How has winning the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, an amazing 5 times, influenced your poetry?
It isn’t an overstatement to say that winning the Foyle Award
changed my life, because it changed my sense of what was possible
through poetry. After attending the winners’ Arvon course at Lumb Bank, I
came back determined to make writing
the focus of my life, and I did. As a young writer, you’re full of
uncertainty and in some ways those uncertainties don’t vanish (‘am I
good enough? Do I have anything new to say?’) but winning Foyle gave me a
single certainty to counteract those doubts: the
belief that poetry IS important. That certainty has steered my course ever since! In terms of writing
itself, the Arvon courses I was lucky enough to go on as a result of
winning Foyle encouraged me to read widely – I was introduced to the
work of poets I would never
have come across otherwise. I think reading has to be the basis of all
writing, so those influences have been tremendously important.
As a judge this year, what will you be looking for in the winning poems?
I’ll be looking for poems that take me aback: the kind of poem
that would creep up and move my chair when I’m not looking, or trip me
up when I least expect it, only to catch me just before I hit the
ground. Poems that surprise the reader
and have obviously surprised the writer too. I also value sincerity in
poems. That doesn’t mean they have to be true, because often the ‘truth’
of an experience or feeling is best captured by a kind of pretence. But
they should come from the heart. As Ted
Hughes said, it’s important as a writer to distinguish between things
you’re merely curious about and things which are a deep part of your
life.
Do you feel there is enough being done to encourage and support both young poets as well as those further along in their career?
I think there are a wealth of opportunities for young writers today,
it’s almost hard to know where to begin: initiatives like the Young
Poets’Network or the Young Writers’ Hub
(http://www.nawe.co.uk/young-writers-hub.html
) offer support to new poets whilst competitions like Foyle and the
Eric Gregory Awards offer a platform for them to get their writing
noticed; it’s important that the emphasis isn’t always on competition, I
think, because so much of writing is far removed from that. The best
thing about winning Foyle for me was the chance to meet and work with
other writers, both my own age and older. I
think it’s important that young writers interact with writers further
along their careers, whether that’s in a mentoring capacity or more
informally, because those dialogues introduce both writers to new ideas
and material.
Do you feel poetry is shedding its somewhat old-fashioned and
traditional stereotype and becoming more appealing to a wider audience?
I think it’s sometimes unhelpful to talk about a division
between ‘traditional’ poetry and newer means of engaging audiences (such
as the UK’s thriving performance scene) because they’re all part of the
same art, but yes, those stereotypes
do still exist and I hope that the variety of guises poetry comes in
nowadays do help to make people more open minded about what poetry is.
We all recognise poetry (and good poetry) when we encounter it, but it’s
very difficult to turn that into a definition
of poetry. Perhaps that refusal to be pinned down is part of poetry’s
strength: it sneaks in when we aren’t looking, disguised in a second
hand coat, and takes our breath away.
Can you recommend any poetry collections for 11-17 year-olds?
First of all, don’t be put off by thinking anything’s ‘too
difficult’ for you when it comes to poetry. I’d recommend reading (and
hearing) as much of everything as you can, but here are a few
collections that I particularly enjoyed as
a teenager or have found inspiring more recently:
Simon Armitage, ‘Zoom’ – one of the first collections I read,
Armitage’s inventiveness always makes me do a double-take and I still
savour the images in his first collection, like the car horn 'moaning /
softly like an alarm clock under
an eiderdown' in the chilling first poem ‘Snow Joke’.
Tim Burton, ‘The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy’ - shows how much fun you can have with poetry if you want.
Jo Shapcott, ‘Phrase Book’ - great narratives, Shapcott can give
voice to anything. Her poems are a good example of how poetry enables
strange and magical transformations.
John Hegley, ‘The Adventures of Monsieur Robinet’ - I always go back
to John Hegley's work because he makes me laugh, whilst also making me
think.
Kay Ryan, ‘Odd Blocks’ - Kay Ryan has a very unique way of looking at the world and honouring its peculiarities.
Ian McMillan, 'I Found This Shirt' - one of my favourite poets, Ian
McMillan is committed to showing us how truth is stranger than fiction
and he's a great example of how you can get witty and startling material
from the world around
you.
A huge thanks to Helen for answering our questions. For further information on 2012's Foyle Young Poets competition please visit http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/competitions/fyp/.
