Sheenagh Pugh's Blog, page 36
July 28, 2013
Too idle, too cheapskate...
Just been reading an interesting article on how to design a cover for your self-published book. At one point it said "Many writers choose to get a professional cover designer to help them out. The cost of this service starts at around £100 / $150 and goes up to £1,000 / $1,500 depending on the experience of the designer or demand for their work". It went on to explain how those who didn't have the readies could DIY, which sounded like a hell of a lot of work for anyone who wasn't used to it.
It was at this point that I realised why I would never go down the self-publishing route. The DIY option isn't really on for someone who has neither IT expertise nor any flair at all for design. But I literally couldn't bear to start actually shelling out money to get someone else to do it. I don't make much from publishing, but it has never actually cost me anything more than postage and I have a rooted objection to the idea that it ever might. The thing about self-publishing is that you have to start by spending cash, not only for cover design but for actually creating your artefact at all. The alternative is to build up expertise in fields that may not interest you - I am, I realise, prepared to spend a lot of time and trouble researching and writing a book, absolutely none producing the artefact (I suspect, by the way, that an awful lot of poets resemble me in this; we are not, by and large, the practical type). I want to send it off to a publisher and let him do all that. This I can currently do, and not a penny spent...
What if I didn't have a publisher; what if print publication became really difficult to attain? Would I do it then? No, I don't think I would. I know how to put something online without paying any money; I would do that instead. Sure, it wouldn't make me any money - but neither would it cost me any. About 350 years ago, the German epigrammatist Friedrich von Logau wrote
"Es bringt Poeterey zwar nicht viel Geld ins Haus,
Das drinnen aber ist, das wirft sie auch nicht raus" - which means, more or less, "It's true that writing poetry doesn't bring much money into the house, but at least it doesn't cause you to squander what little there is". I translated it, once, as
"The Muse will never make you rich, it's true,
But she costs less than most mistresses do".
Those who write what could, potentially, make megabucks may have an incentive to speculate in order to accumulate. Literally no poets fall into that category (and the few who make a reasonable income will probably never want for a publisher). I can only see self-publishing working for poets who have some publishing and design skills, or enough money not to mind paying others to use theirs. So you'd potentially have two groups in print: design and IT whizzes and the equivalent of yesterday's gentlemen and lady amateurs - an interesting mix. But if my Muse ever starts charging, she's out the door.
It was at this point that I realised why I would never go down the self-publishing route. The DIY option isn't really on for someone who has neither IT expertise nor any flair at all for design. But I literally couldn't bear to start actually shelling out money to get someone else to do it. I don't make much from publishing, but it has never actually cost me anything more than postage and I have a rooted objection to the idea that it ever might. The thing about self-publishing is that you have to start by spending cash, not only for cover design but for actually creating your artefact at all. The alternative is to build up expertise in fields that may not interest you - I am, I realise, prepared to spend a lot of time and trouble researching and writing a book, absolutely none producing the artefact (I suspect, by the way, that an awful lot of poets resemble me in this; we are not, by and large, the practical type). I want to send it off to a publisher and let him do all that. This I can currently do, and not a penny spent...
What if I didn't have a publisher; what if print publication became really difficult to attain? Would I do it then? No, I don't think I would. I know how to put something online without paying any money; I would do that instead. Sure, it wouldn't make me any money - but neither would it cost me any. About 350 years ago, the German epigrammatist Friedrich von Logau wrote
"Es bringt Poeterey zwar nicht viel Geld ins Haus,
Das drinnen aber ist, das wirft sie auch nicht raus" - which means, more or less, "It's true that writing poetry doesn't bring much money into the house, but at least it doesn't cause you to squander what little there is". I translated it, once, as
"The Muse will never make you rich, it's true,
But she costs less than most mistresses do".
Those who write what could, potentially, make megabucks may have an incentive to speculate in order to accumulate. Literally no poets fall into that category (and the few who make a reasonable income will probably never want for a publisher). I can only see self-publishing working for poets who have some publishing and design skills, or enough money not to mind paying others to use theirs. So you'd potentially have two groups in print: design and IT whizzes and the equivalent of yesterday's gentlemen and lady amateurs - an interesting mix. But if my Muse ever starts charging, she's out the door.
July 8, 2013
Giving away money (without pain)
Well, the Forward Prize shortlists for 2013 are out now. I helped compile said lists in June, together with Jeanette Winterson, David Mills, Paul Farley and Sam West. Some thoughts on the process here:
What's the best thing about judging the Forward Prizes? Free books? Giving away money? Reassessing some poet you hadn't paid enough attention to? Those are good, but I think the best might be the poems, and odd lines, that stick in your head for weeks. They may be from books that didn't even make the shortlist, but they've still made a permanent mark – Dannie Abse's line "Men become mortal when their fathers die" from his collection Speak, Old Parrot ( Hutchinson), isn't going to leave me any time soon.
I will totally admit that the main reason I said yes when approached was that one of the other judges was Sam West, and the fangirl in me couldn't resist meeting Major Edrington from the Hornblower series. (And his readings at the meeting, in a most mellifluous voice, improved many a poem I'd been unsure about.) But I did wonder if I could keep up with all the reading, especially when the books arrived 12 or 15 at a time.
Once you start, though, it becomes addictive not only to read each in its own right but to compare one with another, to re-read and see something that didn't immediately impress become more powerful, to see a poet whose work you thought you knew doing something unexpected. Best of all, of course, to find a poet you didn't know at all and are glad to have come across. This happens most often on the First Collection list, which was my favourite to read. It also contains more books from small presses, and I am very glad some of those made it to the shortlist; small presses need all the help they can get, and they are often where the most interesting and adventurous writing happens. We had to produce shortlists of five in the three categories (best collection, best first collection and single poem); there are six on the best first collection shortlist, which indicates the quality in depth we were seeing in that category.
When we compared shortlists, many books and poems appeared on two or three, a few on four; only one book appeared on all 5. Some had got a grip on only one judge, who was nonetheless passionate about his/her fancy and would argue fiercely to convince the rest. This made for animated debate, and if you ever thought it was possible for these lists to be "fixed" by one judge pushing for a favourite poet, be assured that he'd have a job; there are four other equally opinionated folk in that room and he'd have to convince at least two of them.
Sometimes, we did change our minds about something, or rather reassess it against other choices. And sometimes we didn't. I'm glad to say there was no pressure to achieve unanimity, because that's how to end up with an anodyne list that neither offends nor inspires. Some of the choices are unanimous; others are majority decisions. I'll admit to being less than enthusiastic about at least one on each list, and no doubt my fellow-judges could say likewise. By the same token we would each be passionately enthusiastic about several on each list, and that's as it should be.
Any trends? Well, if Philip Larkin were living, he might have to revise his opinion that the "myth-kitty" was dead. I swear I met the whole Greek and Roman pantheon, several times. Unlike Larkin, I've no particular view for or against mythical beings in poetry; it depends how you use 'em. But I was surprised at their huge popularity in this year's crop and can suggest no reason. Another kind of poem much in vogue is where a narrator watches a craftsperson making something. It might be anything from lace to a Dutch barn; the fascination is with the act of making, which parallels the poet's own craft. Again this can work or not, depending on the poet's skill, but it can risk looking a little vicarious. I don't think it is any accident that one of the books on the first collection shortlist, Adam White's Accurate Measurements (Doire Press), is by a poet who has himself worked as a joiner, and it shows in the immediacy and assurance of his poems on the craft.
There are collections with a central theme, like Rebecca Goss's Her Birth and Dan O'Brien's War Reporter, and more disparate ones – Sinead Morrissey's Parallax, Marianne Burton's She Inserts the Key. In the individual poems list there is both grim subject-matter and humour, often coexisting. I don't think you could identify any unifying principle to the poems and books chosen, other than that they had to be memorable, to stay in the mind even after the judge had read another couple of dozen. That was my yardstick, anyway.
What's the best thing about judging the Forward Prizes? Free books? Giving away money? Reassessing some poet you hadn't paid enough attention to? Those are good, but I think the best might be the poems, and odd lines, that stick in your head for weeks. They may be from books that didn't even make the shortlist, but they've still made a permanent mark – Dannie Abse's line "Men become mortal when their fathers die" from his collection Speak, Old Parrot ( Hutchinson), isn't going to leave me any time soon.
I will totally admit that the main reason I said yes when approached was that one of the other judges was Sam West, and the fangirl in me couldn't resist meeting Major Edrington from the Hornblower series. (And his readings at the meeting, in a most mellifluous voice, improved many a poem I'd been unsure about.) But I did wonder if I could keep up with all the reading, especially when the books arrived 12 or 15 at a time.
Once you start, though, it becomes addictive not only to read each in its own right but to compare one with another, to re-read and see something that didn't immediately impress become more powerful, to see a poet whose work you thought you knew doing something unexpected. Best of all, of course, to find a poet you didn't know at all and are glad to have come across. This happens most often on the First Collection list, which was my favourite to read. It also contains more books from small presses, and I am very glad some of those made it to the shortlist; small presses need all the help they can get, and they are often where the most interesting and adventurous writing happens. We had to produce shortlists of five in the three categories (best collection, best first collection and single poem); there are six on the best first collection shortlist, which indicates the quality in depth we were seeing in that category.
When we compared shortlists, many books and poems appeared on two or three, a few on four; only one book appeared on all 5. Some had got a grip on only one judge, who was nonetheless passionate about his/her fancy and would argue fiercely to convince the rest. This made for animated debate, and if you ever thought it was possible for these lists to be "fixed" by one judge pushing for a favourite poet, be assured that he'd have a job; there are four other equally opinionated folk in that room and he'd have to convince at least two of them.
Sometimes, we did change our minds about something, or rather reassess it against other choices. And sometimes we didn't. I'm glad to say there was no pressure to achieve unanimity, because that's how to end up with an anodyne list that neither offends nor inspires. Some of the choices are unanimous; others are majority decisions. I'll admit to being less than enthusiastic about at least one on each list, and no doubt my fellow-judges could say likewise. By the same token we would each be passionately enthusiastic about several on each list, and that's as it should be.
Any trends? Well, if Philip Larkin were living, he might have to revise his opinion that the "myth-kitty" was dead. I swear I met the whole Greek and Roman pantheon, several times. Unlike Larkin, I've no particular view for or against mythical beings in poetry; it depends how you use 'em. But I was surprised at their huge popularity in this year's crop and can suggest no reason. Another kind of poem much in vogue is where a narrator watches a craftsperson making something. It might be anything from lace to a Dutch barn; the fascination is with the act of making, which parallels the poet's own craft. Again this can work or not, depending on the poet's skill, but it can risk looking a little vicarious. I don't think it is any accident that one of the books on the first collection shortlist, Adam White's Accurate Measurements (Doire Press), is by a poet who has himself worked as a joiner, and it shows in the immediacy and assurance of his poems on the craft.
There are collections with a central theme, like Rebecca Goss's Her Birth and Dan O'Brien's War Reporter, and more disparate ones – Sinead Morrissey's Parallax, Marianne Burton's She Inserts the Key. In the individual poems list there is both grim subject-matter and humour, often coexisting. I don't think you could identify any unifying principle to the poems and books chosen, other than that they had to be memorable, to stay in the mind even after the judge had read another couple of dozen. That was my yardstick, anyway.
June 20, 2013
Aw, bless. Man problems.
Here's an intractable problem for you. The LRB has very few female contributors and it reviews too few books by women. A reader explains to them that she is letting her subscription lapse until this is rectified. Editor writes back. He would love to rectify the situation. But how? It's terribly complicated: "If you were interested, I’d be glad to discuss with you, perhaps in an email exchange, why it may be that women are underrepresented in the paper. I think they’re complicated; actually, as complicated as it gets." (They? Does he mean women are complicated? Or did he perchance think he had used the word "reasons" in his previous sentence?) It keeps him awake at night, but what can he possibly do: "despite the distress it causes us [...] the proportion of women in the paper remains so stubbornly low, the efforts we’ve made to change the situation have been hopelessly unsuccessful."
Poor chap. Can anyone advise him of a way out of this fearful hole?
Poor chap. Can anyone advise him of a way out of this fearful hole?
June 15, 2013
Dense hoover of the midday sun: review of For Rhino in a Shrinking World
Review of For Rhino in a Shrinking World, ed. Harry Owen, illustrated by Sally Scott, pub. The Poets Printery, South Africa, 2013
For Rhino in a Shrinking World is an international anthology of poems and illustrations produced to raise awareness of the endangerment of rhino through poaching and to support the work of protecting them. All contributors have donated their work, and all proceeds go to the Chipembere Rhino Foundation.
Harry Owen began the project out of shock at the brutality of this trade, but, very sensibly, the book does not harp on horror; it is described in the introduction but gruesome facts are pretty much confined there, so as not to exclude the many concerned people who simply can't handle seeing such things illustrated or spoken of explicitly. If you're among them, you can read this book without fear of nightmares.
Not all the poems specifically concern rhino; some are more generally related to issues of conservation and despoliation. All have a cause in mind, though, and I wouldn't claim that all manage to completely avoid the great pitfall of polemic, namely being too obvious and approaching the reader with a linguistic club rather than a rapier. But this doesn't happen nearly as often as it might, and there are in fact many fine examples of how to get ideas across subtly, from Harry Owen's own poem "Your Tour Guide Speaks", where future tourists at the "Serengeti Roadshow" are invited to admire "elefords", "catillacs" and "audilope" rather than the real thing, through Marc Vincenz's "Crushed Dragon Bones", which dares to describe neutrally and leave all judgement to the reader, to Philip Neilsen's "The Dead Are Bored", a textbook example of how to write straight polemic and make it work by not forgetting to pay attention to rhythms and language.
For a European reader, a great bonus is hearing non-European voices describing unfamiliar landscapes – Amali Rodrigo swimming with seals is especially memorable, but Adam Tavel, Mxousi Nyezwa and several others transport us effortlessly across the world to great effect.
Poems that would impress in any company include Marc Vincenz's "Supermolecular", catching the rhythms, momentum and soundtrack of a whole natural world, Susan Richardson's "You'll never become a rhinoceros", getting inside another skin as well as Les Murray could, and my own favourite, Tony Williams' "Dear Rhino, Love from Hippo", a tour-de-force of language, imagery, humour and empathy with three species at once:
In the past month
Anyone could enjoy this book for the poems and the illustrations, but you can also have the happy consciousness of helping to protect a harmless and remarkable beast if you go to this page now. It's a most handsome, well-produced volume, no more expensive than you'd expect for an illustrated book, and anyhow, think where the money's going…
For Rhino in a Shrinking World is an international anthology of poems and illustrations produced to raise awareness of the endangerment of rhino through poaching and to support the work of protecting them. All contributors have donated their work, and all proceeds go to the Chipembere Rhino Foundation.
Harry Owen began the project out of shock at the brutality of this trade, but, very sensibly, the book does not harp on horror; it is described in the introduction but gruesome facts are pretty much confined there, so as not to exclude the many concerned people who simply can't handle seeing such things illustrated or spoken of explicitly. If you're among them, you can read this book without fear of nightmares.
Not all the poems specifically concern rhino; some are more generally related to issues of conservation and despoliation. All have a cause in mind, though, and I wouldn't claim that all manage to completely avoid the great pitfall of polemic, namely being too obvious and approaching the reader with a linguistic club rather than a rapier. But this doesn't happen nearly as often as it might, and there are in fact many fine examples of how to get ideas across subtly, from Harry Owen's own poem "Your Tour Guide Speaks", where future tourists at the "Serengeti Roadshow" are invited to admire "elefords", "catillacs" and "audilope" rather than the real thing, through Marc Vincenz's "Crushed Dragon Bones", which dares to describe neutrally and leave all judgement to the reader, to Philip Neilsen's "The Dead Are Bored", a textbook example of how to write straight polemic and make it work by not forgetting to pay attention to rhythms and language.
For a European reader, a great bonus is hearing non-European voices describing unfamiliar landscapes – Amali Rodrigo swimming with seals is especially memorable, but Adam Tavel, Mxousi Nyezwa and several others transport us effortlessly across the world to great effect.
Poems that would impress in any company include Marc Vincenz's "Supermolecular", catching the rhythms, momentum and soundtrack of a whole natural world, Susan Richardson's "You'll never become a rhinoceros", getting inside another skin as well as Les Murray could, and my own favourite, Tony Williams' "Dear Rhino, Love from Hippo", a tour-de-force of language, imagery, humour and empathy with three species at once:
In the past month
I have eaten a rare fly, a wristwatchdense hoover of the midday sun, missed
a silhouette, odd chunks of my rivals' chins
and a vast tonnage of hay which you,
when the eternal salad drawer of the night
clanked open as you slept.
Anyone could enjoy this book for the poems and the illustrations, but you can also have the happy consciousness of helping to protect a harmless and remarkable beast if you go to this page now. It's a most handsome, well-produced volume, no more expensive than you'd expect for an illustrated book, and anyhow, think where the money's going…
June 9, 2013
Poets Against Atos wins Morning Star Award for Protest in Poetry
Poets Against Atos is an online project collecting poems inspired by the distress inflicted on disabled people by ATOS, the body which conducts, on behalf of the government, disability assessments for people claiming a range of benefits and appears principally determined to do so in such a way as to add to their troubles. Many poets have contributed to it, me among others, (though I cheated by making a found poem out of quotes from various ancient medical oaths, which I was intrigued to find had a lot in common from Greece to China, and in none of them is to be found the injunction that it is any part of a doctor's job to save government money at the possible cost of his patient's health). Anyway, we now have the excellent news that, as was announced last night at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival, the Fit to Work: Poets Against Atos campaign has won the inaugural Morning Star Award for Protest in Poetry 2013. This might be the moment to note that the Morning Star, and its poetry editor Jody Porter, take more interest in poetry than just about any other British newspaper, tabloid or broadsheet. Its weekly poetry column, Well Versed, has some brilliant stuff and is well worth trying to get into.
May 30, 2013
More on KindleWorlds
Did a quick interview-by-email for Metro on this yesterday, some of which is in this article. If I'd known at the time what Ewan Morrison was saying, I might have pointed out more forcefully that "originality" and "literary quality" are a long way from being synonyms and that mixing two widely disparate source properties wasn't first invented in the internet age. As for "They don’t know about story structure and they don’t know about characters"... don't get me started... I wonder how much, if any, he's read.
May 23, 2013
That's so not what it's for...
This is either a misnomer or a total contradiction in terms. When I first saw it, I assumed they might be talking about officially-produced spin-off books from series, which do sometimes get confused with fan fiction. And it does say "authorised". But official spin-offs already are sold on Amazon. This sounds more like fan fiction, but with two major differences: it'll make money, which was never the point of the genre, and in order to make said money, the authors will sell out their autonomy for effective permission from the source producers. Which will mean, no doubt, that only those takes on the source material that please said producers will be authorised.
Personally what I've always liked best about fan fiction is that it doesn't have to be the official take on things; it doesn't ask permission and in many cases would be unlikely to get it. It takes a slant view on the source material, and that's how it makes it new. I can't think of anything more likely to put me off reading a fic than a little stamp on it saying "authorised and approved by the source producers". Jeez, it was frequently because those producers so often didn't understand or appreciate their material that fan fiction got written in the first place!
The making money thing doesn't bother me quite so much, although the generous and sharing nature of fan culture has always been rather joyous. It's always been possible to file off the serial numbers and publish for gain, after all. But the fact that most fan fiction was not-for-profit did give it a great freedom which this bastardised version won't have - once you take their money, there are things you can't do, and for me they were often the most interesting aspects of the genre.
Personally what I've always liked best about fan fiction is that it doesn't have to be the official take on things; it doesn't ask permission and in many cases would be unlikely to get it. It takes a slant view on the source material, and that's how it makes it new. I can't think of anything more likely to put me off reading a fic than a little stamp on it saying "authorised and approved by the source producers". Jeez, it was frequently because those producers so often didn't understand or appreciate their material that fan fiction got written in the first place!
The making money thing doesn't bother me quite so much, although the generous and sharing nature of fan culture has always been rather joyous. It's always been possible to file off the serial numbers and publish for gain, after all. But the fact that most fan fiction was not-for-profit did give it a great freedom which this bastardised version won't have - once you take their money, there are things you can't do, and for me they were often the most interesting aspects of the genre.
May 20, 2013
Here's a varied reading!
- and yes, it's got me in it, hence the ad, but look how many countries are represented! And who, having ever been a fan of Round the Horne, could resist going to a reading in the Balls Pond Road? It should be easy to get to, if you're in or near London. Here's the gen; for more, go to the Pelmeni Poets website.
Our next reading will take place on Wednesday June 12th, 2013 at The Duke of Wellington, 119 Balls Pond Road, London N1 4BN. 6.30pm for 7pm.
how-to-find-us
We are very excited to be hosting the award-winning Punjabi essayist and poet, Amarjit Chandam; the lyrical South African poet, Isobel Dixon; the accomplished fiction writer and poet, Martina Evans; Iraqi poet, novelist and painter, Fawzi Karim; the Shetland-based poet, novelist and critical writer, Sheenagh Pugh and the acclaimed Dublin-born poet, Roisin Tierney.
May 16, 2013
Poem-shaped boxes?
'Tis the season to be getting emails from frantic AS-level students with exams coming up (good luck, all of you). I thought I'd put my answer to the latest up here, because it has a wider relevance. This student, all names naturally withheld, is finding it difficult to place poems under the designated themes - could I please indicate which of mine fit under "oppression". Reply follows:
This isn't the first time I've had students ask what "themes" various poems fit under; this technique of putting them in boxes is plainly much in favour in schools at the moment. Limiting, unimaginative, stultifying way to teach poetry, folks. Of course that's just my opinion. Also that of the late great John R Cash: "You put me in a box, I'm gonna break out of it".
I'm not surprised you find that difficult. So would I. Like most poets, I don't sit down thinking "I'll write a poem about patriarchy today". Most poems are "about" a bunch of stuff, or at least they have several very different triggers. I would hate to think any of my poems were as easily pigeonholed as that, and any teacher or exam question asking you to put poems in pigeonholes is doing a silly thing (you can quote me on that). Trying to help: I have certainly written about oppression, in poems like "Torturers" and "Nothing Happened Here". But of course those poems are not just "about" oppression. In "Torturers", (set in Argentina), a former dictatorship had killed dissidents and given their children to army officers who couldn't have children and wanted to adopt. When the dictatorship fell, the grandparents of these babies went looking for them and in many cases the children were returned and the officers prosecuted. But while that may have been justice, it must have been very traumatic for the children, who knew these people as their parents. Nothing is black and white. And "Nothing Happened Here" (set in Tiananmen Square) is in the voice of someone who sincerely believes the nonsense he is spouting; you could say it was about propaganda as much as oppression. I hope this helps, but I am quite glad the poems are proving hard to pigeonhole; I'd be worried if they fitted neatly into boxes! Good luck with the exams.
This isn't the first time I've had students ask what "themes" various poems fit under; this technique of putting them in boxes is plainly much in favour in schools at the moment. Limiting, unimaginative, stultifying way to teach poetry, folks. Of course that's just my opinion. Also that of the late great John R Cash: "You put me in a box, I'm gonna break out of it".
May 5, 2013
Belay that! Do somethin' else! Really.
Posting because I just visited Gillian Clarke's web site. Gillian is even more GCSE'd than I am, and hence has a very full section designed to help out students. On her poem "Last Rites", a student asks "Is the story true?" Her reply is "Yes. If a poem uses the poet’s own voice, and tells a story from his or her own viewpoint, it is true. The point of view, the personal voice, the place names, the reference to an inquest, the precise description, all tell you it is fact. Sometimes a poet takes the viewpoint of a character, not his or her self. Then the poet uses imagination."
Those who know my obsession on this point will not be surprised to hear that this assertion horrifies me. Dear prospective studentses who may be preparing to land up in the country's Eng Lit departments, please be aware that this is a personal view, and one which I suspect many poets do not share. In the first place, what exactly is "the poet's own voice"? If she means the "I" voice, I can assure you that I write many downright lies in just that voice. Even if I did by chance use some experience of my own, I would certainly change and embroider it; I do not become less of an inventor in the "I" voice, nor save my "imagination" for when I am pretending to be someone else. As for place names and precise description, those are what we all use to add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative, and again they do not necessarily indicate that It All Happened - they indicate that the poet is a good liar, as he or she should be; it belongs to our trade. I know I've said this a tedious number of times, but if even poets are putting out advice like this, it clearly needs saying again: THE NARRATOR IS NOT THE AUTHOR.
Those who know my obsession on this point will not be surprised to hear that this assertion horrifies me. Dear prospective studentses who may be preparing to land up in the country's Eng Lit departments, please be aware that this is a personal view, and one which I suspect many poets do not share. In the first place, what exactly is "the poet's own voice"? If she means the "I" voice, I can assure you that I write many downright lies in just that voice. Even if I did by chance use some experience of my own, I would certainly change and embroider it; I do not become less of an inventor in the "I" voice, nor save my "imagination" for when I am pretending to be someone else. As for place names and precise description, those are what we all use to add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative, and again they do not necessarily indicate that It All Happened - they indicate that the poet is a good liar, as he or she should be; it belongs to our trade. I know I've said this a tedious number of times, but if even poets are putting out advice like this, it clearly needs saying again: THE NARRATOR IS NOT THE AUTHOR.
