“I have always felt that risk could energise a poem and that the reader might feel the heat being generated”
Author: Tim Relf
D.A. Prince: How I Wrote ‘3.00 a.m.’
“I hoped that if the reader could feel what that walk was physically like, they would bring their own memories into the poem”
Kim Moore: How I Wrote ‘A Psalm for the Scaffolders’
“I always write in prose first, longhand in my notebook, like I’m talking to someone”
Ben Wilkinson: How I Wrote ‘What the Doorman Says’
Interview by Tim Relf I’m after the truth in my poems… not some misguided loyalty to ‘what actually happened’. I don’t believe any of us are reliable narrators of events, even to ourselves What the Doorman Says With a nod to C.R. That he could kill for a smoke. That the punters get older every…
Owen Sheers: How I Wrote ‘The Farrier’
Interview by Tim Relf “When you start writing a poem you have to be prepared to walk boldly into failure.“ Content warning: mention of domestic abuse The Farrier Blessing himself with his apron, the leather black and tan of a rain-beaten bay, he pinches a roll-up to his lips and waits for the mare to…