https://deborahhortonwriting.com/2022/07/10/vincent/

-Liam Flanagan

48 years old living in Ireland. Degree in English and Philosophy. Teaching Diploma in IT. Ten years experience working in the IT industry. Likes Sport, Music, Film and Politics. Over thirty poems published on various sites over the last two years.

The Interview

1. When and why did you start writing poetry?

I have always had an interest in writing. I have
a degree in English and Philosophy so I did a lot
of writing during my three year Arts degree. The
poetry started much more recently. I was attending
a creative writing class and just starting writing
poetry and enjoying it. I stopped writing for a while
and then when the pandemic hit I started writing
again and have been writing proficiently since.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Here in Ireland, English
is a subject you study from an early age. Before you leave
secondary school you are exposed to many poets such as
Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Yeats and Keats.

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

Ireland is steeped in poetic history. Contemporary poets such as Seamus Heaney
is well known as would traditional poets such as Patrick Kavanagh and Oscar Wilde.
Social media has become the medium through which I engage with most poets
and poetry now.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I don’t really have a routine. I am a member of a
poetry group online and every Monday there is
a one word prompt to base a poem on. Sometimes
an idea comes to me straight away and other times
it could be a couple of days before I come up
with an idea for a poem. Once I do, quite often I
will write the poem in one day and then submit it
for publication.

5. What subjects motivate you to write?

A number of subjects inspire me to write.
I write about mental health for two reasons.
One is I have experience in dealing with mental
Health issues and the other is I find it beneficial
to write about how I am feeling on any particular
day. I also write about other issues such as politics
and climate change. Sometimes my poetry can
be quite humorous which gives me a lot of pleasure
if I can brighten up somebody else’s day.

6. What is your work ethic?

My work ethic is strong. I worked in the IT
industry for ten years and had to work
very hard to get to the level I reached
before retiring. I apply this work this ethic to
my writing by spending time working on a poem
and not putting it forward for publication
until I am completely happy with the poem.

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

They don’t really. I wouldn’t describe my writing as being of any particular genre
and the style of writing is not taken from or based on any other
writers work.

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

I have to hold my hands up here and admit I am not the most
avid reader of books. I used to read a lot of books but now I just
read the newspaper every day and also other poets works
online.

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

I write because I enjoy it and I find it a means of expressing
myself. There is a lot of satisfaction derived from completing
a piece of work you are proud of and knowing the reader has
enjoyed it too.

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

Im not sure someone can ‘become’ a writer. I think some people can write
and others can’t. Sure, you can do a class or a course but if writing does not
come naturally to you I would say it is a difficult skill to learn.

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

I have applied for a government grant which will enable me to
write an a full-time basis. I should find out about that in August
so we will see what happens then. I have also recently submitted
twenty five poems to a publisher here in Ireland with a view of
getting a debut book published.

12. What is it about poetry rather than prose that appeals to you?

I think with poetry you can be quite specific about what you are writing about. I see the challenge of getting to the essence of the subject in a clear and insightful way using as little words as possible to get to the heart of the matter.

13. In your education which poets that you were introduced to attracted you most, and why?

William Butler Yeats was probably the poet I most admired. He wrote extensively on Irish myth and culture in his early works and then moved to writing about spiritualism and social issues. The versatility in his writing is what attracted me to him most.

14. How important is form in your poetry writing?

Form is important to me. A lot of my poems are only around twenty lines long. I try to keep things as concise as possible. I often use rhyme to connect one line to another or to change the pace of the poem.

15. What role does nature play in your writing?

Nature doesn’t play a huge role in my poetry. I know other poets use it as a source of inspiration and are very adept at using all the aspects of nature in a metaphorical way.

I do the same sometimes but do not use it to the same extent as others do.

16. How do you know when a poem you are writing is finished?

I know when a poem is finished when I am happy with it. Some poems come easily to me, others require research and much more work. 

17. What influence does your urban environment have on your writing?

My urban environment does have an influence on my writing. Often, I find myself writing about daily life and the grind so many have to go through just to get through the day. 

18. After reading your poetry what do you hope the reader will leave with?

It depends on the poem. If it is philosophical or political, I hope the reader would be stimulated to think about the subject matter. If it is humorous in nature then I would like to think the poem would leave the reader with a smile on their face.

-Maura McDonnell

is an artist that explores multiple mediums and artforms.  Most of the time, she is tinkering away with these art forms, filling up notebooks, art pads and computers with her efforts. Drawing and painting was what she did first, moving onto music after she started to learn the tin whistle at school, progressing to studying music, piano, education, music & media technology at college and at various times in her life.  She started writing in her teens, privately and found she really loved to shape words and create something complete from her experiences.  From this tinkering, she has been drawn to make artworks more consciously in the mediums of digital film, visual art and writing.  She creates what she calls visual music artworks which are in effect, abstract films with abstract music.  She started to write poetry, two years ago at the beginning of the pandemic lockdown by responding to a prompt by the then Poet in Residence for Poetry Ireland, Catherine Ann Cullen and has not looked back.  There are many themes emerging in her writing of which she would like to now develop into artworks, be it visual music or poetry or both or maybe something else?

The Interview:

1. When and why did you start writing poetry? I started writing poetry when I was a teenager working in a hospital as a domestic cleaner in Dublin for the summer in the 1980s. I was 16 and a group of us worked there and lived in the hospital in a special hostel residence.  It was a formative time, both personally and more generally in Ireland at the time, with cost-of-living issues, and a recession and few jobs.  I could also feel the pull of making my own decisions about the future.  I started to write to make sense of everything. However, I did not think it was poetry at the time, I did not know what it was I was doing but I needed to write.  I have read some of these back recently and they are draft poems.  I continued this ‘working it out type writing’ right up to until I intentionally decided to write a poem at the beginning of the pandemic. I by chance came upon an intriguing and inviting poetry prompt on social media shared by Ireland’s Poetry Ireland poet in residence at the time, Catherine Ann Cullen.  The prompt was #notebook.  I love notebooks and that was it really, I started writing poetry to prompts and I started to become conscious and aware that now I was writing poetry.  I consider myself a beginner poet and I just enjoy writing.  I think I need to work on developing the craft more but that is my next step.
2. Who introduced you to poetry? I loved poetry at secondary school and adored all the poetry that was on the curriculum for the Leaving Certificate English course in the 1980s (equivalent to A-level).  I also loved Irish poetry in the Irish language that was studied for Leaving Certificate Irish.  I studied French too and loved French prose, particularly Guy de Maupassant.   The poem that really got me interested in poetry was ‘Death the Leveller’ by James Shirley.  It was so profound in its commentary on the human condition. I myself had observed so much weirdness in terms of how people treated each other in terms of their socio-economic status and this poem seemed to really get across that in the end humans are equal.  I liked poems that had insight and resonance for me.  I became fans of some of the Irish poets on the curriculum at the time and loved the poem Easter, 1916 by William Butler Yeats, especially the line, “All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.” I had an elderly neighbour who had told me of all his experiences in the civil wars and the upheaval in Ireland in early twentieth.  His stories were terribly scary and so this poem was so resonant, and I loved its form too.  My most favourite poet at the time though was Patrick Kavanagh and particularly his poem, ‘Stony Grey Soil of Monaghan’. I could relate to the working on the tough terrain of a farm, as my family lived at the time on very tough to farmland in the northwest of Ireland.  I seemed to like how a poem resonated with my own experience and there were so many and I liked all his poems.
3. How aware are and were you of the dominating presence of older poets traditional and contemporary? I stopped reading poetry in my early adulthood, not necessarily that I chose not to, but I was doing so many other things. I forgot about poetry in a way. I was aware of Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland and other well-known Irish poets but it was a low-level type of awareness.  I did read poems by college friends and even did the cover for a poetry magazine at college.  I also became friends with a lesser-known poet, John McNamee in college and loved when he recited his poems to me and my friends and he delivered every time the most amazing punch lines with a wicked guffaw of a laugh, we would be laughing solid for a half hour after one of his readings.  Another friend John O’Rourke started to publish his poems and I loved his readings of them.  I was also drawn to spirituality and the poetic writings related to that kind of vibe.  I love John O’Donoghue’s philosophical Celtic spirituality writings and his poetry collection, Connemara Blues.  I was good friends with John and when I read his writings even still now, I can hear the lilt of his amazing Co. Clare accent, it was a shock when he died so young.  I am beginning to see a trend here; I love to read the poetry of people I know.  I also bought Catherine Ann Cullen’s beautiful poetry collection when I was in college in later years and love her writings and her readings.  It is to Catherine Ann I am indebted to for providing a space for writing poetry.  Through this community and following and engaging with people who are writing poetry, I have come to know the poetry of many poets (including you Paul) and I am totally amazed at just how many poets there are out there. It reminds me of just how many musicians there are or visual artists, such life, talent, and expression is a joy.  I am aware of the successful poets, or heavy weight poets as you put it, but just at the moment I am not drawn to their work, I would have to seek them out, make a big effort or maybe see it in a social media post or be pointed to it.  I am so busy reading poems from people I am coming to know or know through various forms of poetry writing sharing that I don’t have the time.   I do look forward though to finding some time to study the poetry of other more established poets soon.  I think poetry community writing is a living thing and I am finding it quite wonderful to be part of that living and writing poetry experience.  These poetryprompt poems are like how a visual artist might create a sketch, then come back to work on a painting from the various sketches.  However, even in the small groups I am part of, there are some great Irish poets such as Catherine Ann Cullen, Angela T. Carr, Maureen Boyle whose poetry I really admire.  Each of these ladies also encourage and support writing for everyone and are incredibly talented and generous.  The poetry prompt I am part of at the moment is #Promptcombo and each poet that shares there I have come to know through their writing and it’s just amazing.
   
   
4. What is your daily writing routine? There are times when my daily writing routine is very organised and I know I am in a routine, there are other times when other responsibilities call and I have to ditch the routine.  My preferred routine is to have breakfast, then spend a half hour writing, at my desk.  Then at 11 with a nice coffee and biscuit, do another half hour of writing sitting outside in my balcony. The balcony overlooks a field and beautiful line of trees, the sound of the trees really seems to aid the writing experience. If a poem is getting a grip on me, I will come back to it several times in the day or days ahead.  During the course of the pandemic this was my routine.  When I am busy, I will mull over a poem a lot in my mind and when the story of it forms, I must get to a notebook straight away and this can happen any time, I will make a quick dash to my notebook and start crafting. 
   I carry a poetry notebook with me everywhere, it’s a cheap but nice notebook and its bendy and has blank paper.  I don’t like the lines in paper, I prefer a pure blank sheet.  I hand write the poem.  I then type it into my computer notebook.  This computer notebook is really organised.  I categorise all the poems I write according to poetry group, prompt or my own inspiration.  This way the poem is date stamped.  Microsoft OneNote is great for me, as it allows me to set up folders, section folders and individual pages within section folders, so I can easily find poems and store them.  Once I type in the poem, I set about editing it in the computer and I do several drafts. I love to edit in the computer, and shape it there.  I do not like having music on when I write but I love the sounds of nature, birds, wind, leaves and voices and planes in the distance.
5. What subjects motivate you to write? I think I actually like to write on any subject and hence this is why there is an appeal for me, in writing to poetryprompts.  One word can inspire so many ideas.  I do notice I have themes in my writing.  Overcoming adversity or a social comment on life or a memory from my childhood. I like writing about people I knew or know and using nature as a metaphor for growth.  I am conscious that I want my poems to have a resolution in them, and I am aware that I also want to bring the reader on a journey towards a resolution and to include them.  I base all my poems on my own life experience and observations.  Perhaps I am trying to resolve my own issues when I write but sometimes it’s to celebrate life or to make a comment on it.  I like the weaving that takes place in poetry.  I have some themes I would like to develop and explore further and look forward to working on those in the future.
6. What is your work ethic? I write every day and I put the time in to that.  At the moment I have not made a big effort to get poems published.  It’s a time thing for me, I don’t have the time at the moment and it is also partly a confidence thing.  I think I am still learning how to write poetry but as I enjoy it so much, I just keep writing.  I would like to learn more about writing poetry and make more of an effort to submit poems for consideration for journals. But I am taking each day as it comes and hope to do that in the future. 
7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence your work today? I think Patrick Kavanagh has had some influence on me right up to today because of his approach to his own life and to nature. I love that mix and he lived his poetry.  The other poets have an influence to the extent that it was through them I encountered the experience of loving a poem, its shape, form, meter, and meaning.  However, it is not a direct influence but more a formative one.  I am more interested in living poets I am encountering through groups.
8. Whom of today’s writers do you admire the most and why? I really love Maureen Boyles long form poem, ‘Strabane’.  When I read this book, I could not put it down. Maureen brings us on this amazing journey of place, nature, memory, history.  It helped that I also know the town of Strabane very well.  I love Catherine Ann Cullen’s poetry collection, ‘The Other Now’ and also Angela T. Carr’s ‘How to lose your home and safe your life’.  I also love the elegant writing of Eileen Carney Hulme and Marie Studer and the energetic writing of Damien Donnelly and Robin McNamara and the writings of the #PromptCombo group such as Theresa Donnelly, Fidel Hogan Walsh, Liam Porter, Kathy Sholtys, Anne T Sheridan, Liam Flanagan, yourself Paul Brookes. There are loads more
9. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else? Writing feels like a need or necessity to me. When I am not writing I am on edge, and once I keep to a routine of writing even if it is just for a short time – 2 half hour sessions, I feel more complete.  However, I do see writing as being like any art.  It’s the crafting, the thinking, the tweaking, the making, the forming of it all that I really love.  I do other arts and sometimes it’s a juggling act which one to concentrate on.  Writing though feels intimate and can be done anywhere.  Some of the other arts I do (mainly abstract film and visual art and some music) have a totally different work ethic and method. Sometimes I like to explore the methods and insights from these arts in my writing and many of my poems have lots of music metaphors and references as well as references to the science of colour. 
10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?” I would say go do it, just sit down with that notebook and let you come through or what is pressing  to you or what it is you want to say, then craft it, shape it and get the rhythm of the thing and then at some stage say, this is complete (first draft anyway).  However, for me what sparked me to write was to write to a poetry group prompt. Not only do you get an incentive to write, you also get to share and engage with other writers working on the exact same prompt.  It’s a great way to start.  I am really very shy but I am able to share my poems with the poetry prompt group and just feel safe writing this way despite that my poems are also public in my social media feed, I am amazed I can do that and it doesn’t bother me, I am not saying to myself ‘oh no, x or y might not like that poem’ or ‘I should not share these poems as I am not established etc’ or ‘someone might think I am showing off’.  There is a kind of building confidence and resilience in sharing and moving the poem from a dusty notebook to a live social platform, it shifts something in you as a poet to share like that.  It is like practicing using your own poetic voice.  It is good to also join a group or a class.  I think joining a class where you can get some formative feedback would be immensely beneficial, because the feedback from another poet’s eyes is so valuable.  But really, it’s just you and those words so give yourself permission to go shape them. 
     
11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment. I am involved in a few projects.  I write a poem weekly for the #PromptCombo group, set up by Catherine Ann Cullen.  I am also one of its hosts.  There are about eight of us that share the hosting of the poetry prompt. I am going to attend Angela T. Carr’s next poetry group that is for a month late summer 2022. Its conducted online in a closed social media group and the poetry I have encountered there is just amazing.  I intend to do a poetry pamphlet too but that is in early days mode.  For that, I am in the process of crafting about six to eight poems around a theme.  Some of these poems I wrote in poetry prompt mode or when I attended one of Angela T. Carr’s private Facebook groups (wonderful experiences).  Some are new independent work.  I intend to also include a visual aspect to each poem and to weave an abstract visual with the meaningfulness of the poem.  It is only recently I realized there was a genre called poetry film or film poetry. I would LOVE to give that a try and, in a way, all my abstract films are a form of poetry.  One film I created in 1998 is based on a poem I specifically wrote for it but which I interpreted by visual, and music means.  I hope to create another one in the future but just don’t have the theme of it yet formed in my mind.  I hope it comes to me soon!

Jackson, Andy https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/12/15/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-andy-jackson/

Jacob, Sheila https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/11/12/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-sheila-jacob/

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Jenkinson, Mick https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/09/03/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-mick-jenkinson/

Johnson, Michael Lee https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/10/25/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-michael-lee-Johnson/

Johnston, L. Austen  https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/09/04/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-l-austen-johnston/

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Ivory, Helen  https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/09/10/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-helen-ivory/

Iwanyckyj, Paul https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/09/28/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-paul-iwanyckyj/

Pregnant summer 1976

hardly enough to settle drifting dust

the pretence of rain
was more a washing of the air
summer animals moved slow
through waves of wild grass
breathing unaccustomed moisture
deep into dry lungs – as eager for any drop
as a drowning man for breath

but it hardly reached the soil –
this swift precipitation
the day lay unbaptised
as we watched from windows
estivating, nest-bound
more in hope than expectation
of wet relief, barely conceivable in winter –

the crackle and buzz of static
made the earth charged and dangerous
a pale mist – almost steam
lay sweet and pungent with roses
deep woods seemed to throb
as if they had a heartbeat
ending in little sighs, no energy for rustling

something was coming

For Amy, born 1976

-Valerie Bence (published in Falling in love with a dead man, Cinnamon Press 2019)

JULY 17, 2014
HOT!
It was burning
Baking
Tan-creating
Beaming
Gleaming
Steaming
Vanilla ice-creaming
It was hot, hot, HOT!

Sweaty
Sweltering
Bubbling
Blistering
Flaming
Roasting
Raging
Toasting
So hot, hot, HOT!

Like a jungle
Like an inferno
Like a barbecue
Like a volcano
Like a desert
Like a fire
Like a recently fused electric wire
Extremely hot, hot, HOT!

Boiling
Blazing
Sun-drenching
Sunbathing
Dehydrating
Forest-torching
Red, yellow, orange
Scorching
Definitely hot, hot, HOT!

Skin-drying
Ground-crusting
Pan-frying
Thermometer-busting
Forty-degreesing
Cream-applying
Hayfever-sneezing
No cloud in the sky
Incredibly hot, hot, HOT!

A fizzling
Sizzling
Searing
Oven of a day
That even melted the last word of this poem away
It was hot, hot…

-Neal Zetter

-Neal Zetter

Furnace Factory

The sun’s benevolent grace
Has signalled its withdrawal
Hijacked and appropriated
To expose its hard-raw potential
A surly, sultry sarcasm
A flame-grill attitude
Blow-torch heel of Satan
Drawing breath from furnace winds
Wildfire carbon scorch overwhelms
Catalyses an open crematorium
An ashen memorial
To a trashed inheritance

-Glenn Barker 

-Stepping On Snails-

Dead snail bones sun bleached in
clump cluster congregations of
ten thousands times ten thousands
on dried stalks of reed weeds
prickle perched as bulbous growths
on branches spread like bronchioles
in the field around the ancient ruins
of Salamis in the summer slowness
and scattered scores on the dirt below
a civilization crunching
collapsed under my feet.

January rains had soaked the soil
and spring rays warmed the mud
that spat out splay sprig plant specimens
and hatched the slimy May society
that began their climb to the ends
of the sprawling spontaneous weeds
until the gradual change of seasons
septembered them unawares
emptying ambiguous ambition
into unpurposed pillars supporting
the memory of a city once alive.

-Ryan Keating (Ryan says:

This poem was originally published in Macrina Magazine. It is the first of these three.  https://macrinamagazine.com/general-submissions/guest/2022/07/09/three-poems-3

The poem tells the story of a city of snails drying up during a heatwave among the ruins of ancient Salamis.)

In elegant green
After a whole day in the woods, we are already immortal.
John Muir

Here, beneath trees that split
Magnificently from toe to tip,
I slip from dream to real and back
In elegant green, my eyes lidded glass
And fingers weave, enlace, out-cast
To hold the woods in tight embrace
Enshrouded in a shimmering haze.
This fierce heat, this summer’s face
That turns to burn shoot-ends and tastes
Of simmered edges, in a fizzing spate
Of honeybee and cricket-wing,
This place vibrates.
Yet the dry earth cracks beneath my feet
As rain retreats, rolls west from east
And long-wrought patterns twist, then cease.
With sinking heart, this wood may slip
From real
To dream
To mythic beast.

-© Larissa Reid, 2020 (She says: This poem was shortlisted for the Janet Coats Memorial Prize 2020.)

Bios And Links

-Ryan Keating

is a writer, pastor, and winemaker on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. His work can be found or is forthcoming in publications such as Saint Katherine Review, Ekstasis Magazine, Amethyst Review, Fare Forward, Macrina Magazine, Fathom, Dreich, and Miras Dergi, where he is a regular contributor in English and Turkish

–Larissa Reid

A freelance science writer by trade, Larissa has written poetry and prose regularly since 2016. Notable publications include Northwords Now, Black Bough Poetry Anthologies, and the Beyond the Swelkie Anthology. Based on Scotland’s east coast, she balances her writing life with bringing up her daughters. 

Twitter: @Ammonites_Stars

Instagram: ammonitesandstars

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Huey, John https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/02/18/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-john-huey/

Hummel. Kathryn https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/03/25/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-kathryn-hummel/

Humphreys-Jones, Tim https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/10/11/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-tim-humphreys-jones/

-Beth Brooke (Taken from Amazon)

is a retired teacher and education consultant. Before retirement her writing was focused on pedagogy and she wrote collaboratively with a number of colleagues to produce textbooks and teachers’ resources for Key Stage English and History, published by John Murray, Hodder and Collins. Born in the Middle East, she spent the bulk of her childhood in Germany and Libya and her experiences there have had a profound influence on her life. Although she now lives in Dorset and loves the Jurassic Coast, she still longs for the desert. Much of her poetry focuses on the interaction between the self and the landscape and how landscape shapes us. She has been published in a variety of journals both online and print, including The York Literary Review, Poetry Bus and Marble. Her poem, We Take Our Son To University, was awarded a very highly commended in the 2021 Folklore Poetry Prize. This poem features in her Hedgehog Press debut collection, Landscape With Birds. She has also been published in the Gloucester Poetry Festival’s Pandemic Anthology. She is a regular host and performer at her local spoken word venue and has run a number of poetry workshops. Her superpower is the ability to remove ticks from hedgehogs (no, seriously, she can!)

1. When and why did you start writing poetry?

I have always written but I didn’t have any serious time to give to writing while I was raising my children and was teaching. I wrote English and history textbooks now and again and wrote poems and short stories to use with my classes but I didn’t start writing regularly until I was close to retirement and had reduced to part-time teaching. Why did I start? Well, partly it’s fun, partly it’s a way of processing an experience or of exploring my own thinking about what’s happening in the world.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Teachers. I was blessed to have fabulous English teachers at the three secondary schools I attended and some lovely teachers who were enthusiastic about literature in the seven primary schools I went to. As the child of a soldier, we were always on the move and school provided continuity, and poetry and stories school provided were important to me. That said, although I didn’t have much in common with my father, it was he who introduced me to the poetry of Rudyard Kipling. I really enjoy his poems and he’s not the jingoistic writer people think.

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

I have already said that I was introduced to poetry by my teachers. I studied English at A-level and at university so it pretty much followed that the poetry I was given came from the canon of work deemed worthy of study by exam boards. I studied Yeats and Eliot, Owen and Shakespeare plus all those 19th Century poets who made me feel tired! I would have to be honest and say that even only five years ago, I wasn’t that familiar with the work of contemporary poets unless they were a poet laureate or were also a novelist (Margaret Atwood and Alice Walker for example).

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I write a lot but don’t have a routine- spent all of my working life tied to routines and one of the joys of being retired is NO MORE ROUTINES! I write because I want to and when I want to and that just turns out to be most days. What I can say is that I often think about things as I am out running or walking and then I will come home, type something onto my iPad and then let it stew until the next day. Then I take a look, pull it to pieces and keep going until I have a first draft. Then I return three or four times to fiddle with it until I think it’s done. Then I read it to my husband and he will make suggestions- usually good!

5. What subjects motivate you to write? So many things! One of my sons would say that I am a poet of nature and landscape and that’s true but I also write about ageing, about loss because those are universal experiences. I have a collection of poems about spending the formative years of my childhood in desert countries and how the landscapes of those places, the light, the climate, the sounds and scents have fundamentally shaped me and how I never feel entirely at home in Britain as a result. I have poems about the final years of my mother’s life and caring for her as she suffered from Alzheimers. I also have poems inspired by the work of the artist Elisabeth Frink. She was a Dorset artist and I love her drawing and sculpture. Finally I have been known to write things in response to the political situation and world events. I can get very cross!

6. What is your work ethic?

Not really sure I know what this means. I write because I like writing. I like to read other people’s work and tell them if I have enjoyed it because that’s a nice thing to do. But I don’t have a work ethic if by that you mean a routine or an attitude to writing because I am in the happy position of not having to fit it in around a day job or managing a family.

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

I am not sure that they do really. I don’t tend to use end rhyme or specific poetry forms in the way of Thomas Wyatt or William Blake or W B Yeats. I discovered Charles Causley when I began teaching and I do return to his work often as I do with Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes but these were poets I met through my practice as a teacher. Do they influence me? I suppose I aspire to try and be as able to craft an idea as well as they did.

8. Whom of today’s writers do you admire the most and why? I don’t think there’s a poet that I admire more than any other. There’s so much great writing out there. 9. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

I think I have a facility with language that I don’t have, say with music. I can create using words the way others might create using paint or clay. I like it for the same reason I like running- you don’t need lots of equipment to do.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?” You start by writing and you have to have something you want to explore through language. You need to read and you need to be in the habit of noticing things around you.

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

Lots of interesting things thankfully. I am still writing poems about the work of Elisabeth Frink but am also starting to explore poems which are grounded in the Dorset landscape and the history of the county. Its working title is Chalk. Finally I am mulling over whether I should try and set up a local open mic meeting for poets. They were two locally but the pandemic has put an end to both, sadly, so there is a need. The venue is an issue though.

12. How did I decide on the order of my poems?

I began with the first and final poems. I wanted a strong voice for the first poem, one that established a relationship or an attitude between people and birds. My final two poems came next. The penultimate poem, If Our Island Had Kookaburras They Would Definitely Be Laughing Now is one of the Greek chorus type poems, the ravens making a comment on the political situation in Britain since 2016. Originally I thought it would be the final poem but then I thought that was a bit bleak so I used, They Just Sing Anyway; it’s a reminder that it’s possible to be resilient despite the politicians! The poems in between are ones that use birds as a metaphor or symbol for an emotion or experience or else they are poems that have a birds’ eye view on things. In all our interactions with the natural world, birds are always present. Like a Greek chorus, birds are observers of our behaviour; their cries act as a commentary on our lives. In my collection, Landscape With Birds, birds notice, they embody human emotions and behaviour, they allow us to use them to explore facets of ourselves, and occasionally, they judge us.

13. Are you influenced by Aristophanes?

Ha! Not especially. Just in the General way we use the term and the way Shakespeare used it in a few of his plays.

14. Shakespeare?

Romeo & Juliet, Henry IV (pt 1&2), Pericles, Troilus & Cressida. I mean that in my poems the birds are observers of human action and the way they comment helps to direct our understanding.

15. How do you choose which bird to comment on which action?

Ah, you assume a conscious plan. In truth the poems arose organically and it was only when I realised that birds were present in so many of the poems that I had written that thought about them as a collection and started to think notice the function they sometimes played.

16. Once they have read the book what do you hope the reader will leave with?

Good question! A sense of different perspectives being possible. Someone has been in touch and told me that they don’t tend to read much poetry but that many poems in the book, particularly those about the twists and turns in relationships were really comforting. So, I hope people feel that I have, sometimes at least, ‘spoken to their condition’ – a Quaker term. I am a Quaker. I hope some of the poems will get people thinking about our relationship with nature. I hope my observations of birds and the natural world can be seen as proxies and metaphors for our own emotions and our relationship to the natural world.

Gailey, Jeannine Hall https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/11/14/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-jeannine-hall-gailey/

Gallagher, Harry https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/10/10/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-harry-Gallagher/

Gallo, Julian https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/11/07/on-fiction-wombwell-rainbow-interviews-julian-gallo/

Gandhi, Jay https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/09/23/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-jay-gandhi/

Garbinsky, Catherine https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/08/19/wombwell-rainbow-interview-catherine-garbinsky/

Garnham, Robert https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/12/24/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-robert-Garnham/

Garrett,Kate https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/10/06/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-kate-garrett/

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George, Jeremy Michael https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/01/10/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-jeremy-michael-George/

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Gethin, Rebecca https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/11/16/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-rebecca-gethin/

Glatch, Sean https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/12/29/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-sean-glatch/

Glauber, Gary https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/12/08/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-gary-glauber/

Gloeggler, Tony https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/09/15/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-tony-gloeggler/

Goncharov, Stefan https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/10/10/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-stefan-goncharov/

Gonzalez, Rafael Jesus https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/03/29/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-rafael-jesus-Gonzalez/

Gore, Brian S. https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/11/03/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-brian-s-gore/

Gorman, Anthony https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/10/25/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-anthony-Gorman/

Gorman, Grumpy https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/02/01/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-grumpy-Gorman/

Grady, Jack https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/11/23/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-jack-grady/

Graham, Catherine https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/08/30/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-catherine-graham/

Graham, David https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/07/28/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-david-graham/

Green, Pete https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/01/03/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-pete-green/

Greening, John https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/10/20/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-john-greening/

Griffith, Mike https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/09/17/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-mike-griffith/

Gross, Philip https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/10/22/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-philip-gross/

Grotsky, Michael https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/03/23/on-fiction-wombwell-rainbow-interviews-michael-grotsky/

Groulx, David https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/07/27/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-david-groulx/

Grudgings, Sam J. https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/06/19/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-sam-j-grudgings/

Guilefoyle, Benjamin The Woolly Hat Poet https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/04/24/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-benjamin-guilefoyle-the-woolly-hat-poet/

Guest, Samuel https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/07/24/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-samuel-guest/

Gunesekaran, Elancharan https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/02/18/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-elancharan-Gunasekaran/

Guy, Grant https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/09/29/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-grant-guy/