....Or so kids call the second winner of the coveted title of Poet laureate, london. During her maiden trip to India, Aisling Fahey decodes how she chooses to keep the language of her work simple. By Riya Sharma
She landed in Delhi on Tuesday, could manage to see only the Red Fort and before captivating the audience in Delhi, the young Poet laureate of london, Aisling Fahey, performed in Chandigarh. Giving interviews back to back, this 22 year notable poet looked nowhere near to being exhausted and instead greeted us quite pleasantly. Excited about her first visit to India she said, “ I did not get to see a lot till now. But during my short trip to Chandigarh, I could see some part of the city and I loved it.”
The young poet laureate is here as part of an event, A long night of literatures, organised by the British Council. The event will witness various writers from different parts of the world come together under one roof to present an amazing and enthralling experience to the audience. Talking about her performance, Fahey told us, “It is such a good idea where audience is rotating and the artistes are repeating their performances. As a performer, you are doing the same thing but every time you are doing it for a different audience, so that’s really intriguing.”
She excitingly referred that during her performance, she will try to change her sets. “I plan to read out one of my old poems and the other, more recent one. The poem describes my relationship with England and Ireland. It is about how are we taught history and how it depends on who is teaching it.” But wouldn’t it be difficult for her to make it relative to an Indian audience, we asked her and she readily replied, “That was one of the questions I asked myself before I came here but actually I don’t think so. Especially with poetry, the emotional connect is universal because what you are actually talking about, things like identity and travel, everybody experiences it. This has been proven with my performance in Chandigarh. An old gentleman, after my performance told me that he was able to connect a common link between Punjabi and Irish and for me. That is the power of poetry.”
A title as acclaimed and notable as the young laureate is not easy to achieve and the poet explained to us that she didn’t expect it. “The competition is set up by the organisation, Spread the Word, and in the initial stage, participants are asked to submit their poems. After this initial process, you are long-listed and six people are chosen who are trained throughout the year. After this, a weeklong workshop was organised and it was blissful. I learnt a lot of things. After submitting a new set of poems, we were interviewed and then only one person was chosen. The standard was so high, we were six women to be selected, all very different in our writing and approaches. I couldn’t believe that I was chosen,” she shared.
The young poet doesn’t only write out her poems but juggles between a lot of things. One day, she is a writer, another day she is a facilitator and the next day, she can be a teacher. This is part of her job as a young laureate, she doesn’t complain and enjoys everything at a particular time. “There are different times for different things. I prepare myself; say if I am in a workshop I prepare myself for a workshop. With time I have learnt to dedicate time to each thing. It is about finding your own balance. When I am writing, I love it. When I see that three hours have gone by and I am writing, editing and moulding the piece that I have written, when I am completely immersed in that creative process, I love it.”
Fahey’s draws her inspiration mainly form her experiences. She told us that it is her take on things rather than a comment on anything. “My poems sometimes give the essence of a short story. I have written prose before. It’s not pure prose but there is a kind of link there. What I love about poetry is that I can use visual imagery in my poetry. And while I am performing, I try to make it as natural as it can be and the right use of emphasis on certain words. Use of tone and mood is equally important,” she said.
As often people find it difficult to decode a poem, we asked the young poet how she tries to keep it simple as well as enriching. She explained, “One way is just to be authentic in terms of your voice; I don’t try and make it complicated. I don’t use language that I don’t understand, myself just for the sake of it. Of course, you use as much as rich language you can, but I think for me, I try and write poems that are simple in terms of language. So that I can easily perform them and that breaks the barrier and makes it more accessible.”
As the job is hectic and tiresome, she told us cheerfully that it is rewarding and blessed to be passing on the passion and love for poetry. She recalled an incident while she was facilitating a project with Barbican Junior Poets and initially how she constantly thought whether the kids liked her or notIJ “I used to think whether they are enjoying the sessions or not but at the end of the project, I handed over them the letters and showed them the growth that they have achieved in the past six months. And the most rewarding part was when these kids came to us and said thank
you, I felt that I was able to do something inspirational for them,” she told us with a proud smile on her face.
While wrapping up, Fahey told us that she has worked in the local schools of her area and it has happened to her a lot of times, when kids from their school buses would point towards her and say, “oh, look that’s the poem lady.” “I just love it,” she concluded.