Fawzia Muradali Kane

Interview with Fawzia Muradali Kane by Deborah Gaynor

Author Page — Poetry PF

1. Which is your favourite poem that you have written and why?

There’s no single all-time favourite for me. There are poems that go through my thoughts constantly, for some months sometimes, but I’m not sure whether this is because I like them or if this is just part of the mental editing process.

There may be a particular poem at some key point in my life that resonates with whatever I’m going through at the time, at the moment it’s “Curfew”, written during the State of Emergency in Trinidad last year.

I guess I like the poems that mean the most to me in a personal and very private way, where readers may assume meanings that are completely different to my intention. That does not mean that a reader’s interpretation is any less valid – after all, a poem will still work on some level if it manages to provoke some feeling of recognition in them. It’s just that sometimes, the codes in the phrases may reflect a specific event or feeling, that is so personal, I don’t think it necessary for anyone to know the true reason behind its creation.

2. Where do you get your inspiration from for your poetry?

Poets will probably say “anything and “everything”. For instance, with “Curfew”, I was staying at my mother’s in San Fernando (September 2011), the weather was boiling, and there was all this turmoil going on out in the streets during the day. But at night, because of the curfew, the silence outside became a presence as strong as fear. Even though it was probably the safest (crime-free) time in memory. I wrote in one sitting at night, about the heat wrapping itself around everything, and while writing, Lex our pot-hound sat outside my window, and began to howl at the moon. This went in too, and as the poem finished, I remembered the gang-speak  of “dawgs” and “bitches” so this reference stayed and became a symbol of the cause of the State of Emergency (a spike in gang-related crime).

This is maybe too big a question to answer, for any poet. One method I have is to simply write a simple and (at least what seems to me at the time) a truthful no-frills description of what is in front of, or around me -whether actually there in front of me, or a mental image. The piece is worked up, and it may change into something completely different from the first words. Then it is workshopped, to me a crucial part of the process.

Many of my poems are dramatic monologues. Sometimes you can say more in another voice than your own. Once you’ve fixed the characteristics, attitude and tone of the voice, the rest can almost write itself.

3. What advice can you give someone who has never written a poem before?

Read. Read. Read. And you must want to write and not feel that it is an obligation. Get your work read by someone sympathetic but independent. There are so many courses out there for beginners, why not just choose a “starting to write” one and see how things develop. Oh, and don’t forget to keep reading.

4. Does your job as an architect ever influence your poetry?

Years ago, I used to try to keep the 2 disciplines separate, but it’s an impossible task. When a building is lived in, it can retain aspects of the occupants’ lives, even when derelict. Sylph Editions are due to publish a long sequence “Houses of the Dead”, which lists the detritus of lost lives in emptied spaces, linked by the current personal life of the surveyor, who has no choice but to walk through these spaces. I think these poems are perhaps the most overtly influenced by architectural practice.

5. Finally, you have a very beautiful and interesting name, does it mean anything?

I don’t know what it means. My father named my sisters and me after King Farouk of Egypt’s daughters (Ferial, Fawzia and Fadia).

Mimi Khalvati

Interview with Mimi Khalvati by Ro’isin Singh

Mimi’s website.

1. What inspired you to start writing poetry?

I started writing poetry by accident whilst working in the theatre. I went on a writing course titled ‘Script writing and Poetry’ which introduced me to the idea of it. It was completely unplanned and I sort of fell into it. I started writing poetry at the age of 42 which is quite late compared to other poets but when I discovered poetic skills, I knew it was perfect for me.

2. In your own words, how would you define a Ghazal?

Well, a Ghazal is a very old Persian form of poetry and is a very popular form in the Middle East. It is a short love song with a spiritual dimension and covers different definitions and levels of love, such as, love for an object, person or their beloved. It is considered to be very romantic.

3. Looking at the way your poems are written, there seem to be both Persian and British influences within your poetry, is that something you would agree with?

No, not really as I do not read Persian literature or poems in original classic Persian. I have only read two classically Persian Ghazals and those were read with a translator who helped me. I believe that my influences are British and American because I was brought up in England. I can’t really say I have Persian influence because I don’t know it as well as I know British poetry, so my influences are definitely British.

4. Spending time in Iran as well as growing up in the UK suggests that you have seen poetry at two different angles. Do you think poetry is more widely acknowledged as a form of literature in Iran or in the UK?

My impression is that poetry in Iran is considered the highest form of literature. Poets and writing poetry is considered to be commendable in Iran and is more popular than novels because even illiterate people memorise quotes from well known Iranian poets and use them in daily life. In the UK, however, poetry is quite marginal in that there are many critics that consider poetry to be a popular and sophisticated form of literature yet other consider it to differ too much from novels in order for it to be considered as a form of literature. In my opinion, it obviously should be acknowledged as a form of literature but the debate situated around it is still ongoing.

5. You are also an editor and have co-edited three anthologies for Enitharmon Press. Can you tell me what your editing work entails?

Poetry editing is very simple but it depends on its brief. Throughout the editing process you have to honour the idea of the anthology that you are editing so as to keep a recurring theme between all poems. As well as corresponding with the poets this is also crucial. However, poetry editors are not as connected with poets as they used to be previously as a majority of the poems need no major alterations and the go ahead to edit them is almost always given without needing active involvement from the poets themselves.

6. You first started writing poetry while bringing up children; did you ever consider it before hand?

I have always loved poetry in terms of reading and acknowledging it’s presence but in theatre I always look at verse because that was the most popular form used within dialogue and as I was working with scripts, that was the form I was most confronted with. Originally, I never wanted to be a writer but my strongest subjects at school was English.

7. What are your views on feminism?

I consider myself as a feminist and have been a strong believer since my 30’s. My life and way of thinking was influenced by 60’s and 70’s wave of feminism. I have always believed in giving weight and value to the feminist principle. I think women in today’s society want to have masculine traits because society approves of them, which I don’t agree with. Women need to embrace what makes them a ‘woman’, in those feminine traits should not be oppressed or mocked rather they should be embraced and celebrated. I sympathise with radical feminism and socialist feminism, in that I believe in equal rights, equal pay and equal opportunities between men and women.

8. Do you think there is enough female contribution to poetry in Iran?

At the moment, there are two or three female poets that are quite well-known in Iran, such as Forough Sarrokhzad who is a contemporary Iranian poet that died in the 60’s and is well-known for her work. Although, censorship in Iran is very strict and monitors every piece of literature published in the country. The rules and regulations always depend on what regime is in Government and many writers have banned and jailed over their works due to disapproval from regime

9. Can you explain what the poem, Nostalgia, from The Chine is about?

I wrote the poem after being inspired by a conversation I once had with an Iranian man. We were talking about something I cannot recall at the moment but he described himself to be nostalgic over something that has not happened and at that point I didn’t understand how you could feel nostalgic about something that hadn’t happened. After giving it some thought, I realised you could and decided to write about it. The poem Nostalgia is about exactly that, at how you can feel nostalgic over something that hasn’t occurred yet.

10. When writing poems, do you draw upon your own personal experiences that act as an inspiration?

I do draw on my personal experiences as inspiration for writing poetry. Virtually all of my work has come from my own personal experiences, which sometimes can be a flaw as it restricts you from being creative and thinking of other themes or topics to talk about. I am trying to write beyond that.

W.N. Herbert

Interview with W.N. Herbert by Nathaniel Wooding

Bill’s blog.

 

1. How did you get into writing poetry, who were your influences?

I was always writing because, from primary school onward, it was part of our ordinary school work to write stories – my English jotters are full of ‘compositions’. When I was 16 or so, we started to learn about poets and playwrights – Norman MacCaig, Bertolt Brecht, Shakespeare (of course), John Donne and Gerard Manley Hopkins. I bought poems by Keats and Auden from a little second-hand bookshop on the Hawkhill in Dundee, and, very gradually it seemed…I began trying to make these strange things myself.

MacCaig, Donne and Auden were so neat and elegant in their thinking it was like they were making striking buildings or fast cars, but each was designed so differently I wanted to know how they did it. With Keats and Manley Hopkins the expressiveness of what they were saying was so striking it was as though you were them: again, I wanted to be able to do that to a reader.

Poems were like model kits made out of words, like origami or punk singles or prog album covers or Renaissance paintings: something technical that captured something I thought was cool. So I took their poems to pieces and then I imitated them, and then I found I was making these other shapes of my own.

2. What can be expressed in poetry that can’t be expressed in other art forms?

Nothing, it just expresses stuff differently because it’s so focused on patterns of language and trying to make the reader experience that as a multi-sensory texture. The poem is the fastest, most direct way to do what music, stories, images and films do over time, but because it does this with words, the reader gets drawn into the language rather than just hunting for the meaning. Done properly, poems knock time out of the picture entirely, so you don’t know when or where you are, or how long you’ve been reading. Because words can affect us as immediately as smells, we can be thinking and remembering and processing experiences before we really know why.

What poetry is processing is what things, events and people mean rather than what they are. The value of being here rather than the monetary value of buying something from here. What they (things, events, people) actually are remains a mystery, but what they mean you can at least explore through language: what words filter and what they permit. So poems are full of symbols and fables even when they contain linear narratives and realist description. Jokes, tunes, dreams, jingles: strong verbal patterns that stick in the head and make you think the pattern itself has meaning, because it does.

3. You write poetry in both Scots and English, what does each language offer? What do you think a poem like ‘Beaker Man (Dundee Man)’ gains from being written in Scots?

English is a world language so it offers you the world; Scots is the language of a small country so it offers you intimacy, and not just if you’re Scots – it’s like all those near-Englishes we speak that someone tells us aren’t quite ‘proper’. English can go anywhere, contain anything, is almost infinitely flexible and curious; Scots can be, vividly, right here: that’s the way I try and use it in ‘Beaker Man’ – this skeleton is both impossibly distant in terms of who it is, and right here in front of us in terms of what it means.

Scots people don’t always use all the words we associate with Scots poems, but they often feel strongly about them, positively or negatively, and that can be interesting in itself, or it can swamp the poem. So you have to judge that carefully, but, usually, the poem has already declared itself to be in Scots or English before I’m conscious of the decision. ‘Beaker Man’, unusually, I decided would work better in Scots.

4. Poetry is often said to be untranslatable, what are your opinions on this? You co-translated the poetry of Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac ‘Gaarriye’, do you think that by translating his work it was made into something new? Has the process of translation affected your poetry in any way?

I’m always a bit bewildered by big categorical statements like ‘poetry is untranslatable’ – each poem can’t be translated into any other language by anyone at all? If they mean it’s probably quite difficult, I can confirm that it’s often pretty complicated because it’s not just about the meanings of the words, it’s also about their music, and what value different writers in different languages attach to poetry itself and to the particular patterns poetry tends to be written in. It’s also about what the images stand for, what the audience is used to, and the really difficult thing is when you have to find equivalences for these – usually you’re translating culturally. But that’s what makes it interesting.

So with Gaarriye we’re talking about long oral poems usually recited to hundreds of people with a single alliterative sound recurring in every line and imagery often drawn from the rural landscape of Somalia – I had to make that work for about thirty to seventy people who’d never owned a camel and might be hearing this just once with a little bit of explanation (but not too much).

I realised that his writing was made strong and confident by its clear shape and its connectedness to the audience: they knew how he was doing it even when they were astonished by what he came up with. So I tried to make the translation argue very strongly and explain its images as it went…, and it did alliterate, just not as often, since that would sound too relentless…in English.

It certainly changed my writing: I realised if you’ve made your pattern strong and your argument plain and your music distinctive, you don’t need to be too precious about being a poet because it’s not about you. The poem’s the thing.

Chris Hamilton-Emery

Interview with Chris Hamilton-Emery by Sarah Castro

Chris’ blog.

1. How  long  have  you  been  writing  poetry?  Why  and how  did  you  start?

My  earliest  memory  of  actually  writing  a  poem  dates from  around  1976  at  grammar  school,  aged  around thirteen,  I  think.  That  was  a  poem  about  the oubliette  at  Warwick  Castle.  I  went  on  to  write  dire sequences  around  wizards  and  dragons  and  secret knowledge  with  lots  of  archaisms —  ‘ye’s  and  ‘thou’s — but  somehow  I  caught  the  bug —  I’d  been  reading  light verse  for  years,  but  I  had  no  idea  about  the  art and  like  many  people,  felt  I  had  access  to  the  art without  any  real  knowledge  of  contemporary  writing  at all.  This  continued  through  my  art  school  education and  sometime  in  the  mid  80s  I  had  to  make  a decision  about  choosing  painting  or  poetry.  Poetry  won, largely  as  the  facilities  for  the  visual  arts  in Manchester  were  so  poor.  As  to  why  and  how,  I  can’t honestly  recollect  those  original  impulses,  but  I  do have  some  touchstones,  in  fact  the  series  of  books entitled  Touchstones  became  part  of  my  early  poetic education  and  I  loved  the  visual  elements  of  those books,  with  dramatic  black  and  white  shots  that  had tremendous  psychological  resonance  for  all  young creative  minds.  Photography  and  film  seem  to  me  to make  very  good  bedfellows  for  poets.

2.  What  do  you  enjoy  most  about  being  a  poet?

It  allows  me  to  be  other  than  me.  I  think  that’s the  chief  pleasure  in  all  creative  writing,  to momentarily  create  these  alternate  spaces  in  which  we can  see  through  into  dramatically  different  modes  of being  in  the  world.  Inventing  new  histories  for oneself.  There’s  a  huge  social  component  too,  though  I can  find  this  a  drain  because  of  my  day  job  as  a publisher,  but  I  think  poets  are  always  fascinating  to be  among.  I  also  like  the  idea  of  living  a  life within  this  large  historical  pursuit,  you  join  in,  you add  what  you  can  and  inevitably  pass  out  of  the  vast historical  conversation  that  poetry  provides.

3.  How  do  you  see  your  work  as  different  from  other contemporary  poets?

I’m  not  sure  I’m  qualified  to  answer  that,  and  I don’t  think  my  writing  has  qualities  which  separate  it out  from  my  colleagues,  there’s  nothing  exceptional about  my  writing.  I’ve  moved  from  writing  quite accessible  poems  to  a  deeply  explorative  period  in  the late  90s  and  early  noughties  that  has  now  led  me back  into  writing  a  more  socially  focussed  kind  of poem —  a  poem  I  hope  general  readers  can  find entertaining  and  rewarding.  I  can’t  say  I’m  any different  from  other  poets,  but  I  do  have  this  belief in  attending  to,  let’s  call  it  artistic  sensibility. I’m  not  interested  in  coteries  or  programmatic  writing, or  writing  for  and  within  the  academy,  I  like  the idea  of  poetry  being  a  living  breathing  art  outside of  any  university  system.  It  doesn’t  belong  there.  But this  isn’t  to  say  it  can’t  be  taught,  or  shouldn’t be,  but  I  think  one  has  to  leave  the  university system  and  recognise  that  there  are  no  qualifications to  being  a  poet.  No  tests  to  pass.  Except  for  the attention  of  general  readers.  I  also  believe  that  you have  to  write  for  people  today,  people  in  society living  their  lives,  today.  I  like  poetry  which  cares about  real  lives  in  real  places  and  tries  to  engage with  them  in  a  language  they  can  come  to  cherish  if not  wholly  understand.  But  that  sounds  too  arcane, doesn’t  it.

4.  Where  and  when  do  you  write,  especially  when writing  about  strong  emotions –  is  it  immediate,  or  on reflection/  from  memory?

I don’t think necessary writing ever directly arises from strong emotions, or rather, one can have terrifically strong creative urges that attend to emotional content, but are, in some way, distanced from it, they can commandeer it, if you like. You’re not in the emotional context of the poem as a writer, but are engineering at a deep level of craft that emotional context for the reader. Does that make sense? The honesty of the poem doesn’t like in its reportage, it lies in its effective transfer of the emotional universe of the poem itself. I think I can write emotional poems, but the emotions may be fictions. To suggest memory would be to imply authorial culpability in the poem’s facts and trajectory, I suspect it’s more tangential in that we create these imaginative spaces and occupy them with the poem and the poem can gain force and presence from these imagined worlds.

5.  Is  there  an  aspect  of  your  life  that  is particularly  influential  on  what  you  write?

Well,  in  one  respect,  how  I  earn  a  living,  as  it provides  the  means  to  do  everything  else.  If  there’s no  income,  all  art  becomes  the  poverty  of  hope.  I have  been  terrifically  fortunate  to  work  with  a  lot of  writers  and  some  have  been  wonderful  colleagues  and nurturing  influences  at  different  points  in  my  creative life.  But  much  of  my  world  is  the  grinding  pursuit of  tiny  sales  for  the  beautiful  work  I  believe  in and,  to  be  frank, bet  my own  money  on.  The  world  of writers  can  be  frustrating  and,  like  any  professional society,  it  can  be  inward  looking  and  occasionally regressive.  But  it  can  be  wonderful  too  and  the wonders  far  outweigh  the  presence  of  ego.

6. In your Poem George’s Song, how did you bring together the different ideas and inspirations in this poem?

Goodness me! That’s a poem from a long way back. I honestly can’t remember how that was written, though I do recall that it was a technical challenge to write a kind of dramatic narrative poem that had a kind of inner voice but moved through a sequence of isolated images; the way dreams can be filled with these narrative procedures — cuts and scene changes — that seem to make absolute sense in moving the story forward, but actually are fractured and fragmented. The story lies underneath the images. It’s a filmic poem, too, the thing moves forward by conveying these distinct hallucinatory elements that are comic and threatening and creepy, too. When I read it, I see the  poem  as  much  as  I  hear  it.  I’ve  not  read  it for  many  years  now.

7.  What  advice  would  you  give  young  writers  to encourage  them  to  write  poetry?

Firstly, read everything you can. Read beyond your own tastes, your own prejudices, your own desires. Read until your eyes bleed. The writing will take care of itself if you build this occupational obsession.

Secondly,  imagine  a  writing  life  that  is  outside  of any  institution.  Avoid  all  forms  of  institutional writing  and  beware  of  what  drives  it  in  case  it  ends up  driving  the  writing  itself.

Thirdly,  consider  what  it  is  to  be  a  poet,  what  this vocation  means  to  you  in  terms  of  your  whole  life, not  just  the  writing,  but  your  idea  of  yourself  and the  choices  you  will  make.  Being  a  writer  is  a responsibility  and  each  writer  will  articulate  those responsibilities  differently,  and  they  may  change,  too. But  do  think  of  the  big  questions,  How  will  I  choose to  live  as  a  writer.  And  remember,  you’re  almost certain  to  find  you  can’t  earn  an  income  from writing.  It’s  not  about  money.

Fourthly, remember it’s about craft and technique as much as it’s about skill, style, voice, theory, emotion, politics or anything else. Without the technique you’ll fail to deliver the art.

Finally,  don’t  become  a  ghetto.  Look,  listen  and attend  to  all  the  arts,  for  they  are  the  lifeblood of  the  world.  It  would  be  foolish  to  only  savour  one art,  just  like  it  would  be  boring  to  spend  your  life eating  radishes.

8.  What  do  you  hope  your  legacy  to  British  Poetry will  be?

My  absence!  I’m  not  interested  in  legacies, it’s fallacious,  history  is  not  my  concern. We’re  alive  this very  moment,  and  it’s  this  moment  we  should  attend  to as  human  beings  and  as  writers.

 

Andy Jackson

Interview with Andy Jackson by Arina Mitsujeva

Andy’s website.

1. Do you remember how and when you first realized you were a poet? What did it feel like?

It’s difficult to say. I think there is a difference between writing poetry and being a poet. The latter sounds like a profession, as in being a doctor or a police officer. I think I am not a poet, but I do write poetry. There is a line to be crossed from just writing poetry to writing poetry which might be worth publishing.

I guess you need a respectable publication to describe you as a poet. The first poem like that for me was one I sent to New Writing Scotland about six years ago. It was something I felt I could send off and believe in. Something I would want to buy myself.

At school and in my twenties, I did write poetry, but it was not high-intention poetry. What changed how I look at poetry was me joining a writing group ten years ago at University of Dundee (for students and staff). The group was lead by Colette Bryce. In the group I learned to not just write from the heart, but apply technique, to understand form in poetry and try to develop a critical eye, although none of that came straight away.

It’s also important to see other poets, read their work. Sometimes new poets are very close to their own poetry and their critical sensibilities for their own work are slower to develop. I feel you can’t be a modern poet without reading a lot of modern poetry.

2. What was the first poem you ever read & how did it affect you?

I guess the first thing that I felt was a poem and not a nursery rhyme was The Owl and The Pussycat by Edward Lear. I was a fan of nonsense and wordplay, as children usually are. That sense of the ridiculous and sense of humour still appeal to me.

In my own poetry today, I try to implement the sense of humour and the ridiculous, by means of witticisms, asides, and so on. I do not write comic poetry but I try to write poetry with some comic sensibility, without intention to make people laugh. It is sometimes confused with being populist.

I believe poetry should convey its message reasonably simply without turning people off by what you write. If it’s not communicated effectively, it’s not communicated at all.

3. What was it like to have your work published and how did you go about it?

Early on I didn’t send very much away, waiting for a long time before I felt I had something worth sending away. It took me 3-4 years but when I did send it, it worked on either my 2nd or my 3rd attempt. I haven’t much self-belief in what I write and sometimes need someone to tell me if it’s a good poem.

4. This brings me to my next question. How important do you think feedback is for a poet? Do you often show your work to friends or family before sending it away?

Feedback is crucial. I think every poet would benefit from having one person to work with, to share each other’s work and criticize each other honestly and fairly. Of course, there are people who are self-sufficient and work independently. What works for me is my writing group, although I guess I have become less reliant on feedback now than I was a few years back.

5. As we all know, poetry doesn’t make one rich. How do you balance your day job and writing poetry? Do you feel like your creativity suffers because of the stresses of your day job, or vice versa?

I have a professional job. Technically, I have a career, which I know some poets would frown on. I don’t spend my entire life thinking about writing poetry, but I know other people who do, and they make a living out of things that are related to poetry if not actually the poems themselves, but I’m not going to go down that route. I would do an awful lot more poetry if it wasn’t for work getting in the way. I often feel like I don’t have time to do the writing that I want to, and making time for it is not always easy. I should spend more time writing poetry, but I don’t.

6. Who or what are the biggest inspirations for your poetry?

I consider myself what you might call an urban poet. I’m a city boy; I tried living in the country and didn’t enjoy it. I like living in the city more and I tend to be very interested in people and the observation of people. I write very little about flowers, trees, landscape; I’m not a reflective poet, I’m a doing poet, I would say. I write about people and what happens to them. My wife is a better observer of people than me. She can sum people up quickly in a few words. If I had her observational skills, I’d be a much better poet, I think.

As to inspiration…music, movies, popular culture in general enthuses me. I don’t write specifically about popular culture just to be flash, but I do occasionally include cultural references to help connect the poem with the now. I realize this will date the poem very quickly, but my poetry is of its time. I don’t think it will be read in 20, 30, 50 years; I’m not in that rank of poet, but I hope that people will read it for now and be able to take something out of it.

7. Do you think that strong emotion is needed to make a good poem?

I feel that if you don’t have an emotion to convey, you don’t have much of a poem to write. If you are writing something in a cold and analytical way and not trying to convey something of yourself, then you’re not writing poetry.

8. We actually had a debate in class whether one should write poetry “in the heat of the moment”, or afterwards, when the emotions are not as strong and one can look back upon it. For example, if you’re breaking up with someone; or if something else terrible happens.

I’m a conventional sort of person. If I were breaking up with someone, or experiencing some sort of bereavement, I wouldn’t want to reach for a pen and paper straight away. That would come later for me. I would try to operate as a normal human being with normal priorities of someone who is bereaved or has fallen out of love. There would be material in there later on that you might want to use, if it’s not too cynical to do so. I worry about someone whose immediate thought is to write a poem when something terrible happens. That seems a bit cynical, almost mercenary.

9. Well, aren’t we all just a bunch of cynical, selfish old…

Yeah, I suppose so! I’m not, though, but… Just kidding! Poets are a pretty inquisitive bunch, they don’t lose very much. They hang on to every image, every emotion, and they store it and use it. Maybe not every single image will come out as a poem, but they’re all in there. There are poems I know I will write, based on things I observed or things that have happened to me. It doesn’t mean that the emotion is locked away in me. It will come out at some point.

There was an occasion a couple of years ago. A woman I worked with was killed in a horrific cycling accident. I did have images in my head at the time, but I knew it wasn’t the time to write the poem about how I felt. But it did get written eventually, four of five years afterwards, when I felt I was able to express something without seeming like a hawk circling a coffin. I think reacting to what’s going on in the world is important, but reacting at the right time. If you write poems about terrible things that have happened immediately, then it does seem a bit mawkish.

Terrible things like tsunamis or earthquakes do happen, but I don’t think I would be able to write a poem about that straight away. There is a bit of a satellite delay with me between things that happen and the writing of the poem. I’m not one of the people who write in the heat of the moment.

10. Sometimes when a poet puts their work out there, other people interpret it differently and read entirely different meanings into it than what the poet intended. Do you think the poet has the right to put his foot down and say “You are wrong and this is not what it says”, or not?

The poet certainly has the right to say it wasn’t something he intended, but in every art form, it’s the reaction of the person exposed to it that counts. Take classical music, something pastoral and easy-going  – someone might listen to it and hear something violent or difficult in it. That’s down to them; it’s their interpretation of the music. Or art, for example Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’, a well-known painting. On the surface it shows a night scene with stars. But you don’t necessarily see the simplicity of a night with stars in Van Gogh’s image; you hopefully see something more complex than that. I don’t think Van Gogh would then come up to you and say “But all I wanted to do was paint some stars.”

If I write a poem and someone takes it into a different direction or takes something from it that I didn’t intend, I’d just be delighted that people have read it and wouldn’t worry about what they took from it. I’d only be worried if people didn’t read my poems.

I would like to think I wrote clearly enough in order to not be ambiguous, but then all poetry is ambiguous to a certain extent. I don’t think you can convey exactly what you mean by writing it. Subtlety and metaphor are all inexact to a point. I’m not a control freak with my poetry, I’m just glad that people are reading it.
11. Would you be able to tell me more about your poem “Listening Post”? Could you recall your train of thought when you were writing it?

Yes, I can tell you exactly what it was influenced by. I met somebody I was at university with a few years ago. In making conversation about what they’ve done since we left university, they said that they spent some time working for GCHQ.

12. Was it not a secret, should they maybe not have disclosed this information to you?

Well, this is the thing, I asked them what exactly they were doing there, and they said “I can’t tell you”. I thought they were joking and I said “Come on, tell me about it”, but they insisted they couldn’t.

So I actually have no idea if they worked in an eavesdropping capacity or not. I just imagined what they might have done, knowing about them from university days, and trying to picture their life as an observer.

There is a wonderful Francis Ford Coppola film from the 1970s called ‘The Conversation’ which is about a person who spends their life undertaking surveillance of others, and the poem is a little bit derived from that idea. I imagined this person was spending their days listening to who they were spying on, fascinated by their life and wanting to be part of it. Maybe they would even want to be in a relationship with that person. In the end, the poem turns back on itself, and the person who is the observer turns out to be the person who is being observed. They pick the phone up and the line goes dead and they hear a click. That’s them being listened to.

This poem has a beginning, middle and end, and characters to whom things happen. This is the kind of narrative poetry that I do. I am very much a realist in poetry, though I do use surrealistic and unusual elements in my poems from time to time.

13. I think I understand what you mean, it’s almost like when you dream about normal things, but then something unusual and surreal happens in the dream, like flying.

And yet I wouldn’t call it exactly surreal. There is a poem at the end of my book, about my parents on holiday, back from when I was a child. My mother took her rings off on the beach and forgot that she’d done so, and left them behind. The tide then came in and washed the rings away.

I wrote a poem about that, introducing surreal qualities. The ring gets cast into the sea and is swallowed by a fish. The fish gets caught and opened and is about to be eaten. All this time the ring is in the belly of the fish. This sort of mythological story is common to a lot of cultures.

My mum and dad sit down to a plate of fish and chips and then there it is, the ring, inside a cod fish they’d just bought. This is the element of the surreal in the poem. It really is about my mum and dad’s relationship and how sometimes you lose things which never do get found. But it’s a slightly strange look at that, a more unusual and surreal way I would say.

14. How paranoid are you normally about editing your poems?

One thing I learned from Colette Bryce is, edit edit edit. Editing is almost as important as writing. The poem is only finished when there is nothing to take out. I edit a lot. For me, very few poems are finished at one sitting, none at all I would say. Some poems go through 8-9 versions, sometimes over the course of several years. I do have some poems that were written quickly, but I’m rarely satisfied with them. Some poets revise even their published poetry. I don’t think I would do that.

Most young poets should definitely spend more time editing.

15. Free verse vs verse forms?

I would say I a semi-formalist. I use rhythm, rhyme, half-rhyme and enjambed lines to achieve that consistency of form. Occasionally, I go mad and write a villanelle or other more fixed forms; I wrote a sestina once, but it was terrible. Having said that, I do write free verse as well. The main thing is that the poem should read well when read aloud. A good poem can be read aloud and retain its meaning. I prefer to read my own poetry aloud. I am not a performance poet, but rather find myself ‘halfway between the page and the stage’. Good poetry definitely has to work in public.

16. Any advice for young poets out there?

Get involved in a poetry group. I was lucky to be invited to a poetry group and it has significantly changed the way I write. If I can use a rather saucy image, poetry on your own is a form of masturbation – but group sex is far more interesting! The contribution of others to your own writing can improve it immeasurably if you can learn to trust your colleagues and be honest with each other.

Write as often as you can, as much as you can, but don’t be too precious about what you write.

Kit Fryatt

Interview with Kit Fryatt by Masa Mlakar

Author Page – Shearsman

1. How did it make you feel when you saw your work being published and shared with the whole world? Was there any fear present about how people might accept your writing?

I often feel quite alienated from published work, as though it had been written by someone else.  Everyone dreads an attack or a bad review, I suppose, but I don’t think that’s quite what you mean.  I’m not sure if I seek acceptance through writing.  Maybe a bit more through performance, and yes, when I go into a new performance space I feel a great need to be liked, and also that I’m on enemy territory.

2. Could you tell us what you believe makes a great poet?

A certain sort of stupidity, I think.  Intelligence needs to be leavened by stubborn confidence in order to produce a new noise, which for me is what innovation in poetry is, a new noise.

3. Have you encountered any difficulties being a writer and if yes, how did you overcome them?

Mainly my own inertia.  Coffee and fear of deadlines usually gets me over that.

4. How has your work changed or developed since you began writing?

I’m not sure: I go back to some of the stuff I wrote at 17 and think, actually, that’s not half bad.  It’s the stuff I wrote in my 20s that really makes
me cringe: not poetry at all, just attempts at cleverness.  Luckily, little of it survives in print.  I think performing my work has given me confidence
in simplicity: it doesn’t have to be a dense mesh of reference and patterning. It has to sound good.

5. I have read some of your poems and the one I find really interesting is ‘Nanna Slut’s Long Close Summer’. Could you retrace your thought process while writing and editing the poem?

I’m glad you like that one; I’m not sure it’s a success.  But it does have a story.  When I was a kid I read Arthur Ransome’s Old Peter’s Russian Tales,
and I was very taken with the figure of Baba Yaga. In 2009 I used to meet with a group for a kind of anti-workshop: we’d have a few
drinks and enthuse about stuff and definitely not, not, submit any work to rational workshop-type “I think you should break the line here not here”
critique.  For Christmas we had a poetry gift challenge: everyone brought a prompt (object or word) in a brown envelope, we swapped them, and each
person had to write a poem based on the prompt as a gift for the prompter. Mine was a coat hanger and an Indian takeaway menu.  I had no idea what
to do with the coat hanger, so I hung a coat on it.  The menu had a dish on it called Lamb Ra Ra.  I thought that sounded like a dance, one that old
women do shamelessly in their mutton-dressed-as-lamb outfits, and it provided the refrain — also a little Boney M, “Ra Ra Rasputin”.  Then I wrote a couple of literal-minded rhyming stanzas about Baba Yaga, and I thought this is rubbish, and gave up. I happened to dig those drafts out again last
summer, during the riots in English cities.  I kept the first of the original rhyming stanzas, but turned the rhymes into vowel-rhymes and rhymes on the
off-stress.  The finished poem still has those off-stress rhymes: ‘mound/POUNDing’, ‘bliss/DIStrict’ ‘DYing/stupeFIEs’.  Then I added two more stanzas, trying to find realistic equivalents for Baba Yaga’s mortar and pestle, her chicken-legged house and so on, so there are metaphors of grinding and pounding and a mobile home.  Then I ditched the first stanza because it seemed too literal and over-explanatory for the rest.  A few words were from an interview with one of the rioters “like, a freedom act / like, do whatever you want”.   The title came last.  Nanna Slut I suppose roughly translates Baba Yaga — originally, slut in the sense of a slovenly or untidy woman rather than a sexually promiscuous one, but in English you can’t have the first sense without the other.  I wanted to voice this speaker’s sense that old women might be able to exploit the inchoate, violent energy of the disaffected young.  In some ways their anger is similar: the rioters are “straw men”, she is a “hag” — in Irish the word “cailleach”, “hag”, can also mean the last bale of hay to be taken in from the fields — but she also wants to control their macho energies to her own ends, actually to undo patriarchy, “the estate we lost thirty grand years ago” — the 2011 riots look back to 1981, but Baba Yaga wants to return to a pre-civilisational, pre-patriarchal time 30,000 years ago…: that’s maybe a sort of sentimental or naive idea, certainly ahistorical. I do not endorse this message!
6. In the end, what advice would you give the young and aspiring writers
to keep writing poetry in a society that listens to poetry less each day?

I’m not sure it does listen less.  There’s a powerful appetite for verse out there: often expressed at times of stress, joy or grief.  I’m baffled
when people ask me for recommendations for poems to read at funerals and weddings (happens a lot): perhaps because poetry is part of my daily life
I don’t understand why you’d want it for special occasions and not the rest of the time.  If you don’t have a favourite poem, why read one at your wedding? If your gran never read poems, why do you need one at her funeral?  But the appetite is there, and it’s not for me to dictate to it.  Maybe poets should listen a bit harder to society before they whinge that it doesn’t listen to them.  That shouldn’t be a manifesto for populism or crowd-pleasing, though.

I think too much performance and public work is formally and verbally inert because poets have low expectations of a public they don’t truly respect.
People know when they’re being patronised.  Aim high: pitch it high — your readers are at least as bright and knowledgeable as you are.

John Greening

Interview with John Greening by Sophie Wilshaw

John’s website.

1. You have many different responsibilities in the literary world, and are still publishing popular works; how do you manage your time?

I limit myself to a handful of commitments: judging the Gregory Awards, an annual creative writing workshop in Cornwall, and whatever readings I’m asked to give. Nevertheless, it’s true that I’m a teacher, and a school-teacher at that – I also have a family. So there is a great deal of time management involved. I live near my work, which cuts out commuting time, and being away from the metropolis means that there are few temptations beyond the notebook and the laptop. Poems tend to get written more when I’m not teaching, although there have been occasions when one pops into my head (during a lesson once), or some unexpected event forces lines upon me. Curiously, intense fatigue can actually be a very creative state. At the same time, the experience of having nothing to do but write (as at the Hawthornden retreat which your supervisor, Sophie Mayer, also attended) might or might not be a good thing. It’s a wonderful feeling, but the best work doesn’t always come when you’re feeling great. Reviewing and prose in general I find I can write whatever is going on in the rest of my life and I’m pretty good at deadlines (teaching helps that skill). Having said all this, I’m just taking on two new major book editing tasks which might well stress-test me to the limit.

2. Before you were such an influential and recognisable figure in society, how did you introduce yourself to people?

Again, I’m really not, thank God, recognisable and only the tiniest bit influential – the latter through my reviews for the TLS, I suppose, which I’ve done since the late 1990s, when the late Mick Imlah invited me to contribute. I don’t introduce myself as a poet. Who would? Auden refused even to have it on his passport (preferring ‘medieval historian’, wasn’t it?). To utter the word ‘poet’ in England really is the best way to strike people dumb or to clear the room entirely. I’m just reading a fascinating book about Anglo-German relations (Keeping Up with the Germans by Philip Oltermann) and he explores the reasons why the British have to make everything into a joke. Any mention of poetry is usually met with humour in Britain, which is why we are happier with funny poets or poets who behave in funny ways. Shakespeare knew this, of course: he has the mob casually beating up the wrong conspirator, Cinna the Poet, in Julius Caesar, and crying: ‘Tear him for his bad verses…’

3. With this prestige, have you ever felt pressure to finish a piece of work, or make it your best?

I don’t think any writer thinks of him or herself as prestigious (though I used to be a keen prestidigitator! – a fact that impressed Ted Hughes, actually.) I think that if you feel the compulsion to finish a work, then that’s a good sign. I recently tore through eleven poems in one day: I was being driven on by something. But that has nothing to do with deadlines or what people are asking you to write. I do admire the way Larkin worked, doggedly returning to ‘The Whitsun Weddings’ month after month, following the poem through stanza by stanza from beginning to end. How different from the process described in the recent biography of Peter Redgrove, whereby he had dozens if not hundreds of different poems on the go at any one time. And I can’t imagine how someone like Carol Ann Duffy produces so much commissioned work. Or perhaps I can. By avoiding the deepest springs. There’s no harm in a poet being able to turn out some decent occasional verse, as long as it’s not confused with poetry. A Poet Laureate has to, and Larkin knew he couldn’t have done that. Anyway, every piece of work feels like your best for a few minutes after it’s finished. But, as Horace said, ‘Keep your piece nine years’. That’s such good advice, though it only works if you live as long as I have. Don’t rush into publication. That includes the internet. It’s advice Larkin should have followed too.

4. How difficult was it to first get your work published?

Very hard. I had the outline of a book by the time I was in my mid-twenties and finishing post-graduate work on verse drama at Exeter. My work had appeared in a few prestigious places such as Emma Tennant’s Bananas and Lawrence Sail’s much-missed South-West Review, but I could not persuade any half decent publisher to bring out a book. There wasn’t much I could do to convince them, except occasionally get very stroppy. Somewhat ironically, I never managed to win an Eric Gregory Award and only started winning competitions when I had already been taken up by Bloodaxe. In the end it was going to Egypt that did the trick. The work that I produced out there, when Jane and I were teaching for two years with VSO in Aswan, seemed to appeal to editors and pretty quickly Roland John of Hippopotamus Press brought out Westerners. I suppose people are drawn to a book with a theme and the poems in Westerners (it came out in 1982) were entirely Egyptian. I’d originally wanted to mingle them with other pieces, but Roland is a good editor and advised me not to. I’m very fond of that elegant yellow book, and I’ve this year been revisiting it as part of a memoir I’ve written about those years in Upper Egypt. I occasionally remember the struggle I had to get that book accepted, and I have files stuffed with rejection letters. The struggle doesn’t end, however, and I’ve had my years in the publishing wilderness even after apparently bedding down with a major publisher. Where would we be without devoted individuals like Roland, like John Lucas of Shoestring Press or David Perman of Rockingham or Gladys Mary Coles of Headland? Mericifully, my latest collection (To the War Poets) is scheduled to come out with Michael Schmidt’s Carcanet (Oxford Poets ) in 2013, but already I’m beginning to worry whether they will like the follow-up.

5. Do you believe poetry is a dying art?

It is, if anything, the art of dying. Nadezhda Mandelstam said it was ‘preparation for death’. The moment hard times really hit us, people will return to poetry – as they did in the Mandelstams’ era. In communist Eastern Europe they used to fill football stadiums for poetry readings.

6. You have achieved so much already, but is there something you still strive to achieve?

Just one poem that will stay in the anthologies. That’s all any poet needs. There are dozens of poets we only really remember for one piece: from William Dunbar’s ‘Timor Mortis Conturbat me’ to Henry Reed’s ‘Naming of Parts’. But what do I really strive for? As Howard Nemerov said: ‘getting something right in the language.’

Jane Holland

Interview with Jane Holland by Emine Ahmet.

Jane’s website.

1) What was the first poem you read and how did it affect you?

I can’t remember the first poem I ever read, since I began reading poetry so early and was exposed to plenty of it, thanks to my parents’ extensive book collection. However, the poem which made me decide to become a poet was undoubtedly Keats’ ‘Ode to a Nightingale’. My parents took me to Keats’ house near Hampstead Heath, now a museum, and bought me a short book of his most famous poems. I was enchanted by the romantic notion of The Great Poet Who Dies Young and instantly set myself to memorise ‘Ode to a Nightingale’. The next morning, I crept into my parents’ bedroom and recited the whole thing from memory, much to their astonishment. So yes, it was probably on encountering the masterpiece that is ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ at about nine or ten years old that I knew what I wanted to do with my life, i.e. become a poet.

2) How did you get your work published? Were there difficulties to confront?

I wrote all through my teens, but stopped when I married young at nineteen. At eighteen I remember showing my work (by invitation) to a well-known poet, who was dismissive of it, and that may have had an effect on my inability to write poetry in the years following that. Though having two small children in the house was probably more of a factor! It wasn’t until I was in my late twenties and divorced that I began to write poetry ‘seriously’ and send it out to magazines. I was incredibly lucky in receiving an Eric Gregory Award and landing a debut collection with Bloodaxe Books shortly after that, despite having had only a couple of pieces in magazines. To some extent, this may explain why there is nearly a decade between my first and second collection. Effortless debut publication is a hard act to follow.

3) Do you have any regrets as a writer?

I regret not having pursued a more ‘professional’ career as a poet, i.e. I’ve never been a poet in residence or taught a university course or done the lucrative Festival circuit. I’ve never been visible as a poet, except for one rather entertaining year as a local laureate. I probably still hold to that early romantic notion of the Poet as a creature ‘apart’ and suffering, which has no doubt informed my decisions as a poet. As a writer of prose, I regret not having written big commercial novels earlier than in my forties (I currently write historical fiction as Victoria Lamb) since it is only now that I can afford to live comfortably. Unless you are happy to become a ‘career poet’ (see above), you tend to spend your life sponging off other people and lurching from one meagre payment to another.

4) Do you publish every poem that you write?

Absolutely not. About 95% or more of what I write is pointless rubbish. I start each poem in hope of that small percentage which might prove publishable.

5) I particularly like your poem ‘Red Star’ – How did you bring together the different ideas and inspirations in this poem?

In ‘Red Star’, I was looking for a simple, almost childlike vibe, something that would act like a nursery rhyme or ‘Once upon a time’ in a fairy story. The poem opens my Boudicca sequence. It may not have been written first, but it is clearly a poem of openings and beginnings: uncomplicated, yet keying into the magical territory of The Story with its predictable song lyric rhymes, repetitions and simple quatrain structure. I find that if you want to say something powerful, you need to state it as simply as possible. I can’t comment on the ‘ideas’ in this poem, except to say that when talking through a character from Celtic history, references to the simple, natural world she would have inhabited (like the oak or the wild geese or firelight) is a good way to anchor a poem in that consciousness. The flat tone of the ending, of course, is almost brutal in comparison, and is intended – as many endings are in the Boudicca sequence – to undercut the lyric impulse of the poem and throw the reader off balance.

6) What do you believe poetry is – both in contemporary society and for you personally?

In contemporary society, poetry is a riddle that most people fear and avoid, probably because not being able to unravel and solve it makes them feel stupid and ridiculous. For me personally, poetry is a wise, rich and deeply intimate space where I go to commune with those who went before me and who told the story of the tribe rather better than I have yet been able to do. Occasionally I add my own line to that story, but it always sounds so hollow, I have to keep returning, listening, and attempting the line again.

7) What’s your opinion on free verse vs. verse forms?

Some people can do one adequately, some can do both adequately, and a few can do either one or both brilliantly. I can write in form only imperfectly, and so have never really trodden that path. My initial impulses in poetry are always to free verse, using rhythmic beats, repetition, alliteration etc. to make it ‘poetry’, so that is the way I naturally go.

8) How has your work changed or developed since you first began writing?

I have both lost and gained confidence since my first published collection. I have gained the confidence to say ‘Sod it’ to the ever-alluring idea of being widely published and feted for my great poetry, but in never having that reward I have simultaneously lost the confidence to write smoothly and joyously with the naive idea that I was born to be a poet. So I struggle on, as the majority of poets do, in the depressing awareness that I have failed to do myself justice.

9) What keeps you writing and sharing your work with a society that seems to be listening less each day?

Stupidity and egotism, I expect.

10) Do you think poetry is a dying art?

Yes. Or rather, it’s dying as an art. It’s constantly being revived as an easy-to-do medium for people who want to indulge themselves with the notion that they can write poetry or who have been told they can assuage their problems and issues by writing a ‘poem’ about them. But as an art, it’s already on the way out, to be frank.

John Kinsella

Interview with John Kinsella by Eirin Hope Broch

John’s shared blog.

1. Could you explain your relationship with nature and why you express yourself using nature in your poetry?

I consider myself an ecological rather than a nature poet. I believe humans are only a part of the world, and not superior to other living things. I am a vegan and do not use animals to benefit my own existence. For me, animals have equal rights to humans. If the environment is unhealthy, so are people. My poetry is an activist call to conserve and respect ‘nature’. For me, nature isn’t a decoration for human amusement but has its own multiplicity of rights and identities.

2. On your website you say that “I believe that the ‘control’ of language is the most significant factor in resisting colonisation, invasion and, oppression.” Could you explain this further?

Colonisers always take/delete/remodel the languages of the people they are robbing and oppressing. Identity is forged in language and if one can retain language the coloniser never gains complete control and will ultimately change themselves or fail.

3. You are clearly active in politics and society. How do you want your poetry to contribute?

Poetry’s purpose, for me, is to bring people’s attentions to the injustices and damage/s being done to and in the world. I wish my poetry to serve a purpose – I have no interest in in being adornments to entertain or satisfy people. It should disturb them, prompt them to question their own certainties.

4. Could you describe the process of writing a poem? Does it just “come to you”, do you edit and re-edit and for how long can you work on one poem?

I have many methods. Sometimes I see an entire poem visually inside my head and then ‘copy it out’. Often I take ‘field notes’ in a journal, type up on a manual typewriter, then wordprocess for publication. I don’t admire computers (though I know a fair bit about them). I frequently draft, and often rewrite. Sometimes not. A poem is never ‘finished’ for me. It can always have different lives.

5. How has your writing developed since you first started? Has the way you think or work changed?

I started writing poetry as a very small child so it naturally changed as I matured. As time has gone by, I’ve tended to work in larger ‘units’. I have always been driven by a purpose. Poetry has never been an entertainment for me.

6. Why do you choose to write in free verse?

I write in all forms. I have written a lot of verse in so-called traditional forms, but only ever to challenge form itself. I write a lot in open form. I develop forms to suit a purpose. I am always trying to test language and its constraints. I don’t only write in ‘free verse’ – never have. Form has many definitions and I am always trying to challenge those. Sometimes people don’t recognise form because they’re not familiar with what’s going on or because they’re not used to looking for difference. My work is about variations.

7. There seems to be a darkness in many of your poems. Is this a critique of how people treat nature?

Yes. And each other.

8. What would be your advise to young poets trying to get published?

Never give in. If you believe in what you’re doing, do it. You don’t need publishers to publish yourself. Do it because you need to do it.

9. What other poets/writers do you like to read?

Too many to name. I read constantly. Reading the poetry of others is better than writing poetry one’s self! At the moment I am working on very long poem entitled Paradise Lust. I’ve loved Milton since I was seven. But he also needs challenging. His Lost is the world’s Lust, as well.  We all need challenging by someone (or many), not the least ourselves.

Maria Jastrzębska

Interview with Maria Jastrzębska by Agata Sematovic.

A-Gender – Author Page

1. To  start  with  I  would  like  to  ask  you  for  how  long  have  you  been  writing?

I’ve  been  writing  ever  since  I  can  remember.  Even  before  I  could  read  or  write  I  ‘wrote’  as  a  child.  I’m  not  entirely  sure  why  I  chose  poetry,  perhaps  it  chose  me.

2. Have  you  ever  considered  writing  something  except  poetry?

When  I  was  first  writing  I  didn’t  think  of  myself  primary  as  a  poet  and  I  tried  my  hand  at  some  short  stories.  At  some  point  poetry  took  over  and  now  I  am  mainly  a  poet.  Although  I  have  written  a  play/literary  drama  which  came  out  of  some  prose  poems.  I’ve  also  written  prose  poems  and  am  interested  in  the  border  between  prose  and  poetry.  I  also  started  translating  poetry  a  few  years  ago  and  got  hooked  on  that.  Plus  I’ve  worked  as  an  editor  and  enjoyed  that.

3. What  was  the  most  affective  poem  you  read  that  made  an  influence  on  your  writing?

At  school  I  remember  reading  Walter  de  la  Mare – softly  silently  now  the  moon…  – I  loved  the  sounds  and  the  images.  Then  a  bit  later  I  discovered  poets  like  Herbert  and  Yevtushenko  and  also  there  was  Plath.

4. Yes,  Plath  makes  an  influence  on  everybody.  Considering  the  publication  of  your  work  what  was  the  first  poem  you  had  published?

I  can’t  exactly  remember  but  my  early  work  was  published  in  feminist  journals  and  magazines  such  as  Spinster,  Spare  Rib,  Writing  Women  etc.  It  didn’t  occur  to  me  to  send  anywhere  else  and  I  felt  alienated  from  the  male  dominated  cannon.

5. Maria,  tell  me  please  what  is  your  favorite  form  or  mode  of  poetry  to  write?  

I  tend  to  write  free  verse  poems  but  I  also  enjoy  trying  out  other  things.  Recently  I  had  a  go  at  terza  rima  and  I  can  tell  you  it  was  hard.  But  I  had  great  fun  during  it.

6. As  a  poet  what  do  you  enjoy  the  most  in  poetry?

I  find  writing  poetry  both  empowering  and  magical.  The  transformation  of  raw  material.  I  love  how  you  can  surprise  yourself  while  writing.  I  love  the  puzzle  of  trying  to  make  a  poem  come  out  in  the  right  shape  or  sound.  It’s  so  exciting.

7. Do  you  have  any  regrets?

I  wish  I  started  taking  myself  seriously  as  a  writer  sooner  and  had  had  the  time  and  money  to  do  so.  In  a  way  it  took  a  long  illness  to  make  me  see  I  needed  to  be  writing  more.

8. I  think  this  is  a  common  question  which  is  asked  quite  often  but  I’m  sure  lot  of  people  is  wondering  where  do  you  find  you  motivation  or  from  whom?

I  have  some  really  good  poetry  buddies  and  that  helps  to  keep  me  going.  I’m  also  fortunate  enough  to  have  been  and  to  be  mentored  by  some  fabulous  poets.  I  still  carry  on  going  to  writing  workshops  and  both  like  and  need that  stimulus.

9. That’s  great.  Do  you  have  any  specific  poets  that  made  an  impact  on  your  writing?

Poets  I  read  when  I  was  growing  up  made  a  massive  impact.  The  series  ‘Penguin  Modern  European  Poets’  was  wonderful  back  then.  Also  lots  of  poets  in  translation  eg.  Tua  Forstromm.  There  are  also  some  non-poets  like  Toni  Morrison  etc.

10. How  much does  publishability  affect  what  you  write?

It’s  hard  to  say.  You’re  certainly  aware  of  it  as  a  poet  and  of  course  there’s  a  pressure  to  have  a  continuous  ‘profile’,  which  is  time-consuming.  Sometimes  you  worry  about  it  and  other  times  you  say  ‘what  the  hell’.

11. When  and  where  do  you  write?  

Generally  I  write  in  my  room  which  is  a  cross  between  bedroom  and  study.  Also  when  I’m  traveling.  The  newness  of  a  place  makes  you  look  at  things  differently.  I  also  can  start  writing  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  Like  everyone  else  I  really  value  having  uninterrupted  time.  I  like  to  walk  and  think  as  well.  Living  by  the  see  is  good  for  me.  Being  in  nature  has  always  helped  to  keep  me  sane.

12. The  next  question  I’m  about  to  ask  is  probably  the  one  what  all  writers  ask  themselves.  How  do  you  avoid  clichés?

You  can’t – they  have  to  come  out.  The  trick  is  to  spot  them  and  then  weed  them  out.  Sometimes  you  can’t  see  them  yourself  so  it  helps  to  have  good  experienced  readers  and  editors.  The  more  you  read  the  better  you  get  at  it.  You  think  you’re  being  highly  original  but  actually  a  hundred  other  contributors  to  the  journal  you’re  submitting  to  have  come  up  with  the  same  image!

13. At  what  point  do  you  decide  that  a  given  poem  is  finished?

Hmmmm… sometimes  if  there’s  a  deadline  for  submission  so  I  have  to  send  it  out,  usually  once  it’s  been  published  somewhere,  but  even  then…  Or  when  you’re  so  sick  of  it  you  can’t  bear  to  look  at  it  anymore!

14. Regarding  the  ‘I’ll  be  back  before  you  know  it’  poem,  can  you  retrace  your  thought  process  when  writing  this  poem?

I  think  I  had  recently  been  to  Warsaw  and  visited  a  dear  old  friend  of  my  father’s  so  that  was  in  my  mind – about  their  youth  together.  I’m  also  interested  in  the  juxtaposition  of  present  and  past.  Well,  juxtaposition  generally  but  that  one  in  particular.

15. How  about  your  ‘Woman  Warrior’  poem?  How  did  you  bring  the  idea  and  inspiration  in  this  poem?

This  came  out  of  a  correspondence  with  the  editor  of  Mustn’t  Grumble,  an  anthology  published  by  the  Women’s  Press.  We  had  a  whole  discussion  about  grief  and  anger  in  writing  about  disability  which  appears  in  the  book.  I  was  disabled  by  a  chronic  illness  ME  which  I  had  for  many  years  at  that  time.  I  had  been  a  Women’s  Self  Defence  teacher  for  many  years  before  and  had  an  awful  lot  invested  in  my  physical  strength  and  prowess.  It  was  very  tough  for  me  to  come  to  terms  with  losing  that  and  I  was  hugely  aware  of  how  society  marginalises  anyone  who  isn’t  seen  as  normal/healthy/productive  etc.  In  others  the  illness  was  bad  enough,  social  stigma,  isolation  made  it  worse.

16. So  you’re  a  true  warrior,  Maria.  Talking  about  anger  your  poem  ‘Europa’  is  an  angry  poem,  isn’t  it?  Do  you  think  poetry  like  this  can  make  a  difference  in  the  21st  century?

Yes,  I  think  it’s  important  to  remember  the  past,  especially  some  of  the  more  overlooked  things – I’m  thinking  of  the  persecution  of  gay  and  ‘socially  deviant’  people  in  the  Third  Reich  for  example,  so  I  hope  it  makes  a  difference  that  I  write  about  it.

17. And  finally,  I  would  like  to  ask  what  advice  you  would  give  young  writers  to  encourage them  to  write  poetry?

Cross  many  borders,  literal  and  non-literal,  external  and  internal.  Take  risks.  Talk  to  people.  Open  your  heart.  Read  loads  and  read  aloud.  Avoid  ivory  towers.  Play.  Go  dancing.  Work  your  socks  off  and  most  importantly  never  give  up.