet’s own.

Instead of a launch event, Nine Pens has created a launch page where contributors to Hair Raising to video ourselves reading our poems. A video of me reading We were all agreed will appear there soon – alongside several excellent contributions from other poets. Please do buy this fine anthology, and support this great cause.

Bereavement, Cancer, Events, LGBTQ+, Practice / Craft, Publications, Round-up

Jay’s newsletter: An Illustrated Guide to the Ruins

Maybe you’ve read my poems, and you share some of my approach to the mundanities of life and / or the highs and lows that just happen. Maybe, like me, you read or write poetry as a way to navigate, reimagine and attempt to make sense of the world.

An Illustrated Guide to the Ruins is a newsletter for my readers.

It’s also the title of a key poem in Wristwatch, one which ends the Risky breasts sequence about my cancer treatment, leading into the new-life-and-love part of the story. It’s about rebuilding your life after disaster, and although it’s deliberately wry and self-deprecating, it’s ultimately positive.

An illustrated guide to the ruins

This bombed-out husk (established 1968),
roof sheared by the initial blast,
internal fittings razed by subsequent fire,
appears as derelict as a structure twice its age.
The shell remains serviceable.

Further excavations reveal pervasive rot
spreading through timbers.
An extensive course of damp proofing
reinstates the original look and feel,
but note: joists permanently weakened.

And of the future? The occupier,
once tempted to abandon to lichen,
ivy, has realised the space
(no longer fit for its former purpose)
has fabulous potential for parties.

If you’d like to receive more in this vein in your inbox, please do sign up! In return I’ll send an email once a month – containing news of coming events and publications, brief reviews of what I’m reading, exclusive insights into my creative process and life, and (of course) featuring Pan, my trusty canine poetry assistant. Nothing too long, I promise! I’d love you to join us …

Use the unsubscribe link in Jay’s emails to opt out at any time.
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Events, Publications, Sweet Anaesthetist

Sweet Anaesthetist – launch

I’m thrilled that my second collection of poems is almost out in the world.

There aren’t any pandemic / covid-19 poems, though there’s plenty of resonance. You’ll find poems about origins – what shapes us, in the womb, and in the world? Poems about how the politics of the outside world shape our daily lives. As with Wristwatch, my poems are rooted in the natural world, from the Hebrides to the ancient landscape of East Lothian. I’ve also been writing about the unnoticed creatures that share our homes; about words, the institutions that house them, and their loss. There are poems about mothers and mothering. My own mother died immediately before lockdown, and while we didn’t always have the easiest of relationships, she was proud of my writing and how I had I achieved a childhood goal (to be a writer) . And of course there are poems about the body, the medical system, and living with cancer. I’ve included a series of elegies for an eclectic range of folk. And finally, a prose poem sequence uniting much of the above, called ‘Egg case.’

Some of the poems in Sweet Anaesthetist were previously published or performed live – heartfelt thanks to all the small presses who published (and considered and rejected) them, and also to the Scottish poetry and spoken word events where I tried out and honed some (very) raw early versions.

Join Cinnamon Press for the launch via Zoom, in an online literary event where three award winning poets launch new collections . The event will begin at 7 p.m. BST on Thursday September 10 2020 and will include a Q&A session with the online audience after the readings. Cinnamon is asking attendees to pre-register – after registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining. There’s a small registration fee, which prevents spam bots and trolls joining, but everyone attending will also be given a discount code for books.

Hope to see some of you there!

Events, Publications, Sweet Anaesthetist

The year turned …

Here’s a brief round-up of my writing year’s end, which was unexpectedly busy.

In December I had a blast in Newcastle at the launch of Butcher’s Dog issue 12, which includes my poem Jam rags. I’ll maybe write that poem its own blog post another time … I appreciated the thoughtful editing of Jo Clements and Ian Humphreys, and it was lovely to meet the other contributors.

NPL_ButchersDog12

I was delighted that my elegy Birmingham, again found its ideal home in Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal. This relative newcomer on the litmag scene is a pleasure to read and the editors pay your work real attention. Thank you, Naush Sabah and Suna Afshan.

In early December, I swallowed hard and sent the manuscript for my 2nd collection to my editor, Jan Fortune at Cinnamon Press. Now I’m in the poetry waiting room (which is a lot more pleasant than the medical waiting rooms!) Sweet Anaesthetist will be published in late 2020. More about that in a month or so.

I feel like I’ve been in editing mode for TOO LONG so it’s a treat to be writing new, raw rubbish with no expectations at all, and no immediate plans to edit. A poetry detox for January.

How I came to write ..., Publications

Poems of revenge and shivering

I’m just in from the Edinburgh launch of the new 404 Ink anthology We were always here – what a celebration of current queer writing in Scotland. Congratulations to the editors Ryan and Michael, and to all the contributors. I’m thrilled that my voice is one among many contained in the pink, faux animal print covers. Get yourself a copy if you haven’t already!

Anyway, it seemed a good excuse for one of my occasional posts on how I came to write the poems in We were always here.

Not this again was written in summer last year, in the wake of some homophobic yelling that I thought was long behind me at this age and in this age. Ha, if only. The incident played out pretty much as per the poem, though in the interest of brevity I left out the bit where we drove home rehearsing all the come-backs we should have made. I wish I’d gone back and bollocked them like naughty school boys but that didn’t occur to me until 20 minutes later. Ah, l’ésprit d’escalier.

I wrote Not this again in the immediate furious aftermath, let it rest, reworked it several times, took it to an open mic at the Fringe (the pic below shows me in full flow – possibly just after shouting “lezzies” at a surprised audience), and I’m delighted to see it in print.

notthisagain

A different take on power, Mausoleum, is the final poem in the anthology, and I wrote it after shivering through a long meeting in one of my employer’s hallowed portals, surrounded by white marble busts of dead white men. It’s my take on assimilation and still feeling at odds with (and within) the establishment, even though arguably I’ve been part of it myself for many years. Not that we should take our place at the table for granted in these times.

Events, Publications, Wristwatch

Putting it out there – reflections on launching Wristwatch

I’ve written a guest blog over at Cinnamon Press about the Wristwatch launch back in October …

“I had written a collection of poems wrung from personal experience, many in response to the death of my late partner and my own subsequent treatment for cancer. Even as I celebrated the news that Cinnamon Press would publish Wristwatch, back in January 2016, I had a classic post-cancer reaction — will I live long enough to see it in print? … Even though many of these poems were previously published, and I’ve read many of them at open mic or at readings, this was a very public statement of what happened to me and the sense I tried to make of it. A celebration of resilience (mine and others) and of life. With bonus nuns and a selkie.”

Events, Publications

You are invited to the geo-location of Rob and Nigel

I was delighted when my poem You are invited to the wedding of Rob and Nigel was selected to be part of Echoes of the City, a project supported by the Bridge Awards and Edinburgh City of Literature. The brain child of Miriam Johnson, Echoes of the City selected 15 stories and poems rooted in central Edinburgh locations by emerging writers, arranged for them to be recorded by professional actors, and has made them available via Podwalk, a geo-locational, podcast app. If you don’t use iOS (like me!) you can read the poems and stories on the Echoes of the City website and listen to the audio via Soundcloud.

I wrote this poem after my friends Rob and Nigel married a couple of years ago, shortly after Scotland passed its equal marriage legislation. My poem describes the moments after the ceremony when grooms and wedding guests mingled with tourists in West Parliament Square.

Rob and Nigel brought down the cost-per-wear of their wedding outfits by donning them for the launch of Echoes of the City this week. As on the day of their wedding, a downpour was followed by well-timed sunshine, and a group of contributors and supporters strolled down the Royal Mile to the Parliament listening to some of the stories and poems, surrounded by the scenes and buildings that inspired the writers. It’s very engaging to experience Edinburgh by being read stories, gazing up and around. There’s a great selection of historical tales, a dash of spookiness, and thought-provoking modern perspectives. I’m looking forward to seeking out the locations for the other stories and poems, and listening in situ.

There was a party afterwards in Hemma, where we chatted and shared a rather fabulous cake. I’m proud to be part of this, and it was lovely to meet other contributors and the people behind the scenes.

rob_and_nigel