We're keeping it internal this week as TheNeverZine pals Claire and resident poet Rosie get together to discuss inspiration, form and finding one's voice.
“Poetry is a medium of expression that has no criteria, no requirements of you, it doesn’t need to make sense, and you don’t need to make sense of it. That’s why it’s so great.”
Let’s start with some introductions.
Rosie: I'm Rosie Cook. Currently, I'm based at home in Wiltshire - in the rural countryside, which is lovely. As an artist, I would describe myself as emotive, curious, and romantic.
What first drew you to your practice, and what keeps you there?
Rosie: When you go through school, there's a lot of structure and criteria put on how we should write. I think what I love about poetry is that it doesn't need to hold any of those criteria. It feels like the perfect medium to explore and express that which we can’t express, like the in-betweens of thoughts, feelings and emotions that you can't get down into just one sentence because they don't fit there. Poetry offers a space where you can create something that can come as close to that feeling or emotion because it doesn’t hold any restrictions on things that we think we need in writing and art. In terms of what keeps me there - it’s the medium I use to process, basically, existing. So as long as I exist, I require it; I use it to decipher what’s going on in front of me.
When did you first get into writing poetry?
Rosie: At university, I did a ‘writing poetry’ module which was incredibly interesting, and that was the first time that I was treated as a writer or a poet, because that’s how the tutors would address you - if you’re writing poetry, you’re a poet, and it forces you into seeing yourself that way. I had written poetry beforehand, but I don’t think I had realised it, because at the time I probably thought poetry had to be rhyming etc., so I guess I started at 17 or 18, but not necessarily with the full understanding that I was writing poetry.
When you look back at your earlier work, and what you were taught, what do you take from it all?
Rosie: I loved that there was so much freedom with how they depicted writing and poetry specifically: I look back at my early work and maybe I don’t like it so much now, but I appreciate that. And as other academics, the tutors understood the importance of allowing us as artists to go through our own filtering processes. So, I would say I’m grateful for the freedom they gave us because when you start writing poetry, it’s really easy to fall into the trap of trying to sound like a ‘poet’. When I did the ‘writing poetry’ module, I had to write poems weekly, and some of the stuff I wrote was very clichéd, but I was just using language that I thought sounded like it should be in poetry.
When did you start to find your voice, and how did you know?
Rosie: This is an interesting question because my first response would be that I’m still in search of my voice. But in speaking to you now, I realise that I do have an understanding of the things that I, for example, don’t gravitate towards as a poet. So I suppose I do have a grasp - I know the types of things that I want to say, or I know that I have things to say. I feel like I'm still in a phase where I feel like my voice is simply just in an amalgamation of all the other voices that I have seen and studied. Lots of the poetry that I write, I know there is a part of me that's just trying to emulate the poets that I’ve read, loved and respected because I see what they're doing and I want to try and do it too. I don’t know if I’ve hit complete authenticity, and there is a part of me that doesn’t know if I ever will; how much of what we write /and create is just a fusion of everything we’ve witnessed/been exposed to / enjoyed/looked up to?
TheNeverPress: The age-old Free Will argument.
Rosie: Haha, exactly. But I suppose you could argue that purely the notion of you, as an individual, writing, immediately holds your voice, because no one else is you. Overall, if you go into something with the sole focus of trying to be ‘different’ or ‘unique’, you’re going to end up further away from those components than when you started.
Who would you say inspires you?
Rosie: Honestly, in this day and age, anyone who dares to create, I find inspiring. The creative industry is oversaturated and blurry. When you create in this digital age, you come up against the ferocious battle of how to ‘sell’ yourself. When I write a poem I think, ‘Should I post this anywhere?’. It’s good to put yourself out there, but there’s the question of how much that can cause us to lose the why of what we’re doing. At university, I had a tutor - Keston Sutherland - who taught my poetry modules, and he changed my life. Whenever I write my book, it’s getting dedicated to him (even though he probably doesn’t remember me anymore). But he inspired me so much because he was so passionate, and when you’re a passionate writer - someone who lives and breathes their craft - it’s so compelling to meet others like that. I feel like he taught me the language of art; what could be revealed and concealed through the capacity of literature and how much there is to gain from it. *Sigh* I was intellectually enamoured by that guy.
TheNeverPress: I so understand you, I felt the same way about my history tutor.
Rosie: Right? It’s so comforting to meet someone who makes you feel like no passion for your craft is too much passion.
TheNeverPress: I couldn’t agree more. I was going to ask next if there was a piece of art or a book that changed you, but it sounds like there was a man.
Rosie: There was a man, and there are many people. But there are inanimate objects, too, that inspire me or suggest something to me, and it’s fun to explore that suggestion. Keston taught me Samuel Beckett at university, and he said ‘After you read Beckett nothing will ever be the same’, and he was completely right. I felt like I was seeing for the first time. Beckett has a way of describing love and relationships through this lens of intangible closeness which in essence can become a non-closeness. Our inability to ever satisfy this intrinsic desire for complete intimacy - knowing an individual almost in the way of fusing to become something whole - meant that for Beckett, love will always be something of a tragedy. The way he translates the pain of that is so profound; I haven’t read anyone else who has been able to do it that way. Lots of his works are very crude, but then there are flashes of light in them of such tenderness and emotion, that can break your heart in one sentence.
In your opinion, what is more important - form or content?
Rosie: My first thought is that good writers can weave the two together and allow them to be in constant conversation with one another, so it’s not one or the other. But I will say, that content is content, and it isn’t about what you write but how you write it - how an emotion or an experience is translated. So, for me, form is massively important because it can be a case of how you say something without saying anything at all. It plays on that notion of writing and human experience, which I want to grasp, which is all the experiences we have that don’t fit into structures or words or cohesive understanding. Form is the secret ingredient to how you begin to translate those things. Of course, you can’t have one without the other, but, especially when we talk about writers of previous generations, they were doing very interesting things with form, and that’s why they offer so much.
TheNeverPress: I respect that - as someone who isn’t huge on poetry, because I find I don’t really ‘understand’ it, I do find it easier to comprehend a poem that’s composed in a style where I know how best to follow its flow, rather than when it’s all written out in a standard paragraph, for example.
Rosie: Yeah, there’s definitely a reason for form.
How do you know when a project is ‘completed’?
Rosie: I’m one of those people that can edit forever, but that’s not a good thing. A lot of my poems I’ll write and then never touch - it’s written in the moment, it translates the immediacy of the experience or feeling in that moment, and so it’s done. When I’m writing longer pieces, however, I edit a bit more, but you have to make sure you’re not losing a grasp of the initial aim of the piece. It’s a tricky one; I fall into the trap of sometimes thinking that editing is bettering, and of course, that’s not always the case. I guess you need to think, when you’re editing, what is it you’re trying to achieve?
What is your greatest ambition?
Rosie: In simple terms, to be a published author. I want to be that person that communicates something to someone that they’ve never experienced before, to spark an ineffable feeling from my work. I want to pass the baton on and inspire in the way that I’ve been inspired through literature.
TheNeverPress: I think that’s very honourable. I, too, want the same. Do you have any idea what kind of books you would write?
Rosie: At the moment I’m kind of writing something, but I don’t know what it is. It relates to the form and content question in that I’m less focused on a story and more focused on how it’s delivered.
TheNeverPress: and it’ll be published with us at TheNeverPress.
Rosie: Obviously!
What do you think is the most challenging aspect of your work/process?
Rosie: Perfectionism, trying to be ‘great’ or like ‘the greats’. It’s hard not to want to emulate that. I heard a quote once that said something like “The pain of being a writer is when your taste goes beyond your talent”. But it’s a journey, I guess. Your abilities change and grow, one is never stunted. And it’s all subjective anyway.
Do you have any advice for people who want to get into writing poetry?
Rosie: If you write anything that doesn’t fit into the structures that we know, you are a poet. There’s nothing you can create that someone can say “Yep you’ve passed the test, now you’re a poet”. It’s like what that chef in Ratatouille says, anyone can cook.
TheNeverPress: Iconic movie.
Rosie: Of course. So, anyone can write anything, it all comes from you and for you. You don’t need anyone to validate you. It’s funny because poetry is essentially the complete freedom of linguistic expression, and yet people are afraid of it because it holds so much freedom and it has no criteria. People are more scared of that than, say, writing a story because they know there’s a structure that they can follow. The irony is that poetry says you don’t have to do any of that. Poetry is a medium of expression that has no criteria, no requirements of you, it doesn’t need to make sense, and you don’t need to make sense of it. That’s why it’s so great.
Favourite poets/authors?
Rosie: My favourite poet is Frank O’Hara, who was around in the 60s in New York. How he grasps that feeling of aliveness is incredible. His writing is very rich and explosive but woven with such tenderness, which is something I find I gravitate towards in writers. Ali Smith is also up there for me; her melodic style of writing is genius.
Finally, a favourite poem of your own?
Rosie: I think one that I wrote recently, the first one I uploaded to TheNeverZine, actually - Alive. That was kind of cool.
And there we have it - a lovely little convo between TheNeverPress and Rosie. We'll continue to publish her works on this zine so you'll never have to go far to find some beautiful, heartfelt and authentic poetry.