Interview McVety

Allison McVety was the main winner in The Poetry Business Book & Pamphlet Competition 2006 for her collection The Night Trotsky Came to Stay. For more information, see http://www.allisonmcvety.com/

(For the Susan Utting interview, please click here.)

What influences your own writing?

I’m interested in inheritance, not bricks and mortar, but genetics and blood. It seems to me that not only are we born with a set of markers and traits but also the choice of whether or not we use them, whether or not we are defined by them, so that ultimately we aren’t so much constrained by what we are as liberated.

I’m influenced by twentieth-century history on the small scale. And with a background in IT, I’m also keen on exploring the logic and mathematics that is evident in formal poetry: it delights me to imagine fellow poets as code junkies and work colleagues as writing the computational equivalents of villanelles and sestinas in their pig pens!

What type of poetry is getting published today? What are the trends, do you think?

Good poetry, I think. But also, I’m pleased to say, poetry that is both dynamic and diverse. Even a cursory flick through any good poetry magazine reveals a very healthy eclecticism where formal poems and free verse sit side by side. I am excited when a new issue of some magazine or other arrives and encouraged that innovation and quality are ever present. Magazine editors really do support and foster good writing in all its guises.

Poetry published by small presses is seldom sold in major outlets such as W H Smiths and Waterstones. What marketing advice would you give to poets recently published by a small press?

My experience is limited to one small press, and I’m well aware that I am published by one of the very best around. It is important to bear in mind, that whilst most of us write in that small time only available to us after we have earned a living, looked after families and walked the dog, so the editors of small presses do their finest for us in that equally small time after they have earned a living, looked after families and walked the dog. And if there is a scrap of time left after they have looked at the latest revision of a manuscript, then perhaps they can settle down to write for themselves.

With all of this in mind I see publication with a small press as a partnership that extends beyond the collection coming back from the printers. As we have invested our hearts, so they have invested their monies and reputations and therefore we represent our publishers as much as they represent us.

But to answer the question more practically, some major outlets do take books from local poets, so it is well worth approaching the store in the local area to see if they will place one or two copies. Local independent bookshops are good in the main and will often support their local writers. I know Bookends of Wokingham was certainly wonderful to me as was the local library.

Of course, having a website to display a sample of writing and to give details of how and where to get hold of further work can be advantageous. There are professional website design services or it can be done by the individual without too much difficulty. The key to good websites for poems is simplicity and we should try to afford the same clean lines and images to our work on the web page as we do to a submission, to say, Poetry Review.

And, as it is at readings that books are sold in small but regular quantities it is perhaps a good idea to attend open mics and to practice reading out loud (though of course many of us believe this should already be part of the writing and editing process). It is well worth approaching the organiser of poetry events at local venues with a small sample of poems together with a brief writing biography. Good readings spread by word of mouth as much as anything else. But the important thing is not to get disheartened if a booking doesn’t materialise. Stay positive and professional. It will all happen in time, and in the interim, you can practice and perfect.

What in your view is the difference between performance poetry and poetry written for the page?

We write in immensely interesting times. Never before has there been such accessibility (with a small a) to poetry. Technology has provided some marvellous platforms for both the written and the spoken word. Browsing the internet gives access to many of the best poets and their best poems and today’s digital recording techniques mean that not only can we can listen to our favourite poets reading their own work, we can also record and share our own poems.

So, to return to your question, in such an exciting environment, I would suggest that the end point for both performance poetry and poetry written for the page is the same: excellence, but it is perhaps the starting point that differs, and not always.

What audience do you write for, and why?

The word audience concerns me: not only can it marginalise writers and readers alike but it can also seem elitist by implication. It is perhaps a dangerous idea that may do poetry a disservice. It is better to imagine there are people who haven’t read a poem yet, rather than people who don’t read poems at all. The very nature of having an audience might exclude rather than include and I would like to encourage everyone to read more as a whole, and especially, of course, to promote the reading of poetry.

How can poetry be both serious and accessible?

By accessibility, I suppose we mean whether a poem is fathomable, understandable to the reader. I’d go so far as to suggest that if we are unencumbered by the concept of ‘audience’ we can be accessible and accessible on many levels. As for being serious, I don’t see this as an issue.

Everyone turns to poetry for the big moments; we understand serious because it is ever present in our lives. Serious is on the news and in the papers, it comes through letter boxes in bank statements and final demands, it’s a message on the answer phone or a photograph of a lone polar bear on an ever decreasing iceberg.

Everyone gets metaphor and simile and understands conceit. Of course we might not all be able to put a name to the technique being used but we do get the message, subliminal or otherwise. For example we recognise when a national flag is being misappropriated for war or to promote prejudice, we know the impact a yellow ribbon or a poppy can have. Rather than worrying about being serious or accessible, we should concentrate on being better at what we do and let the reader judge us for it.

What’s the title of your next poem?

The Lion Tamer’s Other Job.