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My Writing Life
The evening, when the phone went at that time when it’s always some bloke selling double glazing, was the one which made me feel I could call myself a writer. I grabbed the receiver ready to be acerbic and it was East Midlands Arts. They liked my work and were awarding me a bursary! A selection of poems in Shoestring’s New Writing followed.
In the 90s, when I was trying to establish a reputation by furiously sending my work out to magazines I’d walked into Leeds Art Gallery and been mesmerized by Paula Rego’s unsettling Baa Baa Black Sheep. I knew – should I ever have a full collection – that was the image I wanted for the cover. The poem inspired by it is the first in the book.
A photograph of a hooded saker falcon –a central sequence plays on the idea of ‘mews’ and ‘muse’ – fronts my latest book. Since reading The Sword in the Stone as a schoolgirl, the descriptions of the birds of prey in their mews had stayed in my mind. Only when I started research (another aspect of writing I love) for the piece did I realise that T.H. White had tried to train a falcon using a mediaeval manual!
Poetry underlies everything I do, as lines of poems (especially those of Edward Thomas when I’m in the countryside) and ideas for my own work constantly flit into my head, triggered by all sorts of unlikely things and seemingly haphazard connections – thinking in metaphors seems to be the default position of my brain. I try and write each morning. Teaching is my day job and is pretty demanding so, once I’ve walked my dog, I go to the local coffee shop at seven with my notebooks ( I’m addicted to Paperblanks) and whatever I’m reading (currently Nine Gates by the brilliant American poet, Jane Hirshfield.) This is something I was inspired to do by another favourite writer, Eavan Boland, who likens a disciplined approach to ‘working at a rock face’ for the elusive ‘silver’.
I’m lucky to belong to a workshop of diverse and talented writers whose opinions I trust – meeting on a monthly basis gives me a focus. And it’s great to exchange poems by post with certain friends – receiving a handwritten letter with a sheaf of poems inside is so much more exciting than an email with an attachment.
Biography
Kathryn Daszkiewicz was born in the north east but now lives and works in Lincolnshire. She was awarded an East Midlands Bursary in 2001. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and two collections – In the Dangerous Cloakroom (2007) and Taking Flight (2012) – are published by Shoestring Press.
Author Links
Published by: www.shoestringpress.co.uk
