Interview with Robert Heath

Today’s interview is with Robert Heath, who wrote the poem “All The Day Ran In Me.’ He’s from the UK, so chip chip cheerio cheers and the like.

 

Describe your poetry in 25 words or less. 

Honest. From the heart. I am, I hope, a tiny echo of Charles Bukowski’s genius. I write prose-poetry inspired by the world around me.

 

Who has influenced you the most as a writer? 

Many people have influenced me as a writer, but the ones who have inspired me the most are Sylvia Plath, Pablo Neruda, Charles Bukowski, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Brett Easton Ellis, Irvine Welsh, Hubert Selby, William Burroughs and the classic poets – Byron, Tennyson and Keats.

 

Tell me about your poem “All the Day Ran In Me.” 

It’s a simple piece reflecting on divorce or separation and how certain things in life can never be divided up – are linked forever to two people and bear testimony to their history. Some things are just indivisible.

 

Do you keep a blog? 

No. I know that’s viewed as suspect in this day and age but its hard enough to find the time to write everything I want to write without writing about writing it. I am however in the process of setting up my own website

 

What are you reading right now? 

I am reading Angela’s Ashes which is an incredible memoir of life in poverty stricken Ireland and America in the 1930’s. As well as that, I am also reading the complete poetical works of Lord Byron

Do you have any advice for other writers?  

Write and read every day. Don’t give up – no book is written, every book is re-written. Believe in yourself and remember – it’s mostly subjective at the end of the day. Just because your work is rejected, does not mean it is necessarily bad – nor does acceptance make you special – keep learning. Read and write always and you will grow in stature as a creative person. Most of all – be yourself.

 

What are you working on right now?

 I am working on a collection of thematically linked poems and a post-apocalyptic novel (it’s a trilogy in my head) about a world in which among other things, books no longer exist until one day, some scavengers find the ruined remains of an old library and learn from the ashes the art of storytelling again.