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.

 

Tom Sastry

Tom Sastry was chosen by Carol Ann Duffy as one of the 2016 Laureate’s Choice poets and his resulting pamphlet Complicity was a Poetry School Book of the Year and a Poetry Book Society pamphlet choice. He also has a growing reputation as a spoken word performer having supported Danez Smith and Hera Lindsay Bird on their recent UK tours. Tom is currently editing an anthology of poems about the future for Emma Press with Suzannah Evans.

The Interview

1. When did you start writing poetry?

I wrote poetry when I was very young. The evidence may be in my mother’s attic as I have never managed to destroy it. I stopped for twenty years. In between I wrote a lot of songs which I could never perform properly owing to my atrocious guitar playing. When I noticed poets appearing at open mics, I copied them. That was in 2012.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

I don’t know. Poetry is quite famous even if most poets aren’t. I suppose I picked up on its existence somehow. I don’t have a Hollywood fable involving an inspirational teacher, I’m afraid.

3. What inspired you to wrote poetry when you were very young?

I don’t know that I was inspired. It was a thing I did like other things and I think that is a very healthy way to look at writing poetry. As a teenager I was seduced by the idea of being a poet which is the opposite of being inspired to write. For that reason my poems were dreadful and for that reason I stopped writing for 20 years.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I very much hope to have one, one day! I write in scraps of time I can salvage from other things.

That isn’t quite true because I am always putting words together in my head with a view to writing poems and I think that counts as writing time. I think the trick is to go around filling your pockets with things that grab your attention. The rest is typing. But I get a lot of my best ideas while typing. I wish I had more time to type.

5. What motivates you to write?

Writing as I see it is the opposite of functioning. When you are being functional you are focused on the task at hand, the thing that needs saying, keeping everyone happy; and you are acting on these intentions in a predictable way because you want predictable results.

When you are writing you are doing the opposite: you are making yourself sensitive to thoughts and phenomena which are unacceptable or confusing or impolite or irrelevant. I have spent my life in a furious secret rebellion against functioning, which I hate.

For most of my life I didn’t think about it as writing – I thought I was just losing concentration; and when I did the thing I called writing I was just functioning in a different way – trying to produce things which fitted other people’s idea of a poem. But that changed in 2012 when I started writing poetry again after a long break. Since then it has become very clear that I write to escape the amount of functioning I have to do. I don’t have to motivate myself to do it.

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

I don’t know. I don’t really have that kind of reading/writing epiphany story. There isn’t anyone who I read thirty years ago who remains a touchstone for me. I am sure that everything has an influence though.

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

Strangely, that is a very hard question to answer. I find it very difficult to speak publicly about other people’s work for the same reason that I would hate to be given a microphone and asked to praise someone’s clothes. I am terrified of doing it in a way that isn’t respectful or gracious or comes across as false and I am scared of leaving someone out. It’s not because I don’t want to be generous with praise – I love lots of poetry and I can be quite vocal about it when I choose my moment to speak about it. I know how lovely it is when people say nice things about you and I really appreciate it when others do that for me. But more than reading in public or accepting criticism I find praising on cue the most anxiety-inducing part of being a poet.

I wanted to say that because I have never heard anyone else say it and I wonder if other poets feel the same way!

In lieu of a proper answer to your question, I will say is that current bedside pile is extraordinary. At the moment the writers am reading or re-reading Matthew Dickman, Danez Smith, Kim Moore and Jacqueline Saphra and in each case I am bowled over. So at this moment, they are my favourite writers.

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

If you ask, you are probably already writing. Read and – just as important – see and hear as much poetry as you can.

Make it a social experience so that your need for human contact and your hunger for poetry overlap.

Always try to do what you don’t do. If you write but don’t read in public, read in public if you possibly can. If you perform but don’t publish, seek the views of people who have never seen you perform on your written work.

If there is a particular idea or fashion in poetry which exasperates you, understand it.

If there is someone you like despite not wanting to figure out what they are showing you.

If you write quickly, revise your next piece twenty times; if you are a perfectionist write something quickly and share it. In fact, don’t be a perfectionist because a defensive striving not to write badly will kill your writing; but do work as hard as you can without falling down that rabbit hole. Understand your own strengths as a write but don’t be scared to change your method.

Write down your rules about what poetry should be and burn them. They are your worst enemies. It’s not that your ideas are wrong – it’s that becoming attached to your own personal theory of poetry limits you as a writer. Most of what you do is training for the moment the real poems come. Make sure you are ready for anything.

 

 

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.

Ken Evans

Ken Evans won this year’s Kent & Sussex Poetry Competition, and The Battered Moons Competition in 2016.
Last year, he was included in an anthology of Best New British & Irish Poets, edited by Luke Kennard. Kennard referred to his featured poem as ‘a hypnotic exercise in imagination and compassion.’ Evans’ first pamphlet, The Opposite of Defeat, featured work from his shortlisted collection in The Poetry School’s / Nine Arches Press ‘Primers’ Competition, which also shortlisted in Bare Fiction’s debut competition. True Forensics is his first poetry collection.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

A favourite poet, Louise Gluck said, ‘Writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance: bad luck, loss, pain. If you make something out of it, then you’ve no longer been bested by these events.’ I like this. Writers’ trying to order a world that continuously confounds all of us (though sometimes it does so in a good way, of course.)

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Foyle’s on Charing Cross Road. I opened at random ‘The Children of Albion – Poetry of the Underground’, an anthology of post-Ginsberg, UK poets. It was 1974, the Vietnam War was still being lost, and of course, all before the Internet. These angry, declamatory words hit powerfully. Like a lot of teenagers need to feel, I felt I’d found a way of looking at the world that was ‘mine.’ And when I later discovered one of the contributors, Adrian Mitchell, had been to the same school as me, it also suddenly seemed a world that was attainable. Poetry was possible for someone like me. What the book didn’t tell me was it might take 40 years!

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

‘Crow’, ‘Ariel’, Dylan Thomas, is where poetry ended at school, but an enlightened English teacher also gave us Thom Gunn, which I loved. William Blake and the Romantics were very popular, this being the 70s, and I love Brian Patten, but I think I was as influenced by singer-songwriters of the time as much as poets’ – Dylan, of course, Joni Mitchell, Lou Reed, Neil Young, Neil Diamond, Don McLean, Paul Simon, Cat Stevens, and Yorkshire’s very own Roy Harper.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

Less a routine, more one to stick to: to try and write something every day. Even if just a line, or a tweak to a title (I’m a bit rubbish with poem titles.) Routine breeds practise which improves your work, even when it doesn’t seem like it. Even when what you write seems tosh the next day.

5. What motivates you to write?

I heard Simon Armitage say in a YouTube interview he thought poetry was, by nature, ‘oppositional.’ It takes the world, skews it, creases it along new lines, looks on ‘the ‘slant.’ I like my eyes and ears being opened to a different take. I’m not saying I manage this in my own poems, but it’s something I look for in others’ and try to work towards. I

6. What is your work ethic?

As Armitage also said, I think, (his free, Oxford Professorship of Poetry lecture podcasts are worth a listen) – poetry takes attention! It’s hard, you have to concentrate. Probably why it’s such a minority-sport, as almost everything else in the world seems to infantilise us, make us passive recipients, indulge us. Poetry forces engagement. This means you’re almost never switched off – looking, hearing, observing – it’s a tough task-master. Most of the good, or successful, poets I ever meet are very hard-working – writing, work-shopping, performing, organising, translating, reviewing, teaching! This idea of the shamanistic versifier, waiting for thunderbolts of divine inspiration, was probably made up the same time as that Thomas Chatterton painting – the poet dying of a laudanum overdose in his garret.

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

I still love nature poetry, instilled by the Romantics, probably, but also Gerard Manley Hopkins and Edward Thomas. Louis MacNeice, his long, narrative poem ‘Autumn Journal’ written in 1939 with the shadow of war over it, seems so ‘now’ to me. Heaney is always returnable to with extra value, and Derek Mahon.

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

North American poetry seems so free, experimental, with raggedy lines and rangey, loose-limbed expression, compared to a lot of UK poetry. Forgive my stereotyping, but it walks with bow-legs and a swagger like a cowboy after three weeks on horseback, thirsting for strong whisky. I love the daring of Karen Solie, Anne Carson, Louise Gluck, Brenda Shaughnessy. The lyrical tone and content in Henri Cole, Carl Phillips, Jack Gilbert, and most recently the alternate Lakota Sioux history of Layli Long Soldier and the hypnotic Kaveh Akbar.  For making the hard flow easy, Billy Collins.

For UK nature poetry, Gillian Clarke, Alice Oswald are ‘musts’. For hints of the spiritual and mystic, Gillian Allnutt and Pauline Stainer.  For unflinching, forensic honesty, Denise Riley and Rebecca Goss. For his darkness, Robin Robertson. For poetry generally, John Glenday and Maurice Riordan; my best youngish poets of the moment, Claire Askew and Fiona Benson. Wendy Cope’s new volume is wry and wise and witty about love and relationships and she’s a brilliant technician. Leontia Flynn, Mary O’Malley and Maura Dooley are just a few on the tip of the conveyor-belt of Irish brilliance that goes on and on.

9. Why do you write?

Poetry is a mood-enhancer everyone can access. At least, till they ban or tax it like the others’. It’s also the most democratic. Artists or musicians’ may demur, but even they need some ‘kit’, or materials. For poetry, you only need the stub of an HB pencil – and paper. In fact, you can beg, steal, or recycle paper, so with a crayon or pencil, you’re away. Thanks to our fantastic public libraries, which we should maintain at all costs, you don’t even need a word-processor, but can book time on theirs. But a re-furbed, pre-used WP is also within most people’s reach nowadays.

If writing is revenge, maybe it’s also damage-limitation. Trying to make sense of the inexplicable. I don’t really believe it’s true catharsis though. Focusing on any given subject for too long may even make the thing worse, or at least keep it on a permanent ‘loop’ in your mind.

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

Everyone says read, and read some more, which is great. You don’t even have to spend a lot – repeat visits to free websites such as the Poetry Foundation, Poetry Archive and Poets.org. are great resources. But also be persistent and resilient – Jo Bell talks about rejection being part of the acceptance process, which I think’s really positive. They’re organic continuations of the same thing. Rejection makes us better (or at least, a little tougher or more self-critical.) Easier to say once you’ve had some minor successes maybe, but everyone I know tends to be rejected far more than accepted, especially early on. Even Sylvia Plath was!

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

My debut collection, ‘True Forensics’, is being published by Eyewear, for a London          launch at the LRB bookshop on October 24th.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vigilance-Ken-Evans/dp/1912477106/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF

so I’m a bit ‘post-collection’ right now. I’m still liking what I read, even after it having been    under the microscope so long, which I take as a good sign – we’ll see!
I’m mainly trying to get some gigs going to help promote ‘True Forensics’.

But I’m continuing to write individual poems, and revising some that I like but for various reasons, thematic or mood-wise, they didn’t make the final ‘cut’ for the Eyewear book, and maybe looking to enter these in a pamphlet competition by the turn of the year – poetry’s a ‘slow-burn’ I find, it won’t stand a rush, so we’ll see.

 

 

 

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.

Merryn Williams

studied English at Murray Edwards College and worked for a while at the Open University.  She wrote a thesis on the novels of Thomas Hardy and various other works about the Victorians, but became more interested in poetry later on.  She is literary adviser to the Wilfred Owen Association and has a great interest in the poets of the First World War.  She has published four collections of poetry and edited several anthologies, including ‘In the Spirit of Wilfred Owen’, ‘The Georgians 1901-30’ and ‘Poems for Jeremy Corbyn’.  She has also translated the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca (Bloodaxe).  She lives in Oxford with her husband John Hemp.

The Interview
1. What inspired you to write poetry?

When I was a child there was no television in the house but there were plenty of books.  I looked into several which were really for adults and clearly remember a fat blue volume called Poems of Blake which I discovered at the age of five or six; the poems seemed much simpler than they really were.  I was fascinated, and often bewildered, by his Songs of Innocence and Experience and still value poems which unite simplicity and mystery.  Emily Bronte is another writer who can do this.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

I suppose I introduced myself!  At primary school we were offered nursery rhymes, hymns, and some Georgian poems whose vivid imagery I loved – ‘London Snow’, ‘Silver’, and ‘The Ice Cart’, all by poets of a certain vintage. ‘Home Thoughts from Abroad’ is another which made quite an impression.

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

I still own The Penguin Book of English Verse, edited by John Hayward, which I carried in a blazer pocket and read in spare moments at grammar school (I was an unusual child!).  I loved and constantly re-read the older English poets, but my interest fell off sharply after Wilfred Owen’s time.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I write in the mornings, as early as possible.  If it’s a poem, that takes precedence over all other jobs.

5. What motivates you to write?

‘In the beginning was the word’.  It has to be a cluster of words, or perhaps a line and a half, and the poem develops or fails to develop from there.  It’s not easy, anyway not for me, to write a half-decent poem to order.  Inspiration has to come spontaneously, and a poet can be inspired by some quite unexpected story or event.

6. What is your work ethic?

I believe it’s important to go on working as long as you have strength, not to waste precious time.

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

I suppose these writers gave me a strong preference for rhyme, which is what most of my poems do.

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

A wonderful constellation of poets born around the time of the First World War – Norman MacCaig, Norman Nicholson, R.S. Thomas, Larkin, Scannell, and above all, Charles Causley.  Ruth Bidgood is the only one of that age group who is still alive; she’s 96 now and I am proud to call her my friend.  I discovered her Not Without Homage one rainy day in an ancient Welsh cottage and it started me writing poetry again after a gap of years.  She writes about the ‘green desert’ of mid-Wales and its vanished people; I also love that landscape and am fascinated by the history of hidden lives.  Tony Harrison is another poet I greatly admire for his technical mastery and his understanding of politics.   There are many more good women poets now than there used to be and I’m impressed by Sheenagh Pugh and Alison Brackenbury.

9. Why do you write?

There is an inner compulsion, I suppose, to comment on aspects of the world and make sense of them.  Apparently you have to practise for 10,000 hours to be really good at anything and I’ve practised for longer than that!  I am a shy person who wouldn’t have been good at a job that involved prolonged contact with people.  In the 2017 election, I wanted to help but baulked at knocking on doors, so, reckoning that my only skills were verbal, I did a great deal of blogging under a pseudonym.

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

Read the best writers, don’t imitate them but practise, keep practising!

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

I’m preparing a Selected Poems to be published by Shoestring in 2019.  Also a play about Wilfred Owen and a German poet, Gerrit Engelke, who were both killed in the last months of 1918, and ought to have met, but did not.  My YA novel Zone 7, which is about a future England under a military dictatorship, will hopefully be published next year.

Website: m.williams.webeden.co.uke

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.

Anne Walsh Donnelly

Anne Walsh Donnelly lives in Mayo in the west of Ireland. Her poetry has been published in various literary outlets such as Hennessey New Writing in The Irish Times (July 2018), Crannog, Boyne Berries, Cold Coffee Stand, Star 52, Ariel Chart, Inside the Bell Jar and The Blue Nib. Both her poems and short stories have been widely anthologised in books such as Please hear what I’m not saying, Gem Street: Beyond the Axis and Henshaw 2.
Two of her short plays were staged in the Claremorris Fringe Festival of Drama.
Her work has been shortlisted in several competitions including the OTE New Writer of the Year Award, Fish International Short Story Prize and the RTE Radio One Frances Mac Manus competition.
One of her poems was highly commended in the OTE New Writer of the Year Award (2017).

Anne won the Blue Nib Winter 2017/Spring 2018 Chapbook poetry completion.  A selection of her poems, are published in The Blue Nib Chapbook 2. You can buy it here:

https://thebluenib.com/product/the-blue-nib-chapbook-2/

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

I was forty-five when I started writing. My daughter was the catalyst. When she was eight, she used to write poems for people to give them on their birthdays and other important events. Isn’t it a lovely idea, to gift someone a poem?  So I wrote a poem for someone who had been very supportive whilst I was going through my martial separation.  When I gave it to the person, she smiled and said “You have to continue to write.” That was all the encouragement I needed. I started to write poetry, short stories, plays, and memoir. The words just tumbled out onto the page. Once I started I couldn’t stop. Luckily I’ve inherited my father’s ability and love of telling a good story.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

My mother, in the form of nursery rhymes and as I got older, she often recited other poems to my brothers and me. My favourite poem as a child was Wordsworth’s Daffodils. “I wandered lonely as a cloud….” For some reason those words resonated with me.  In secondary school I found studying poetry difficult. It was the analysis of them and reading them for exam purposes that nearly destroyed poetry for me. Though for some reason I always loved the Patrick Kavanagh poems that were on the curriculum.
Funnily I used to hate when teachers in primary school would give us the task of writing our own poem. I was convinced that I could not write. I think it was to do with the fact that I thought all poems had to rhyme and I was useless at rhyme. It took me a long time to realise that I could actually write a decent poem. Forty plus years.

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

As I said Patrick Kavanagh was a favourite poet of mine and his poems have always stuck with me since my teenage years. I’ve only realised recently how he has influenced some of my own writing. Someone recently called me “Patrica Kavanagh” after reading one of my poems. I think it’s the rural element that sometimes creeps into my poems and my use of the vernacular in some of my poems.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I write every day, not always on paper, but in my head. Being a working lone parent of two teenagers means that getting to actually sit down every day and write or type words onto a page doesn’t happen. But I am always thinking of writing, opening myself up to ideas that might float my way. It might be something I see, an overheard conversation or the words of a song might trigger an idea. I mainly use my phone to note these ideas. I expand on later. At weekends I make time to actually sit down and write. My favourite writing space is Sunday mornings. The house is quiet and thankfully the kids sleep till lunchtime so I get up early and spend a few hours writing.

5. What motivates you to write?

I don’t need motivation, it’s a compulsion. Just as I have to breathe, I have to write. If I don’t get at least one poem a week written, I get cranky. To not write, doesn’t feel right for me. Sometimes I wonder how I survived forty-five years on this planet without writing creatively. Writing sustains me and had enriched my life so much.

6. What is your work ethic?

I am highly driven regardless of what I set my mind to. This is also the case with writing. As my mother would say, anything worth doing is worth doing well and that’s my philosophy too. However the last few years have taught me to create a more balanced life and not get lost in one task to the exclusion of all others. Mothering, working, relationships, exercise, meditation and writing all get their fair share of my attention. In terms of my professional life and doing the job that pays the bills, it doesn’t consume my life the way it did in the past. It’s a means to an end. My life outside of work takes priority now. I always reserve some of my energy for writing. It might not put food on the table, but it feeds my soul, which is probably the most important thing we need to nourish.

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

As I mentioned Patrick Kavanagh certainly has influenced my writing though I wasn’t aware of how much it did, until recently, when I read his poem “The Great Hunger.”

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

There are way too many to mention.

9. Why do you write?

I write to live and to make sense of this crazy world we inhabit.

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

I wrote a poem on this very topic! It’s called “Guide to becoming a writer” and it was recently published online in The Irish Times. You can read it here.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/hennessy-new-irish-writing-july-s-winning-poems-1.3568189

It’s based on my own experience of how I became a writer or should I say, discovered that I was a writer. It contains all the essential ingredients that you need to become a writer. Reading, loving and losing, spending time alone, being adventurous, brave and honest and getting support from others. In my experience it’s the shite that life throws at you, that will make you a better writer. Most importantly of all as my therapist once said to me when I was in the throes of depression…Just Do It.  Oh, and find people who believe in you.  When they tell you how awesome you are, believe them, because every one of us is awesome, in our own way.

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

I’m currently working towards my first collection of poetry. It’s still in the early stages. I also have ideas for a novel, short stories and personal essays that I am still developing. My problem is that I have so many projects I want to work on and little time
Anne Walsh Donnelly
September 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.

Art credit: Angel of Time, Oil Painting by Lica Kerenskaya (owned by Michael Dickel, painting ©Lica Kerenskaya). Digital image ©2018 used by permission. Art to be used for Nothing Remembers, Summer 2019, Finishing Line Press.

Michael Dickel

Michael Dickel’s writing and art appear in print and online. His poetry has won international awards and been translated into several languages. Nothing Remembers is due out Summer 2019 (Finishing Line Press, Kentucky). Breakfast at the End of Capitalism came out in 2017 (Locofo Chaps, Illinois), The Palm Reading after The Toad’s Garden, in 2016 (Is a Rose Press, Montana and Minnesota). Previous books include: War Surrounds Us (Is a Rose Press), Midwest / Mid-East (Lulu), and The World Behind It, Chaos…(WV? eBook Press). He co-edited Voices Israel Volume 36, was managing editor for arc-23 and 24, and is a past-chair of the Israel Association of Writers in English. He is a contributing editor of The BeZine (TheBeZine.com). With Israeli producer / director David Fisher, he received a U.S.A. National Endowment of the Humanities documentary-film development grant through their Bridging Cultures program and wrote a prospective script about Yiddish Theatre.

The Interview

1. What were the circumstances under which you began to write poetry?

While I can’t credibly claim to have “always written poetry,” almost as long as I could write, I have written poems. I can still recite a short poem that I wrote in 3rd or 4th grade. The assignment had to do with onomatopoeia. I will spare your readers the poem, though.

I also recall a poem I wrote in 6th grade, when the teacher gave us a sort of syllabic meter and rhyme scheme to use. By junior high, again with encouragement from a teacher, I entered some poems into a contest and tied for first place. I suppose I was hooked by that success—surely, riches and fame would be mine! Well, no, I guess even then I knew better.

In high school, I contributed to and then co-edited our high school literary magazine, Early Wine. I also wrote my first short story during high school. I chose psychology as my college major (thinking, naively, that somehow I would understand the human condition better and write better as a result), but I still continued to write. And I haven’t stopped, really—some pauses, no stopping in the long run.

I had my first “literary” publication, after the high school literary magazine, when I was in my early 30s, long after my undergraduate days. Around then, some friends in a writing group I belonged to suggested that I consider taking a course from Michael Dennis Browne, a poet at the University of Minnesota. I did. And I took another, with a fiction writer, Pierre Delattre.

Eventually I entered the creative writing program, left my work in counseling, and never looked back. I studied both poetry with Michael as my mentor-advisor, and fiction with Alan Burns, z’’l, as my mentor-advisor, and continue to write both today.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Possibly my grandmother—I think she gave me a copy of Robert Louis Stevens’ A Child’s Garden of Verse. Perhaps it was my parents—I can’t recall. And I have to credit my grade school teachers—who also had us try our hand at writing it, as I said already.

My more “serious” introduction came in  junior high. The same teacher who had encouraged me to enter the poetry contest, had before then introduced our class to poetry. In particular, I was taken with e. e. cummings, oh, those “up so many bells floating down,” and the freedom of typographical play! I also liked Dylan Thomas. I mentioned how exciting cummings’ poems were at dinner one night, and my father pulled a book of cummings off the shelf—I had never noticed it there before.

My father or my mother fed me more of Thomas’ poems and other poets. My father, I recall, directed me to a copy of Longfellow’s Hiawatha that his mother, who died when he was in his teens, had given him, which had been hers before. It was the only time I saw her handwriting, her name neatly scripted inside the from cover. I should mention that my parents were both teachers. And I still have that copy of Hiawatha.

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

I don’t think of “domination,” so much as influence. I’ve mentioned reading poets in junior high English. I had excellent literature classes in high school, as well. I encountered some of the most influential poets to my own writing outside of the classroom, though. And I guess my awareness of them felt more like an awakening.

In 9th grade, I worked as a library page in the town’s public library. My big “Aha!” moment came with a vinyl record of Allen Ginsburg, z’’l, reading Kaddish and other poems that I came across at work one day. I checked it out and listened to it at home. The frank, explicit subject matter, the rhythmic cadence of Ginsburg’s voice, hearing the poet speak the poems—these transformed me and through this experience, I felt a stronger influence than e e cummings had had on me—The Beats!

Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Ginsburg, in particular, caught my attention. And while I was much older when I realized it, I think then I sensed the connection between Whitman and Ginsburg. I certainly have been influenced by the long breath and lines of both, along with what Bly (not a Beat poet, but very influential for me) called “sentence sound.”

Later, I read Kerouac’s novels. It would be only after college before I learned of Anne Waldman, another of the Beat poets, and just as powerful as the men. (I actually met and spoke with both Ginsburg and Waldman along the way, which was quite exciting for me.)

While Ginsburg was the first spoken-word poet I heard, I had heard singers. It took me a while to connect song to poetry, even though in Hebrew, poem and song is the same word (pronounced sheer).

My older brothers had introduced me to two singer-songwriters who now we recognize as poets—Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, z’’l. Cohen was and remains very influential to me. I probably read Lorca through Cohen. Much of Cohen’s work is infused with Jewish themes and mysticism, increasingly so with the years—as is mine. I heard his first record when through me eldest brother, and listened to, learned, played his songs my whole life. I’ve read books of his poetry, a novel…

I became interested in the Civil Rights Movement, first from seeing news clips of sheriffs turning fire hoses on marchers and of Martin Luther King Jr. leading marches in suburban Chicago, not far from where I lived. Later, I read about The Black Panthers in newspapers and magazines my parents subscribed to. The assassination of King in 1968 shocked me (I was in eight grade). That summer, Chicago erupted in “race riots.”

Also, I had become aware of the Vietnam war in this same time period. I wore a black armband with a peace symbol and joined war protests. Ferlinghetti wrote anti-War poems, as did Ginsberg, and I began to read other anti-War poets (enter Bly)

Somehow, while in high school, I found poems by Amiri Baraka, Langston Hughes, and Gwendolyn Brooks (I also met Brooks and had a chance to speak briefly with her—she generously gave a book of her children’s poetry to my now 30+ y.o. daughter at the time). I don’t recall where—except that I am fairly certain they were not part of the curriculum.

My friends and I sometimes skipped school and went into Chicago, where we would go to the Art Institute, Old Town, used bookstores. At least once we did it to attend a demonstration, during the Chicago Eight (later changed to Seven, when Black Panther Bobby Seale was moved to a separate trial from the white defendants). We bought poetry books, the Chicago Seed (an “underground newspaper”), and accepted free “radical” mimeographed pamphlets. I can’t recall exactly where, but I somewhere in all of that, I read them.

I’m not sure if this answers your question. I didn’t feel that I had to write like any of these poets. And I didn’t feel restricted by their styles, voices, poetics. Although, I remember that another reason I chose a psych major is that I worried that literary criticism would constrain me or try to push me to write or think about my writing in a certain way. Now, I don’t think literary criticism has that power over me, but then again, perhaps not giving lit-crit that power is why I don’t have a very successful “poetry career,” or academic one. So, I guess, as a white male in the middle class, I didn’t feel dominated by older poets. Canon fodder, I suppose.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I don’t have much of a daily routine. I usually take in porridge (oat meal, wheat germ, bran flakes, dried fruit) with coffee for breakfast, and that’s about as much of a routine I do have. Many days, getting kids to school, picking them up, and managing daily living, take most of my time, which sounds routine but seems to vary day to day.

Teaching and all that entails takes up about ten hours a week—plus reading time for the courses. I teach English language for academic purposes, so the articles my students have for readings are not much related to my writing. The class schedule is a bit of routine, of course.

However, as to my writing routine— I do try to read each day things that might provoke my brain—often essays, some poetry, some fiction, but not all of those every day. And I write when my brain is provoked enough, stimulated if you prefer, inspired if you wish, and I have time to sit and engage.

Almost everyday now I write in social media, where I often share links to some of my reading (and most of my publications), but also commentary, short “Twitter poems,” longer poems on Facebook. I’ve become very democratic in my poetry practice, or perhaps it’s socialist—giving it away.

On reflection, I find that I am rather undisciplined in the Western, Protestant-work ethic sense of scheduling work time and chaining myself to a desk. I flow through my life more organically, and write when I feel the writing (as ethereal entity) has asked me to write.

5. What motivates you to write?

Life, peace, justice, sustainability (environmental and economic), philosophies (epistemology, ontology, metaphysics), love, observations that make me pause (observations might be: a thought, something I see, a sound or word I hear, or the touch of a praying mantis walking along my arm), confusion(s), sublimity, ineffability, possibilities, impossibilities—any of these that strikes me at any given moment.

I guess, that is, mostly moments motivate me, specifically: moments that spark like a synapse transmitting neuronic messages. Perhaps, a prophet would call it revelation. I think that the closest I get to a moment revealing itself to me is a glimpse of something that might be hiding behind the moment, something shaping the moment, my understanding of it, and what it is. Or isn’t. A Schrodinger’s cat of a moment, that’s what motivates me.

6. What is your work ethic?

I think this might be covered under my routine, in the way it is usually meant, say in a job interview. I find this question to be confusing, though. Even in a job interview. I believe in being ethical in work as in all aspects of life.

So, I try to do these things (among others) for ethical writing practice:
• do not treat others in a way that I my self would find hurtful (restatement of Rabbi Hillel)
Corollaries:
• do not oppress or harass anyone
• represent all others fairly, as fully human
• read and review work by other writers, and do so carefully and with good will
• do not steal (intellectual property, money, material goods, hearts, souls)
• be honest (to yourself, others, the universe)
• follow your own personal morality and ethics in your writing and work practice
• be fair, reasonable, and civil with others
I don’t always succeed, but I try.
However, I realize that you possibly (probably?) meant something else.

When I write, I am completely in that moment of writing: absorbed, and all of my energy burning words into texts. It drains me. However, I see no value in sacrificing my health (physical or mental), my relationships, or my life to my art.

I suspect this is closer to an answer for your intended question. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to take apart the idea of “work ethic,” at least, as I understand the concept in relationship to “art,” in the rest of my answer:

“You must suffer for your art.”

“The starving artist.”

“You must pay your dues.”

I think these “truisms,” all about “sacrifice,” are part of a harmful mythology, related to “work ethic,” used to excuse not paying for artists’ work, to justify not valuing the life path and choices of artists. To claim, only those with the “right work ethic” would “deserve” or “earn” rewards for their work (that is, recognition and income).

The mythology also can serve to justify addiction, cruelty, and bad behavior—

“I am an artist, I sacrifice everything in pursuit of Truth and Art!”

“I am artist, bow to my whims!”

I don’t accept these views, which I’m also obviously exaggerating and parodying here to some extent in order to make a point.

However, they are all wrapped up somehow for me in an idea of sacrifice, deprivation, and imbalance that we associate with “Art.”

We have moved beyond human sacrifice in our ritual practice. We should not practice sacrificing our own selves (or our lives) now. I don’t make my writing my idol. I don’t accept “Art” as an idol, either.

Yes, I give everything to my work as I write, and I am drained when I do. I actually do a lot of work: reading, revising, editing, promoting my work, and discussing, listening, arguing—all part of the process. Does that justify me and make my labor “ethical”? Not if I don’t act ethically otherwise.

I publish and promote other writers, too. Some people have said that I work hard, but I don’t think that working hard alone justifies anything, let alone my life or art. That is why I began this answer that is turning into an essay as I did—listing ethics, not work activities.

I think being ethical while producing the best art you can matters. But I don’t think that working hard matters as much. Of course, one must work to do either of those things—be ethical or produce good art. And it might be hardest to do both.

However, the finished poems and prose pieces justify themselves or they don’t, regardless of any accounting of my work schedule, the hours put in, the other things I did along the way. Most likely, if they do justify themselves, it is in relation to readers, other work, and the context where they live in the world. (Yes, I think poems are living things.)

And, my relationship with myself and others justifies my existence. It doesn’t matter if I slaved away. Who wants to be a slave? And my existence does not lack justification if I did not sacrifice everything. Who wants to be sacrificed to any god or idol?

So, I live a life in relationship to others that I value, too. And I try to be a good human being (and too often fail). And I write. But I don’t think I have to slave or sacrifice my self to do these things.

I haven’t been a very good “career builder,” and I suppose my public reputation, if there even is one, could have been more prominent if I had slaved and sacrificed. However, that suits my sense of ethics just fine.

And that, in the end, I guess, is my “work ethic.”

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

I spoke earlier about Leonard Cohen’s continued influence. I like long breaths for my lines, as in Whitman, Ginsberg, Waldman, and others. Dylan also uses long lines in many of his songs (especially the ballads). I like Bly’s “sentence sound,” and other ideas he’s written about in essays that I return to from time to time. I still write political poems, anti-War / Peace poems, and am engaged in “activist poetry.” I read and re-read poets I first encountered in my youth.

And I also explore the new, searching for poets who push boundaries. I write a lot of hybrid, experimental writing now. I very much have moved also into surrealism, Dada, and related streams of influence, some coming from influences in my younger years, many new.

I want to discuss activist poetry, because many of the poets I’ve listed as influential (not all), have written “activist” or “political” poems—Whitman, Ginsberg, Bly, Waldman, Brooks, Hughes, Baraka, Ferlinghetti, Forché (who has written extensively on the poetry of witness), Dylan, among them.

I mentioned the Anti-War and Civil Rights Movements earlier because my deeper awareness of poetry and my awakening to peace and justice movements arose together. I still return to Hughes often, as well as contemporary activist poets. I’ve recently came across again some of Whitman’s decidedly political poems attacking a bad congress and tone deaf president (sound familiar?).

That influence comes out also in my participation in a global movement of activist-poets (writers, artists, musicians, even mimes), 100,000 Poets for Change (100TPC.org). The focus is on three themes: peace, social justice, and sustainability—with the specific issues addressed left to be defined in local contexts by the people living and creating in those contexts.

The 100,000 Poets for Change global day of poetry is the last Saturday of September each year (or near to it, depending on local context), although events go on around the world all year. I am a contributing editor at The BeZine (TheBeZine.com), an online journal that publishes on these and related themes (and including an ecumenical spiritual dimension). We hold an online virtual event on the global date, also. And, I organize or help organize events in Israel, usually on a date that does not occur on a religious holiday for one of the three main religions in Israel.

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

I like these poets because from reading their work I feel the ineffable, the sublime, the mystical, the Zen moment of Being, the joy of language, the chaos we call Creation, the engaged desire for justice, or the resonance of being human in the context of all of the other things I listed and more: Joy Harjo, Charles Bernstein, Maxine Chernoff, Adeena Karasick, Carolyn Forché, Michael Rothenberg, gary lundy, Valérie Déus, Neil Gaiman (I like his prose better than his poetry), Kinga Fabó (in translation), T. R. Hummer, Sylva Merjanian, Mike Stone, Jamie Dedes… the list goes on and on. Certainly, I have certainly left out more than I have included. There are many poets worth reading.

9. Why do you write?

I tried to stop—to let it go—many times in the first half of my adult years. I can’t do it and stay healthy in my soul-spirit-chi. Don’t mistake that for some claim that writing is therapeutic, though. It certainly can be, but I don’t use it that way, or very rarely use it that way. It is to say that it is part of my life force and I can’t live without it. It’s like Leonard Cohen’s song, “I Tried to Leave You”:

I tried to leave you, I don’t deny
I closed the book on us, at least a hundred times.
I’d wake up every morning by your side.

The years go by, you lose your pride.
The baby’s crying, so you do not go outside,
and all your work it’s right before your eyes.

Goodnight, my darling, I hope you’re satisfied,
the bed is kind of narrow, but my arms are open wide.
And here’s a man still working for your smile.

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

I don’t have anything original to say on this. Read, write, read some more, re-write, read something new, write some more. Learn how to separate someone’s liking or accepting your words from them liking or accepting you—these forms of acceptance are unrelated. Rejection is hard, so find a way to handle it. Acceptance may be more difficult, so figure out how to handle that, too. You can find lots of bad and good advice in books and online. Choose which to follow wisely; I would suggest choosing that which resonates for you and makes sense to you.

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

I always am writing, sometimes projects come together from that. I have a collection of poetry coming out in the summer of 2019, from Finishing Line Press, titled Nothing Remembers. It is written, so the writing part of that project is over.

Mike Stone (I believe you’ve interviewed him for Wombwell Rainbow) and I have begun a project where we hope to publish a combined book of our poems, putting pieces on similar themes or using similar imagery together. Mike has pulled his part together nicely (ah, perhaps his work ethic); I hope to embark on doing my part this fall. Again, these are already written—we are in the pairing them stage and then will do some organizing. Mike’s already done a nice job of categorizing.

I publishing projects. My friend and colleague gary lundy and I have a micro-press, and we have three books on the way. I am behind with getting them laid out as books, but we are excited to be publishing the three poets—Valérie Déus, DeWitt Clinton, and Jennifer Juneau.

I publish a blogZine, Meta/ Phor(e) / Play (MichaelDickel.info), where I showcase work by other authors as well as my own writing and art. It has an international flavor, with several authors published in translation (often bi-lingual publication, with the original and target language versions of the poem on the page) and writers in English from all over the world.

I would like to do a series of poems related to the weekly portions of the Torah that are read for each Shabbat (Jewish Sabbath). I have written some. There are a lot to write, yet.

I have some other ideas, but none that are formed enough to discuss now, I guess.

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.

Robert J. W.

Robert J. W. is a poet, author, and digital artist from Morgantown, WV. He’s the author of the poetry collections Houses I’ve Died In, Screamo Lullabies, and Dusty Video Game Cartridges. When not writing, he enjoys: listening to music, going for nature walks, meditating, playing video games, and watching videos.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Robertjw4688
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobertJW4688
Tumblr: http://robertjw4688.tumblr.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robertjw4688/

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

That’s kind of a funny story. I started writing short stories before I could even remember so I’ve been writing basically my whole life. When I was in middle school, I played this game called Max Payne and the main character’s poetic inner monologue really resonated with me. It inspired me to take a creative writing class in high school where we had to write poetry as an assignment. I’ve been in love ever since.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

As I said, I started writing poetry during high school so I suppose my teacher, Dr. Solomon, was my introduction.

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

I don’t think there is a dominating presence, personally. In my networking, I see many age groups writing and they all have talent.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I put on some music, have some coffee, read some writing, and start up. It’s been my routine for years now and I like to get inspired any way that I can. Music is almost always involved. Usually punk or metal.

5. What motivates you to write?

My life experiences, mostly. Music helps. So does reading. Seeing other people’s work really motivates me to better myself everyday.

6. What is your work ethic?

I try to write at least twice a day. I don’t always succeed but I’m driven to do so.

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

I read a lot of Bukowski and Henry Rollins when I was younger (and still do) so my writing will always have that tinge of darkness attached to it. Not as much as it used to, mind, but I doubt I’ll ever escape it.

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

Keith Buckley is a big influence on me because his writing is very abstract and deep. He’s the vocalist for Every Time I Die and the author of the novel Scale. I really admire James Kelley as well. His work really hits hard and makes you feel pretty much everything. I also dig William F. Devault who can write a love poem like no other. Daniel Mctaggart’s work is raw and hits like an espresso. K. Kibbee has this abstract and southern style to her that I haven’t seen anyone else able to replicate. I could go on forever…

9. Why do you write?
I suffer from anxiety and depression. Writing helps me get those feeling out in a healthy way and motivates me to keep trying.

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

Simply suffer and rise.

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

I’m putting together an as-yet untitled flash fiction collection and am also working on another poetry collection.
Robert J. W. is a poet, author, and digital artist from Morgantown, WV. He’s the author of the poetry collections Houses I’ve Died In, Screamo Lullabies, and Dusty Video Game Cartridges. When not writing, he enjoys: listening to music, going for nature walks, meditating, playing video games, and watching videos.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Robertjw4688
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobertJW4688
Tumblr: http://robertjw4688.tumblr.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robertjw4688/

 

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.

Pat Edwards in performance

Pat Edwards

My name is Pat Edwards and I’m a writer, teacher and performer from Mid Wales. I’ve been fortunate enough to get some work published in mags such as Prole, Magma, Ink Sweat & Tears, Atrium, Picaroon, The Curlew and others. I run the monthly poetry open mic nights VERBATIM in Welshpool and Montgomery. I also curate WELSHPOOL POETRY FESTIVAL. It’s been great fun responding to these questions and I hope my answers don’t sound too pretentious! Of course, very few people will have a clue who I am but that doesn’t matter. Hopefully my answers will chime with some of your readers. Thanks for inviting me.

The Interview

1. When did you start writing poetry?

The main impetus for me to start writing poetry was about four and a half years ago when I was diagnosed with bowel cancer. I became acutely aware of how little time I might have on the planet and found the process of writing a real therapy. I honestly thought that, once I was well, the urge to write would go away, but far from it. Writing has become a huge part of my life and I want more than ever to share my work with whoever will listen.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Like many people, I studied poetry at school and I do remember particularly enjoying poetry as part of my A level English course. However, my re-discovery of poetry was a more organic process that just emerged. I found an open mic night locally and then realised there were events going on all around me. I began attending readings and picking up poetry books and my interest spiralled out of control, until I was running my own nights and curating Welshpool Poetry Festival.

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

I can’t say this has been my experience. One of the nights I attend is Voicebox in Wrexham. It’s run and attended by young creatives, many of whom are under 30. It’s a vibrant, welcoming scene with spoken word, hip-hop and beat box. I love the energy of this group and the way anyone of any age or background can perform or be part of the audience. I wish other local towns could generate this kind of participation and ethos.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I don’t have a daily writing routine other than to always have a notebook at hand in case a word or phrase, or the germ of an idea, starts to formulate. I write every week though, even if it’s just a snippet.

5. What motivates you to write?

I can write in response to a prompt at a workshop, when I hear something in the news, when an emotion is swimming in my head, when I recall autobiographical events. There’s no telling what will start me off. I think I need my writing to mean something to anyone who might get to read it or hear it, so it has to include things that are worth saying, something of substance. I don’t see the point of pretty, descriptive utterances that simply reflect back to you what your own senses can absorb. I want jeopardy and challenge; I want my writing to disturb the equilibrium a bit.

6. What is your work ethic?

My work ethic is that, if I want my writing to get noticed, I have to do everything I possibly can to improve my technique, my delivery and my craft. That means accepting advice and feedback and not being crushed by the knock-backs. Most writers have been doing this all their lives; I’m new to the party and am playing catch-up. However, I also have to be me and not let anyone flush out the spark that makes me an individual.

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

If I’m honest, it’s not really those writers who currently influence me. I am very much about the more contemporary writers who I hear and read now.

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

This is the hardest question because I keep discovering writers from this country and the US who I have been introduced to at workshops or, as was the case most recently, on a wonderful Arvon course. I love the work of Helen Mort, Luke Kennard, Caroline Bird – where do I stop? Your question uses the word ‘admire’ and I think that implies there has to be something more than just an appreciation of their work. I admire the endeavour of poets who are setting out to change things or challenge the perceived conventions. I also love it when poets are generous and show real ‘evangelism’ to get poetry out there. I hope you won’t think I’m only name-checking Deborah Alma because she was generous enough to mention me in one of your interviews. She spends a great deal of her time supporting others or fighting causes such as with her #MeToo Anthology. This kind of approach can mean a writer’s own work gets neglected but it shows they love poetry and what it can bring to people’s lives. Such writers deserve admiration, don’t you think?

9. Why do you write?

I write because poetry has become the only real way I can express myself without relying on anyone else. I sing in a lovely choir but that’s a group enterprise and we all rely on one another for the sound we make. With poetry what you get is all me, some sort of condensed distillation of where I am and what I’m feeling.

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

I have no idea how you become a writer other than to commit to putting words down on paper or screen. You have to be brave enough to make the marks and edit them. It’s a leap of faith. You also have to listen and take criticism. If you mean becoming a professional writer, I think there’s a huge amount of luck involved and it’s incredibly hard to be good enough to actually make a living out of writing. Most writers I know juggle families, academic roles, have to supplement what they do with complimentary activities, in order to have the luxury of being able to spend time being creative. By the way, everyone should try writing; it’s only deadly if you bleed to death from a paper cut (I hope that’s not a thing…)

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

I want more than anything to be good enough for a publisher to say “yes, I’ll take a punt on you and publish your work”. I don’t think self-publishing is properly satisfying. So I have several pamphlet proposals and enough poems to put together for a collection and I keep looking for submission windows. I also love reading my work to an audience. I am currently working around two themes in particular – anxiety and the female experience. There seems to be an obsession with mental health, sometimes rightly so, and there’s always something to say about what it is to be a woman, to ask what that even means. Of course, as someone who runs poetry events, I am constantly working on grant applications and  invitations to poets. And I’m learning, always learning

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.

 

Matthew Paul

Matthew Paul was born in New Malden, Surrey, in 1966, read Philosophy at the University of Ulster, and lives and works on the outskirts of London. He was shortlisted for the Poetry School/Pighog Press pamphlet competition 2013, has had his poems published in a variety of publications, including Butcher s Dog, Magma, Nth Position, Poetry Ireland Review, The Rialto, and The Best New British and Irish Poets 2016 & 2017.

The Interview

1. What were the circumstances under which you began to write poetry?

I was at school. I took my O-levels in 1983, which was when my brother Adrian – who, as part of his American studies degree, was studying poets like William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens and the Beats – came back from the States. We saw the Liverpool Poets read at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon, and went to the all-day Poetry International at the Albert Hall in 1984, which is less famous than the original 1965 happening but featured most of the same poets: Adrian Mitchell, Gregory Corso and the main man, Allen Ginsberg, who accompanied himself on harmonium in a moving reading of ‘Kaddish’. Around that time, I got a copy of the Penguin Book of Japanese Verse and all the Jack Kerouac books which had been published then, including his then hard-to-find poetry like San Francisco Blues, so I started out writing very minimalist, haiku- and Imagism-flavoured Beat poetry. I daresay it was dreadful, but I read out a poem in a small creative writing class in sixth form and the teacher, Jim De Rennes, was very encouraging.

Back then, it was really hard to get hold of out-of-print books unless you had loads of spare time to ransack the Charing Cross Road, which I did a bit, so when I went to the University of Ulster in 1985, I could barely believe all the goodies in the library, especially the haiku books and the vast amounts of Irish poetry. I devoured MacNeice, Kavanagh and Murphy, and subscribed to Poetry Ireland Review. I was unlucky because Derek Mahon had just finished as Writer-in-Residence at the university; but his replacement, Martin Lynch, though a playwright, was very encouraging nonetheless, and invited me to take part in a reading – my first ever – which James Simmons headlined.

I was then beyond chuffed when the first poem I ever submitted was accepted by Dennis O’Driscoll for Poetry Ireland Review  in 1987. I thought I’d made it! I then had a few poems published in university magazines and in an American journal called Spirit and thought it was all easy. Unsurprisingly, I then had a few rejections, and I gave poems, except haiku, much less time and attention for a good few years. I had a spurt of more intensive writing in the mid-90s under the influence of Thom Gunn, Sarah Maguire, Matthew Sweeney and Susan Wicks, among others. It wasn’t until 2008 that I really seriously got back into writing longer poems again, when I attended Pascale Petit’s wonderful ‘Poetry from Art’ courses at Tate Modern, which inspired me to get my head down properly.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

My brother Adrian, Jim De Rennes and another English teacher at school , Neil Hooper, all, in their own ways, helped to bring poetry alive for me. I had to read Robert Lowell and John Donne for A-level, and whilst I wasn’t madly keen on the elaborate conceits in Donne’s poems, I loved the directness of Lowell’s poems, especially in Life Studies and For The Union Dead. I’d read poets like Heaney, Hughes (especially), Larkin and the First World War poets for O-level, but it wasn’t until I’d started reading more widely during my sixth form years that a lightbulb went on and I knew that I wanted to write poetry as well as read it.

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

I was very aware of the generations who’d shaken up the stuffiness of British society in general, and that it was visiting American writers, like Lowell, Ginsberg and Burroughs who’d paved the way for the British Counter-culture. A marvellous Channel 4 film on Basil Bunting captivated me – his example, as a humble, left-wing, pacifist and highly articulate poet quietly ploughing his own furrow, was, and remains, inspirational. I also loved the Angry Young Man and Kitchen Sink books and films, which I suppose were our nearest – albeit not very radical and male-dominated – equivalent to the Beat Generation. Beyond that, I was aware that Hughes, who’d just become Poet Laureate, Larkin, who’d recently died, and Heaney were the titans. I’m afraid I was sadly unaware of most women poets, apart from Plath (I read The Bell Jar but didn’t appreciate her poems then at all), or of poets of colour. My school was all-boys, largely White and I daresay very sexist; and the English Literature curricula were equally non-diverse. Contemporary poets were largely invisible to me, alas.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I try to write or revise poems every day, which is tricky because I have a very demanding day job which takes up a lot of my energy, but I’m not especially systematic and I don’t try to force poems out against their will. I often find that the best way to trigger poems is by reading other poets’ work. Typically enough, though, poems can start arriving at inconvenient times, e.g. during meetings at work or five minutes into a 90-minute run.

5. What motivates you to write?

Habit and the urge to “say something”, to improve as a poet and to try new things and new forms. I suppose any writer writes because they think that they have an original contribution to make.

6. What is your work ethic?

Well, it took 30 years from the publication of my first poem to the publication of my first collection, so perseverance and patience must be part of it. I try my best not to let social media take up writing time. For me, two pieces of excellent advice have stood me in great stead: firstly, to read no books other than poetry for at least a year, which I greatly enjoyed; and, secondly, to tackle ‘form’, i.e. to try writing sonnets, ballads, sestinas, whatever. I love the fact that when I start a poem I know that somehow it will find its form, which could be very formal, syllabic, free-flow free verse, whatever.

Getting feedback from others is very important to me too. I’m on the Poetry Business Writing School programme, alongside some really fantastic poets, and I (irregularly) attend a group called the Red Door Poets, so I get a fair few opportunities for workshopping poems and trying different exercises and ideas.

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

I’m not sure many of them still do, though I’ve retained a fondness for most of them. Lowell and Williams are perhaps the only ones from those days whose style has influenced me to any degree. I appreciate Heaney now much more than I did then.

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

There are so many poets I like, and all because they write poems which  are so well-honed and so beautifully readable, but here are some particular favourites, in no particular order: Paul Farley, Pascale Petit, Peter Sansom, Ann Sansom, Geoff Hattersley, Clare Pollard, Kathleen Jamie, Hugo Williams, Anne-Marie Fyfe, Tracy K. Smith, Paul Muldoon, Roger Garfitt, Sinéad Morrissey, August Kleinzahler, Zeina Hashem Beck, Sasha Dugdale, the Dickson brothers, Jacob Polley, Alice Oswald, Tracey Herd, Tim Dooley, Maura Dooley, Julia Copus, Liz Berry, John Foggin, Martina Evans, Tamar Yoseloff, Alison Brackenbury, Jean Sprackland, Nick Laird, Frances Leviston, Marion McCready, Annie Freud, Nichola Deane . . . I could go on and on!

9. Why do you write?

Because I have to. It’s an essential, wholly integral part of my life.

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

None of this is original,  and is basically common sense: read widely and read well, and practise, practise, practise your writing. Go to readings. Believe in your own ability, but always with humility, in the spirit of always wanting to improve. Don’t rush to try and get into print. When you feel you’re ready to find out what others think of your writing, take a course or two, if only for confirmation that you’re on the right lines. Only after that start submitting poems to journals. Keep at it. Don’t be complacent. Write the kind of poems you want to, rather than what someone else tells you to, and follow your instinct. When you get poems rejected, look at them with fresh eyes and ask yourself what is about them that caused them to be turned down and ask yourself if they really are the best they can be. Work hard at your craft, don’t settle for half-baking your poems and try to be your first and best critic.

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

I’ve got about two-thirds of a second collection written, provisionally named The Sugar Content. But there’s no rush: it took until 2017 to get my first collection, The Evening Entertainment, into print.

 

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.

Gabor Gyukics

gabor g gyukics (b. 1958) Hungarian-American poet, literary translator born in Budapest. He is the author of 9 books of original poetry, 6 in Hungarian, 2 in English, 1 in Bulgarian and 11 books of translations including A Transparent Lion, selected poetry of Attila József and Swimming in the Ground: Contemporary Hungarian Poetry (in English, both with co-translator Michael Castro) and an anthology of North American Indigenous poets in Hungarian titled Medvefelhő a város felett. He writes his poems in English (which is his second language) and Hungarian. His latest book in English titled a hermit has no plural was published by Singing Bone Press in the fall of 2015. His latest book in Hungarian was published by Lector Press in May 2018.
He received the Poesis 25 Prize for Poetry in Satu Mare Romania in 2015, the Salvatore Quasimodo special prize for poetry in 2012, a National Cultural Foundation grant in 2007 and a Füst Milan translator prize in 1999 and in 2017. Thanks to a CEC Arts Link grant, he established the first Open Mike and Jazz Poetry reading series in Hungary in 2000.

The Interview

What inspired you to write poetry?

Oh, I started late when I left Hungary for Holland at age 28. Then I had to do something in the new environment that consisted criminals and drug users among my friends. I had to get out. That was my first inspiration

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

I don’t remember anyone specific, yet I had amazing lit teachers, both were women, no accident there, I guess. I’ve read a lot on my own at an early age mostly Hungarian poetry and international prose.

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

I wasn’t at all, there was no one around I knew personally in Amsterdam. However, when I arrived at St. Louis, Missouri there I’ve met Michael Castro who helped me get by in the labyrinth of verses and introduced me to contemporary American poetry.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I don’t have a routine unless you call routine sitting at a café or on a porch consuming coffee and red wine and scribbling done thoughts that come around. What I usually do when I have an urge is that I gather my notes and start playing with them, feel the words and phrases out. I can’t sit down and write 8 or 9 in the morning, that is for scholars and for those who take themselves way to seriously, no offense meant.

5. What motivates you to write?

Never thought about that. What ever happens, anything that catches my attention can motivate me. Sitting at home definitely doesn’t do that, unless I read a good book like let’s say a Pynchon who I discovered right after I learned to read in English. But, when I travel or walk around anywhere or sitting somewhere with open eyes or half open eyes, that could motivate me. What other poets write and how they live have never motivated me. I’m not a copycat.

6. What is your work ethic?

Didn’t know I had one.

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

Okay, first let’s think about who I’ve read: Hungarians unknown in the Americas: Attila József, János Pilinszky, György Petri, Rezső Keszthelyi, Miklós Radnóti, Mihály Ladányi. Haven’t read much by women writers because literature just like everything else are dominated by men, which is a shame. Later I found myself Russian women poets, and of course Bulgakov, Yesenin, Mayakovski, and read most of the giants of Russian literature. About the same time, I was introduced to French and Czech-German literature and of course mainstream American prose and dada. During communism Hungarian publishers published everyone who was famous, so anyone interested could find a good read.

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

Now, that is easy. Native American poets and writers I admire the most. What they had to go through to get where they are now, or almost there is unruly. White American and world poets and writers could read them daily and learn.
Otherwise, my all-time favorite American poets are the late Ira Cohen, Wanda Coleman and Philip Lamantia and I do like the works of Sharon Olds, Robert Pinsky, Will Alexander among many. The why is that these poets, including the Native writers go beyond poetry and able to grab what is out there. If anything, that is what I’m aiming for as well.

9. Why do you write?

Is there anything else to do? I mean if I found pleasure and harmony in being carpenter or an engineer I would ask the same question.

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

Well, I felt lost, I felt cold, I left my homeland, I left my family, left my past: that shot me to the direction of writing.

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

As it might have become clear from my previous answers that I never ever had and never ever will have a poetry or prose writing project. However, I have translation project. I have an ongoing project of translating American poetry to Hungarian and vice versa. Have several anthologies out of such. As a matter of fact, at this moment I’m at the Hungarian Translator House resort in Balatonfüred where I’m working on a contemporary Hungarian poetry anthology for White Pine Press. The work of eight women and eight men poets will be transferred to English.