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Where
to begin?
Who am I?
What do I do?
Profile of Geraldine Green
(Cumbria,
United Kingdom) I began to write poetry after graduating in 2000 from Liverpool
John Moores University, clutching a first class joint
honours degree in Imaginative Writing/Literature, Life
& Thought.
More importantly, after spending a week on a poetry workshop
at Ty Newydd, in north Wales, called Poetry, Healing and
Meaning, co-run by David Hart and Rose Flint, a light
went on inside after I discovered that poetry, and other
acts of creativity, could be used to heal. I now use writing in healthcare. Recently I completed a Research Diploma,
that I called Singing the Land, which looked at the influence
of the land on the poetry of Emily Bronte and how I feel
the land can also help us heal.
It made sense, being a primitive sort of person, as well as one
who believes that creativity and spirituality dance together,
spiral time and space dna-like, together.
I have an enthusiasm for linking art and science;
quantum physics and mysticism; seeing and feeling where
things overlap.
I’m interested also in pushing boundaries
back in poetry; looking at the language of doctors, artists,
plumbers, chefs, bus tickets, the internet, other cultures
and seeing where this can take us.
I think it helps to ‘place’ me by saying that I
am moved by the cave painting of Lascaux and Aborigine
art and also Gregorian chant and the music of Hildegard
of Bingen. Passion, sensuality, earthiness stir me: too much head, cleverness,
elitism in art leaves me unappeased. I’m interested in what makes us human; why we’re
such a mess of bones and flesh and guts and skin and why
also we can be moved to such depths and heights of awe
and wonder…
I
had my first poetry collection published, in pamphlet
form, by Flarestack Publications earlier this year, called
The Skin.
I’m now onto my second collection and awaiting
a friendly publisher who doesn’t mind taking risks. Just to further hammer home my feeling that I have so much
to learn regarding poetry and my hunger to share my enthusiasm
with others, this October I’ve started an MA in
Creative Writing at Lancaster University.
And favourite poets? Lorca,
Holub, Neruda, Vasko Popa, Rumi, Hafiz, Ib’n Arabi,
David Jones, R S Thomas, Wilfred Owen, Selima Hill, Rilke,
Irina Ratushinskaya, Nazim Hikmet, David Hart and Jack
Mapanje. I
was delighted when Jack Mapanje told me after he’d
workshopped one of my poems, that I was “a poet
who wrote from the heart.”
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E-mail: geraldinegreen1@aol.com
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