“I had a sudden fantasy that the man and the bookshop only existed on Tuesday afternoons, that place and time had merged into one, and everyone else I passed on that brief walk to the leisure centre seemed to me part of that imaginary Tuesday world.”
“As you see, back then it was such a man’s world. Thank heavens for finding Sylvia Plath, whom I read over and over. Things only got more complicated when I began coming out.”
Read Jonathan Edwards’ exclusive interview with Paul Henry.
“I see and hear things at this hour that might be lost later in the day when texts and emails and schedules and all the to-do’s crowd in.”
“It is a kind of temporary obsession”
“I have to come to terms with how the very act of writing poetry for me must both resist and succumb to a racialised assemblage.”
Slowly, in starts and fits, Words resistant, fighting each other Not to come out, who must go first Into that opening line of fire. Who should lead the second paragraph, Demand a full stop. Now, Before the meaning becomes serious, The commission fulfilled. Why not go for coffee instead, Phone a friend, drive me to…
“[W}e’re long past the point where a straight white male poet can be swaggering or ‘unreliable’ with impunity”
“Write freely and richly, notice the rhythm and the images that float around it, and walk with these first beginnings, since pace helps the poem to find itself and its own way.”
