James Roome : coda

What am I reading at the moment?

Here’s an excuse to plug some excellent books I have been reading recently: Europoe, an anthology of contemporary European poetry in translation, compiled by SJ Fowler. Some surprising and challenging stuff in there. I’ve also been reading CD Wright’s book about beech trees; I think it’s from Copper Canyon Press. It’s stunning. Hard to describe, you should just buy it. I also started Leanne Shapton’s, Guest Book last night. Once again, a book that is doing something different that’s hard to describe; kind of a combination of an art project and short fiction, which aims itself at the uncanny and achieves it.

James Roome : part five

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

Agreeing with myself that a piece is finished can be difficult. Also, it can be difficult to justify the process to yourself sometimes when you’ve been staring at something all morning and all you’ve done is moved a comma.

That being said, I find most elements of writing poetry to be joyful. It’s incredibly liberating to just sit down in front of the computer and write down whatever comes into your head. To be as weird as you want without concerning yourself with narrative arcs and/or logic. And then, to have someone read that and enjoy it, or take something from it that you never intended, that’s glorious.

No, on the whole I don’t find writing poetry to be difficult. I find the ‘explaining’ that goes hand in hand with a medium that uses language as its primary mode of communication (as opposed to music or the visual arts) to be more difficult. There can be a perception that everything in a poem has to have a specific and pre-ordained meaning, to the point where people feel affronted when you’re not willing to assign one. It can come across as if you’re simply being awkward. I believe that it is possible to just accept that some things are beautiful and some things upset you and some things annoy you, and that you can’t always explain why. In fact, if you can’t explain why then that’s a job for you rather than the person who made the original art.

That’s another reason poetry is so valuable. It allows us to have that moment where the signs don’t go with the signified, and actually that’s just fine.

James Roome : 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 listening to the excellent Radio 3 programme, The Verb the other day, and a novelist (Denise Mina, I think) said, about her own writing, ‘it just falls out of my fingers’ (or words to that effect). I thought that was a lovely description of the writing process. Pretty accurate too (when it’s going well, that is).

I tend to write in snatched moments, and don’t really have much of a support network for it beyond a friend (the aforementioned James) and my wife, who tells me when something’s crap. I mean, I have a lot of people who support me in my writing, but not that many that I can look to for extensive critique. I keep trying to go to a local writers’ group, but life keeps getting in the way.

I do see this as a shortcoming in my writing process to be honest. You can take a poem so far on your own, but then it’s nice to have some outside input. You can become a little too close to your poetry sometimes, and it can be hard to notice the things that aren’t working, particularly if you have read it again and again to the point that it’s slipped into a pattern in your head. That can be difficult to break.

James Roome : part three

What are you working on?

All sorts. Sonnet sequence, occasional poems (some with a vaguely political edge. A first for me), and a sequence based on myth inspired by Gunslinger. There’s a ‘character’ in that poem that is literally a circle of parsons, each holding a candle. It’s in the very early stages and is probably going to be quite the undertaking. ‘Bull’ (the long poem/sequence that makes up my chapbook) took four years to get right, so we’ll see!

I’m also putting together a collaborative pamphlet with a friend, James Lock, whose work I greatly respect for its commitment to making poetry useful. He’s someone who comes at writing poetry from a completely different standpoint to me really – where I aim for ridiculousness, he sees poetry (and I hope I’m getting him right here) as a means to say things that need to be said.

Now that the chapbook’s out, my next aim as an individual poet is to put together a pamphlet or full collection, which I’m working towards. I have around 30 complete poems at the moment, though whether they’ll all make it into a final collection I have no idea.

And then there’s the endless cycle of submissions and rejections, though I have had a micro poem published recently in Black Bough (a new digital micro poetry publisher) and I have had a short sequence accepted by Stride, so that should be appearing at some point over the summer.

James Roome : part two

What poets changed the way you thought about writing?

Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. I remember doing an assignment on them as a pair as one of my first essays as an undergraduate and being absolutely floored by Song of Myself. I sat on the edge of my bed and read the whole thing in one sitting. It was so free and welcoming and casual and fun to read in a way that other poetry I had been exposed to had not been, yet it was still intensely philosophical.

Dickinson, I was bamboozled by at first. I found her syntax and capitalisation challenging. Now I find her to be one of the most consistently rewarding poets I read. Her imagery and turn of phrase is so idiosyncratic. She inspired me to make more surprising choices with language and imagery.

After those two, Wallace Stevens for the spiritual nature of his work, Frank O'Hara for his surrealism and joy, CD Wright for her incredibly generous and vivid work (she operates within a frame of reference that is alien to me, and that makes her work extremely interesting to me).

I just realised, every single poet I’ve mentioned is dead.

James Roome : part one

James Roome received an MA in Poetry from MMU and is based in Manchester, UK. His work has appeared in Magma, Tears in the Fence, Ink, Sweat and Tears and the Wordlife anthology. His first chapbook, Bull, is out now from The Red Ceilings Press.

Why is poetry important?

Poetry is ridiculous. It’s an excuse to say ridiculous things and get away with it. I wrote a poem the other day about a fake study that claimed 12% of people believe that when the full moon shines on the human body, it is possible to see their internal organs. Ridiculous, right? Perhaps it’s possible to get away with it because so few people care about poetry, and those that do have a preference for the odd and unusual. The stranger, the better. Even ‘mainstream’ poetry is a niche interest. The world continues all around us. And yet, every now and again one breaks through into the popular consciousness and the ridiculousness and variety of the world is highlighted and everyone looks at it and thinks, huh!

In another, more serious way, I also think of poetry along the same lines as Wallace Stevens: as a replacement for religious spirituality. I like what Susan B. Weston said about ‘Sunday Morning’: ‘the "revelation of a secular religion."' We say these ridiculous things, but sometimes they add up to more than the sum of their parts. Sometimes there’s a stone buried in poems and when you wash it in the sea it turns red.

Finally, poetry also makes us question language. Does a word have to mean exactly what you’ve been taught it means? A prime issue with understanding and acceptance of poetry as an art form is that everyone feels a sense of ownership over the language they speak. That language, therefore, has to mean something and if you don't understand what it means then it must be elitist/you're not clever enough to get the poem. This is a misconception that I try to correct on a daily basis as part of my work as an English teacher. Poetry is about making you feel (or not feel) things, without needing to explain why. That’s valuable. It can be beautiful and surprising and harsh and weird, and it’s at its best when it resists logic.