My Heart is a Poem: A blog from Kate Wakeling, James Carter, Jay Hulme and Laura Mucha

The brand-new poetry anthology, My Heart is a Poem (Little Tiger) publishes on 4th February and we asked four poets, Kate Wakeling, James Carter, Jay Hulme and Laura Mucha, to answer some questions about their poetry, the poems chosen for the book and their thoughts on the collection.

1.What inspires your poetry?

Kate Wakeling:
Anything and everything, really. People, plants, weird deep-sea fish, knotty emotions, door handles, music, dragons… I think you can write a poem about pretty much anything, if you have the urge to think about it closely and from unexpected angles.

James Carter:

EVERYTHING! Everything under the sun. Including the sun. And space. And the world at large – from animals to nature to the oceans and even wolves, woolly mammoths and yes, dung beetles. As well as my world around me, my family. Schools. Books.  Movies. Museums. Walks out in the wild. And music. Lots of music!

Jay Hulme:

Almost everything, really. I read a lot of poetry, of course, but also fantasy and sci-fi novels. I like taking the world and looking at it through a strange lens, so reading genres that do that themselves really helps. I also walk a lot, and use what I see, in nature and the city, as inspiration.

Laura Mucha:

I think inspiration lurks in every corner and crevice of life. For me, it’s about making time and paying attention to it.

2. Can you tell us about the feeling that your poem explores in the book?

Kate Wakeling:
My poem in the book is all about embarrassment – that especially sticky and awful feeling of having said or done something humiliating. When I was younger, I was constantly embarrassed, it seemed, and I found it such a painful and miserable sensation – as the poem says, you know there are many worse things in the world, but all the same, embarrassment has the dreadful power to shrink us to nothing somehow. (I’m glad to find that the older I get, the less I seem to feel it, so that’s something.)

James Carter:

‘Love You More’ is clearly a love poem. Everlasting love. The original version was meant to be from my then very young daughters to my wife: ‘Do we love you to the moon and back?’ But it didn’t work, so I put it to one side for a bit, and then I came back to it a few months later and re-wrote it, this time from me to my wife (and for our tenth anniversary…)  – ‘Do I love you to the moon and back’? B O O M ! It clicked! And it’s probably my favourite poem I will ever write. I mean every single syllable. And sometimes when I read it in schools I get a tad eye-juicy! But that’s fine, as it’s a real, honest emotion. We shouldn’t be embarrassed about feeling emotions. It’s what makes us human. People have told me that they have read the poem at birthday parties, at funerals, at weddings, all kinds. How lovely is that? What an honour. I’m very lucky to be a poet.

Jay Hulme:

I wrote about the feeling of 'confusion.'

Laura Mucha:

My poem, The Land of Blue, is about sadness and compassion. I wrote it a week after I suffered cardiac arrest, during a poetry workshop at the National Gallery in London. We were tasked with standing in front of a piece of art and writing a poem – and this is what came out. I think poetry can be an invaluable way of exploring things that can otherwise be incredibly difficult to talk about.

3. How would you suggest primary teachers use this book?

Kate Wakeling:
The anthology seems a brilliant starting point for discussion and I can see how lots of the poems would be wonderful springboards to write in response to. Poems are terrific tools to help us work out our feelings about things – and even if a poem mightn’t solve a particular problem, by writing about something painful or uncomfortable, I find the act of writing usually lets a little light and air into the situation. 

James Carter:

Read a poem a day. Every morning to start the day. With a poem from the book. Ask the children at the end what they think of the poem and why and how the poems make them feel. What words or lines did they like? Get the class to write their own versions or learn a poem from the book to perform in an assembly!

Jay Hulme:

To help their students process and express their feelings in healthy and creative ways.
 

Laura Mucha:

The more opportunities we have to think and talk about feelings, the easier they are to understand – at least according to research. Through thinking and talking, we can find ways to turn our feelings into stories that make sense to us, and we can learn about the feelings of others. But some emotions can be difficult to explore. Poems are an invaluable starting point, a unique pocket sized and contained way to start important but often difficult or daunting conversations.

I think a great way to use this book in the classroom is to read it with students before asking how the poems make them feel, and whether they can feel this in their body, for example their chest or body. It’s also useful to ask what students think the person in the poem might be feeling, and why – as well as what they could do to make themselves feel better, or what students might say to them if they were a friend.

4. What motivated you to be a poet?

Kate Wakeling:
I’ve always loved reading and was a compulsive diary-keeper for years and years – writing down my day was a crucial part of my growing up, and the impulse to translate everything I see or experience into words has never really left me. I also studied music for ages and I think the special blend of sound and sense in poetry is why it especially makes me tick. I also love how open-ended poems are; they aren't (for me) about looking for tidy endings, but rather exploring an idea and letting your unconscious lead you somewhere unexpected.

James Carter:

Both a lifelong curiosity for the world – I love having inky, thinky thoughts and pondering over things, but equally a deep love of words their rhythms, rhymes and repetitions, their magic and their music!

Jay Hulme:

I read a lot of poetry as a child, and never wanted to be or do anything else. I often say I think in poems, it's just how my brain works.

Laura Mucha:

I don’t think I meant to be a poet. I ended up writing poems after I was hit by a car and left bedbound for years, and found they really, really helped me stay sane.

I LOVE that, through a small bundle of words, I can connect to humans I’ve never met – and probably never will. I think there’s something unique about the smallness of poems that can pierce through the life’s busyness. I also think metre and rhyme somehow create a code and a container for talking about difficult things.

5. What are the major influences in your work and how do you decide on your subjects?

Kate Wakeling:
I write for both adults and children and find skipping between these two worlds hugely helpful in keeping my poems (for both audiences) alive. I particularly love the work of playful and richly experimental writers for adults – Matthew Welton, Anthony (Vahni) Capildeo and Caroline Bird spring to mind – and while I might then tackle different subjects in my children’s poems, I always deploy just the same amount of care and craft as I would when writing for grown-ups. And how do I decide what to write about? In a funny way, I prefer it when the subject of the poems finds me and I realise I’m itching to explore something but am not quite sure why. I think a bit of mystery is hugely helpful when writing poems.

Jay Hulme:

I have a love of old buildings, and the connection of people with history and place, so my work often comes out of that. I like to look at something and think "what does that say about us, as people?"

Laura Mucha:

I’ve spent the past four years as part of a research group at Cambridge University, along with academics, doctors, clinical psychologists and social workers. We read, think and talk about children’s mental health and wellbeing, families and safeguarding. And this has had a MASSIVE impact on my work.

My background also plays a huge role. I grew up speaking two languages and have travelled to every continent of the world, so I often study and think about different cultures and how to bring this into my work.

6. What are your favourite poems in the anthology? 

Kate Wakeling:
There are so many beautiful poems here but I was especially struck by Laura Mucha’s 'Land of Blue' for its delicacy and melancholy.

James Carter:

I love Laura Mucha’s ‘Land Of Blue’.

Jay Hulme:

They're all excellent! Don't make me choose!

Laura Mucha:

I really love Argument by Joseph Coelho, particularly because research suggests that family conflict has a significant and measurable impact on children and I don’t think it’s talked about enough.

I also love Touched by Joy by Valerie Bloom’s as it reminds me of ideas in psychodynamic thinking that certain emotions can act as a defence against others. And those defences can be hard to let go of – anger and anxiety can be very stubborn!

And I love James Carter’s Love You More. I’m definitely biased as my adult writing focuses on the science of love. But I think it’s essential for humans in so, so many ways and can last beyond death, which James captures wonderfully with his words.