“When I’m writing something new, I tend to let it splurge out however it lands, without thinking about form too much, as this holds me back during this initial draft. Then I curate the form more carefully when editing.”
“I have always felt that risk could energise a poem and that the reader might feel the heat being generated”
“[This] poem represents the beginning of a willingness to engage in this new awe of the self through the prism of ancestry. It is an act of seeking permission to pursue this new wonder.”
“My poet mind is far wiser than I am. It takes me awhile to catch up with it.”
“They came in like flashes, in fragments—a tapestry of thoughts. Writing poetry in a language that is not native to me, in a sense makes me think of ways or approach the English language in a different angle.”
“I find that some poems I write, luckily, just seem to happen – I might get a first line, like a fish biting, and then, if I have time, I let the poem unfold itself, and see where that line takes me”
“One piece of advice is… to not worry about whether anyone’s going to see the work; to make, to immerse yourself in your work and enjoy it. And don’t make it for anything in particular, but just make it for the sake of making, because [the] kind of creativity where you don’t kind of shoebox yourself into thinking we have to be one thing or another, that’s very liberating.”
“After the brain haemorrhage I was put on very heavy sleeping tablets, and when they kicked in I began to write poetry, then I’d wake and find streams of subconscious thoughts, odd typos, and nonsense words which I’d later edit into a poem while conscious.”
“I hoped that if the reader could feel what that walk was physically like, they would bring their own memories into the poem”
