Interview by Frances Turpin “The stories I tell are not my own – they are fictionalised, though entirely plausible scenarios“ A note from Poetry Wales: Although in this interview we are discussing cis women’s experience, Poetry Wales acknowledges that people of all genders can have wombs and become pregnant, and the erosion of the right…
Category: Interviews
Annaka Saari: How I Wrote ‘Learning to Be Flexible’
Interview by Taylor Edmonds “Inspiration is useful, but the routine is vital… Weekends are dedicated to my creative work, and I guard that time closely. Mornings are for revision and research. Afternoons are for first drafts and experiments. Evenings are for friends.” Learning to Be Flexible When I could not do full splits, the ballet…
Michelle Diaz: How I Wrote ‘The fridge’
Interview by Zoë Brigley I never consciously use repetition in my work, but I have noticed I have started to use this technique a little more in recent poems. The muse has chosen it, it seems! The fridge The fridge put his tongue in my mouth at a party when I was twelve years old. The…
Cliff Forshaw: How I Wrote ‘RE:VERB’
I wanted the freedom to move between different forms: couplet, sonnet, quatrain, ballad, but my Rimbaud always speaks in verse, no matter how loose Several years ago I had a residency in France and, in between drinking wine and weekends being a flâneur in Paris, spent my time translating French poets. I worked my way through the…
Rose Rouse: How I Wrote ‘Notes on the Lure’
Interview by Zoë Brigley “I think poetry and prose… provide important ways of breaking into those taboos such as sex and death when it comes to older people“ Notes on the Lure We squat beneath a black umbrella in Morfa Bychan as the much younger pair strip off, naked amid the pelt and fury of drip…
Hollie McNish: How I Wrote ‘an apology and a warning to my local bookshops’
Photo credit: Helmi Okbara | Interview by Zoë Brigley Hollie McNish, author of Slug (available in paperback from all good bookshops now) discusses her poem written in celebration of Independent Bookshop Week (18-25 June) an apology and a warning to my local bookshops almost every week a family member sends me a photograph of my book in a local bookshop…
Matthew Smith: How I Wrote ‘As if this is a Dreamscape’
Interview by Peter Molnar [Content warning for trypanophobia/fear of needles] A punchy, intriguing ending can hold me in its thrall as a reader As if this is a Dreamscape Lantis Insulin Driver, 7:43am. A needle pricked to skin’s breaking, the driver clicking, a cold burn streaking, seeping through this strip of fatty tissue. Cold…
Kate Noakes: How I Wrote ‘Hair’s Breadth’
Interview by Zoë Brigley There are many poems concerned with other breath related topics from different cultures and geographies. This is one such. Hair’s breadth I The child watches a pair of hares chase around the paddock by the holiday cottage. Rime has whitened grass and gorse in every field from there to the edge…
Rhys Owain Williams: How I Wrote ‘Mother and Child’
Interview by Zoë Brigley I think I write poetry by ear too, writing and rewriting lines repeatedly until they sound ‘right’ when I read them aloud Mother and Child Josef Herman, oil on canvas, c. 1945–50 Unhappy days for you, now, are few – yet this dull lunchtime seems to hang. On your iPad, you…