{"id":9954,"date":"2015-10-13T12:53:59","date_gmt":"2015-10-13T12:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/?p=9954"},"modified":"2017-12-02T23:26:27","modified_gmt":"2017-12-02T23:26:27","slug":"although-i-set-out-to-write-a-different-type-of-book-i-am-glad-this-one-got-written-emma-hammond-on-what-poetry-can-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/2015\/10\/although-i-set-out-to-write-a-different-type-of-book-i-am-glad-this-one-got-written-emma-hammond-on-what-poetry-can-do\/","title":{"rendered":"“Although I set out to write a different book, I am glad this one got written” – Emma Hammond on poetry and The Story of No"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was my intention to write a book that got away from the confessional, to be one of those poets that does interesting work around data and process. In the initial meeting with Tom (Chivers) I spoke about wanting to transcend my kookiness<\/em>– whatever that means. Why should people care about all that? Personality driven art is hard to get right I think. There will always be someone hating it, which is good too.<\/h2>\n

When I watch other poets, or read their work it is always the bits that are sort of personal and hurty that appeal to me the most. I read this poem by Huw Lawrence<\/a> recently called Bypassed <\/em>and these lines sum up what I mean:<\/p>\n

You get there through St. Clairs
\nwhere my father gives me crisps
\nand leaves me standing too long
\noutside the pub<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I want to know the secret things, but I know a lot of people don\u2019t. My attempts at using language in a new way went astray when my Mum died while I was writing the book. But really, the book is not all about that. I think it is about modern life in general, and how it bullies you. Mum was bullied her whole life by convention, status and expectation.<\/p>\n

In some ways this makes it a political book. Being a woman, being a person. Trying to do the things that you\u2019re supposed to do, on a larger level than just getting married and having kids- though that is in there too. Is it even possible to be \u2018bohemian\u2019 anymore? I don\u2019t have a mortgage or a \u2018real job\u2019 and I am a single mum but I still have to fight different types of conformity- having an identity on the internet for instance, the constructs put forward by the media, being a \u2018poet\u2019. Even by writing this I am policing myself, trying to call myself or my work something.<\/p>\n

It would be nice to think you can get away from these things. By being honest I think you can get some of the way there. In The Story of No<\/a><\/em>, the poem \u2018End\u2019 for example is a sort of anti-status- the opposite of what I would post about myself on Facebook. Depression, or however you think of it, the reality of the everyday, my failures.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it is unwise to think you can attain a state of Zen through exploration of difficult subjects<\/em>, using something as useless and slippery as language, but I still think the best way to silence something is to expose it for what it is. There are many different ways of doing this with poetry which is why I like it so much. And although I set out to write a different type of book, I am glad this one got written. I am also the boy eating crisps outside that pub, and I would like Huw Lawrence to know it. Love and common experience are the things that will save us- they exist outside any kind of regulated space.<\/p>\n

Buy\u00a0The Story of No<\/em>\u00a0 by\u00a0Emma Hammond in the Penned in the Margins online shop<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was my intention to write a book that got away from the confessional, to be one of those poets that does interesting work around data and process. In the initial meeting with Tom (Chivers) I spoke about wanting to transcend my kookiness– whatever that means. Why should people care about all that? Personality driven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[174,3,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9954"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9954"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16131,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9954\/revisions\/16131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}