Where to now?
I’m very grateful for the people who have allowed me to live and learn as a poet. They didn’t really have a choice! I think I was born a poet and, though it took me 40 years to begin that life, it would have happened sooner or later. I met my birth family when I was 22 and discovered my mother was a big reader and writer. She’s writing her first book now, an encyclopaedia of Tarot. The whole family too – my natural brother, a published artist and cartoonist, and my sister also writing her first book, a biography of her musician father. Knowing who you are makes the choice easy, though the lifestyle is not.
It’s not a national sport in New Zealand, nor part of the national image, and like the rest of the arts it’s woefully underfunded. To say you are a poet is a conversation-stopper. But it’s hardest on the ground. There are only three commercial publishers of poetry books in New Zealand where you as author are not required to contribute your own money to production and do your own marketing. It is almost exclusively the books of these three university publishers that get on the best-seller lists (though poetry isn’t a category!). Independent publishers expect the authors to promote and partially fund their own books.
Likewise, writers’ residencies are few and far between. Hundreds apply for one space. I apply for most residencies most years but it probably doesn’t help being a late starter. But news! This year a short-listing has won me a space for six weeks in Ōtepoti Dunedin early 2025! I’m beyond excited! I have had little time to write this year with my five jobs, family and book launch of my third collection and the production and marketing work it entailed, so next year, new poems are coming. I want to explore the idea of marginalisation; I want to read more international poetry. As one of our talented young local poets, Josiah Morgan, says, “i’m still growing”.
If you would like to see more of Gail Ingram’s work click on the following link: www.theseventhletter.nz/
