Audience as Constraint

When I write poetry, for whom am I writing? Who is my intended audience?

This is a question I have only recently started asking myself. Perhaps it is different for novelists, or storywriters, or memoirists. Perhaps it is different if you seek to earn a living from your writing; but my answer, at least until a few weeks ago, would have been in the first instance I write for myself. I need to translate thoughts, feelings, memories, impressions, imaginings,  experiences, observations, into words and structures, driven partly, I think, by a compulsion to generate some sort of order and meaning out of chaos and confusion.

It continues to be a pleasant surprise when others read my poetry and relate to it in some way. My prime motivation for writing, however, is not a desire to be read.

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The thingness of language – An Interview with Richard Capener of Hem Press

Based in Birmingham, England, Hem Press is a small independent publisher with a diverse catalogue that includes visual poetry, experimental memoir, narrative verse and radical translation. As part of my on-going series of editor interviews I spoke to Richard Capener, who founded Hem Press in 2022.

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‘Everyone is invited’ – An Interview with Anthony Etherin of Penteract Press

Readers of formal and constrained poetry will, like me, have been saddened by Penteract Press’s recent announcement that it will cease publishing new titles after 2024. As part of my on-going series of interviews with editors of small independent presses, I spoke to Penteract’s editor Anthony Etherin about the press, its ethos, and the reasons behind the decision to close. Anthony also shares two poems from his new collection The Robots of Babylon, which will be published on the 21st of October and is now available for pre-order. 

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