Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following poets, 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.

Luke Bradford

Luke Bradford is an experimental poet living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His latest collection of constrained poetry, Glossology, is available for free download as a PDF or for purchase as a book at lukebradford.xyz/glossology. His work has been published by Spacecraft Press, Penteract Press, and Timglaset.

His website is lukebradford.xyz.

The Interview

1.  When did you start writing poetry?

A quick look through my hard drive turned up something from when I was 14. I’ve never written much by hand, so this probably really is one of the first things I produced. Naturally, I’ve churned through many different styles over the years, and my interest in constrained writing in particular has grown from a small seed into a deep passion. I’ve only been writing poetry in what I’d consider a truly serious way, making it part of my daily routine, for about two years.

1. Who introduced you to poetry?

No particular moment stands out as an introduction to poetry. I had many great English teachers and professors over the years who exposed me to poetry in various ways. I think my love of poetry grew organically out of a broader love of language — since I was very young, as early as five, I always imagined writing books.

2. What do you mean by love of language?

I’ve always been fascinated by words. When I was younger, this manifested itself in constantly playing word games like Ghost. Later, I fell in love with etymology. To me, the history of a word like ‘chartreuse’ — that the color came from the liqueur, which comes from the Carthusian monks, whose name comes from the mountains where they first lived — is one of the most beautiful facts I know. I studied Latin in high school and college, which infused English with an additional richness.

I’ve always been a reader, though not a particularly voracious one. My tendency is to get extremely attached to specific pieces of writing and return to them again and again. I read novels more than I read poetry. Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves had a huge impact on me, and showed me how thoroughly a book can demolish boundaries. Other novels I love include Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. Obviously three very different books, but each with a particular aesthetic that really took root in me.

At some point in college, I was introduced to Christian Bök’s Eunoia. Today, Bök is by far the biggest influence on my writing, and I keep copies of Crystallography (my favorite work of his), Eunoia, and The Xenotext: Book 1 within easy reach. A book like Eunoia treats language as a material to be worked, like wood or steel, in a way that is incredibly compelling to me.

Today, my love of language manifests itself mainly in writing constrained poetry. Sometimes I imagine the entire English language as a vast cloud of words and meanings hovering like dust. Working with constraints unearths the hidden seams in that cloud. This type of work is like mining, in that you’re discovering beauty that’s in some sense already there. When I find something that strikes me as perfect, like the fact that ‘canoe’ is an anagram of ‘ocean,’ I feel like the language itself is speaking to me, and that these words are speaking to each other across the universe.

I love art in general, but I think that language is the most interesting medium to work in — largely because human beings have this powerful, innate apparatus for processing language, which means that art built out of language can intrigue us and move us in such complex and subtle ways.

2.1. In what way is Bok’s language compelling

Bök’s poetry has a level of intricacy, precision, richness, and joy that I haven’t found elsewhere. Constrained writing has a mechanical quality, by nature. When done well, it’s both mechanical and organic, like a machine made of blown glass.

3. What is your daily writing routine?

Nearly every weekday, I wake up early and go to a coffee shop a very short walk from my apartment to spend an hour or two writing before work. I have the luxury of living close to my office, which essentially means I’m writing instead of commuting. I love having this time to myself to focus on my projects before anything else takes my attention. I’m often writing in other spare moments throughout the day, especially when I’m feeling excited about a particular piece, but the morning routine is the most critical part of my process.

4. What motivates you to write?

Creativity has always been extremely important to me. I love art because it’s the most human thing we have — it’s what human beings do in the absence of all need. I’m driven to try to create beautiful things and put them out into the world. I also really enjoy the process of writing, which for me is very meditative.

5. What is your work ethic?

I’m in the lucky position that my creative projects very rarely feel like work. Sometimes, especially early on in a project, they are some combination of play and relaxation. At other times, a passion to produce takes over me, and I lose myself in the work. In the rare cases when it feels like a slog, my vision of the finished product is what carries me to the end. It’s more of a need than a want.

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

I was a Harry Potter fanatic as a kid. I designed Harry Potter board games, made exhaustive lists of spells, and read the books over and over. I love the richness of the worlds that Rowling creates, and in my writing, I strive to use description in a similar way, to build windows into a world that feels immense and detailed. I was also a big Stephen King fan as a kid and teenager. King is a master of storytelling, and books like The Gunslinger have an atmosphere all their own. The major lesson I took from his work is that writing does not need to be fancy to be effective. Simple words and images can be the most powerful, which is critical to my writing today, since constrained writing often demands simplicity.

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

Bök, definitely, since I love his work so much. I admire Anthony Etherin, who produces tightly constrained works like palindromes, ‘aelindromes’ (palindromes of heterogeneous units), and anagram poems, for his extraordinary craftsmanship. Other poets whose work with constraint I find compelling are Ken Hunt, Nikki Sheppy, and Lucy Dawkins, all of whom (at times) combine strict rules with a clean, subtle aesthetic sensibility.

Outside the world of constraint, I’m a fan of poets like Rosebud Ben-Oni and Douglas Kearney, who (in vastly different ways) revel in experimentation and grant each poem its own dialect. I admire the simple grace of Billy Collins and the exuberance of Jonathan van Belle. Although I should say that, especially with mainstream poetry, I’m much more likely to become attached to individual poems than to a poet’s body of work. Outside the world of poetry, I admire the intellect and imagination of Neal Stephenson and the evocative language of Annie Proulx.

8. Why do you write?

I love the process and the products of creative work. Creativity is at the core of who I am. There’s a deep satisfaction to putting art out into the world that I’m proud of, art that I think is worthwhile.

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

Here’s what worked for me — at least, here’s how I went from toying with writing to finishing and publishing projects I’m proud of:

Take a hard look at your internet addiction, and eliminate the time you waste compulsively checking websites. Establish a routine and stick to it. Write the thing you know you want to write someday — just do it now. Only put things out into the world when you believe they cannot be improved.

10. And finally, Luke, tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

You’ve caught me in the limbo period between major projects. My most recent collection, Glossology, came out just under a month ago. I have several individual poems that are nearly done, some to submit to specific places. Many, many more are in their earliest stages. Some of these are lipograms following the same rule as Glossology: definitions of a term that use only the letters in the term itself. As for a larger, longer-term project, I’m currently playing with a few possibilities: a collection of reverse lipograms; a collection of “column poems” similar to the poems “The Barn” and “Yes I’ve Loved” from my debut collection, Abacus; a loose collection of constrained poetry guided by the alphabet in various ways; and a loose collection with various numeric rules around letter counts. Of course, there’s a good chance I’ll scrap all of these when I get excited about another idea and run with it.

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.

 

Maria Mazzenga

I write poetry, fiction and historical non-fiction from my home in Arlington, Virginia. I studied journalism and broadcasting as an undergrad, then, not ready to jump into the so-called real world, I hurried into master’s and doctoral programs in U.S. History in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.  After receiving my doctoral degree in U.S. history, I spent the next several years teaching history, first in Richmond, Virginia, and then, with library science, in the Washington, D.C. region.  In addition, I work as an archivist, curating educational websites and exhibits using cool archival stuff.  Non-fictionally speaking, I have published a range of historical works, specifically focused on ethnicity, nationalism, and interfaith relations, as well as articles on digital curation and archival marketing. As far the fiction and poetry, I have most recently published poems and prose in Eyedrum Periodically, JUMP, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, The Amethyst Review, and Chronos.  I’ve served as poetry editor with JUMP and at the Open Arts Forum, venues for modern poetry.  With my partner Roger Doyle as artist, I have written four books of poetry, “Wrecks,” “Poems of Yellow in Gray,” “The Lot of Sisyphus,” and “At Home in the Pen.”  Additionally, I have one completed novel, “Go Lightly,” and another in the works. You can find information on publications available via Amazon in the Books section of the site, or just check out samples of my poetry and fiction at http://dropdownworks.com/

1.    What inspired you to write poetry?

I’ll call it “tiny hallucinations,” which I draw from an article I recently read on hallucination and the construction of reality.  Scientists have theorized that in our attempts to assimilate reality to systems of belief built on old information, some of us hear, see, or feel things that we experience as not our own.  In other words, some of us might lose track of how certain sounds, images, and feelings actually come from within us, and perceive these as hallucinatory.  It’s not an original concept, Julian Jaynes suggested this in a model of inner speech theory decades ago; namely that there have been circumstances in which people hear voices that are not their own, but that this can actually come from one’s own consciousness.

What interests me about this concept of “nonclinical hallucination,” as these scientists call it, is what they might mean for poetic imagination.  When I was young, like many children, I sometimes saw things that I thought others saw, until I found out they didn’t.  Like a white rabbit in the yard.  Or distinct patterns in a wall, or indeed, snippets of sounds I thought I heard but that others didn’t confirm.  Perhaps it was these subjective happenings that led me to start writing poems.  For me, poems always begin as a fleeting barely perceived thing that can seem like something else or that was in fact, nothing one could pin down in the objective world.  The perception of a rustle in some creepy bushes.  A glimpse of a nonexistent crow in a bare, thick-limbed tree.  Phantom raindrops on the skin on a cloudy day.  This seems to be training ground for willing the images poetry relies on into existence.  Today, the gait of a particular person walking down the street, morning light on a tiger lily, a radio blaring out of a car speeding by can for me turn into poems that may or may not have to do with the original image.

2.    Who introduced you to poetry?

My ninth grade teacher, Miss Keane, had our class write haiku poems after reading several.  She submitted mine to a journal called The Catskill Review in upstate New York and they published it.  From then on, I wrote and read poetry.

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

In high school we read Emily Dickinson’s “I heard a Fly buzz” and I was stunned that this woman writing over a hundred years earlier could write something that could have such a mysterious and immediate effect on me in so few words.  We read others as well, but it was that poem in particular that intrigued me most because of its music, and because I thought she was so brave for imagining what it was like to be dead.  So, I was aware of her and reading her made me seek out other poetry, such as that of Poe and Frost.  It wasn’t until later that I sought out the poets of the twentieth century.

4.    What is your daily writing routine?

For me, poems come when, if you will, I brush up against the world.  That means that I generally don’t get up and start writing poems, though I do write in a journal most mornings, and occasionally a poem will evolve out of a dream I had the night before.  For the most part, poems show up when I am out walking, or traveling to work via train or car.  I write them down in my journal, then revise them later on.   Then I will usually wait a day or two and do a final revision, I don’t do a whole lot of editing after a week, as I feel I’ve lost the poem’s personality after that.

5.    What motivates you to write?

A craving to assert my own thinking and expression.  A refusal to accept what I see as a heavily programmed society.  Social injustice.  The unlikely beauty of the natural world.

6.    What is your work ethic?

I feel I have an obligation to put words to paper in my own way on a regular basis.   I am actually trained as a historian, I am an archivist and I teach U.S. History in Washington, D.C.  So in addition to writing poetry, I also research and write history.  I write fiction too.  So I am pretty much writing something all the time, which is good, because I start to feel disconnected from my own thoughts if I am not writing.

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

I mentioned Dickinson earlier… her clipped style and willingness to approach what I considered profound and sometimes disturbing subject matter still inspires me.  My training as a historian of the twentieth century led me to the Beat poets, particularly Allen Ginsberg, who I admired for his ability to write thematically capacious poetry that wove broad political and social themes into its lines.

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

I participated in a several poetry forums, Poetrycircle, JUMP, and Open Arts Forum in the last couple of years, and I found extremely sharp and imaginative poets there: Tom Riordan, Dan Flore III, Trish Saunders, Jenn Zed, Jordan Tretheway, Paul Brookes, Wren Tuatha, Ton Romus, and many others.  What I appreciated about reading and sharing work with those poets and artists is that I could read drafts of their work and comment on them and watch the works change, or allow the poet explain why they didn’t want to change their work.  I also grew a lot just from their critiques.  Good critique accelerates development, of course.  As far as poets I don’t know, I’m partial to Louise Glück, both for her commentary on poetry and her poetry itself.  I find her poems fluid and I like her subject matter.

9.    Why do you write?

To know how I think.  To record my personal history.  I also am lucky to have a brilliant visual collaborator who happens to also be my spouse!  Roger Doyle is a visual artist and sculptor whose work easily inspires me to write, as he usually has a quirky take on whatever he approaches.  We have done four art-poetry books and one art-novel together and are working on more.

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

Talk about being a writer less than you actually write!  Live a curious life.

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

I have three books of poetry with art by Roger now available at Amazon: Works of Yellow in Gray, The Lot of Sisyphus, and At Home in the Pen.  I will also have a novel called Go Lightly with illustrations by Roger available soon.  We are working currently on a book called Alien Drabbles that should be finished by late 2018.

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.

Carole Bromley

lives in York where she is the Poetry Society’s Stanza rep and runs poetry surgeries. Her background is in teaching and she ran creative writing courses at York University for fifteen years. Twice a winner in the Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition, she has two pamphlets and three collections with Smith/Doorstop: A Guided Tour of the Ice House, The Stonegate Devil  and Blast Off! (for children aged 7-10) She has won a number of first prizes, including the Bridport and has performed at various festivals in Aldeburgh, Bridlington, York etc. Carole has also judged poetry competitions both locally and nationally.

http://www.carolebromleypoetry.co.uk

The Interview

1. What inspired you  to write poetry?

Like most people I had good English teachers whose enthusiasm was infectious and I enjoyed studying poetry at university but really I started in earnest when taking my sixth formers to Lumb Bank where I worked with some wonderful poets who encouraged me to take myself seriously as a poet.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

I can’t remember really. It’s always been there. I even spent my pocket money on a poetry book when I was very young.

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

Do you mean dead poets or decrepit ones? I certainly had a grounding in poets of an earlier age – Keats, Coleridge, Wordsworth etc. and they seemed to inhabit a magic kingdom I wanted the key to.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I don’t write every day. Family commitments and other work get in the way so I would say I write when I can and it works best if I have lots of time and solitude. I have just come back from a wonderful Arvon retreat where I could barely drag myself from my desk!

5. What motivates you to write?

I just love it. It makes me feel alive. Rejections, obviously, have the opposite effect but it’s the actual writing that matters.

6. What is your work ethic?

Not sure I have one unless I have inherited my ancestors’ Northern work ethic. Certainly I work hard.

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

I think you always carry the rhythms of nursery rhymes and children’s poetry with you. Of course when I was younger I was into the Romantics. Nowadays I’m more immediately influenced by contemporary writers. On the retreat, for example, I immersed myself in Miroslav Holub, Selima Hill, David Constantine, Penelope Shuttle. I love to read whole collections or even collecteds.

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

So many it’s hard to say. Of my immediate contemporaries I really admire poets like Clare Shaw, Kim Moore, Mona Arshi, Carol Ann Duffy,obviously, but also I love Billy Collins and Frank O’Hara (OK not strictly contemporary!) I admire Sharon Olds too. I think I am drawn to poets who have courage, who are honest and clear. For me, that’s what poetry is. Isn’t it about honesty?

9. Why do you write?

I write because I love to write and because if I don’t for a while I start to feel quite ill actually. I need to write whether anyone reads it or not. Of course it’s better if they do!

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

Actually someone on the retreat did ask me that and I said I would send her a reading list! Basically you need to study what other poets are doing and have done, to notice how poems are put together and so on but also definitely go on courses, share your work with others, go to readings and festivals and just read loads.

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

At the moment I have two things on the go: a second children’s collection and a short collection of poems written about my recent experience of brain surgery. At Lumb Bank I read loads of poems about illness and when it got too much I went back to play around with poems for small children which are such fun to write. It’s like being a kid again and what’s wrong with that?

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.

Maggie Mackay

Here’s the link to my debut pamphlet.

https://picaroonpoetry.wordpress.com/books/the-heart-of-the-run-by-maggie-mackay/

Maggie Mackay is a jazz and whisky loving MA graduate from Manchester Metropolitan University. One of her poems is included in the award-winning #MeToo anthology while others have been nominated for The Forward Prize, Best Single Poem and for the Pushcart Prize. Her pamphlet ‘The Heart of the Run’ is published by Picaroon Poetry.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

The way so much can be expressed in concise language and the joy of capturing a thought/memory in an image. I was in the teaching profession for a very long time. You view and experience such a rich tapestry of life in the young people and adults who make up a learning community. So much to write about and communicate.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

My Dad who loved books. He read bedtime stories to my brother and me through our childhood and introduced me to the public libraries, the theatre and cinema.

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

As a Scot, I was raised with the poetry of Robert Burns and at school we learned the works of classic poets such as John Masefield, Edward Lear and R L Stevenson who remains a hero for me.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I try to find a couple of hours each day. For me practice has to be a habit. My MMU tutors stressed how important it is to read widely so I aim to read at least one poem a day from a collection for inspiration and appreciation of craft.

5. What motivates you to write?

The fun of it, losing myself in another place, sometimes for hours and the magical buzz when the words strike gold. Rare, and so satisfying.

6. What is your work ethic?

Practise, practise. Read, and read more, including poetry I might resist. That makes for a productive learning curve.

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

They show me how to sustain musicality and rhythm. How to write elegantly and play with language.

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

Several Celtic poets –   Heaney, Robin Robertson, Rita Higgins, Louis MacNeice for their lyricism and versatility. American writers too – Billy Collins, Mark Doty, Kay Ryan, Marie Howe. I admire any writer who can connect with the reader, tell a story with power and subtlety. There are poets in my community whom I admire, my editor Kate Garrett and to name but a few, Claire Askew, Lindsay MacGregor, Kim Moore, Helen Ivory, Rebecca Gethin, Brett Evans and Stephen Daniels.

9. Why do you write?

To feel complete. To flex the brain muscles. To be part of something bigger.

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

You read. You pick up a pen, stare at the blank page and write from the heart. Really, you can’t help yourself from writing. It’s like breathing. And there’s no point in worrying about rejection. Go to readings, workshops, hang out with like-minded folk and never listen to the negative voice at the back of your brain.

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

I start a PhD in Poetry next year. I’ve a few themes bubbling up to discuss when I get going. I’m also compiling a full collection and all the time sending out poems to call outs.

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.

Joolz Denby

Joolz Denby has been a true underground renaissance artist since the late 1970s. As a poet, she was one of the principle figures to emerge from the post-punk generation, publishing seven collections of work and giving readings all over the World in countless different settings. As a novelist, she has published six volumes, including € Stone Baby € for which she received the New Crime-writer of the Year award in 2000 and € Billie Morgan € , which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Literature in 2006. As a working artist, Joolz has designed all the record covers and visuals for the band New Model Army for 36 years (as well as being a guiding hand throughout their long career). Her paintings have been shown in many galleries while her unique tattoos have adorned clients from around the globe who come to her Bradford studio. Crow will be her seventh studio album, with past collaborators including Jah Wobble, members of New Model Army, Mik Davis and many others.

The Interview

1. What inspired you  to write poetry?

*I honestly can’t remember a particular thing, as I have written poetry from my earliest years. My late father secretly kept the poetry I’d written when I was a child and I found it after his death. It wasnt that much different from what I write now in some ways. I know I was published from age eleven in the school magazine and local paper and my English teacher gave some of my work to Ted Hughes to look at and he sent a note back which was helpful to me. I write as I wrote then, in my own way about things that interest me.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

* There were some poetry collections in my childhood home, traditional works, but again I don’t remember ever not knowing about poetry. As a child in the 70s the Mersey Poets were an inspiration as was Dylan Thomas. I was and still am an avid reader of absolutely anything. And of course song lyrics were a great influence.

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

* Not at all. I never paid any attention to anyone else in the sense of being dominated by any influence. I think as a teenage poet I’d have laughed at the idea of anyone telling me what to do,  though I was always aware of having a lot to learn, I was and am very resistant to be told what to do or think.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

* I try to write a little something every day, even if it’s just a note. It’s the same with my drawing, I believe you need to keep your hand in, keep practicing. Or you lose the easy touch you need so things don’t seem laboured.

5. What motivates you to write?

* I just do it. I never needed motivation because it’s as natural as breathing and I don’t get blocked. If something’s not coming I just let it alone for a while and draw instead. It comes back eventually.

6. What is your work ethic?

* I’ve worked hard at every discipline I’ve done, poetry, novels, art, tattooing. You don’t get anything without hard work, dedication and commitment. If that sounds boring then you just don’t know the incredible joy of doing something well and seeing the result of your labour. I don’t buy the pisshead poet stereotype or the druggie artist. It’s boring and tedious to witness and they’re never as good as they think they are. Dylan Thomas was the exception but if he hadn’t been an alcoholic we’d have had decades more of his brilliance.

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

* Their influence is that they’re always with me, every day.

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

* I don’t like many modern poets and I can’t stand Slam. I rate the novelist James Lee Burke as a poet and the lyrics of Justin Sullivan.

9. Why do you write?

* Because I’m alive.

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

* Read everything you can and keep reading and write something everyday. You have a computer in your pocket with a smartphone, use it.

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

* I’ve just released an album of poetry set to music with the German composer Henning Nugel and were looking at another. I am serializing my life story on Facebook in a Group called The Memory Box, which any one is free to join. I’m writing new poetry all the time and doing the odd gig now and again. I’m planning an illustrated book of my poetry, and doing 3 Red Sky Coven gigs next February.

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.

Peter Boughton

Peter Boughton has lived in Birmingham, Sheffield and the East Midlands and currently works as a secondary school teacher in the South East. His writing featured in two anthologies published in the 1990s (Both entitled ‘Five’ together with Chris Jones, Tom Roder, Adrian Head, Matthew Clegg and Karl Hirst). More recently, his writing has appeared online in The Honest Ulsterman and Minor Literatures webzines.

The Interview

• What inspired you  to write poetry?

I was very lucky to have a very creative and encouraging mother. I must have started writing at about the age of 7 – about the same time that my family moved from Oxford to Birmingham. Naturally, for a 7 year old, this felt like the end of the world and I must have done a good impression of a pre-adolescent going through adolescent depression. My Mum gave me a pen and a notebook which I dutifully filled with dirges and she endlessly praised me, In retrospect, she was an amazing person – I can’t think of many people who’d like to read my 12-page post-Wasteland epic about a shark AND do a convincing imitation of someone enthralled by genius.

Today, inspiration – well can I put the idea to one side? I tend to write about things primarily that are right in front of me. There isn’t any inspiration. I do a lot of what I think of as ‘bending and stretching’ exercises too – just forcing myself to use a form I wouldn’t normally use. Sometimes I revise and expand on stuff and sometimes, well that’s that. I have an ongoing fascination with wild-life – especially plants and their names.

• Who introduced you to poetry?

I’m an awful reader of poetry- or at least I was. My canon before University was made up of four or five poets. I think I was introduced to poetry properly through friends at the University of Sheffield Writers’ group. Again, in retrospect I was extraordinarily lucky to be in a certain place at a certain time and meet people like Chris Jones, Matthew Clegg, Tom Roder, Adrian Head and later Brian Lewis and Karl (Andy) Hirst.  They all had very different talents, diverse interests and they all were incredibly generous with their time and criticism. I could write a thousand lines about each of them – but in short – what they opened up for me was a sense of possibility.

• How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

It’s not a problem now, but it was disastrous in my mid-twenties. This is the downside of meeting people who really know poetry! I spent a good few years doing really awful pastiches of Paul Muldoon and then (and this was a low point) John Berryman. Most of my writing up until then had been in the form  of Angela Carter-ish vignettes in verse – not that I was aware of that – and its strength lay in its innocence. I wasn’t aware of what poetry should be like – and even if I lacked discipline I kind of made up for it with the risks I was willing to take. Unfortunately, I discovered that I was very good at soaking up influences  and I ended up writing very knowing but clumsy imitations. And I’d add – there are poets that are good for you as a writer  (Pound, Bunting Frost, I’d argue)- and others that are so idiosyncratic that they can be like an albatross around your neck. Berryman is wonderful – but he appeared on my horizon at exactly a moment in my life in which Berryman things were happening. Tom Roder, incidentally – did something genuinely new and hilariously funny with the Dream Songs in his ‘Henry’s Dog Poems’ which I believe you can still find fragments of floating around the internet.

• What is your daily writing routine?

I try and write something every day. It’s odd, because I’m a teacher and during term time I’m really pressed for time- but I find I’m much more creative when I’m busy in the first place. Poetry seems to be something that happens when I should be doing something else. I write lots when I’m commuting too. If I have open stretches of time on my hands (and this is rare – I have an impossibly patient wife and two impossibly impatient kids) – I need some sort of structure, and this often means walking. I might take photographs on a walk and these sometimes find their way onto the page in one way or another.

• What motivates you to write?

Ah – I’m a word junkie. There’s something very particular about the pleasure composition can give you when everything falls into place. I’m often surprised by what results as well, but the process seems more the thing to me. Of course, it’s lovely when you find an audience and people praise what you’ve done – but this wouldn’t mean very much if you didn’t believe in it in the first place. I can live with a piece not being a total success if I’ve learnt something new in writing it.

• What is your work ethic?

Not good enough in the last 12 months. I have peaks and troughs.

• How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?
I think one of the pleasures of growing older is that you can read younger influences without that weight on your back. Once every month I get a bit grumpy and the late, great Peter Reading starts using me as a ventriloquist dummy, but aside from that, I’m easy. I’ve got a copy of Lattimore’s Illiad on my bedside table with John Clare’s Collected and Pound’s Pisan Cantos at the moment, and I dip sporadically.  I’ve loved Byron for years, but I’d never attempt to write like him – even if it feels like the age we live in could do with a Don Juan. The Graham of ‘The Nightfishing’ is there too.

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

Oh my. I’ll have to pick Brian (Lewis) – simply because I can’t think of anyone who actually does what he does. The term ‘psychogeographer’ has become a little glib these days and I think he’s be insulted by it – he’s a map maker in the process of creating something impossible. A sort of microscopically defined picture of the vast expanses of the East of England. He’s also a man who has given his life over to poets and poetry in a way that very few can. Matt Clegg as well – Clegg is to diction what sticky toffee pudding is to the tongue – and I’m invariably green with envy at the way he sits so comfortably in a tradition of giants like Heaney, Walcott and Milosz. As I hinted at before,  I’m pretty awful when it comes to keeping up with current trends in contemporary poetry. My favourite fairly recent discoveries have all been of dead people – R F Langley, Tom Raworth. Once in a blue moon I pick up Prynne’s ‘Poems’ and spend a good few hours being alternately gobsmacked and annoyed. He’s still alive of course, but everything he does looks like a stone edifice.

• Why do you write?

This is one of those questions where you’re tempted to say that it’s your life and you’d die without it etc. Perhaps I would have said that 20 years ago. Now, it’s knitting. Some day I’m going to make a really great jumper- but in the meantime I like fiddling around with needles and wool.

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

There are many answers to this. Get used to being skint being the most obvious one! With students at school the standards that they have to meet at GCSE or whatever are so proscriptive, but the funny thing is, even the ones that fail are writers. There are some things that seem fundamental to being a human being – narrative, sound, character, humour, pathos – whatever. So, without sounding too much like a Zen Buddhist Monk – all I’d say is, you already are one.

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

I continue to feed an impossible messy narrative project under the title ‘Fragment’s from Arbuthnot’s Asylum’ which you can see unfolding on Facebook. I keep saying I’m going to end it, then something pops up and it continues. Elsewhere, I’m doing bits and bobs with classical meters and occasionally a longer poem pops up. I do have a website on WordPress (DogStandard) but I’ve been very lax in maintaining it of late. I’ve had a few pieces published by the Honest Ulsterman and Minor Literatures in recent years.

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.

Dimitris Bonovas

Dimitris Bonovas was born on 10-9-1989 in Ioannina, Greece. He graduated from University of Western Macedonia in the field of Computer Science and Engineering.

He started writing and composing at the age of 17. He graduated from Tsakalof conservatory at Ioannina with the degree of Harmony (2009), Counterpoint (2011) and Fugue (2015) with piano experience.

He took part in 2nd, 3rd and 4th team poetry collections of “Διάνυσμα” publications (2015, 2016, 2017) and he has published a personal one in 2016.

Links :
Personal blog :

http://www.musicheaven.gr/html/modules.php?name=Blog&file=page&blogger=capoelo

stixoi.info :

http://www.stixoi.info/stixoi.php?info=Poems&sort=date&order=desc&poet_id=92083

youtube :

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-vMU0GXpFBhQhaxBDnyZVg

wattpad :

https://www.wattpad.com/user/dbonovas

instagram :

https://www.instagram.com/dbonovas/

The Interview

1. What inspired you  to write poetry?

D.B. : It wasn’t something specific. From the beginning, I was driven by my thoughts and emotions. I write when I’m sad, I write when I’m happy, I write when I’m in love… I write all the time!

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

D.B. : My experiences. I always wanted to find a way to express myself, to share my feelings with other people. And I found poetry.

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

D.B. : I was always fascinated by the work of great poets like Shakespeare, Poe, Neruda. And also Greek famous poets like Cavafy, Karyotakis and my personal favourite, Tasos Livaditis. I admire the way they had to “communicate” with others, how they did what they did.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

D.B.: I don’t have a routine. I will sit there with my pen in my hand and let my heart do the talking.

5. What motivates you to write?

D.B. : Everything. It can be a feeling, or a personal experience or even a strange person on the way home.

6. What is your work ethic?

D.B. : Just “don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you”.

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

D.B. : After reading all those great poems by these extraordinary minds, I think that somehow they became a part of me. You can find a little Cavafy in me or a little Livaditis.

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

D.B. : I admire those writers that write for the pleasure that it gives them. Not for fame or for money.

9. Why do you write?

D.B. : For me, writing is much more than just writing. It’s the air that I breathe, the blood that runs through my veins… I think I found a way to fly.

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

D.B. : There’s no answer to that question because the only thing you have to “learn” is how to put one letter after the other. After that, if you have it, start writing. That’s all.

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

D.B. : Right now, I have five projects on the run. Two about poetry, my personal one and one collaboration, one about prose and two about music (I am a musician also). In addition, along with some friends of mine, we are running a blog about literature (silverybooks.blogspot.com)

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.

Richard Cronborg

I have published four books…”The Journey, Memoirs of a south side Chicago kind of guy”…”A Spider in the Corner of my mind”…this is a book of short stories and poems….”Chicago Stories and other…
Public Speaker
2003 to present
Volunteer work
Local 150 International Union of Operating Engineers
Jun 1967 to Nov 2005
Ran cranes on high rises in Chicago…Participated in the Deep Tunnel Project for 12 years…Enjoyed bulldozing and loading trucks with CAT earth movers. Retired and union proud!

The Interview

1. When and why did you start writing poetry?

I started writing poetry in 2007

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

I was introduced to poetry in a high school English class, by an erudite instructor.

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

I first got interested in traditional poets such as Walt Whitman, but really was influenced by the work of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Alan Ginsburg and my favorite, Charles Bukowski

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I read and write every day. I have no set routine. I wait for a word or an idea, then extrapolate on it.

5. What motivates you to write?

I wait for a word or an idea, then extrapolate on it.

6. What is your work ethic?

I have no work ethic, but rather depend on a flow of consciousness type style of writing.

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

I had a great background in reading the classics. Moby Dick by Melville, the works of Dostoevsky, Invisible Man by Ellison, Huxley, Jack London, Hemingway, etc

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

My new favorite in today’s market is Karl Ove Knausgaard. He’s an excellent writer who has written the longest autobiographical novel, titled: “My Struggle”. It’s breadth is 4,500 pages. It’s a writer’s book, a fantastic work. It’s epic.

9. Why do you write?

I write because it’s an obsession. It defines me and helps me to think.

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

One becomes a writer by reading throughout one’s life time. Living a life full of wide and variegated experiences leads to good, solid writing. A university education in the liberal arts doesn’t hurt the process.

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

I just had my 7th book published, “Thug Life”, by Alien Buddha Press. I write every day, so invariably #8 will be on its way sometime next year.

Amazon blurb on “Thug Life”

“I am a product of the 1960s. I grew up in a working class neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. Luckily, I had a university education and broke out of the mode of biased, racist and xenophobic thought that was common to my peers. This compilation of poems and mini-stories is a collection of my daily thoughts. I always felt myself to be an outsider type. I never did well in groupthink. I never saw myself as one who fits in. As a young man, I thought there might be something wrong with me. Now that I enter my 70th year on this earth, I feel pretty much whole. This is my “thug life”. We thugs lurk in the shadows, observing and thinking. The wheels always are turning in our brains.”

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.

Tricia Knoll

is an Oregon poet who grew up in a suburb of Chicago and earned degrees in literature from Stanford University and Yale University. This collection of poems records how her ancestry, education, early childhood and work experiences changed her understanding over many decades of the impact of white privilege on her understanding of race relations. Her poetry appears in dozens of journals and anthologies. This book joins her other published poetry collections Urban Wild, Ocean’s Laughter, and Broadfork Farm which explore ecological relationships in Oregon and Washington

Poetry collections –
• How I Learned to Be White is now available from Antrim House — and on Amazon.
• Broadfork Farm collects poems about a small organic farm in Trout Lake, Washington to highlights its people and creatures.
• Ocean’s Laughter, a book of lyric and eco-poetry about Manzanita, Oregon. Look at Amazon.com or for .Reviews.
• Urban Wild, a poetry chapbook now available from Finishing Line Press.
Website: triciaknoll.com
twitter:@ triciaknollwind
Amazon author page

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

I read a lot of poetry in high school. Mostly from an anthology of British poets, no doubt mostly white and male. Early on I had thing for George Herbert. I wrote little rhyming poems at an early age for my mother. I think poetry was “in” me.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

I’m sure we studied the obligatory poetry in English classes starting in middle school. I remember having to memorize a poem and I chose “A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns which turns out to not be a particularly helpful poem burned into my brain.

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

For women poets my age, I think the dominating presence of older poets were white male older poets – the likes of Keats and Shelley. I came around to the American poets a bit later.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I write something – or edit several poems – every day. I generally write a haiku every day to focus my awareness of what’s going on around me. I often suspect that the haiku will be part of a poem of place later on. I carry a notebook with me everywhere to jot down words that come to me that I might want to use in a poem. Yesterday it was backtrack and I started to think about how you never go back exactly the way you came, like the saying from Heraclitus that you can’t step into the same river twice. Today I read the word greenly in some song lyrics in relationship to fall. Kim Stafford, the great Poet Laureate of Oregon, teaches a daily writing course that I’ve taken twice. It’s been an inspiration to me. What comes out of the practice doesn’t have to be perfect or finished, but what it does is make me feel better about myself and the world.

5. What motivates you to write?

I suppose there is a fair amount of grief. I write eco-poetry because I care intensely about forests, plants, beings with roots. I know what challenges we have thrown in the way of living things. I’ve seen enough changes from climate crises to be profoundly saddened by what is happening – which makes the observation of the truly sublime and beautiful a blessing which finds its way into poetry. I also write a fair amount of political poetry, reflecting on what is happening in the world today. And then I write some lyric and narrative poetry as well. I think they are all aimed at healing and sharpening my own insight.

6. What is your work ethic?

I work hard. Discipline has never been a problem for me whether it was training for a marathon or showing up on time at work for a job that wasn’t my dream job. I try to never let a random floater of an idea for a poem go unacknowledged. I am obsessed with the great joy of being able to write poetry in my retirement.

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

Today I read predominantly women poets although not exclusively. What my early reading did was give me a great interest in word choice, how poems are formed, and I love the open-endedness of great titles. From time to time I fall back on Walt Whitman.

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

Right now I’m reading Mary Oliver’s new collection Devotions. I’ve found two poems in the opening section that are forever-keepers. Most poets recognize that Billy Collins and Mary Oliver are two poets whose names and work always show up at weddings, funerals, church services or big “events.” They make a livelihood out of being poets. In that respect they are unusual. I got Devotions out of the library, but I’ve been so amazed by the first poems in the book from her collection Felicity that I’ve ordered that from Amazon.

That said, in my personal pantheon of favorite poems I include work by Langston Hughes, Kim Stafford, Ursula Le Guin, Ellen Bass, Joy Harjo, Wendell Berry, W. S. Merwyn, Han Shan, Jane Kenyon and many more.

In any given season I return to Naomi Shihab Nye whose work resonates with me because of its gentle nudging toward the universe of loving kindness. If I had to be stranded somewhere with one poet, it would be her work.

9. Why do you write?

My mental health requires it. Particularly in these divisive and dark times.

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

You write. You don’t stop if someone doesn’t like what you write. You agree to give yourself the time to explore, not to judge what you’re doing, but to let it sweep you to somewhere that is different than where you started. And when you’re done writing, you read until it is time to write again.

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

Early in 2018, Antrim House press released my collection How I Learned To Be White, poems that looked at how education, ancestry, family and socio-economic privilege impacted who I became as a person. That culminated three years of intense introspection so I could make sense of the story that was my life in regard to race.

I just completed a manuscript of poems about my relationship with trees called “One Bent Twig.” Many of the poems in it have been published. It is seeking a publisher.

In June 2018 I moved from Portland, Oregon (where I lived for over 40 years) to Vermont to be closer to my daughter. That 3,003 mile journey involved packing up a lifetime, discarding bits, and starting with new buds under the fingertips of a dedicated gardener. I’m writing a lot of poetry about this new place – discovering that the migration of seniors to be closer to their children is a fairly common occurrence. A kind of migration to “renuclearize” the family.

I’m giving myself space to write about whatever strikes my fancy here in Vermont. Why are all the barns red? Why do eastern white pines speak to me? Today I learned that bass fishing is a competitive high school sport in Vermont. I’ve written many poems about Oregon’s red cedars, but this is new. I’ve fallen in love with a white pine on my property. Why am I spending so much energy pulling goldenrod? I look forward to a winter of snow; it’s been decades since I lived where it really, really snows. On my to -do list is the need to by an ergonomic snow shovel…and maybe there will be a poem in that. I tried to buy one at Home Depot today, and the employee there seemed a bit surprised I was thinking about this in mid-October. The aging homeowner’s snow shovel.

Thank you for your interest, Paul.

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.

 

Ira Lightman

https://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/search-results-page/ira%2520lightMAN

Ira has made public art throughout the North East and also in the West Midlands and the South West. He made a documentary on Ezra Pound for Radio 4 last year, still on iPlayer. He is a regular on Radio 3’s The Verb and has been profiled on Channel 4. A mathematician by training, he is very interested in pattern and form, making poetry visually and with pure sound; he believes anyone can make poetry, as long as they stop worrying that it has to be *written*. He is a professional storyteller. He proofreads for academic journals for a living, and has had many residencies in schools. He won the Journal Arts Council Award for “innovative new ways of making art in communities” for his project., The Spennymoor Letters. He has lived in the North East since 2000. His new chapbook is called “Goose”. He has been described by George Szirtes as “Harpo Marx meets Rilke” (https://www.facebook.com/Nussbach3rM/posts/10152559224041534)
The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry? AT THE OUTSET? WHEN I WAS AT MY FIRST PRIMARY SCHOOL, THERE WAS A COMPETITION TO WRITE A NEW VERSE FOR ONE OF THE SCHOOL HYMNS, AND I LOVED TRYING AND THEN WON, AND LOVED HEARING IT SUNG. THESE WERE THE DAYS WHEN THERE WAS NO CREATIVE WRITING COMPONENT AT SCHOOL AND VERY LITTLE AT UNIVERSITY. I WAS ALSO VERY INTO ACTING AND PARTICULARLY COMEDY SKETCHES, AND I WROTE ABOUT TWO, AS I RECALL, FOR A YOUTH DRAMA COMPANY I WAS IN. I’D WRITE OCCASIONALLY AS A TEENAGER WHEN I WAS SAD. UNIVERSITY WAS WHERE I REALLY STARTED WRITING, DOING AN ENGLISH DEGREE (AS I SAY, WITH NO CREATIVE WRITING COMPONENT, AS THIS DIDN’T EXIST AT UNDERGRADUATE LEVEL IN THE 1980s; BUT ONE OR TWO TUTORS LOOKED AT MY POEMS, ANYWAY, PERHAPS BECAUSE I WAS ALREADY GETTING PUBLISHED IN LITERARY MAGAZINES). THE LARGER PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTION OF “WHAT INSPIRED ME” WOULD PROBABLY BE THE CHANCE TO MAKE PATTERNS WITH WORDS (RATHER THAN CONVINCE PEOPLE TO LOOK AT AN ISSUE OR PUT THEIR FEELINGS INTO WORDS). I COULD ALWAYS READ MORE INTO THE PATTERNS OF OTHER PEOPLE’S POEMS THAN MOST OF MY CONTEMPORARIES (WHO WEREN’T POETRY SPECIALISTS): AT UNIVERSITY, I ANNOYED ONE STUDENT BY SAYING THAT STEVENS’ LINE “THE JAR IS ROUND UPON THE GROUND” SEEMED TO CAPTURE THE WHOLE OF TENNESSEE INSIDE THE ROUND-NESS. I LIKED ACTING AND PUBLIC-SPEAKING, BUT REALLY WANTED TO SHOW PEOPLE “I WROTE THIS” RATHER THAN “I CAN DELIVER THIS WELL”. AS I GET OLDER, I’D RATHER MOVE PEOPLE, WHICH HAS VERY LITTLE TO DO WITH SAYING “LOOK AT ME”.
2. Who introduced you to poetry?

I WAS AWARE OF POETRY AS A THING BECAUSE OF PAM AYRES ON THE TELEVISION AND HER POEM “I WISH I’D LOOKED AFTER MY TEETH”. I RECITED JABBERWOCKY WHEN I WAS 11 IN MY FIRST MONTH AT SECONDARY SCHOOL. I LIKED MACAVITY THE MYSTERY CAT, ALTHOUGH REALLY ONLY PAID ATTENTION TO THE REFRAIN. AND I ALWAYS LIKED WORDY POP SONGS. AT GRAMMAR SCHOOL, I LOVED THE POEMS THAT MY ENGLISH TEACHER, MR THICKETT, INTRODUCED AND DISCUSSED. BEHIND ALL THIS MUST HAVE BEEN MY MOTHER, WHO WRITES POETRY, HAS PUBLISHED TWO OR THREE, AND MUST HAVE BEEN READING THEM TO ME AND MY BROTHERS. MY ELDER BROTHER WROTE A POSTGRADUATE THESIS ON “THE POETRY OF FILM” AND HE LIKED BLAKE BUT IT NEVER STRUCK ME THAT HIS THESIS TITLE MEANT ANYTHING OTHER THAN “IT’S NOT QUITE NARRATIVE AND IT’S GOT GOOD IMAGES”, WHICH ISN’T REALLY WHAT POETRY IS, EXCEPT BY SOME BASIC RULE OF IT’S NOT QUITE NORMAL. NONE OF MY THREE BROTHERS LIKE OR READ POETRY, ALTHOUGH MY YOUNGER BROTHER LOVES SONG LYRICS. I NEVER THOUGHT OF MY FATHER AS WANTING TO INSPIRE ME TO LIKE POETRY, ALTHOUGH ONCE I BECAME AN ADULT AND STARTED WRITING IT, HE DOES RECITE LONG BITS OF DONNE AND WORDSWORTH AND EVEN POUND THAT HE LIKES AND HAS CLEARLY LEARNED BY HEART LONG AGO OFF HIS OWN BAT.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets? I HELPED RUN THE UNIVERSITY POETRY SOCIETY, AND PICKED MOST OF THE POETS. I DREAMED NOT JUST OF BEING ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION BUT OF MATTERING TO ANOTHER POET, OF SOMEBODY WHO KNEW POETRY WELL AND COULD WRITE IT WELCOMING ME INTO THE CLUB. I WAS AN UNDERGRADUATE IN LONDON AND HAD THE CHANCE TO SEE A LOT OF POETS READ, WHICH I USUALLY PREFERRED TO JUST THE COLD PAGE (ALTHOUGH I LOVED READING CAROL ANN DUFFY ON THE PAGE; AND SHE WAS JUST STARTING OUT THEN). I WAS READING WIDELY AND BOUGHT A LOT OF POETRY (TO THIS DAY, I OWN LESS THAN ONE SHELF OF FICTION). IN LONDON, I WAS REALLY ONLY AWARE OF THE LIVING MAINSTREAM POETS AND THE DEAD MODERNISTS. WHEN I DID A MASTERS IN NEW ZEALAND IN 1990, EVERYTHING CHANGED. I BEGAN TO LOOK AT CONTEMPORARY EXPERIMENTAL POETRY (WHICH HAD BEEN GOING ON IN LONDON WHEN I WAS AN UNDERGRAD, I JUST HADN’T KNOWN WHERE). AND THE LARKINESQUE STYLE I’D LEARNED DIDN’T FLY AT ALL IN NEW ZEALAND MAGAZINES. I GOT HEAVILY INTO POUND’S CANTOS, AND THESE OTHER MORE CONTEMPORARY BOOKS, AND MANAGED THE DIFFICULT FEAT OF NOT CONVINCING THE NZ MAGS, AND BECOMING TOO WACKY FOR THE UK MAGS. I DIDN’T PUBLISH FOR FIVE YEARS. SO I WAS AWARE OF GATEKEEPERS AND REPUTATION MAKERS, AND THAT THE WORLD WAS FULL OF REALLY DISTINCTIVE POETS, MANY OF WHOM DIDN’T LIKE OR READ EACH OTHER: SCHOOLS, IN OTHER WORDS. I DON’T KNOW THAT THE POETRY WORLD LOOKS AT ALL LIKE THAT TO A YOUNG POET NOW, EXCEPT FOR THE GATEKEEPING. I HAVE HEARD SEVERAL YOUNGER POETS NOWADAYS SAY THAT THEY DON’T REALLY READ OLDER POETS. THIS WAS, TO PUT IT MILDLY, UNTHINKABLE WHEN I WAS STARTING OUT. ALTHOUGH IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN TRUE THAT 90% OF NEW POETRY IS MIDDLING, THE IDEA WAS STRONG IN MY YOUTH TO MAKE (OR AT LEAST LOOK FOR) THE FORMALLY DISTINCTIVE VOICE, TO TRY TO STAND WITH THE GREATS. THE DOWNSIDE WAS THAT THERE WAS A DISPARAGING OF CONTENT, AND THAT IT WAS SLIGHTLY VULGAR TO INSIST ON WRITING “ABOUT” AN ISSUE TO RAISE AWARENESS OF IT. IN MY YOUTH, YOU WOULD SAY “PETER READING WRITES VERY DIFFERENTLY FROM GEOFFREY HILL, AND WHAT THE L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E POETS OR PRYNNE DOES JUST ISN’T POETRY, EXCEPT FOR ONE OR TWO POEMS YOU MIGHT PUSH ON OUR ATTENTION”. I CAN’T FIND SIMILAR NAMES TO REMAKE THAT SENTENCE FOR THE POETRY WORLD OF 2018, IN TERMS OF AMBITION TO BE FORMALLY INNOVATIVE (INCLUDING IN THE MAINSTREAM, WHICH IS WHERE HILL AND PETER READING WERE).

4. What is your daily writing routine? I REALLY DON’T HAVE ONE. IT’S ALWAYS BEEN FAMINE OR FEAST FOR ME, WITH LONG PERIODS OF FAMINE SOMETIMES. I DON’T ASSUME I’LL WRITE, AND I DON’T MAKE TIME FOR IT. I WAIT.

5. What motivates you to write? SOMETIMES AN IMAGE/THEME FOR THE WHOLE POEM, SOMETIMES A LINE. I’M LESS AND LESS CONVINCED BY MY OLD MOTIVATIONS FOR WRITING THESE DAYS: I’D LIKE TO WRITE A DIFFERENT KIND OF POEM, BUT I DON’T KNOW HOW TO JUST NOW. I REMAIN A VERY KEEN TRANSLATOR OF POEMS, WHERE THE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE AUDIENCE IS ALREADY SETTLED AND THE PUBLIC GOOD OF THE EFFECT PROVEN; SO I JUST HAVE TO RISE TO DO SIMILAR IN ENGLISH.

6. What is your work ethic? TRY TO BE CONGRUENT WITH MY SOUL, AND KEEP DRAFTS (BECAUSE SOMETIMES THE REVISION IS BETTER, AND SOMETIMES THE FIRST DRAFT). PUT THE WORK ASIDE FOR MONTHS THEN LOOK AT A PILE OF IT AND CHUCK MOST OF IT AWAY.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today? I FEEL I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE LARGER PULL SOME OF THEM HAD, WHICH MAKES SENSE THE OLDER I GET; SO THEY READ MORE PROFOUNDLY AS TIME PASSES. SOME I NOW FIND SPOKE ONLY TO THE CHIPS ON MY SHOULDER AT THE TIME. SOME THAT I ONLY LIGHTLY TOOK ON AT THE TIME SEEM MUCH MORE PROFOUND NOW: AUDEN, OR THE MAKERS OF CHEERIER SONGS. THE LIGHT TOUCH YOU HAVE TO PAY A LOT FOR. I STILL HAVE A LOT OF TIME FOR THE EARNEST OF EARLY DUFFY, THE ANGULARITY OF OPPEN AND DAVIE, THE ZANINESS OF DORN, THE MONUMENTALITY OF POUND, THE COLLAGE AND AMBIGIOUS SENTENCES OF SILLIMAN, THE FIERCENESS OF DENISE RILEY, THE UNDERSTATED HUMANITY OF CARLA HARRYMAN, ASHBERY, AND THE PUBLIC VOICE OF LARKIN. THE VOLUBILITY OF DAVID ANTIN, AND NON-POET-VOICE OF HIM.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most
and why? OF LIVING WRITERS, I READ GREGORY WOODS WITH GREAT ENVY OF HIS METRICAL SKILL AND EXCAVATING AND INVENTING OF FORMS. I REALLY ENJOYED THE ANTHOLOGY “THE MIGHTY STREAM: POEMS IN CELEBRATION OF MARTIN LUTHER KING”, LOTS OF NEW POETS I DIDN’T KNOW. I’M INTERESTED IN WHATEVER KNIVES FORKS AND SPOONS, MY PUBLISHER, PUTS OUT. I WANT TO KNOW FROM OTHER POETS HOW TO DESCRIBE THE WORLD, AND TO AVOID PLAYING TO THE POETRY CROWD WITHOUT SACRIFICING FORMAL SKILL.

9. Why do you write? I THINK I USED TO WRITE FOR MOTIVATIONS I NO LONGER HAVE, TO FEEL SORRY FOR MYSELF IN PUBLIC. I’VE ALWAYS LIKED MAKING WORK THAT HAS A NICE PATTERN, OR THAT SEEMS A LUDICROUS COMIC IDEA THAT WILL MAKE AUDIENCES LAUGH. I’VE TENDED ONE WAY AND ANOTHER TO WASH MY DIRTY LINEN IN PUBLIC, AND VOICE EVERY COMPLAINT I’VE HAD. NOWADAYS, I’M IN THE MIDST OF SOME OF THE MOST PAINFUL FEELINGS OF MY LIFE, OF ALIENATION FROM LOVED ONES, ALONGSIDE SOME REALLY AMAZING MOMENTS OF BEING HAPPY. I DON’T WANT TO WRITE ABOUT THE PAIN, BECAUSE IT MIGHT WORSEN THE ESTRANGEMENTS; BUT IT’S HARD TO WRITE ABOUT THE HAPPINESS WITHOUT THAT CONTEXT. I FIND IT HARD TO THINK OF WRITING POEMS OF PERSONAL CATHARSIS THAT I WON’T EVENTUALLY PUBLISH, AND SO LITTLE IS COMING. I’D LIKE TO WRITE ABOUT PUBLIC THEMES MORE, WHICH IS WHERE MY TRANSLATING WORK COMES IN.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?” READ A LOT, AND TRY YOUR WORK OUT ON PEOPLE (BUT REALISE THEY DON’T OWE YOU ANY ATTENTION, SO MAKE IT WORTH THEIR WHILE). THEN MAKE SOME SOCIAL MEDIA NOISE (SAME RULE APPLIES THAT NOBODY OWES YOU), SEND WORK OUT AND BE PREPARED FOR REJECTION, THAT SOMETIMES IT’S TIMING AND THE LUCK OF A GOOD FIT. TRY TO SEND WORK TO PLACES WHOSE WRITERS YOU ENJOY READING, AND WOULD BUY.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment. I HAVE GOOD INTENTIONS, AND SOME ABSTRACT IDEALS, BUT THAT’S ALL I’VE EVER HAD, EXCEPT GOOD HUNCHES AND NOT RUSHING MYSELF.

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