Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.
The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Pat Edwards in performance

Pat Edwards

My name is Pat Edwards and I’m a writer, teacher and performer from Mid Wales. I’ve been fortunate enough to get some work published in mags such as Prole, Magma, Ink Sweat & Tears, Atrium, Picaroon, The Curlew and others. I run the monthly poetry open mic nights VERBATIM in Welshpool and Montgomery. I also curate WELSHPOOL POETRY FESTIVAL. It’s been great fun responding to these questions and I hope my answers don’t sound too pretentious! Of course, very few people will have a clue who I am but that doesn’t matter. Hopefully my answers will chime with some of your readers. Thanks for inviting me.

The Interview

1. When did you start writing poetry?

The main impetus for me to start writing poetry was about four and a half years ago when I was diagnosed with bowel cancer. I became acutely aware of how little time I might have on the planet and found the process of writing a real therapy. I honestly thought that, once I was well, the urge to write would go away, but far from it. Writing has become a huge part of my life and I want more than ever to share my work with whoever will listen.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Like many people, I studied poetry at school and I do remember particularly enjoying poetry as part of my A level English course. However, my re-discovery of poetry was a more organic process that just emerged. I found an open mic night locally and then realised there were events going on all around me. I began attending readings and picking up poetry books and my interest spiralled out of control, until I was running my own nights and curating Welshpool Poetry Festival.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets traditional and contemporary?

I can’t say this has been my experience. One of the nights I attend is Voicebox in Wrexham. It’s run and attended by young creatives, many of whom are under 30. It’s a vibrant, welcoming scene with spoken word, hip-hop and beat box. I love the energy of this group and the way anyone of any age or background can perform or be part of the audience. I wish other local towns could generate this kind of participation and ethos.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I don’t have a daily writing routine other than to always have a notebook at hand in case a word or phrase, or the germ of an idea, starts to formulate. I write every week though, even if it’s just a snippet.

5. What motivates you to write?

I can write in response to a prompt at a workshop, when I hear something in the news, when an emotion is swimming in my head, when I recall autobiographical events. There’s no telling what will start me off. I think I need my writing to mean something to anyone who might get to read it or hear it, so it has to include things that are worth saying, something of substance. I don’t see the point of pretty, descriptive utterances that simply reflect back to you what your own senses can absorb. I want jeopardy and challenge; I want my writing to disturb the equilibrium a bit.

6. What is your work ethic?

My work ethic is that, if I want my writing to get noticed, I have to do everything I possibly can to improve my technique, my delivery and my craft. That means accepting advice and feedback and not being crushed by the knock-backs. Most writers have been doing this all their lives; I’m new to the party and am playing catch-up. However, I also have to be me and not let anyone flush out the spark that makes me an individual.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

If I’m honest, it’s not really those writers who currently influence me. I am very much about the more contemporary writers who I hear and read now.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

This is the hardest question because I keep discovering writers from this country and the US who I have been introduced to at workshops or, as was the case most recently, on a wonderful Arvon course. I love the work of Helen Mort, Luke Kennard, Caroline Bird – where do I stop? Your question uses the word ‘admire’ and I think that implies there has to be something more than just an appreciation of their work. I admire the endeavour of poets who are setting out to change things or challenge the perceived conventions. I also love it when poets are generous and show real ‘evangelism’ to get poetry out there. I hope you won’t think I’m only name-checking Deborah Alma because she was generous enough to mention me in one of your interviews. She spends a great deal of her time supporting others or fighting causes such as with her #MeToo Anthology. This kind of approach can mean a writer’s own work gets neglected but it shows they love poetry and what it can bring to people’s lives. Such writers deserve admiration, don’t you think?

9. Why do you write?

I write because poetry has become the only real way I can express myself without relying on anyone else. I sing in a lovely choir but that’s a group enterprise and we all rely on one another for the sound we make. With poetry what you get is all me, some sort of condensed distillation of where I am and what I’m feeling.

10.  What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

I have no idea how you become a writer other than to commit to putting words down on paper or screen. You have to be brave enough to make the marks and edit them. It’s a leap of faith. You also have to listen and take criticism. If you mean becoming a professional writer, I think there’s a huge amount of luck involved and it’s incredibly hard to be good enough to actually make a living out of writing. Most writers I know juggle families, academic roles, have to supplement what they do with complimentary activities, in order to have the luxury of being able to spend time being creative. By the way, everyone should try writing; it’s only deadly if you bleed to death from a paper cut (I hope that’s not a thing…)

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I want more than anything to be good enough for a publisher to say “yes, I’ll take a punt on you and publish your work”. I don’t think self-publishing is properly satisfying. So I have several pamphlet proposals and enough poems to put together for a collection and I keep looking for submission windows. I also love reading my work to an audience. I am currently working around two themes in particular – anxiety and the female experience. There seems to be an obsession with mental health, sometimes rightly so, and there’s always something to say about what it is to be a woman, to ask what that even means. Of course, as someone who runs poetry events, I am constantly working on grant applications and  invitations to poets. And I’m learning, always learning

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.
The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

 

Matthew Paul

Matthew Paul was born in New Malden, Surrey, in 1966, read Philosophy at the University of Ulster, and lives and works on the outskirts of London. He was shortlisted for the Poetry School/Pighog Press pamphlet competition 2013, has had his poems published in a variety of publications, including Butcher s Dog, Magma, Nth Position, Poetry Ireland Review, The Rialto, and The Best New British and Irish Poets 2016 & 2017.

The Interview

1. What were the circumstances under which you began to write poetry?

I was at school. I took my O-levels in 1983, which was when my brother Adrian – who, as part of his American studies degree, was studying poets like William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens and the Beats – came back from the States. We saw the Liverpool Poets read at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon, and went to the all-day Poetry International at the Albert Hall in 1984, which is less famous than the original 1965 happening but featured most of the same poets: Adrian Mitchell, Gregory Corso and the main man, Allen Ginsberg, who accompanied himself on harmonium in a moving reading of ‘Kaddish’. Around that time, I got a copy of the Penguin Book of Japanese Verse and all the Jack Kerouac books which had been published then, including his then hard-to-find poetry like San Francisco Blues, so I started out writing very minimalist, haiku- and Imagism-flavoured Beat poetry. I daresay it was dreadful, but I read out a poem in a small creative writing class in sixth form and the teacher, Jim De Rennes, was very encouraging.

Back then, it was really hard to get hold of out-of-print books unless you had loads of spare time to ransack the Charing Cross Road, which I did a bit, so when I went to the University of Ulster in 1985, I could barely believe all the goodies in the library, especially the haiku books and the vast amounts of Irish poetry. I devoured MacNeice, Kavanagh and Murphy, and subscribed to Poetry Ireland Review. I was unlucky because Derek Mahon had just finished as Writer-in-Residence at the university; but his replacement, Martin Lynch, though a playwright, was very encouraging nonetheless, and invited me to take part in a reading – my first ever – which James Simmons headlined.

I was then beyond chuffed when the first poem I ever submitted was accepted by Dennis O’Driscoll for Poetry Ireland Review  in 1987. I thought I’d made it! I then had a few poems published in university magazines and in an American journal called Spirit and thought it was all easy. Unsurprisingly, I then had a few rejections, and I gave poems, except haiku, much less time and attention for a good few years. I had a spurt of more intensive writing in the mid-90s under the influence of Thom Gunn, Sarah Maguire, Matthew Sweeney and Susan Wicks, among others. It wasn’t until 2008 that I really seriously got back into writing longer poems again, when I attended Pascale Petit’s wonderful ‘Poetry from Art’ courses at Tate Modern, which inspired me to get my head down properly.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

My brother Adrian, Jim De Rennes and another English teacher at school , Neil Hooper, all, in their own ways, helped to bring poetry alive for me. I had to read Robert Lowell and John Donne for A-level, and whilst I wasn’t madly keen on the elaborate conceits in Donne’s poems, I loved the directness of Lowell’s poems, especially in Life Studies and For The Union Dead. I’d read poets like Heaney, Hughes (especially), Larkin and the First World War poets for O-level, but it wasn’t until I’d started reading more widely during my sixth form years that a lightbulb went on and I knew that I wanted to write poetry as well as read it.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

I was very aware of the generations who’d shaken up the stuffiness of British society in general, and that it was visiting American writers, like Lowell, Ginsberg and Burroughs who’d paved the way for the British Counter-culture. A marvellous Channel 4 film on Basil Bunting captivated me – his example, as a humble, left-wing, pacifist and highly articulate poet quietly ploughing his own furrow, was, and remains, inspirational. I also loved the Angry Young Man and Kitchen Sink books and films, which I suppose were our nearest – albeit not very radical and male-dominated – equivalent to the Beat Generation. Beyond that, I was aware that Hughes, who’d just become Poet Laureate, Larkin, who’d recently died, and Heaney were the titans. I’m afraid I was sadly unaware of most women poets, apart from Plath (I read The Bell Jar but didn’t appreciate her poems then at all), or of poets of colour. My school was all-boys, largely White and I daresay very sexist; and the English Literature curricula were equally non-diverse. Contemporary poets were largely invisible to me, alas.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I try to write or revise poems every day, which is tricky because I have a very demanding day job which takes up a lot of my energy, but I’m not especially systematic and I don’t try to force poems out against their will. I often find that the best way to trigger poems is by reading other poets’ work. Typically enough, though, poems can start arriving at inconvenient times, e.g. during meetings at work or five minutes into a 90-minute run.

5. What motivates you to write?

Habit and the urge to “say something”, to improve as a poet and to try new things and new forms. I suppose any writer writes because they think that they have an original contribution to make.

6. What is your work ethic?

Well, it took 30 years from the publication of my first poem to the publication of my first collection, so perseverance and patience must be part of it. I try my best not to let social media take up writing time. For me, two pieces of excellent advice have stood me in great stead: firstly, to read no books other than poetry for at least a year, which I greatly enjoyed; and, secondly, to tackle ‘form’, i.e. to try writing sonnets, ballads, sestinas, whatever. I love the fact that when I start a poem I know that somehow it will find its form, which could be very formal, syllabic, free-flow free verse, whatever.

Getting feedback from others is very important to me too. I’m on the Poetry Business Writing School programme, alongside some really fantastic poets, and I (irregularly) attend a group called the Red Door Poets, so I get a fair few opportunities for workshopping poems and trying different exercises and ideas.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

I’m not sure many of them still do, though I’ve retained a fondness for most of them. Lowell and Williams are perhaps the only ones from those days whose style has influenced me to any degree. I appreciate Heaney now much more than I did then.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

There are so many poets I like, and all because they write poems which  are so well-honed and so beautifully readable, but here are some particular favourites, in no particular order: Paul Farley, Pascale Petit, Peter Sansom, Ann Sansom, Geoff Hattersley, Clare Pollard, Kathleen Jamie, Hugo Williams, Anne-Marie Fyfe, Tracy K. Smith, Paul Muldoon, Roger Garfitt, Sinéad Morrissey, August Kleinzahler, Zeina Hashem Beck, Sasha Dugdale, the Dickson brothers, Jacob Polley, Alice Oswald, Tracey Herd, Tim Dooley, Maura Dooley, Julia Copus, Liz Berry, John Foggin, Martina Evans, Tamar Yoseloff, Alison Brackenbury, Jean Sprackland, Nick Laird, Frances Leviston, Marion McCready, Annie Freud, Nichola Deane . . . I could go on and on!

9. Why do you write?

Because I have to. It’s an essential, wholly integral part of my life.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

None of this is original,  and is basically common sense: read widely and read well, and practise, practise, practise your writing. Go to readings. Believe in your own ability, but always with humility, in the spirit of always wanting to improve. Don’t rush to try and get into print. When you feel you’re ready to find out what others think of your writing, take a course or two, if only for confirmation that you’re on the right lines. Only after that start submitting poems to journals. Keep at it. Don’t be complacent. Write the kind of poems you want to, rather than what someone else tells you to, and follow your instinct. When you get poems rejected, look at them with fresh eyes and ask yourself what is about them that caused them to be turned down and ask yourself if they really are the best they can be. Work hard at your craft, don’t settle for half-baking your poems and try to be your first and best critic.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I’ve got about two-thirds of a second collection written, provisionally named The Sugar Content. But there’s no rush: it took until 2017 to get my first collection, The Evening Entertainment, into print.

 

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.
The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Gabor Gyukics

gabor g gyukics (b. 1958) Hungarian-American poet, literary translator born in Budapest. He is the author of 9 books of original poetry, 6 in Hungarian, 2 in English, 1 in Bulgarian and 11 books of translations including A Transparent Lion, selected poetry of Attila József and Swimming in the Ground: Contemporary Hungarian Poetry (in English, both with co-translator Michael Castro) and an anthology of North American Indigenous poets in Hungarian titled Medvefelhő a város felett. He writes his poems in English (which is his second language) and Hungarian. His latest book in English titled a hermit has no plural was published by Singing Bone Press in the fall of 2015. His latest book in Hungarian was published by Lector Press in May 2018.
He received the Poesis 25 Prize for Poetry in Satu Mare Romania in 2015, the Salvatore Quasimodo special prize for poetry in 2012, a National Cultural Foundation grant in 2007 and a Füst Milan translator prize in 1999 and in 2017. Thanks to a CEC Arts Link grant, he established the first Open Mike and Jazz Poetry reading series in Hungary in 2000.

The Interview

What inspired you to write poetry?

Oh, I started late when I left Hungary for Holland at age 28. Then I had to do something in the new environment that consisted criminals and drug users among my friends. I had to get out. That was my first inspiration

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

I don’t remember anyone specific, yet I had amazing lit teachers, both were women, no accident there, I guess. I’ve read a lot on my own at an early age mostly Hungarian poetry and international prose.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

I wasn’t at all, there was no one around I knew personally in Amsterdam. However, when I arrived at St. Louis, Missouri there I’ve met Michael Castro who helped me get by in the labyrinth of verses and introduced me to contemporary American poetry.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I don’t have a routine unless you call routine sitting at a café or on a porch consuming coffee and red wine and scribbling done thoughts that come around. What I usually do when I have an urge is that I gather my notes and start playing with them, feel the words and phrases out. I can’t sit down and write 8 or 9 in the morning, that is for scholars and for those who take themselves way to seriously, no offense meant.

5. What motivates you to write?

Never thought about that. What ever happens, anything that catches my attention can motivate me. Sitting at home definitely doesn’t do that, unless I read a good book like let’s say a Pynchon who I discovered right after I learned to read in English. But, when I travel or walk around anywhere or sitting somewhere with open eyes or half open eyes, that could motivate me. What other poets write and how they live have never motivated me. I’m not a copycat.

6. What is your work ethic?

Didn’t know I had one.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

Okay, first let’s think about who I’ve read: Hungarians unknown in the Americas: Attila József, János Pilinszky, György Petri, Rezső Keszthelyi, Miklós Radnóti, Mihály Ladányi. Haven’t read much by women writers because literature just like everything else are dominated by men, which is a shame. Later I found myself Russian women poets, and of course Bulgakov, Yesenin, Mayakovski, and read most of the giants of Russian literature. About the same time, I was introduced to French and Czech-German literature and of course mainstream American prose and dada. During communism Hungarian publishers published everyone who was famous, so anyone interested could find a good read.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

Now, that is easy. Native American poets and writers I admire the most. What they had to go through to get where they are now, or almost there is unruly. White American and world poets and writers could read them daily and learn.
Otherwise, my all-time favorite American poets are the late Ira Cohen, Wanda Coleman and Philip Lamantia and I do like the works of Sharon Olds, Robert Pinsky, Will Alexander among many. The why is that these poets, including the Native writers go beyond poetry and able to grab what is out there. If anything, that is what I’m aiming for as well.

9. Why do you write?

Is there anything else to do? I mean if I found pleasure and harmony in being carpenter or an engineer I would ask the same question.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Well, I felt lost, I felt cold, I left my homeland, I left my family, left my past: that shot me to the direction of writing.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

As it might have become clear from my previous answers that I never ever had and never ever will have a poetry or prose writing project. However, I have translation project. I have an ongoing project of translating American poetry to Hungarian and vice versa. Have several anthologies out of such. As a matter of fact, at this moment I’m at the Hungarian Translator House resort in Balatonfüred where I’m working on a contemporary Hungarian poetry anthology for White Pine Press. The work of eight women and eight men poets will be transferred to English.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.
The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Carol Robson

Carol has been performing at Spoken Word events since 2010, she also gradually started dabbling with comedy as well, which she now includes as part of her Spoken Word/Comedy show and was delighted to be able to perform at the 2015 UK Women in Comedy Festival in Manchester.
Carol has also performed in venues, Festivals/Fringe events from Brighton to Edinburgh such as Ilkley, Buxton, Manchester, York, London, Newcastle and Edinburgh.
In 2014 her solo Edinburgh Fringe show received a 4star review from BroadwayBaby.
In 2015 she was part of a performance around intergenerational words called ‘The Open Sky’ first performed at Peckham Liberal Club before a performance in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
In 2016 Carol performed her new show ‘Just Saying How It Is’ at the Great Yorkshire Fringe in York and Camden Fringe. Her eclectic material is taken from everyday real live, which can be serious or she uses humour, ie: ‘Just Saying How It Is’ and labels herself as the Paranoid Party Poet.
In 2018 Carol performed at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival.
Carol was honoured to be invited to perform some of her poetry at the Harms Of Hate event funded by the Home Office and held at the Magna Science Park in Rotherham on Sept 27th 2018, she wrote the poem ‘No Labels’ especially for this event.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

I didn’t go to University until I was 52 as a very mature student and I found I had to write lots of assignments. I did find it hard at first then started to enjoy it although I found it easier to talk my thoughts/words to an audience, I guess that is why I love being a spoken word/poet performer. Leaving University I started to feel as though I wanted to write stories but drifted into poetry after showing 2 poems to a Sheffield poet who told me to write more

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

So many to mention, but if put on the spot it was when I went to a reading at Sheffield University bookstore and listening to Sally Goldsmith because I was so interested in real life stories, people lives and she advise to go to poetry writing workshops which I did.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

Being an older poet I was more aware of much younger poets and to be honest learnt so much from them as I did some poets same age or older than myself, to be honest I found some of the poets same age or older a bit stuffy and totally not in touch with what I wanted to write about,.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I really don’t have a daily routine, I am a very spontaneous person and I must start writing my poetry, make notes or rough drafts as soon as it comes in my head, I even have a notepad on my bedside cabinet.

5. What motivates you to write?

So many issues of this world, simply my heart and mind. Seriously I write about anything but at the forefront I write poems on issues around Mental Health, Domestic Violence, Gender, Social Comment, Human Rights,  Yorkshire, LGBT and real life issues and sometimes political, I also love to inject humour where and when appropriate.

6. What is your work ethic?

The reliability of any sources that I use for inspiration also my integrity and a sense of responsibility and respect when something  from marginalised groups of people inspires me to write a poem.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?  To be honest I was a terrible reader in my younger life but as a child I did love Black Beauty by Anna Sewell and the Grimm’s Fairy Tales. So I guess it was more in later life that I have  grown to admire writers.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

I do really love a good Autobiography/Biography but these writers I really loved because I went back and read their books again, Michael Ondaatje, Hanif Kureishi, Kathryn Harrison, V G Lee, Spike Milligan. I have so many poetry collections from fellow poets and I love them all and these are still my main source of reading material today, so I won’t name anyone in particular.

9. Why do you write?

Several years ago I did an open mic in Sheffield, lots of students there and after my slot one student told me they loved my poetry but I must be 20-30 years older than the other open micers and why am still doing it; ‘I simply replied ‘because I fucking can’ Writing has become part of me, I write more to perform and my inspiration was to write a my one woman show to take to Edinburgh Fringe which I did in 2014 and received a 4star review from BroadwayBaby. Also my collection Words of Darkness and Light was published in 2014.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Learn as much as you can about being a writer, research for me is a key factor, also attending writing workshops and go to listen to other writers giving talks. It has to be in your heart, be prepared to be disappointed but don’t let it break you.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I am still putting some poems together some old, some new for my second collection, the title could be around the performance  that I do of ‘Just Saying How it Is’ at the moment this is just a pamphlet size piece of work.

Website: Just Saying How It Is, carolrobson.com
Twitter: @CarolRobsonPoet

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.
The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Jana Begovic

As far back as she can remember Jana has been fascinated by storytelling and intoxicated with the written word. As a young child, she began spinning tales, talking to an imaginary friend and devouring fairy tales. As a teenager, she wrote maudlin love poetry, and as a young mother a collection of fables. Her love of reading and writing propelled her toward studies of languages and literature resulting in B.A. degrees in English and German Languages and Literature, an M.A. Degree in Literary Studies, as well as a B.Ed. Degree in English and Dramatic Arts. She works for the Government of Canada in the field of military language training and testing and her work, as a subject matter expert, has taken her all over the world. She was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, but has lived in Canada since 1991.
Among her publications are an academic article published by Cambridge Scholars, UK, the novel “Poisonous Whispers” published by Roane Publishing, N.Y., poetry, short fiction, articles, art reviews and blog posts published by literary journals and other publications. Currently, she is working on her second novel, and finalizing a collection of children’s stories. In addition, she acts as a guest editor for the literary journal Ariel Chart.
She lives in Ottawa, Ontario with her husband.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

A lifelong fascination with the written word, and a desire to express myself through different literary forms, including that of poetry. I began to write poetry in my teenage years, the period of my life when poems proved to be the best creative outlet for my maudlin and melancholic moods, as well as my budding longings for Romantic love.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

It was an elementary school teacher who encouraged me not only to read different genres, but also to attempt to write poetry after I revealed to her how spellbound I was by Edgar Allan Poe’s poems.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

As an avid reader, I was always aware of the presence of the poets belonging to different eras, or those of an older generation. As someone who studied English and German literature, the poets belonging to the different historical periods were sources of reading delight and inspiration. Among them were Byron, Keats, Novalis and Goethe.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I wish I had a daily writing routine, that is, I wish I wrote much more than I do. Writing is currently a hobby and a passion for which I have to make time in my busy schedule. For my author page, for example, I write micro fiction every few days. At times, I work on my second novel daily, and at other times, I let the storyline simmer and ferment in my sub-conscious for weeks or even months until I am ready to continue. Inspiration sometimes strikes suddenly and a poem is born in a few minutes while I am sitting in an airport, or I do not write a word for a few days. My writing routine, in other words is highly unpredictable and I clearly lack writing discipline. But then again, I do have a full-time job, and I travel extensively on business, as well enjoy a family life, social gatherings etc.….lots of excuses.

5. What motivates you to write?

A voice within me that clamours to be heard, a creative spark that turns into a flame that cannot be ignored, life events which I try to alchemize through the art of writing, and an urge for creative expression. I am also motivated by the stories friends and acquaintances tell me, and I weave them into my writing.

6. What is your work ethic?

To write what I feel, to express who I am, to be true to myself, to develop a singular and recognizable style.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

When I was young, I read classical literature and especially enjoyed English literature. When I was even younger, as a child, I loved fairy-tales and fantasy. For that reason, as a writer I am mostly drawn to speculative literary fiction, a hybrid between literary fiction and fantasy. That could be ascribed to the influences of the books and authors I read when I was young.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

Julian Barnes, Haruki Murakami, Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood are some of the writers I admire because of their literary depth, and their power to ignite my own thoughts. I crave books that teach me something knew, that give me reading pleasure and that have undeniable literary merit toward which I can also strive.

9. Why do you write?

To achieve inner renewal, to transmute reality, to appease a haunted hunger for creative expression within myself, and perhaps to create something that temporarily feels like an antidote to mortality.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

The same way you become a painter, or a chef, or a musician. You listen to the whispers of your soul, and your respond to the impulses that propel you to any kind of creative expression. Avid readers usually turn into writers. Sometimes, a great sorrow or a great joy suddenly turn people into writers because overwhelming emotions often demand to be processed through some kind of art form. A strong desire to become a writer coupled with a writing talent is usually the first step. Nowadays, with the advent of self-publishing, anyone can become a writer with sufficient persistence and passion.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I am in the final stages of finishing my second novel, I plan to finalize a collection of children’s stories that needs some more editing; I am also working on co-authoring an academic article and have a few poems and a short story in a draft form. I am also a guest editor for the literary journal Ariel Chart, so along with a full-time job as a language specialist for the Canadian government and other commitments, my days are quite busy.

Jana can be reached via her Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/J.Damselfly/notifications/

Her debut novel poisonous Whispers can be found at:

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following poets, local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.
The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Brett Evans

Brett Evans lives, writes, and drinks in his native north Wales. His favourite companion is centenarian, curmudgeon Jack Russell, Remi. Brett is co-editor of poetry and prose journal Prole, his debut poetry pamphlet The Devil s Tattoo was published by Indigo Dreams in 2015.

The Interview

1. What were the circumstances under which you began to write poetry?

Hi Paul, first of all thank you for inviting me to do this interview.
To answer that first question, I’m not really sure. I’d always written lines that didn’t go all the way to the right hand margin but by no means was it poetry – I didn’t know a sonnet from a sestina back then. I think it was after returning to Shakespeare (when taught at school it was tedium at its most dense) and Wilde I began to look into poetic form and meter.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Well, when I was a child my aunt was always buying me books as presents, a lot of them based on the epic poems but child friendly illustrated editions so I didn’t know it was based on a poem when reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight or something. I remember in primary school watching a TV adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey – in my mind it was animated but it may have just been a series of illustrated stills being narrated over. Again I had no idea this was based on poetry.
But one clear memory is of being in the Pen-y-Bont pub in my hometown of Abergele back in the early 90s and heroic drinker and fine, sweet man Geoff Bunn was in (something of a local legend was Geoff) and he was pissed, and I was pissed and he was at the bar reciting words that although made no sense to me in my inebriated state (and they may not have done sober) they drew me in, something resonated (and again they may not have done sober). I asked Geoff what the hell he was on about. Shakespeare, he told me. Henry V. Well, perhaps not the very next day but certainly within a week I had tracked down the complete works of the man and a dvd of Henry V. The words, thankfully, still hit home when I was sober. Geoff could also do whole Goon shows and all the voices. A much missed man. I don’t think he knew how much he altered the course of my life that night. And I do hope I told him.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

Hmm I think as a teen I thought that’s all there were: dead poets with legacies – Keats, Byron, Whitman (other than possibly Pam Ayers! Ah no, my brother did have a John Cooper Clarke LP and a book of Max Boyce poems). Further investigation proved otherwise of course. I don’t think my being aware of them influenced much, some I admire whilst others I don’t, all down to taste. There will always be dominating presences (and they can be to the good) and there will always be dominating and damning elites. Not being Stevie Ray Vaughan didn’t prevent my picking up a guitar. If such presences can influence one to write (or do whatever) whether via emulation or revolution, all good.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I don’t have one. Simple. I co-edit a literary journal of short stories and poetry, Prole http://www.prolebooks.co.uk/ and that takes up an awful lot of my time. We like to respond to submissions quickly but also to fully consider them, not sit on work for months.  I would love to have the luxury of a writing routine and perhaps if I sorted out my own messy mind I could fit one in but truth is if I have an idea it can come out just like that or it can mature in my head or in draft form for months.

5. What motivates you to write?

Well if it were money I wouldn’t be writing poetry. I don’t know. Is ‘for the sheer enjoyment of it’ too simplistic an answer? Sometimes there’s nothing wrong with keeping things simple.

6. What is your work ethic?

Christ, I don’t think I was instilled with a work ethic even when I held regular jobs. Get it done and get to the pub was always my view. When asked ‘How do you know when a poem is finished?’ Sean O’Brien (a poet I admire very much) said ‘When there’s nothing left to take out’ and I try to apply that ethic when redrafting poems. I do tend to see a lot written today that makes me think ‘Is this just the first fucking draft?’ rambling, over-written, I’m sure it’s just a question of taste in style but to my eye such poems read messily.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

Hmm well I don’t think the Elric novels of Michael Moorcock influence my poetry in anyway though I would like to sit down and read them again after all these years! Nor the Mr Men.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

I’ve mentioned Sean O’Brien above whose work and tone was a huge influence (as was the man himself on a residential course I did back in 2008 or 2009). I admire the US poet Quincy R Lehr for his acerbic wit and way with formal verse – and for not shying from stating that Don Share doesn’t half publish some shite. The recently deceased Irish poet Macdara Woods I admired greatly. I think it an exciting time for small presses, this year I’ve bought more poetry books than ever and there’s been some great work by names that will not appear to be as celebrated as Ocean Vuong – heaven help us.

9. Why do you write?

Because jogging makes me spill my martini.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

I would likely say they were asking the wrong person. However, if they persisted I would say read and read wide: poetry, novels, plays, history, biographies, anything but The Daily Mail. And read critically. Write. And know a lot of what you write won’t be much good but enjoy it for the process. Edit, and when you edit be honest, be harsh, be a bastard. And enjoy the process. If you decide to write poetry, read ‘about’ poetry, and same goes if you decide to write a novel or a screenplay, read about the craft.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

Well, I don’t want to disclose too much information but let us say I have an idea for a lot of poems that interact with one another, several threads – historical and personal. I’ve an awful lot of reading to get through to finish my research but I’ve about half a dozen of the poems down. It may work, it may not but I know it will keep me busy for quite some time.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.
The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Grant Guy

Grant Guy is a Canadian poet, writer and playwright. He has over one hundred poems and short stories published internationally. He has five books published: Open Fragments, On the Bright Side of Down, Blues for a Mustang, The Life and Lies of Calamity Jane and Bus Stop Bus Stop. He was the 2004 recipient of the MAC’s 2004 Award of Distinction and the 2017 recipient of the WAC Making A Difference Award.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

I have only taken up poetry recently as my prime activity. In the past it was a sidebar, an avocation. Before that I was as a playwright, director, designer and puppeteer. While I have written poetry in previous years, published now and then, theatre dominated. I identified myself as a theatremaker. But it was through my work in theatre that brought me to poetry and prose. It was at ADHERE + DENY I began to think of myself as a playwright. I wrote, collaged and adapted the several scripts for the company. Prior to
A+D I wrote scripts for The Popular Theatre Alliance of Manitoba, Video Pool and the Manitoba Association of Playwrights, The Winnipeg Fringe Festival, and elsewhere, but I did not refer to myself as a playwright. I began to enjoy writing more than all other aspects of theatrical creation. Poetry and short stories soon followed. Theatre is now a sidebar.

So it was not so much as to what was the inspiration as it was a progression.

However, still saying all that, my earliest interest in poetry began in my junior high school days. Until then, writing was an alien concept for me as a Canadian. In schools we were taught the poetry of English and American poets. However, it was the discovery of Bliss Carmen that changed all that for me. A Canadian that wrote poetry?  Wow! That led to A. M. Klein, Frank Scott, Stephen Leacock and, of course, Leonard Cohen. My writing ambition suffered a set back in my high school years when I was expelled from school because of a story I wrote for my English class. The piece was a kind of derivative merger of Dylan Thomas and Richard Farina. The high school thought I was a drug fiend. Wounded I never looked as writing as an option until the 1980s. In the 1980s I discovered Milton Acorn, Pat Lowther and Tom Wayman. In the 1980s my first poem was published. The 1980s not only my renewed interest in poetry but also gave me the confidence to write for theatre.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

It was not so much who introduced me to theatre. It was what. In grade 5 or 6 my class went on a field trip to see a Van Gogh exhibit. It was at the exhibition I decided I wanted to be an artist. I went to the library and borrowed what I could find on Van Gogh, including his letters to his brother. His writing had a greater impact on me. But the lack of Canadian content in our education system way back when was still a determent. It was the hippie years when I decided that being an artist was possible. Cohen burst onto the scene. With him a literary history I was blind to, writers like Layton, Birney and others. But it was through circumstances and friendship, and wanting to shortcut my education, I found theatre design to be the immediate recourse to the arts. I have a good sense of space and volume, but because I am a text based person theatre was my earliest path.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

I have many friends who are visual artists. In the visual artists one is more inclined to kill their fathers, something suggested by Mark Rothko. But I was a theatre artist. Theatre has a boatload of historical baggage. I never wanted to kill my fathers. Or bulldoze the past. For me my elders and history are material for work. That does not suggest I ignored the their humanity or the humanity of the work. I saw my elders as people and as abstraction. Theatre introduced me to Brecht and Mayakovsky, They in turn led me to Levertov, Ferlinghetti, Vallejo, Whitman and Lorca. They jockey back and forth in prominence but remain vital in my process and work. The influence may not be obvious but sometimes when someone can do things I cannot I have admiration for them. The initial poetic influences have been joined by other older poets and more contemporary poets. I would say Adrian Mitchell, the British poet, is a primary influence for me currently: to take poetry sincerely but less seriously. Bukowski is an influence for the same reason.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

It varies on the project. For my poetry I am open to inspiration. I take a pen and notebook with me everywhere. I write down observations, thoughts and phrases as they pop up in my life. Later I will transpose those ideas into poems, but no regimented time is set up. No getting up at 5 a. m. or something like that. An idea for a short story will pop up in a similar way as the inspiration for a poem. But I will set up time in the evenings to work on the short story. Short stories are painful for me. For playwriting, when working on a new script, I will establish a regimented work time. Playwriting is like going to the office. I also find visiting a coffee bar a good place to write. I try to visit one everyday. The hustle and bustle is energetic. I am a bit of a flâneur.

5. What motivates you to write?

An obsession I cannot shake. Currently it is a theatre piece on the “Beat Generation”. Otherwise, I keep myself open and alert to the world around me. My roots are in theatre. Theatre is a story telling format of the human drama. I remain committed to our human drama, but it is not the epic drama that interests me but in the snippets of human drama. I am keenly alert to the absurdities of our human drama. Earlier on I got entangled in metaphors and symbolism. I realized that is not me. I am the narrative and the comic turn, the vaudevillian turn. Many poets thrive on the metaphor and I admire them. I cannot honestly do it any more for myself.

Others things that motivate me might be a lyric from a song. I am working on a piece about funerals, how we need to assure our immortality by stamping our names on hospital research centres or on sports arenas. The spark came from a song by Lucinda Williams warning us about expensive funerals.

Another inspiration is travelling. I am like the grasshopper in Aesop’s fable. As soon as I have a bit of money in my pocket I am off. In travel you meet people you will never see again. I meet people who are completely different from me. People share their personal narratives more easily if they know they will never see you again. I call train travel a rolling confessional. Travel is a big inspiration for the snippets of our human drama.

Yes, mostly it is life.

6. What is your work ethic?

I have a horrible work ethic. Often I would rather flâneur or anything to get down to work, but once I get started it is hard to stop. I have been known to go for days with little sleep while working on a play.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

While I respect and admire writers I read when I was young their influence has weakened over time such as Dylan Thomas, with maybe the exception of Brecht. It is the poets I discovered in my thirties that have impacted me more and to a degree they still do today. Tom Wayman’s narrative style I found to be refreshing. I still come back to him. Al Purdy I discovered in the 1970s and still admire him today. Someone I dismissed when I was young was Charles Bukowski. Today his unadorned poetics are very significant on me. I mentioned Adrian Mitchell earlier. I was first introduced to him as a playwright. He wrote the English translation of Peter Weiss’s Marat/Sade. It was in the 1990s when I read him as a poet. He wrote, “People don’t care about poetry because poetry doesn’t care about people.” He wrote the way he talked, like Bukowski, and I was assured by that. He gave me confidence to write how I talk.

Saying all that I came across in the 1970s and 80s poets like Levertov, Merton and Lowther. Still read them and admire them.

A poet I discovered in my hippie years was Kenneth Patchen. I do not, cannot and will not write like Patchen, he sustains me.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

Hard question. In Winnipeg there is the poet Dennis Cooley. He has the eye and curiosity of a child. I admire this in him. In spite of my Groucho Marxism, I tend to be a bit of a skeptic. Also in Winnipeg is the poet Duncan Mercredi. In his poetry there is an anger and rage, but also hope. Another Winnipeg poet is Ariel Gordon. She has a great sense of humor. The same goes for the Pennsylvania poet Barry Gross. I like the work of the poet Jennifer Still. There exists delicate stitching together of text and form. Careful and beautiful. I am more like a sledgehammer. She is another example of a poet who can do something I cannot. I like the poet Red Shuttleworth. I write often Western poetry (not cowboy poetry). Shuttleworth, not solely a Western poet, has written excellent Western poems.

9.  Why do you write?

A chemical disorder? Back in the 1990s I was talking to the theatremaker Ping Chong. We were discussing how we both wanted to write that Broadway hit and make a lot of money, but as soon as we put pen to paper things go dinky. Ping said, “Grant, it’s called a chemical disorder.”

I cannot do anything else well but make art. It is in me and it comes out.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Here I do not have any useful advice. You must have it in you. Don’t let anyone tell you whether you have it in you of not. Only you know, and you have to be your most critical councilor. If it is in you you will do it. If it is in you you will not let the rejection slips get you down (and you will get rejection slips even when you have had over a hundred poems published). And it may take time to be published. I have a friend who had seven novels and four screenplays behind him before he had his first novel published. Use the rejections as motivation for editing. If you become easily discouraged and defeated by the early rejections maybe that is the sign you do not have what it takes. Art is work.

Also, maybe poetry is not your best option. That does not mean you are not a good writer. Maybe your form is the short story, maybe it is travelogues (I like very much subjective travel histories) or journalism. Look at Mailer. His best work, in my opinion, is his essay writing.

Be your harshest critic. And do not be afraid of editing.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

The big writing project at the moment is my theatre piece on the Beats. I am fascinated in the admiration they have mustered, even today. Primarily, at the beginning of the project I was interested in how the four Beat writers became a Generation. Gary Snyder commented three or four people “a generation do not make”. I was interested in how the four prime Beat writers ended being clichés. I contend they believed their own press releases. I was interested in how subsequent writers like di Prima, Kyger, Snyder in time ascended over them. The German poet Heine was referred to as an unfrocked Romantic. Like Byron, who I also consider unfrocked, was able to transcend over his Romantic colleagues because he was because he precisely unfrocked. I am interested in the participation of the women “Beat” era.

Another project I am working on is about Billy the Kid. I am not rehashing old ground on the outlaw but exploring aspects of his narrative never discussed.

I have written Western short stories and poems. I was fascinated by the genre and the history of the Old West in Canada and the United States: how we as a people subdued the West shaped us as people today – our relationship with the land and the indigenous peoples, our psyche, and how our conservative and radical politics in North American merged out of the old West (Eastern Canada and the United States owes a debt to Europe while the West is more libertarian or anarchist). Feminism in North America got its strength from the women of the Old West.

And the Old West is made up of characters and myth. Myth is plastic. We shape it anyway we want. And we did it with the Old West. But in my writing I am avoiding the old interpretations. I am trying to deconstruct and subvert the history and narratives of the Old west as the spaghetti Westerns and Sam Peckinpah did.

Other than that I am constantly writing about the discovered snippets of our human drama.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.
The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Angela Topping

Angela Topping is the author of eight full collections of poetry and four chapbooks, including one from Rack Press. Her work has been broadcast on Poetry Please and set for A level. She has won several single poem prizes and commendations. Poems have appeared in The Poetry Review, The Dark Horse, The North, Stand, The Interpreter’s House, Prole and many others. She has contributed to over 80 anthologies, works as a freelance poet, and also writes critical books for Greenwich Exchange. A former English teacher, she now lectures for Sovereign Education, leads workshops and gives readings all over the country. In 2013, she was a Writer in Residence at Gladstone’s Library. She has appeared at a range of festivals including StAnza (the Scottish International poetry festival, with The Lightfoot Letters exhibition), Cheltenham Poetry Festival, Birmingham Literature Festival (with the #MeToo anthology edited by Deborah Alma), and several local festivals including Northwich Lit Fest and Sefton Arts Fest.
She blogs at
https://angelatopping.wordpress.com/blog/

The Interview

1. What inspired you  to write poetry?

It’s something I’ve always done. Before I could even write, I’d make up rhymes in my head. When I was about 11, a poem came to me unasked and I wrote it down. The buzz I got was tremendous and I got hooked. Everything I experience could be a potential poem. That’s the way I think.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

My older sister used to read poetry to me when I was very small, and then at Primary School, we were often given a poetry anthology to choose a poem to learn by heart. I suppose it was a way of keeping us quiet, but I used to learn more than one. I found it very easy to remember them.  This led to years of delving in our excellent public library in Widnes to satiate my hunger for poetry. When I was about 16, and already reading a lot of poetry (my favourite at the time was T. S. Eliot), my sister moved to Windermere and helping her clear out cupboards in the new house, I found a copy of The Mersey Sound. It blew my mind and showed me there were different ways to write poetry. So my sister has a lot to answer for.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

Very much aware and I never found them dominating. They were there to enjoy and to learn from. I found poets including Robert Graves, Elizabeth Jennings, Stevie Smith, Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen and Edward Thomas in the library and devoured them at home, copying out in a ring binder the poems I could not bear to live without. (I still have these pages) When I was 19, I had a poem published in Arts Alive Merseyside, and immediately felt unworthy, so I set myself a ten-year apprenticeship. By this time, I had met the Liverpool poet Matt Simpson. He was enormously encouraging – said I ‘had something’, and that my talent was ‘delicate’, not in the way an invalid was, I hope, but more my subtlety and subject matter. I reached for poets like Seamus Heaney and Norman MacCaig, and whoever else I could find in the shops. I bought a poet’s manual (the one by Frances Stillman) and worked my way through all the forms.  When I was 26 and pregnant, I went on my first Arvon course. One of the tutors was Liz Lochhead. I showed her my scared little poems, and she raved about them, told me I was a ‘born poet’ and must get my work published. I felt as though I was being given permission. So after the Arvon course and the birth of my daughter, I started sending out poems again, and when I had one accepted, I wrote to Matt again. Our friendship grew, despite those few years where we’d lost touch. He was an unofficial mentor to me, unpaid, but the harshest critic, which I really wanted and needed, and eventually, he treated me as an equal, and I gave critique back to him, which he was grateful for. Through him I met poets like U. A. Fanthorpe, Anne Stevenson and George Szirtes, who are just a little older than me. I never found them anything but gracious and encouraging. It is today’s younger poets who can be rather dominating, if anything, and dismissive at times of people like me. I’ve been a published poet now for over 40 years, playing the long game. But I blocked someone on Facebook last year when I saw them commenting about something I had said – ‘who cares what an old, white, straight woman has to say’. Not all young poets are like this, of course, but there has been a shift in power somehow. When I was a young poet, we respected the older ones, looked up to them and learned from them. Good poetry has nothing to do with the age, gender etc of the writer.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

Honestly? I don’t rise early, I mess about on the computer for a couple of hours, doing things like this or chatting on Facebook, replying to emails etc. I try to write poems or work on whatever book or lecture I am supposed to be writing, and take breaks in my craft room, or my writing shed. I always have a few commissions I am working on. But if a poem starts whispering in my ear, and insisting on being written, I drop everything and tend to its needs. I write initially by hand, in black ink, in a notebook, and not everything survives to the next stage of being typed up. Then it’s edit, edit, edit, and either send out and accepted/rejected, or languishes in a folder for years, when it might unexpectedly find its niche in the world. Matt Simpson always used to say that when a poet is just staring out of a window, they are working. So I go for walks, or do some gardening or baking, or making, and find poems come to me when I am doing something like that, because my body is busy but my mind free. I will also read other people’s poetry to get into the zone, or find watercolour painting and making books get me into a new poem.

5. What motivates you to write?

I can’t not write. I’ve tried, and I am never wholly myself in fallow periods, never wholly alive. I must obey the poem’s imperative, or it is like a persistent ghost that begs to be laid to rest.

6. What is your work ethic?

I’m a hard worker, but I can also take a long time to get round to things I somehow don’t want to do. I worked very hard to get all my poems in shape, and to put my books together, and to travel around reading from them to promote them. I see myself as being quite lazy, because I have too many things I want to do and not enough energy to see them all through, but people are always telling me I astound them because I do so much. I have no idea who is right. But I know I am awfully good at wasting time. I was a very hard-working teacher so sometimes it’s nice to feel I can have a lazy day, and maybe just read or write poetry, and enjoy being alive.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

I learned from them but found my own voice and I don’t think I am under anyone’s influence, but I treasure the lessons I learned from them. From John Clare (my favourite poet ever) and Norman MacCaig: the power of looking and observing; from Matt Simpson: the power of using words from both dialect and standard English, Anglo-Saxon and Latinate, and saying what I really mean; from Thomas Hardy: compression and use of form; from Emily Dickinson: wringing essence from the world and being nobody; from Robert Frost: the power of simplicity and rhyme; from John Donne: cheek and humour and argument. And where would any of us be without Elizabeth Bishop? My head is full of all the poems I have read all my life, and that richness helps me write.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most
and why?

It’s very hard to evaluate poets who are still alive and writing, but I will give it a go.
Anne Stevenson- I admire her great wit and her uncompromising pursuit of mastery.
Carol Ann Duffy – she’s my age and we have both been writing a long time. I don’t enjoy her more recent work as much, but I love her boldness, her wit and her ability to write in the voice of others so brilliantly, in all her books up to and including The World’s Wife. I’ll be interested to see if she’s liberated again after the millstone of the Laureateship is left behind.
David Morley – because he continues to develop his poems, he is always true to himself and is a great nature poet. We share a passion for the work of John Clare -and he is unfailingly generous.
Jen Hadfield – I love the way she is so inventive in her language, and so close to place.
Liz Berry – when I read her first book, I had to keep putting it down to recover from its beauty. It moved me.
John Agard – for his wit and charm, and he’s a brilliant performer.
Brian Patten – he’s underrated, I love his charm and wit but also his surrealism.
There’s a ton more, my shelves are crammed, but these are today’s top of the head ones.

9. Why do you write?

To stay alive, to get that buzz, to fulfil my dreams. Because I am. When I was 15, I dedicated my life to poetry because Robert Graves said you had to, to be a poet, as opposed to someone who writes poems. You have to live it. Matt Simpson, the last time I ever saw him, in hospital suspecting his number was up, introduced me to his favourite nurse, saying ‘this is my friend Angela, she is a poet too’. He had always taught me that poet was a praise word and you had to be given it. He was giving me that gift as his last bequest. That is why I have to go on with it. There won’t be a day when there is nothing left for poets to say, because the world is changing round us all the time. And the language itself is changing too. I serve poetry, not my own ego. Poetry, for me, is a service. I want to contribute my part to the great chain of words. I am addicted to poetry.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Read. And write what you can. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t. Don’t accept the word of anyone who tells you to stop, nor the word of anyone who gives nothing but praise. I used to teach Adult Ed. creative writing classes, and I would always say at the first one: ‘I can’t teach you to write. You can only learn by doing. But I can walk with you, and show you techniques, and we can talk about what makes poems work.’ I was repeatedly told at school and university careers’ services that I couldn’t be a writer. Luckily I didn’t listen and stuck to my goals. There is no shame in having a day job alongside it. So simply, you become a writer by writing. It’s easier than ever these days, because of computers and the internet.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I am a third of the way through of writing a reader’s companion to Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which will be published by Greenwich Exchange when I am finished. That’s part of what I do as a Literature specialist.
I am almost finished putting together a chapbook for Three Drops Press, called Grimm Rules. It is poems based on fairy tales, which I have always loved.  I prefer the darker stories, more Angela Carter than Walt Disney.
My last full collection came out with Red Squirrel Press in 2016, and it’s already been reprinted once. So I am still promoting that and giving readings, while thinking about what my next one, my ninth, is going to look like. I always write organically, not to a theme, so it’s fascinating to see what my obsessions are. I usually have a structure to each collection though, a shaping vision for it.
I’ve been asked back to Gladstone’s Library, where I was a writer in residence five years ago, to give a reading of mental health poems at their Hearth festival in November, so I am preparing for that now, selecting poems and reworking those as yet unpublished.
There is always something to keep me busy, which gives me a sense of purpose.

Angela Topping
September 2018

 

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.
The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Chani Zwibel

Chani Zwibel is the author of Cave Dreams to Star Portals, published by Alien Buddha Press. She is an associate editor with Madness Muse Press. She is a graduate of Agnes Scott College, who was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but now dwells in Marietta, Georgia, with her husband and their dog. She enjoys writing poetry after nature walks and daydreaming.

and a link to my book:

https://www.amazon.com/Cave-Dreams-Portals-Chani-Zwibel/dp/1724353128/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1538061241&sr=1-1&keywords=Chani+Zwibel+Cave+Dreams+to+Star+Portals

The Interview
1. What inspired you  to write poetry?

I’ve always told stories, since I could talk, and when I learned to write, I wrote them. Poetry came to me one day when I was outside . I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and it was a windy day, but not so bad that I had to go inside. The wind was blowing through the tree branches, making them dance. We had these huge willow trees in the yard and it reminded me of women with long hair swaying. I was in fifth grade. I wrote a poem about the wind. Nature still strongly inspires me.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Does Dr. Seuss count as poetry? If so, then my parents and grandparents. Everyone read to me and encouraged me to read. My babysitter always read me Shel Silverstein.  I don’t think we touched on poetry much until fifth grade in school, which may have been why I wrote the wind one in that form. My cousin introduced me to Charles Bukowski when I was 13, and that opened a door. Everything I’d read until then had been Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson. Also around that time we studied Langston Hughes in school. His words were a revelation, also. All good poetry is like that. It opens something in the heart, some unknown corner in the mind. Poetry can be beautiful images and poetry can be horrible scenes, and everything from here to there.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

I think poets are mostly solitary hunters and don’t really run into each other unless accidentally crossing another’s territory searching for food. Literally any conversation with “established” or “successful” older poets in formal or informal settings has sent the message: “don’t do this, you won’t make any money, you will go insane…..but if you REALLY WANT TO and you just CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT IT, then, ok…chase your dreams kid. Good.Luck.”

4. What is your daily writing routine?

It’s very eclectic. I keep a notebook stashed in every possible place: the desk, the bedside table drawer, the purse. If I’m “sitting down to write”, it’s usually morning, after the coffee, when I’m alone in the house.

5. What motivates you to write?

Because when I write, I don’t feel like checking the clock, or wondering what’s coming next. I am fully immersed in the moment and feel completely in tune with the universe. I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s true. Also, if I don’t do it, I’ll feel miserable.

6. What is your work ethic?

I might procrastinate for days, but I’ll get it done. Once I get down to business, I’m in the zone. When I’m on a project, and I’m in that space of work, I don’t ever dare stop the flow.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

All that Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein put a dictionary of rhymes in my brain I can’t erase, along with a sensibility for the abstract, the weird. Sometimes I hearken back to the Frost and the Dickinson for their form. I’m always dancing between the Romantics and the Modernists. Formal, beautiful, structural work vs abstract, bizarre, guttural resonances.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

Warsan Shire and Claudia Rankine are amazing. Read them, and you’ll know why.

9. Why do you write?

I’ve never wanted to do anything else. I can’t see myself doing anything else. My identity and purpose for living are bound up in writing. It’s who I am, and can’t be untangled from my spirit, mind, and body.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Keep your passion for it alive. Stay curious.  Learn the technical aspects of your craft, because you can only break the rules once you know them. Know that not everyone is going to appreciate your voice, but remember someone will. Don’t.ever.give.up.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I’ve recently had my first chapbook, Cave Dreams to Star Portals published by Alien Buddha Press. Hopefully next year I can follow that up. I’m working on a set of narrative poems about my childhood and adolescence in Pennsylvania, also.

I’m an associate editor with Madness Muse Press, and we are always accepting work for our blog, as well as our anthologies. You can find more information at https://madnessmusepress.com/

I’m also working with two friends,  putting together a project for art and writing called Narwhal, which focuses on environmental issues and living on a planet in crisis. For more information on that project, I can be reached at Chani Zwibel on facebook, or by email at clzwibel@gmail.com.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following poets, local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.
The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

 

Paul Iwanyckyj

Paul Iwanyckyj is a poet, musician and songwriter based in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. He has on-going involvement with Doncaster Folk Festival, Roots Music Club, Doncaster Ukrainian Centre and other cultural performance activities, including Well-Spoken and Read-to-Write.

Recent examples of his work, written and visual have been displayed at exhibitions in Doncaster, Stratford, Barnsley and Halifax.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

I’ve always written verse i.e. since school days, and being a natural hoarder they are probably in an attic box even now. I can clearly remember writing a set of my own words to a Christmas carol in primary school and could sing you the first two priceless lines even now, if you were unfortunate enough to ask.

As my first love was music I always saw such nascent gems as destined for songs, though looking back some clearly were never going to be that and so were more fledgling poems, although I never saw them as such. Odd now looking back.

The real change, believe it or not, has happened since I took early retirement. Local writer and songsmith Ray Hearne, and poet/artist Brian Lewis started a couple of arts-initiatives for the “older artist” based on the simple philosophy that why should all emerging artists be from the younger generations.? Surely with people living longer, retiring early and thus with more time and energy to devote to following their passions, who knows what they might be capable of?

As a result, I have seen many unassuming and lovely people blossom from that 18 month co-operative period, and made some good friends into the bargain.

What it taught me personally is that I am freer and more creative when concentrating purely on the shape, feel and emotion of words without any need to consider how they might fit to a melody etc., and is in fact where my strengths lie. Surprising it took so long really – but perhaps that’s what demanding jobs, family life etc. do for you. In fact, I’m sure when I joined these groups I felt that it was a way to help improve my song-writing. (It may yet)

I still attend a monthly group that Ray hosts in Doncaster, and occasionally work with Brian and his team, known these days as the Northern Fringe.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

I’d have to say my mum, but mainly indirectly, in that she took me to join Doncaster Junior Library whilst at primary school, she herself being an avid reader, and a member of both the Bronte and Tennyson societies. She also wrote and had at least one play broadcast on BBC Radio 4, but she was never preachy or pushy about writing at all.

Next came English Lit O ’level, and the Longman’s set book “Poetry 1900 -1965” edited by George MacBeth. A cracking collection that I still have and use, that includes most of the greats of that period as you might imagine.

We were focussed for O’ level on Yeats, Muir, Auden, MacNeice, Stevie Smith, RS Thomas, Larkin, Plath, Donald Davie and Peter Porter (I know because they still carry the pencil asterixis).  But I never saw it as something I would take up seriously at the time

The man who has introduced me to poets and poetry in real depth (including re-visiting many of the above) is Ian Parks. A superb poet in his own right, and a natural teacher, with a profound and enthusiastic knowledge of the subject. I make every effort to attend his weekly class and cannot recommend it highly enough.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

I wasn’t really until the last two years studying with Ian, except perhaps for Shakespeare, but even then, much more as a playwright. But I’ve always been aware of the names of the usual suspects e.g. Milton, Coleridge, Shelley, Tennyson etc. but never felt “domination”.

It’s funny how certain things stick though. I clearly remember Robert Frost from school and particularly “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” – one of the few poems I could recite from memory at the time. Also “Birches”, in fact it so struck a chord with a group of us as school boys that, sad to relate, we became swingers of birches for a couple of giddy days. I would have sworn he was English though.

I could also say I have always been aware of Taras Schevchenko, the famous Ukrainian poet and folk hero. His heavily moustached and brooding presence being ever present at home and any Ukrainian venue we have attended (my late father was a Ukrainian refugee who came here after WW2)

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I don’t have one as such due to so many other factors, but I always try and find time to write at some point in any given week; though ideas, thoughts and phrases are ever-present.

Sometimes I manage daily snippets. I do have a great tool to achieve this, “Evernote”, that works on my phone, iPAD, PC or browser. Whichever I choose to use it appears “immediately” on all the other devices, so I can pick up wherever I am. Failing that a scrap of paper will always suffice as an interim measure.

5. What motivates you to write?

Anything. Today it was raking windfalls below our fruit trees. Yesterday it was thinking about my mum and dad’s smoking habits. On holiday it was contemplating the sea. I also gain motivation from reading and hearing other poets, admiring their take on a subject, or just a certain phrase will set off a train of thought, or triggers my own memory of a similar event that gets me itching to get it down. Tonight, I plan to catch Helen Mort in Barnsley, always interesting.

Sometimes its attending Ian’s class or a workshop session somewhere. I am someone who seems to thrive on being given a task and a deadline, well most of the time. Occasionally it fails to inspire, but often that will be because the brief is too prescriptive and thus limits creativity, but they are the exception fortunately. I do get satisfaction from taking an exercise and coming out with a finished product that is a poem, not simply a completed exercise,

6. What is your work ethic?

I feel I have always worked hard, and still do. Unfortunately, it’s not always poetry related, but when I am writing I take it very seriously. I do rail at convention at times, if for instance I feel that in trying to write to a “traditional” pattern or style or using rhyme is distorting what I trying to say. Thus, although you will find sonnets, sestinas and rhyme in my work they will tend to be in the minority. But who knows? – that may change.
7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

I am not sure they do so much now. When I first started I think I wrote with some quite old-fashioned phrasing at times because that was what my ear had been brought up with especially as a regular churchgoer in my younger days. But most of my influences now are from my studies of the last two to three years, and though many of those are featured in my O’ level poetry book, they have now been studied with my adult eyes, ears and sensibilities.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

Oh, now you are asking, as I was only recently studying Seamus Heaney and Ian Hamilton as relatively modern writers, both of whom I enjoy greatly, but who are sadly no longer with us.

As regards those extant, for one I’d have to say Ian Parks as I have come to know his style well as you might imagine. He is both a compelling writer of romantic lyrical poetry, but equally at home giving his voice in support of the oppressed, both now and in our turbulent past.

I do enjoy a slew of female poets for some reason (mainly because they are good I suppose) e.g. Helen Mort, Wendy Cope, Carol Ann-Duffy – who I had the pleasure of seeing last year at the Edinburgh Fringe, and was much more engaging and humorous than I had pre-supposed.

I also get great pleasure from people who can write well and with great humour – a very underrated art-form and skill, (as are great comedians) e.g. Cooper-Clarke and especially the great Les Barker. On the more serious side Tony Harrison, forever cocking-a-snook at the established view, and of course a Yorkshireman, and although we lost him last year Derek Walcott, such an individual and warm poetic voice. Maybe a not very original choice, the dark dryly humorous and another Yorkshireman, Simon Armitage.

9. Why do you write?

Maybe this helps, its something I wrote in response to a similar question in a quick exercise.

Why Do We Do It?

For me it’s a voice in my head saying “Do it”;
a nag in the heart that says “Just do it”;
or landing fully-formed saying,
“I’m here, now what are YOU going to do?”
Creative compulsions that eat away
then gush forth to flood the mind.

Quiet times arrive when other matters occupy,
then, triggered by the innocuous, an idea forms,
it must be captured, before, like some rare butterfly
it disappears over the horizon, possibly forever.

Or, for no other rationale than “I must do this”;
deriving satisfaction simply for the act itself
delivering something new into the world
then – it simply works for me
– now, what about you?

Active Arts – 8 min exercise – 9th Dec 2015

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Not sure how qualified I am to answer that but here’s a few common-sense suggestions:

– keep writing, keep reading.
– write whatever you feel compelled to write, not what you think others want;
– join a group or two, live ones, and on-line, you will always learn from them;
– if you do join, give wholeheartedly to them don’t sit back, the more you give the more you’ll get in return. But leave room for others as well, and be generous and respectful;
– don’t be afraid of criticism, everyone gets it, and again you will learn something;
– ask questions of and take advice from people you respect;
– and keep writing, keep reading.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

– The big one for me is the launch of my first pamphlet of poetry “Through A Cracked Mirror “ from Glass Head Press. September 29th.

– I am also experimenting with longer format poems, which appears to be going pretty well.

– Beyond that, simply finding time to try-out some of the pages of ideas for poems that I have in “Evernote” and seeing which ones fly and which ones soar.
………………… Thanks for asking, and cheers to an interesting project.