JR McRae - Author Interview: Poet

What kinds of poetry, including songs, did you experience as a child and teenager, and did you have some favourites?

As a child, the rhythm of rhyming verse fascinated me, what I like to call the music locked in language. I was fortunate to have a father who loved to quote and recite the wonderful whimsical poems by Lewis Carroll and the high melodrama of Mrs Felicia Hemans. My paternal grandfather would recite poetry too - The Man from Snowy River and The Hunting of the Snark were favourites of his. Evidently, I knew all my nursery rhymes off pat before I went to kindergarten.

I loved Shakespeare as a child and knew all the stories of the plays before I was in high school. I also loved Lewis Carroll, Walter De La Mare, Edgar Allan Poe, Edward Leah, Ogden Nash, C.J. Dennis, Henry Lawson, Dorothea McKellar, Judith Wright, and many more…. As a teenager, I added to these loves Eleanor Farjeon, Robert Frost, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and, again, many more…

Would you say your childhood and teenage experience of poetry has had a distinct influence on how you write poetry now, and why?

Yes and no; yes because the music in poetry, the rhythm has stayed with me, the drama! No, because it is important for any poet to have their own voice and develop their own unique way of communicating through their verse. I rarely write a classically rhyming poem now, although “Babi Yar”, soon to be published in Quadrant, is an exception to this. However, that said, my verse for children is virtually always comprised of a rhyming element [e.g “Fox Shadows”, a poem for all ages, which is to be published in the anthology, “Poe-It”, Static Movement, USA, and as a picture book in September 2012 by Windy Hollow Books].

Who is another poet whose poetry you admire and why?

As an adult, I admire many poets – can’t really pick out just one – Les Murray, Gloria Benjamin Yates, Graham Nunn, Rob Morris, Leonard Cohen and the list goes on… Why do I admire them – for the bravery of their verse, the wry, sardonic humour, the social comment, the acute observation, the stunning imagery, their weaving of words!

How would you summarise one of your poems in one paragraph?

The academic response to poetry is best left to the universities… In the schoolroom, rather than an academic study of verse, students should be encouraged to respond to poetry purely through feelings.

So, a summary… “Alang, the Graveyard of Ships” was written after viewing a documentary on 60 Minutes. The poem describes the agony of lowly paid workers undertaking dangerous work in terrible conditions, demolishing huge ships for salvage iron. The poem compares the monstrous size of the ships with the monstrous task for the workers and their virtual ‘war’ on these ships of war and carriers of affluence, which contrasts so dramatically with the reality of these men’s lives. This is war on lots of levels.

How would you describe the appeal of this poem to readers?

I hope the feelings expressed resonate with readers and give some insight into the plight of these workers and their families. I hope, is it too much to hope, that someone somewhere will read and do something to help the plight of these people in a way I cannot.

Could you share a stanza or small section of this poem?

The living war
        breaks down to individual acts of pain.
The ship is burning - piece by piece
        the welding and soldering of armies
Is undone by men who cry, "For blood, my child, my blood!"
And suffer the indignity of need, muffling their anger in the sand.

The poem is online at http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-163679114.html

How would you describe the contribution this stanza or small section makes to the poem?

I’m a right brainer, so trying to step back and be objective about what this section of this poem was conceptualised to be in context of the whole is ‘interesting’. It has rust and blood breaking down together under fire and screaming – tearing metal, torn lives. It is survival mode at its mot basic, linking the stories of the ships to the lives of the men inextricably. It leads in to the more reflective lament of the ending.

Would you describe your poetry primarily as narrative, thematic, character portrait, or how would you describe your poetry?

I write in the moment, as I feel. It is all about and communicating what I feel about whatever has inspired me. In doing the communicating, sometimes it is narrative sometimes thematic, sometimes character portrait, sometimes lyrical. Feeling is such a varied state – you swim, float, dive, crash and fly…

Do you read your poetry aloud to people? If so, how would you describe the size and response of your listening audiences?

Yes, I love reading to an audience, no matter what the age bracket. I like to draw them into the mood of the poem and have them feel it with me, then change the mood entirely with the next poem so their attention is refocussed otherly. The size of audience varies with the type of gig but I try and interact with the audience in communicating the poem to them and drawing response. I have done many readings & workshops in schools and for Book Week and love sharing poetry with children and teens, enthusing them with the boundless possibilities of poetic expression! They are the poets and readers of poetry of tomorrow. A new venture that has arisen recently for me is teaching people to use poetry to help them cope with grief and survive trauma.

Do you write groups of poems to form collections? If so, how were the poems connected in your most recent collection?

Anthologised before I left school and being published from then continuously, I have had four collections accepted over the years – Refulgence went bankrupt; the contracting editor at Angus & Robertson Imprint left; same with Jacobyte Books; IP, the education distributor reneged…. :{

I’m giving it a fifth shot – “Blood and Other Essentials”. The connection? Very loosely, they are poems about people and how they affect/are affected by social issues and environmental factors. I’m hoping to find a publisher who will let me have a friend illustrate the verse in black and white.

And sixth, I have also done a collection of my verse that I have illustrated, mainly in colour – “Versifeyed”. Its publication is being negotiated at present.

Author website: http://jrmcrae-subversive.weebly.com/