from What the Tree Said
sweet green
my worlds seemed as buds
sense-locked
by me & laid
carved in
hearts
along my
trunk
words
stirred
cordless my
leaves began a breathing
beyond my
arms unfurling
charmed in
transport
their core
(or mine) tendrilled
some
over-green
some
straining peaks
all
sun-trailing
in hues
bluntly
absorbing
in small
red scales
ripening
were its tongues
with
nutshellings scratched in
digestions
gone rogue sounds escaping
captions
Having
successfully completed a BA (Hons) Creative Writing and English at Edge Hill, I
continued on to study the MA Creative Writing with a focus on poetry. I chose
to continue at Edge Hill to further the study of innovative poetries, and
poetics, which I had begun to explore, both from a literary critical and to
drive my writing practice, during the BA. During my MA, I was joint winner of
the inaugural Rhiannon Evans Poetry Scholarship 2010. From Parts Becoming Whole
(The Knives Forks Spoons Press, 2011) is my first collection of poetry and came
directly out of the poetry written during the MA. Towards the end of my MA I
became a member of the Poetry and Poetics Research Group at Edge Hill. I went
on to be winner of Poetry Wales Purple Moose Prize 2012, my pamphlet Maps and Love Songs for
Mina Loy is published Seren.
Working
with the poet Philip Davenport (as ‘Arthur and Martha’) introduced me to using
experimental poetry and visual art in community projects. I have led a series
of ‘poetry as reminiscence’ workshops in the community which involved using
experimental poetry writing techniques with older people. I have had my poetry
and reviews published in various magazines and journals and have presented
papers on my work at conferences. I am currently undertaking creative writing
practice-led research at Edge Hill University investigating the idea of
‘multi-voice lyric’ in contemporary innovative poetry. Alongside this I have
taught undergraduate 1st and 3rd year poetry (and fiction) modules at Edge Hill. I have
continued to read my work most recently at the Blue Bus reading series in
London with Robert Hampson and Elaine Randell, at Storm and Sky with Rhys
Trimble in Liverpool and at Peter Barlow’s Cigarette in Manchester with Lucy
Burnett, Nathan Thompson and Steve Spence.
Poetics
I
am drawn to poetry in which sound manifests as the dominant textual register.
Modernist poetry and innovative or experimental modern poetries are where my
passions and inspirations are fired.
My
own poetry explores how sound aspects of language are intrinsic in poetic
compositional processes and how this shapes the resultant poem. My poetics are
a work in progress, especially at this point when I am developing that
alongside experimenting in my creative work. As part of my current research I
am experimenting in writing poetry which explores possibilities for polyphony
and rhythms of identities. For this I am using Bakhtin’s ideas about dialogisms
applied to poetry and drawing on Julia Kristeva’s ideas, in particular about
language and the maternal body in exploring possibilities for dialogisms
between speech and the female body. This writing is entering the arena of
complex dialogic relations between variously endophonic and exophonic
assemblages of sound sequences.
To
me, poetry embodies an openness to otherness, is an active seeking after the
unknown for the experience (and pleasure) of journeying (in words) rather than
for the closure of arriving at an end point. It is open to possibilities and
doesn’t use language to silence the other, rather, because it is not afraid of
difference or not knowing, it encourages interactions and proliferations which
serve only to extend and enrich the work. Poetry is painting with words, is
mapping sounds into rhythms on the pages in endless combinations. Writing
poetry allays my own fears of being unanswered. Poetry enables me to see
(versions of) myself. Writing poetry is a release for some of the psychic
energy which otherwise has me blowing light bulbs!
My Blog is here: http://joanneashcroft.weebly.com/joannes-blog
More poems may be read online, here:http://www.stridemagazine.co.uk/Stride%20mag%202012/may%202012/ashcroft%20poems.may.html
Video (more of What the Tree Said): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijTLks3mrysand of The Other Room reading at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fNV02H8Obs
See her reading her collaborative piece with Patricia Farrell here.
