The Lancashire Writing Hub are pleased to publish an in-depth interview with Poet and Performer Sarah Hymas, by award-winning novelist Jenn Ashworth. Jenn’s interview with Sarah is thought-provoking and illuminating, and will be of interest to any serious writer. There’s also the opportunity to win a free copy of the film Sarah and Maya Chowdhry made of ‘Nothing as Quiet as a House’, so read on…
Sarah Hymas is a poet, performer and editor. Her first collection, Host, was published earlier this year with Waterloo Press.
The collection was reviewed here by the poet Anna McKerrow and here at Peony Moon. 
In this two-part, in-depth interview with Jenn Ashworth, Sarah talks about researching her collection, what it’s like to work within a community of creative friends and contacts, what ‘success’ means and how writing is like sailing.
PART I: On writing Host
JA: Tell me about the research you did for Host.
SH: Host - at least the main sequence in the book, Bedrock, began as an act of grief for my Dad, who died suddenly. I say this in retrospection. At the time I was just scrabbling to remember what he’d told me of his parents and grandparents, going through his belonging. Because he was the third generation in a family business there were plenty of cupboards and files to discover and write about. Over time it became clearer I was writing an extended sequence of a family, its business and intergenerational changes. Then I had to take things more seriously: read up on social history, events and religious views (religion plays a large role in the family) so I could build up a convincing picture of how this group of people changed through the century. The outcome is a medley of historical fact, familial fact and myth, imagination and social commentary.
JA: I’m interested in the autobiographical element. How do you approach using your own, and other people’s stories in your poems?
SH: I take the raw material and chew over it, consider the emotional nub, the truth of the story then go cycling, walking or sailing, not really thinking about it for a while. Or so it seems. When I sit down to write it out, I see how it’s transformed or crystallised into a self-contained thing. There are always elements from the original story that act as the scaffold, provide external authenticity for the piece.
JA: And was there ever any worry or concern about using these original stories, these ‘familial facts and myths?’
SH: Yes, once the Bedrock sequence became bigger than my immediate memories/experiences I did question the ethical implications of disclosing other people’s stories. I didn’t necessarily know the whole factual truth of an event but wrote on the ‘emotional truth’ derived from one person’s perspective. Which may sound like a bit of a cop out … Although you also say in a blog post that feelings are more true than facts.
However, I did show some of the family poems to an uncle to gauge his reaction. And felt obliged to respect it (although difficult) when he selected some poems he said he didn’t want to see published. Perhaps by giving them to him I was acknowledging that they were more ‘his’ story to tell than ‘mine’.
JA: And more generally, do you think writers have an ethical responsibility when they’re using material from real life?
SH: I believe that if material is used with compassion, if there is a honest enquiry into that emotional truth of a person’s workings, then I think it is the writer’s responsibility to write about other lives, as well as their own. We don’t live in a vacuum. It comes down to our individual codes, our integrity.
Having said that, I’m glad I’m the writer in the family rather being scrutinised and written about by someone else.
JA: Tell me about structure. I’m a novelist interviewing a poet and yet I was struck by the very narrative feel of Host – especially the Bedrock sequence. But these are very definitely poems and not stories. Why is structure and form in poetry important?
SH: Everything starts somewhere and ends somewhere. It’s the job of the writer to make this choice in presenting the subjects we write about. I enjoy narrative (a hangover from writing short stories perhaps), and when it became apparent that was growing in this sequence I encouraged it, wanting a spacious epic feel …
I love the abundance of structures poetry offers: at the basic: line length, verse, shape on the page, relationship to the preceding or following poems – to the more intricate of various forms/rhyme schemes which force the work into places you might never have gone. Form/metre removes the work from the writer’s ego. Although some would say this is a weakness of form.
JA: What are your strengths as a writer? What are your weaknesses? (I stole this question from the Paris Review Interview with Joyce Carol Oates – she answered it very tersely and it made me laugh which is why I am throwing it in here).
SH: Tenacity is a strength and weakness of mine. Sometimes I just don’t know when to let go. I think I have an innate sense of rhythm which I love dancing with, which is why I return again and again to poetry and performance. My need to challenge myself is a strength – it takes me places I wouldn’t have necessarily chosen to go. My self-doubt is weird kind of strength, otherwise I wouldn’t keep on, trying to improve. My ego – my belief that I think things worth writing down – is a strength. It becomes a weakness when it clouds my objectivity. Another weakness is often I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. I write from a very spontaneous place, and while I could sit down and log the methods that are successful and those that aren’t, I don’t. Consequentially I take the scenic route for my first drafts most times. Not good mix with another weakness – my impatience. So, they’re mixed up a bit, but we’re not two dimensional, are we?
JA: And finally (until part two of the interview via the “Read More” link below…) as well as a poet, you’re also a sailor. And a blogger. Your blog is called Echo Soundings which is a lovely dovetail of sea and sound, sailing and poetry. One of the poems in the Landfall sequence of Host is also called ‘Echo Sounding’. The two pursuits seem to be very linked for you. So why is writing like sailing?
SH: It’s stressful and bloody hard; you spend a whole load of time wondering why the hell you’re doing it because it doesn’t make you feel very skilful, in fact it makes you feel very small, then you catch the wind and tide just right, and the sky and sea and you open up to become one huge interconnected organism where time operates in a parallel dimension and a year passes in a shiny ball of perfectly balanced suspension.
PART II: On the writing community, influences and career.
JA: How important is collaboration to you? I have an idea of a lonely poet scribbling in solitude, but the thing that really struck me from the launch of Host at Lancaster’s Maritime museum, was how many other poets, musicians and writers you had up on the stage with you – all because their work or their friendship had informed your own work in some way.
SH: While I love the space writing alone offers, I am a social creator/ improviser. Working with other people triggers my playful side and keeps me from getting too serious about it all. It is serious, of course, but I think my most successful work is when I can deliver serious ideas and subjects through play or at least light-hearted effort. And this generally happens in collaboration.
Also, I need to feel I belong to a community of writers, musicians and artists. It helps me stay on track and feed my thinking and imagination. I couldn’t continue to do what I do without their input and, perhaps more importantly, presence.
JA: How does your other work (I am thinking about Mouthtrap and your puppeteering, in particular) feed into your poetry?
SH: It keeps the poetry more playful, as I said. It opens up other doors in my mind which both illuminate the poetry, but also offer new routes for the poetry to take. The puppetry has taken a back seat of late, but I’ve just finished a sestina for the puppet I made last year, so I’ll be working on developing the delivery of that. Blurring boundaries between genres means each feed into each other and stretch things. And Mouthtrap – well, that brings us back to rhythm and music and working with Steve and Beth ensures a continual engagement in both these areas that spills over into my solo work.
JA: You talk about a community of ‘writers, musicians and artists’. Can you share some links and tell us more about influence?
Influence is a slippery thing. I don’t necessarily know what has influenced me, certainly not at the time of influence. What I like and what influences me can be very different, although I’m sure they overlap. Influence is far more embedded than ‘like’. For something to influence my work, I’ll have engaged with it on many levels: emotionally, physically, probably spiritually, although that’s another intangible really, and, of course, intellectually, although this doesn’t feel as conscious as it sounds. I’m an instinctualist rather than an intellectual…
Links:
http://www.deepcabaret.co.uk/
http://www.thewordbirds.net/
http://sixfold.org.uk/
http://www.samuraatikainen.com/
http://www.litfest.org/flax-authors/
http://pickledimage.co.uk/
http://www.atowncalledpanic.tv/
http://www.haworth-village.org.uk/brontes/emily/emily.asp
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/goya_francisco_de.html
http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts-performanceinprofile-2009-british_council-stephen_mottram_s_animata.htm
http://www.monkinstitute.org/
http://www.barbarahepworth.org.uk/
http://www.pollymorgan.co.uk/
I could go on …
JA: On the publication of Host, you embarked on a creative promotional campaign, including publishing some short videos of your poems on you-tube.
Do writers need to be social entrepreneurs to be successful these days? Can promotion be a creative endeavour in itself or do you see it as a necessary evil?
SH: I think we have a choice in this: in how we see it and what we want to do as a result. I don’t think writers need to be social entrepreneurs to be successful. At least not if you’re good. But using social networks allows a deeper engagement with your readership, and maybe you’ll pick up more readers than you would otherwise. Maybe not. But nothing can change the strength of your work. If you’re a great writer, your work will find an outlet and readership – eventually. The social networking may speed that up. People talk, after all.
I don’t see promotion as a necessary evil. But that’s because I don’t go to ‘networking events’, chat to everyone and hand out my business card – that would be evil, for me, soul destroying. I just can’t do that. But manifested in other ways ‘promotion’ suits my needs to experiment in different forms and processes. So the idea of making the films – which sprang from working with artist Maya Chowdhry on a ‘real’ poetry film – seemed fun, an opportunity to collaborate and use another medium in which to explore my work. To translate very familiar poems into a different medium.
JA: We’ve talked a bit about what you get from belonging to a community – but part of your work also involves giving back to that community. You’re an editor at Flax, a career coach and you have a lot of experience of working on literature development projects – of helping other writers to be successful.
What does ‘success’ mean to you? How can other writers succeed?
SH: Success is enjoying my work, improving it, and having it appreciated by others. It’s a personal thing. Everyone needs to define their own measure of success, to begin to hope to achieve it.
If you’re asking for advice I’d say, keep it simple. I’ve got a great quote above my desk: “Unless the aim is single, it cannot succeed.” Chu.
And then to my left is Kurt Vonnegut saying: “I tell you, we are here on earth to fart around, and don’t let anyone tell you different.”
JA: And as a literature development professional, coach, editor and wearer of hundreds of other hats, what do you do to ensure you have time for your own writing?
SH: Believe in it.
Sarah has set a question for a free copy of a DVD of the film Sarah and Maya Chowdhry made of ‘Nothing as Quiet as a House’. To enter into the draw and the chance to win the DVD, send an email answering Sarah’s question with the subject “Sarah Hymas Prize Draw” to Jane at writing@theyeatculture.org by Friday 31st December 2010.
Sarah’s question is: “I mention in the interview and on my blog the film of my poem, ‘Nothing as Quiet as a House’, from Host. Which Wallace Stevens poem do I refer to that is named similarly, but is nothing like it?”
Sarah Hymas is a poet, performer and editor, and blogs here at Echo Soundings. Her first collection, Host, was published earlier this year with Waterloo Press.
Jenn Ashworth is a blogger and writer. Her first novel A Kind of Intimacy won a Betty Trask Award. Her second, Cold Light is set in Preston and will be published in Spring, 2011 with Sceptre. You can find out more at www.jennashworth.co.uk
[...] Here’s an interesting conversation it’s worth dropping in on – two writers I happen to admire: Jenn Ashworth, novelist, interviewing Sarah Hymas, poet. Tagged novelist, poet, writers. Bookmark permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. « Talking the Talk [...]
‘It’s stressful and bloody hard; you spend a whole load of time wondering why the hell you’re doing it because it doesn’t make you feel very skilful, in fact it makes you feel very small, then you catch the wind and tide just right, and the sky and sea and you open up to become one huge interconnected organism where time operates in a parallel dimension and a year passes in a shiny ball of perfectly balanced suspension.’ – Beautiful!