The Monthly interviews poet Deirdre Cartmill – Part 1 – The aim was to get a proper job

Do you have any early memories about being attracted to writing?​​

I was always an avid reader. I read so much that my mum banned me from reading books at the table so I would read the back of the Cornflake box and the jam jar labels. I was just so obsessed with reading, I couldn’t stop. I loved escaping into other worlds. I think that love of reading was my way in to writing, but I didn’t really start writing until I was in my late 20’s.

Did you get any support at home?

My mum loved reading, so the support I got was to take me down to the mobile library in The Square in the Moy, and I would get out as many books as I could. I would come out with the books piled high every fortnight, and I couldn’t wait to go back to get more books.There wasn’t any poetry at home, and there wouldn’t have been any poetry books to get from the mobile library. Most of the books at home were Mills & Boon, though mum did get us a series of classic books from the likes of Dickens and Swift. So I can’t say that I was introduced to poetry at home but reading was a big part of home life.

The Square, Moy, Northern Ireland.

Did you get any support at school?

My earliest memory of poetry is not a good one. I was in Primary School, I was probably 8 or 9, and we were asked to write a poem about Halloween. We had a substitute teacher in and I brought in this poem I’d written about a witch, and he brought me up to the front of the class and asked me where I had copied it from. I told him that I had written it myself, but he didn’t believe me and he kept me there until I was in tears. That, unfortunately is my very sad, early memory of poetry.

What about high school?

I didn’t feel encouraged at school. I was quite shy and I would stay at the back of the class and read. I hated being called up in front of the class. Our English teacher was also our Drama teacher, so I kept my head down, hoping she wouldn’t notice me. I always got good marks in English and I was usually top of the class, but I hated it so I gave it up as soon as I could.

In terms of poetry, you did read a bit at school, but I always felt that if you wrote what the teacher told you to write you would get a good mark, but if you wrote what you really thought you wouldn’t. I didn’t like being told what to think. I went off and did all the sciences for A level and ended up doing an electronics degree.

Did you do any writing at all at school or in further education?

I scribbled a few lines when I was around 16, when I wasn’t really in a good place. That was more to make sense of my feelings. I never dreamt that I could be a writer. It didn’t seem like a possibility. I came from that working class background where you think you have to go and get a proper job.

I was in my twenties when I started writing. I had moved to England and then to Dublin and I was in that space where you are away from home, and you can be who you want to be, and say what you want to say and that was where I started to write.

Did you go on to higher education?

I took an electronics degree because I wanted to get into music and a few years after graduating I was working part-time in a recording studio. I loved music. Working in the studio awakened something in me and made me realise I wanted to create something myself, but I couldn’t sing, and I couldn’t play an instrument so music wasn’t going to be a creative outlet for me. I started scribbling lines in a notebook to try and make sense of my confusion over where my life was going, and the odd wee line of poetry came up. I applied to go to a writing course and that started me on my path.

You get into poetry through music?

Yes. There was no poetry at home but music was a big part of family life. There were all these traditional Irish songs which were poems set to music like “Down by the Salley Gardens” which is a poem by Yeats, and “On Raglan Road” which is a poem by Patrick Kavanagh. You don’t realise all this poetry is permeating your consciousness. Then there were services in the Chapel like the November novena which was in Latin, so I didn’t understand the words but I loved the rhythm of the words, and they lulled me and brought me into a different state of awareness, like all good poetry does. All that rhythm, rhyme, imagery, conciseness and storytelling carried over from music to poetry.

When I was working in the recording studio in Dublin, I had a friend who was working for one of the big promoters, and we would get tickets for everything, from Red Hot Chili Peppers to the local trad bands. We just went to everything and absorbed it all. That was a big part of my move towards writing too because I found that freedom to speak your own thoughts which is so important.

Why do you think that was?

I grew up in a small village so there was always that scrutiny of, “What would the neighbours think,” and also growing up during The Troubles there was that feeling that, “Loose talk kills” so that was another thing which stopped you from speaking freely. It was as if you were silenced at every turn. So for me to be able to write down my own thoughts was very important.

You end up at a writing group?

Thomas Kilroy, the playwright, was running a writing workshop at the Irish Writers Centre and you had to apply and be selected for it. The fact that I got selected gave me some confidence. That made me think that there was something worth pursuing, and I have been pretty much writing since then.

What do you do after the Writer’s Centre activities?

I went into music journalism because I thought it was a good way to combine my love of music and writing. I was a music journalist for a few years in Dublin, then I moved back to Northern Ireland and I kept writing about music and I started writing poetry alongside that. At that time I was writing poetry to try and make sense of my life.

Thomas KIlroy

You start to take writing more seriously?

In 2000 I returned to Queen’s University to do an MA in Creative Writing and I also got a job at the BBC as a script editor where I worked with other writers.

The MA gave me the space and time that allowed me to explore and find my own voice. I really didn’t know what that meant at the time, but for me that means speaking your truth. I had the space to develop my own style of writing and to consider the subject matter I wanted to cover.

There was a sense, at that time that you couldn’t write about The Troubles as it had all been down before, but I wanted to write about aspects of my childhood and I grew up during The Troubles, so I could hardly not write about it as it was the backdrop to my life. Again it was about finding the freedom to write what I needed to write.

You can see more of Deirdre Cartmill’s work and purchase books at the links below

blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Wind-Stills-to-Listen-by-Deirdre-Cartmill/9781851323074

www.waterstones.com/book/the-wind-stills-to-listen/deirdre-cartmill/9781851323074

Books are also available at No Alibis in Belfast and Kennys Bookshop in Galway

www.deirdrecartmill.com

www.facebook.com/deirdrecartmillpoetry

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