Kathy Pimlott

September 2024

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My next pamphlet, After the rites and sandwiches, my third with the lovely Emma Press, goes on pre-sale this month with publication on 7th November. I'm indebted to much-loved poet and teacher Peter Sansom for his kind words of endorsement, "Heartfelt but clear-eyed and technically assured, this is a powerful and moving collection by a remarkable poet writing in extremis.” (Though I can't really take on 'remarkable'). 

The poems in this small collection circle around a sudden accidental death – its shocking actuality, the aftermath, the admin. Yes, it is sad and painful but I hope it is leavened by lyricism and even a little humour. I wouldn't describe myself as a confessional poet, being quite a private person, but I do use poetry - reading and writing - to try to unpick those things that snag and catch tenaciously.  And once it's written down, it becomes, somehow, its own thing, separate from me, which I can share.  

There are poets who are content to write for themselves, though I've never met one. While, for me, the true value of the whole endeavour is the doing of it, the making of the poems, I do want to see those poems out in the world, being read, responded to. Paul Stephenson, in his wonderful collection Hard Drive (from Carcanet) touches on the ambivalent feelings raised by publishing a collection of poems about the death of a loved one - the choosing of titles, ordering, cover images, fiddling in final edit to fit pages, hoping it will be well reviewed and that sales at least cover the publisher's costs, not to mention how others personally affected by the particular loss will react - and I have had and continue to have those doubts, a certain guilt. But, there we are - I hope those who do read it will think well of it, that it will be a lasting memory of the generous, kind, impetuous and infuriating Robert.

I'm reading
Katy Evan's Bush's Joe Hill Makes His Way Into the Castle (CB Editions); The North 70th Issue.