Jen Feroze

lives by the sea in Essex. Her work has appeared in publications including Under the Radar, Butcher’s Dog, Magma, Okay Donkey, Berlin Lit, And Other Poems and Black Iris. She won the 2024 Poetry Business International Book and Pamphlet Competition and her pamphlet, Tiny Bright Thorns, was published by Nine Pens in 2024. She likes cold water swimming, turquoise things, and cheese you can eat with a spoon. Instagram: @jenferoze x:@jenlareine

The Interview

1 How did you decide on what poems to send?

The ‘Untamed’ brief took me to a place of folklore and wildness. I wanted something that felt ageless, and allowed me to write from the perspective of inhabiting something in nature.

The Corn Dolly and the traditions around it seemed to fit the bill beautifully, with that mix of the bucolic and the slightly sinister.

2 What poetic form did it take, and why?

Free verse – as most of my work is. But I wanted to keep the lines fairly short and staccato, and I played around with the line breaks a lot to get the pace I wanted and the feel of the speaker of the poem being something otherworldly.

3 How did you use the whiteness of the page in your poem?

The last three lines use the white space to mimic the scattering of the Corn Dolly after its burning.

4 How did you decide on the title of your poem?

For once I didn’t overthink it! I’m often someone who tries umpteen titles to see what fits, but here I went clear and simple

5 Imagery, or narrative. Which was more important to you in writing the poem?

I knew I needed to take us from the end of the harvest through to the following spring, so narrative probably came first. But I always find it hard to dissociate one from the other, to be honest, I need both!

6 What do you think of where your poem is placed in the collection?

I love this question but my answer would be the same regardless of where the poem was placed: I trust Alan and his editorial skills to build a collection that has just the right ebb and flow and rhythm and punch in the way the poems come together.

7 Once they have read your poem, what do you hope the reader will leave with?

A gentle wistfulness for the corn dolly speaker of the poem.

TWT Wave 2 can be purchased here: https://shorturl.at/ezFNn