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- Apr 12, 2005
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1. When did you start writing poetry?
I’m not entirely sure. I’ve always been interested in poetry as far back as I can remember reading. I recall putting together rhymes and short verses from a young age even before I could write—actually sitting down to compose, with clear and concise ideas, with the intention to write a poetry came later.
My teenage years is where words slung together became song lyrics; not being able to play an instrument and being totally musically illiterate meant my lyrics became poems—adhering to the beats in my head and the rhythms of spoken language.
I’ve suffered from mental problems most of my life and when all things came to crunch point in my early twenties, poetry became my outlet, my focal point. I used poetry in a therapeutic way, not cathartic but as an anchor to myself during some very difficult emotional and personal moments; it’s always been that part of me that couldn’t be changed, psychotic break or otherwise.
2. What other writing do you do regularly?
I write flash fiction; tried my hand at a novel once. While I can concentrate the intensity of my thoughts into a poem of 14 – 30 verses, it doesn’t seem to hold when attempting to maintain it across lengthy fiction – my mind tends to wonder and begin a new branch almost as soon as I get halfway in.
Instead I drive my hand at essays, reviews and articles when not writing poetry.
3. Do you think of yourself primarily as a poet?
One word – yes. But I’m also a man, a father, a partner, a lover and friend to many; these aspects are part of being the poet I am. So the poet exists because of the rest.
4. Why do you write poetry?
As I said earlier, it is my anchor.
5. How does writing poetry relate with your other writing?
It doesn’t – ha. Other than writing essays and articles about poetry.
6. Beyond Absolute Write, what is your publication/performance history?
I am widely published; I’m a member of the Cymric Bards Society, and Association for the Lonely Send-off who write and read poems for persons who have died alone and have no family to attend their funeral; I write poetry on commission – and have been known to do readings at request. I’ve run workshops and still do an online one via skype.
7. How often do you write poems?
Good question. I don’t actually write a poem very often. I write fragments of poems; sudden impulses to write down a phrase or single verse – other times perhaps a few lines. It’s only later when things are quiet that those fragments reformulate or evolve to poems.
I find if I sit at my PC, readied to compose, the result is forced and without substance. I always keep a notepad on me for my ‘moments’ and write those whenever they come. This is not always as fun as it sounds, because the need to jot them down can be somewhat consuming.
8. What goals, if any, do you have for your poetry?
I would hope my poetry that intends to emote will reach people in a way that is recognisable to them. But overall, I see my poetry as a gift to whoever reads it – a bridge between myself and them by whatever means, be it expression, sentiment, intellect or craft – I want it to be enjoyed and therefore be memorable. My poetry is not vanity, I am not dictating it to my readers, it’s there for what it is, solidarity, unity, safety, art, pleasure, entertainment, joy, melancholy; my anchor for you or anyone else to hang on to if you need it, want it or otherwise.
9. Do you set out to write a poem, does it compel you to write it, or something else?
Something else – there is a compulsion to write, but the poem doesn’t compel me. I find these little intrusions to the day, sometimes images, sometimes words, sometimes sounds that spark my ‘moments’ that I mentioned before. Swirling clouds of nonsense that suddenly strike out forks of macro-inspirations.
These are what I compel to be poems, what I compose and revise, and ultimately fuse together through my personal compulsion to write.
10. What formal, semantic, or thematic traits do you prefer to use in your poems?
I am experimental, furiously so at times. However, I do fall back on formal theory as my base.
Above all verse forms, my favourite is the sonnet, and all derivatives and variations of it. I love the honesty the sonnet brings to the table; the conversational and dialectical internal paradoxes of human nature it allows us to explore in what most would see as a rigid framework.
The misconceptions of formal theory and verse forms are what I try to break with much of my experimentation – just like the beauty of the sonnet is born from structure, it is an incredibly versatile structure that lends itself such an allowance for experimentation – I do the same. I take the elements that make things work for me and mix them up, play with words, play with form, and play with theory.
I love poetry, all poetry, and my love for it drove me to expand my knowledge of its craft and theory – but that knowledge is now my aid, whilst good to fall back on (500+ years of accumulated experience from the greats is never a bad thing), I don’t hide my work or my expression behind it; poetry is more than the sum of its parts.
If I had to name recurrent aspects, semantic, thematic or otherwise, I’d say peripeteia and paradoxical language are very common to my work.
11. Which usually comes first: Topic/idea, form, words? Other?
Whatever. My poems aren’t always decisive movements on my part. I do sometimes write with clear intent to produce or follow a theme, and this may on occasion work – the poetry prompt thread is a prime example – as an exercise and to keep the juices going.
I prefer to draw inspiration from the world around me. There is so much wonder in the universe, from the most distant exploding start and swirling cosmic gasses to the little boy who says goodnight to me every evening… and so much to question.
The most amazing thing about being human is that we are beings driven by both logic and emotion. This conflict is what spurs us to create and express.
I spend a great deal of my time analysing the smallest things and wondering at my private thoughts – my poetry is the space between the lines.
12. Do you revise? Right away, later on? How do you decide when you've finished with a poem?
I never see my work as finished. Polished, maybe, but finished, never. I’ve dug out works from decades ago that I revise with a new take, or rework.
13. How did you come to be interested in poetry?
I want to say I’ve already answered that, but the truth is I don’t really know of any specific time or age.
14. What particular poem or poet first attracted you to poetry?
Poe attracted me to designed and structured verse, but before him I read a great deal of Victorian fiction. Being somewhat of an emo-kid, I blame Poe for a lot of very depressing pieces
Frost came later, toward the end of puberty – but throughout my adolescence, I found myself returning to many post-victorian poets.
15. What poems, poets, movements or eras have influenced you as a poet: which do you particularly enjoy, admire, or aspire toward?
The romantics, much of the renaissance, and latter-day formalism. Surrealism is something which has always greatly inspired me. The removal of immediate perceptions of reality allows a reader to personalize a work on a different scope.
We have a great capacity for abstract thought, and an incredible ability to process and interpret abstraction. As I said before, we are beings of both intellect and emotion. When presented with no dictated reality, we create our own by applying personal knowledge, experience and interpretation. If abstraction requires an anchor into the concrete, what happens when every anchor is a new abstraction?
Haiku, true haiku, has also always interested me. Not just the sum of 17 syllables in 3 lines, haiku are macro-realities, a world in which the poet is one with a single motion, thought, experience etc. They come from that frozen moment, the poet one with the poem, the essence of the poem without lengthy analysis. While I am too wordy to ever be able to write a true haiku and shy away from other arithmetrical and syllabic verse forms, the ideal is ever-presently shared in my work; leads me back to the sonnet and what it represent to me.
That self understanding and no need or requirement for absolute intention is the purpose that I have in my poetry.
16. What single poem of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read your work?
Single poem? I don’t think any poet can be judged on a single work. I see my poetry as individual pieces of a larger work, tiles/squares on a patch-blanket. If I had to offer up one, I’d ask you to name it for me.
17. What are your thoughts on poetry today: its function, future, direction, relevance?
Poetry today is a gimmick. It has little relevance outside of those who read it, or write it. That doesn’t mean it’s an outsider art, just that it has little corporate or commercial function.
Poetry is a thing of the people, and in many ways, that’s where it is nowadays, with the people who want it in whatever form.
18. What, in your view, makes a written/spoken work a poem?
Whether narrative, expressive, emotive, experimental, fragmented or fluid; spoken or written, visual (like Emmers) or musical, poetry is something we discover and feel more complete for having discovered it.
19. What do you like about your own poetry?
I like to play with words and phrase; I like restatement and refrain; I love the rhythm of language. My poetry has these aspects. Most of all, my poetry represents the aspects that I wonder about, whether directly or indirectly; I like to think, and I hope my poetry thinks for me on occasion.
20. What would you say to someone who wants to learn to write poetry well?
Read and read some more, write and discuss, then read some more. Repeat.
I’m not entirely sure. I’ve always been interested in poetry as far back as I can remember reading. I recall putting together rhymes and short verses from a young age even before I could write—actually sitting down to compose, with clear and concise ideas, with the intention to write a poetry came later.
My teenage years is where words slung together became song lyrics; not being able to play an instrument and being totally musically illiterate meant my lyrics became poems—adhering to the beats in my head and the rhythms of spoken language.
I’ve suffered from mental problems most of my life and when all things came to crunch point in my early twenties, poetry became my outlet, my focal point. I used poetry in a therapeutic way, not cathartic but as an anchor to myself during some very difficult emotional and personal moments; it’s always been that part of me that couldn’t be changed, psychotic break or otherwise.
2. What other writing do you do regularly?
I write flash fiction; tried my hand at a novel once. While I can concentrate the intensity of my thoughts into a poem of 14 – 30 verses, it doesn’t seem to hold when attempting to maintain it across lengthy fiction – my mind tends to wonder and begin a new branch almost as soon as I get halfway in.
Instead I drive my hand at essays, reviews and articles when not writing poetry.
3. Do you think of yourself primarily as a poet?
One word – yes. But I’m also a man, a father, a partner, a lover and friend to many; these aspects are part of being the poet I am. So the poet exists because of the rest.
4. Why do you write poetry?
As I said earlier, it is my anchor.
5. How does writing poetry relate with your other writing?
It doesn’t – ha. Other than writing essays and articles about poetry.
6. Beyond Absolute Write, what is your publication/performance history?
I am widely published; I’m a member of the Cymric Bards Society, and Association for the Lonely Send-off who write and read poems for persons who have died alone and have no family to attend their funeral; I write poetry on commission – and have been known to do readings at request. I’ve run workshops and still do an online one via skype.
7. How often do you write poems?
Good question. I don’t actually write a poem very often. I write fragments of poems; sudden impulses to write down a phrase or single verse – other times perhaps a few lines. It’s only later when things are quiet that those fragments reformulate or evolve to poems.
I find if I sit at my PC, readied to compose, the result is forced and without substance. I always keep a notepad on me for my ‘moments’ and write those whenever they come. This is not always as fun as it sounds, because the need to jot them down can be somewhat consuming.
8. What goals, if any, do you have for your poetry?
I would hope my poetry that intends to emote will reach people in a way that is recognisable to them. But overall, I see my poetry as a gift to whoever reads it – a bridge between myself and them by whatever means, be it expression, sentiment, intellect or craft – I want it to be enjoyed and therefore be memorable. My poetry is not vanity, I am not dictating it to my readers, it’s there for what it is, solidarity, unity, safety, art, pleasure, entertainment, joy, melancholy; my anchor for you or anyone else to hang on to if you need it, want it or otherwise.
9. Do you set out to write a poem, does it compel you to write it, or something else?
Something else – there is a compulsion to write, but the poem doesn’t compel me. I find these little intrusions to the day, sometimes images, sometimes words, sometimes sounds that spark my ‘moments’ that I mentioned before. Swirling clouds of nonsense that suddenly strike out forks of macro-inspirations.
These are what I compel to be poems, what I compose and revise, and ultimately fuse together through my personal compulsion to write.
10. What formal, semantic, or thematic traits do you prefer to use in your poems?
I am experimental, furiously so at times. However, I do fall back on formal theory as my base.
Above all verse forms, my favourite is the sonnet, and all derivatives and variations of it. I love the honesty the sonnet brings to the table; the conversational and dialectical internal paradoxes of human nature it allows us to explore in what most would see as a rigid framework.
The misconceptions of formal theory and verse forms are what I try to break with much of my experimentation – just like the beauty of the sonnet is born from structure, it is an incredibly versatile structure that lends itself such an allowance for experimentation – I do the same. I take the elements that make things work for me and mix them up, play with words, play with form, and play with theory.
I love poetry, all poetry, and my love for it drove me to expand my knowledge of its craft and theory – but that knowledge is now my aid, whilst good to fall back on (500+ years of accumulated experience from the greats is never a bad thing), I don’t hide my work or my expression behind it; poetry is more than the sum of its parts.
If I had to name recurrent aspects, semantic, thematic or otherwise, I’d say peripeteia and paradoxical language are very common to my work.
11. Which usually comes first: Topic/idea, form, words? Other?
Whatever. My poems aren’t always decisive movements on my part. I do sometimes write with clear intent to produce or follow a theme, and this may on occasion work – the poetry prompt thread is a prime example – as an exercise and to keep the juices going.
I prefer to draw inspiration from the world around me. There is so much wonder in the universe, from the most distant exploding start and swirling cosmic gasses to the little boy who says goodnight to me every evening… and so much to question.
The most amazing thing about being human is that we are beings driven by both logic and emotion. This conflict is what spurs us to create and express.
I spend a great deal of my time analysing the smallest things and wondering at my private thoughts – my poetry is the space between the lines.
12. Do you revise? Right away, later on? How do you decide when you've finished with a poem?
I never see my work as finished. Polished, maybe, but finished, never. I’ve dug out works from decades ago that I revise with a new take, or rework.
13. How did you come to be interested in poetry?
I want to say I’ve already answered that, but the truth is I don’t really know of any specific time or age.
14. What particular poem or poet first attracted you to poetry?
Poe attracted me to designed and structured verse, but before him I read a great deal of Victorian fiction. Being somewhat of an emo-kid, I blame Poe for a lot of very depressing pieces
Frost came later, toward the end of puberty – but throughout my adolescence, I found myself returning to many post-victorian poets.
15. What poems, poets, movements or eras have influenced you as a poet: which do you particularly enjoy, admire, or aspire toward?
The romantics, much of the renaissance, and latter-day formalism. Surrealism is something which has always greatly inspired me. The removal of immediate perceptions of reality allows a reader to personalize a work on a different scope.
We have a great capacity for abstract thought, and an incredible ability to process and interpret abstraction. As I said before, we are beings of both intellect and emotion. When presented with no dictated reality, we create our own by applying personal knowledge, experience and interpretation. If abstraction requires an anchor into the concrete, what happens when every anchor is a new abstraction?
Haiku, true haiku, has also always interested me. Not just the sum of 17 syllables in 3 lines, haiku are macro-realities, a world in which the poet is one with a single motion, thought, experience etc. They come from that frozen moment, the poet one with the poem, the essence of the poem without lengthy analysis. While I am too wordy to ever be able to write a true haiku and shy away from other arithmetrical and syllabic verse forms, the ideal is ever-presently shared in my work; leads me back to the sonnet and what it represent to me.
That self understanding and no need or requirement for absolute intention is the purpose that I have in my poetry.
16. What single poem of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read your work?
Single poem? I don’t think any poet can be judged on a single work. I see my poetry as individual pieces of a larger work, tiles/squares on a patch-blanket. If I had to offer up one, I’d ask you to name it for me.
17. What are your thoughts on poetry today: its function, future, direction, relevance?
Poetry today is a gimmick. It has little relevance outside of those who read it, or write it. That doesn’t mean it’s an outsider art, just that it has little corporate or commercial function.
Poetry is a thing of the people, and in many ways, that’s where it is nowadays, with the people who want it in whatever form.
18. What, in your view, makes a written/spoken work a poem?
Whether narrative, expressive, emotive, experimental, fragmented or fluid; spoken or written, visual (like Emmers) or musical, poetry is something we discover and feel more complete for having discovered it.
19. What do you like about your own poetry?
I like to play with words and phrase; I like restatement and refrain; I love the rhythm of language. My poetry has these aspects. Most of all, my poetry represents the aspects that I wonder about, whether directly or indirectly; I like to think, and I hope my poetry thinks for me on occasion.
20. What would you say to someone who wants to learn to write poetry well?
Read and read some more, write and discuss, then read some more. Repeat.
