“[Voices] were the first musical instruments, therefore all poetry has a music, and in some cases rhyme, repetition, and participation built into it…”
Category: Interviews
Shefali Banerji: How I Wrote ‘Fine Print’
“… I do love how language evolves within a certain context. How a word when taken from one language is reborn in another. How it switches, changes, subverts its past meaning in its new form.”
Matthew M. Cariello: How I Wrote ‘The Cowbird’
“The writing process involved the two competing impulses – invention and harmony.”
Andrea Witzke Slot : How I Wrote ‘Showering my mother on her 60th wedding anniversary’
Interview by George Sandifer-Smith There are so many ways we “speak” as humans even when we don’t utter a sound. Showering my mother on her 60th wedding anniversary She eyes me cautiously, shivering as she steps on the cold tiles. I move as I might in a forest when watching a bird, knowing the smallest shudder…
Ben Wilkinson: How I Wrote ‘What the Doorman Says’
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 year. That really, he…
Lily Blacksell: How I Wrote ‘Noontime Newtown’
Interview by Zoë Brigley That’s how a lot of my poems start really, a flimsy reference or a bad joke Noontime Newtown Easy girl easy the harbourmaster told me like he thought I was his horse or stoppable what are you doing running in this heat why’ve you come this way at such low tide…
Charlie Baylis: How I Wrote ‘i’m still looking for the perfect lover’
Interview by George Sandifer-Smith Some people like to articulate why things are good or bad, but I don’t think it is as fun as writing or reading poetry, so I’ll leave that to people with grand ideas/ more time/ on their / hands i’m still looking for the perfect lover for julia it’s like when…
Cheryl Moskowitz: How I Wrote ‘This Pot of Earth’
Interview by Zoë Brigley Nearly all my poems begin as scrawled notes in a notebook, often so messy I can barely read my own writing. This Pot of Earth I do not know why I keep watering this pot of earth with no bloom, except that nothing that thirsts should be left to go dry….
Owen Sheers: How I Wrote ‘The Farrier’
“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 be led from the…