The Inspirational Artist Series spotlights some of the artists featured in our issues and anthologies, and who have moved us in specific ways.
Today’s guest is Poet Geoff Collard, whose work appears in The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: 2020 Edition.
How does a poem begin for you? Does it start with an image, a form or a particular theme?
Great question. I have a couple of folders on my laptop. One is called ‘Input’. There, I collect all and anything that is inspirational at the time: an image, something I’ve read, a thought or memory. To give you an idea, the last four are: ‘A Million Migrating Monarchs’, a quote from John Steinbeck’s Noble Prize Acceptance Speech, the poem ‘if your complexion is a mess’ and the sentence; ‘..shift the shoreline between the known and the unknown…’.
In the other folder are poems I have come across that I love.
I then use the input to trigger an idea. Next, I’ll take a separate input and see if I can mix them up – find the most unlikely relationships. Then I’ll find a poem and use its form to play with what I’ve got; change the structure, rhyme scheme.
This is the ‘play stage’…
I don’t wait for inspiration to hit. Nine time out of ten, the inspiration will come from the process. Invariably, the finished product – with countless edits and fine tunes – looks nothing like where I started.
Are there any forms you haven’t tried yet but would like to?
I would love to collaborate with a video / film artist, to add images to words…words to images.
What is your relationship with your speaking voice and your written voice?
We’re on very good terms. I love performing. I will always read my poems out as I read – to find rhythm mostly. But I love the additional dimension and connection reading poetry has.
Have you considered getting other people to read your poetry or is it important for you to be the one to perform your poetry to an audience?
Haven’t considered it but I love the idea. So often, other people see something in your poems that you don’t.
How important is accessibility of the meaning of your poems? Should we have to work hard to “solve” the poems and discover their deeper meanings?
There are a number of elements to this – and probably no hard and fast rules. The short of it is that if you haven’t connected, you’ve failed.
Writing with an audience in mind is really important. This is NOT writing to try and win favour and appreciation. The best poems connect on both levels – they have an immediate connection and a deeper meaning. The very best will draw you back and reveal a little more each time. This is a little bit ‘show’ don’t ‘tell’ as well. Don’t tell the audience how you expect them to react – describe it with enough emotional depth that it will elicit a feeling unique to the reader.
Poems are, by nature, often incomplete, sometimes without resolution. It is an art form that should leave the reader wanting more…wanting to know more. So – no to opaqueness, yes to clarity and precision; no to showing off; yes to using language to create mystery.
Has your own opinion or idea of what poetry is changed since you first started writing poetry?
Yes. In many ways. I am continually reading books on writing. I know my craft has developed. I have had to relearn some of the basics of grammar.
I’m learning the discipline of economical writing; of showing rather than telling. I’ve collected hundreds of poems that I like and discarded many more.
I like the cleverness of depth simply told, tales of the everyday that reveal something about ourselves. I like the idea of poetry being loosely defined without ignoring its history.
A Mystery of Love - Geoff Callard Small girl astride his spade; her make-believe pony as he bends to dig. In the garden, daughter riding, her pale feet planted. Father turning dark soil, their laughter skipping up the path, flowing into sunlit western facing rooms, shadows still warm on careworn carpets. Her love, a gentle vine, entwined around her father’s heart. His love a tangle she would deftly unpick, freeing him in a way her mother never could.
Bio:
Geoff Callard is a New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based writer. He was a featured poet at the Australian launch of the anthology Planet in Peril (Fly on the Wall Poetry, 2019) and has had poetry published in the Golden Walkman, Live Encounters Poetry and Writing, the Blue Nib, Red Eft Review. Some of his work has been and selected for volume four of PausePressPause.
Geoff, thank you for answering our questions and supporting Auroras & Blossoms!
Cendrine & David
