Poetry
language love
I have loved poetry for as long as I can remember
My poetry has been published in print journals, online and in anthologies.
I have recently begun to make poetry films.
pointing: a poetry film
When I was six, I took my first exam in Elocution. From then until I was seventeen, I worked through the Speech and Drama syllabus, relishing the opportunities to learn and recite poems, some of which I still remember. This emphasis on speaking poetry gave me a love of language as it sits and rolls on the tongue, bounces and sparks with what went before and comes after; a taste for lines on the breath, meaning in the air, the sight of my voice connecting with a listener.
Later, I read poetry to contact emotions I didn’t know how to feel and wrote poetry as a way of managing tumultuous life changes.
Later still, I joined a women’s writing group and began to apply myself to the art and craft of poem-making. This led to an MA in poetry, publication in various literary journals and the never-ending dance with language and form
that continues to thrill me.
I have a deep love of poetry and read it every day. The old poets - Shakespeare, Tennyson, Keats & co - will always have a place in my heart but there is plenty of room for contemporary writers. Among those I particularly admire are Nell Farrell, Fiona Benson, Nuar Alsadir and Claudia Rankine.
Qualifications:
2020 Master of Arts (MA) in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Manchester Metropolitan University
Recommended reading:
Derrida’s Monkey - Nell Farrell (Pindrop Press)
Vertigo & Ghost - Fiona Benson (Cape)
Fourth Person Singular - Nuar Alsadir (Liverpool University Press)
Citizen - Claudia Rankine (Penguin)