Katie Jenkins : coda

I have been utterly wowed by the writers I have discovered on Twitter this year and would like to thank everyone for collectively creating such a diverse and supportive online community. It is a force for good in a murky world. There are too many incredible independent poetry journals and presses to mention them all – but I have special soft spots for Butcher’s Dog (@ButchersDogMag), Q/A (@QaPoetry), Under the Radar (@NineArchesPress), 192 (@PoetsDirectory) and the Broken Spine (@BrokenSpineArts). I’d encourage anyone reading to look them up if you haven’t already.

Katie Jenkins : part five

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

Everything! If I think about it, I find it incredible that anyone even tries. There are so many variables. How will it start? How long will the lines be? Will there be stanzas? Will there be rhyme? Rhythm? Metre? Shape on the page? What words will I choose? What sounds? What voice will emerge? What am I actually trying to say? How clearly should I say it? I could go on… It’s mind-boggling. And that is why it is so absorbing and so wonderful. 

Katie Jenkins : part four

How does your work first enter the world? Do you have a social group or writers group that you work ideas and poems with?

I was privileged to work closely with two wonderful poets during my creative writing diploma course at Oxford University – Matthew Barton and Sue Leigh. They provided inspiring writing prompts in class and engaged forensically with my work during a series of one-to-one tutorials, which really helped me develop and sharpen my poems. I recently joined the Poetry Society and joining one of their local stanza groups is next on my to-do list. I try to get along to online events organised by the Gloucestershire Poetry Society – they are a lovely bunch based in my beloved home county. I am so looking forward to attending their events and workshops in person again when they can return. I am in touch with the other alumni from my course and we also share work from time to time. My go-to reader is my very talented friend Jane Thomas (@JaneThomas33) who was a runner-up in The Rialto’s latest pamphlet competition. She spurs me on when I feel like I am not poet (what a rotten nuisance imposter syndrome is!)

Katie Jenkins : part three

How does a poem begin?

In my head. Somewhere in amongst the endless chatter there might be a phrase or an image that keeps reasserting itself, sufficient to overcome any inertia I may have to sit down and try to make something of it. Recent examples include: a discarded scrabble tile with my initial on it, an unusual menu item and a re-remembered school chemistry lesson. These fragments may sit in a notebook for some time before I pick them up, but eventually I find I must.

Katie Jenkins : part two

What are you working on?

I completed a 300-line poetry portfolio in the summer as part of my creative writing diploma, and am still tinkering with some of the unpublished poems. Generally speaking, I am not prolific. Life can be hectic and I tend to write no more than a couple of new poems a month. I’d like to say this might change if I had more free time, but it’s possible that it is simply my rate of work. It’s also a job in itself to send work out – I try to balance the administrative with the creative!

Katie Jenkins : part one

Katie Jenkins lives in Gloucestershire, England, with her husband and son. Her poetry is in print in Everyman’s Library’s Pocket Poets collection, Villanelles, and in the Wage Slaves anthology from Acid Bath Publishing. She has poems online with Floodlight Editions, Twist in Time, 8 Poems, Q/A and Sonic Boom. Her travel writing has featured in the UK's Guardian newspaper. She has a creative writing diploma with distinction from Oxford University, England. You can find her on Twitter @liljenko and her published work at linktr.ee/Katiejenkinspoet

How did you first engage with poetry?

It might be stating the obvious, but I was first introduced to the musicality of language as a child through nursery and playground rhymes. I had a frieze around my bedroom of nursery rhymes which I memorised (the joys of life pre-devices?!) and took part in many a rousing clapping game in the school playground. As a child of 1980s Britain, my first actual poetry book was naturally Allan Ahlberg’s Please Mrs Butler (including the iconic poem ‘Dog in the Playground’). I composed my own first poem at nine years old, leaning against the side of my house staring at a sunset, while chaos reigned indoors. I can still remember it word for word (it began: ‘How many people have passed here?/ How many people have stood/ And watched the pale sunset/ And seen the changing wood?’) I suppose it was at that moment that I came to experience poetry not simply as entertainer, but also as interpreter, healer and friend.