Interview by Zoë Brigley I enjoy the challenge of writing something in such a concise and precise manner because it makes me attempt to fine-tune my thoughts. Moonshine At the Goa and Karnataka border, India Liquor, bootlegged across the river, is what this village was once famous for, but now, alcohol is a banished word,…
Category: Poems
Julie Irigaray: How I Wrote ‘GROWING UP IN A GARRISON TOWN’
Interview by Zoë Brigley I felt this poem had to work rhythmically, like the steps in a military march. GROWING UP IN A GARRISON TOWN I never notice the bursts of gunfire on the other side of the river the shops selling military outfits the university library’s 19th century cannons stored between each reading room…
Patrick Jones: How I Wrote ‘THIS GUITAR SILENCES FASCISTS’
Photo credit::Lucy Purrington | Interview by Zoë Brigley I don’t think of my work as having a song-like structure, as to me poetry is more free and I believe you can craft a poem in any way you like… I like to follow the inner voice and see where it leads THIS GUITAR SILENCES FASCISTS…
Mari Ellis Dunning: How I Wrote ‘Blessings for the Women’
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…
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…