The University of the Self #16
An interview for Poetry Worth Hearing
Today, an interview I did with Kathleen McPhilemy for her podcast series Poetry Worth Hearing, is broadcast. Here is the link. In order to increase accessibility, I have published the transcript here, so that it can be read. I will also include as many links as possible, in the hope that they are helpful.
Transcript
Kathleen very kindly introduces me like this: “ Jane Burn is probably one of the most interesting poets on the contemporary scene. Her poetry and her art reflect personal struggle, but also a glorious imagination which refuses to be bound by convention or norms. Here, she talks about her life and some of the poets she admires in a way which is open and courageous — something that is as valuable as it is rare.”
Content warning: this interview contains discussions around loneliness, ableism, disability and physical and mental conditions and symptoms that some people may find distressing. I also apologise in advance for any mispronunciations of words and names.
Life is a space in which I often become tired, angry, distressed, heartbroken and disillusioned — with myself, with my mind and body, with circumstances, with people. Life is a space in which I am often alone, either by choice or by factors beyond my control. As my personal circumstances begin to affect me with greater severity, I find myself thinking more and more about the differences between loneliness and solitude. I need a huge amount of time alone, and there is much pleasure to be found in it – I think here of Emily Dickinson’s There is a solitude of space, or this quote from Alice Meynell’s essay Solitude: This is the open house of the Earth; no one is refused.” (which I read in the book The Art of Solitude, edited by Zachary Seager, Macmillan Collector’s Library, 2020, p.164)
It has taken me a very long time to begin to accept my identities, and to begin to feel comfortable and confident within them, though I still have a way to go. I must navigate a lifetime of abuse, misdiagnosis, discrimination and ableism. I must negotiate how these have impacted my life, heart, mind and soul. Poetry has been the most valuable catalyst for positive changes within myself — it has been the most valuable means of self-expression I have found, the most valuable tool for the articulation of personal truth. In 2020, the Anthology of Illness (edited by Amy Mackelden and Dr Dylan Jaggard) was published by The Emma Press. This marked a milestone for me as a poet and as a person — I found self-validation in the writing of my poem, and further validation in its acceptance and subsequent publication. I might not have had my official diagnoses then, but it made me feel that I wasn’t making things up, that my voice had a place in the poetry world, even if I felt that I, as a person, in many cases, did not. When my copy of the book arrived, I gained confidence again from the voices of the other poets inside. I felt a sense of kinship, a little bit like I belonged. Here is a poem from this anthology — Snow, by Ruth Middleton.
Here, I read the poem. Here is a quote from Snow, by Ruth Middleton.
”As I fall I strain to hear the TV.
Lying on the hard-tiled floor
I feel warmed by my own
sweet and hot urine.
I will grow cold and stale
as the night wears on.”
Books like Disability Visibility (edited by Alice Wong, Vintage Books, 2020) have helped me to understand myself, to admit my own vulnerabilities to myself; to begin to admit them to others, though these are both difficult to experience, as I move forward as a person and as a writer. In their introduction, Wong writes:
“Disabled people have always existed, whether the word disability is used or not. To me, disability is not a monolith, nor is it a clear-cut binary of disabled and non-disabled. Disability is mutable and ever evolving. Disability is both apparent and non-apparent…Being visible and claiming a disabled identity brings risks as much as it brings pride.”
As my conditions have further deteriorated, I have begun to resort to a walking aid. I have begun to relieve myself of the pressure of masking as a person with autism, though almost five decades of punishing concealment is proving challenging to unlearn. I find that I am talking more openly, little by little, about my life, and how disability is affecting my life, though the reactions are not always positive. I have become very drained by abrupt, personal and rude questions like ‘what’s wrong with you?’ and ‘what are you using that crutch for?’. I have become very drained by the feeling I must answer in order not to be made to feel a fake. That I must once again justify my existence. I am working on the courage to answer ‘nothing is wrong with me’, and ‘because I need to’. If I get even braver, I might start answering with a question of my own – ‘why do you feel it is appropriate to ask me that?’ Here is a quote from the essay Still Dreaming Wild Disability Justice Dreams, by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, from the aforementioned book.
“I finally, finally take a deep breath and ask for and accept the care I need most from my friends, and I am able to do this because of the collective work done to make accepting that care safe and possible. As I begin to become the disabled middle-aged artist I used to be afraid of turning into.” (p. 254)
I have spent almost all my life so far keeping myself a secret, to fit in, to try to make friends, to hope that I might be considered an equal candidate for opportunities. I won’t hide myself any longer. Indeed, I won’t be able to, after this interview is broadcast. So be it. I would like to read the poem The Infernal Method by Rachel Boast now, which was published on Bad Lillies in 2021.
Here is a quote from the poem:
“You walk along St Swithun Street
signalling nonchalance, a need not
to have to explain the inexplicable hell
of circles, and then loop back to a bench
by the cathedral, hoping no one's noticed
the colours of ordeal, the hot and dry
cartography of scars. To no avail. Start again.”
Living off-grid was something I have always dreamed of doing, and by the time we managed to achieve it, I could not have felt readier to ‘step off the world’. I had reached a point where I could no longer tolerate life, as it was for me back then. We have now lived off-grid for most of the year for eight years. Often, I feel a great sense of guilt that I am not participating, involving myself, or protesting enough against the horrors and discrimination in the world but this move has been something I had to do, so crucial it was to my mental and physical health. Being chewed up and spat out by life for forty-four years had left me feeling unable to continue, unless my living circumstances were changed. As well as the best thing for my health, living here in this way was the best thing I could think to do in answer to the damage we humans have wrought upon the environment. I do also fully acknowledge how privileged I am to be able to live with my family in relative peace at life’s periphery, at the end of many years of debilitating labour and myriad struggles. It is not ‘easy’ in the practical sense to live this life sometimes – getting used to processes that do not simply leap into life at the flick of a switch is just one of the issues that must be addressed. It is also a way of life which is affordable for us, and we are keen reclaimers, salvagers and upcyclers. Our little wooden home reminds me of a line from Etel Adnan’s Shifting the Silence: “There are still cathedrals with silent corners in them, dispersed over the world.” I am so lucky to have found a place that I can live, far away from the judgment of the world.
The work of Fran Lock is always near at hand. I have always found much to identify with in their work, and feel much solidarity with them as a working-class writer, who understands how it feels to have been deprived of or denied opportunities, especially in education and academia. In their book White/Other, published in 2022 by the87press, Lock writes,
“followed me home singing gypsies tramps and thieves. day after day. year after year. until I’d snap…but that’s what they want: confirmation of your feral status…your rage at their treatment of you becomes the very argument for that treatment. you cannot win. i never did. they stalk the empty space where sleep should be.” (p.45)
And indeed they do “stalk the empty space where sleep should be.” I remember when i was a child, someone coming up to me and wiping their muddy hands all over my clean front, my clean bodywarmer, because they thought it was an amusing thing to do; because they thought that I was less than human; that is was OK to do something like that to a child.
I will read a poem of my own now.
We are not Ashamed of our Buckshee Life
Redred rusted spinwheel rot. Hey, lookit. Here’s my garbage,
reaped up from your chuckit, fuckit, who the hell world.
Get used to it. We are not ashamed of our buckshee life.
Look at the using left to waste. There’s a living in that.
Go on and look, with your tut and mouth all askance,
make your snotty comments, hiss under your hands
and smug as, trot back to that shuffleshine bleachworld.
No. You would never keep such a mess, no better
than a scrapyard, we are. Why wouldn’t you just buy new?
The broody coo of pigeons, stuck in rafters, nesting up
some kind of survival, scraping by on what us humans dump,
peck at our leavings, vermin of the air. No wonder.
Scraplads know. Where there’s muck — put your metal outside
like a magnet. Weigh it in, melt it down — so what
if they make slow loops of your hysterical estate? Fat chance
of anything left to spoil those astro lawns. Truck-back a boneyard
of baby gateswhere somebody’s kiddy grew too clever for locks, last year’s
garden chairs. Looting and leafing for cold-iron bits, we bring
back a bootfull of paving slabs, fenceposts, yellow sandwich
of Kingspan. Come in handy at some point and the landfill
feels a pocket of relief, sighs from the ruin of its torn hole.
We’ve got no money, not after food and bills. We are not ashamed
of our buckshee life. Gutted carbodies bloat on dusk wind.
Squint at the painful blaze of the MIG, see crackled constellations,
pool the weld and put bits back together, keep them running.
Eke things out. Skiprat is the laugh as my eyes snaps back.
We cannot pass one and not rake a glance upon them. Knockadoor,
can we have? has got us half a home. Tell nobody nothing.
The Free Ads are your friend. Make do, mend — we’re heading
for this great and cruel unknown, this I’m alright Jack age.
There’s gonna be survivors and we’re off grid, upcycle, grow
our own, slip the net. We’re solar, turbine. Don’t take
what you don’t need. We are not ashamed of our buckshee life.
Recently, I met Raymond Antrobus, at a reading and talk he gave in Newcastle. I have long wanted to meet him as I have greatly admired his poetry. People sometimes warn you ‘never to meet your heroes’ as the saying goes, but in this case, I was not disappointed. Raymond is a wonderful person, full of kindness, truth, care and light. He makes me believe that I can. I can. We can. I will read a poem from his 2021 collection, All the Names Given, published by Picador.
The poem I read by Raymond Antrobus is Loveable. Here is a quote from the poem:
“I needed to hear it in the morning
hear it said when neither of us
could be anyone
except who we are”
Thank you so much to Kathleen McPhilemy for the opportunity to speak a little about some of my many writing influences and a little bit about my life. Thank you so much for listening. I wish you all love and kindness. I am going to finish with a second poem of mine. This poem will appear in my next poetry collection, The Apothecary of Flight, which will be published in July by Nine Arches.
Interoception
I am lying straight and keeping very still relishing the weight
of the blanket above, pressing on my flesh. Can you not feel your bladder
flinch? Hurry! before you void an ocean, before you piss your bed
It’s time for my daily paradigms Every morning, early-riser I haunt
these kind, unpopulated hours for as long as I can prise the shell
of my bruxism splint from my night-milled teeth—their plastic echo chewed
almost through. I cannot avoid last night’s smeared plates—somebody else’s
snow of crumb’s. Every single morning, I think this is not the place
where I live, this olfactory input nightmare stink Oh but it’s so lovely
and quiet says sensation-avoiding self when nobody else is up
No banging, no hammermouthfartshoutargument noise How are you
feeling today? I don’t know. I don’t Where, I said is my homeostasis?
I grip my hand to the table This is my vestibular pain I feel
the floor’s imperceptible downward tilt like the princess felt the pea Oh
myheadmyheadmy head come to the cool of the tabletop, forehead to flat
Tell yourself that you will not be thrown from the surface of the world
I think therefore therefore, therefore I am alone. Come go away
shut up. Please stay Descartes proved his existence because he doubted
his existence The moments I doubt myself are the moments that make me
alive Don’t touch me. I am untouchable This couple on the bus
all touchy-feely are making me want to scratch beneath my own skin
I will show you I love you in ways that do not fall so easily from the tongue
I am a thousand miles from where we are I am alexithymia’s wall
Oh beautiful loneliness There is no room on the seat next to me
I am sorry, sorry My handbag is Cerberus. My heart batters against its cave
I am afraid that my mouth will form the first thought that pops into my head
If only I could un-say the already said Must I always be a mirror?
If I was a river I would be guided by my banks If I was contours on a map
I would write the shape of the land find every possible path. A bird would
know the exact requirements of sky, how to breathe blue how to sing
the right notes how to synchronise with the murmuration’s swoop. Perhaps.
I hope you enjoyed reading my latest article. Thank you so much for spending some time here with me.
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