Leopard-skin Pill-box Hat

Camellia Stafford talks about her forthcoming collection of poetry

The Next Big Thing

Emily Berry tagged me in the next big thing project, where writers talk about their new projects. You can read her responses here. I’ve already been tagged but because I am so contrary I am going to answer the questions again to test the constancy of my thinking.

 

What is the working title of your book?

For a while I was working with ‘To Be Her Pavilion’. Now I’m not sure. Suggested titles include ‘Morphine Ballet’. ‘Luxe’ and ‘Poem To A Clothes Rail’.

 

Where did the idea for the book come from?

The book brings together my poems, so there isn’t really an ‘idea’ behind the book. There are recurring themes – imagined improbable and probably maddening boyfriends, inconsistent relationships, the use of clothing and food and ornamentation and things to speak through. More recently other characters have developed – a female anti-muse and an older woman, inspired by the children’s book character Grandmother Lucy.

 

What genre does your book fall under?

Poetry

 

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I’d like Lena Dunham as Lena Dunham, Kirsten Dunst in Marie Antionette-mode and Amy Adams from Enchanted. A range of classic male film stars to include George Peppard in Breakfast at Tiffanys, alongside Ed Westwick in his Chuck Bass incarnation. There would probably also be walk-ons by 60s icons Anna Karina, Marianne Faithfull, Francoise Hardy. I’d like to have set design by Anthea Hamilton, Julie Verhoeven and Coco Chanel.

 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Ornamental tiling salvaged from a derelict townhouse.

 

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It will be published by Salt Publishing.

 

 

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I’m still finalising the manuscript, but it’s likely to span the last five years of writing.

 

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I am not sure. Camellia Stafford’s book will be published at the same time as mine. We’re very different, but we have the same sort of iconography in our work. I think they’d sit nicely on the shelf together and comb each other’s hair.

 

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

A passage from Zelda Fitzgerald’s Save Me The Waltz.

 

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Even if you don’t like poetry there’s enough food and dresses in it to transcend the genre. Also, if you fancy looking at my manuscript and have a title idea I may use it!

 

I’m going to tag:

Michael Conroy

Max Wallis

Camellia Stafford

Sophie Collins

Amy Ekins

 

Message for tagged authors: Rules of the Next Big Thing

***Use this format for your post

***Answer the ten questions about your current work in progress

***Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.

 

Poem on Janine’s Birthday

Just as I woke, you stomped into my head
and I thought of everything that makes me admire you:
not just your sass and nerve, (although
it does deserve an explicit mention ) but how
Neverland it is to spend time with you, like a pop-up theme park –
each day can be abundant with vivid wants,

like how you’re era-less, confident as a portrait,
inconsolably hungry, you talk easy as an adult –
seems even your glamour isn’t at the top of my list,
admiration being such an intimate reckoning of a

friend. If I can’t say it now, birthday girl, when?
Oh, there’s nothing ordinary about decadent warmth
real as foxgloves and glow sticks and winter birds,
did I tell you how much I want you to dance with me?

Spoilt Victorian Child

 

past the trees, fairies                                           spoilt sugarcake

past the stairs, servant                                        smocked in grey

past the butterfly shrug                                         (fearful babes)

past tiger-cheek                                            disfigured with rouge

past green trees                                                            toxic cakes

past the aqueduct                                                     iced with pox

past stairs of books                                             avoid the mirror

past the reflection                                                            the child

But we can’t marry each other

 

who’d pick up the bills? And people would look at us

and think: cousins? But I am thankful that it’s ok to use you as prop

and aren’t you just a packet of Ras El Hanout? Makes everything

taste better. I didn’t like the idea of you with someone

but I saw you together and nothing quickened. You have to test these things,

the heart can be both prissy and pudgy.  Apparently not looking for it

makes all the difference. I don’t need to say these things,

I’m quite desperately readable, isn’t that decadent of me!

We’re ok, like pockets sewn up.

I sleep better at night knowing you would though.

Knowing someone would.

Issue Two Poems In Which

Pretty Please

 

In the yard there’s waning snow

like clabbered milk, but mentally

I’m in an August-bleached field

and you have threshed a stalk of grain

for me to drink my cider

through. We identify as summer people.

 

There each lowered tone lifts,

burs caught on our socks are the sand

walked home from the beach. A suite

of songs sing California.

 

At night I prefer you lax – on, not under,

a blanket. When it’s still warm, though the sky’s

eye shadow caught in a crease, season

the rum with honey and lime and just let me be

your childhood crush. I want to not know

what to do; whether a kiss is on too high a shelf.

Penning Perfumes: Three questions for Camellia Stafford