What got you interested in writing poetry?
There was always a great love of language in my home when I was growing up. My parents were enthusiastic readers, and my dad in particular took great pleasure in the sounds of language and words. He would sit me on his knee every night from when I was a tiny toddler, reading stories and poems out loud. I taught myself to read at the age of two, eventually exhausting the children’s section of my local library. Though I didn’t enjoy the study of English Literature at secondary school, I retained that deep internal love of language, holding onto the poetic thread by scribbling song lyrics in the margins of my exercise books. It was a move across the Atlantic in my mid twenties that got me writing properly again; an attempt to fill long empty days and process difficult emotions. Back in the UK, joining the poetry group at my local library encouraged me to share my writing, and it really took off from there. I love how I can capture and distill a feeling, emotion or atmosphere in a poem, even without directly stating or referencing it. Poetry became a way for me to express myself, something I found difficult as a quiet autistic introvert.
What does your writing process look like?
I can’t easily sit down with an idea and write a poem about it, though years of creative writing group sessions has trained me to try. I have also learnt that a consistent practice is not possible for me. If I’m not feeling it, if the poem isn’t already there waiting, I’m wasting my time. I might not write anything for months, and then they all come in a flurry, many poems, one after another after another. When I write poetry, I edit very little. Poems often come to me when I’m out walking in the woods and meadows. Long walks are the best, when my mind is set free to wander and unravel — though if I’m a long way from home and I don’t have pen and paper in my pocket, it’s an effort to remember the poem, to keep repeating it to myself for the hour or two until I return. This happens less frequently now, as chronic illness has limited my capacity for taking walks. My writing is now more of a slow, internal, percolating sort of practice. Images — perhaps feelings, impressions, experiences I’ve had — tend to catch hold of me and play around in my subconscious for days or weeks at a time, infusing everything I write. I can write dozens of poems around a particular image before it loses its grip on me, and then there follows a long fallow time before the next image takes hold.
Do you have any favorite themes you tend to stick to?
Much of my writing is inspired by mythology, folklore and fairytale, and the natural world threads through everything, a deep exploration of place, belonging and landscape. Being autistic, I find the human world very challenging, but this only deepens my experience of, and need for, the non-human world. I write with a ‘new animist’ lens, exploring the relationships and boundaries between people and the rest of nature; the wildness and animal within us; the blurring and challenging of those boundaries. For a several years after I became unwell, I explored this a lot in my poetry — the experience of unexplained illness, and of learning the new landscape of my body and its capabilities; the grief of losing the life I always thought I would have.
Do you have a favorite poem or a favorite poet?
I struggled to get into reading poetry for a long time, because I don’t enjoy most traditional poetry (and I am not a fan of rhyme or traditional form, haiku excepted). Poets like Hollie McNish, Rupi Kaur and Vanessa Kisuule taught me that poetry doesn’t have to be like that, and really opened up the world of contemporary poetry to me. I highly recommend Vanessa’s poem It’s Not Worth Shaving Your Arsehole For, and Hollie’s book Slug. More traditional poems that have spoken to me include Wintering by Sylvia Plath, The Thought Fox by Ted Hughes, and Song for the Salmon by David Whyte. Most recently I stumbled upon a poem written by a friend of mine on her social media. It stopped me in my tracks by its beauty, depth and simplicity.
Do you have any advice for new poets?
Don’t think that you have to adhere to a particular form, or to a particular practice. You don’t have to sit down every day and write. You don’t have to write poems that other people approve of. Poems don’t have to rhyme (though they can, if you want). And once (if) you decide to start submitting to journals and magazines, don't let that get you down — it can begin to feel like hard, thankless work. If it stops being fun, stop submitting and write simply for the joy of it.
Why do you love poetry?
I love the way it opens up other worlds, alters our perspective; makes us stop, think, and become changed by it. How it can be a way to express things we cannot covey in other forms. I love the feeling that comes when reading a poem that touches me, and the feeling when a poem just writes itself.
Where can readers find more of your work?
My most recent publications are all listed and linked on my website, helensmithwrites.com. I also co-edit a poetry broadside, which can be found at https://barbara.pub.