John Siddique reading – 'offer your openness with no thought of loss'

22nd October

John Siddique is a poet, story-writer and essayist. His poetry collections include Recital – An Almanac, Poems From A Northern Soul and The Prize; he's written for Granta, The Guardian and Poetry Review; and his children's book, Don't Wear It On Your Head, was shortlisted for the CLPE Poetry award in 2007.

This year, John was jointly commissioned by Manchester Literature Festival and Manchester Art Gallery to write a series of poems responding to the exhibition Exporting Beauty: Pilkington’s Pottery and Tiles, which is on display in the Gallery at the moment and features over one hundred pots and tiles made by Pilkington’s Tile and Pottery Company between 1893 and 1938. John's weeks of research in the gallery's archives culminated in a selection of poems that can now be downloaded from the Festival website, and on Friday 22nd, he read from them in front of a crowd of eager festival-goers.

First up was Lustre, a piece which the poet said looked at the role of the artist and the function of art in society, and how the glistening and colourful pots we could see on display throughout the room were linked to the wet earth of the collieries where the coal for the furnace was dug.

Then he read a selection of haiku – accompanied by some very suitable and accomplished chin-stroking from the audience – after explaining that the Zen-like form suited the industrial, pre-war environment in which the pots were made, because the beauty of that poetic form, like the beauty of the pottery, was designed to interrupt the humdrum routine of ordinary, drab life with a flash of something extraordinary. Next came Cypress, and this line stood out for me: 'crowned by sun, shadowing the hands of day.'

In Swan Ship, Siddique took a Keatsian approach and questioned an urn about its own story; in The Fox and The Grapes, a poem for younger readers, he rewrote Aesop's fable, and I loved this bit: grapes as 'the sweet unmade wine of the year.' In Belle Vue Narrative, he took a local setting, Belle Vue Zoo, where the Pilkington artists used to go to find inspiration, and matched it with his own memories of visiting the same zoo as a child with his parents. As he read, Siddique pointed out the various pots and tiles that inspired particular poems and lines and words, so the whole nature of the commission, its process and execution, became clear to the audience, who were sitting clustered in amongst the display cases.

After reading from a few of his earlier works, Siddique opened the floor to questions from the audience. He was asked about the commissioning process and if it was difficult, and he said that it was, that writing to order always seems impossible at first, but that it's also a test that enforces discipline and makes sure that poetry emerges from its hiding places and enters the world. His first ever poem, he told us, was inspired by a ballet, but that we'd never get to read or hear it. He showed us his notebook and read part of an early draft of Lustre to give us an idea of how a single work can change over the editing process. Somebody asked if he was now a fan of pottery and he said he was, but that, sadly, Manchester Art Gallery seemed to have bought up all the good stuff. He said that the Pilkington work showed the other side of Victorian society – the Sapphic, unrestrained passion that works in counterpoint to the stiff, repressed stereotype of that era that still lingers today in our imaginations.

Finally, he read one last poem from the commissioned series. Here's a line from it: 'offer your openness with no thought of loss'. I thought that was a pretty good exhortation to creativity and a fitting end to a very enjoyable reading.

If you're interested in checking out John's work in more detail, podcasts and PDF files of the Pilkington commissions are available for download from the Festival site, and, for those of you based in Manchester, the Big Screen in Exchange Square will be showing films made of two of the poems, so head on over there and just look up.

by Valerie O'Riordan

Valerie is a Manchester-based writer, and she blogs at not-exactly-true.blogspot.com

John Siddique's poetry workshop was no leisurely head-scratching session!

Odes On Lancashire Vases: Poetry Workshop with John Siddique – Day Two

I'm reckon I'm cheating already when I sidle into this workshop – it's Day Two of a weekend course, and I haven't attended Day One. I try to look inconspicuous as the real poets arrive, six of them, enthusiastic ladies all fired up with notepads full of yesterday's productivity. I take out my pen and chew on the end of it. My imposter status must be flashing red – not only have I snuck into the workshop for free (my secret password was blogger) but I'm not even a poet. I've got PROSE stamped on my forehead. And: TERRIFIED. Not to forget, of course, that I'm also a day late.

The mission this weekend is to create poetry based upon and inspired by Manchester Art Gallery's current exhibition, Exporting Beauty: Pilkington's Pottery and Tiles. The sessions are held in the Art Gallery itself, in a large workshop in their dedicated education space, and they're led by John Siddique, an immensely prolific poet, children's author, drama and fiction writer and workshop leader. John's fiction-writing past sets me at ease – which is, of course, exactly when he pounces and says that I must join in and write poetry, because otherwise, as he says, what would I have to blog about? Okay, that's a solid point and hardly unexpected, but I'm inexperienced and I'm talking poems plural – this is no leisurely head-scratching session, but an action-packed five hours in which we do exercise after exercise, writing four short poems, two longer ones and then a set of haiku, and sharing the results out loud with the group. I've done my share of writing classes, so I'm no stranger to the workshop set-up, but this is poetry – what if I don't rhyme? Yet by the time the Art Galllery officials knock on the door to evict us at four o'clock, I've quadrupled my previous lifetime record for verse. I feel triumphant and excited and more than a little tired. The other participants are rather less shell-shocked – poets to a woman, they've got this thing under control and I'm mightily impressed by how everybody deals with each brief in such different and interesting ways.

Without giving away John's trade secrets and telling you exactly what exercises we did, I'll say that we started off by talking about beauty, and how beauty can be found in unexpected places, and how, as poets or artists, our task is to observe and uncover that beauty and to then express it. Take a risk, he said, in your art and your expression, or else nothing will get made. The Pilkington exhibition, with its glazed ceramics, vases, brooches, tiles and ornaments, is startlingly beautiful and definitely inspirational – we're sent off to check it out, and when we come back he's got an assortments of writing exercises for us. We get limbered up as the session goes on, and it becomes easier to write spontaneously and to share our results with the group.

The setting is great too; we're all sitting clustered in a group around a makeshift desk made from four smaller tables pushed together, so there's no teacher-pupil hierarchy. Behind us is a glass wall overlooking Manchester's Chinese Quarter, and in the room with us are cupboards and boxes full of art equipment. We've got paper and pens and kettles and biscuits, but we're also free to walk around the galleries to write – there might be plenty of work to do, but the atmosphere is supportive and friendly and comfortable, and before long we're all laughing and chatting in between compositions. John tells us about different poetic forms, and how they incorporate the elements we're looking to examine – observation and reflection and the musicality of poetry. With the pottery exhibition and the rest of Manchester Art Gallery's collection within easy reach, and an enthusiastic and encouraging tutor egging us on, the afternoon couldn't be better designed for imaginative productivity.

The day passes quickly. I look back through my notepad and make quick scribbles next to a couple of my poetic efforts. That wasn't so bad, I thought, feeling far less daunted than I did on my way in this morning. John tells us to leave the work to simmer for a while before we type it up and edit it; I figure I'll leave it a month and see how it all looks in November. I sneak another look at the Pilkington vases on my way out. I may not have written an ode, but I've got at least one haiku I'm not afraid to call my own.

Valerie O'Riordan is a Manchester-based writer, and she blogs at www.not-exactly-true.blogspot.com

Man, can that lady read!

Well, I marched up to Manchester's Town Hall this evening, all confident-like in my new-found role as official intrepid blogger, notebook and biro in one hand, bicycle helmet in the other, feeling very reporterly and professional and raring to go – and my first reaction, entering the building, was a massive surge of relief that I'd remembered to brush my hair and wear my fancy coat (fancy being a relative term; there's no holes in this one yet, is all).

Have you guys been in the Town Hall? Majestic spiral stone staircases everywhere, oil paintings of solemn political types eyeing you from the walls, wood panelling all over said walls, topped with what looked like swanky velvety wallpaper (sadly, I'm too short to reach up past the panelling to cop a feel and verify the texture) and chandeliers dangling over it all. The Festival was definitely launched in style. Lionel Shriver herself commented, later on, that 'even a trip to the loo is architecturally exhilarating'. There's your endorsement, people – check the place out.

There was a drinks reception before the reading itself, and I stood there with my orange juice (no drinking on the job, I told myself sternly) trying not to look too drop-jawed at my surroundings and spying on Shriver, the guest of honour, who was sipping what looked like a very appealing glass of wine and mingling like a Regular Person. I tried to take a photo but didn't want to go too close and create a creepy stalker impression, which I think would only have been exacerbated by the notebook, especially if she got a look at my scribblings. Good hair, I'd written; nice jumper. So far, so good, right?

A few people asked me if I was writing in my diary or composing a story, and they seemed impressed that I was making blogging notes. I'm doing it right, I thought, brilliant, just before getting told off by a Town Hall man for trying to bring my orange juice into the main room, where the reading about to begin. I chugged the offending drink, tripped over somebody's backpack in my graceful dash up the aisle, and convinced a very kind lady to let me sit beside her in the second-to-front row, where I had an unobstructed view of Ms Shriver and her very good hair. I told the lady beside me about the last time I'd seen the author perform – this was in Birmingham, at their Book Festival a couple of years ago, when she read from The Post-Birthday World and sang a song as part of the performance. We agreed that such things don't happen nearly often enough, though I made a mental note to stop telling this anecdote, lest people expect me to sing if I ever read at an event like this. My wishful thinking was interrupted by the Festival Director, Cathy Bolton, who kicked off the event by thanking the various people working hard behind the scenes, and she was followed on stage by Councillor Mike Amesbury, who swore to stand by the Literature Festival whatever the new government decides to do with its spending review. We all liked that and there was much nodding and clapping.

Then it was time for the main attraction - Lionel Shriver herself, complete with hair and jumper and a pair of rather fetching ankle boots (I can do fashion, too, see?). Up on the stage, framed by two enormous windows and having the appearance of a tiny but determined preacher, she donned her glasses and gave us the low-down on her latest book, So Much For That, which is all about healthcare and insurance in the USA, and one couple's particular struggle to deal with the financial and emotional fallout of the wife's terminal cancer.

Cathy had said that the book was a really entertaining read despite the grim subject matter, and even though that was made even more sombre by Shriver's revelation that a close friend of hers had suffered and died from the same illness as her fiction character, she assured us that the book wasn't her own story, and as she commenced to read an extended excerpt, Cathy's prediction was borne out – what we heard was witty and sharp and crammed full of the nigglingly familiar domestic disputes that are infuriating to experience and greatly amusing to read or hear about.

It was hard to look away from Shriver as she read – not only is her excellent ear for dialogue and characterisation pretty obvious in her prose, but man, can that lady read. She performed with brilliant poise and intonation and comic timing, even producing a worryingly accurate coughing fit where the script required one. When she finished the excerpt, it felt like she'd barely even begun. I was in the mood for more, but nobody else was stamping on the floor and shouting for one more tune, just applauding enthusiastically, so I restrained myself and merely grinned madly. You know, so I'd look totally sane if she glanced over and saw me.

Next she said she'd answer any questions we'd like to throw at her, and the opener was a hard-hitter about the health-care debate in the States, and whether it was coincidental that the book was released at about the same time as Obama's Reform Bill was passed. Shriver had said earlier that though she was politically motivated to write the novel, she was also wary of 'worthy' causes and texts, and that the story and the characters were the main thing; now, answering the question, she said that she'd begun the project before Obama was even elected, so, yes, it was a coincidence, though in hindsight, it would have been nice if the publication date had been a little sooner so that the book might have taken more of a role in the public debate about healthcare. She said that in her experience, fiction doesn't often influence politics, but that doesn't stop writers from hoping and trying.

Subsequent questions revealed that she reads her work aloud to herself while writing, that she plans her novels out in advance ('a sense of direction makes the blank screen less scary') and though she reckons there's no formula for writing a novel, having the structure worked out before you plunge in is a sensible idea, 'like a builder working to an architectural plan'.

Referring to her previous work, The Post-Birthday World, she revealed that she loves the 'slightly suggestive but not completely filthy language that comes with the game of snooker – 'double kiss in the balls' was a phrase that made me giggle. She said that one of the pleasures of writing fiction is the opportunity it provides for getting out of yourself, for writing characters who act and think differently from you, the author, rather than 'navel-gazing', and for play-acting professionally. Hurray for that!

When asked about her own reading habits, she said that she didn't understand writers who claimed they didn't read other people's work, and then caused consternation from the more poetically-minded audience members by remarking that 'poets never read poetry for fun'. One irate audience member yelled, 'That's a lie!' to which Shriver responded with a spirited, 'Prove it!' Fisticuffs were averted, however, although when she said she'd loved Matthew Kneale's English Passengers and another person opined up that they'd given up on that book, she accused them of foolishness. We all laughed though, and she also smiled, so that was fine, and ultimately, much like every other literary event I've ever attended, no blood was shed. We're a polite bunch, really. The final question was about the forthcoming film of We Need To Talk About Kevin, with which she'd had no involvement and had to actually sign a contract saying she wouldn't badmouth the movie – 'I'd better shut up now,' she said, lest she accidentally breach the agreement.

And that was that; a fine evening out, a witty and articulate speaker and a spectacular venue.

And I didn't spill my orange juice all over myself or fall over to do anything otherwise likely to spoil my Official Blogging Debut. Three cheers! And may the rest of the Festival be just as entertaining and impressive.

Valerie O'Riordan is a Manchester-based writer, and she blogs at www.not-exactly-true.blogspot.com