Tag: poet Q & A

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Seven Questions for Poets #2 – Jill Abram

My second poet under ‘seven questions’ interrogation is Jill Abram. Jill is widely published in the magazines and is both the Director of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen – a collective of writers who focus on craft, community and development – and a Tideway Poet. She’s really active on the poetry scene, especially around London – not only in giving readings and staging events, but supporting others too. I’ve met her at various places including Richard Skinner’s Vanguard Readings and Anne-Marie Fyfe’s Troubadour nights. Here are Jill’s answers…

1 – What was the last poetry book you read, that you would recommend?

The Immigration Handbook by Caroline Smith (Seren) – I’m still reading it as the poems are so powerful, you have to take them in small doses and savour each one.

2  – Philip Larkin and Dannie Abse are both alleged to have said they only wrote one or two decent poems a year. How is it for you?

Well, I think that everything that I write is a work of genius but others may beg to differ. I’d like to think I write more than one or two decent poems a year, but I can’t present evidence that anyone else thinks so too…

3 – Do you enter poetry competitions?

I won the very first competition I entered but have yet to repeat that success.  I’m focusing on magazine submissions at the moment, and have had three accepted recently (Under the Radar, Cake and The Rialto).  I have entered some pamphlet competitions so fingers crossed!

4 – What would be your ideal place for a writing retreat? 

Somewhere with a good view, good catering and internet access.

5 – You’re asked to give a reading at the Royal Festival Hall, to thousands of people. What goes through your mind?

At last!

6 – Can you remember the first poem you wrote – what was it about?

That would have been when I was a child and I can’t remember it. It was probably funny and rhyming – I was brought up on Edward Lear and the like.  Then there would have been the teen angst poems, which I wrote in my twenties (late developer). These were mostly about my parents not understanding me, but also included an anti-Thatcher rant!  I started writing more seriously and consistently on an Arvon course in 2007 – those poems are probably best forgotten too!  Except to mark the start of something.

7 – A murmuration of starlings, a murder of crows etc – what would you call a group of poets?

I don’t know but I work as a studio manager and our collective noun is a ‘whinge’, as that’s what we do when we get together!

QUICK PLUG:  Jill Abram is curating a series of readings called ‘Stablemates’ at Waterstones Piccadilly on the last Thursday of the month, starting in September. Each will feature three poets from one publisher. The first are Penned in the Margins, Nine Arches and Seren. Details will be on the events page of Waterstones website and on Jill’s site.

Previous ‘Seven Questions for Poets’:
#1 – Clare Best

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Seven Questions for Poets #1 – Clare Best

A new series begins here. I thought I’d have a fun Q & A with some of my poet friends, throwing them each seven thorny questions and seeing what comes back. Huge thanks to everyone for playing the game. Stand by for some interesting answers!

First up – Clare Best. Clare is author of Treasure Ground  (HappenStance 2009),  Excisions (Waterloo Press 2011),  Breastless (Pighog 2011) and Cell (Frogmore Press 2015). She’s based in Lewes, which is really how I met her. I’ve had the privilege of taking part in workshops with Clare and also helping out at the Needlewriters, the writers’ collective she co-founded. Clare has a great sense of fun and was quick to rise to the seven question challenge!

1 – What was the last poetry book you read, that you would recommend?

The Long Haul by Alan Buckley (HappenStance 2016) – a beautiful, tightly-worked pamphlet. Very skilled, heartfelt, complete poems, and slow-cooked. Thoroughly recommended. I’m always reading Raymond Carver’s A New Path to the Waterfall and find more in it at each sitting – I’m a big fan of Carver.

2  – Philip Larkin and Dannie Abse are both alleged to have said they only wrote one or two decent poems a year. How is it for you?

The problem is you don’t really know what is likely to be at all decent until quite a while down the line! Probably one to three a year that I feel content with – enough to leave them alone. Lots get chucked out early on, most are just abandoned at some point. There’s a lot of starting…

3 – Do you enter poetry competitions?

From time to time, not often. I prefer sending to mags and journals on the whole, it feels less impersonal.

4 – If someone has never read any poetry, where would you suggest they start?

I think I’d point them towards the Bloodaxe anthologies: Staying Alive; Being Alive; Being Human and Anthony Wilson’s Lifesaving Poems. All are excellent. Oh, and Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience.

5 – You’re asked to give a reading at the Royal Festival Hall, to thousands of people. What goes through your mind?

Honestly: at first, well, sheer delight – the fear etc will come later. Then, What the hell am I going to wear?

6 Why is end-rhyme considered a good thing in performance poetry, but rarely found in contemporary magazines?

Good question. There are quite a few odd differences in taste and fashion between the various presentations of poetry. I think if you see end-rhymed poetry on the page first, the end-rhyme sticks out but if you hear it first and read it afterwards you remember the sounds as pleasurable. We probably need clear sound-patterning more in poetry we first encounter through our ears.

7 – A murmuration of starlings, a murder of crows etc – what would you call a group of poets?

Depends on the group of poets. 😉  But how about a ‘plunder’ of poets?

QUICK PLUG:  Clare Best is reading in Edinburgh this Wednesday 17th August, at the Fruitmarket Gallery, alongside Tessa Berring, Isobel Dixon, Alan Gillis, Eliza Kentridge and Rob A. Mackenzie. The reading will include poems responding to the gallery’s current exhibition by Mexican artist Damian Ortega. Doors 7pm – drinks, exhibition. Readings 7.30pm. FREE EVENT! Bar, art, poetry and the special Fruitmarket Gallery festival atmosphere.