Clare Shaw is one of the UK's finest up and coming poets. So much so that next month the likes of Andrew Motion (poet Laureate), Harold Pinter and Imogen Stubbs will be reading her poetry in the Duke of York Theatre in London.

A Pot of Tea in the Egg with a Poet

By Darren Guy

Writing since she was a child, Clare’s life is made up of the components that created some of greatest of English-speaking women poets, people like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. Abuse, trauma followed by periods in mental hospitals between the age of 21 and 25, Clare Shaw has lived her young 30-year-old life to extremes.

A child prodigy from a working class Burnley household, Clare at 18 passed 5 A levels and chose Liverpool University instead of Cambridge, moving in with her partner in Norris Green. Then by the age of 21 Clare’s seemingly bright and successful existence exploded, as the reality of childhood abuse overcomes everything else. During the next four years she spent short and long periods in and out of Broadoak, the psychiatric wing of Broadgreen hospital.

Clare left the hospital for the last time at the age of 25 after her longest spell - six months. She then spent the next 3 years in supported accommodation for women with mental health problems. Right throughout that period Clare wrote poetry. Whilst she was in psychiatric services, she established a self- help group ‘STEPS’ for girls and women who self-harm, and then was involved in establishing a radical mental health campaigning group called ‘Mad Women’. Clare then continued with her studies taking a MA in Women Studies at Hope University in Liverpool. Last year - after 10 years in Liverpool - Clare moved to Todmorden on the Lancashire border to be closer to her family and to do a PhD at Bradford University.

I caught up with Clare during one of her many return visits, and pulled her away from a group of friends in the Egg.

It feels weird being able to say to people, I’m a poet – in the past it was just something you said that you did and now, its what I am.
I’ve not actually read much poetry at all, and when I have it’s tended to be compilations, and I never remembered people’s names. I know I really like Carol Ann Duffy’s work because its quite readable, I know that sounds like I’m arselicking, but that’s why I went on her course.
I was in Waterstones the other day, reading through some poetry, and was really aware of how little women’s poetry there was. Women are usually invisible, even by the fact that you have to say ‘Women’s Poetry’ as if they are not real poets. But on the whole I’m not a particularly well-read writer.

My future as a poet has sort of gone a bit crazy lately. Since attending the course with Carol Ann Duffy and Jackie Kay – things have really began to take off. I’ve been doing readings with Carol Ann at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. I’ve already done that a couple of times and will be doing that again, that’s been a good feeling, kinda puts me on a big public platform. As well as that, I’ve just received what they call a ‘Young Poets Apprenticeship’, which was judged by people like Andrew Motion and means that some of my work will be performed at a big theatre in London. It’s a really good scheme where you get an anthology published and you get a mentor, who will guide you through your writing for a set period of time. I’m just looking out for publication. Of all the people performing regularly at the Royal Exchange, I’m the only one not yet published. That’s important to me, because that’s what I’m writing for, not so much to get published but to get my voice heard as widely as possible.

Has the experience of sexual abuse made her different or feel different, and created the person she is today?

I think a lot of what I speak about are things a lot of people don’t talk about and are often shocked to hear people talk about so openly. I talk and write very openly about my psychiatric history and the time spent in a psychiatric hospital - and I write a lot about the people I met there, and for me that is the whole reason for writing - to give voice to your most profound experiences and feelings. People might write about them sideways, through writing about – for example - going to the greengrocers and buying a pound of carrots. Or you might write about them head on, and say directly what it was actually like going through the psychiatric system, or what its like being a woman being raped or a child being abused. We are led to believe that its only a minority of people who are going through stuff like that, when in reality its loads of people going through it. But there is such a power of silence about it, I think when people do actually break that silence and break it powerfully – that is something that then has a life of its own, just to speak about stuff like that. Yes, but it’s a motivating thing for me to speak about experiences that have pushed me to the edge.

Any advice for struggling poets?

I think you’ve got to write because you love it and that’s got to be the main thing and the pleasure that you get from it is because you enjoy it. Have faith in that and faith that you are doing something because you love it and if you wanna do it with other people then go ahead but believe in yourself first.

Is poetry still a relevant art form?

I think ‘poetry’ has been losing its popularity for years. It’s becoming more and more marginalized. It’s seen as an upper class thing, even on courses like the Arvon foundation you see the people going on these residentials and they are more and more upper class, so its often seen as their thing. But at the same time when you see things, like the self injury magazine we put out, most of the work sent in was poetry, so its obviously out there. People are writing it all over the place, secretly and privately and feeling really embarrassed to talk about it. The people who are getting their work published are the people who feel confident enough to talk about it, like rich people, or people who have had a really big break like I have, to get up there on a national stage. Yeah, you’ve got to just keep plugging away at it and believing in yourself, it doesn’t matter what people say if you enjoy it it’s the main thing.

Do you think there is a lot of back scratching going on in the traditional poetry scene?

Well yeah, you can even see it in the Liverpool scene. You sort of have to get to know the right people. So if that happens locally then its gonna happen nationally. That’s why I’m quite excited about this poetry scholarship. Because I will have a mentor to guide me. I mean to get published is really not easy, it’s such a long haul. There are so many doors to get through and so many things to do. But I suppose I do have a little bit of faith that if you are genuinely a really good writer with motivation that will carry you a long way, but you’ve got to have assistance if you’re not blessed with the right background.

Could poetry be popular again?

I suppose it could, when you look at poetry that is valid, say the type that was read everywhere the sort of myths in rhyme, that was anonymous and the community owned those myths and those rhymes. I suppose there is parallels – I suppose that happens a bit with commercialism, and it has to sell, and when you look at music and 99% is tailored and owned by huge corporations all tailored for sale. I think that’s the major threat. I suppose there are commonly owned forms of speaking that are still around. Maybe it’s like if you want to get your voice on the stage – I don’t know how you bring those things together?

But it does seem like there is more and more performance poetry going on, or performance slams, I suppose if people like competition - which I don’t. I mean when you look at say 19th century poetry like Wordsworth, I’m not interested in that, I think lots of poetry now is accessible, people have this like mental block over it. I suppose if you don’t then keep the poetry a secret, like masturbation.
I really hate it when poets try to refer to Greek mythology, or in a highbrow style, you have got to write as much as you can and in your own voice, whatever that is.

Future?

I’ve suddenly been given a lot of credibility and its up to me how I use that platform, and I’m not consciously thinking I must use this platform wisely, I think I’m motivated by what matters to me, and the important thing is to not let that be diluted, by the desire to get famous, and to keep on speaking how I want to speak. The important thing for me is to speak.

Poem for a Bus Shelter

This is not a life, but if it was
I’d say I always lived here. I’d say
this street; this long grey face
of factories; flats; the boarded shops;
the bleak and bloodless houses, squats ,
they saw my first bright day

I was clean as a breeze,
as cold as glass. I sweated rain,
was slicked by winds; was
beautifully bare. I filled myself
with city sound; the blur and swirl
of good blue air.

When Winter came, and the gale,
and the church roof flapped and
fractured like a wing;
when the thin trees fell
and the shop fronts swelled and bellied –
I stood my ground.

I knew where I belonged.
I was the colour of a dockside warehouse blue-grey. The shade of a cold;
an evening cloud; a hangover; a foggy day.
If I had ever had a life,
I would say that I was proud

and it could be true. Come rain or snow – come the long white corridor
of Christmas; come crowds
with spiteful corners; come
the wet green growl of winter spit;
come fist; come kick;

come the lurch of stolen cars; come stone;
come brick; come I luv Gaz, Mick,
Shaz; come weekend chips; come
drunken piss; come empty cans;
come the sad pink skins of condoms,
dog shit, sick; come sick –

come morning, I was there.

And if I had ever had a life,
half worth the privilege of the name –
if I had not been rooted to this spot
and treated to the things
that other lives spit out

I would be proud
and I would write it –
I would write it clear and loud
in bold black ink
with my bold black hand –
I would write it.

I woz ere.