Kate Garrett is the editor of Three Drops from a Cauldron, Picaroon Poetry,
and Bonnie’s Crew, and her own
writing is widely published online and in print. She is the author of six
pamphlets, with a seventh, To Feed My
Woodland Bones [A Changeling’s Tale] forthcoming in September 2019 from
Animal Heart Press. Her first full-length poetry collection, The saintof milk and flames, is new from Rhythm & Bones Press (April
2019). Born in rural southern Ohio, Kate moved to the UK in 1999, where she
still lives in Sheffield with her husband, five children, and a sleepy cat.
Twitter @mskateybelle / www.kategarrettwrites.co.uk
1 - How did your first book or
pamphlet change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your
previous? How does it feel different?
My
first pamphlet – The names of things
unseen – was published as part of a collection of six collections, Caboodle, from Prolebooks in early 2015,
and it was an enormous boost. I’d only been getting a few pieces published here
and there since early 2012 (when I was already in my early thirties, even
though I’d been writing all my life), so to discover my pamphlet had been
chosen out of 200 submissions was a huge deal to me. This year will see my
seventh chapbook and first full-length collection.
My
most recent work often deals with similar things – human relationships,
folklore, myth, history – but I’ve certainly grown as a poet, and I experiment
more now than I used to. The names of
things unseen was mostly made up
of poetry I wrote for the final portfolio of my undergrad Creative Writing
degree, and written between 2011-2013. I’ve changed in that time.
2 - How did you come to poetry
first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I
didn’t come to poetry first! I came to fiction first. After learning to read at
two years old, I started writing rudimentary stories of my own about a year
later (involving Care Bears, usually). Throughout primary school I wrote short
stories and thought I’d grow up to be a novelist. It was in middle school I
discovered poetry, or poetry found me. It was also in middle school when I
started taking singing and acting seriously, which were shorter lived
aspirations in the end, but have helped me as a poet. Writing was never a
choice I made – writing was just what I did as soon as I could pick up a pencil,
and poetry felt like even less of a choice. I just fell in love with it.
3 - How long does it take to
start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly,
or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final
shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
Honestly
it varies. Most of the time I start writing a handful of poems and realise
they’re running along a similar theme/topic, and suddenly I’m working on a new
book. As for whether the writing itself comes quickly, I have a very distinct
writing cycle that isn’t apparent to anyone outside of my own head. I have slow
times, when ideas are marinating, and flurries of writing/rewriting/editing new
poems.
My
first drafts never ever look like their final shape – they’re barely
recognisable. I start out with a lot of awfully written rubbish in handwritten
note form, then I reshape it and flesh it out on the laptop. I don’t think I
could write the same way without both of those steps – the pen, then the
computer – I’ve got myself into such a routine with it. When I write prose it
works the same way.
4 - Where does a poem or work
of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up
combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from
the very beginning?
It
varies, it depends on the book. Most of my pamphlets, and my forthcoming full
collection, have ended up as books only when I’m halfway through them – the
poems start to take shape as a whole. But others, such as Deadly, Delicate (Picaroon, 2016) and To Feed My Woodland Bones (forthcoming from Animal Heart Press in
September 2019) were clearly going to be little chapbooks on a single concept
from the beginning.
5 - Are public readings part of
or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys
doing readings?
I
love doing readings! One of the things I find most upsetting in the poetry
world is the division between ‘page’ poets and ‘stage’ poets. My ideal world is
artists from both camps mingling, performing, and being published. I am a
‘page’ poet by circumstance only – back when I only had three children, and my
health issues hadn’t fully set in, I was behind a microphone more than I was
published on a page. In my teens I was an aspiring actress and singer, and even
into my twenties I was a singer, you couldn’t keep me off a stage… so even
though I’m a huge introvert, I also have a desire to stand up in front of
people and do something with words to
entertain them.
But
with various chronic health conditions, five children (two who are very small
and three teenagers), and no childcare apart from my already overworked
husband, I don’t have as much time right now to devote to sharpening my
performance techniques, or to do as many readings as I would like. So far this
year I have 10 guest spots scheduled, both closer to my own city and around the
UK, and I can’t really do more than 12-15 in a year. But I have a full-length
collection, The saint of milk and flames,
coming out in April (from Rhythm & Bones Press), and the chapbook I
previously mentioned, To Feed My Woodland
Bones, in September, and can’t imagine releasing books and not reading from
them to audiences. That’s personal, of course – I know there are plenty of writers
who wouldn’t like to do it, and don’t. But readings are part of the whole thing
for me, being a writer would feel incomplete without them.
6 - Do you have any theoretical
concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer
with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
The
only thing I can do with complete conviction as a poet is dig into the
obsessions I feel drawn to explore, whether it’s personal things I can’t
release otherwise, or interests I can’t put down. I write a lot about my own
experiences with mental health and trauma, my intense interest in history, and also
not ashamed to say I have an interest in human relationships (with others, with
ourselves, with the universe) but very much skewed toward the occult, supernatural,
ethereal, folkloric, mythic, esoteric, spiritual, metaphysical, mystical, paranormal
– you get the idea. My simplest view of life is always ‘being human is hard’ and
‘we cannot truly understand the size of the universe we’re inhabiting’ and I
think those two things are all I’m trying to figure out and come to terms with when
I write, but in more specific detail. And I know I’ll never figure it out,
that’s part of the fun.
7 – What do you see the current
role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do
you think the role of the writer should be?
It
feels like we are the ones asking questions and answering them with more
questions. It’s why none of us can ever stop writing. We have an endless supply
of doubts and curiosity.
8 - Do you find the process of
working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I find working with an outside
editor extremely helpful, but I’ve also gone it alone (with Deadly, Delicate), and that was fine,
too. Most recently when working on The
saint of milk and flames with my editor Tianna Hansen (Rhythm & Bones
Press), she nudged me about adding more poems because it’s a full length book.
It was already far longer than any of my chapbooks so far, but she
instinctively knew I was approaching with too much caution. I did, in fact,
have quite a lot of poems I was holding back, but now they’re in the book and I
have a 50-poem collection thanks to her encouragement.
9 - What is the best piece of
advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
I
think the best advice I’ve acquired is more an amalgamation of advice, so more
like a lesson I’ve learned, and that’s not to rely on external validation for
satisfaction with your creative work (or feel destroyed by criticism). It’s a
bit of a blend of the Buddha – paraphrased from the Dhammapada, a wise person is
equally untouched by praise or blame – and a couple of my creative writing
tutors at uni who said “writing is an insecure business”. And just through
writing for so many years without being read, then discovering I am suddenly
being read – the thing that matters before anything else is making something
the way I want to make it. Some people will like what you do, other people will
hate what you do, the vast majority will be indifferent to it – so it’s not
healthy to depend on reactions for how you feel about your own writing. The
satisfaction should come from the act of writing and creating itself. Or
something like that.
10 - How easy has it been for
you to move between genres (poetry to flash fiction)? What do you see as the
appeal?
I
write poetry, prose (flash) fiction, and prose nonfiction, and the genre
depends on the subject, really. Quite often my poetry is fictional too, or a
blur between fiction and nonfiction. What matters most to me is that the piece
of writing works and says what I want it to say.
11 - What kind of writing
routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day
(for you) begin?
Again,
with a big family and several health issues, a routine isn’t something I am
able to stick with very well. Every morning always begins with coffee, though –
whether that coffee is followed by writing, editing, reading, or cleaning the
house – all while juggling toddlers – depends on the day.
12 - When your writing gets
stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word)
inspiration?
Tidying and organising my house,
going for a walk outside, listening to music, reading books, chatting with
friends, watching films. All sorts of things, anything that isn’t sitting in
front of the writing virtually bashing my head into it with no results.
13 - What fragrance reminds you
of home?
It depends on what ‘home’ means,
which is a complicated one for me. I’ve lived in a a lot of places, but my home
is where I am now – with my husband and children and cat. With that definition,
I’d say rain, coffee, incense, fresh laundry.
14 - David W. McFadden once
said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence
your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Music has always influenced me. I
would say a lot of my efforts with writing are concentrated on making it sound
as musical as possible with just rhythm and carefully placed sound patterning.
And witchcraft, the occult, spirituality, a sense of performing rituals and
observing natural cycles are a big influence, of course. Tarot, and other forms
of divination, and I suppose tarot falls under visual art as well. History is
always a noticeable presence/influence on my work, but that is somewhat a case
of books coming from books – though history comes from all kinds of sources,
really.
15 - What other writers or
writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Oh
my, if I’m not writing (or mothering or editing) I’m usually reading, so –
absolutely tonnes. Jack Kerouac, Sharon Olds, Sylvia Plath, Stephen King were
important influences in my younger years. Jayne Anne Phillips, a writer I
discovered through university tutors, her stories and prose poems (or flash
fiction pieces – I’m never sure with her) were eye-opening for me. But I read
very widely, not all of it will have anything to do with my writing, but it
will all touch my life in some way. One book that’s been important for life
outside of my work is Unf*ck Your Habitat: You’re Better Than Your Mess by Rachel Hoffman. It’s like a
realistic view of keeping a tidy environment, if not necessarily a minimalist
one which is on trend right now. What I like about it is how it works even if
you are dealing with chronic pain and exhaustion, a family of seven, and a
messy creative mind doing 100 things at once… it changed my life (and has made
me feel like it’s possible to get through the 100 writer-editor things I’m trying
to do at once, too).
16 - What would you like to do
that you haven't yet done?
Writing wise – write a prose novella.
In general – visit Norway.
17 - If you could pick any
other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you
think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
Well
I worked in retail / customer services / behind the bar in pubs for 17 years.
When I left school at 18 my life was a bit of a disaster for reasons both
within and outside of my control. I ended up not attending university until I
was 31 (and in an entirely different country), and like many so-called slackers
at the time I felt like if I did a boring, minimum wage retail job I’d have
time for my writing, music, etc. Then, of course, I just got stuck doing those
jobs because I made a lot of questionable choices in other areas, so even thouh
I was writing, singing, whatever, it didn’t go anywhere.
I’m
currently a full-time mum, editor, and writer, though I definitely don’t do any
of those things for the money (writing, surprisingly, out of the above, pays
the best in my case). If I could do any other job, I’d be an (occult) historian
and/or medievalist and/or folklorist. I think being a philosopher would be
interesting, too. Still, I really think I’d rather be a historian than anything
else.
18 - What made you write, as
opposed to doing something else?
Writing
and reading are the two things in my life that have always been constant. For a
long time I’d have said books were the only things I could trust.
19 - What was the last great
book you read? What was the last great film?
The
last great film was a few months ago, and was long overdue – Solaris, the 1972 Russian sci-fi/horror
film. It’s my husband’s favourite film, so I’d listened to him talk about how
amazing it is for years – staying sceptical of course – and finally watched it
with him. It is honestly amazing, perfectly bleak and everything about it is
gripping. I was left wishing every film was like Solaris. One of those films that leaves a hole in your heart when
it’s finished.
As for books, I very much enjoyed The Little Black Book of Stories by A.S.Byatt. A contributor to Three Drops from
a Cauldron (my web journal for poetry and fiction with myth/folklore
elements) recommended it to me about three years ago, and I finally read it in
January. It was masterful, and apparently isn’t even Byatt’s best collection –
so I’m looking forward to reading more of her work.
20 - What are you currently
working on?
I’m
working on a few things. One is a chapbook exploring the symptoms of my
premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). PMDD is a condition where the body
reacts badly to normal hormonal changes during the menstrual cycle, so it’s
like PMS ramped up – suicidal ideation, bouts of rage, despair, self-loathing,
excessive physical pain. My chapbook is looking at it through a paranormal
lens, and it’s called A View from the
Phantasmagoria. So symptoms are things like demons, shadow people, sleep
paralysis, poltergeists, etc, and the few things that soothe are written about
like they are spells, exorcisms, prayers, and so on. It’s been enjoyable to
write, which is astonishing because it’s about a condition that has tried to
ruin my life for 20 years. But that’s probably why it’s fun – I’m using that
big negative to make something spooky and interesting, and it’s throwing new
light on it all.
In addition to that, I’m writing a pamphlet with a friend
about angels – not your pretty, fluffy winged things in the popular
imagination, but biblical and apocryphal angels, angels as seen in the occult,
a smattering of demons, that sort of thing. And another pamphlet with another
friend about strange ‘scientific’ and medical beliefs in two contrasting periods
in history – my poems are focusing on the late medieval period. I can’t give as
many details about those because they’re in their early stages and I’m writing
them with others, but I’m just as excited about them as anything else.
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