Develop and Preserve your Individual Poetic Voice. Having the imagination, inspiration and desire to be a poet is a blessing – Peter Thabit Jones
- Read poetry, the long dead poets, established poets and contemporary poets; and to read biographies about poets, to see how others went through their lives as poets, the successes and the failures they faced in the literary world.
Peter Thabit Jones is one of the most important voices in modern Welsh poetry and a prominent figure in contemporary international literature. A poet, playwright, literary critic, editor, and educator, he has represented Wales and the United Kingdom at numerous literary events around the world. His works have been translated into many languages and included in prestigious anthologies, demonstrating the power and depth of his words. In this special interview, we have the privilege of exploring the creative and spiritual world of this remarkable author.
Interviewed by Angela Kosta
What moment do you consider the turning point in your literary life, and how did it influence your poetic style?
– The death of my second son, Mathew, when I was twenty-four years old took me into a cold corner, a cul-de-sac of grief. I stopped writing for three years, stopped sending out poems to magazines etc. I had come face to face with ‘the eternal note of sadness’, to quote English poet Matthew Arnold. The conveyor-belt of busy life, of course, wants one to carry on, to get back in to the speed of things. One, though, is dulled by the palpable sorrow, the colours of life darken. There seems to be more shadows than shining. One’s heart is in the mud of low-tide, day and night. Words lost their magic for me. There was a dust of silence on my internal voice. I was a dark bird on a wintered and skeletal tree with no desire to sing.
I realized, as I later wrote in a poem for my son, “Poetry Reading: Robert Frost Farm, New Hampshire, USA”, ‘I am a singer merely, I sing my song’. What else could I do but write? I had been writing in a serious way since I was eleven years-old. When poetry came back to me I knew I could not fall back on someone else’s poetic voice or experiences. I feel it was the real beginning of my finding my own poetic voice. The loss of my son, though, is ever-present in my poetic vision, ever-present in my life.
How did your collaboration with American poet Stanley H. Barkan shape your vision as a transatlantic writer?
-Stanley H. Barkan’s Cross-Cultural Communications published my first book, ‘The Lizard Catchers’, in 2006. Vince Clemente, an American professor and poet, with whom I had corresponded since 1997, suggested I submit a collection to Stan. In 2008, Stan organised the Dylan Thomas Tribute Tour of America, featuring Dylan’s poet daughter Aeronwy and me. We spent six weeks there, giving talks and readings from New York to California, in prestigious venues such as Boston’s Wellesley College and New York’s National Arts Club.
The collaboration with Stan expanded my vision as a writer in that it enlarged my worldview and I wrote many poems about my experiences in America.
I have since done many talks and readings in various states there, such as the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and the World Affairs Conference (Colorado), and I have been an annual summer writer-in-residence in Big Sur, California, since 2010, courtesy of the international poet and artist Carolyn Mary Kleefeld.
Wales has a rich poetic heritage. How does your national and cultural identity influence your creative work?
-The first poets I read when I was a boy almost fourteen years old and had resolutely decided I wanted to be a poet, were Welsh: Edward Thomas, Dylan Thomas in particular, R. S. Thomas, Alun Lewis, Idris Davies, and Leslie Norris. I joined the Swansea Central Library and I became an avid read of all things to do with poetry.
I grew up in a non-Welsh language area, Eastside Swansea, and so I am not a Welsh language speaker. I can only recall one Welsh-speaking family in our street. I was, though, lucky enough to meet renowned Welsh-language poet Alan Llwyd in the 1980s and we became dear friends. We use to meet in a pub for a pint of beer and discuss Welsh-language literature and English-language literature. I had always been obsessed with sound-texturing in a poem, the musicality of a poem, so we discussed cynghanedd, strict poetic devices in the Welsh language. Alan taught me a lot about such devices. Cynghanedd roughly means harmony; and a simplified description of cynghanedd is the harmonizing of consonants, rhymes, and sounds.
I did eventually teach aspects of cynghanedd in English on one of my English Literature/Creative Writing courses at the Department for Adult Continuing Education at Swansea University, where I taught on the part-time degree program for 22 years until my retirement in 2015; and I have given talks in America and Europe on the use of cynghanedd in English-language poetry, in particular in the poetry of Dylan Thomas.
So, for me, it really is a privilege to be aware of this aspect of Welsh-language poetry and to be able to use variations of cynghanedd in many of my poems. Welsh-language literature and English-language literature have mainly developed on separate roads, but with some occasional literary travellers in both languages acknowledging those on the road opposite. It was the deliberate growth in an awareness of Welsh nationalism in the 1960s and onwards that made an impact on English-language literature in Wales and, thus, among English-language writers more of an acknowledgment of Welsh-language literature. I truly believe in the importance of the Welsh language surviving. The death of any language, any dialect, is a tragedy. I fully support all efforts to keep the Welsh language alive.
Your book “The Fire in the Wood” is described as a poetic journey into the human soul. What fire fuels your poetry?
-I believe a poem should ‘sing’ as opposed to standard prose. ‘I celebrate myself, and sing myself’ as American poet Walt Whitman wrote. The musicality of a poem, sound-texturing, can contribute to T.S. Eliot’s notion that ‘Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood’. I believe this is because a poet is stirring something fundamental in us, the iambic beat in us, the very rhythm of our being. American poet William Carlos Williams pointed out: ‘A poem is this:/A nuance of sound/delicately operating/upon a cataract of sense/… the particulars/of a song waking/upon a bed of sound.’
So a sense of craft is essential to me as well as what I want to say in a poem. I’m also interested in the undersong of life, what is really happening below the surface of what is called reality. To quote Edward Thomas, a favourite poet of mine, I want ‘To bite the day to the core’. I’m interested in what Maya Angelou, the American poet, said: “We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”
I think my role as a poet is to try to convey the real need for poetry in the times we live, its importance to the notion of a civilized society and the ‘soul food’ it can give to individuals.
A poet faced with the drama on the page, “Out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry” as Irish poet W.B. Yeats said, is trying to create some kind of energy – verbal, visual and musical – and trying to ensure some sort of integrity, believability, in the speaking voice of the poem, in the footsteps of the breath. A committed poet will utilize all the poetic tools in the kitbag to lift a poem off the page. But as Seamus Heaney once said, “Technique . . . involves not only a poet’s way with words, his management of meter, rhythm and verbal texture; it involves also a definition of his stance towards life, a definition of his own reality”.
For me the bones of a poem come first, a word, a phrase, a line, or a rhythm, usually initiated by an observation, an image, or a thought. Then once I have the tail of a poem I start thinking of its body. Nowadays, within a few lines I know if it will be formal or informal. If it is formal, all my energies go into shaping it into its particular mould, a sestina or whatever. If it is informal, I apply the same dedication. Eventually after many drafts, a poem often then needs cutting back because of too many words, lines or ideas. R.S. Thomas indicated that the poem in the mind is never the one on the page, and there is so much truth in that comment. The actual writing of a poem for me is the best thing about being a poet: publication, if possible, is the cherry on the cake.
How did “The Seventh Quarry” literary magazine become such a significant international platform for poets and writers?
-I launched it in 2005 at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea. So this year is the twentieth anniversary of the magazine and The Seventh Quarry Press. I was inspired by my New York publisher Stanley H. Barkan’s Cross-Cultural Communications, which is international. So I wanted my magazine to be a platform for poets across the world, to connect them in the pages of the magazine and spotlight our shared humanity and creativity.
I wanted to try to build bridges between poets from different countries, different cultures and languages.
Stanley initially encouraged many poets he knew and had published to submit to my magazine. Also, until his death, my dear friend Vince Clemente, American poet and professor, was the Associate Editor for America of The Seventh Quarry. Vince’s contribution in the role added to the international aspect.
My main reason for launching the magazine was to give something back to poetry, which had given me a lot down the years. It is a labour of love and I don’t make any money out of the venture, but I get the pleasure of spotlighting poets from around the world.
What role has translation played in spreading your poetry, and how do you view the responsibility of a poet whose work is translated into many languages?
-My own poetry has been translated into over twenty languages, including Russian, Serbian, French, Persian, Hebrew, Turkish, Japanese, Catalan, Tagalog (Philippine language), German, Sicilian, Slovakian, Spanish, Korean, Arabic, Portuguese, Bengali, Chinese, Dutch, Romanian, and Welsh.
Four of my books have been translated into Romanian and published in Romania. And a dozen or so articles on my poetry have been published in Romania. I have also been featured (the only British poet among leading Romanian, Serbian, Croatian, and Russian writers) in a book of interviews and articles published in Romania.
The Seventh Quarry Press has published a book of stories for children, translated from German, and co-published a bilingual book by a leading Czech poet. Other publications from my press include an anthology of poets from India (from various dialects), edited by Mandira Ghosh, an anthology of poets from Catalonia, translated and edited by Dr. Kristine Doll, and an anthology of poets from Moldova, translated and edited by Dr. Olimpia Iacob.
When it comes to my poems being translated, I don’t expect a translator to replicate such sound-texturing in their language, which, I imagine, is impossible, but that is not to say a translator can’t make a different kind of music with the essence of my poem in their language. I always accept that a translator will put different clothes on my ‘baby’. Some translators, of course, aim to – and then claim that they do – create a new poem out of the original poem. I think my only worry when being translated is that a translator does not tamper with any morality (my morality) in a poem of mine. This is where a bridge of trust has to exist between the poet and the translator. A poet is really handing over whispers of their soul to a translator. It is pleasing to think that for some translators the process can be more complex and therefore deeper, more fluid, more enriching.
I have been visiting poet to Serbia on two occasions and visiting poet to Romania on two occasions. I have co-organized, with my New York publisher Stanley H. Barkan, two international multi-lingual festivals, which involved bringing poets, writers, translators, and dramatists to the Dylan Thomas Theatre in Swansea, Wales. Lastly, I was the co-organizer, with Stanley H. Barkan, of The Colour of Saying International and Multilingual Creative Writing Competition, a celebration of the Centenary of the birth of Dylan Thomas, 1914-2014. It involved translators from around the world.
So translation is very important to me, as a poet and as a publisher. As a poet, it is a way of having your work read in other countries, which is often not the case with my English-language only books. As a young poet, I came to the works of Lorca, Dante, Neruda, Rilke, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and others via books of their works translated into English. They were real treasures to me and gave me the opportunity to explore the poetic visions of such major poets.
Translation, for me, is a way of building bridges between different races and cultures, which is all-important in this world where so many wish to burn bridges between us.
So I think the responsibility of a poet lucky enough to be translated into another language or languages is when possible to spotlight the literary world of that other culture or cultures, which I try to do in The Seventh Quarry magazine.
As a poet engaged in peace and cultural dialogue, how do you perceive the power of poetry in an increasingly divided world?
-The First World War poet Wilfred Owen said, “All a poet can do today is warn/That is why the true poets should be truthful” and the Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who grew up in The Troubles in Ireland, once said, “ . . . no lyric ever stopped a tank”. Even John Keats said, “What canst thou do, or all they tribe/To the great world? Thou art a dreaming thing.” So as a poet I feel I am in between those statements. I am aware of my duty as a poet to try to elevate the discourse on certain subjects, but also aware of the limitations of what poetry can do for – and to – most people.
One also feels so pessimistic for so much of the time. Materialism seems to gnaw away at our sanity, fool us into not wanting to see what damage we are actually doing. We have to try to do something for future generations, our grandchildren and their children and so on. To achieve changes, I feel we have to consider this whole business of materialism, this ‘fast food’ approach to everything, this ‘I want, so I must have’ mentality. Maybe mankind will arrive at a cliff-edge that cannot be ignored, a natural or man-made catastrophe that will stop everything in its tracks: and then force a real change in things. I think that sometimes, particularly in poetry, when politics comes in through the door poetry goes out the window. Some poets end up ‘banging a political drum’ and the poetry suffers. But, that said, one is a human being first and then a poet. So poetry as protest is vital. As a father and grandfather, I cannot but be concerned about what is happening in the world. One of the university courses I taught was “Reporting the Thirties: The Poetry of W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Louis MacNeice”. It looked at the two political ideologies at the time and the four poets’ responses to such dark times during the Thirties. We currently have a battle of ideologies going on in politics throughout the Western world and it is getting very ugly.
In the past, I have been subtle about making ‘political statements’. My poem ‘Rat’, for example, is about the way fear can be pumped up and pumped up until logic and common sense go out the window. At the time, I was thinking of the way politicians and the media use fear to frighten people of ‘the other’, their chosen scapegoats.
As to the question can it make change, one can only hope that something of the quality ‘political’ literature being produced by poets and writers seeps into the lives of people. Much of the public, though, seems so engrossed in the technological distractions constantly being marketed at them. Technological distractions that pull them from the real world and the enormous problems we face as creatures on this beautiful planet. Yes, I feel it is still a beautiful planet and has so much potential to create equality, decent lives and hopeful futures for all, if only we started to think about turning around the disastrous ship of instant materialism and focused on making it a better world for all. As John Lennon said, “You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one”. Let us hope the dreamers grow with each coming generation.
W. H. Auden’s poem ‘Epitaph on a Tyrant’ is as relevant today as it was in 1939, and that illustrates the power and lasting effect of a good poem. When I’m truly dismayed by this “age of anxiety”, to quote W.H. Auden, I think of a line by Dylan Thomas, “This is the world. Have faith.”
Alongside money and politics, the two enduring gods of power and worship, poetry may seem rather impotent, rather unimportant. I believe, though, that as time-bound, flesh-and-bone creatures we will always sense something beyond us, something bigger than us, a sniff of eternity, and thus we will always be searching for the real reasons for life. That, for me, is where poetry comes in. Also, even non-poets turn to poetry, either by others or attempts by themselves, at times of grief, war and major catastrophes. It is words, not money or possessions that sing to them at such times. ‘Words are the most powerful drug known to mankind’ wrote Rudyard Kipling. Poetry is a way of ensuring words and language retain their real value, their real connecting, searching qualities.
What has been the biggest challenge in your journey as a playwright, and how do you experience the transformation of verse onto the stage?
-I think theatre is very relevant, important, and indispensable. It is definitely an arena where one can ‘teach’ something, throw up questions about humanity, the state of politics, the state of the world etc. Apart from classrooms and lecture rooms, where else do we get the chance to confront a large group of people with the things that really matter? Yes, one must entertain and not be too didactic, which usually can turn off and turn away an audience, but one can also look at the shadows of our lives, the undersong of so-called reality, and focus on eternal truths. One can open up the social wounds hidden by the media and newspapers and one can consider subjects in a serious and honest way, be they personal or universal.
I am currently working on a dramatic piece for a group of voices, called Voices from Beyond the Headlines. Via individual poems, it explores war, especially the victims, political extremism, and the way we humans are damaging not just the environment but damaging the soul of what it means to be human. It is meant for the stage and would utilize photos on a screen and occasional music. To quote W. H. Auden, we are in a “low dishonest decade” and, to quote him again, an “age of anxiety”. Theatre, I feel, can and should tackle such social and political darkness, as well as the joys and grief of being human. There are similarities in what poetry can do. I, in fact, am an admirer of verse dramas and I have written three, including The Fire in the Wood. In my verse dramas, I try to connect and move people with some of the ‘tricks of the trade’ of poetry, such as rhythm and sound-texturing. The great Spanish poet and dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca has made a great impact on me. I think the challenge for me, indeed anyone attempting to write a verse drama, is to arrest an audience with an interesting plot, dialogue and characters, so that the musicality, the magic of poetry now rare to most modern drama writing, of a verse drama seems natural even to today’s theatre goers.
With numerous awards and international recognition, how do you manage to preserve your authentic voice and simplicity of expression?
-I wanted to be a poet at such a young age. As a boy, I use to sit on Kilvey Hill, a sulking hulk of a mini-mountain that darkened and dominated the row of houses where I was raised by my Welsh grandparents in Eastside Swansea, and dream of being a poet. So writing is everything to me. Without it I would find my own life less of an experience. A blank piece of paper and a pen are for me like a vast forest is to a man on the run, a scary adventure. I love the uneasy stir of a poem in the mind, a word, a phrase, an observation, a rhythm, the way all is ejected for the focus of shaping something, the taking away of everything that is NOT a poem, until there is a poem: on that sheet of paper, possibly forever.
I love it when an idea for a drama unfolds in my mind. I begin by making basic notes about the plot, the types of characters, how many acts will it have, how many scenes within an act, and so on. One lives with the characters, their personalities and their contributions to the planned plot and the climax of the drama. I do character notes for each one, such as their age, gender, occupation etc. The same feelings come when I work on an opera libretto, though a libretto is far more concise than a stage drama. I have written three libretti for the renowned Luxembourg composer Albena Petrovic Vratchnanska, which have premiered in Europe.
So the awards and recognition are lovely, but the actual physical act of writing is the important thing and still is for me. To keep one’s authentic poetic/creative voice is definitely a prime aim. I always hope to connect and communicate with a reader, so the simplicity of expression is one element in trying to do so. Once a poem is published, one hopes that it will connect with someone, hold their attention for the span of its ‘conversation’.
If you could give a message to the new generation of poets, what would be the most important one?
-Firstly, I would go back to your previous question about preserving one’s authentic voice. I would suggest to the new generation of poets that they try to develop and preserve their individual poetic voice. To see their world, the world, through their own eyes. I would encourage them to read poetry, the long dead poets, established poets and contemporary poets; and to read biographies about poets, to see how others went through their lives as poets, the successes and the failures they faced in the literary world. They should try to subscribe to some poetry magazines and buy poetry books, to support those trying to maintain poetry as an important medium in an increasingly technological world and who are also trying to counteract the dumbing down of the use of language by tabloid newspapers, the media and social media. I would suggest that they find out as much as they can about the craft of poetry and utilize what is of use to them as a poet.
Poetry is a vocation. I would encourage them to take it seriously and the role of the poet. If a poem of theirs connects with just one reader, they really have achieved something, they have built a bridge of communication with another human being. Lastly, having the imagination, inspiration and desire to be a poet is a blessing, so enjoy your ups and downs journey as one.
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Peter Thabit Jones was born in Wales and raised by his maternal grandparents. He is the author of sixteen books, several of which have been reprinted and four published in Romania. His work has been translated into over twenty languages. Peter has participated in many festivals and conferences in America and Europe. Peter was also the co-organizer of a Dylan Thomas Multilingual/International Creative Writing Competition and the organizer of a Dylan Thomas Centenary Quotations Trail at the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea. Peter is the Founder and Editor of The Seventh Quarry Swansea Poetry Magazine, which publishes poetry, translations, interviews, and articles from around the world, and the accompanying The Seventh Quarry Press, which publishes international books of poetry, prose, and art. He is the recipient of the Eric Gregory Award for Poetry (The Society of Authors, London), The Society of Authors Award, The Royal Literary Fund Award (London) and an Arts Council of Wales Award. He has been a prizewinner in several UK and international poetry competitions. He was awarded the Ted Slade Award for Service to Poetry in 2016 by The Poetry Kit (UK), the Shabdaguchha Poetry Award 2017 (USA), and the 2017 Homer: European Medal for Art and Poetry. A painting of Peter, by American Native Indian artist David Bunn Martine, is on permanent display at The Poetry Place, Long Island, USA.
Angela Kosta is the Executive Director of the Magazines: MIRIADE, NUANCES ON THE PANORAMIC CANVAS, BRIDGES OF LITERATURE, journalist, poet, essayist, publisher, literary critic, editor, translator, promoter
