Poetry for the Petrified leader, Ben Parker, tells us about what inspires him in his work
Poetry for the Petrified leader, Ben Parker, tells us about what inspires him in his work
Ben Parker was born in Worcester in 1982 and completed a creative writing MA in poetry at UEA in 2008. He now works for a publishing firm in Oxford. His poetry has appeared in a number of magazines, including Oxford Poetry, The White Review and Under the Radar, and he was shortlisted for the 2012 Melita Hume Prize. His debut pamphlet, The Escape Artists, was published by tall-lighthouse in 2012 and shortlisted for the 2013 Michael Marks Award. He will be taking over leadership of the Corn Exchange's Poetry for the Petrified course in the Summer Season and we took this opportunity to ask him a little bit about his background and career so far.
Can you tell us a bit about your background?
I can pinpoint exactly the moment I decided to both read and write poetry. When I was 21, by chance I overheard a conversation about recordings of Sylvia Plath, and though at this point I had no interest in poetry, for some reason it caught my attention. When I got home I went online and found a clip of Plath reading her poem Daddy and suddenly realised that poetry could be enjoyed on a visceral level. What I think was key for me was that hearing a recording meant I didn’t have time to stop and think about any particular line and whether I ‘got it’ or not, the next one came along and I experienced the poem as a complete entity. I think this is the best way to approach any poem, to just jump in to it and enjoy it before you start thinking too deeply. This latter aspect, the analytic one, is certainly an important part of reading poetry, there are usually multiple levels on which you can appreciate it and some of these will only reveal themselves over time, but you don’t need to start here. After listening to all the audio recordings of her that I could find, I read the collected Plath, and this was enough to convince me to try reading some other poets, and I haven’t stopped since! The writing of poetry just seemed to be a natural response to my reading of it and they started almost simultaneously.
Who is your favourite poet and why?
Plath obviously means a lot to me, because I’m not sure if another poet would have had the same catalytic effect, her combination of sound-patterning and startling imagery was immediately appealing. The first contemporary poet I read, and someone who is still one of my favourites was Don Paterson. Landing Light came out around the time I started browsing bookshops’ poetry sections, and it had won a few awards so based on this alone I decided it must be worth reading. It’s not necessarily a good guide, but luckily in this case it was! I find it hard to pick just one poet though, and the poet I like the most at any given moment is often just whoever I happen to be reading, which at the moment is the American poet Alice Fulton who I can highly recommend.
What do you think is the importance of poetry workshops?
I think they are important, or useful at least, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the very fact of knowing that you will be presenting a poem to half a dozen or a dozen people who are allowed to comment on it will sharpen your own inbuilt critic before you even get there. Secondly, it can be easy to have a blind-spot when it comes to your own poems, you might particularly cherish a certain line for example, which can lead to a weakness that will hopefully be spotted by a group of more objective readers. Thirdly, it’s just nice to meet other people passionate about poetry, especially when they put you on to poets to you that you might not have heard of or approaches to poetry you might not have considered.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’ll be covering in Poetry for the Petrified?
One of my intentions for Poetry for the Petrified is to use other mediums and genres to unlock poetry. So I will probably begin by talking about the musical aspects of poetry, and hopefully will look at things like story-telling and maybe even comedy. I am going to use this approach because, as a quick glance at any bookshop or tv guide will tell you, poetry is one of the least present of art forms. People are, on the whole, more familiar with the visual or theatrical arts than they are with poetry. Hopefully by drawing comparisons between them, I can show that similar enjoyment can be got from poetry as from other cultural forms, and also that there are things poetry can offer that no other art-form can. I would also like to introduce people to poets they might not necessarily have read.
Is there any advice you would give to an aspiring poet?
Read poetry! It’s a cliché, but it’s a cliché for a reason. If you’re already doing this, then my next bit of advice would be to try things out, play around with your writing. Be willing to produce things that you don’t plan to show anyone, doodle in language. Then get involved with the wider scene, if there’s a local workshop, attend that, if there are poetry readings go along to those. The more you immerse yourself in it, the more you will learn and the better you will get.
You can find out more about Ben and his work on his website: www.benparkerpoetry.co.uk.