You have written poetry since you were 17. What do you care about most and what keeps cropping up in your writing?
I suppose it’d have to be death. I know that sounds a bit bleak, but I think that blackness got into me at an early stage and just hasn’t gone. So, death crops up quite a bit, and I guess the cosmos does as well. I don’t really understand all the physics, but I like the idea of the stars, so they appear in a few poems. History makes the odd appearance as well – I suppose being a history teacher it’s bound to. I do like to try to capture a sense of our place in time though; especially in deep time.
I do write about more down-to-earth stuff as well, like birds and kids or being grumpy on a Monday morning. However, even in these poems, I have got a habit of adding something a bit cosmic!
You won the Poetry Rivals 2015 Slam with Things To Come. Can you share a snippet of your winning poem with us? What was the theme and where did you get the inspiration from?
I quite like the bit that goes:
The same fate again and again. No rest and no ending.
Horny little animals, snatching at scraps; living and suffering and passing.
Unbearable. But then again…
just think of the Sahara and think of vastnesses.
Just think of the wasted girdle of stars
spread wherever you look.
I guess you’ve got to give the whole poem a read to really get the meaning of that part, but I like it because that just about sums up what I’m trying to do in most of my poems. A lot of what we experience is grubby and boring and makes us peevish, but sometimes when we look up or around we at least can put all that into context.
The inspiration came from an evening where I did actually get a Chinese takeaway meal, and saw old people being tormented by children – I even made myself better by listening to Jimi Hendrix. I felt pretty bleak when I started writing it, so I decided to put as much dark stuff in as I could as well.
Whilst the initial poem came out fairly easily, it had to be drafted and redrafted. In fact, it underwent several complete re-writes. I also asked my wife and daughter to have a read of it and make suggestions about how to improve it. It was during the time when I was making these improvements that I woke up with the title in my head. Well, with the film ‘Things to Come’ in my head, which seemed like a good title.
I’m not sure any piece is ever entirely finished, but I see my biggest job as trying to get as close to completion – or closure, perhaps – as I possibly can. Sometimes I get closer to that than I do at other times of course.
In your talk at the Nantwich Bookshop, this year, you said that some of your poetry is miserable! Excellent 🙂 Share with us a good example of this and talk us through your process.
I think one of the quietly miserable poems in this collection is one called The Whale.
The Whale
Look again at this shadow
formed behind tins
on the kitchen wall.
Nothing contains it
yet it has boundaries
which it cannot flout.
It is oblong,
fading towards the top
as the light strengthens,
lensed by kettle steam,
which blooms
as a tight line
thickening at the top
where a silver strip angles
presumably reflected off a shelf.
Rotund black
confinement
of form.
In itself it is deep form
and admits the end
that lies in wait for us all,
lying in love
recovering from some
devastation or weakness.
We must find hope
where often
there is only vacancy.
Basically, I was in the kitchen making a brew and listening to the radio (classical music I’m afraid) and this piece called ‘The Whale’ came on and I was struck by its sadness. I was also watching kettle steam make lovely shadows on the wall. Another thing I like to do in my poems is try to capture passing moments, so I wrote a few lines on a bit of scrap paper. The announcer then said that the composer of ‘The Whale’ had just died and that sealed it for me – I went away and scribbled pretty much what there is here. Reading it back I realise just how bleak the last line is. I suppose if that’s how you feel, that’s what you write…
What is your working space like? Do you have a room specifically for writing?
Well, like I’ve written on the back of the book, I’m a bit of a bandit really… I write whenever I can get a few minutes in some dark corner or other. Sometimes it’s on the kitchen table, sometimes it’s in the shed. I do have a downstairs space though which I like to sneak into – it’s quite an arty space; there’s pictures in there and a bookshelf. I quite like taking wine in there too if I’m working on a particularly long poem…
You are a history teacher. Does your love of history feed into your work?
Yes, I think history leaks into quite a lot of the pieces. Sometimes it’s some specific reference, like in ‘Especial Dissolution’, where I mention Sister Aimee Semple-Macpherson and some words from an ancient tribal rite. Sometimes though it’s just general historical stuff like all the weapons and fighting references in ‘Border Dispute’.
I teach Geography and R.E. which often get a look-in as well. I think I use whatever’s to hand. If it’s something historical, then that’s what goes in, if it’s something religious then that goes in. Equally, if it’s the sound of the dog barking next door, then that goes in.
Your poetry book Talking Crow was published in 2015 by Spiderwise. It’s a beautiful book that contains many photographs. Did you take some of these yourself as inspiration for your poems?
Well, thank you for that! It is a lovely-looking book – the team at Spiderwise were fabulous, especially Camilla Davies, who designed the front cover and put the whole thing together. The photos were taken by a mixture of people: me, my brother, my nephew, my daughter and my father-in-law. They’ve all got an eye for a good image and I think each picture compliments the writing quite nicely, but were also good in their own right. In fact, I’ve told a few people to get the book for the pictures rather than the poems!
I wouldn’t say the pictures were inspirations for the poems as such, but I do quite often take pictures of something I might want to write about. I’ve written quite a few pieces where I had to refer back to photographs to remember what it was inspired me in the first place. Also, looking back at a picture sometimes allows me to see something I might have missed whilst I was taking it. I’ve seen birds or insects, for example, hovering over a landscape which I then made some reference to in the poem.
Have you written any prose? Why do you prefer poetry?
I imagine, like most people who write, I have tried my hand at a few different genres of writing, prose included. Unfortunately the results were a bit rubbish!
To be honest though, I got the poetry bug when I was seventeen and I haven’t been able to get rid of it. As to why that is, I’m not really sure. It’s definitely an itch I have to scratch. I can lay off it for a while – usually when the real world of work is a bit intense – but the urge always comes back and I have to start writing. I don’t really experience that with any other form of writing, and I think that’s why I haven’t stuck at them. I get a bit obsessed with poems, whereas the short story or novel ideas I’ve had I get a bit distracted and I don’t go back.
I am currently trying my hand at a prose-poem though, or perhaps it’s a poem-prose! I’m quite enjoying it, because it’s allowing me to stretch my legs a bit – I’ve included quite a lot of dialogue so far, which I do quite like.
What is next for you? Have you any plans?
I’d love to say there’s another book in the offing – I’ve certainly got enough material and lots of ideas – however, winning the competition was a very big stroke of luck, so I can’t imagine that’ll happen again! I think my plan is to keep writing, keep entering competitions and hopefully do more readings. I really enjoyed my book launch and I think the guests did, so I would really like to work on that and see where it gets me.
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