Aysegul Yildirim : part five

What poets changed the way you thought about writing?

The most recent example is when I saw Carol Ann Duffy’s adaptation of ‘Everyman’ performed by Miracle Theatre few months ago in Cornwall. I was blown away by the seamlessness of the contemporary rendering of the old text, the stage design and the performances. That night I read the script. It was such an experience at a time when I was already thinking a lot about the intimate dialog between poetry and playwriting. Having said that, for me, any author has the credibility to change how I think about writing at any time. We need to expose ourselves to as much work as possible. And that’s not only that of the literary but also many other realms of creative endeavour. 

Aysegul Yildirim : part four

How does a poem begin?

I like it more when it gives me a nudge to begin, that I know it’s ready to jump out into the world. But it’s no magic and requires a great deal of preparation: watering, fertilising, weeding, providing shade or sunshine, etc. It might take months or years. Other times, when there is a great deal of ‘writing hygene’, quietude-plus-solitude, I let it flow. I might need to give it a nudge by reading, contemplating, etc. 

Aysegul Yildirim : part three

What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t?

It puts the language in a contained space and maximises the speed of it. Calvino elegantly explained this acceleration. Prose-time slows down endlessly. But either way, we get to an infinity. 

Aysegul Yildirim : part two

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

Finding my own voice, and I understand this takes time. Also, when drafting or editing, it’s sometimes too agonising to realise that what I really want to say is not in synch with the theme or the particular form/resonance I’d like the poem to have. When this happens, there’s usually a degree of forcefulness into a the poetic space that doesn’t allow certain things in. And you don’t know what these things are. You may never know! The thought process can be a mess. But it’s part of the deal. And I also think there’s a beauty in this pain - the most beautiful pain among other pains of writing!- and I reckon I lot of artists like it too. 

Aysegul Yildirim : part one

Aysegul Yildirim’s poetry has appeared in The Maynard, Beir Bua, Strukturriss, The Babel Tower Notice Board, and Lothlorien, among others. She had her work shortlisted for Streetcake Innovative Writing Prize 2021. Her debut pamphlet will be published with Broken Sleep Books in late 2022. 

Photo credit: Karolina Heller

How important is music to your poetry? 

Although I haven’t had any formal education in music, I used to play the violin in orchestras and ensembles. This has had a significant influence specifically on how I go about in the first draft. I think how you start heavily depends on the senses and the unique ways we trained them, consciously or otherwise, have huge consequences for the work we produce. There have been instances where the piece started solely as a resonance responding to a certain image in my mind. And the form of the poem would then depend on how I organise these resonances. Then the existing language tools, to the extent they are available to me, will capture and transcribe this sound-image assemblage onto the page. The examples of these resonance experiments have been published on The Babel Tower Notice Board.