"Like any situation fraught with tension and anxiety, it was a breeding ground for creativity": a conversation with Ellen Clayton
Poet Ellen Clayton never shared her creative work. Then came her third pregnancy.
Ellen Clayton is a poet. Her debut chapbook Home Baked is out now with Bent Key Publishing; she’s one of the authors featured in the upcoming collection Lockdown Babies (Posh Dog Press). We’re talking after a season of being casual online acquaintances.
Topics include: getting your creative work out in the middle of a pandemic, the legitimacy of “writing about motherhood, the domestic and the home”, maternal rage, oversharing, the “online poet” label and the pushback it’s been getting, navigating Online Art Drama, the validation that comes from getting published vs. your own insecurity, “waking late and working late”, open mics and becoming able to write about a place only when it’s in the rearview mirror.
Enjoy.
When did you start writing poetry and when did you start sharing it with other people?
I started writing poetry in the ultimate cliched way - as an angsty teenager, who felt like my problems were the most enormous issues anyone has ever had! I did carry on writing, though, even after that particularly excruciating stage passed, and I always used writing as a tool to process difficult or powerful emotions.
But, publishing and sharing my poetry came later. For me it actually feels intrinsically linked to motherhood - specifically the pregnancy and birth of my third child, during the pandemic. Like any situation fraught with tension and anxiety, it was a breeding ground for creativity and I stumbled across an online community of parents sharing their poetry - the Mum Poem Press. It immediately felt like an inspiring and welcoming space to be in, and I began to follow lots of poets, journals and publishers on social media. After a few months of sharing poems on Instagram, I felt brave enough to begin submitting my work to journals and magazines. I was really fortunate to get a few acceptances early on which definitely bolstered my confidence and kept me going back for more!
Motherhood exploded in 2020. There was a hunger for unconventional stories and frames, the poems that went viral (for better or worse) all seemed to hinge on being a parent at the end of the world, and, at the same time, you could feel the potential slide into "becoming a Mommy Poet", something that now most Writers with Children are openly wary of. Did you benefit in any way from that moment in time? Did it feel like you were part of a bigger thing with your own work?
I think the pandemic seemed to truly expose the gender gap in domestic labour and unpaid care work: we saw how it was, in the vast majority of households, women who had to bear the brunt of homeschooling and caring responsibilities. So I think, collectively, alongside the “it’s the end of the world” feeling was also a sense of frustration and resentment too. I suppose writing became an outlet for that for a lot of people.
I definitely feel I benefited from that moment in time; there was a shift and writing about motherhood, the domestic and the home seemed to be considered more valid / legitimate in a way they perhaps hadn’t been previously. I didn’t get the sense that those topics were off limits for most literary and poetry spaces any more - I mean, I hope it goes without saying that I don’t think they ever should have been! For too long, I think poetry by women that focused on motherhood or domestic lives was seen as less literary or prestigious. Thankfully, it appears that’s finally shifted, thanks in no small part to the talent of poets like Hollie McNish, Liz Berry and Kate Baer. The sense of community within the “mum poet” space was really important to me, too.
You seem pretty good at boundaries: you’ve figured out a healthy balance between having your work out and sharing too much information about your children, your family…. I wonder if there was ever a moment of deliberation on your end.
Honestly, I’ve probably honed my boundaries as I go along. I definitely deliberate over things though, I believe that’s important. I tend to work on the basis that if I’m writing about the way something has affected me specifically, it’s fair game, but if I’m writing about my husband or children’s experiences then I exercise more caution. There’s definitely moments and events I’ve written about which I haven’t shared publicly and that I don’t plan to until my children are old enough to consent to them being out in the world. But, if I’m writing about how my body felt after birth or how unexpected and terrible I find maternal rage, I feel that’s my story to share as I wish to. And hopefully reading poems where your mum writes about her love for you isn’t psychologically damaging, so I’m hoping there won’t be any repercussions from those pieces! I’m fairly cautious with photos too - I will often post things on stories so I’m still feeling that sense of sharing and connecting with others, but without committing to something being permanently visible on a public Instagram grid!
When it comes to the publication of Home Baked, I had a strong sense that I wanted to seize the moment with my poetry. I had connected with an online community and I was getting a few pieces published, as well as the motivation and desire to see where it could lead. It was easy to recognise themes through my work at that time: family, nostalgia, food and sensuality featured heavily so pulling those threads together into a chapbook felt right.
Finding Bent Key Publishing was definitely a case of being in the right place at the right time. I had connected with Rebecca Kenny, the founder of Bent Key, on Instagram when she published bloody hell (a zine about periods) and one of my poems was accepted for the zine. When Bec started Bent Key it was within weeks of me finishing the edits on my chapbook and feeling it was ready to start submitting to small presses. I reached out to her before she’d even officially opened submissions and thankfully she connected with Home Baked and wanted to publish it. I felt that publishing with Bent Key would mean I’d be given a little more autonomy over my book than I might with a more established press, and I knew the utmost care would be taken with my work. It’s been really beautiful to see the growth and expansion of Bent Key since then, and I’m really proud to be a part of that community.
Navigating Art Spaces that predominantly exist online has become a challenge in itself. I believe we've all seen drama popping up with a rush to judge and align with "the right people" - on the other hand, if you're stepping on rakes all day because you happen to be collaborating with someone who believes in “their right to say anything”, you will get sucked down into endless fights that can eat away at your time, your work, your enjoyment. Have you found a solid way to move within this space ?
Yeah, it’s very specific to the online spaces and it seems to have really blown up over the last year or two. I think most of that discourse seems to take place on Twitter, and I’m mainly an observer over there - I tweet very sporadically! It doesn’t seem to seep into the Instagram spaces so much, and of course now there’s alternatives cropping up like Chill Subs and Substack. I’ve managed to avoid being embroiled in things so far but I can see how easy it could be to end up being sucked into those dramas and becoming consumed by them. But yeah, it can be really frustrating as an outsider trying to decode what’s actually happened and who (if anyone?) is in the wrong. You can log on and see two totally conflicting opinion tweets next to each other in the timeline, you know? Most of my family and friends aren’t prolific users of public online spaces, which I think helps with a sense of perspective. If I said to my husband or sister “you won’t believe it, this journal has published a poem about X and everyone is kicking off and it turns out the editor is a predator…” they’d be pretty nonplussed.
Having said all that, I wouldn’t be afraid to call out something if it was occurring within my own space though, I’m not going to put up with bullies or bigots and I think I’m usually unambiguous with my views.
Getting accepted for publication in journals is how we briefly crossed paths too - sometimes it provides a nice validation jolt and sometimes its biggest worth is the power to connect with other writers. Would you have been satisfied with only sharing your work on social media, if you hadn't been picked up by journals as well? Some poets amassed a huge audience through social media alone, but there's a significant pushback on the "Instagram poet" label - as if it carries the implicit element of "not being good enough for real publication", still.
Yeah, I totally agree - publication has been a great way of connecting with other writers. For me it was definitely a form of validation to be published, but I don’t believe it actually is necessary, I think that was my own insecurities. You only have to look at some of the most famous “instagram poets” and see they have forged far more lucrative careers than 99% of traditionally published poets! Unfortunately, I do think a kind of snobbishness and elitism does still exist though; for a lot of people there’s a distinction between the two. It’s also interesting to see how some view the spoken word scene as inherently separate to published poetry (at least in the UK). Maybe I should do some kind of research into this because I find it all fascinating!
But yes, in terms of my own work I felt like I’d kind of ticked that traditionally published box when I had pieces published in print and online. It was also really nice just to be able to hand my parents a physical copy of a magazine or anthology that had one of my poems in, or to send a link to my friend with a poem I’d written about her that had been published on the online journal Anti-Heroin Chic (which is how you and I met!). Sending them an Instagram post just doesn’t seem to have the same impact, you know?
To be clear, the people I've seen pushing harder against the "online poet" label were the people who'd been the most successful at it. Both Kate Baer and Nikita Gill made clear they really dislike their output being framed like that - Gill once said she started sharing her poetry online after getting rejected by conventional outlets.
Yeah I can kind of see that - I think the “online” prefix almost makes it seem as if there’s a distinction between them and a “proper” poet, doesn’t it? Which is ridiculous because the medium they’ve chosen to publish poetry in makes no difference to their talent or how good the poems are!
Ready to answer QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR CRAFT ?
Eek, yes, I’ll try!!
I love how nearly every person who's actually working hates answering questions about CRAFT. Let's bring it down. Tell me how this poem came to be.
Oh that’s interesting that you picked that one. I think that’s a poem I could definitely have spent more time honing and editing; even just reading it quickly now I’m seeing different places I’d put line breaks.
I was at a point where I felt in limbo, my husband and I were having a lot of discussions about our jobs and what we wanted over the next few years and the weather was absolutely wild. It was inconceivably hot, for England, and that came with all the terror of climate change. And yet, at the same time, my day to day life was still plodding in a monotonous way, as it always does when you care for young children. The same things have to be done, day in and day out.
My daughter is my youngest child and our intention is that she will be our last (said with the wry knowledge of being a surprise fourth kid myself) and I felt so aware of her babyhood passing us by. As much as I resented the lack of sleep and how it often felt unbearable to sleep with her pressed up close to me on those 20 + degree nights, I knew these were fleeting and precious moments, that they were baked in privilege.
So yeah, I guess all of that I wanted to capture in a short poem, and most of it, including the first line, came to me pretty fully formed. I love it when that happens.
One thing about you that I didn't know was, for many years you worked in a pub with the father of your children, and now this chapter is closed. I'd like to know how you wrote poetry at the time - was it something you did when the day (or night) was done, as a way to regain a measure of time for yourself? Did you write on your off days ? And how do you get it done now?
Funnily enough, I didn’t write poems regularly at that time. It crops up fairly often in my work now when I look back retrospectively, though. I would write poetry if something in particular struck me, or for specific occasions - like when we got engaged, etc. But I wrote more non-fiction back then: in responses to events or feminist takes on current affairs and pop culture etc - I mean, I never had any of it published (bar one article for a blog called The Vagenda), I just wrote Word documents and saved them on my computer! But yes, whenever I was writing I’d usually do it during the day before I started work. I always enjoyed having time to myself when most other people I knew were working in offices - having a non typical workday, waking late and working late, really suited me before we had kids.
It’s interesting though - whenever I tried to specifically write about the pub and about the people, I couldn’t ever manage it. I wasn’t able to capture the atmosphere of the place or what I loved about it. I now work in a library and I haven’t been able to write any poetry using the library as the backdrop or about the sense of the place yet, either. Maybe it’s something that can only come with some distance.
Now, a lot of my writing is off the cuff. I make notes on my phone and then revisit them another time to try and craft them into something I’m happy with. I went through a stage of having a good writing practice for a while, when I was mostly at home caring for the kids, by dedicating time to it whenever my husband was around to do the childcare. I made sure I actually carved out that time by joining online writing groups, using prompts etc. I’ve got a bit more relaxed again now that I’m working outside of the home, so I’ve gone back to a lot of notes on my phone! But when there’s something in particular I want to work on I will sit down in the evening to properly focus on it. When I’m stuck for inspiration I still find prompts really helpful, and connecting with other poets through open mics etc is often a good way to get myself feeling creative.
Wait, so the open mic format worked for you? I'd probably do *okay* now, but I had both the "bomb hardcore" phase and the "do great" phase, and both times it ended up impacting my practice in a negative way - if it went poorly, I'd get discouraged; if it went well, I'd focus too much on being entertaining on stage. TELL ME YOUR SECRET.
I probably should have specified that 90 % of the open mics I’ve done have been online and that’s a totally different space and experience! The ones I’ve done in person have either been a specific group of people that have all signed up in advance - like the Mum Poem Press events I’ve been to. Or they are my local one which is an “all words welcome” afternoon with this wild mix of people, all different levels of experience and styles, so that’s always fun!
I started this project once I fully appreciated my overall frame was (still is) "expectations, reality and the inevitable crash". Looking at your body of work ad the journey so far, is there one moment that stands out to you as a case of "expectations crashing into reality" ? And is there any lesson you learnt in the aftermath ?
Yeah, I think there was probably a crash when I realised that the number of Instagram followers did NOT in any way correlate to the number of people who are willing to, say, click through to a published piece or buy a book or come to a virtual book launch. My expectations of the amount of people who’d be willing to go that extra step beyond “liking” a post was definitely off. I think that was a really valuable lesson though, because after that I didn’t focus on those numbers at all. Don’t get me wrong, I still like to see when lots of people have followed a link on linktree but I’m not wrapped up in the number of people who follow me. I genuinely don’t know if I lose or gain followers most weeks now, and I don’t care to! Playing the numbers game isn’t a healthy way to fuel creativity, especially if you’re not trying to make your living from social media.
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