Diana Brodie: an interview
1. When did you start writing poetry? Has your writing gone through
recognisable phases? Can you identify any breakthrough moments?
I think that when I was very young I had the idea of becoming a
poet. I read a lot, learned poems by heart and sat pensively by the
window with an open book. My parents had firm plans for me – a
job in my father’s office, starting as near as possible to my fifteenth
birthday.
When I was about eight, I had a schoolteacher who was especially
good at teaching creative subjects and I so much enjoyed my first
lesson in how to write a poem that when I arrived home from school,
I went to my room and wrote another, but when I took it to show my
mother, she became extremely angry and tore it to shreds, dumping
it in the kitchen bin with the vegetable scraps.
Writing a poem was, I think, considered pretentious, "a waste of
paper" and seen as "trying to be clever when you’re not". I couldn’t
bring myself to try writing a poem again for five decades apart from
compulsory homework exercises. I only remember writing a limerick
that I had to explain to everyone who heard it.
I had a lot of trouble at home in trying to be allowed to stay at
school beyond 15 and the lucky chance came when I was injured in
an accident on the way to school (!) and gained the sympathy vote
after my sister’s pleadings to my parents that I should be allowed to
continue at school and then go to University. I had to pay my own
way (and pay board to my mother) though.
I thoroughly enjoyed my university years and ended up with an MA in
English. I then trained as a teacher, got married the following year
and soon afterwards came to England. I was reading a fair amount
of poetry and in our early days heard Auden read his poetry in Great
St Mary’s in Cambridge.
The need to write poetry surfaced only in the 1990’s when I
happened to meet someone who was talking about correspondence
courses and she mentioned that they were available in poetry. I had
felt I’d be too embarrassed to bring my inadequate efforts into the
light of day so this was the perfect solution. I enjoyed the course,
which had an Arvon residential week at the end. This was about the
time – 1997 - that the Poetry School was founded in London and I
enrolled on Mimi Khalvati’s versification course. After work on a
Friday night, I’d catch a train and head for Covent Garden. I have
taken Poetry School courses in every subsequent year.
I enjoyed writing and after a few years, the Poetry School asked me
to submit for an anthology of a selection of PS poets considered likely
to publish a collection at some point (I think most of those selected
have done). I was very surprised by this but I began to submit more
poems elsewhere and fairly soon had some publications. Another
year or so went by and comments became even more encouraging so
I decided that if “real poets” thought I could do it, I was under an
obligation to try (though it felt for a long time like pretence). So that
was the final stage before the breakthrough of a book publishing
offer. I wrote a lot, went to dozens of courses and aimed for a book
more than a pamphlet. I don’t know why that direction was
recommended to me, but that is what happened.
2. Do you write literary prose too?
Very occasionally. I’ve got a piece in this month’s issue of the New
Zealand literary journal, Takahe. I’d have liked to have done more
but I don’t have the time, having started so late with poetry. The
only other thing I do is quite a lot of writing and editing for the
Parkinson’s Society, information sheets and handbook or a review.
I’ve got a piece in the next issue of the next national magazine.
3. What factors affected the ordering of the poem in the book? Now
that you can see them all together do themes emerge that you didn't
notice before?
I only understood my poetry when I had several attempts at putting
a collection together and realized, for instance, that a poem was
often not really about the subject I had originally thought at all. The
subconscious does not need to refer to the conscious mind in order
to create a metaphor.
The themes I keep finding traces of are
Waiting. Waiting to be in the right place, waiting for change and
seeing it. Waiting to leave. Looking at ways of leaving. Maps.
Jumping. Flying. Landing. Falling.
Also, circles. A poem is often circular beginning with an idea which
grows as it develops and then at the end may have a simple or
profound conclusion that refers back to the beginning. One thing I
love about growing older is that there seems to be so much
opportunity for renewing old friendships.
The book is divided into sections, each section title being a phrase
quoted from a poem within that section and giving a clue to other
themes. Starting with No Ordinary Thing. Poetry makes the ordinary
extraordinary, or should do.
4. How does your family view having a poet in the family?
My sister, Wendy, has been very supportive and she has read many
of my poems. I think she is glad that these things I write about have
now been said which once they never could be. We scarcely
mentioned them to each other until we were in our 50’s, long after
both parents had died. Three decades, in fact. My mother would
have loathed my poetry.
With my husband and daughters, for a long time, there wasn’t much
discussion about it and I think it was seen as another example of my
enthusiasm for taking courses. When my daughters were teenagers,
I took 3 ‘A’ level exams and I often went to evening and weekend
courses on any subject that interested me but gradually, poetry
became the chief focus. Becoming so immersed in poetry as I have
been has been a big surprise. Since I’ve had mobility problems, my
husband has been very good about accompanying me on the
journeys to Arvon houses or to the London Poetry School and staying
in the area until I had finished the course. He knows well the Devon
coastal path and Shropshire walking tracks, also the Lambeth area.
Our grandchildren are very excited and impressed that there’s a
book.
5. They say that blind people compensate by enhancing their other
senses.
You're not as mobile as you used to be. Have you found that some
other
faculties are working harder?
Well, the other faculties all have their problems too because a
neurological disease can affect everything. It’s challenging physically
but I’m extremely fortunate to be given the opportunity, while I can
take advantage of it, to have "Giotto’s Circle" published.
6. What advice would you give a budding poet? What have you learnt
about
becoming a "poet".
I think that a writer’s focus should be not on “becoming a poet” but
on writing a good poem, considering all feedback seriously, being
able to justify changes you don’t make and those you do. Edit
ruthlessly, especially the wordy first stanza that can feel like a huge
intake of breath.
Also, make good contacts with others writing poetry. There’s a lot to
learn and you can build up useful information that way.
7. Which writers do you re-read? Have you learnt any tricks from them?
I like Fleur Adcock and Raymond Carver. Dennis O’Driscoll. Brendan
Kennelly, especially "The Man Made of Rain". I like mystery but also
directness.
8. How has your relation to New Zealand and its poetry changed over
the years?
At school, I think there was only an occasional mention
of any New Zealand poets but that seemed to dwindle to nothing
after I was about 12. I bought one paperback anthology of “New
Zealand verse” in those years but I didn’t feel interested in it. I’m
pretty sure that during my university course – four years at University
- there was no mention of them. Of contemporary poets, there were
a few of the UK and American “greats” – Eliot, Auden, Wallace
Stevens – that was about it and anything else I was left to discover
for myself. I didn’t read much NZ poetry for years, then it tended to
be expatriates like Fleur Adcock or Janet Frame, both of whom felt
very uneasy in a New Zealand cultural climate.
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