In Conversation with Eve Ellis

Congratulations on being shortlisted for The Michael Marks Award for Poetry Pamphlet. How did you feel when you heard the news?

I’m thrilled to be shortlisted for The Michael Marks Award.  Thank you to the judges. Honestly, I’m struggling for the words to say how happy and humbled and grateful I am.    

Please tell us about your shortlisted pamphlet. How would you describe it to a reader who is new to your work? 

I wrote these poems to reinvent the past—to hold the past up to the light and see it from wilder and more bearable angles.  The pamphlet is a surreal journey through familial and personal history. It’s 1% fact, 99% imagination. I called it Spit Valve because it was the most apt, most revolting title I could think of.  (See the epigraph for more information on that.)

What was the origin of your pamphlet. How did you start this project and how did it develop? 

These poems were written over an appallingly long period of time; the oldest one was written when my daughter was four months old, and the pamphlet came out when she was ten!  I began to think seriously about a pamphlet during the year I was on Ella Frears’ wonderful year-long masterclass at CityLit.  Ella and the cohort of poets on the course helped me to take myself a little more seriously and to hold it all more lightly at the same time.  I began keeping little lists of my poems’ titles in the Notes app on my phone.  During slow moments, I’d open up the list and fiddle with it, adding new poems and deleting others, thinking about how they spoke to each other.

The Michael Marks Awards support poetry pamphlet publishers as well as individual poets. We’d love to hear about your relationship with your publisher. How did you come to publish with them and can you tell us about the editorial process? 

I had long admired the poets on the list at ignitionpress, and they were my dream publisher.  ignition are the first and only press to whom I submitted the pamphlet, and I’m so happy they said yes.  Their editing process was rigorous and in-depth; I always felt that I retained creative control and that they were helping the poems and the pamphlet as a whole be the best it could be. I could not be prouder to be part of the ignition family.

Do you have favourite poets who have influenced your work, or poets who were particularly in your mind when you were writing this pamphlet.   

Two poets had a particular influence on this pamphlet through their outstanding teaching and mentoring: Caroline Bird and Tamar Yoseloff. They showed me what was possible, and they helped me to give myself permission.

What advice would you give your younger self as they were starting to write poetry? 

1) Be patient with yourself. Poetry is not a race. Take the time to get nimble with your practice and process, and then the things in your life that seem like impediments to the work will ultimately become essential to doing the work.

2) Don’t apologize for writing what you want and need to write.  Do it joyfully.  Do it with gusto.