Andy N : part five

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

It tends to vary from piece to piece that really if I am honest whether it is the title or how I finish off the piece. 

My next full length book Changing carriages at Birmingham New Street is a big case in point here. In contrast to my second and third books The End of Summer and Birth of Autumn which was theme linked, my next full length book is story laced  about a man and woman who reconnect after being friends as children only to then get start going out as a couple. 

When I first started really involved with poetry back in 2005 or 2006, the problem was trying to find the voice of each poem, but in the case of this book, it is trying to find the voice of not one poem but a full book of them. 

Over the near three years, this book has being developing I have found almost like the characters have being doing this themselves has changed like a complex novel and has proved one of the most challenging projects I have ever tried, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Andy N : part four

Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?

Yeah, it has a lot. Although I did start writing when I was 10 or so, it took me until I went to university in 1998 to start looking at it in a different way in a more measured way. 

After I left university in 2001, I then joined a poetry feedback group in 2006, and from that I began to start measuring my poetry sometimes spending weeks writing a particular piece instead of almost just throwing all of my words down onto paper in a mad hurry almost. 

Now of course, all poems are not the same and I still write some pieces a lot quicker than others but the way I consider poems certainly has by the way I think about them, think about the beginning, the middle and the end and how you lead a reader into it and take them out off it. 

It sounds more complex than what it is I guess the above, but it’s a case of how you look at everything really. I used to really hate a lot of the forms with poetry when I was younger, but my last two full length poetry books have being collections of Haikus which is something the writer from 20 years, even 5 years would have refused completely to even consider, but the older I get and the longer I write, it’s helped me think more be more considerate of my work. 

Andy N : part three

When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author?

I have lots of writers I admire, not all poets or who don’t always write poetry - Paul Auster is one such case who has directed films, done non fiction, a series of novels as well as poetry whose work always leaves me stunned. My favourite poet is probably Hugo Williams mostly because of his book Billy’s Rain. 

I got into this book by chance after going to a poetry reading at a local bookshop in Bolton to see a local writer, and the bookshop staff decided as we were all doing a course on writing poetry for us all to pick out a poetry book to try and help us understand poetry a bit more.

I have forgotten over time why I chose Hugo Williams’s Billys Rain instead of one of the many other titles that were there.. I suspect it was probably the cover but maybe also the title. What is Billy’s Rain? But whatever reason I chose the book, just to show you how you get your own meanings out of books (Like with some of your favourite music albums), I took Billy’s Rain about being a love story that went wrong only to find out about two years (I got the book almost new in 2000 originally) it was about a affair the writer had behind his wives back. Oops. Either way, the use of language has a slightness that always pulls me back into poems whenever I am feeling blank or thinking I’ve had enough.

Andy N : part two

How did you first engage with poetry?

I know not everybody does this, but I’ve got little A5 hard back books which contains every completed poem I have ever completed whether great, average or frankly dreadful and I know the first one was wrote in there when I was 10 (I’m now 49 which gives a clue of how books I have completed). 

I don’t remember where the first poem came from if I am honest but it would have being some kind of class exercise I can see from reading it (It was called ‘Colours in the sky’ and was quite a basic romp through all of the colours in the sky). It wasn’t very good. 

The second poem ‘The Kill’ which followed six months or so in 1983 just after I reached I wrote after a trip to Chester Zoo (A Zoo nearish my primary school). The day after the trip we got asked to write a poem about our trip to the Zoo, and I wrote one about the lions breaking out of the cage and eating one of the teachers. They didn’t like it a lot it had to be said and I got a weeks detention. I however, loved it and the bug bit there I guess.

Andy N : part one

Andy N is the author of six poetry collections, the most recent being Haiku of Life and numerous split poetry books.

He is the host / co-host of Podcasts such as Spoken Label, Reading in Bed and Colleen, Andy N and Amanda. 

He co-runs Chorlton Cum Hardy’s always welcoming Spoken Word Open Mic night ‘Speak Easy’ and does ambient music under the name of Ocean in a Bottle.

His website is: onewriterandhispc.blogspot.com 

What are you working on?

Several things as is which usually the case with me with my writing sometimes. Over the past few years, me and my wife (Previously Amanda Steel now Amanda Nicholson) have being working on a few poetry based chapbooks. 

The first was published in 2019 called Run away with me in 7 words where we would take it in turns writing a line of a long piece each, which had to be 7 lines before then following it up the year after with our lockdown chapbook The Lockdown was all we could see which covered our various emotions over lockdown with a series of poems wrote  separate and together.

Currently, instead of just writing one book together, myself and Amanda finishing off the sequel to Run away with me in 7 words cunningly titled Run away with me again in 8 words which is a long piece with each line which we take it in turns writing being 8 lines instead of 7. This should be out in November. 

We also have another chapbook which will be done also which was wrote hand in hand with Run away with me again due for release at the start of 2022 which has a working title of ‘Winter was all we could see’ which is a series of winter based poems, some of we have co-wrote.

I am now co-writing Europa 5 which is the latest in a series of anti war poetry books with anti war poet and friend, Nick Armbrister which is focusing on a certain country which I won’t name which is having a lot of trouble and my next full length poetry book Changing Carriages at Birmingham new Street which I have wrote just over 70 pages on (and a lot more to come).