Interview with Galway Poet Kevin Higgins

Continuing my repostings of interviews for January, here's Kevin Higgins whose next collection of poetry, The Ghost in The Lobby, will be published in February 2014, Salmon.

Kevin Higgins the well known Galway poet graciously agreed to be interviewed about his journey to poetry and about the well known Poetry nights under the Over the Edge banner.

Thanks very much for agreeing to this interview and welcome to writing.ie. Could you introduce yourself to the readers please?

 

I was born in London in 1967 to Irish parents (both of whom were originally from County Galway). We moved back to Galway (City) in 1974; so I grew up mostly here. From the age of 15-27, I was an active member of Militant, the predecessor to Joe Higgins’s Socialist Party, both here in Galway and then later in London, where I was very involved in the anti-poll tax movement in the early nineties. I was chair of the local branch of the campaign Enfield Against The Poll Tax.

I moved back to Galway in 1994 and began writing poetry in late 1995. I’ve published three collections of poetry, ‘The Boy With No Face’ (Salmon, 2005); ‘Time Gentlemen, Please’ (Salmon, 2008) and ‘Frightening New Furniture’ (Salmon, 2010). I also have some poems in the Bloodaxe anthology, edited by Roddy Lumsden, ‘Identity Parade: New British and Irish Poets’ (2010).

With my wife, Susan Millar DuMars, I co-organise Galway City’s literary events organisation, Over The Edge. I teach creative writing at Galway Technical Institute, at Westside Library locally and on the Brothers of Charity ‘Away With Words’ programme. I facilitate a range of poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre, have been Writer-in-Residence at Merlin Park Hospital since 2007 and am the poetry critic of The Galway Advertiser. I am, as you can see, far too busy most of the time.

How did you first get into poetry?
The impending world revolution I’d been hoping for had failed to materialise and I’d come face to face with the reality that most of the organisations on the far political left, such as the one I’d been a member of, were/are very dodgy outfits in terms of the way they run their affairs. 1995 was a kind of delayed ‘gap year’ for me.

I began writing poetry in late 1995 immediately after the divorce referendum campaign, in which I was very involved on the Yes side. I collapsed with a terrible flu at the end of that. And that was it, active politics was over for me from then on really. A man called Andy Johnston had lent me a computer. I started writing on that. The poems were terrible, of course. But I had great fun and took what I was doing immensely seriously. Maureen Gallagher, another Galway poet, gave me a book called ‘The Penguin Book of The Beats’ for my twenty ninth birthday in April 1996. And I was away, writing poems and reading poetry anthologies fairly voraciously too. I also wrote a novel, a couple of plays and even a few screen plays. But it was always the poetry I came back to.

What do you consider the highlights so far?

I would say being included in Roddy Lumsden’s anthology ‘Identity Parade: New British & Irish Poets’ (Bloodaxe, 2010). I remember buying the predecessor to that anthology ‘The New Poetry’ (Bloodaxe, 1993) just after I’d started writing. That was a big one. Having a poem published in The Irish Times last year. Going to read in places like New York, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, West Virginia, Washington DC and Athens. Athens in 2008 was particularly magical. Having one of my poems, ‘Letter To A Full Time Revolutionary’, quoted on The Guardian website during the financial crash in 2008…

Tell us a bit about the Over the Edge and how it started?

It was Susan’s idea; she felt that there weren’t enough reading platforms for new writers in Galway. The Over The Edge: Open Readings in Galway City Library have from the beginning maintained the format of three featured readers, plus an open-mic with a limit of (usually) eight readers reading one poem each. Susan is the ideas person, I’m the executioner, as it were. It was a simply idea, like all the best ones.

What do you think about the perceived split in poems for the stage and for the page?

There is a genuine issue, but most of what has been written about this is hypocritical rubbish. There have been, and continue to be, those who attack poetry slams and open-mics (and the poetry which emerges from them) for no other reason than that they have personal grievances against the organisers of said poetry slams and open-mics. There have been those who have joined in with these attacks having themselves competed in poetry slams repeatedly. One of the sad, little bands that make up what might be called the ‘anti-slam party’ actually accepted the job of judging a major poetry slam a while ago. These people make a lot of noise but could be counted on the fingers of one hand, with some spare fingers left over. They are not to be taken seriously.

This might come as a surprise to you, but I have no interest at all in ‘stage’ poetry which doesn’t also work on the page. If the work is all performance and no interesting new metaphors, no startling little similes, then however groovy your sunglasses are, I’d rather read The Financial Times. The new poets who interest me most, people such as Elaine Feeney, Sarah Clancy, Mary Madec, Dave Lordan and Colm Keegan (to name just a few) are those whose poetry works on both levels. I think that these poets are the real new movement in contemporary Irish poetry. In contrast, poets who don’t rigorously workshop their poems or submit their work to magazines, but just read at open-mics and slams always seem to me to end up producing poems that are way too long and full of bombast and air. The literary equivalent of flatulence. They are almost always male.

But, as I say, those poets who manage to both write well and perform well are hugely interesting to me.

What advice would you give to new writers now?

Work on your writing, then send it out; read it to an audience any chance you get and take any constructive feedback you get. If someone suggests a way you can make a poem or story better, then take that advice very seriously. If on the other hand you encounter destructive feedback, the only purpose of which is to discourage you from writing at all, then smile and thank the person in question but never ever listen to another word they say. When a friend of yours wins a competition you also entered be GENUINELY happy for them. Jealousy will destroy you, if you let it in the door at all.

What magazines, poets, presses and/or online sites do you read regularly and recommend?

I love Magma magazine, based in London, also the Upstart.ie website, the brainchild of Kit Fryatt and co. The Irish Left Review website is becoming an important literary outlet, which says something about the times we’re living in. A favourite poet of mine would be Charles Simic, but I also love the Augustan poets of the 18th Century, Swift and Pope and co. In terms of presses, I have to say Salmon, but I mean it too. Jessie Lendennie does amazing work. And Bloodaxe for all the great anthologies they do.

What have you got coming up both at Over the Edge and for yourself?

I have a collection of my essays and book reviews, ‘Mentioning The War,’ coming out early next year from Salmon. Susan and I are going to do some readings in Australia in November, which should be great.

In terms of Over The Edge, we have our first Over The Edge: Open Reading after the summer break on August 25th. Clare Pollard is one of the readers. Very much looking forward to hearing her. That same evening we’ll also be announcing the shortlist for this year’s Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition; the judge this year is Elaine Feeney. Later on the in the Autumn we have our third annual Fiction Slam, at which the Featured Reader (and one of the judges) will be Emer Martin. That’s always a highlight.

Interview with Poet, Dave Lordan

Continuing my repostings of interviews for January, here's Dave Lordan who recently edited the anthology New Planet Cabaret published by New Island.

 I have to warn you now that there are bad words in the following interview. So if you are of a nervous disposition or know you are easily offended, please stop reading now.

yes, now

Still with me? Well, you have been warned.

But frankly, the bad words are not used in bad way, in my honest opinion. To be specific, cunt is used as a reported word of another writer who was, in turn, reporting the word and was actually talking, I'm told, about pudenda. And nigger was used as reported speech in a terrific, well known poem published in an award-winning collection.

There is also a drug reference (maybe more. I'm not very savvy and lots go right over my head.) I've heard and read the poem before and thought it was about cars. And his poems are not all to everyone's tastes, but whose are? The interview is challenging, arresting and well worth a read.

I don't know who the interviewer is but the questions are spot on. So without further delay, may I introduce you to the wonderful, the mad, bad and dangerous to drink coffee with, poet Dave Lordan.

1. How did your readings go at the Dun Laoghaire Festival - what were you most pleased with?


They went well. As I recite by heart, rather than read, it's a little bit more of an effort and a bit more nervewracking to go before an audience then if you've got a book to prop you up. I didn't drop a line and paced and pitched things well. I got good feedback too, compliments from unexpected quarters etc.

Though I felt, as did many of the other readers, that I was at the bottom of well, or a coal mine, staring out at total black because of the absurd set up with the lights in the Pavillion. It felt a little like I was all alone up there (Don Paterson was worried that when the lights went on it would reveal a theatre full of Orcs) but, you know, that lonesomeness suits the theme and tenor of some of my work. I'm not necessarily seeking a connection all the time. Sometimes it's good to feel the distance between yourself and other people.

When you’re invited to read at a festival, how do you prepare? Do you approach each festival the same?

Every festival is different. I think about what kind of audience is going to be there and what I would like to say to them and how I would like to treat (and be treated by) that particular audience. I prepare by rehearsing the pieces I have chosen to read, though I always leave the door open to surprise and spontaneity too, if the occasion produces it.

What value do you think literary festivals offer writers and readers?

I think they offer us the chance to discover things about each other that we otherwise would not. Proximity means, as it does in other situations, that prejudices we might hold about each other are stripped way.

What was your Dun Laoghaire festival highlight? 

There were several highlights.

Anne Carson's esoteric yet mesmeric lecture on the untranslatable in all of us which featured Bacon, Joan of Arc, Velazquez and Celan. Heather McHugh's poems about cunts and ornithological glossaries, Don Paterson's discourse on the poetics of Battlestar Galactica, Borbalo Farago reading Anne Hartigan's poem On Letting Go, the Yeatsian electioneering of David Norris, Nuala Ni Dhomhaill's Merfolkery, Belinda Mckeon reading Heaney's astounding poem Had I not been awake...

On the other hand there was some dreadfully pretentious claptrap spouted too, a lot of of sub-Cage carry on about silence and silences and the 'white spaces' on the page, as if some sort of great aesthetic or philosophical breakthrough was being made when, as Ni Dhomhaill once said about virtual reality, the dogs down in Kerry know all about it. Even if it makes me unsophisticated I'd still like to think that poetry is far more to do with breaking silences, and with the substance of words, rather than with blankness and non-expression. It's obvious to me that contemporary writers who go on about silence and white spaces are really telling us- from a space of great privilege normally- that they have, in fact, nothing to say and no need to say it. I'd say that if David McSavage and John Colleary were there they got some good material for The Savage Eye.

Do you have a poem you would like to share with us?

Ode on winning of de Entente Florale

For Joseph Lordan

Told ye so. Told ye we could win it
‘Spite de filth o' de likes o' ye
With yere baseball caps and yere baggy pants
Yere ghetto blasters and yere nigger music
Yere flagons and yere Mitsoobeachies*
And de trainee hoors hanging offa ye.

Rollin in muck ye are, de flays ating ye.
Manged an’ stinkin like tinkers’ mares
like yere faaders and mudders before ye
but I’d say yere not too sure who bore ye
Shir who pished you out Twishty? De milkman?
De coalman? One o' Fossetts’ weepin clowns?

This here’s ‘come a champion little town
All down to good people like me.
We’ve patched every crack with vines ,
Blossoms cover every stain. Tis like paradise,
‘ceptin ye, ye shnakes, ye divils, ye dirty filthy
feckin animals. Ye give us all a bad name.

*Mitsubishis are a brand of E

Interview with poet Leeanne Quinn

Continuing my repostings of interviews, here's Leeanne Quinn

Hello Leeanne and welcome to emergingwriter. How did you first get into Poetry?

As an adolescent I was very much committed to the idea of being a writer although I had little or no concept of how that was going to be achieved but it was always my answer to the ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’ question. I loved poetry at school and my Soundings copy was well worn but it wasn’t until I came to college that I started to actually concentrate on writing. I began with some very badly written short stories until I had to concede that the form just wasn’t right for me, it wouldn’t yield so to speak, and I suppose gradually I started to realise that the shape I wanted to give to words was suited to verse. Something seemed to click into place for me when I abandoned my attempts at prose and turned to poetry. So I wrote and kept the poems mainly to myself until I gathered up the courage to attend a poetry writing class at the Irish Writers’ Centre with Maggie Smith Hurt, who now co-runs the Big Smoke Writing Factory, and I’ve been writing poetry since.

What did you study in college and where? Were you writing at college or after?

I did Arts in UCD. Initially I studied English, History and Philosophy. In first year I applied for a place in Mode One English which meant I was able to study English solely for my remaining two years. This was brilliant for me because as much as I enjoyed my other subjects, I really wanted the opportunity to focus all my attention on English. I absolutely loved it and was lucky to be part of a very dedicated and talented class. After UCD I did an MA in UCC and wrote a thesis on Virginia Woolf and Wyndham Lewis. I really enjoyed my time in Cork, the UCC campus, the city- it was a great experience.

Then it was back to Dublin for my PhD and it was at Trinity that I really started to concentrate and focus on my poetry. By this stage I think I was running out of steam in terms of the academic side of things. I was writing on the fiction of Philip Roth and was going through the ups and downs of what felt like, and what was, a very long haul. I was reading and reading but seemed to be hitting a wall in the actual writing of the thesis. I think I very much took solace in writing poetry at that time, and the more I wrote the further it took me from the actual academic work of writing the thesis. Shortly after I finished the thesis, I put together a manuscript of about thirty poems and was starting to think about where I could send them.

 What do you remember about your first publication?

I remember it very well, the excitement and in many ways the sense of reward for the hard work and dedication. I was in Trinity at the time and I had sent a poem into West47 online. They accepted the poem and I’m very happy to say that it has made it into the book. It’s called ‘In Paint’ and it was the first poem I wrote that felt different to what I had been writing previously. So it was very nice to have it accepted for publication.

I was very proud of it and it definitely made me more determined to bring my writing to the centre of what I was doing and to take it out of the ‘dabbling’ or ‘hobby’ region.

I think that can be the case for a lot of people. With your first publication you go from a place of being almost embarrassed about the fact that you write to a place of encouragement and reassurance, however slight this may be. I think it’s very important and can be a real boost for someone just starting out.

Can you talk a little about the Faber course, why you chose to do it and what you got out of it?

I saw the Faber course advertised shortly after I submitted my PhD thesis. I sent in an application and a sample of my work and was accepted onto the course. It was a big decision for me as the fee was considerable but I applied thinking that I may not even get the place. When I was accepted, financing it became my biggest worry but I weighed things up and decided to go for it. The course was led by poet Paul Perry and I met a fantastic group of people who were seriously committed to writing. As well as forming creative friendships, I would say the main thing I got from the course was discipline. It was a very productive six months for me.

How did the collection, Before You come about (available to purchase here)?

The collection came about when I started to look at the material I had in terms of a manuscript. I began to see a narrative emerge and worked to bring the poems together in a way that gave them a sense of connectedness, and a continuity of theme. Pat Boran came to speak at the Faber poetry course I was attending. He talked about the business of publication, his role as an editor and what he looks for in poetry. I was very impressed by what he had to say and I was drawn to Dedalus Press as a forward looking press. So I sent off my manuscript and was extremely happy that Pat liked the work. Once it was accepted, I moved from considering what I had as a manuscript to viewing it in terms of a book, which changed in some ways my relationship to the material. I began to look at it as objectively as I could and the decision process started in terms of what stayed and what went.

What advice would you have for writers starting out who don't choose to go the academic route?

I don’t think the academic route is a necessary path to take if you're interested in writing fiction or poetry. I chose to study English because I was drawn to books and reading and probably because I wanted to write and thought this would be the way to go about it but I soon realised that, aside from the fact that you read a lot of books, the disciplines are very different. A creative voice is very different to a critical and analytical voice. In many ways I’m thankful for choosing Philip Roth as a topic- he’s about as far from poetry as you can get! I think regardless of your career path or profession, if you write the commitment required is the same. Read as much as you can, expose yourself to as much poetry as possible, write and rewrite, and try to find fellow writers who you can share your work with in an objective yet nurturing manner.

What magazines do you read and which would you recommend for people new to Poetry?

I read a wide variety of poetry magazines and journals, both print and online. I would recommend The Stinging Fly, The SHOp, Southword, Poetry Ireland Review, and The Moth. I’ve also just been reading the Burning Bush 2 online. Outside of Ireland, I would recommend Poetry magazine and Agenda. Poets.org, Poetry Foundation and The Poetry Archive are also great online poetry resources as of course is writing.ie!

Thanks Leeanne and good luck

Interview with Poet, Peadar O'Donoghue

Continuing my repostings of interviews for January, here's Peadar O'Donoghue whose first collection, Jewel was published by Salmon and whose magazine The Poetry Bus goes from strength to strength.

 Peadar O'Donoghue is a poet, well-connected blogger and now editor of the Poetry Bus.

Hi Peadar, thanks for agreeing to this interview. How did you first get into poetry?

I had never been into poetry and never read much of it at all. But I had written some words a bit like poetry, purely awful stuff as a teenager and beyond. I've always felt drawn to writing (if not reading) but was never encouraged, particularly at school where I was either ignored or savagely criticized for bad handwriting etc etc..In fact the only two things that school taught me was

1. I was stupid and
2. That I didn't belong.

It's taken a lifetime (so far) to try and address maybe even unlearn those lessons. Paradoxically they make great ingredients for a poet - even a rubbish one like me, so thanks school!

Anyways I moved back to Ireland and was staying with my cousin in Bray. I learned that there was a poetry group that met in a bar so I went along 2 or 3 times and drank and sang a lot and some eager beaver enquired where they could send their poetry for publication and Poetry Ireland Review was mentioned, I'd never heard of it (or any poetry mags) but later got the address and sent some poems off and they were swiftly (and rightly) rejected. I sent some more a good bit later to the newly installed editor Maurice Harmon, who must indeed be a kindly man, he took the shortest one and squeezed it in and that made me think maybe I could be a poet.

Tell us about the Poetry Bus.

It's just brilliant! Wonderful, marvelous, I love it! It's a magazine of contemporary poetry and illustration and now the latest issue comes with a FREE audio CD of 42 poems and two songs one from living legend Martin Egan and one from on the up band The Souterrain.

Image copyright Adam Neate and courtesy of Elms Lesters Gallery.
You don't even have to like poetry to love it! See here to buy a copy.

Where did the idea to start it as a magazine come from?

On my quest to be the worlds greatest poet/photographer/spaceman, I started a blog called totalfeckineejit and I dedicated a LOT of time and effort to it, in some ways it's some of my best writing (in parts!) and I got a few followers many of whom were interested in poetry. I happened on an experimental idea that we (all the bloggers) should sit down at the same time across the world on a given date and time and write a poem to see if their were any similarities in the writing, anything in the zeitgeist as it were.

There wasn't really, but I liked the exercise and thought it might be nice to repeat the task regularly, every Monday in fact to try to brighten up the worst day of the week. Some of the poems over the months that followed were really good and a lot of the poets had never been published. I believed they deserved to be published and so the idea of the magazine was born. With the bloggers all being so diverse and 'getting aboard' every week put me in mind of a bus and so The Poetry Bus was born.

How did you go about it and how did it go?

I trawled through all the material and chose the poems I liked best, I didn't want this to be a catch-all anthology, there had to be some merit or style otherwise it would be pointless. I invited other established poets to contribute and a few artists and the mag took shape. I had no money but amazingly people from around the world sent me some via a paypal donate button on the blog. I got enough to pay for the first tiny print run and sales of the first print run paid for the second print run and a magazine was born!

What lessons did you learn and what did you differently for Poetry Bus 2?

The only lesson I really learned, Kate, was that artists and poets and bloggers are amazingly supportive and kind. Despite what we are bombarded with in the media, most people in general, and creative people in particular, are good and kind and want to help. There are exceptions of course, but they don't interest me, I try to focus on the positive, a rising tide lifts all boats  (and buses) and I am genuinely delighted by the good will and kindness that has been shown to The Bus.

The magazine itself is evolving, finding it's feet, it's got a slightly more cutting edge and contemporary design this time. I really wanted the artwork to be spectacular, and it is! Among others we feature the work of one of the best street/conceptual artists in the world - Adam Neate, who let us use his illustrations for free. In fact everyone did everything for free. Which brings up another thorny issue, I believe artist/writers should be paid for their work at all times but paradoxically worry that this could ruin things?

I've changed the dimensions of the mag  from A5 size to A4. As for the poetry I've opened it up to the world and anyone can submit. The hardest part has been doing rejections, I don't know if I'll ever get use to doing them. The hardest part has been doing rejections, I don't know if I'll ever get use to doing them.

And as I couldn't get any official funding I tried fundit.ie and was accepted onto the scheme. Basically it is crowd funding where you pick a financial target for your project and get people to pledge money in return for various rewards (in our case a free magazine.) If you hit the target you get the money (minus some fundit administration costs.) If you miss the target you get nothing! Which makes it very exciting and a great incentive for people pledging. I found it a stress and hassle free way of getting the printing costs of the magazine. The fundit team are friendly, helpful and very very good at what they do. I can't recommend them highly enough. (A special thanks here to Martin McNicholl who guided and helped all the way through) In fact I will be submitting again for the next issue, PB3.

Congratulations on your upcoming first collection. Tell us about it and how that came about?

Thanks Kate! My first collection is called Jewel and will be published by Salmon and launched at The Cuirt International Literary Festival April 2012. And it's a pure miracle.The best and most amazing thing that has ever happened to me apart from the day I got married and the day my son was born ! I still can't quite believe it.

After you've had a few poems published inevitably you start dreaming about having a collection, your own book.I had started buying a few poetry books (about time!) and had become drawn towards Salt in England and Salmon Poetry here in Ireland, both seemed very accessible and friendly and different. I liked their poets and their book covers and their alternative attitude.I thought if I was ever going to try to get published it would be with one of these. That was my dream. I abstractly started to feel Salt, though great and interesting , were too big ,too many books, too many poets and were diversifying into other genres. So Salmon had become my number one choice but I thought my poetry was nowhere near good enough and that I wasn't ready, so I didn't even submit.Then completely out of the blue Jessie Lendennie sent me an email asking if I had ever considered publishing a collection. I nearly fell off the chair!

Apart from me, which poets, websites, events  and publications do you recommend?

All the poets in The Poetry Bus are fablo! The Glór Sessions is great every Monday night in The International Bar Wicklow Street in Dubland I went to a Nighthawks gig once and that was cool too. Seven Towers and Wurm Im Apfel are always working hard and putting on great (and often free) events. The SHOp is a truly wonderful magazine, greater than the sum of its parts and its parts are always exquisite, so that is some mighty magic, I love it! I think The Stinging Fly is a fine magazine (particularly for the short stories) and really great value, I really like the cut of Revival's jib too.

What other poetry plans have you got coming up?

Well as soon as PB2 is out It's full steam ahead with PB3! I'd love to get a real Double Decker Bus for events, festivals, tours etc, but that's still in the dream cupboard...for now!

Thanks a lot for agreeing to do this.

See here to buy a copy of Poetry Bus 2.

Interview with writer and blogger Nuala Ni Chonchor

This interview first published on writing.ie

Continuing my repostings of interviews, here's Nuala Ni Chonchor whose flash fiction collection Of Dublin and Other Fictions has just been published by Arlan House.

Nuala Ní Chonchúir is a full-time fiction writer and poet. She has published three collections of short fiction, the most recent being Nude by Salt Publishing and three poetry collections, including the bi-lingual Tattoo: Tatu by Arlen House, and most recently one novel, You published by New Island.

Welcome to emergingwriter. Could you introduce yourself to the readers please?
I’m a full-time writer from Dublin living in County Galway. I write both fiction and poetry but my heart lies in fiction really. I have three kids and ten hours a week to write so I stuff a lot into those precious ten hours. At the moment I am writing a novel and am at the ‘enjoying it’ stage of that.

How did you get into writing?

I’ve been writing since I was a child, it grew from my love of reading. I came second in a national poetry competition when I was ten and that gave me a boost and a special interest in writing. Michael Hartnett was the judge of that comp and I remember my mother’s awe and reverence when we met him; it rubbed off.

What do you consider the highlights so far?

Winning the Francis MacManus Award in 2003 was brilliant – the money was great and it was just an all round positive experience. My first novel You coming out last year with New Island, after 5 years of schlepping it around publishers, was also a highlight.

Which came first, poetry or fiction?
Poetry came first for me, but I fell in love with short fiction after taking a course with Mike McCormack in Galway Arts Centre in the mid nineties. I still love short stories, as both reader and writer.

How do you change from one form to another? Do you feel the poetry helps the fiction and vice versa?

I write everything at the same time, I don’t totally neglect one form for another. So even though I am in the thick of a novel, if a poem or short story occurs to me, I will abandon the novel to write that.

I think poetry and fiction complement each other. Poets pay very close attention to language and individual word choices – that then becomes important in the fiction.

What have you got coming up?
My third full poetry collection The Juno Charm is due out from Salmon Poetry in November, so I am putting the finishing touches to the manuscript at the moment.

Which Irish poets, living or dead, do you recommend people search out and read?

Too many to mention but here are a few: Patrick Cotter, Mary O’Donnell, Cherry Smyth, Paul Durcan, Matthew Sweeney, Grace Wells.

You can find out more about Nuala at ·http://www.nualanichonchuir.com/·and her lovely blog http://womenrulewriter.blogspot.com

Interview with poet, Alice Lyons

Continuing my repostings of interviews, here's Alice Lyons

Thanks very much for agreeing to this interview. Could you introduce yourself to the readers please? 

I was born in Paterson New Jersey in 1960 into an Irish-American family and grew up in the United States. I studied for degrees in European Intellectual History (BA Connecticut College), Sociolinguistics (M.Sc. University of Pennsylvania) and Fine Art (MFA, Boston University)and have taught English literature and language and art&design at third level for most of my career. I love teaching, especially across disciplines. My writing wanders in an out of all these fields as well as into the fields and hedgerows I now live among.
I moved to Ireland in 1998 because I felt it would be good for my work to be here. It was an intuitive leap, and I'm glad I jumped. After being in academia for most of my twenties and early thirties, I removed myself and just worked; it was a process of absorbing all the valuable material I had studied (and lived) and casting off what was of no use to me. That's when the work started to coalesce and take on a life of its own. To talk back.
I make my living by working part-time as a curator of contemporary art and teaching poetry and visual art. I live with my twelve-year-old daughter and soon-to-be husband, filmmaker Colin McKeown.

How did you get into poetry? 

It got into me early...it has always seemed to be the sort of language that feels most familiar. A home. I wrote poems as a child, wrote the usual intense stuff as a teenager. When I visited Connecticut College as a prospective student in 1978, I was lucky to be plopped into William Meredith's poetry seminar in the basement of Harkness Chapel. The students were slumped on shabby sofas and armchairs and Meredith read a couple of poems, which they discussed. The casual atmosphere was alluring. It was my first exposure to a 'live' poet, to 'live' poetry. I was hooked from the get-go. Meredith was wonderful. Erudite, but warm, wise and exceedingly generous. I took all the classes with him I could during the four years I was at Connecticut.

I'll be looking up William Meredith now.
What do you consider your highlights so far?

Winning the Patrick Kavanagh Award was completely unexpected and a very nice thing. I had entered at the last minute, didn't give it a thought, submitted stuff I'd written very quickly and hadn't shown to anyone. An award like that, for a person who knew no one in the literary community here, who hadn't published much before that, helped me to keep sitting at my desk with the notebook open and the pen moving.

Congratulations on that. Can you explain how it works when you are involved in a collaborative art project such as the The Polish Language film?

Films can be a variant of a poetry reading. They can capture the rhythm and sound of words; they can, of course, give the poem a visual dimension. I loved the idea of using film to extend a poem, not illustrate it. I started trying to make poetry films with really limited software that I learned to use on my Mac laptop (iMovie mostly). It was fun, but I felt ham-fisted with the animation.

A friend who teaches animation knew Orla Mc Hardy as she was in his class and making a film based on an Ivor Cutler poem. He thought we would like each other and introduced us. We've completed two films together and are working on a third, all based on poems I've written. Orla is a visual/animation svengali. She always has either an exceedingly elegant or completely random visual idea. I trust this. She has a poet's approach to film making. We laugh a lot and work really hard, always dissecting the text, trying to stretch it, trying to amaze ourselves. These projects have been supported by grants from the Irish Film Board and the Arts Council. They are interested in cross-disciplinary work, so our projects have fit their bill. Our film "The Polish Language" has won a number of Best Animation awards and has been selected for competition is over 30 film festivals world wide.I'm just back from Ukraine, where the film screened as part of the Krok International Festival of Animation, which takes place aboard a river cruiser that travels from Kiev to Odessa over 10 days. It was an amazing trip, and I saw so many interesting films.

There are loads of ways that writers can collaborate in cross-disciplinary ways. I think the best way is to think about people whose work you admire in other disciplines and imagine ways that you might do something together. At first, it might seem like 'merely' playing, but I think play is an extremely under-rated activity for adults, and you never know what kind of serious stuff can come from it!

The films are well worth seeing and are at www.alicelyons.ie and www.thepolishlanguage.com
What are you working on now?

My book Staircase Poems is available from www.alicelyons.ie and Amazon and fine bookshops around Ireland. I'm working on a new collection of poems, which is called The Breadbasket of Europe, and I am writing it in my capacity as a doctoral candidate at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen's in Belfast.

Three new poems and a Q & A with me will appear in the December issue of POETRY (Chicago).
Orla Mc Hardy and I are in the final stages of working on our third poetry film, Developers, which has been funded by a Film Project Award from the Arts Council. It will be out early next year.

Congratulations again on the film project award. I look forward to seeing it. Thanks for telling us about your poetry and films.

Thank you Kate. Best of luck in all your work.

Interview with Poet, Eoghan Walls

Continuing my repostings of interviews, here's Eoghan Walls whose collection The Salt Harvest was shortlisted for the Strong Award for first collection

Hi Eoghan and welcome to emerging writer. How did you first get into poetry?

I wanted to write from about three, when I was mainly into Bananaman.  Over the years, I got into horror - great cheap pulp titles generally, with titles like Slugs! and Scorpions! - and then studied English at University. I loved the way literature could open a new world for the reader - or briefly refresh this world - and at University, I saw how this could be done in poetry, with Hopkins in particular.  He jarred me awake.  Prose always has its great exciting moments, but often has to string them together with what my younger self would have called "the boring bits". This is not always the case.  But with Hopkins - and Williams, and Eliot, and Muldoon - I saw writers not wasting time writing the boring bits, getting straight to the words where the world could refresh itself.

Have you found Bananaman and Slugs! have had any influence on your poetry?

Heh - I guess I asked for that.  But - well - I would like to say they are becoming more of an influence.  For years, I have been drawn to poems that play at the boundary of high and low culture.  On this side of the Atlantic, I guess I mean poets like Paul Farley or Simon Armitage, but the Americans have more - like with "Attack of the Crab Monster" by Lawrence Raab.  The poem is playful, frames itself as a B-movie - and yet it covers a very powerful and moving love-story at its core.  Gorgeous stuff.  

For years as a young poet I immersed myself in the big dramas - death, sex and sacramental life - but the heavy-handed sincerity of young men does lack the richness such poems achieve. I still think poetry must concern itself regularly with the visceral ends of life, but am only now becoming capable, in my 30s, to approach these with both humour and gravitas.  At least, I hope I am.  

How did your collection with Seren come about?

I have been working on my collection for years - since my Eric Gregory award in 2006 - and it was never quite right.  I kept fiddling about with poems that should have really been abandoned as juvenilia.  I got it into shape - finally, you might say - two years ago, and decided to send it off to a few publishers.  We are warned against simultaneous submissions, but publishing houses have no duties to the aspiring writer, and so I think it is wise, if your collection is ready, to send it to more than one at a time.  Thankfully, a few houses were interested, and I liked what the poetry editor, Amy Wack has been doing at Seren - for a relatively small press, they have been winning a lot of the big prizes recently, and getting nominated for many more.  I was delighted to go with them.

What specifically appealed to you about Seren?

They are a small press, but they are consistently nominated for the big prizes.  Over the last few years, Kathryn Simmonds and Hilary Menos - both Seren poets - snagged the Forward Prize for the best first collection.  Both books were excellent, with high production values and a great variety in the work.  But even this year, two of the six shortlisted were from Seren.  They get a lot of attention.  As an Irish poet, I am aware of the need to be read in Britain as well as Ireland, and so I wanted to get one of the high profile presses.  Amy Wack - their poetry editor - is a great woman - she has a sharp critical ear.  

What advice would you have for new writers?

Stick at it.  Read all you can of your chosen genre.  There is a common debate on whether or not poetry should aim to be popular - to compete with apps, films and novels - or should it be happy with its relatively niche status.  Of course, the market is probably bigger in numbers but not percentage-of-the-population wise, so it is hard to know, but when one does see that they made Big Momma's House 3, it is hard not to get jealous of more lucrative forms of culture.  But a good poet and friend Alex Wylie said to me, in the middle of one argument over pints,

It is not our duty to sell poetry to everyone; it is our duty to try to be better than Dante.  

A tall order, no doubt with snobbish undercurrents, but if we are writing poetry, isn't it because we respect and love the form?  I came to poetry not because it was shinier or gorier than films or comics, but because it could concentrate power in a different way.  So I guess that would be it.  Read a lot, and try to be better than Dante.

Me, I’m trying to be better than Wendy Cope. What have you got coming up?

I guess mainly the book, The Salt Harvest, available from www.serenbooks.com or Amazon.  Also I’m in, The Best British Poetry 2011, available from Salt publishing.  No readings coming up in the near future I can think of, but I am sure some will come along.  Thanks for everything.

Here's a link to Eoghan reading provided by Seren.