| Love Bites | John Siddique will be taking part in a Valentine's Day Poetry Battle on Feb 14th at Contact Theatre, Oxford Road, Manchester. It starts at 7.30pm and tickets are £5/3. Full details on 0161 247 0600. Other poets taking part include Linda Chase, Marvin Cheesman and Segun Lee-French. |
When did you first start writing poetry and can you remember the first 'proper' poem you wrote? I didn't start writing at all until I was 27, that was in 1991. It was quite by accident, I was running a landscape gardening company at the time and really had no interest in the creative arts or poetry. Two things happened to change all this, someone gave me a copy of Joyce's Ulysses, which I found easy to read even though everyone was telling me how difficult it was. My mum is Irish so I had the right sound in my head. The way Joyce connects things together and the real human experience he fearlessly shows did something to me. It showed me that literature has a purpose. I also discovered a book called "Wild Mind," which is about a writing technique called free-writing. I did this, just keeping journals trying to speak the truth about raw real experience, for about two years. It was hearing ee cumming's love poem "some where I have never travelled..." in Woody Allen's "Hannah and her sisters," that turned me on to poetry. It seemed clear that poetry was about getting women! These days I have a different view, but if that's your bag, it certainly works. I can't remember my first poem. I'll still have it in a notebook somewhere, but it took a long time before I wrote a poem I felt had something about it. What inspires you to write? The real, ordinary things that we do as humans that we pretend not to notice. How do you write? Do you have set times or is it just a matter of when the muse takes you?
 | | John Siddique - Love Bites |
The Muses are nice girls, it’s very sexy when they visit, but to make a living one has to work, so I just get on with writing as my job. I try to have a number of writing days each week, sometimes doing the admin takes over, or I'm out running workshops or travelling to do a performance, but my daily routine when writing goes something like: 6.30 wake up
6.45 yoga with my partner
7.30 family breakfast, the kids watch telly at breakfast but we sit and eat together twice a day, then I do my ablutions and I write up my morning journal which I set half an hour aside for. This clears my head out and allows me to plan what I'm doing. It also stops my junk emotions getting in the way of my writing.
8.45 pick up mail from my PO Box.
9.00 - 1.00 writing, studying, researching
1.00 lunch (my naughty secret is that I love Neighbours, and watch it every lunchtime)
2.05 - 6.00, typing up, editing, phone calls, correspondence, planning. Often I work again in the evening, as there is so much to do, I also type up my Weblog in the evening. How would you describe your poetry? My writing is direct. I don't believe in trying to show the reader how clever I am. All that interests me is not getting in the way of the story that needs telling. My style is formally narrative, roughly using an iambic syllabic rhythm. I have a tendency not to use end rhyme much, again because the story is more important. I do have a strong sense of internal rhythm though. I like telling the truth about things and I try to be musical and create art which says something real. More people seem to want to write poetry than actually want to read it - so what's wrong with poetry? Nothing's wrong with poetry. People generally have been taught wrong when it comes to poetry. They believe they are not clever enough and that there is something to understand, like poetry is a puzzle to solve. Its an art form, it is like looking at a painting - unless you look at the picture you won't get the story, and the story happens inside you, the reader. It's a relationship between the piece and the reader that has to occur, this involves a journey and a giving of trust on both sides. It's not about knowing all the history of art, or all the techniques of writing before you can look. Britain has an anti thinking bias, which doesn't help. Poets could help by concentrating on making their work clearer rather than clever. The so-called poets who don't read contribute to this mess. It's a bit like having a conversation with someone who is just waiting for you to stop talking so they can tell you how good they are. Reading poetry doesn't spoil one's particular voice, it actually adds to it, I guess poets who don't read can then pretend to be being 'original' but very often their originality is all about them. Are youngsters given the right foundation at school to build on when it comes to writing poetry and creative writing in general? Not in my experience, no. I have run workshops in hundreds of schools, and believe that while teachers try their best, the political agenda of the times is against them. The emphasis of modern education is analysis, leading to life as a consumer as its purpose, rather than, as I would like to see it, the gathering of tools to have a happy, individuated, successful life. Creative writing and literature in schools is often taught as a means to passing exams rather than being part of a rich and meaningful life - and who needs one of them, when we can always go shopping instead? If there was one word you could have banned from use in poetry what would it be? Echoing... in poetry everything is always echoing… "SORRY I can't hear you because of the ECHOING!" and yes I have used it myself. What do you plan to do with your residency at Commonword? The residency for me is a sort of homecoming, when I first started writing it was Commonword who helped me realise that I could do this professionally, becoming a writer is murder on one’s self esteem, and Commonword is a place to learn that you have a voice and then how to develop that voice in a safe but appropriately challenging place. I hope to build on that legacy. I'll be mentoring a number of poets who are already on the road into their writing journeys as well as running guest workshops for regular workshop goers. I'm involved in a number of readings and performances as part of the scheme, like the Valentine’s Day love battle at Contact theatre. Then there’s my appearances on this website where I hope to inspire people to debate, to send me their ideas which I want to spark off on to write poems from. I'll be sharing some of my favourite poetry on here too, hopefully showing that poetry is a living breathing art. I will also be spending some of my time writing a new collection of work, to be published by Commonword’s publishing house Crocus later in the year. And what about the future? What's next on the cards for you? Even though I've been writing for 13 years, I really only feel like I'm getting going. I've managed to make a living doing what I do for the last 9 years, but now is the time to attend more to the writing & publishing side of my business. My new book, Prize, comes out with Rialto this year, which will probably lead to a reading tour. I have this residency and new collection to do. I'm also researching a prose book which will involve a lot of travelling and I have a children’s collection I'm about to send out to publishers. Somewhere in all that we're trying to find somewhere new to live, things are getting exciting. | 
