Interview with Issue 18’s Catherine Edmunds

Here’s Catherine, the author of the fine poem “The Song Still Waiting.” Want to read it? Buy a copy of Issue 18.

Describe your writing in 25 words or less.

My writing aims to shake readers out of their complacency, to startle them, make them question their assumptions—and above all, to move them.
Talk about your poem “The Song Still Waiting”

I never ‘explain’ my poetry, but as is clear from the text, this poem is about the agony of losing someone you have loved for a very long time. It’s not specifically about my own father, though there are echoes – I have some old books of his that have drops of candle wax on them from reading at night, as described in the poem; and the miners’ track is a route I have walked with him on his favourite mountain, Snowdon. We all hurt with loss, we all grieve, we all have memories that cut us deeply even if they seem like such small things – a particular shirt, a pizza, a glass of whiskey. We all hope to find that song again.

Who or what inspires you to write?

Life/love/sex/death. The point being, if I appear to be writing about, say, a walk in the countryside, I’m not writing a nature poem whatever it may look like. I also make use of a few ‘muses’ who are blissfully unaware of their role in my writing, but all of whom inspire every word.

Do you have a website or blog so we can follow your writing?

I only remember my blog’s existence when someone asks me if I have one, so a better bet is to look at my multi-purpose website, which I update once in a blue moon. http://www.freewebs.com/catherineedmunds/
What are you working on right now?

My main current project is a set of poems due for publication in September that take as their source the memories of dementia patients. I am writing a magazine review of a new novel about Vincent Van Gogh, writing the foreword for a forthcoming poetry collection, and writing poems, flashes and short stories on a daily basis. I’ve recently finished a novel so am concentrating more on the short forms at the moment to give myself a breather before embarking upon another longer work.
Where can we read your work next?

I submit so many stories and poems, I don’t know where to start. I have something new either online or in print virtually every week, but I am particularly happy at the moment to have placed poems in a forthcoming anthology of disability poetry from Nine Arches Press. Details will be on my website in due course.
Any advice for your fellow writers?

Read more. Seriously, even if you’re utterly immersed in writing your latest novel, you need to be reading as much other writing as you can.

Anything else?

I have strong views on craft, and accessibility, but rather than subject you to a lengthy rant on this subject, I’ll direct you to a guest blog piece I wrote recently for The Literary Consultancy. https://literaryconsultancy.co.uk/2017/02/craft-why-it-matters/