Interview by Zoë Brigley I write largely by ear. In my teens I was obsessed with Mozart, and folk music… and I’m absolutely sure that both of these taught me about pacing and register and the tonal possibilities of form. From Lines by Kenneth Patchen #13 It wasn’t much of a summer. You could as…
Category: Poems
Jane Burn: How I Wrote ‘Translation / Acts’
An essay by Jane Burn “Choosing the form for a poem is a process built from endless negotiations” Note: Due to the formatting style of this poem, we have had to embed it as an image rather than as text as we usually do. To read a plain text version, please see this file: On…
Gareth Writer-Davies: How I Wrote ‘A Voyage Round The Moon’
Interview by Zoë Brigley I wanted to emphasise the tradition of voyaging of slipping over the horizon to end up God-knows-where and white space was important for adding drama A Voyage Round The Moon After John Gohorry and as the voices crackled then died the craft disappeared on the far side all contact lost the…
Kostya Tsolakis: How I wrote ‘Marble bf’
Interview by Zoë Brigley I kept thinking of the block of marble – tall and narrow, I imagined – the Charioteer of Motya was carved out of… My voice, its pace, was then guided by this tall and narrow form Marble Bf But a Greek would never think of a charioteer like this. – Historian…
Amanda Rackstraw: How I Wrote ‘Rewrite’
I can be an editing bully. I believe in making words know why they are there. Rewrite In the script he sees his mother age with dignity. There’s a slowing down; then he finds her, elegant, wisdom pooling in her eyes. _____ A mollusc hauls itself across the ward, catheter swinging from Zimmer, chicken feet…
Jonaki Ray: How I Wrote ‘Moonshine’
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,…
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…