Do you have a writing routine? If so, please give a quick overview.
Annoyingly, my default setting is ‘I don’t want to write’, so I really have to trick myself into writing sometimes. I work best in short, sharp bursts, and prefer to write in the morning (so that the rest of the day is mine!).
My best trick so far is setting up a WhatsApp group with just me in it, so I can send myself little thoughts or lines as I’m walking around, or voice note myself if an idea comes to me. This makes my process a lot easier, because I’m then just mining these notes for good content, or something that might be the kernel of an idea.
I think my process is generally quite chaotic. I often feel like I’m running around, gathering nearby objects, ideas, memories, bits of different reading or TV or images, covering myself until I wriggle out from underneath, leaving the poem standing there.
When did you first start writing? What made you first start writing?
I imagine that I fancied myself a writer long before I actually was one, telling people I was going to write a novel from the age of eight. I was very precocious. I’d make “books” out of sheets of A4 stapled together, then write my own stories. I had notebooks to write stories in, too. They were all terrible.
I decided to study English with Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham on a bit of a whim, but it turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made. I went into the degree with essentially zero experience, and thought I’d be a novelist. Then, under the guidance of my excellent tutors, I fell in love with writing poetry – and found I was better at it that writing prose – and then carried on from there. I still plan on going back to fiction, now, but writing poetry has allowed me to learn about my voice, what I’m trying to say, and how I want to write.
What are your influences?
I’m very interested in destabilising the categories of “high” and “low” when it comes to culture, and I especially enjoy deflating the idea of poetry being “profound”. In the vein of The New York School Poets, I’m interested in using popular culture in my writing: TV, social media, film, etc. I like to, essentially, explode what people think poetry “should” be about, or inspired by. I often think about how poetry that attempts to belong to “high” culture, by offering universal platitudes and often clumsily reaching for profundity, ultimately fails because the reader cannot connect with the emotional resonances of the poem. References popular culture (and therefore “low” culture) utilise specific and widespread habits to create emotional resonance. Using low culture, such as reality TV and music videos, to create high culture (poetry), almost ridicules the very idea of having a divide between high and low culture, and thus undermines the narrative of there being one great tradition or type of poetry.
When I think about this, my go-to poets are: Franny Choi, Heather Phillipson, Jennifer L. Knox, Crispin Best, Morgan Parker, Rachael Allen. I’d also consider my work as belonging to the umbrella term ‘Absurdism’, and I’m obsessed with prose poems, so I also admire Luke Kennard, Maxine Chernoff, James Tate, Russell Edson, Matthea Harvey, Jane Yeh, Sara Woods.
What’s your favourite book?
I’m terrible at having favourites of anything because I’m ultimately very greedy. I’m like that octopus from Blue Planet II making itself a suit out of shells.
I wish I’d written Jenny Offill’s novel Dept. Of Speculation. I’m always going back to Franny Choi’s Soft Science for its formal innovation, use of popular culture, and incredible voices. Padraig Reagan’s Delicious made me think differently about how to write about food.
Could you share your top DOs and DON’Ts of writing?
I’m terrible for “comparing and despairing” when it comes to my writing. As a note to self, I always say ‘compare and despair’ when I’m doing just that, and this is an attempt to remind myself that I’m on my own path, and doing what I need to do right now to get on with my writing. I think it’s especially important not to be too hard on yourself – rejection is part and parcel of being a writer, as is working in a completely different way to everyone else. My writing process is mine, and it’s odd, but it works for me.
Read lots! All my best ideas come from being in conversation with other writers. I want to see how they do it, and try my very best to get even a little bit closer to the writers I admire. Other writers have changed the way I think, the way I see, and the way I write.
I am also very lucky and grateful to be supported by wonderful writer friends. Finding people I trust, who will read my work, critique it fairly and support me, has helped me to become a better writer.
Keele Hall Readings 