Hi, Reuben. Can you tell readers a little about who you are and your professional background?
RW: I qualified as a Drama teacher in 1974 and taught Theatre and English at a comprehensive school (High School) in Coventry (UK) for a year. In 1976 I came to Spain to teach English as a Second Language, which I did until I retired last year. Along the way I got an MSc in TEFOL from Aston University (UK) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Studies in Applied Linguistics from Zaragoza University (Spain). I've
had no formal studies in poetry since my last year of Secondary School.
How long have you been penning poetry?
RW: I started writing poetry in 1968 and, for some reason, stopped in about 1985. Encouraged by a student and by a friend I started again in 2012, and this time I don't
intend to stop.
How would you describe your writing style?
RW: I’m probably not the right person to answer this question but I would suggest that it’s linguistically innovative, exploratory, experimental, avant-garde…
What prompted you to launch I AM NOT A SILENT POET?
RW: As I said on setting up the magazine in November 2014,
“I am not a silent poet" welcomes quality poems of protest. I have been seeing such increasing evidence of abuse recently that I felt it was time to do something. I am not a silent poet looks for poems about abuse in any of its forms: colour, gender, disability, the dismantlement of the care services, the privitization of health services, the rape culture, FGM, our girls in Nigeria are just some of the examples that come to mind at the moment.
It is not a site for rants.
What inspires you to write?
RW: It may be an event in the real world or a fictional world, or just a word, phrase or line that occurs to me. Really it’s just a question of whatever works whenever.
Has your work ever been published by a traditional publisher?
RW:
the king is dead, 2014, Oneiros Books;
dying notes, 2015, Erbacce Press;
skins, 2016, Hesterglock Press;
broken voices, 2017, 20/20 Vision Publishing;
some time we are heroes, 2018, The Corrupt Press; forthcoming,
this hall of several tortures, September, 2019, Knives Forks and Spoons Press
What can poets do to increase their odds of acceptance at your site?
RW: Write! Write good poems about some form of abuse of people or planet. I don't
appreciate overly ‘poetic’ devices such as central justification of lines, which reminds me too much of sentimental greetings cards. No rhyme at all is far better than forced or cliché rhyme-
How would you define good poetry?
RW: On a purely subjective level,
it's what I like! It should produce a ‘WOW!’ reaction in my head, heart and guts.
How do you know that a poem is “finished”?
RW: When it tells me. When the last line doesn't
make a next line relevant.
Who are some of your literary influences?
RW: My influences are not necessarily poets or even use words.
Bob Dylan especially of (but not only)
‘Bringing it all Back Home’, Highway 61 Revisited’ and ‘Blonde on Blonde’, Roy Harper, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Don Cherry Terry Riley, Captain Beefheart.
James Joyce, Samuel Beckett. Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaimon, China de Miéville.
TS Eliot, Paul Celan, Vasko Popa, Lorca, Jerome Rothenberg, American postmodern poetry in general, Adrian Henri, Fran Lock.
BIO:
Reuben Woolley has been published in quite a few magazines such as Tears in the Fence, Lighthouse, The Interpreter's House, the anthology, The Dizziness of Freedom, Ink Sweat & Tears, Proletarian Poetry, And Other PoemsThe Otolith, and The Poet's Shed.
He has five books to his name, the latest being Some times we are heroes, published by The Corrupt Press (2018). He has a book forthcoming, This hall of several tortures, to be published by Knives Forks and Spoons Press (September 2019). He edits the online magazines, I am not a silent poet and The Curly Mind.
