Poetry in motion – changing attitudes with engagement, empathy and love
Joshua Seigal is a poet, author and performer. He has performed in festivals the length and breadth of the UK and has amassed a real following in schools and libraries with the accessible, humorous ways he talks about poetry. This has led to Joshua being made an ambassador for National Poetry Day.
T
HE possibilities of poetry were first opened to Joshua during a visit Michael Rosen made to his
school. “I found it fun and hilarious. I love the way he told stories and acted out his poems.”.
Michael would later give rave reviews for some of Joshua’s work. It wasn’t until his A-levels, however, that Joshua started to seriously explore writing his own poetry. “I was a fairly morose teenager, and I found that poetry was a good outlet for that. At university I discovered open mic nights and I think that’s when I got really hooked. I loved the thrill of performing my own words in front of an audience, and it was then that I really realised I enjoyed making people laugh, so I tried to incorporate more and more funny elements into my writing.”
Joshua doesn’t feel he has a defined process when it comes to his writing, but says: “I try to have a notebook, or my phone with me wherever I go, so I can jot down ideas as and when they come to me. I write anywhere, and whenever the mood takes me. Sometimes I can go for weeks without writing anything, and then
write three poems in a day. I find that poetry tends to suit this way of working. It is pretty free.” Joshua self-published two collections of poetry and had been making a living as a poet for a number of years including taking solo shows to the Edinburgh Fringe by the time his first book. I Don’t Like Poetry was published with Bloomsbury.
“I’d built myself a website to showcase my work and was a regular visitor to schools. It was on the back of this track record that Bloomsbury were willing to take a chance on me, and it was the publication of the book in 2016 that helped catalyse my journey as a professional poet.’
Accessible The title, I Don’t Like Poetry, chimes with some of the under-confidence that readers sometimes feel around poetry. Considering the reasons for this, Joshua describes how “a lot of it probably comes from exams, and the fact that students are forced to analyse and dissect poems, with the aim of getting a good grade. No poet sits down and writes a poem with this in mind! Perhaps a lot of the poems students are exposed to are somewhat archaic or rarefied, and
Jake Hope (@Jake_Hope) is a freelance development and children’s book consultant, and former chair of CILIP’s Youth Libraries Group (YLG) and editor of Our Rights!.
www.jakehope.org.
this can leave them with the feeling that they are ‘stupid’ for not grasping the poem’s meaning.”
Considering ways to overcome these feelings and experiences, Joshua describes how he feels students would benefit from being “exposed to a wide range of poetry,
Spring-Summer 2024
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