2013
Talk to us about your latest book
‘Shades of Grey.’
Shades
of Grey is a collection of writings from my early to mid-twenties ranging from
diary/journal entries to dream pieces, prose-poems, fictional snapshots and a
couple of essays on writing. It’s not an easy book to classify. My publisher (Sheila
Wakefield, Red Squirrel Press) was asked by the ISBN Agency for category clarification
and decided it was best to let them see a copy and make up their own minds –
they deemed it poetry.
I wrote the first pages whilst still living
at my parents’ house, before I’d had anything published. I was employed by a
giftware distribution warehouse at the time – stacking shelves and handling
returned goods for a criminally low hourly rate.
In Shades of Grey the banal sits side by
side with the extremely visceral. I channelled a lot of my angst and bitterness
into the writing. Through a series of untitled vignettes, the reader becomes
privy to the inner workings of a mind in turmoil; a journey through fatigue,
displacement, estrangement and self-loathing. Oh and there’s occasional
glimpses of poetic enlightenment, as well. But I’ve been told it’s generally
quite a heavy read.
I finished selecting pieces for the first
draft in 1996 and waited another four years before re-editing it. To be honest,
I was reluctant to publish it as it was so old. But I was surprised when other
writers saw it as something of a new direction. It wasn’t, but most people think
of me as a spoken word poet, so I’m pleased that a substantial amount of the
book works in a live setting - which helps with promotion – but at the time of
composition I never thought I’d be performing anything anywhere on stage.
Ironically, it was by way of performance
that I secured a book deal with Red Squirrel Press. During an open mic event at
the 2007 Hexham Book Festival Sheila Wakefield approached me and asked if I had
a novel. I said ‘No’ and jokingly added, ‘But you can read my diary’. She asked
to see the manuscript – and four years later, published it.
2 What is your earliest memory of
writing?
My only recollections of poetry from childhood are a
primary school lesson in which I was asked to compose a limerick - using my own
name in the first line - rhyming Stephen with pen, or hen or den - and
the phrase ‘drunk with fatigue’ from Wilfred Owen’s ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ from
one afternoon in my early teens at Blackfyne Comprehensive School in Consett,
County Durham.
When I started scribbling in a diary towards
my twenties the term flash fiction was unheard of. I was penning vignettes that
were neither poems nor stories, I didn’t know what to do with them. It wasn’t
until I read Charles Bukowski’s poems about rejection slips and small press
magazines that I naively began chopping my texts into lines of verse. I’d send
them to Iron, The North, The Echo Room, etc – and get rejection slips with ‘not
quite what we’re looking for’ scrawled on them in return. It took me a
few years to develop and have any success with poetry.
3. What would you say is your greatest
writing achievement to date?
Probably
securing a book deal with Red Squirrel Press. They have published two of my
books now and have just offered to take on another. Other stand-out moments
would be having a poem published in the same issue of ‘The Wide Skirt’ as Simon
Armitage when I was still working in the warehouse. I don’t think he’d have
much time for my work but I do admire his poetry and he is undoubtedly up there
with the best of them. I had poems in ten consecutive issues of a magazine
called Psychopoetica in the nineties. Some of my biggest personal achievements are
more to do with performance – due to a mental breakdown in my late twenties, my
once high-functioning short term memory is now greatly diminished: it happened
overnight; one day you can open a book and scan a poem in seconds, the next you
wake up in hospital and can’t even retain a simple sentence without half a
dozen repeated readings – so being able to deliver a fifteen-minute poetry set
without the page in my hand is rated pretty high for me. But it takes a lot of
effort. My girlfriend, Jenni Pascoe, can learn a two-minute poem in an
afternoon; the same piece would take me a month at least. Other achievements
would be to do with facilitation and promotion: running creative writing
workshops in mental health settings for best part of a decade; and organising
the Waddington Street Centre WADDY MEGA SLAM in September 2011 – an event
featuring 30 poets from across the region. Oh, and I was pretty chuffed that me
and Jenni supported Joolz Denby and New Model Army’s Justin Sullivan at a gig
in Darlington recently.
4. Do you have a daily writing routine?
Yes,
I do. I’ve kept a daily journal/diary for best part of twenty years. At the
start of 2012 I also returned to morning pages, made famous the world over by
Julia Cameron; three pages of long-hand writing on plain A4 sheets as soon as
you wake up. Supposedly a means of clearing away all the dross from your head
before getting down to real work, but after a few months I found that morning
pages have become a net for catching dreams, lesson-plans, speeches and poems –
many of this year’s NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) pieces came from
them.
I also keep a work-log of gigs, workshops,
activities, thoughts on writing. So that’s three opportunities a day to catch
the creative part of the brain at play. But much of my journal is little more
than talking to myself with a pen. I go through my journals a few weeks down
the line and type up anything that surprises me. If it catches me off guard
there’s a good chance it might engage someone else. I’ll let the words dictate
the form and tinker with a piece for a while, then muster up the courage to try
it out at an open mic night. If it gets any response, I’ll work on it further.
And then, as I said earlier, there’s weeks of rehearsal and fine-tuning till
I’m happy with the way the words flow out of my mouth. It’s a slow process from
first spark to final draft. And as far as subject matter goes, I’d be first to
admit I’m one of the most self-indulgent writers going. Occupying and consuming
myself at the same time – it’s pure catharsis and documentation of my
movements. I write reams of stuff but only a tiny fraction of it becomes
poetry. I also post regular updates of raw entries on a blog as well.
As I’ve spent the last four or five years
concentrating on live performance, I’ve not submitted poems to magazines as
regularly as in my twenties and thirties. I used to be a total bibliophile –
for me, a poem in print used to be the real testing ground. I’d sometimes send
two or three batches a week via snail-mail. I liked seeing A5 envelopes on the
doormat; it’s high time I got back to the small press magazine circuit.
5. Where is your favourite place to
work?
In
addition to morning pages in bed upon waking and at the drop-leaf table in the
living room by the window of an evening, I will often scribble on bus journeys.
I find that movement, constant change of scenery and the snippets of overheard
conversation fuel the pen.
I also like participating in writing
marathons. I have hosted a number of these events in various venues. A writing
marathon is a very intense four-hour workshop with up to eight participants, keeping
the focus on short bursts of writing followed by read-backs without commentary.
People lose their inhibitions quickly and everyone gets the benefit of hearing
fresh drafts from their peers whilst sinking into a writing headspace that is
comfortable due to zero threat of criticism. Some startlingly emotionally-charged
material is produced. I tend to come up with performance pieces more easily in
these situations than anywhere else.
Some interesting results occur when you
respond to the buzz of everyday activity in public too – it’s good to take
notes and let the imagination respond to observations. So, lots of places
really. But I love the part in the process where I’m taking a page of scrawl
and discovering what shape the words when typed will make on a page, so I’m
probably at my most comfortable sitting at the computer in my bedroom. I think,
generally though, it pays to be flexible with regards to creative workspaces. And
as far as rehearsals go, I often get strange looks on buses from passengers who
catch me mumbling under my breath, trying desperately not to look at the
printed page in my hand. If you can recite a poem without messing up whilst
being subjected to iPod leakage, one-sided mobile phone conversations and
screaming infants, you should be okay at the open mic.
6. What inspires your writing?
At
the start of a new course of workshops I give participants a handout stating
the benefits of keeping a journal. At the bottom of the sheet is printed WRITE
FOR INSPIRATION, DON’T WAIT FOR INSPIRATION TO WRITE. Writing is a lifelong process
and an act of discovery; I rarely know what I’m going to come up with until I’m
in the thick of it. I had a pretty difficult upbringing so I’m often concerned
with issues of family dysfunction and the affect that has on a person’s ability
to adapt to adult life. Dissatisfaction, anger, fear, keeping depression at bay
– all strong impulses to get the pen moving.
I am also inspired by alternative music and dark
culture – gothic imagery, the macabre – although I find horror novels virtually
unreadable. What really inspires me to write, and this will sound so ridiculous
as to be risible, is the desire to have books with my name printed on the
spine; and to have something come out of my mouth on stage other than; “I’m
terrified”.
Subject matter; initially I was interested
in capturing the solitary figure entering or leaving seclusion, a very ascetic
kind of experience –which was my life for a long time. I’ve become a lot more sociable
in the last decade – due, I suppose, to being active on the spoken word
circuit. I just try to record my life as accurately and honestly as possible. And
I’ve been lucky enough to reach people who enjoy seeing and reading the
results.
7. E-book reader or paper book?
I
can see that Kindle is good for authors who want to self-publish without the
risk of producing a mountain of unsold copies, but for me it has to be the
paper book. I enjoy physically making books, actually; binding them, coloured
endpapers - chapbooks, monographs. Books are tactile. I admire a good edition, sometimes
regardless of its contents. I used to make one-off selected handwritten journal
collections or manual-typewriter-produced poetry chapbooks as gifts for friends
when I had the time. Now, I have a pile of unread paperbacks from Amazon in
every room of the house and never sit still long enough to even begin to enjoy
them.
8. What advice would you give to
aspiring writers?
Write
regularly. Every day. Find out what you want to write by writing and when you
do find out, go and study others in the same genre. Devour as much as you can
by authors who fire your enthusiasm. Study as much as possible, read widely.
Writing is a solitary business most of the time; if you need support, join a
writers group or take an evening class. Personally, I did some of my best
writing by simply going it alone, keeping my head down and getting on with it. Sheer
bloody mindedness. Are you really hungry, how badly do you want to succeed? Are
you willing to sweat, to sacrifice, to put everything you’ve got into it? Start
sending work out to magazines – don’t be put off by rejection. Learn from it.
Make the work as strong as you can. Does it fit the mag house style? Try as
many small-press magazines as you can; go to readings, listen to radio programmes
featuring writers, watch book programmes on television. Scour the internet –
there’s millions of articles, exercises, opportunities. Find a writing guide,
not necessarily a ‘How To’ book, but an author whose book becomes the friend
you read. Don’t be distracted by people who don’t share or support your
enthusiasm, don’t engage in fruitless activities. Avoid procrastination. A
writer writes. Simple as that. Do it. Keep it going. Good luck!
9. Can you name three favourite poetry
collections?
I
enjoy reading books that sound like the author is letting off steam and
allowing you to witness it. So obviously the work of Henry Rollins, Lydia Lunch
and Charles Bukowksi were initially very influential. In my mid-twenties I
started reading Beckett, Kafka, Paul Auster, Mark Strand, Carol Ann Duffy,
Simon Armitage, The Mersey Poets, Sharon Olds, Michael Gira, Henri Michaux,
Charles Simic and many more.
If I had to name just three – although not
strictly poetry – I’d like to include something by Rollins; so I’ll cheat and
say “The First Five” – which is a
compilation of his early collections published in one volume.
“Burning
in Water, Drowning in Flame” contains some of Charles Bukowski’s best work
– before Black Sparrow Press started letting him get away with murder.
And at present, I’m enjoying “For Beauty Douglas
– Adrian Mitchell’s Collected Poems 1953 – 79”.
But I also like “Emotional Terrorism” by
Joolz Denby. “Some They Can’t Contain” by Buddy Wakefield. “The Time Office – New and
Selected Poems” by Tom Kelly. “Cemetery Nights” by Stephen Dobyns. “The Sign of
Saturn” by Sharon Olds. “Sagrada Familia” by Kevin Cadwallender… The list is
endless!
Many thanks to Big Eyes editor Katie Metcalfe.
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