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patience agbabi
A ‘post-watershed poet’
For the first time, Patience Agbabi will be alighting
in Lewes long enough to perform her poetry at the
Lewes Monday Literary Club.
You’ve called yourself a ‘post-watershed poet’.
Should we prepare to be shocked? It depends
whether you read the Guardian or the Daily Mail!
I’m currently completing a contemporary version
of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, so it’s a good idea not
to bring the children. I mostly write for adults and
some of my work’s influenced by film noir so there’s
sometimes sex, violence and/or strong language. I’d
be uncomfortable if there were children present but
I have been known to offend adults. If you come
prepared to be shocked, you won’t be shocked.
So you’ve been influenced by long-dead white
men. Anyone in particular apart from Chaucer?
Other long-dead white men include Wordsworth
for attempting to write in the simple, direct
language really spoken by men, and Coleridge for
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel. And
there’s still a place in my heart for the Romantics.
But there are loads of more recently dead writers
I’m inspired by, like Robert Frost and Michael
Donaghy. And loads of women poets still alive and
kicking: Carol Ann Duffy and Sharon Olds, Jackie
Kay and Kate Clanchy, Leontia Flynn and Catherine
Smith. The list goes on…
As an alive-and-kicking poet yourself, is it all
about being on the stage rather than the page?
It’s both. I’ve spent the last fifteen years trying to
close the chasm between the two. There was a time
when you were either a ‘page’ poet or a ‘performance’
poet, as if you couldn’t be both. As if poetry
itself couldn’t be both. I generally rhyme and my
work is accessible, so it lends itself well to performance.
Some poems are born for performance; others
have performance thrust upon them. If I had to
choose between the two, I’d go for the page. It all
starts with the writing. Without the page, there’d
be no stage.
www.vivaLewes.CoM
Photo by: Lyndon douglas
LiTeRaTuRe
You did a Creative Writing MA at Sussex. Was
that a formative experience? It was one of the
best years of my life. I’d already published my first
two books but it gave me permission to write full
time rather than fit it in around other activities. I
wrote a corona (a sonnet sequence where the last
line of one becomes the first line of the next, and
the very last line is the same as the first). I lived, ate
and slept sonnets. I began my love affair with film
noir which has become a strong influence on my
work. So, yes, it was a creative feast.
Were you a frequent visitor to Lewes during
that year? I used to change at Lewes to go to
Falmer, but there was never time to hang about.
But I have a soft spot for Sussex because I lived in
Goddards Green as a child and went to Twineham
School. Part of me is still in Sussex.
Juliette Mitchell
Patience Agbabi will be at Pelham House on 26th
March, 8pm. For more information, contact chris.
mondaylit@gmail.com.
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