Poetry Book Club

Tell us about yourself and what inspired you to start writing.

I live in Oxford with my Italian wife and two sons. But I was born on the edge of the Forest of Dean, In England, near the Welsh border. I studied English at Oxford University and then moved to Dublin to write a PhD thesis on Wallace Stevens. Eventually I moved back to Oxford, undertaking gardening and library work, until I began tutoring art history and English literature at various colleges in the city. My most recent poems come out of my life here in Oxford, witnessing the birth and early years of my two sons. In many ways my children are the “Cherubims” of my new collection as much as that word signifies the guards of Eden in Genesis or the wheeled living creatures in Ezekiel. My previous collection presented 150 poems in conversation with the Psalms, so you can see the Bible has also been a source of inspiration for me.

Describe your writing process? Is there anything unique about it?
I tend to wake very early and write in the small hours of the morning before my family gets up. I can only sustain two or three hours of poetry writing a day really, the process is so intense, although it might look sometimes like I am daydreaming on my couch. Since I write according to the “dance music of the ages”, as Yeats would say, using rhyme and metre, the process of writing and re-writing can be quite arduous. A stanza can take me hours or days maybe, although very occasionally a poem comes fully formed. I have stacks of pads of rough drafts.

Have you published any books or do you have a desire to do so?
My previous collection of poems is called A Book of Psalms and was published in 2020. The poems here are numbered according to the arrangement of psalms in the Masoretic Text and the King James Version of the Bible. These poems are not translations or versifications. Mostly they are conversations with, sometimes even hesitations about, the ancient texts. You may understand them as slightly unruly imitations, transplantations, or poems in their own right. The making of the whole book felt like an initiation, and I came to understand The Book of Psalms to be structured as a cave in the Old Testament.

My second son was born when I started writing A Book of Psalms in earnest, and he and his brother grew up in that book. After finishing my psalms, I was prompted to write some more poems about my two small sons, and these pieces form the nucleus of my most recent collection, Cherubims, in which I confront in contemplative thought those fiery guards of Eden and the Holy of Holies: the chariot-like sphinges or living creatures of Ezekiel, who seem to reappear in Revelation, and who are so full of knowledge of God in their purified form in Dionysius.

A selection of my poems, called The Voice inside Our Home, was published at the beginning of 2022 by SLG Press. I am also the author of two books of criticism, The Later Affluence of W. B. Yeats and Wallace Stevens (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and The Vagabond Spirit of Poetry (Iff Books, 2014).

Do you have any favorite poets or authors?
Beyond Shakespeare and Milton, my favourite poets are George Herbert and Henry Vaughan. My late tutor at Oxford was the great-great-great nephew of William Wordsworth, and perhaps that is why I have such a fondness for that Romantic poet, along with William Cowper and William Blake. I do also love reading twentieth century poets such as Thomas Hardy, W. B. Yeats, Robert Frost, and Philip Larkin. When I read contemporary poetry, I tend to linger longest over the work of Jamie McKendrick, A. E. Stallings, Ernest Hilbert, and Ned Denny.

Do you have a favorite book of poetry or poems?
I am most absorbed by the Bible and ancient poetry, and things like Plato’s dialogues, Plotinus’ Enneads, Dionysius’s Celestial Hierarchy, Meister Eckhart’s sermons, tracts and essays by Frithjof Schuon and Ananda Coomaraswamy, and H. W. Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage and the OED.

What are you reading now?
At the moment, before I sleep at night, I am lazily re-reading the second volume of Roy Foster’s biography of Yeats, The Arch-Poet, when I really should be re-reading St Augustine’s City of God. I’ve been halfway through the Complete Poems of Hardy since the end of the summer, I just recently bought the Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, thinking I’ll work through the fascicles as she left them, and I’m one poem into A. E. Stallings’ Selected Poems. I am continually re-reading Shakespeare and many other older and more recent poets with students when I teach in the day.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing? Full-time job, pets, hobbies?
During term time, I spend much of my day walking through fields and streets of Oxford, between the colleges where I teach. When we’re in Italy, I like to saunter in the Alps, sip negronis on the riviera, and drink fine wine over long lunches. My children still take up quite a lot of my time.

Are you working on a current project?
Beyond poetry, my new art history book, The Secret Mind of Art, is due to go into production in April. One of these days I will write a book on Shakespeare and esoteric occult Neoplatonism.

Poet Website and Profiles
Edward Clake’s Website
Edward Clake’s Amazon Profile
Edward Clake’s Author Profile Other Book Seller

Edward Clake’s Social Media Links
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Tell us about yourself and what inspired you to start writing.

I am a female screenwriter and author. I’ve been writing since I was a teenager, and
Very early on, I started imagining stories in my mind, I believe they were an escape for me, I’m an only child and I was quite a loner, so my characters have filled my life. They were those I wanted to share my life with…I assume I started creating the kind of beings I wanted in my life.
I needed to create stories to go on, a kind of cocoon in which I felt safe. Very early on, I made my stuffed animals and my dolls talk- I remember loving ventriloquists- and I gave different voices and personalities to all my toys. I think I was already writing daily at that time without realizing it. I used to have my classmates act out movie lines, but unfortunately I was the only aspiring artist and felt quite alone. I think my characters were sort of imaginary friends.

I started writing and creating to escape reality. My father was a film and photography enthusiast,
he tape-recorded every kind of movies he had hundreds of VHS at home. One day he showed me King Kong, the one by John Guillermin starring Jessica Lange. I was about 6 years old, the movie had a big impact on me, I remember the feeling of wonder and thrill that took hold of
me, it was true love at first sight for this movie, it was also at this time that I became aware of my love for animals because the scene at the top of the World Trade Center was the first ever scene in a movie that made me want to cry. So basically that day I discovered two of my passions, cinema and animals. And there was New York, in my opinion, the most beautiful city in the world and a great source of inspiration too.

Describe your writing process? Is there anything unique about it?
As far as I’m concerned it’s absorbing information, researching but also observing in the first place.
Then I isolate myself, totally, reality must no longer exist for my inspiration to be there,
for the muse to be with me, I draw inspiration from people I know, from personal stories, much more in my books than in my scripts, because there is not the requirement from producers or filmmakers, it’s just me my books and my readers.
I stop my phone, disconnect from my social medias and I don’t answer my door anymore! I don’t go out until a first draft is finished, it has to come out of me. To immerse myself even more in the imagination, to go deeper in it, I read about the theme I’m writing on, I watch movies in the same genre and atmosphere… I am in my story and it lives in me…There is almost nothing around me anymore. I disappear into the story and my characters, it’s a journey I need to make several times a year, because I am only happy when I create. Then there are the first corrections, the second draft, which I often do with music, in the genre of what I write, mostly dark.
I talk to my characters and they talk to me. They guide me. I don’t. I’m not in control anymore.
When the writing is finished and the book is ready for publication, the story gradually fades away, leaves me, only good memories remain, the impression of a pleasant journey, like a beautiful and brief love story.

Have you published any books or do you have a desire to do so?
I first wrote several collections of horror and fantasy short stories before moving on to novels, such as SHUDDERS, which brings together the most famous monsters in horror literature such as the wolfman, Dracula, vampires, the devil and a beautiful tribute story to the Elephant man, who was not a monster, but a victim of real monsters who were exploiting him.
I then wrote a first short novel, SIX DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS the story of a witch who literally steals Christmas by stealing Santa’s sleigh and of two orphans who track her down to free the sleigh and save Xmas. They are helped by the elves and the toys made by Santa Claus.

My most intimate books, in which I put the most of myself, are BLACK MASS, WHITE GOLD and my latest SNOW WHITE.

BLACK MASS follows Verity, a female journalist, who dreams of meeting a famous rock singer,
Lachlan Alden, for an interview. Lachlan who turns out to be a vampire will guide her in the legendary
Père La-chaise cemetery in Paris, and tell her several terrifying stories. Black mass is a story within the story … As the gates to hell open each night in the famous Parisian cemetery, the vampire storyteller tells her about those who belong in the abysses and the devil’s realm and what brought them there…

It is above all the story of a revenge and the end, the twist will surprise the readers, which I particularly like
I wrote Black Mass during the first lock down, I talk about the virus in the first pages of the book, the film projects were much less present because of the pandemic, so I turned to writing books to keep on creating, and I can’t do without this form of writing now, I find more personal than writing films.

Then came WHITE GOLD, which is undoubtedly the most personal book for me, because it talks about revenge, about a woman who lost her father and seeks justice for his death.
I lost my father several months ago, I wrote this book with him in mind, it is dedicated to him like all my recent works.

WHITE GOLD combines my love for animals with my love of writing, as it denounces the horrible ivory trade and the slaughter of these wonderful and intelligent animals that are elephants.
It is also a very strong love story between two people, who find each other despite the danger, the ordeals.
Della and Nick who are my two characters are brought together by Della’s father renowned geographer Bradley Riche who is violently murdered in the house he shared with his wife Helen for more than 20 years. Della is their only daughter she’s a zoologist in New York City, and does not buy the local police thesis that it was a botched burglary. Nicholas Farkas, an ardent animal rights activist, photographer for the National Geographic and friend of Bradley seems to hold the key to the enigma: Della soon discovers that the two men were working together to dismantle several ivory trafficking networks and that her father was about to publish an article implicating a new hub of this trade. Soon, the couple put their lives in jeopardy to protect the elephants from the massacre they face every day, continue Bradley’s work and dismantle the networks at the head of the carnage.
Della and Nicholas are helped, among others, by a group of female rangers …The Akashinga rangers…

And my last book SNOW WHITE, again a story in which I included a lot of personal elements, it’s a very dark, violent, feminist version of Grim’s tale.
I talk about incest, because I was horrified by the stories that came out recently in the press,
and the number of children who are abused really made me sick, it also speak of battered women, and rape…
Rape and abuse by a powerful man, the king, some see it as a metaphor for Harvey Weinstein and other men of power, no doubt I fed on that, because it’s been very present in the news.
There is undoubtedly a political aspect in Snow White as well, because the seven dwarfs work in a mine, exploited by the tyrannical king, the people are starving, dying slowly racketted by the men of the king, who gets rich by exploiting them, by ruining their health, by threatening them, and their family. I believe that there is far too much difference between social classes in this society, the rich and the poor, the rich exploiting the poor more and more, I think that something is going to change soon… My book is also about a woman in power, a woman who overturns all obstacles to become this queen, despite the social background she comes from. Revenge is also present, and you will see that she uses apples in a totally new way. This is the snow white you can’t read to your kids…

I recommend waiting until adolescence because of the violence of certain passages.

Do you have any favorite poets or authors?
Stephen King, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo, Francis Scott Fitzgerald

Do you have a favorite book of poetry or poems?
Christine by Stephen King, Silver Bullet, Dracula, the picture of Dorian Gray, everything horror or with fantasy elements. I love biographies too.

What are you reading now?
I read a lot of Stephen King and I start reading Christmas books, at Halloween I love vampire stories. I also read a lot of articles everyday, I love to use real life stories for my creations.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing? Full-time job, pets, hobbies?
I love movies, so I watch movies quite often, I love the old Hammer horror movies, watching Dario Argento and DePalma again, I also watch the 3 King Kong movies at least once a month.
I also like to take care of animals and defend their cause, my cat Minuit takes a lot of my time, because she very demanding, only daughter like me, smiles) and I cook new vegetarian dishes. Maybe I will write a cookbook one day. I have a passion for photography, but with the Covid, travel has become more difficult, so I have to wait for this artistic expression, I like to discover new painters, because they particularly inspire me.

Are you working on a current project?
I actually have a new project in mind, another horror book I will start soon, and I will also work on a book with a co-author at the end of the year.
I’m also working on a thriller film with a producer friend, and I’m still working as a screenwriter for directors around the world.

Poet Website and Profiles
JORDAN TATE’s Website
JORDAN TATE’s Amazon Profile

JORDAN TATE’s Social Media Links
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Tell us about yourself and what inspired you to start writing.

As a teen, I had more of a love for drawing instead – writing was never interesting to me. I had a particular assignment in school, and that’s when I wrote my first poem called “What Love is Like.” A few of my classmates liked the poem and at that moment, I thought, I may be good at this. Years later as many trials in my life began to unfold, I began writing more and more, and over time my love for poetry grew. I was born and raised in the small town of Boley, Oklahoma and I am the mother of two teenage daughters. My poetry has been published in different local magazines and newspapers. I believe in the healing power of words, and I want to share my poetry with readers who are struggling or feeling down. My voice is a non-judgmental light for anyone experiencing the darkness of loss, depression, and pain. I believe my poems are rays of light, and so my poetry is a reflection of me. For more of my poetry IG: @_latoyamartin

Describe your writing process? Is there anything unique about it?
I have to write in a noisy environment, I cannot concentrate on my writing in silence. I keep sticky notes and a pen beside my bed if I have an idea I need to jot down. I have awakened and written many of my poems after midnight. The endings of my poems are always written first, followed by the beginning then the title.

Have you published any books or do you have a desire to do so?
Tears of Me is a collection of poems about suffering, love, and loss. A poetry book full of emotion in its many forms. Each poem depicts a tear that has been shed, be it of sadness, anger, or happiness. It resembles parts of life that many people experience and can relate to.

Do you have any favorite poets or authors?
I currently do not have any favorite authors.

Do you have a favorite book of poetry or poems?
I love reading paranormal stories and the bible. My favorite book is the bible.

What are you reading now?
I am not currently reading any books but my next book choice will be “Her” by Pierre Alex Jeanty.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing? Full-time job, pets, hobbies?
When I am not writing, I love fishing, watching anything paranormal, and exploring photography.

Are you working on a current project?
Yes, I am currently working on my second poetry book and a children’s book.

Poet Website and Profiles
LaToya Martin’s Amazon Profile

LaToya Martin’s Social Media Links
Facebook Fan Page
Twitter Profile
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