A chat with Sadie Maskery about her poetry collection, Overheard Lovesongs (Alien Buddha, 2024)
How would you describe Overheard Lovesongs in one sentence?
It's worth reading more than once, honestly.
How did you come up with the title?
It fitted. I got told off with Shouting at Crows that the poem 'Shouting at Crows' didn't have any actual crows in it (they were, vaguely, the shadows in the cracks of my mind sort of thing, and I regret calling them that, because I have a great relationship with the local corvids, they burble at me).
Would you say the collection has a particular theme?
This collection is mainly me trying to understand other people.
The blurb on the back describes the poems as being about ‘the extraordinary lives of ordinary people’. What makes for an extraordinary life, and what is it about ordinary people that makes them interesting to write about? And do you think that ordinary people need extraordinary lives to be the subject of poetry?
I think I want to answer these two together, albeit incoherently, sorry. Ummmm, situations may be commonplace but how people react within them is completely individual. Everyone is unique. Conversely, if some of the stuff that happened to some of the characters in these poems happened to me, it would destroy me. It is merely ordinary for THEM, and that's what made it remarkable to me. Writing any experience down makes it either duller or more unusual doesn't it? Every one of these poems has a word or phrase in it that came from someone else, and they used it in a way that made me want to record and think about it. How I then used it changed it, diminished it maybe. But then how you read it in turn changes it again from the original moment. Or something.
It feels as though the poems in this collection are less personal (I don’t like to use the word ‘confessional’!) than those in your previous collections; is that accurate?
Another reviewer has asked if any of the poems are autobiographical, because one in particular seemed self lacerating (“...more a monster…”). My reply to him was “young me made horrific mistakes. Old me hates myself a little less and understands myself a little more. Listening to other people rather than just whining on about myself in poems seems a positive development.” but I have a lot more self-obsessed whining still in me, the next collection is already underway and a bundle of laughs I am sure. Overheard Lovesongs is pretty personal. It lets the reader into the way I hear and see the world, which would be a surprise to some people who see me in day to day life and think I am a quiet, eccentric, middle class old lady. (Which I am, of course, but oh the joy of violent profanity as mere punctuation. I love the freedom, the rhythm and music of that.) So the confessional element is still there, in terms of what stories I chose to tell.
How long did the book take to write?
It evolved in scraps. I made lots of notes on my phone when I was in quiet corners. I then went off to make candles, or lino prints, or sketch cats, or read 1930s mystery novels, or rearrange the kitchen, or, oh you know actually I was really into acrylic painting at one point, I did the self portrait I use as my Twitter profile when a friend gave me her old paint, and I bought modge podge because I had this idea of using old maps as the background to people's facial contours in portraits, but I ran out of paint again. Then I slept a lot and had to talk to the GP a bit. Earlier this spring I recorded some songs with a good friend, but we haven't posted them anywhere (Windmills of Your Mind really worked well) and then I looked at my phone and thought, did I write these? Then I submitted in a couple of places and one said yes, hurray. There are two collections of short stories awaiting a decision, although stories are a struggle because you have to write at least a pretence at resolutions so I have since stopped writing them (the hollow laugh when I remember my attempts at writing a novel, oh my) but I looked at my phone today and thought “Oh bugger, I should publicise this book” and found a whole load of poems I had forgotten.
How did you structure the collection?
Oh no, should I have done that? This is the trouble with Alien Buddha, you are trusted to do that sort of thing once Red has agreed to publish. With Mariscat Press (Love Shanty) I sent a shedload of poetry to them, and Hamish Whyte curated, edited and published a polished gem of a pamphlet from it. With Overheard Lovesongs, the main structural row was me trying to move the title verso to, well, the title verso, and Red emailing to say DONT TOUCH THE PRESS PAGES and moving it back to where it is in the printed book. Which means that, if you like, you can cut out the awesome picture of an alien Buddha to frame, and still have the title verso information. So it all works out. In the main I tried not to have too many fucks on consecutive pages.
How did you choose a publisher?
I loved working with Red on Shouting at Crows. Alien Buddha Press is a small indie. You get a fast decision and 20% royalties once you have sold 50 copies. I should be a millionaire any time now.
Do you have a favourite poem in the collection?
The two liners are the only ones I can remember off by heart, and they rhyme, so that's splendid. But 'Husband'.
Do you have a favourite poem to perform from the collection?
I like the sexy ones but they make me giggle. Actually there is a cracker in Love Shanty called 'O let me be a chef on TV' that I love reading out loud, in my best Nigella Lawson.
Have you any readings planned to promote the book?
I am available for readings, festivals, BBC Radio's The Verb, Edinburgh Book Festival, TV appearances, I can plan a LOT, I am rubbish at the actual getting to do. I have a nice dress waiting, and a pair of high heels that would perforate kevlar if someone was wearing kevlar and lying down and not wriggling.
If you could have a blurb from anyone, living or dead, apart from those who have already written them for you, who would it be?
You, mate, I love your blurbs, they are honest and thoughtful.
Do you have any other poetic/writing projects in the pipeline?
I do, but I am not convinced that the pipe leads anywhere. Fingers crossed.
Overheard Love Songs https://amzn.eu/d/ixgM0yq
(Shouting at Crows is https://amzn.eu/d/fGGkoKe)
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