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.

Dom Conlon

(@Dom_Conlon) is a poet and author. His collection Astro Poetica (illustrated by Jools Wilson (@JoolsAWilson) ) was praised as being ‘Insightful, thought-provoking and fun’. Dom is available to hire for school visits, as well as a copywriter for advertising and social media. His writing has brought him to the attention of BBC Radio where he is a regular guest, discussing science and poetry. Troika Books, a renowned publisher of children’s poetry, are releasing This Rock That Rock, a collection of fifty poems illustrated by Viviane Schwarz (@VivSchwarz). Dom has no cats, three pens, and a freezer full of ice cream. You can read more about him, including lots of poems and stories, at www.domconlon.com

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

I am constantly inspired to write poetry. I listen to the pulse of daily life, watch the tiny seasons passing through each minute, and feel the turn of the earth in my step. How could I not write poetry with all of this flooding through?

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

There is no ‘who’ but there are many ‘whats’. Like the Moon, and music, and time, and my son, and so on. But I have been fortunate to be able to talk about poetry with people. My high school English teacher, my A-Level teacher, the lecturers and students at university. And of course everyone in my life today. We all introduce each other to poetry. It’s a constant process, renewing itself with every conversation so that it always remains fresh and vibrant. It’s a duty, I think, we have to one another in life.

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

When I first began reading poetry and writing it, every poet was older. I wouldn’t use the word ‘dominating’. I’d say ‘guiding’.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I listen. Some days I do not physically write but every day I listen. There are things I heard years ago which will make it into poems when the time is right. Some days I have to write though. Some days I’m on a deadline to deliver a poem. That’s when I sit down and remember what I heard. I’ll put words onto my laptop or phone or notepad until I sense a shape of something. Then I’ll take that shape and guide it through drafts until I understand what I wanted to say. Sometimes I’ll know quickly, other times it takes a while.

5. What motivates you to write?

An itch. It might be a word or a phrase or a line or just a rhythm. But I have to respond to it. Sometimes I will have been asked to write something and (if I’m very lucky) sometimes someone will be paying me to write. All of these things are great motivators but really, I just have to write.

6. What is your work ethic?

I’m good at turning on the tap. I have always been faced with deadlines and so I know how long it will take me to write something. It’s better for me to take more time to write but I don’t always have that luxury. When I do I don’t always make the best use of the time though.

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

They are always beside me. One book I loved when I was in my teens was Moon Whales, by Ted Hughes. I still have the book and was so pleased to get it signed by the illustrator, Chris Riddell. Both the words and the illustrations guide me when I’m thinking about poetry. The same is true of other poets I adore: E E Cummings, Sylvia Plath, Mary Oliver, Wisława Szymborska, and many other more recent poets.

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

None of them. They are all rubbish except me. I’m joking, of course. I admire so many: George Szirtes, Nicola Davies, Brian Moses, Joe Coelho, James Carter, Sue Hardy-Dawson, Tony Walsh, Rachel Rooney, Liz Brownlee, Chitra Soundar, Matt Goodfellow…I feel as though I’m listing friends and I am! So basically I love the poets today who I know and who have been kind enough to call me friend. And in addition there are so many because poetry is an endless and open forum for beauty.

9. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

I write because I can. And because I can I want to become better at it.

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

Write. Just write. I imagine this is a common answer but it’s no less true because of that. It’s the answer I give to children who say they want to write. There is nothing stopping you from becoming a writer. You don’t need permission to be one any more than you need permission to breathe. Write. If you are asking “How do I sell my writing, or make a living from it” then that answer is much harder but still begins with “write”. The better you become, the more you write, the greater the chance there is of earning some money from your work. It’s difficult and there are no fixed paths to earning a living as a writer but the one thing that is guaranteed to prevent you is not writing. So write.

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

I’ve just finished a collection of poems called This Rock That Rock which is due out at the beginning of March (2020). I did that with the incredible artistic talent of Viviane Schwarz and I want everyone to buy a copy. I really do. I’m so proud of it and feel it is a good thing to put out into the world. I’ve also got another book out this year but I can’t say anything about that here. And of course, I’m writing more. More poetry, more stories, more things which delight me.

12. I love how the poems work in tandem with the illustrations.

That’s ALL thanks to Viviane Schwarz. The process of illustrating the book was extraordinary. Viviane has the most remarkable ability to shapeshift into the words, inhabiting them in a manner that makes it difficult to see where the two sides of this book start and end. It’s no longer as easy to say there are poems and pictures because the pictures are poems and vice versa. Viviane even helped the word parts of the poems to change, as I found myself wanting to re-write in response to her insights and style choices.

13. In that sense the poem and picture together become a poster that can be copied from the book and put on a wall.

Absolutely!

I began to create a series of postcards to help promote the book and as I did I saw how this book could be accessed in different ways. It took me back to how Viviane made a box and put each poem in it on its own piece of paper. She would reach in, take a single poem out, and carry that in her day until she knew what needed to be done.

14. In your introduction you spend as much time extolling the delights of poetry as you do the moon.

Isn’t reality incredible? The Moon, a river, a laugh. It’s all a delight. Poetry is the only way I know to show my incredulity and joy in a way that intensifies it.

15. How do you find the form to suit the poem? I’m thinking of the first poem which is like an Anglo-Saxon riddle.

It is an Anglo-Saxon riddle! That is made using kennings, one of my favourite poetry tools.

Sometimes the rhythm of a phrase dictates the form. Sometimes I know I want to represent ideas in a formal way (so I might choose a sonnet for that). I like to see where the idea takes me and usually that helps me find the form. There is a ghazal in the book which is a very old form of Arabic poetry. It took a great deal of research and I was grateful to an archaeologist called Rizwan Safir who told me about Ahmad Ibn Majid, a medieval navigator. Ibn Majid wrote about the relationship between Muslims and an understanding of the Moon—particularly when it comes to celebrating Eid ul Fitr and Eid ul Adha which rely on the sighting of a new moon (that’s when the moon is dark). Rizwan’s patience helped me to gain a small insight into the rich heritage of Arabic science and I tried to represent that through the ghazal.

16. How did the moon help you cope with the mysteries of the human heart, like grief?

The Moon is meditative. It’s a focus away from anything happening down on this planet and by looking up I am lifting myself away. I don’t need to think about grief or worries because the Moon helps me to reach a state of calm in which my unconscious brain does all the heavy lifting. Try it. Slip behind your curtains at night and look, or pause in the street and look up at the Moon during the day. It’s the full stop before the next sentence, the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

 

 

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.

Sue Kindon

was born in Croydon when it was still in Surrey. She now lives and writes in the French Pyrenees, and helps run an online bookshop, Valier Illustrated Books, specialising in twentieth century and earlier limited editions. Her poems have recently appeared in Poetry Salzburg Review, Obsessed with Pipework, Picaroon, and Domestic Cherry. Her first pamphlet, She who pays the piper, was published by Three Drops Press in 2017, and her second, new from 4Word Press, is entitled Outside, the Box.

The Interview

1. When and why did you start writing poetry?

I’ve played with words and images for as long as I can remember. I have the notebooks from my teenage years, so I must have been writing things down by then, but I can’t place a particular trigger. Perhaps in response to discovering some great poems at school? We had a teacher who didn’t stick to the syllabus.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

It would be that same teacher, Barbara Davies.

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

Do you mean, was I aware of the wealth of poetry that is our heritage? In which case, yes, because that was what I discovered at school. I didn’t go to any readings until I arrived at university, in fact poetry readings barely existed. All that has changed dramatically, with the growth of poetry and literary festivals as well as the Internet, which has put us all in touch with each other and means there is instant access to the writings of contemporary poets, great and small.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I imagine it to be that I am woken by the alarm every morning at 6.30. I sit at my desk (which belonged to my mum) and set pen to paper for 2 hours before breakfast. I really did do this every day for some years, but now it probably happens 2 or 3 times a week if I’m lucky. These days, I’m more likely to compose poems in my head, as and when. If I can still remember them 24 hours later, they’re probably worth writing down. If I’ve managed to get up early and don’t feel like writing poetry, I read it.

5. What motivates you to write?

I take motivation to mean why I write. It’s a hunger, although I don’t always have the appetite for it. It’s an urge to put into words a fraction of the amazing sensations that bombard me, and to offer them unconditionally. It’s a fascination with pushing the language to its limits and playing with it to make new connections. It’s the satisfaction of being part of the word soup that is poetry and seeking that dash of magic that means the next poem could just be the best one ever.

6. What amazing sensations.. bombard you, and why?

Just everything about opening your senses to being alive. If you can quieten yourself enough, there is a wealth of stimuli out there.

6.1. So it isn’t contemporary political or social issues rather what stimulates your own senses?

They are the context, and because I’m not a total hermit, they influence my writing. I wouldn’t set out to write about a particular issue, but I might be jolted into doing so by a phrase used by a politician, for example, or by witnessing an incident.

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

I’m not aware of how those writers influence my work, although I’m sure they do. I hope my style is my own. Those I admired when I was starting out include Shakespeare, Blake, Keats, Yeats, Louis MacNeice, T S Eliot, Sylvia Plath, and Ted Hughes. I dismissed the work of Philip Larkin at the time, but I’ve now come to appreciate his direct diction and accessibility. I was delighted to discover the imagery and voluptuous language of Baudelaire, and the risks taken by Rimbaud in both form and subject matter.

It’s a tall order to put all that in a nutshell, but here goes: –
Shakespeare – mastery of the sonnet form, richness of language, imagery, conceits.
O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:
To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.
Blake – Songs of Innocence and Experience – the power of contrast, simplicity, song-like quality, use of symbols, mysticism.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand…
Keats – rich descriptions, the sensual imagery of the Odes.

…With beaded bubbles winking at the brim.
Yeats – awareness of fragile beauty, lyricism, Celtic twilight.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Louis MacNeice – for Prayer before Birth, probably the poem that grabbed me most, with its bold voice and urgent rhythm. I’ve just read it again, and I still love it.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.
TS Eliot – innovation of form, echoes of other works,

At the still point of the turning world.
Sylvia Plath – hooray, a woman. Plain speaking, bold imagery and subject matter.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
Ted Hughes – observation of nature, constructing a feral world with imagery (especially the sequence that is Crow) and always with an awareness of the music of the poem.
With draped manes and tilted hind-hooves,
Making no sound.

I passed: not one snorted or jerked its head.
Grey silent fragments
Of a grey still world.

All these poets share an honesty of approach, and an, attention to how the poem sounds that I greatly admire (which was probably the answer you intended, Paul, rather than a survey of my cherry-pickings of English/Irish literature, but I’ve rather enjoyed doing it).

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

Jacob Polley is my poetry hero: musical, using unexpected imagery to great effect, creating a dreamlike, sometimes nightmare-like world that hovers between nature and human encroachment, with all the emotions that tension plays out. Alice Oswald, for a fresh approach and a tremendous sense of rhythm. Michal Symmons Roberts for his quiet lyricism and gentle spirituality. Antony R Owen for taking on political subjects, especially war and oppression, so well that I don’t have to, because he’s done it for me (and how). Paul Muldoon for his weird take on things and for his delight in playing with the language. Billy Collins for his humour.

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

You give yourself permission to write. You write. You think How would I write this? You experiment. You have to be prepared to ditch the rubbish that will result, and to face the criticism when you put your work out there. And you read, to see how the writing is done and to feed your imagination.

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

I’m resting at the moment, after recently completing a pamphlet. Having said that, I’ve already started translating those poems into French, as I would like to bring out a bilingual edition.

11. What inspired you to write Outside, the Box?

The comma in the title Outside, the Box is all-important, because the starting point for the poems is ostensibly the box-moth plague that ravaged this part of France last year, destroying both native and garden box bushes.

12. How important to you is the use of space in your poetry on the page?

Very. The white space equates to silence. I am interested in how this looks on the page and how it sounds (or doesn’t) when the words are read aloud. In my recent pamphlet I would say I’m always aware of this, and several poems have shaped themselves in unconventional ways as a result.

13. Among the themes in your book, I find one the humorous militaristic description of nature such as “hornet police”, and with sometimes off hand sometimes full on descriptions of Christian church-going.

I’m interested that you interpreted hornet police in that way, as I rather thought they were police helicopters, but either way, they are a threat.

I’m not surprised you spotted a religious theme, as I was brought up in a very Christian household. You are probably referring primarily to the poem Excommunicado ,which I wrote when the words of The Lord’s Prayer were modernised. I acknowledge that there is a spiritual aspect to my writing, but it isn’t exclusively Christian. I’m more of a pantheist.

14. Bathing in water in these poems seems to provide you with peace and solace.

There is definitely a search for peace and solace going on, and some watery images. The poem Learning to Swim is probably about trust. I often dream about water.

15. How important is it to have humour in your poetry? I am thinking of Outside The House Of Running Water.

I never start writing with the intention of being funny, but quite often things turn wry. Also, I am overblessed with a sense of the absurd. In the poem you mention, it is the voice of the speaker in an absurd situation that raises a dry smile, I think.

16. Your wry humour comes over in the poems where you contemplate the death of humankind. I am thinking of Eve and The Ultimate Green Thought.

The Ultimate Green Thought is jokey despite its serious subject matter. I’m not so sure about Eve – I feel that she makes a rather more serious statement about the catastrophic state of things, but that some hope is offered by the ending. I guess that might raise a smile.

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.

Sarah Cave

is a writer and academic living in Cornwall. She is currently working on a practice-based PhD on the Poetics of Prayer at Royal Holloway. Sarah has published two pamphlets and an illustrated chapbook, like fragile clay, published by Guillemot Press. She has published two collections of poetry, An Arbitrary Line (Broken Sleep Books) and Perseverance Valley (Knives, Forks and Spoons Press) as well as a third, co-authored, collection A Confusion of Marys (Shearsman), forthcoming in February 2020. Sarah’s poetry and prose has been published in numerous journals and anthologies including Oxford Poetry, Poetry London, The Stand, Shearsman and Datableed.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

I started writing poetry while I was studying for an English with Creative Writing degree at Falmouth University. I was a mature student looking for my identity as a writer. I’d been writing notes and fragments toward poetry for years, but it took the degree, and the clearing that enabled, to work it out. While at Falmouth, I had time to develop a writing practice and focus on diversifying my influences. I can’t even begin to stress the importance of this ‘time to write’ and ‘time to discover’ aspect of academic creative writing.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

I guess my mum would have been the first to read me poetry. Church & Sunday school would have been an early influence; psalms, hymns, Song of Songs etc. I’ve had lots of helpful input from people, my partner and I are constantly discovering and sharing new writing and my MA tutors and PhD supervisors have helped to diversify my reading. My undergraduate dissertation supervisor, Rupert Loydell, has always been very generous with his time, knowledge & vast book collection. One thing I love about poetry is that there is always more to read!

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

I’ve been largely untouched by this, but I think it can be a problem in poetry. I’ve mostly had good experiences with writing mentors and tutors. If you don’t agree with something someone’s suggested, you don’t have to do it; you need to know when to push back. Sometimes this is more of a problem when it comes to gatekeeping but, really, if an editor wants you to change something beyond recognition then that’s not the right place for your writing. Of course, that’s easier said than done when it’s such a touch publishing environment and even more people are writing and wanting to be published.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I usually write & read for at least 6 hours a day, but always after coffee and a stroll with the dog.

5. What motivates you to write?

Honesty, clarity, critical exploration and, most importantly, a need for play.

6. What is your work ethic?

I’m both lazy & relentless. I don’t do much else other than writing, reading & making books, so I manage to be productive, but I do enjoy a good dawdle & a daydream along the way.

7. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most & why?

Susan Howe, Cole Swensen, Peter Larkin, Holly Pester, Luke Thompson, Callie Gardner, Thomas A. Clarke, Jen Hadfield & Luke Kennard all do something I consistently enjoy. They all take risks, but I think that list is eclectic in output. I’m constantly reading new people & enjoying poetry, non-fiction & prose. I want to mention more poets like Vahni Capildeo, Daisy Lafarge, Maria Sledmere and Colin Herd. Gosh, there are so many. There’s so much good writing being published, mostly by small presses. As an editor of a small press, I love supporting other presses and I feel like I’m part of a broader writing & publishing community through social media, readings & being on the edge of the creative writing programs at Royal Holloway & Falmouth.

9. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

Writing seems urgent to me. It’s an action that has the potential to change things. Also, I’m not sure I’m good at anything else.

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

Listen to other writers. Always be kind.

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

I’ve just published a book about the Martian Rovers, called Perseverance Valley (Knives, Forks & Spoons Press). My latest book, A Confusion of Marys, is a joint effort with the poet Rupert Loydell. My contribution to the collection is called ‘An Autophagy of Mary’, which means ‘the self-eating of Mary’ & signals some of the regenerative dialogue around Mary.

I’m currently working toward a practice-based PhD on the poetics of prayer & this includes material that will become my third poetry collection.