Poet and academic Rowyda Amin has lived quite a nomadic life. Born in Canada and bought up in Saudi Arabia, Amin lived in London for 12 years before moving to the States in 2011. After years of hiding her poetry under a bushel, she decided to go public, and it paid dividends. She was one of 10 talented black and Asian poets selected for The Complete Works programme, was awarded the Wasafiri New Writing Prize for poetry in 2009 and this year won first prize in the Venture Award 2012 for poetry.
Her poem Dear Ludovic features in Lung Jazz, an anthology of young British poets published by Cinnamon Press. Of Arab-Irish ancestry she is also studying for a PhD on Identity in Arab Diaspora Fiction at the University of London. Amin tells Joy Francis why not having a TV for five years was beneficial, and that mainstream publishers are missing out on new talent.
You’ve had a busy year, being featured in Ten – The Complete Works, readings at the Southbank and the V&A, and being short listed for the Venture Award. How does that feel?
Very exciting. It’s great when thing are happening poetry-wise. The Complete Works opened up so many opportunities for me and has given me the confidence to go out there and do other things. Before, I hardly sent work out. I didn’t think anything I did was any good. The Complete Works got me beyond the self criticism. The V&A commission was great as I had to develop poetry about an art work.
When did you first realise that poetry was your calling?
I started reading poetry when I was 15, mainly poets from the Americas such as T.S. Eliot, Langston Hughes and Denise Levertov. I was motivated by my love of language and love of words. It took a few years to think of myself as a poet and a few more years to show my work to anyone. It has been a long process in terms of confidence as no one in my family is in the arts. I didn’t meet anyone as obsessed with poetry as I was until I moved to London.
Do you think that poetry has an image problem?
People usually encounter poetry at school as something remote that they cannot relate to. As it isn’t so present in the culture, their early image of poetry doesn’t alter. Many people I know, who aren’t poets, don’t understand why they should read poetry or see it as pointless, which is a shame. Poets will always write poems, though, whether many people read them or not.
What topics do you focus on?
I’m a bit of a magpie topic-wise. Usually it will be an idea that will gestate, or I will read into a subject and want to write about it. I was just looking through my work recently and I noticed that almost nothing is realistic or autobiographical. I’m quite inspired by my own fantasy world. I grew up in different countries and moved around quite a bit so I don’t have a particular place, landscape or culture that immediately comes up as a context for what I write. While growing up I escaped from the world by reading constantly – poetry, fiction and historical works. There were thousands of books in my home; my dad is an extreme bibliophile. All of my siblings loved to read. We lived without a TV for five years in the 1980s.
How would you describe the state of British poetry?
It is really vibrant. There are so many interesting independent publishers coming up and there are lots of different voices on the live poetry scene. Although you’ll get the odd article saying that poetry is dying, the reality is that beyond mainstream publishing the scene is big and diverse. I miss it now that I’m in the States.
What are you currently working on?
I’m working towards putting my first collection together. I attend weekly poetry seminars at The Writers Studio in New York. I used to go to classes at the Poetry School in London. It is very fruitful and stimulating to share work with a group and give each other feedback. I don’t have a publisher yet but I want to have enough poems to include in a collection within a year.
What advice do you have for aspiring poets?
Read as widely as possible. Buy poetry collections by living poets. Go to events and get engaged with what is going on now. Also, read poets from the past. Don’t think that it’s irrelevant as you will be surprised at who appeals to you. It is such a private act when you start writing, but be strong. Go out there and share it.
[toggle title=”Read Amin’s poem Night Work.”]
From your bed, noctilucent paths
are rambling, one of which could lead
through the Tudor knot of yew hedge
to that rose arbour at its centre
where white-slippered sleep is breathing.
Simple to untangle one path after the next
if you still had all night, but fat mice
are eating through the blue and green wool
with which the maze is tapestried.
Though tawny owls, silver-beaked, dive
to unpick the plump bodies, bursting
every pink and yellow cross-stitch,
you’re still awake at dawn, tattered
in your threadbare nest of bones.
©Rowyda Amin[/toggle]