In the final instalment of our video interviews with poet A.J Akoto, A.J tells us more about the animal symbolism which appears in Unmothered, her powerful debut collection – out now!
In Conversation with A.J Akoto: The Creature Poems
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Tag Archives: Poem
In Conversation with A.J Akoto: Poems about the Body
Have you got a copy of Unmothered? Some of the poems in the collection consider the body, and particularly a woman’s relationship to her physicality. Poet A.J Akoto spoke to us about why she wanted to explore the shrinking that women so often go through:
Delicacy
You do not have to be a delicacy.
You do not have to be tasty.
You do not have to submit
your body into feminine frailty.
You do not have to ruin your digestion
in an attempt to be digestible.
Your mind can be full
of ice-white rage;
you do not have to be kind.
You do not have to yield
to the pressure to forgive.
Forgiveness does not make you good
and goodness does not require it.
You do not have to exhibit grace,
not in anything.
You do not have to make yourself
a morsel,
not for anyone.
Buy Unmothered direct from Arachne Press
or come to the next event: Thursday 20th July 7.30 at Afrori Books in Brighton. Tickets via Afrori
In Conversation with A.J Akoto: Editing
Unmothered by A.J Akoto publishes this Thursday 13 July! Ahead of release, Cherry Potts spoke to A.J about the editing process. Watch the video below for a behind-the-scenes look at what it took to complete this intimate, unflinching and powerful work.
Join us at Housmans Bookshop tonight for an in-person celebration of Unmothered, or register for the online launch on Thursday: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/636463558637
In Conversation with A.J Akoto: Impact
To celebrate forthcoming publication of Unmothered by A.J Akoto, we caught up with A.J to talk about every aspect of her debut collection, from the inspiration behind it, to her use of myth, and the complexities and challenges of writing about your own life.
“I don’t think it’s speaking to anything that’s destructive to the self, or to the reader, to consider the things that are in these poems”.
In this video, A.J speaks about the process of creating Unmothered, and the impact of its cover and content, with editor and Arachne Director, Cherry Potts.In this video, A.J speaks about the process of creating Unmothered, and the impact of its cover and content, with editor and Arachne Director, Cherry Potts.
See the full cover for Unmothered below, and find out more about artist Kevin Threlfall on Instagram.
Pre-order your copy of Unmothered now or book to join us at an event:
- 11/07/2023: Poetry Book launch at Housmans Bookshop, Caledonian Road, London
- 13/07/2023: Online book launch
In Conversation with A.J Akoto: Getting Personal
To celebrate forthcoming publication of Unmothered by A.J Akoto, we caught up with A.J to talk about every aspect of her debut collection, from the inspiration behind it, to her use of myth, and the complexities and challenges of writing about your own life.
A.J and Cherry Potts talk about the intimacy of Unmothered, the vulnerability of writers who draw on autobiography, and the differences between poetry and prose when writing about your own experiences.
Pre-order your copy of Unmothered now or book to join us at an event:
- 11/07/2023: Poetry Book launch at Housmans Bookshop, Caledonian Road, London
- 13/07/2023: Online book launch
In Conversation with A.J Akoto: Myth
To celebrate forthcoming publication of Unmothered by A.J Akoto, we caught up with A.J to talk about every aspect of her debut collection, from the inspiration behind it, to her use of myth, and the complexities and challenges of writing about your own life.
Here A.J tells us more about the mythological inspiration behind Unmothered, including the fierce women from myth who appear in the collection as icons of unapologetic female agency and justified anger.
Gorgon
Certain things should be approached
side-on, with a darting gaze,
as you look at a bright goddess
from the corner of your eye.
My mother is a figure ablaze
at the edge of sight; I cannot bear her
head on. I need a sickled blade.
I need a shield, mirror-bright.
Pre-order your copy of Unmothered now or book to join us at an event:
In Conversation with A.J Akoto: Creatrix
To celebrate forthcoming publication of Unmothered by A.J Akoto, we caught up with A.J to talk about every aspect of her debut collection, from the inspiration behind it, to her use of myth, and the complexities and challenges of writing about your own life.
In this week’s video, A.J reads ‘Creatrix’, the opening poem from Unmothered, and speaks to Cherry Potts about the significance with which we imbue motherhood, and how our mothers shape us.
Creatrix
Mothers, first creators,
try to shape us in their own image,
or what they wish they were.
Feel the dip
of finger marks, moulding
muscle and bone like clay.
Our bodies belong not to us
but to the women who
grew us
fed us
know us
enough to end us with a word.
What terror and awe.
And after all, aren’t men
afraid of God?
Pre-order your copy of Unmothered now or book to join us at an event:
Crab Pots and Coffee: Writing The Arctic Diaries
As publication of The Arctic Diaries approaches, we spoke to poet Melissa Davies to ask about the inspiration for her debut collection and her experiences on Sørvær – a tiny island in a remote Norwegian archipelago.
Here we are, The Arctic Dairies is about to go out into the world and what am I feeling?
In this moment, I find myself thinking often about the people living on Fleinvær. The handful of residents, the weekenders and friends I’ve spent another winter with. I picture them reading it and try to imagine what they will feel. After all, every poem sits in their landscape, not mine.
Listen to Melissa Davies read ‘Bird Wife’, on location in Norway
The Arctic Diaries truly started in the spring of 2017 with a Facebook post asking ‘Do you want to live and work in the Arctic?’ to which I replied yes! Months later a Skype call with the jazz musician who founded an artist retreat on Sørvær (one island in the archipelago of Fleinvær) and in November 2018 I was on a plane to the north of Norway to run The Arctic Hideaway for two months….which turned into six. My husband and I landed in the middle of an arctic storm to quickly learn the way of life here: weather rules winter and it is futile to resist that fact.
Sørvær is one of two year-round inhabited islands in the archipelago and during that first winter we spent many of the cold afternoons of polar night with the only other couple overwintering there. It was over kaffe, lefse and boknafisk (semi-dried cod) that I heard the tales that eventually became The Arctic Diaries. The book really began to form when I realised that many of these stories—eroded through family retelling—would disappear with the passing of the people we came to call friends. Not just traditional or folk tales but vocabulary unique to the landscape, ways of living and happenings that continue to tell us how it is to be here.
However, I don’t see The Arctic Diaries as an archive. The characters I’ve written are fictional, they are not two dimensional drawings of the people I met, I could never do them justice. Instead, I hope that readers will take from each poem what they need, along with a raised awareness or reminder of what we are losing as industrial fishing and fish farming continue to devour Norway’s coastline.
Having said that, the book is also a diary of my first winter on Fleinvær. An exploration of being ‘other’ and the personal demons I was facing at the time so I kept the diary title, structure and dates.
As someone from rural Cumbria, it was interesting to see so many of the difficulties facing Fleinvær and wider Nordland county reflected in the issues facing my own home. I write about the coastal Arctic because it’s the landscape that speaks to me but many of the poems sing a mourning song familiar to the fells too. So as you dive into sea orms, crab pots and eider nests please remember, The Arctic Diaries is only the first chapter in a project that has more to give, especially as art cements a place in the forward momentum of climate activism and Europe swirls with questions of borders and migration.
Sign Language Week 2023
It’s Sign Language Week. To celebrate we have a special offer: 50% off our book, What Meets the Eye: The Deaf Perspective. Use the code DEAF at the checkout between now and Sunday.
Here’s one of our favourite BSL videos from What Meets the Eye, Coffee Shop, by Colly Metcalfe, Performed by DL Williams Every story or poem in the book is by a Deaf, deaf, or Hard of Hearing writer. We have translated many of them into BSL (an ongoing project, which you can help fund here) and some of them are BSL in origin.
We are the planning stage for an in person BSL poetry workshop in London in June. get in touch of you are interested in attending.
Rhiya’s Routes – Ba
The release of Rhiya Pau’s upcoming poetry collection, Routes marks fifty years since her family arrived in the U.K. Routes began as an attempt to chronicle the history of Rhiya’s family, and her community, and much of the collection draws on the experience of Rhiya’s grandparents – her Ba and Bapuji.
We asked Rhiya about her favourite poem in Routes, and she chose ‘Enough’, which paints a portrait of her grandmother, through her well-stocked kitchen cabinets:
My grandmother houses gods in her closet
among tower blocks of cereal boxes and canned
chickpeas so we may always know enough.
“Enough paints a portrait of my grandmother and her ability to be in two places at once. How she can know about the miners, the tower blocks, the Post Office – live in this country for fifty years and still not feel British enough. It’s about longing and belonging, the sacrifice of the mother tongue, and how even in the absence of language we find ways to love.
Over the past two years, I have been on my own migratory journey, trying to obtain a visa to live and work in the USA. This poem is a favourite of mine because it articulates an enduring sense of displacement that has only been amplified for me as I move back and forth between places.”
Watch Rhiya Pau reading Enough:
Routes will be published on 24 November 2022. You can pre-order your copy now.
Join us for a free event with Rhiya Pau and author Anna Fodorova at Forest Hill Library on Wednesday 23 November. Details and tickets.
