MAMA TOKUS THE INTERVIEW

Here's an interview with Totnes's own poetry diva. If you haven't seen her, then you need to, you can watch some videos here. But enough from me, let's hear from the legend!

Tell us about the new collection

I haven’t put out a book. Instead, I’ve collected a few spoken-word’n’beats’n’rhymes together in either an extended EP or a short album and called it Funkinism.

It covers a lot of ground: from comedy cannibalism to nature-funk, from forgotten black women to people (like myself) who aren’t that good at dancing.

I’m releasing pieces one by one via my Bandcamp and sharing snippets on Facebook and Instagram too. My Patreon supporters got the whole thing as a free download for backing me

Music, poetry or film? Which speaks the most to you?

Well, it’s definitely in that order. I was a player of instruments and then a singer long before I started writing songs and poems. Without music my life would crumble to nothingness!

Poetry came to the fore for me around 2008, when I fell into hosting the spoken word night Forked! In Plymouth’s B-Bar. I had a ringside seat watching top wordsmiths entertain and dazzle and poetry began to eclipse music for me, but now the pendulum’s swung back towards the centre: I’m enjoying the marriage of the two (especially in the hands of Langston Hughes and Kae Tempest).

Films? I prefer ones with spaceships in them, but I guess I watch a film about every 2 or 3 months. I just can’t fit cinema into my packed life! And I’m likely to drop off in a warm, dark room, not gonna lie.

What do you want your poetry to do?/what do you want to evoke in the reader/listener?

Well I like it funny. I tend to write humorous stuff – even if it’s about serious matter, because I think messages can get delivered via laughter.

That said, I also feel an urge to edify and educate. I come from a background as a local newspaper reporter, so telling people interesting, useful stuff is in my make-up.

Every day’s a school day with a Mama Tokus set!

What’s the typical career path of a poet?

You tell me!

I think Pam Ayres had a good run at it…

How has the poetry business/scene changed over your life time?

I think the arrival of the spoken word/performance poetry scene has given a big boost and a youth-injection to poetry, which is great. Actually, before that in the 1970s, the rap scene began with street poets battling it out verbally. Rap is poetry and hip hop is massive. So I guess I’ve witnessed rhyming words becoming super-popular and travelling right around the world.

In the 21^st century, social/digital media invites poets to reach audiences they might not have (although we find ourselves shouting into the void unless we spend some advertising dollars). It also invites us to spend a lot of time learning how to use these digital tools. Time that could have been spent doing your do. I’ve definitely succumbed to too much tech, not enough artistry, which is why I wrote this piece, called Watchin’ It or Doing It.

I’ve seen festivals increasingly offering poetry tents (which are packed): a brilliant antidote to atomised creatives performing snippets of their work to a camera screen, only for that worked to be watched.

If you could become a character in fiction, or film who would you be and why?

Black Panther so that I could be at the apex of the acceptance by the mainstream of Afrofuturism. Wakanda!

Given the state of society at this point in time what is the role of the poet?

To have and share ideas, encourage community, to kick against the pricks – whilst bringing audiences with them on the ride.

How has your work changed over time?

I think it’s got more urgent and strident, actually. I started off being silly and absurdist and while I love that vibe, I feel a need to educate and get stuff across to people. I want to radicalise people!

How far does real life creep into your work?

Well, that’s where the funny is!

I said before that I was a local newspaper reporter in the past, and so I’ve got a lot of experience in picking out the jewels from daily life. Also I want to comment on today’s events and ideas.

Having said that, I think my work could also benefit from having some fantasy life creeping into it…!

Name something you love and why?

Birds. I’ve fallen in love with birds. They are the messengers of the gods, those little feathered friends. They sing, they fly, they do battle and they look outstanding in their liveries.

They need our love. What with prolific cats, cars, pollution, habitat loss, rising temperatures, industrial agriculture, ruined rivers and suchlike, they need love.

My musician pal Marcus Vergette recently wrote a piece about the horror of a world without birdsong, which only stoked up my bird-love further.

What would be your dream project?

Writing a highly-remunerated suite of works over several weeks and months about how brilliant birds are with a divorced George Clooney at his Lake Como holiday home.

How do you navigate the poetry world?

I don’t much at the moment. I haven’t been to any poetry gigs for ages, because I feel like writing – when I’m in that mood, I feel like I need to concentrate on what’s coming out of me, as opposed to receiving someone else’s stuff.

If you were not a poet what would you be?

A musician. Oh. I am.

Have you ever doubted your talent?

Good goddess, yes! Regularly! Not enough to stop writing though…

What next?

I’m working on performing my words’n’beats fluently via my Loopstation – it’s where I can make beats and sounds that back up my words. I’m a musician first, a poet after, so I’m interested in being able to play my ‘instrument’ in order to support the words. I’ve found that it’s quite tricky to, er, play an instrument…

Thanks Mama. If you like to buy Mama a cup of coffee you can here.

Until next time.

YAHIA LABABIDI: THE POET OF HOPE

 I recently stopped my Twitter account and, like many others, moved to Mastodon, and the first poet I encountered there was Yahia Lababidi. What a delight! What a calm voice of reason. What an excellent poet. I am going to let Yahia speak for himself. Enjoy!

Tell us about the new collection

I have two collections that I’m proud of, Irish twins, conceived around 9 months apart.

Desert Songs is my love letter to the deserts of Egypt, featuring transporting images by Moroccan photographer, Zakaria Wakrim, as well as Learning to Pray, a collection of my spiritual meditations.

Also, an even more recent passion project that I hope will interest your readers: I’ve partnered on a subscription service with a clever programmer and lover of wisdom literature, Sam Henry, to deliver daily contemplative quotes from my books. You can learn more and sign up, here.

What next?

In the upcoming months, Quarantine Notes (Fomite Press, 2023) This is a collection of a few hundred of my new aphorisms composed during our global pandemic. Political, cultural and spiritual meditations that got me through the strange lifetime that was the last three years.

Music, poetry or film? Which speaks the most to you?

It’s a close call between music and poetry (much as I appreciate films & enjoy reviewing them: Yahia Lababidi | World Literature Today) There’s no denying the wordless power of music, how it can cut straight to the heart and transport us. But, for better or worse, I’m a word guy; besides, poetry has built in music and reels of film in it, too!

What do you want your poetry to do?/what do you want to evoke in the reader/listener?

Many things. Entertain, educate, return us to ourselves, remind of deeper realities and what is indestructible. Poetry can do this by slowing us down to a stillness, getting us to inhabit the moment, and meditate on essences. Ultimately, poetry as praise and prayer.

What’s the typical career path of a poet?

I’m nearly 50 (in six months) and still trying to figure that out! If you/readers have any tips, please, reach out. Here’s my resume: Yahia Lababidi | LinkedIn

How has the poetry business/scene changed over your life time?

Off the top of my head, I think of social media, which seems like licensed eavesdropping. On one hand, it can steal from our precious inwardness and force us, at times, to share fruit that is unripe or interact in ways that might do violence to our nature. The irony of a private person in a public profession. The flip side of this, of course, is the ability to reach a wider audience, hear from your readers (almost, instantaneously, like telepathy!) as well as reach publishers / outlets in ways that were inconceivable when I started 3 decades ago.

If you could become a character in fiction, or film who would you be and why?

As a very young man, I admired superheroes (like Spiderman). Becoming a teenager, this adulation shifted to pop stars and shortly, after, poets and philosophers. Now, it’s mostly mystics and visionaries that I hold in high regard. Not sure this answers your question, but there you have it 😊

Given the state of society at this point in time what is the role of the poet?

To amplify the Light, so as to counter the prevalent cynicism, despair and nihilism.

How has your work changed over time?

I began as someone who, foolishly, worshipped at the altar of the mind (recovering Existentialist). Now, I bow before the life of the Spirit and its countless mysteries…

How far does real life creep into your work?

What is ‘real life’? The ephemeral world of politics? The nonsense that passes for reality tv? I don’t know. I believe in the vital role of the artist as witness, conscience and activist. But, I also know that one cannot sound off on everything, all the time — poorly-digested ‘real life’ as you call it, makes for bad art.

Name something you love and why?

Beauty. I believe that aesthetics and ethics are connected. If we abide by the laws of Beauty — in thought, word and deed — we stand to lead a life that it good and true.

What would be your dream project?

I would like to write a children’s book and am exploring this possibility, using new technologies like ChatGPT! (If you can’t beat them, join them 😊)

How do you navigate the poetry world?

Gingerly. I’m still very much trapped in the past and wary of taking in too much of what is current, without taste or discernment. That said, I recognize I cannot afford to, entirely, turn my back on what’s happening Now and am pleasantly surprised from time to time.

You can listen to my readings of some poems that matter to me, on Soundcloud.

If you were not a poet what would you be?

Possibly, not alive.

Have you ever doubted your talent?

Daily.

Thank you

CHARLOTTE GANN & THE UNDERSTORY

I recently participated in a workshop focusing on exploring the under story of a poem. The aim being to enable the poet to perceive the creative process from which the poem had sprung, the issues that had promoted the writing, the space where poems are created. The aim was to create a dialogue between the poets in that space and see where it led. It was fascinating stuff facilitated by the wonderful Charlotte Gann. 

A brief word of explanation about the layout of the interview. Since blogspot updated their platform I have been experiencing difficulties with spacing and because Charlotte's poems are so exquisite I have decided to use photographs of the poems rather than blunt their beauty with coarse spacing.

Charlotte is an accomplished poet, but rather than me bigging her up let's hear her talk .

Tell us about the new collection

Well, it’s not THAT new any more – but did come out in lockdown. The Girl Who Cried, my second book from HappenStance. The poems are title-less so sort of run into each other. Some of them are illustrated or accompanied by little line drawings. The book’s an exploration and admission, for me: every day of my life, I’ve lived with longing, arguably as a result of early attachment difficulties. ‘The Girl Who Cried’ of the title is a core part of me.

Lots of the poems are short: I thought of them as ‘woodcut’ poems as I wrote them.

Music, poetry or film? Which speaks the most to you?

Um.., you’ve just named my three favourite things. I called my first book Noir partly because people said how filmic the poems were. I love film, as a medium. The palette, the framing. Music has always been central for me (when I was young, as this picture may suggest, mainly Bowie). 

And then there's been poetry. Ah, poetry... From Keats to Stevie Smith to TS Eliot when I was young to…..ALL my touchstone poems today. (Right now I’m working my way through the Collected Poems of Raymond Carver.)

So probably a poetic film with music.

What do you want your poetry to do?/what do you want to evoke in the reader/listener?

I want them to sense the life in the poem. Recognise it – something palpable. I’m interested in that place where thought and feeling meet; my poems are my emotions distilled, framed. It’s been about trying to find language. I want a reader to notice if they have that feeling in themself. I’m curious about resonance, and often writing about the other side of that coin: loneliness. If a reader recognises the emotion maybe that leaves us both subtly less isolated. I know that’s the effect reading can have on me.

I’ve focused a lot of my poems on areas of my life that caused me distress over decades, however ‘irrationally’. All I can do is share my feelings truthfully. So that’s what I’ve done. I wanted to leave a record: a kind of refusal, eventually, to suffer in silence. I like that adage cited by Banksy(?): art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. Yes.

If you could become a character in fiction, or film who would you be and why?

One of those good, grounded policewomen. Catherine Cawood in Happy Valley. Marge Gunderson in Fargo. Most recently, Mare Sheehan in Mare of Easttown. In fiction, my favourite characters are ones I massively empathise with – George Harvey Bone in Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square, Frankie Addams in Carson McCullers’ The Member of the Wedding. I wouldn’t want to be them though. Too close to how I am already.

How far does real life creep into your work? 

It’s there at its core – as in, my work is totally truthful. Emotionally so.

But in another way, my poems topple ‘real life’ on its side: I’m interested in showing the underbelly, the stuff that’s normally hidden. Unobvious loneliness.

Since writing the books, I’ve started calling this my ‘Understory’.

What makes you angry? 

Abuse of power, in all its guises. Exploitation of vulnerability. Nothing makes me angrier than this. And it makes me angry on a daily basis.

Name something you love and why? 

Potatoes. And cats. They’ve both always comforted me.

What would be your dream project? 

My dream project? The question makes me happy. I’ve always pictured this imaginary set of rooms where people come and meet and talk. I’ve been there forever, and am somehow pivotal. Whatever the precise function it combines all my passions: writing, expression, group-work, therapeutic heartful communication practices… Maybe I’m trying to work towards this now, with my project The Understory Conversation.

How do you navigate the poetry world? I have some firm allies and circles. Friends. I talk to other poets; read books; review pamphlets for Sphinx; convene local readings with the other Needlewriters: so I’ve found modest, regular ways to contribute. I’m in a number of groups. I try not to worry too much about prize lists or noise or to overly focus on social media. I try to keep things in perspective. I have found my little corner.

Plus, increasingly, I picture this scene, like a cartoon or mantra (a friend drew my attention to it originally, and he is not a poet):

“The poet is to give a reading from his new book… the dutiful publisher carries a dozen copies of the poet’s new book to sell at the reading… Now it is over, and the publisher gathers up the unsold books, counting them glumly… he trudges home, weary and puzzled – How can thirteen copies be left over from a dozen?” ['DJ Enright, from his collection Under the Circumstances: Poems and Proses, Oxford Poets, 1999.'] i.e. poetry’s a very strange old business! A way of being safely i.e invisibly visible? Gotta love it.

(both poems from The Girl Who Cried, HappenStance, 2020)

Thanks Charlotte, I honestly cannot recommend The Girl Who Cried enough. Do yourself a favour and get it here.

Until next time.

ANNIE FISHER - THE DEAL

Annie Fisher is well known in the south west of England for her wondrous readings. Her work has been published in many magazines and anthologies. Annie has such a light touch and wry humour that it is possible on first reading to miss the serious nature of the poems, but never her humanity. 

The Deal is her second book and you can buy a copy here and her first volume here.

But enough from me.

Tell us about the new book.

It’s a pamphlet called The Deal, my second publication with the excellent HappenStance, press, run by Helena (Nell) Nelson. Nell is the most supportive and special of editors as anyone who has worked with her will agree. She absolutely knows her stuff and has incredible energy and dedication; I feel really lucky to have been published by her.

My first pamphlet was published in 2016 and was called Infinite In All Perfections. That pamphlet had no core theme, although it drew quite a bit on my Catholic childhood and my experiences as a teacher. Some of the poems were funny and some were lightly serious.

The new pamphlet is a bit more serious, and the central theme is fear. I have our mutual friend, Chrissie Banks, to thank for spotting this theme in a number of my poems and for suggesting they could form a collection that might resonate because of the anxiety that many people are feeling at the moment.

The working title for the pamphlet was Scaredy Pants, which Nell and I liked because it’s different. However, we decided it was maybe too humorous, and might sound more like a collection for children. (I also write poems for children.) So Nell suggested The Deal which is the title of one of the poems— it’s about doing a deal with God at a time of personal crisis.

The cover illustration shows a Picasso-style owl with a mouse dangling from its beak. This relates to a poem called Picasso’s Owl, about a pet owl Picasso kept for several years. Picasso had, since childhood, a great fear of death, and owls are sometimes seen as symbols of death. He painted it many times, perhaps as a way of confronting his fear.

But there are funny poems in The Deal as well, including one about an encounter, on a train, with a hen party and a lobster that turns into Donald Trump!

What was the first poem you wrote?

I remember it vividly! I was nine and I wrote it at home, just for the fun of it. It was called ‘Sunset’:

The sun is sinking in the west

In all its golden splendour.

The little flowers have gone to rest

To hide their parts so tender.

My dad seemed to find the poem funny, for reasons I couldn’t understand, but my mum didn’t laugh. I’m quite proud of it as a first poem. And I still think ‘splendour’ is a splendid word!

What next?

A book-length collection one day. The working title is Missing the Man Next Door, but I won’t say more at this stage.

If you were interviewing yourself what question would you ask?

I’d probably ask about how I go about writing my poems because I’m intrigued by the whole process. I wouldn’t be able to answer the question of course!

Music, poetry or film? Which speaks the most to you?

Music. Someone said that all art aspires to the condition of music, and it does seem to me to be the purest art form. Poetry comes close though.

Why poetry?

RS Thomas said that religion and poetry are the same thing. I think that’s right— it’s all metaphor. I was very religious as a child, and still have an essentially religious temperament. Buddhism attracts me, but I’m not a card-carrying member of any group. I think poetry is my religion these days.

What do you want your poetry to do? What do you want to evoke in the reader/listener?

It depends on the poem, I guess— a smile, a chuckle, a nod, a tear…. a connection.

Tell us a joke

What do you call a baby fountain pen?

An inkling.

…..it’s a good joke for poets I think. We spend our lives chasing inklings!

Name something you love and why?

My two grandchildren—love them more than life itself. Just do.

Does creativity involve putting your heart and soul into your work or do you let your mind run free and see where it leads you?

Yes, all of that! It’s a great adventure.

Have you ever doubted your talent?

What talent?

Thanks Annie.

Annie is published by HappenStance Press.

Until next time.

CHRISSY BANKS THE INTERVIEW

I am pleased to bring to you an interview with one of the best poets in the south west. Regular readers of this blog will know Chrissy Banks. I have reviewed her latest collection and I interviewed her eight years ago. Since then she has published a superb collection, The Uninvited, read all over the south west and been published in too many anthologies and magazines to list.

Tell us about the new book

The Uninvited is the first collection I’ve published since Days of Fire and Flood in 2005. The title refers to the way life offers unexpected, uncalled for events, welcome or unwelcome, that change us when we are forced to engage with them. Love and loss are part of this process, but also poems dealing with a sense of bewilderment, fear, conflict or spiritual drought that has to be faced. It might not sound like it, but there is a fair amount of humour along the way, and ultimately I think, finding acceptance to what is irreversible is key.

The book is published by Indigo Dreams, who are a great independent press in Devon with a really impressive line-up of poets and the best front covers anywhere, largely designed by Ronnie Goodyer, who runs the press with Dawn Bauling. They are true professionals and very supportive.

Why Poetry?

Pablo Neruda said this lovely thing in his poem, ‘Poetry’ about starting to write poetry. Poetry found him, he says - ‘there I was without a face/and it touched me’ and ‘something started in my soul/ fever or forgotten wings’. The whole poem is such a marvellous expression of the way poetry becomes not just something you have to do but something with which you have a vital relationship.

Also I think poetry is the best form of literature for reaching whatever waits just out of consciousness both personally for each poet and in a broader way – the zeitgeisty stuff. Look at how just in the last year or more poems about sexuality, mental health and male violence to women have been pushing out into poetry magazines and readings in significant numbers. Fiona Benson’s Vertigo and Ghost, which speaks so eloquently and forcefully on these themes, has just won the Forward Prize for Best Collection, arguably the top award for poetry in the UK. 

How has the poetry business/scene changed over your life?

It’s changed enormously. The web has seen to that. Since I first started writing, there has been a growing proliferation of poetry magazines and online journals, of small presses, of competitions and poetry awards, of Creative Writing programmes and online poetry courses. Poetry now is much more inclusive and international, no longer is the white, male academic automatically favoured. Perhaps what’s changed most of all is the growth and popularity of spoken word poems and their exposure on social media and via the many spoken word events that have sprung up nationwide.

I’m not sure what it’s like in other parts of the country, but here in the south west the open mic rules. It’s great to hear such a variety of voices and to know everyone can have an audience for their poems. But I have a certain nostalgia for the days when a poetry reading consisted of one or two poets, usually published and often well known, reading for maybe two sets of twenty or thirty minutes each. It wasn’t always an evening well spent, but there was an incentive then to put your own writing aside and just listen to someone else, become absorbed in another person’s concerns, their images and rhythms for a sustained period of time.

How far does real life creep into your work?

What is ‘real life’ I wonder!

Seriously, there is so much of real life that happens elsewhere, so much I’m inevitably cut off from, it’s another reason to be grateful for poetry. Ilya Kaminsky’s narrative of living in an occupied country in Deaf Republic and Jay Bernard’s Surge, an exploration of the 1981 New Cross fire in south London that killed 13 young black people are just two collections focused on experience very different from my own. It’s a privilege to be taken into other worlds like this and it asks something of me. In order to bring them alive inside myself, I have to be open enough to let the words and images work on me, I have to meet them with my own humanity.

I’m talking about the real life in others’ poems, but I guess you’re really asking do I use my own life events and relationships directly in my poems? To which there is no unambiguous answer. I sometimes warn people not to assume, even when I have written a poem in the first person, that it is necessarily about me. I have a poem in The Uninvited called A Serious Word. It’s a sort of We May Need to Talk About Kevin poem, but in this case the son is called Tron. This is a first person monologue, but it’s all pure fantasy, honest! All my poems are somewhere on the spectrum between pure fantasy and trying to describe a lived experience as accurately as possible. An example of the latter might be The Touch or After Captain Underpants, the Big Question, both of which are very faithful to my lived experience from the past.

Of course, I always want the reader to think that what I’m expressing is real life. I am disappointed if I write something that doesn’t seem ‘true’, whether it is or not. I have a whole series of poems about individual people. Again, some are people I have known, others completely fictional or with disguises or fictional elements thrown in. Some I needed to write for myself, but they will never be published for privacy’s sake, mine or the other person’s.

My last thoughts are about how very very difficult I find it to write about some of the big stuff that really matters to me. I’m thinking about the political state of the UK, the damage caused by years of austerity and the impact of Brexit. Climate emergency too – where do you begin? Then there is so much still that needs feminism to keep speaking loud and clear. I guess this takes us back to ‘real life creeping in’. What else is there? But sometimes the big stuff needs to be approached via the seemingly smaller stuff. The personal truly is political.  

CARRIE AARON: POET. THE INTERVIEW.

The times I have seen Carrie Aaron read I have been more than impressed with the subject matter, the beauty of her words and the confident manner in which she delivers her work. She is an excellent poet. I have been meaning to interview her for some time but when we ran the poetry circle at this year’s Purbeck Festival I knew I could delay no longer.

Carrie writes a good if sporadic blog and you will find her poetry there. It is well worth a look. But enough preamble, let’s hear from Carrie herself.

Why poetry?

The answer to that lies buried somewhere in my dim and distant past. I've been writing poetry since I was about five. Since I have also been reading A.A. Milne's poems since I was about five, Milne is probably to blame.

Who is influencing you at the moment?

I have (because of Breaking Bad's references to him) recently been reminded of the existence of Walt Whitman. And the all-encompassingness of him, and the way in which his lines (often quite a lot longer than lines generally are) seem to want to spill out and on forever. Which is something that could translate quite brilliantly into performance poetry, I think, if I could only translate it.

How do you get your poems out there to people?

The performance poetry circuit is the main conductor (excuse the pun) of my poetry at the moment. It's all a bit soapboxish, which means that all I have to do to speak and be listened to is to turn up, which is very freeing. I also post poems on my blog.

How important is poetic form to you?

I try not to let poetic form trammel me - it's a tool (and a very useful tool, and one with which I think more poets should acquaint themselves) but not a prison.

Do you keep a notebook with you at all times?

I ought to keep a notebook with me at all times - but I don't. I have, however, used the recording device on my mobile phone to record fleeting thoughts that might be useful later.

Any tips for beginners?

Read. Read very good poetry and very bad poetry. Learn to distinguish between the two, and analyse your responses. Use this same critical faculty on your own poems. Don't pull your punches. And learn to distinguish between helpful and unhelpful criticism - the person who cheers and yells and claps may be being nice but not know what they are talking about, the person who criticises your work may want to help you make it better (and vice versa).

If you were interviewing yourself, what question would you ask?

I would ask myself what I thought made my poetry distinct from other people's poetry. And I would answer that it is probably distinctive in terms of its combination of a (generally) fairly accessible form (usually iambic pentameter) paired with intentional marginalness of subject-matter and (to a book-geek like me, at least) thrillingly arcane references.

If you could do it all again what would you do?

I would enter more poetry competitions earlier on, and set less store on the whimsical reactions of audiences, who are shifting and mysterious things.

What’s in the pipeline?

About the time I finish my Masters in English (sometime next year) I intend to exorcise all my poems thus far by putting them out there in book form.

If you were a poem what poem would you be?

If I were a poem, I'd be Panthea by Oscar Wilde. (I won't tell you why so you're more likely to read it through intriguedness.)

I could not end this blog without showing you a sample of the quality poetry that Carrie is writing:

Cyclopicam

My webcam's watching me. Cyclopsian.

This is why I call it cyclopicam.

& "all the people" behind its screenglass

Are watching me. It is like 'Gogglebox'.

We are wired up, downloaded, if we are

Too ... interesting, for our own good, for our

Year of Our Lord Two Thousand & Thirteen

Is Nineteen Eighty Four plus Twenty Nine

& we've fallen into a paradigm

In which we are shrinkwrapped, zipfiled, if we

Cannot be headshrunk like our severed heads

Were taken in war, vetted, vatted, jars,

An underground like in The Time Machine

Harvested for The (God Save The Queen) Pound,

& ground into it, & for the pollen

That has & does & will clung cling & cling

To our inner legs. & Cyclopicam

(& the powers that be behind it's eye)

Stare out & stare me out & reel me in,

A gape with agape, disseminate-

-ing myself, my seed, my harvest, my wheat

Until I am a revenant made of chaff.

The Hills Have Eyes. My MacBook has an eye.

Beyond Good & Evil. (It's Nietzschean.)

(The people behind it aren't Nietzschean.

They're Ozymandias. They're kings of kings.

& what if they don't approve of the things

I say or do or think or dream or feel...)

My webcam's watching me. It's watching me

Like you watch football, a pot, or TV.

One day, when there's something interesting on,

Then Cyclopicam's eye will come to rest

On me. Be judge. Be jury. Execute.

I shall - we shall, be plucked out by the roots.

Thanks Carrie.

CANDY BRIGHT: The poet speaks.

I first heard Candy read at a Fire River Poets open mic at the Brewhouse. What struck me from the start was the immediacy of her work; it grabbed me from the first word. I was impressed by her emotional honesty and the beauty of her language. Here I thought is a poet who can transform everything the world throws at her into beauty. Her work is honest and accessible to all.

I had the honour of appearing alongside her in the Freeze Frame anthology at the end of last year. Candy is also a member of Juncture 25.

In 2005 her first collection was published Candy Colours, one reviewer described it as “straight from the heart…a lady who understands and faces life full on.”

Let’s hear what Candy has to say.

WHAT GOT YOU WRITING IN THE FIRST PLACE?

 I started writing poetry when I was about 12. Very early on I found words on the page very comforting, even the harsh ones; I think because it was a way of explaining things in what was a very confused world. Once they were there, which would take some thought-they remained predictable.

I spent years having this tumultuous love affair with poetry and after many a lovers tiff would tear up my work –only to be drawn back in again. Nowadays I use a laptop as well as pen and paper but back in the day I would get what I came to know as the ‘pull of pen’.

It has light and shade of course and I often think mine has too much shade but that is how it is. Once a poem is complete there is a satisfaction, a release of tension not unlike love. It does not however last forever.

I was a busy reader when I was younger-more than I do now-I suppose I had less distractions, and it became clear to me that when words work-they really work and it still makes me feel good.

WHO INFLUENCES YOU ?

There are so many poets that I admire, so many poems that I have read that make you just feel-WOW!! And it isn’t a feeling you can really share, it tends to be a party for one. To mention a few: Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Simon Armitage, Tony Harrison,  Mark Haddon, Stevie Smith,  Phillip Larkin, W.B.Yeats,  W.H. Auden, Mary Oliver, Christina Rosetti, Phil Lynott, Maya Angelou …………………and so many more . Poets I meet with now and have the amazing opportunity to share with, to be challenged by, to trust enough to speak up with. I am talking about the poetry group JUNCTURE 25-it is a real pleasure and honour to be part of this group. There will be times when we meet and one or other reads one of their poems and I am transported to that place, that feeling .   If I crave anything it is that connection.

WHERE DO YOU GET IDEAS FROM?

Life experiences and all that entails. I am mostly driven emotionally so my work will come from that rather than perhaps –nature. Whilst this may sound egocentric I believe that whilst we are unique we can all share a theme. I get a real kick out of someone relating to my work as I do when I relate to someone else’s.

FREE VERSE OR FORM-WHICH DOES IT FOR YOU?

I tend to favour free verse and often a poem will find its own rhythm, sometimes rhyme works and sometimes not. I have been challenged by writing to form and it does require more discipline and I have enjoyed the experience. It does not always come naturally. It is something I struggle with, often feeling I should be more academic but am always afraid of losing passion………….

WHATS IN THE PIPELINE?

More of more of the same hopefully! I hope that the poetry group I belong to will publish an anthology this year. I should start a web page !!! I should do a lot of things. I am the world’s worst (best?) procrastinator, however I have started the book-the one that’s been in my head for about 20 years-so maybe once its on the page it will leave me alone J. We have some gigs coming up which I am very excited about including the Porlock Arts Festival- Porlock has a great history with poets so its cool to live here.

IF YOU WERE INTERVIEWING YOURSELF-WHAT QUESTION WOULD YOU ASK YOURSELF?

What have you been doing all this time????????????? I don’t know that I have an answer though.

IF YOU WERE A BOOK WHAT BOOK WOULD YOU BE AND WHY?

I would like to be a South American novel, I love the way they write with colour and passion with few holds barred.

Here are a couple of Candy’s poems:

AN AMERICAN IN LONDON

I don’t remember your name

your face Is blurred, your touch less so

and thirty five years have gone.

But I remember your words:

Falling mouth to mouth

Through the random serenity of hell

I loved you then.

We would eat in the spaghetti houses

in Goodge street and  fill up on

cheap Chianti before making

our way to the hotels in Paddington

where we would trip the light fantastic

in our twilight world.

Always the night.

I was skipping along

being shiny and bright, picking up

before putting down when bored;

my playmates who kept the devil at bay.

You must have been escaping-

her I guess

whoever she was.

You were always gone by the morning

and I would make  my way back ,

back from our secret world

to the one I was escaping too.

I smiled,

it was ok.

You had admired amongst other parts

the mole on my stomach.

I agreed with you and said

I liked it as it broke up the

monotony of my abdomen.

You smiled

and said that had I stayed stateside

I just would have said “it’s neat”.

I found your words in my notebook

The day after I told you I was bored

and called time.

I smiled.

Little by little I have let go

the brittle armour that held me so,

the mole too has gone.

Your words remain and

I smile.

Candy Bright 2013

RELEASE

The room was calling her again

it was time to extinguish the light

she might call but no one came

Now and then she loved the pain

she welcomed in the night

the room was calling her again

Crimson pools where she had lain

testimony to her plight

she might call but no one came

Others may show their disdain

but she had little left for fight

the room was calling her again

Shallow breath her life to claim

it goes so slow out of spite

she might call but no one came

Be so still this too shall wane

and scars heal on limbs so white

the room was calling her again

she might call but no one came