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

Briony Collins

is an award-winning writer and publisher. She has three books with Broken Sleep – Blame it on Me, All That Glisters, and The Birds, The Rabbits, The Trees – and Whisper Network (Bangor University) and cactus land (Atomic Bohemian). In 2025, her debut novel and two poetry books are forthcoming. http://www.brionycollins.co.u

The Interview

1 How did you decide on what poems to send?

To be absolutely transparent, a lot of my choices with this project came down to time. I’m currently a full-time PhD student coming to the end of my studies, and I have been working full-time across two jobs since March 2024, in addition to running my own press. I went into my drafts folder on my laptop to try and find something with potential for this brief. I was very fortunate in that I found three poems, and spent a weekend revising and editing them to work with each Untamed anthology. I think this is why ‘Ecotone’ sits in conversation with the other pieces I have coming out with Wave 2, so it will be exciting when they can all be read together.
2 What poetic form did it take, and why?

I have moved away from punctuation in poetry lately. I like the dream-like quality that the open-ended lines evoke, each hanging on the page without a clear stopping point. I think it works well with ‘Ecotone’.

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

I didn’t really think about it. By considering how I wanted the lines to sit on the page, the whiteness around them was more a by-product of this than an active choice.

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

It’s a cool word! I like using cool words for titles! But, more seriously, I like the idea of a slow transition between spaces that it signifies. It reminds me of waking up and falling asleep — that liminal space between consciousness and dreams.

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

It’s hard to say. For me, it’s sort of like asking spoon or soup? I need the spoon to eat the soup. I need the imagery to relay the narrative. I spend a lot of time working on imagery in my poems, but I’m also not interested in purely descriptive writing. I want my writing to mean something to me, to say something about myself. Imagery is the tool to achieve this and is essential to narrative in my work.

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

I think it’s perfect. Both James McConachie (before) and Barney Ashton Bullock (after) sit either side of ‘Ecotone’, and both mention fog in their first lines. Fog to me speaks of transition too, and navigating fog can be quite instinctual, as we don’t always know what’s on the other side. I like my poem sitting in the middle of this fog, wondering what awaits.

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

The desire to keep reading and re-reading Untamed Nature!