My writing story, in brief

For me, it was the intensity and craft of ‘Carrion Comfort’ by Gerard Manly Hopkins that established that poetry was powerful and essential. It was E.E. Cummings’s wordplay that provoked my curiosity about voice. More recently, it was Post-Modern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology that revitalised my enthusiasm for experimentation with word, form and meaning. External recognition in the form of awards and publication has given me greater confidence in my creative ability, and the desire to commit to my poetry in a more formal way led me to complete a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at Victoria University’s IIML in 2017. My thesis, Negative Space, gained the grade of distinction.

 

Since finishing the MA I have continued to write, fitting it around my day-to-day jobs – farming in the Far North with my partner, Alistair Tulett, and creating beautiful books with my sister, Kathy Derrick, as the co-founders of Pavlova Press.