Reflections on the Launch of Pushing Out the Boat Issue 14 on 30 April 2017
An interview with poet Yani Georgieva by RGU student journalist Harrison Abbott.

1. How do you feel your reading went today?
Reading your own poetry is always slightly terrifying, no matter how many times you’ve done it before. When people read your poems off a page, they have the freedom to give them their own voice and meaning – which can sometimes be completely different from what you intended. I always worry that, when I read my poetry out loud, I intrude on that personal bubble: a bit like watching a film adaptation of your favourite book. The audience was very open and warm, so in that sense I think the reading went well – but there was a lot of talent in the room.

2. What did you like about the event?
Pushing Out the Boat feels like a collective more than a publication. To me, the event felt like being in a cosy weekend writing club. It was very calm and open, and reading aloud to the audience felt a bit like reading your poems to people you have been writing with for years. There was an incredible variety in the poems we heard as well – we jumped from squirrels, to death, then back to sheep – which made the event even more of a joy to be part of.

3. Which contributions did you particularly enjoy/admire?
I think there was a great variety in the pieces we heard, so there was something to admire in all of them. I loved Jim Conwell’s pieces, ‘Like a Fist’ and ‘My Sister is Dying’. His writing is so compact and concise, every word is indispensable and punches you in the right place. I also loved Gavin Gilmour’s prose and, of course, Martin Walsh’s skilful re-enactment of a dialogue between a Mexican humming bird and a New York squirrel. I’ll be thinking of that one for weeks.

4. What do you seek to produce in your writing? What inspires you most to write?
I write to help myself unpick and understand the things I am going through. Sometimes, for months, I find myself writing about the same idea over and over again until one day I put the pen down and think: Yes, this is it. I understand it now. I like the challenge of making vague concepts, like grief or nostalgia, very concrete, because that way we get a tiny glimpse at life through someone else’s eyes. I like poetry that’s accessible, blunt, and honest, so that is the kind of poetry I try to write.