How did you first come to poetry? What is it about the form that resonates?
I first became interested in poetry when I was 17, studying English Literature at school. One of our set texts was the Selected Poems of Edward Thomas. I think it was initially the fact that Thomas was examining himself and his relationships in such a personal and perceptive yet understated way that appealed to me. But it was also – although I might not have articulated it in this way at the time – the subtle music of his language, the way the poems looked on the page, his beautifully evocative observations of nature, and his narratives of walking journeys and the characters he sometimes meets along the way. All this is set in the background of the First World War. I realised that so much could be included, and so much that could not be said elsewhere, in the short space of a poem – I think this was what really struck me. (I think I am still in an odd way, even if my work is very different, influenced by Edward Thomas now.)
I
quickly went onto encounter lots of other, very different poetry, for example
the prose poems of Kenneth Patchen. Poetry was an exciting journey of discovery
for me when I was in my late teens, and again when I came back to it in a more
sustained way in my early forties.
I must admit that I don’t necessarily think too much about the difference between poetry and prose – it is the rich world of literature as a whole which makes me feel alive.
How did publishing your first book change your writing? What have the differences been since?
I was very late, 52, before I published my first book of poetry, Anonymous Intruder, with Shearsman Books in 2009. It changed everything. I no longer felt like a fraud, and finally felt justified in my late-in-life commitment to writing – infinite thanks to my editor Tony Frazer! (I also wrote a lot in my teens and early twenties, and published two pamphlets at the time, but then more or less abandoned writing in any consistent way for the best part of two decades.)
How does a poem begin?
Usually just from an image or a fragment of memory or a snippet of overheard conversation or from something which strikes me in a book I’m reading. Once or twice in my life, I’ve been lucky enough for a short poem to have come to me almost whole, for example, my prose poem ‘Insect’, written in my head when I was walking through a council housing estate in January 1981. See: https://fortnightlyreview.co.uk/2018/10/discovery-rediscovery/
Do you see your writing as a single, extended project, or a series of threads that occasionally weave together to form something else?
Both. I tend to work with fragments, which I then play with to coalesce into a poem. More poems follow. They are written as separate pieces, but they tend to talk to one another, and if sequenced in the best way in a collection can be read as a longer, albeit elliptical story. More than one reviewer has commented that my poems should be read as if they were one continuous narrative. See, for example, ‘The Art of Loneliness’, Annie Fisher’s review of my latest collection, Night Window, in the Friday Poem: https://thefridaypoem.com/night-window-ian-seed/
How do you see your poetry and prose works in conversation, if at all?
In the case of my prose poems, they are clearly in very close conversation.
My personal essays are also linked to my poetry. See, for example, ‘The wheel in the tree’: https://fortnightlyreview.co.uk/2022/06/seed-penguin-poets/
My longer stories, such as Amore Mio (Flax Books, 2010) tend to start with a scene and a character (perhaps from a memory or dream). (See: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amore-Mio-Ian-Seed-ebook/dp/B00550PG54 ) I try to get inside the head and body of the character (who, for better or worse, is always a version of me), and see where they will take me next. In Amore Mio, I started with an image of my much younger self sitting in a railway carriage between Turin and Genova. So, like my poetry, I am starting often with an image.
My academic essays and reviews are more carefully planned.
Have you a daily schedule by which you work, or are you working to fit this in between other activities?
I tend to write whatever comes into my head first thing when I wake up, as well as on the early morning train between Lancaster and Liverpool (where I currently work as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the university). I am still half-asleep and convinced that the images which come to me are actually of some importance. Once my day gets going, these kinds of images no longer come, or very rarely. About twice a week I go back to the fragments I have written down and start to play with them.
I think translation work also feeds into my poetry, without me being necessarily conscious of it. For example, Night Window is soaked in the spirit of Max Jacob, whose Le Cornet à dés I was translating while I was writing many of the poems. More recently, I was doing almost no writing at all over the winter months. Then I was commissioned by Modern Poetry in Translation to translate more of the Italian poet, Ivano Fermini. Just the sheer act of translation got me writing again.
What are your favourite print or online literary journals?
There are many print and online journals that I admire and enjoy. It’s very difficult to pick out any in particular, but to name just a few, in no particular order.
Online: Talking about Strawberries All of the Time (the different kinds of poetry published, the interviews, the overall flavour); The Fortnightly Review (its sheer variety of poetry, stories, essays and reviews, all very handsomely presented); Blackbox Manifold (the innovative nature of the work, plus the reviews); Anthropocene (new and exciting poets); the Friday Poem (which also talks about the poems published and pushes the poets out there); the Café Irreal (an old favourite – some great stories); Stride (which has been going forever but still feels fresh); and Berlin lit (a new, classy little online journal, which actually pays its contributors).
Print: Granta Magazine (which alongside more established names is prepared to publish newer authors); PN Review (its catholic mixture of poetry and poetry-related prose); Long Poem Magazine (the only magazine out there as far as I know which is dedicated to the long poem); Shearsman magazine (for the innovative and lively poetry and translations); and Tearsin the Fence (which always comes in a bumper edition, packed full with a great variety of poetry, stories, reviews, and David Caddy’s insightful and warming editorials).
There are many other journals out there too, of course. I am full of admiration for all the editors and remain everlastingly grateful to them. Without the encouragement of editors, I would have given up long ago.
Who are some of the writers you are reading lately that most excite you?
I must admit that I am addicted to three novelists at the moment: Barbara Comyns, a British writer who has recently been rediscovered; Patrick Modiano (I read a lot of his work back in the 1990s, but have recently realised there is still so much to read – I find just reading him sets off all kinds of images in my head, which I can then mull over for my own writing), at this moment Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier; and the British nineteenth-century ‘sensationalist’ novelist, Wilkie Collins – odd that I have come to him so late; I would have loved reading him in the same way when I was 14-15.
I am excited by two new poetry collections from Carcanet: Jeremy Over’s Fourth & Walnut – I love Jeremy’s collages of his own writing combined with other texts and images, melancholy, yet very funny at the same time; and Dane Holt’s My Father’s Father’s Father – Dane is a great story-teller, with echoes of James Tate and Charles Simic (even though I understand that Dane had never read Simic before writing this collection, his first).
I have also been reading Howie Good’s Akimbo, a book of prose poems dealing with cancer, mortality, and much more. Good’s poems are so-beautifully crafted they will leave you not knowing whether you want to laugh or cry, or both at the same time. Akimbo is published in a handsome limited edition and is available directly from the publisher here: https://www.sacredparasite.com/product/akimbo
Carrie Etter’s widely-acclaimed collection Grief’s Alphabet (Seren Press) is remarkable (the title itself speaks volumes), and there is a compelling narrative from start to finish.
Another
collection I’ve recently ordered and am enjoying is the witty and subversive Night
Boat and other poems by Maria Barnes, beautifully translated from Dutch by
Donald Gardner (Shearsman Books).
Ian Seed’s recent collections include Night Window (2024), The Underground Cabaret (2020) and New York Hotel (2018), all from Shearsman Books, as well as Operations of Water (2020), from Knives, Forks & Spoons Press. Translations include The Dice Cup (2022, from the French of Max Jacob) and The Thief of Talant (2016, from the French of Pierre Reverdy), both published by Wakefield Press, and Bitter Grass (2020, from the Italian of Gëzim Hajdari), published by Shearsman. An illustrated chapbook of small fictions, My Outsize Hank Williams Cowboy Hat, is due out from Sacred Parasite in May, 2025. To find out more, go to www.ianseed.co.uk
Photo credit: Jonathan Bean, for Lancaster Litfest.
He
has poems in the third and thirteenth issues.