Kate Tempest Curates Poetry Forum at The Guardian

Kate Tempest serves as guest editor of the latest Observer New Review. This week, readers have the opportunity to read questions and answers by seven poets whose work Tempest admires. "I find it frustrating when reading profiles of artists how little attention is paid to discussion of practice," Tempest begins. "I have found there to be a tendency to encourage artists to pontificate on current affairs, sensationalising their experiences of craft and work. I frequently cringe at lengthy descriptions of what an artist is wearing, or how they are sitting." From there: 

With this feature, I wanted to give seven poets whose work I greatly admire the opportunity to have a serious discussion about poetry, free from the usual angling of “page vs stage” or “new young star brings poetry out of the dusty library”.

I asked each poet to come up with a question for other poets, then to answer as many of the questions as they wanted to, in whichever way they saw fit. I think you get to know the poets pretty well from a feature formatted in this way and I hope it will encourage readers to reflect on their own creative practices, whatever they may be. 

Has a poem ever humbled or frightened you? What was it? When did it happen and what did you do afterwards?

Sabrina Mahfouz I am always humbled after hearing a poem I love out loud. Most recently, this was Fran Lock’s Cohort at Edinburgh book festival, after which I had to go on stage to read my own poems, which was just horrible!

Inua Ellams Aye. Selling Out by Major Jackson. I was humbled by the sheer scale of the poem. He lifts the story – of being mugged when buying cocaine after working double shifts at McDonald’s – into a mythic urban poem of rebirth, reincarnation and writing. I first saw the poem 11 whole years ago and I am still under its spell and after, I bought everything I could find of his.

Continue reading at The Guardian.