Guest Post by Alice-Catherine Jennings, Poet, Reader, Medievalist

Epic-mania in the Global Reading Group: How It All Began

We all have those books, right? The ones that are always on your “must read” list but never quite make it to the top—year after year.  Mine was The Inferno by Dante Alighieri. It seemed like every time I read a poem, a story, a novel, Dante’s name would pop up.  Good grief! There was even a reference to The Inferno on Mad Men.

It was time to get to the bottom of this Dante thing. Oh, I wasn’t totally clueless.  I had read snippets of it in high school. I knew it was about sin and punishment and that Hell had nine levels. Yet, what else was I missing? Why do so many writers refer back to this epic work of literature?

This would be the year, the year to read Dante. The timing was perfect. It was March 2013 and it was Lent.  I could begin now and end on Easter Sunday.  I had a deadline but I needed a support group. My memories of Dante weren’t favorable. I thought the reading would be a slog—something that one endures because it good for you, like getting your teeth cleaned.  I needed people to keep me accountable.

But where could I find these other readers? My family said, “No way” and close friends said they were busy. They had other books to read. It was time to clean their closets, file their nails.  I decided to look further afield, to mine my Facebook nation. I posted and posted and sent out invitations. At first, the response was tepid but steadily it grew.  

Forty-five! I could not believe it.  By the start date, my original idea had morphed into a literary salon of forty-five members. It was all so exciting. We would journey to Hell together, with Dante and Virgil (more on him later) as our guides.

We considered form, mythology and structure. The architects in the group gave us their version of the construct of Hell. We thought about the worst of the worst and whom we would put in Hell’s lowest circle. All in all, it was a terrific read.

At the end of month, the group asked, what’s next? “What’s next?” I never considered the reading group to be an ongoing thing. I just wanted to read Dante. Anyway, that’s how we got hooked on the classics, especially the epics. Dante led to Virgil and Virgil to Homer and Homer to Beowulf and so on. The list of future salons continued to grow—and, so too did the readership. For the Beowulf salon, there were over 65 members. The average group size, however, is 35.

At last count, there have been more than 350 participants (including many, many repeats) from 15 different countries worldwide.  Although I do not know everyone personally in the salons any longer, I do sense a personal connection to each and every reader.

What attracts folks to the classics? I imagine there are as many reasons as there are readers but I suspect there is a yen for an opportunity to reflect on the things that are elemental, universal and important—the things that make us human. And, the stories are good, really good.

Each month The Global Reading Group reads one classic work of literature. For the schedule and how to join, visit: www.alicecatherinej.com.

Alice-Catherine Jennings is a student in the MFA Program in Writing at Spalding University.  Her poetry has appeared in In Other Words: Merida, Hawai’i Review, Penumbra, The Louisville Review, Boyne Berries and is forthcoming in First Literary Review East. She is the recipient of the U.S. Poets in Mexico 2013 MFA Candidate Award. Alice-Catherine divides her time between Austin, Texas and Oaxaca, Mexico.    

Epics on a Global scale

'Milton’s Paradise Lost and Seamus Heaney’s Translation of Beowulf have been neglected. My new challenge is to work on finishing the unfinished and immersing myself in the epics.'

This is a quote from my blog post dated 31st December 2013. Imagine my surprise when a week later I saw an offer on Facebook to join a Global Reading Salon set to read epics in 2014, the first of the selection being Beowulf. Of course I joined. 
And when I did join I found that Milton's Paradise Lost was on the calendar for March - perfect.

This closed group was created and is managed by Alice, a lady in Oaxaca, Mexico. So how does is work? Alice invites participants through her normal facebook links, you message her and she adds you to her closed reading groups. Each book has its own group so you do not have to read them all. There is four weeks allocated to read and comment on any particular epic.

About a week before reading commences, Alice posts some introductory information and invites the groups to introduce themselves to each other. She also sets out the reading itinerary, breaking the book into equal parts. Each week we are given a particular aspect of the book to focus on for example architecture, the role of women, heroism and that sort of thing. The group sizes could range from half a dozen to over thirty depending on the given book. Participants came from all over the globe although the discussions tended to be generated by the same few.

The thing I enjoy most about the Global Reading Group is the discipline of having to read a set amount each week. If I fall behind I work hard to catch up. It is invigorating to imagine people all over the world reading the same book as you, but I think the best part of the experience is the satisfaction I feel each time I finish what can sometimes be a very difficult read. Below are my reviews of the first three reads of 2014.

This is an epic poem written in Anglo Saxon sometime between seventh and tenth century. I thought the read would be heavy going but I was in the safe hand of the Seamus Heaney translation; beautiful flowing lyrical verse. The story is a rollicking good read. Poor Beowulf, not only does he have to slay a monster and monster mummy, but just when you think it's safe to take the chain mail off, a dragon appears. The reading group definitely enhanced the experience, with loads of online chat and additional information about the epic. I would recommend it.
Five Stars








This German Epic is not for the faint hearted.  It tells a very gruesome tale of love, lust, rape, murder, revenge and bitterness.  The story takes place between the lands of the Rhine and the Danube around 400AD and 600AD.  The most astonishing thing that struck me about The Nibelungenlied is the small value of life and the treatment of women, even those of noble birth. The armies' warriors were measured in thousands, many of them slaughtered. This is an interesting account of the nobility and changing fortunes of that period in time. Four Stars







This is one of the books I had sitting on my shelf for years and knew it would be good for me to read so I was happy the Global Reading Salon had it as the March read.  It wasn't what I expected which was a holy, holy poem about Adam and Eve and the creation.  God in the poem is scary, fierce and ruthless. And Satan has motives and seems quite rational at times. I read the poem aloud and enjoyed the beauty of the structure and language but I have to admit that I was often confused and lost concentration many times when the story spun off into different points of time, naming people and places I had no reference to.  I am going to give it four stars because it is a cracking poem and an immense body of work. Four Stars

Poetry Challenge 2013

The poetry challenge

A year ago today I was planning my poetry challenge. As a reluctant poetry reader the challenge was to read at least one poem a day, every day and to choose a new poet every week. By the end of the year I should have read at least 365 poems and 52 new poets.  One year on I can claim success and more.  I managed to read on average about four poems a day. Some weeks I did cheat and would choose to read a poet’s collection I had previously started and failed to complete, but in the course of those weeks I invariably found other poets to read somewhere along the line.  Because here is the thing, once you embark on including poetry as part of your daily life you begin to see it everywhere; in newspapers and magazines; at the beginning of books; on the internet; in the underground; on the back of cereal packets. Poetry exists everywhere we just don't notice it.

So how did I choose my poets and where did I source their collections?  When I started I knew very little about poetry, but I did know loads of poets. The first thing I did was broadcast a plea on Facebook and Twitter. The response was staggering. I began with a list long enough to keep me going for the first couple of months.  Many of these poets continued to send me suggestions throughout the year if they came across something they thought I would like.  Even with this very unscientific approach I find that the poems span many centuries and continents. I am surprised by the many Scottish poets in my list but also by the diversity.

I admit to buying a few new poetry books, both hard copy and ebook.  I found many of the poetry ebooks under £2.00 and often free. I also used WWW.Poemhunter.com, a superb source that allows you to download free poetry ebooks.

Because I lived part of 2013 in France I had to organise my library books with care but I am sorry to say the libraries only held a limited online selection.

Most of my books were second hand.  Early on in the year I visited Callander where bookshop owner, the lovely poet and publisher Sally Evans, guided me on the best and most influential poets to read. She insisted I read John Donne and I am glad she did.  ABE Books, a marketplace of online second hand bookstore was my main source.

My greatest joy was trolling the shops of Paris. There I found the elusive Edwin Muir, an old version of French Poetry with translation, a bilingual version of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Yeats and Emily Dickinson. The search was as pleasurable as the reading.

So what did I learn from this challenge?  The aim was to improve my own writing. I am not sure if this is achieved, time will tell.

I have learned that reading poetry enriches your life in unimagined ways. New worlds have been opened up to me. I have discovered a love of art, I know more about Greek Mythology, politics, oppression, nature, life and love.

The challenge may have ended but I will continue to read poetry every day. This is a daily habit I intend to keep. 

Throughout the year I have managed to read full collections but often I could only dip in and out again.  I only managed a glance at Shakespeare’s sonnets and the French collection. Milton’s Paradise Lost and Seamus Heaney’s Translation of Beowulf have been neglected.  My new challenge is to work on finishing the unfinished and immersing myself in the epics. And I can't wait.

Below is my list of readings:

Week 1 – Thomas Hardy, Poems of the past and present, full collection

Week 2 – Kathleen Jamieson, The Overhaul, full collection

Week 3 – The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, complete poem

Week 4 – Billy Collins, selection of poems from Poemhunter.com

Week 5 – Two Billies – William Letford, Bevel, full collection and William McGonagall, A Selection, full collection.

Week 6 - Sharon Olds, Stag’s Leap, full collection

Week 7 – Robert Crawford, The Tip of my Tongue, full collection

Week 8 – Mark Doty, Atlantis, full collection

Week 9 – T S Elliot, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, full collection. And Sydney Goodsir Smith, Under the Eildon Tree, full collection

Week 10 – Moya Cannon, Carrying the Songs, full collection

Week 11 – Emily Dickinson, Everyman’s Poetry Collection, full collection

Week 12 – Bernardine Evaristo, Land of Abraham, full collection

Week 13 – Rhona Fitzgerald, Oidreacht/Inheritance, full collection

Week 14 – Christopher Reid, The Song of Lunch, full poem

Week 15 – Sheila Blackhall, The Toad on the Rock’s Opinion, full collection

Week 16 – Warsen Shire, Teaching my mother how to give birth, full collection

Week 17 – Dylan Thomas, Everyman’s Poetry Collection, various selection

Week 18 – Don Patterson, Landing Light, full collection

Week 19 – August Klienzahler, The Strange Hours Travellers Keep, full collection

Week 20 – Pablo Neruda, Love – Ten Poems, full collection

Week 21 – James Robertson, Hem and Heid – ballads, sangs, saws and poems, full collection

Week 22 – Elizabeth Burns, The Gift of Light, full collection

Week 23 – WB Yeats, Everyman’s Poetry Collection, various selection

Week 24 – Charles Baudelaire, The Poems and Prose Poems of, various selection

Week 25 – Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, various selection

Week 26 –Wong Phui Nam, Way of Exile, various selection

Week 27 – Ray Bradbury, On Creativity, complete book

Week 28 – Paul Muldoon, The Poetry of, various selection

Week 29 – Marina Tsvelaeva, Bride of Ice, various selection

Week 30 – WH Auden, Tell me the truth about love

Week 31 – Chris Salt, Home Front, Front Line, full collection

Week 32 – Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken and Other Selected Poems, full collection

Week 33 – Epic of Gilgamesh, part read

Week 34 - The Poems of Wilfred Owen, full collection

Week 35 – Yardza Garcia, A Shy Girl Screams Poetry, full collection

Week 36 – Wendy Cope, If I Don’t Know, full collection

Week 37 - Edwin Muir, Selected Poems, full collection

Week 38 – Alice Walker, Horses make the landscape look more beautiful, full collection

Week 39 - Poems of the Great War 1914-1918, various poets, full collection

Week 40 – George Mackay Brown, Northern Lights, Poems and Prose, full collection

Week 41 – Maya Angelou, And Still I Rise, full collection

Week 42 – Ted Hughes, Birthday Letters, various selection

Week 43 – Tennyson, various selection

Week 44 – Theodore Roethke, selection of poems from Poemhunter.com

Week 45 – Louise Gluck, selection of poems from Poemhunter.com

Week 46 – Sai Murray, Ad-liberation, full collection

Week 47 – Kevin Cadwallender, various selection

Week 48 – John Donne, Complete works, various selection

Week 49 – Robert Louis Stevenson, Everyman’s Poetry, various selection

Week 50 – The Poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi, various selection

Week 51 – Moon in The Pines, Haiku, full collection

Week 52 – Michael Ondaatje, The Cinnamon Peeler, various

Some were great, some were good and a few were truly awful but they were all worthwhile to read.

The curious world of Bizarro

A couple of weeks ago I read a copy of Chris Kelso’s A Message from the Slave State and experienced my first curious taste of the Bizarro genre. I thought Bizarro would make a great topic for a blog post then realised I was hopelessly under qualified for such a task so I interviewed Chris about the genre and his writing. I'm now clued up and you can be too if you step into the weird world of Bizarro with the talented Chris Kelso as your guide. 

Chris Kelso

You are the only Scottish Bizarro Writer. What is Bizarro and when did you first discover this new genre?

I’d say the most frequently used tagline the Bizarro genre has sums the whole thing up pretty well, although there is more to it. The tagline goes that: Bizarro Fiction defines itself as the literary equivalent of the cult film section in a video store. It has a definite focus on the outré but shares common tropes with science-fiction, fantasy, and horror as well as with Dadaism and surrealism. It’s a great mash-up of tastes and styles. There’s a strong influence of new Weird in there as well as horror comedy (I’d even argue that Ero Guro has been just as instrumental in shaping the Bizarro voice – it has certain preoccupations with eroticism, sexual corruption and decadence.) I discovered it myself about 7 years ago, and like most newbies to the genre, it was Carlton Mellick III that lured me in. I was going through a kind of ‘controversial novel phase’ as a teenager where I was consuming anything that people found morally reprehensible or distasteful. “Satan Burger” was popping up all over the place and causing a stir – so I bought it, read it, and before I knew any better I was spending a large chunk of my student loan on Eraserhead Press titles. I was SUCH a fanboy. I still am really. Having the chance to finally be part of that whole thing is a dream come true, and in most cases I am actually friends with the writers I grew up reading. I even wound up co-creating a magazine called Imperial Youth Review with an idol of mine, Garrett Cook. It’s been a fairy tale as far as I’m concerned.

What attracted you to the genre?

I had my period of wading through the classics of the literary canon but by the time I was at university I was crying out for something that appealed to my sensibilities and didn’t feel like homework! Don’t get me wrong, I love the classics, I also love Scottish fiction like Robin Jenkins and Alasdair Gray, but there’s a side to my personality that all that stuff doesn’t cater to. While it’s certainly aimed at a mature audience, a large proportion of the Bizarro community take their inspiration from cult movies which make it accessible and appealing to disillusioned younger readers. It aims to satisfy the demands of readers who are looking for deliberately and unashamedly weird literature. Although a lot of the writing itself is surreal and grotesque, there’s an aesthetic of self-promoting too so every author in the genre is a hard-working, stoic professional. It’s the perfect genre to induct new writers – it’s unusually welcoming for a lit-movement, but you have to work your arse off to get anywhere and stand out. I need my arse kept in check like that to stay on top of my game.

Much of your work is short fiction. What opportunities are available for publication of short fiction in this genre? 

There are always new podcasts (Christopher Boyle’s BizarroCast and Jeremy Maddox’s Surreal Grotesque shows instantly come to mind) and ezines appearing within the genre. You really couldn’t hope to be in better company as an emerging writer because people are constantly creating a new arena for you to express yourself. Everyone is very encouraging and there are ALWAYS open submissions somewhere.

At times your prose uses exquisite literary description and unique metaphor. Do you ever explore other genres to sustain this type of prose? 

I do. Bizarro is really just the “excuse” I cling to in order to communicate my horrid little stories without being stoned in the street or deemed abhorrent in the eyes of society. It’s not just my excuse, I do actively identify myself as a Bizarro writer in some capacity. But it allows me to write without restraint, urges it even. This is tremendously freeing for a writer. I’m just as influenced by literary fiction and science fiction as I am by Scottish fiction (believe it or not!) and some non-fiction. The Bizarro genre has been hugely inspirational to me but most of the actual literary devices and developments I exercise are taken from or influenced by the more recognised genres.

Who are your main writing influences and why? 

This is difficult for me. I have so many, but I’ll give you the run down on the three who have had the biggest impact on me. My main influences are….

.William Burroughs – because his prose is just stunning. It’s raw, ugly, refined and coarse in equal measure. “Naked lunch” provides, in my eyes at least, the true blueprint for what Bizarro fiction means to ME and what I think it’s all about: Writing without shackles, provoking and employing heavy use of metaphor to create fix-up novels. The pop-culture significance is also present in Burroughs work.
 .Alasdair Gray – “Lanark” is my favourite book, hands down. “1982 Janine” is a close second. He was the first Scottish writer I’d come across who didn’t come across as a stuffy auld arsehole (of course I’ve since learned that there is a rich tapestry of writers who don’t write like stuffy auld arseholes!). His writing is so accomplished and his artwork is beautiful. That’s another thing that influenced me to try and illustrate my work. The experience simply enhances twofold. I want to create a similar reading experience.
.Philip.K.Dick – Everything about his books tap into what I enjoy most about writing. He introduced to me the idea of creating worlds and analysing the shifting dimensions of our reality. His writing is always smart, efficient and funny. I’ve read most of his books, even the trashy, pulpy novels he wrote early on in his career just to generate cash. I’m missing people like Garrett Cook, Samuel Delaney, Tom Bradley and Charles Bukowski, but I’d be here for bloody ages blethering on about them…

Cartoons appear sporadically within your collections and you use a relaxed, often very funny dialogue. These two elements in your writing led me to wonder if you have ever considered branching into the growing Comic writing scene that is happening in Scotland at the moment. Have you?

I have actually! I’m currently scripting a comic at the moment called The New Animal Liberation Front. There are already some exciting people coming on board to help me out so hopefully we’ll see more from that endeavour soon. But I’m really proud of the way this country is so ingratiated in comic books. From 2000AD to Grant Morrison, there’s a strong network of top-Scots in the field. We seem to be intrinsically channelled into the whole comic book ethos, we just seem to get it over here. There are obviously great artists and writers in comics all over the world, but for a country our size it’s a phenomenal thing to witness. I’m very keen to be part of it, or at least meet some its main proponents. I met Grant Morrison a couple of years ago in Forbidden Planet and I had a lovely chat with him. Unfortunately, I tend to get all marble mouth and start sweating profusely in the company of greatness, but he was very, very cool and lovely…

You have been published both in the UK and in the US. How do the experiences compare?

I’d say the US publisher was much quicker, but both have their pitfalls and graces. I love Dog Horn (who published “Schadenfreude”), but Adam the editor is so unbelievably busy and backlogged that the book took a good while to come out – that said, I think Dog Horn is the freshest and most exciting indie publisher of alternative fiction in the UK –PERIOD- , so it was a small price to pay just to have their name attached.

And finally what advice would you give any writer wishing to break into the Bizarro genre? 

Show each other respect. All the established Bizarro writers are approachable and beautiful human beings who want to see everyone in their genre flourish and succeed. They respond to politeness and a showing of mutual respect. If you need advice they are always accommodating. Just make sure you leave the ego at the door. Get networking on Facebook and make sure you join all the groups that discuss Bizarro literature, think about the Bizarro writing workshops too. There’s no initiation or bull-shit. If you write bizarre, weird fiction there’s a place for you.

Chris Kelso is a Scottish writer, illustrator, editor and journalist. He has also been printed frequently in literary and university publications across the UK, US and Canada. He and Garrett Cook are the co-creator of ‘The Imperial Youth Review. His books include, Schadenfreude, Moosejaw Frontier, A Message from the Slave State, Last Exit to Interzone and the upcoming books - The Black Dog Eats the City, Transmatic and The dissolving Zinc Theatre. 


Thanks Chris.  To read my short reviews of A Message from the Slave State and Schadenfreude click here and here. MM

What I talk about when I talk about the pain in my bones

A wee while ago I read Haruki Murakami's inspiring memoir 'What I talk about when I talk about running' for a number of reasons. The first being I am a fan of Murakami's novels, but I am also a runner and a writer and I was intrigued to see how he linked the two.

In the book he talks about his motives for running. This man is a serious athlete competing in marathons, ultra marathons and triathlons so I was surprised that his motives were not competitive.   He explains that he started running about the same time he became a writer and it was a lifestyle choice. He realised that writing is a sedentary profession and if he wanted to be in it for the long haul he would need to maintain his body in ways he had never considered before.  This got me thinking about my own well-being story.

As humans we are not designed to sit all day. It wasn't long ago we were hunter gatherers. In the last fifty years or so, with the decline of industrialisation in the western world, our employment and our leisure time is increasingly spent sitting, usually in front of a keyboard, screen or smart device. The news reports rises in cases of obesity, heart disease and poor circulation as a result but there is never a mention of how our poor joints and muscles are coping with the changing trend.

Homework Space

Even before I became a full time writer I had pain issues.  Life in the Corporateland, years of lugging a laptop around, heaving cases in and out of aircraft overhead lockers had left me with shoulder, back and arm pain. I hoped that slowing down and working in one space might help; a weekly Pilates class would sort out little niggles, time to run short distances would shake out those tight shoulders.  It did for a while, but after long periods typing I found my shoulders creping up to almost touch my ears.  After days of editing, needle pains began to shoot down my left arm (even though I am right handed).  Like Mr M I want to keep writing as long as I can.  Something had to change.

As years passed I began to notice my mother's mobility decreased exponentially.  Just before she died at the age of eighty six, she had shrunk to the size of a child and had all but seized up, her bones and tendons cracking audibly when she did dare to rise to her feet.  And in her I saw myself thirty years down the line.

A few years ago I began myofascial release treatment with the added benefit of a therapist who is also my Pilates teacher. She knew my weak points and from day one gave me homework and one simple tip which was to change my working arrangement regularly.  The body doesn't tell you when you are in the wrong position until it is too late and it has sneakily learned to adapt. This puts strain on other parts of the body. By changing position the body doesn't get a chance to adapt. The pattern is being constantly broken.

I don't claim to understand the full meaning of myofascial, but the treatment is a cross between stretching, massage and torture. When my muscles are knotted tighter than a clenched fist she performs a treatment called 'stripping out' which is more painful than child birth (I'm not kidding, it is!) It is no surprise then that I do my homework.

The latest piece of homework involves a roller.  This is to prevent the back spasms which occur when I spend too much time sitting and reading which leaves me debilitated for weeks.  Holidays used to be a time when I could curl up on a sofa and read a book from cover to cover. Not anymore.  We (my therapist and I) have come to the conclusion that I need to be in perpetual motion.  That is a tough call for a writer and layabout, and much as I love The Wizard of Oz movie, I have no desire to be Tinman. And I am not the only one afflicted, a Google search threw out a number of blogs about the same subject. Here is one.

I now need to walk about a bit folks.

I Luv Paris (with exceptions) #3 - August or Fermeture Annuelle

Bonnes vacances à toutes et à tout

I returned to Paris on the 2nd of August after a short trip to Scotland.  When I popped out of the Metro at Alésia I thought I had taken a wrong turn; caught the train to ghost town instead of my usual busy little 14e Arrondissement.  Cafe Zeyer, closed for refurbishment, set the trend.  All along the street shutters were down, cafe chairs and tables stacked in corners, usually busy bar tabacs with handwritten signs hung on closed doors, even our little corner boulangerie had its green blinds drawn and buttoned.  August in Paris means Fermeture Annuelle.  The time when every small business shuts up shop and goes on holiday for the month of August.  How would we survive? What would it be like living in a ghost town? It was easy.   

Paris was hot and steamy but I wasn't complaining.  If I wanted crowds I need only go to the Seine in central Paris where a horde of tourists hugged the river bank oblivious to the fact that outside that enclave the city was virtually empty.  

In the 14e the Monoprix was open so we wouldn't starve and the market, although drastically cut, still had one of each type of stall and an abundance of fresh sunflowers for sale.

The biggest problem was finding an open boulangerie. Parisians take their bread very seriously and ever since 1789, when one poor baker was hung for running out of bread, the annual holidays of boulangeries have been regulated by La Préfecture de Police. Parisians should never have to travel more than a couple of streets for their daily bread. The problem was the trial and error of finding one that was open.

There are great advantages of being in Paris in August. Shorter queues at museums, being able to sprint over the busy junction at Porte d’Orléans without having to run the gauntlet of red light blindness, no junk mail, no cold calls and being able to get a seat on the bus. 

Shut for a month

It is now nearing the end of the month and slowly the shops are cranking up the shutters and sweeping out the summer dust. It feels like the end of summer. Although the streets are again filled with the smell of baking bread, through that I can smell autumn's rapid approach. The leaves are falling and the sun is falling too.  It has been a good August.

The Exception

Mosquitoes. According to the locals this has been an exceptionally hot summer and the result is more mozzies.  Some mornings I would wake with tracks of bites across my shoulders and legs.  I tried tea-tree oil mixed with lavender oil, but that proved no deterrent. In the end a new bedtime ritual of swot the mosquitoes was the only solution.