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James McConachie

Writing from rural Spain, James has poetry published by Iambapoet, Black Bough, Eat the Storms, The Madrid Review, Modron Magazine and essays/short stories for the Dark Mountain Project. His poems have been nominated for the Pushcart prize and Best of the Net. His debut collection, ‘Consolamentum’ was published in October 2024 by Black Bough Poetry.

Bluesky: @jamesmcconachie1.bsky.socialX:@jamesmcconachi1Instagram: @jaimemacabeoFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/12Bw2pTLCeR/?mibextid=wwXIfr

The Interview

1 How did you decide on what poems to send?

I actually wrote the poem in response to the prompt/concept of untamed nature.

2 What poetic form did it take, and why?

Like much of my poetry it has a formless form, if that makes any sense. I tend to use lots of internal rhyme which I always think of as like a spring, coiled up through the poem to hold it under a kind of tension. In this poem, like many others, I ended on a couplet with slant rhyme at the end. I know this is unfashionable, but I always come back to Heaney’s ‘Mid- Term Break: ‘No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear./A four-foot box, a foot for every year.’ which is some finely delivered poetic wallop, something I admire and aspire to produce. I once described this as ‘The hammer that knocks the nail in’ with someone who disagreed, suggesting it was a form of lyrical comfort for the reader in contrast to the disconsolate theme. I’m going with the hammer.

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

Hmmm. I didn’t really, beyond two stanzas of 9 lines. The break between stanzas isn’t clear as it runs on with an enjambment.

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

I never overthink titles, which might be lazy of me, as I often use a Spanish word, or in this case the Catalan word for an almond orchard. I suppose it reflects my ‘lived reality’, as they say.

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

I really wanted to convey the speed with which nature reclaims neglected farmland here and how magical that can be, so I was trying, with images, to conjure up a great, beguiling density of life.

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

Another thing I try not to over think. It sits nicely between slightly contrasting poems, I think.

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

Well, it’s an optimistic poem, when so many of mine are not, so I hope it transmits that. It might be ephemeral, but the power of nature to quickly reinhabit human spaces is an optimistic observation, I hope.