Mslexia

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New Writing

The Garden

Guest editor Val McDermid introduces her pick of poetry and prose in Issue 33 ◊ Apr/May/Jun 2007

WHEN it comes to creative writing, we tend to assume the Romantic position: it’s all about inspiration, the words, ideas and stories that spring from our hearts and heads. We writers have this notion of ourselves giving shape to the protean mish-mash of images and emotions that swill around inside us until we have created something uniquely ours, something that, though individual and particular, will also speak to our imagined readers, giving them both pleasure and pause for thought. That’s how it is for most of us for most of the time these days.

But there’s another kind of writing too. Writing to commission isn’t just something journalists do. Nor is it something to be despised. Shakespeare knew all about it, as did Dickens and Dr Johnson and hundreds of others. Every playwright and screenwriter lives by it. I’ve always seen Mslexia’s themed calls for submissions as a kind of commission, the kind that can be paradoxically liberating.

When it comes to writing, it’s easy to get stuck in a particular groove; we find our comfort zones and we cleave to them. But every now and again we need something to kick us out of our rut and make us fly by the seat of our pants. Speaking from my own experience, it took a commisson to get me to write a short story that wasn’t about crime. It was as if it liberated me from my usual concerns and gave me permission to experiment. I look at it now and think it’s probably the best short fiction I’ve written. We should learn to embrace these violent evictions from our routines.

It was clear from reading the submissions for The Garden, that many of you felt similarly unfettered. Garden literature stretches back to Eden, with the first literary badmouthing of women. The medieval Roman de la Rose demonstrated its capacity for allegory. Andrew Marvell showed its aptitude for extended metaphor. John Berendt turned it into a metaphor for darkness and sin. Frances Hodgson Burnett used it to exemplify innocence and redemption. It’s quite a pedigree to live up to.

I hoped for, but didn’t expect, the degree of originality you brought to the subject. I was pleasantly surprised by the range of approaches, the tangents you took to make uniqueness leap off the page. The standard was remarkable and humbling. It reminded me how narrow is the gap between the aspiring and the published writer. I feel privileged to have shared the fruits of your inspirations.

It was difficult to winnow my pile down to the final ten pieces that appear here. Writing, after all, is not a competitive sport. In the end, I threw my hands up in the air and went with the submissions that I liked best, that stayed with me longest after first reading, and that demonstrated a high level of craft.

When it comes to short fiction, I tend to go for stories where something happens. I suspect it’s something to do with cutting my teeth on Sherlock Holmes. I like stories with movement and change rather than the ‘snapshot in time’ that others prefer. Elizabeth Rutherford-Johnson’s ‘Snakes and Apples’ met my taste perfectly. It’s a chilling, beautiful story, an original take on the old idea of the escape to a new life, with the added twist of what we will do to preserve that new life. The prose is fresh and vivid, the story packed with insight and suspense. I could see the story unfolding in my mind’s eye, three-dimensional and clear. I liked that the story dealt with the garden as reality as well as metaphor. This is clearly a writer who has literally got her hands dirty.

Judith Brown’s ‘Dig for Victory’ is a delightful pastiche of the English village mystery. Because she can rely on her audience’s familiarity with the clichés of the form, she can be economical in description, knowing a few words will allow us to conjure up the tippling vicar, the ardent spinster gardener and the landscape they inhabit. A clever twist at the end suddenly plunges this gentle world into a darkness made delicious by the writer’s wit. The workmanlike prose doesn’t dazzle, but it does the job.

My next choice, ‘The Captain’s Grave’ by Juliet Bates, could not be more different in style and tone. This lyrical, elegiac story has a striking opening – it’s arresting, well-balanced, and sounds good out loud. I always read my work aloud, especially the short stories. The ear is less forgiving than the eye, and it’s the best way I know to shape the cadences of a piece of prose. This tale of a woman haunted by her love and hemmed in by her grief is transforming, and I was impressed by Bates’ execution of the central conceit of liberation into air from earth.

Tracking the process of transformation suits the short form particularly well. The cool prose of K. Reed Petty’s ‘My Father’s Wild Years’ captures a double transformation. Growth, persistence, sorrow, love and forgiveness underpin the apparently straightforward surface, while the narrator hints at a darkness beyond the boundaries of the story itself. I found myself almost holding my breath as the ending approached, wondering if the possible salvation would materialise.

My final prose choice is Julia Bohanna’s ‘A Man of Books.’ The device of looking at the world through a child’s eyes is more difficult to accomplish than it appears: to capture the artlessness of a child’s world view takes a great deal of art. It’s easy to slip into adult knowingness without realising. Julia Bohanna manages to avoid that pitfall in this poignant story where the construction of a garden on a grand scale is set in counterpoint to a fracturing relationship. As adults, we read between the lines of the child’s perceptions. We have access to the emotional pain the child can’t comprehend, and our understanding adds meaning beyond what’s on the page. Stories like this demonstrate the importance for the writer of grasping what your reader will bring to your work.

I was once told rather haughtily by a male poet that my response to poetry was immature because I liked ones that provoked a response at the time of reading, rather than those one had to pore over several times in order to extract meaning. Well, I’ve never thought poetry should be experienced as an intellectual exercise. For all the complexity of his verse, T S Eliot’s skill with language still takes the breath away. So, I’ve chosen poems that stirred an initial response, that stayed with me and that satisfied my delight in language that feels good in the mouth.

‘Slow Ships’ by Sarah Barnsley is a startling example. I’m not sure why this extended metaphor is so powerful or why it works so well. Maybe it’s the way the Atlantic of the opening couplet is picked up at the end of the poem. Maybe it’s the visual images the poet weaves. Maybe it’s the unexpectedness of the comparison. Either way, it has crept insidiously into my consciousness and made me think again about my least favourite garden pest.

‘In the Garden’ by Rebecca Goss takes a familiar poetical form; a small incident sets the poet’s mind thinking about something else. Here, a whole back story is referenced in nine lines. The language is precise and evocative, the images sharp as a photograph. It’s like the commentary to a short film that allows us to understand what’s really going on.

‘A Gardener Makes Love’ by Ann Alexander is pitch perfect – honest, warm and rooted in practical knowledge. Her choice of words made me think afresh about things I thought I knew, and there’s an obvious sensual delight in this poem that makes it impossible to avoid smiling while reading it.

I felt that same delight in Sarah Wright’s ‘Miss Jekyll’s Gardening Boots, 1920.’ Inspired by a painting of Gertrude Jekyll’s boots, this is an affectionate, articulate portrait of the inspirational gardener. The poet shares her admiration for her subject, offering insight and wit along the way. At its best, the poetic tribute to an individual makes us stop and reassess what we know of them. This did it for me.

Ivy Bannister’s ‘Plein Air’ captures a moment freighted with emotion. It’s a double snapshot that feels achingly beautiful, simultaneously joyful and sad. The lushness of the flowers is a counterpoint to the frailty of age, giving us pause as we consider our own mortality. .

Writing takes commitment and persistence and a willingness to open up and assimilate new lessons. It’s clear that the writers showcased here have taken that to heart and worked to polish their pieces.

Almost everything we read has the capability to teach us something about our craft. We can learn from what others do well; we can learn from their infelicities. For me, one of the joys of guest editing this crop of new writing has been those moments where I’ve drawn my breath in sharply and thought, ‘I wish I’d said that.’

It happened more often than you’d think. Thank you, all of you, for the pleasure of your writing.

VAL McDERMID grew up in a Scottish mining community then read English at Oxford. She was a journalist for 16 years, spending the last three years as Northern Bureau Chief of a national Sunday tabloid. Now a full-time writer, she divides her time between Cheshire and Northumberland. Her novels have won international acclaim and a number of prestigious awards, including the Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year, the Anthony Award for best novel, and the Los Angeles Times Book of the Year Award. Her latest novel, The Grave Tattoo, won the 2006 Portico Prize for Fiction.

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When it comes to writing, it’s easy to get stuck in a particular groove; we find our comfort zones and we cleave to them. But every now and again we need something to kick us out of our rut and make us fly by the seat of our pants.

VAL MACDERMID