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.

Shaindel Beers

is author of the poetry collections A Brief History of Time (Salt Publishing, 2009), The Children’s War and Other Poems (Salt, 2013), and Secure Your Own Mask (White Pine Press, 2018). Her poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She is currently an instructor of English at Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton, Oregon, in eastern Oregon’s high desert, and serves as poetry editor of Contrary. 

Yiu can buy a signed copy of her latest book directly from her:  http://shaindelbeers.com  You can also purchase her books on Amazon, B&N, etc.

The Interview

When and why did you start writing poetry?

I think that most writers probably start as kids because everyone finds their art that helps them process things. Some people paint, some people dance, some people write. Poetry was the least structured and most free, so I think it chose me. My first poem I wrote, not for an assignment, was at about age ten when my cousin shot my dog. I was really distraught, and that was the way I channeled it. It was a poem with the refrain “And the cold wind blows.”

Who introduced you to poetry?

I read the regular “kids’ poetry” we all find in our elementary school readers, but I think my greatest discovery was finding my mom’s college textbooks of The Victorian Era Poets , and a volume of Byron, Keats, and Shelley. Those are what I would consider my first poetry idols, and I’m forever indebted to the Romantics, especially.

How are you “indebted”?

I learned to really value nature and nature imagery in my poetry. The egalitarian bent of their works spoke to me, and the view of the poet as the spokesman for the Everyman. I think we can look at a lot of poets who influenced us and see the wisdom of the Romantics in that. Who hasn’t gone hiking or seen a breathtaking spot in nature and thought of Wordsworth?

What is your daily writing routine?

I actually don’t have one. I do try to write whenever my students are writing. So, if I’m teaching poetry and give students a poetry prompt, I write with them. If I’m teaching fiction and give them a fiction prompt, I write with them. Otherwise, I just write whenever I can, especially if I have an idea that feels like I must get it down on paper.

What motivates you to write?

I think Robert Frost put it best when he said, “Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” Sometimes you just feel something, and poetry is the only way to channel that.

How do the writers you read when you were young influence your work today?

I think they gave me an intellectual curiosity, especially about nature. They taught me to look at the world closely, to notice a single lady bug on a Queen Anne’s Lace to listen to the sound of a river rushing around a bend and burbling over rocks. They taught me how to really see the world.

Which writers gave you this “intellectual curiosity”?

You can look at the beginning of William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence,” and it’s all there:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour

Or any of the details in Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”:

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.—

I don’t think you can read those poems and not want to go out and explore nature on your own…

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

There are so many. Jenn Givhan’s work continues to blow me away. I’ve read all of her poetry, but I have to admit I haven’t read her fiction yet. I have her novel, Trinity Sight, on its way to me now and can’t wait to read it. I love her blending of her Latinx culture and myth, her personal life. It’s so powerful. I can’t wait to see what she does with sci-fi.

I continue to be amazed by Kelly Sundberg and Alice Anderson, who both wrote memoirs that were, for me, in some ways life-changing. Kelly’s honest, complex treatment of an abusive marriage was so powerful, and the beauty of language that Alice wrote in her memoir will always stay with me. I think it’s easy to feel like you have a “big story” and forget about the beauty of language, but each word in Alice’s memoir was like the finest brush stroke on a painting.

Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

I still enjoy other arts. I sing with a local chorale, and I’m learning to do fiber arts with loom knitting. I think it’s unfair to assume that artists don’t work in various media. Writing is among the easiest arts for anyone to try because you don’t really need any “tools,” like you do with visual arts or instrumental music, but I do think we should all take part in as many artistic endeavours as we can to discover what we enjoy and what we feel drawn to.

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

I really feel like there is only one piece of advice. You have to read. Read everything in your chosen genre that you can get your hands on, and then read everything in your non-fiction interests, whatever those may be because those are your passions, and they’ll find their way into your work, so you’ll want to know everything about them you can. If your interest is nature — read nature books, science journals, etc. If your interest is history, read history and biographies. That’s the only way you can do a deep dive into your work.

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

I recently took Kathy Fish’s Fast Flash Workshop, which was AMAZING, so I’ve been working on sending out those short stories. I tend to switch back and forth between genres. Since the big push to get my third (poetry) book out there and spend time promoting it, I wanted to switch gears and work on fiction for a while. I’ve been working with an editor on one piece, and she’s had such insightful questions for me. I hope to really hone this particular story into something special and can’t wait to see what it becomes!

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.

Yvonne Reddick

is a poet, editor and scholar. Her work appears in newspapers and magazines such as The Guardian Review, Poetry Ireland Review and PN Review. She has received a Northern Writer’s Award (2016), the Mslexia magazine women’s poetry pamphlet prize (2017), a Hawthornden Fellowship (2017), a commendation in the National Poetry Competition, the Poetry Society’s inaugural Peggy Poole Award (2018), and first prize in Ambit’s poetry competition (2019). Her poetry pamphlet Spikenard is published in the Laureate’s Choice series. She is an editor at Magma and co-edited Issue 75 in 2019. Her latest book is Ted Hughes: Environmentalist and Ecopoet.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

I was lucky enough to be surrounded by rhymes and stories when I was growing up – playground chants, school songs, tall tales. My parents read me Hiawatha, an epic poem, and The Hobbit, an epic containing plenty of poetry. I still have rhymes that I wrote while I was at primary school, complete with spelling mistakes!

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

My English teacher at secondary school in Kuwait was a huge influence. She was wonderful. I can’t have been more than 9 or 10 when we read ‘The Early Purges’ by Seamus Heaney. It certainly made an impression on me! Much later, at university, Peter Manson and David Morley encouraged me to keep writing.

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

As a teenager, I was very aware of the authors anthologised in Alvarez’s The New Poetry. My father had a copy of the revised edition, brimming with notes in his schoolboy scrawl. The poetry wasn’t particularly ‘new’, and Plath and Sexton were long dead by the time I read the anthology. My Dad also had the facsimile edition of Eliot’s drafts of The Waste Land, in which Ezra Pound writes what every poet fears their mentor will tell them: ‘B—ll—s.’

The only truly contemporary poet I read in detail at school was Carol Ann Duffy. Mean Time manages to be both philosophical and devastatingly witty, and I expect that a generation of women poets have found Duffy’s work enabling.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I normally write on the TransPennine Express, from my workplace in Preston to my home in Manchester. I’m getting better at setting aside dedicated writing time, and often write in the evenings.

5. What motivates you to write?

I’ll usually get started with a line, a title or an idea. Sometimes it’s the momentum of a long sequence. I spend a long time redrafting, and will do so in meticulous detail. I begin to feel stressed and out of sorts if I go for too long without writing – being creative does wonders for my wellbeing.

6. What is your work ethic?

Protestant on Sundays and non-existent on holiday.

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

Richard Adams’s Watership Down has a lot to answer for. I read it at primary school, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop wanting to read environmental writing. I published a book about Ted Hughes’s environmentalism two years ago, so The New Poetry can claim responsibility for a lasting interest!

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

That’s difficult, as there are so many I admire! Karen McCarthy Woolf’s collections are beautifully crafted – the balance between the personal and the universal is very carefully struck, and the formal devices she uses in Seasonal Disturbances have a virtuoso brilliance. Isabel Galleymore’s first collection contains highly distinctive environmental poetry, and I’ve just had the pleasure of reading her first academic book.

I always show my undergraduates work by Pascale Petit and Vahni Capildeo, who have remarkably perceptive ways of looking at animals. Sandeep Parmar and Fiona Benson interpret myths from fresh angles, making them stunningly contemporary – I like to share their poems with the students. When the undergraduates are studying the sonnet, they get Zaffar Kunial’s ‘The Lyric Eye’ and ‘The Swear Box’ by Michael Donaghy. I suppose the poetry I share with people is a good indicator of what I admire!

9. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

I’m terrible at drawing and I don’t know how to make films!

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

First, read as much of the good stuff as you can lay your hands on. Then, find a writing group, a writing course, or some friends who write. They’ll be able to give you feedback and keep you motivated. If you want to be a poet, start sending work out to magazines, build up a track record, then see if you can get a pamphlet out… then maybe a collection…

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

I’ve just finished editing Magma’s 75th issue, on the theme of loss. I received thousands – literally thousands – of excellent poems, and I’m helping Magma to arrange readings for the poets published in the issue. I’ve been running writing workshops for people who have been bereaved, and will start some new ones at Lancashire’s NHS Recovery College in January.
I’m slowly pulling my poems together into sequences, and am trying to work with longer, more experimental forms. Climate change, and my ancestors’ work in fossil fuel industries from coal to oil, are huge preoccupations for me at the moment.

Magma – Loss Issue:

Magma 75

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/09/08/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-reuben-woolley/

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/12/29/a-cold-soil-waiting-by-reuben-woolley/

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2017/12/06/broken-stories-by-reuben-woolley/

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/08/06/wombwell-rainbow-book-interviews-hall-of-several-tortures-by-reuben-woolley/

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/01/27/excellent-artistry-in-words-and-pictures-for-holocaust-memorial-day/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb-7kQgRxuaDxINMCjMz2cg

2 poems by Paul Brookes https://burninghousepress.com/2019/11/24/2-poems-by-paul-brookes/ via @thearsonista

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.

I politely asked her for permission to use the images and biography on her website but got no reply.

Dr. Kate Fox

 

The Interview

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

Being very young & liking the sounds of words & the patterns they could make.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

My Mum read things like The Lady of Shallot out loud. She used the write light verse herself, though never mentioned it when she was alive. She wasn’t generally encouraging of what I did though as any praise was seen as encouraging you to get “too big for your boots”.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?
I don’t understand the question. When do you mean? I was introduced to poetry at about the age of 8…

4. I understand. To expand on the question what other older poets did your mum introduce to you, read aloud to you?

That one poem was it I think. Possibly some others in an old fashioned Household Compendium Book. Then I was given as gifts things like Kit Wright’s poems & AA Milne.

5. Poets often use the first poems they hear as models for their early work. How did this work for you?

Lots of playful rhyming poems…

4. How important is playing and experimenting with words to the work you do now?

It IS the work I do now

5. What is your daily writing routine?

It’s not always daily. I might have a gig or a workshop or a meeting. I tend to write in the afternoons once the admin’s been done, the dog walked & lunch eaten. The place where I get the most bubbling-up urge to just write something is often at a reading whilst hearing other poets. Not always the most practical place to actually write.

Other poets spoken images and words motivate you to write. What else motivates you?

6. The urge to say something I can’t say elsewhere. Anger, fear, confusion at a massive irony.

7. What do you mean by “massive irony”?

Usually a gap between rhetoric & reality. For example, the government talking about the country all being in austerity together but then there being much less money given to Northern councils.

8. Poetry as pointing out and emphasising these disparities in
society?

Exactly. Showing up the evasions and gaps in official or commercial discourse.

9. What poets you read when younger encouraged you to see the role of the poet as radical and campaigning?

Your question assumes there were some.

10. Or not. If there weren’t any that’s fine, too. Motivation can emerge from other areas of life too.

I’m quite interested in questions. I think all of your questions assume something. (That someone introduced me to poetry, that I knew about “dominating older” poets, that first models of poems influenced what I do now. etc).  Being asked a series of leading, assumptions questions like this reminds me that what I most value about poetry is the poetry that doesn’t assume things. That asks genuinely open questions. I’ve trained as a journalist, a counsellor and an ethnographer, so that open but active listening is important to me. My poetry doesn’t always do it but I’d like it to. If your questions are getting to get to what I think poetry is, it’s almost the opposite of your questions. It’s the rupture that is me getting a bit fed up with it and pointing it out to you. It’s the subsequent risk and release. And the freedom to say-you’ve taken up enough of my time now (a precious hour). I have other things to do. I love poetry’s brevity. How it doesn’t assume people have a whole hour to spare.

11. I apologise for wasting your hour, Kate.

It’s not a waste of an hour but I’m surprised you assumed I’d have so much time to spare at such short notice. Rather than a “flowing” chat, it’s been some leading questions, full of assumptions. The opposite of conversation or dialogue. But your questions really have sparked off my realisation about what poetry is to me. Happy for you to publish this. But now I have to go get ready to do a gig tonight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Hundred-Memories-Alzheimers-Society/dp/1999962591/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=One+hUNDRED+Memories&qid=1574796815&sr=8-1

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.