Welcome back to Patricia’s Pen and my first guest for the new year is poet, Julian Day. Julian has come along to chat about his writing journey, influences, and poets who’ve inspired him. Without further ado, it’s over to Julian.
My Writing Journey
Julian Day
This is a tale told in two halves of my life. The first begins when I was seventeen, when I met a Writer In Residence – the now late Irish poet, Matthew Sweeney – who spent a year at Farnham sixth form college, where I was a student. This was 1984-1985. My passion for reading and writing poetry really started there. Matthew made quite an impact on both students & teachers, and he was much loved & respected. And my first poetry mentor to speak of. I will always fondly remember his gentle, encouraging warmth and playful demeanour.
Fast forward to the next century – and the more recent past, where poetry found me again, exactly at time when I needed it the most – and we find ourselves in 2020. After nearly three decades working full-time as a mental health professional within the NHS, I was in the middle of my own mental health crisis. Which, was also, in so many ways, a crisis of meaning, as much as it was a crisis facing down a severe second episode of depression. After a long service of care to others, I urgently needed my own care of the soul. I began writing poetry seriously again, for the first time in thirty plus years.
Eventually, I would leave my old life and work behind.
Poetry was not simply soul medicine for a wounded, troubled soul. Or some escape from a lifestyle that was neither sustainable or healthy for me, or only some type of personal therapy, alongside psychotherapy, to make sense of the life I had been living. Poetry was coming from the future, asking me some timely existential questions. It would take some more time, before I would start to recognise what shape of a life I could reimagine for myself, where writing poetry was right at centre of my renewed sense of self and deep identity as a creative, as a writer, as a poet.
The more I read and write, I realise there is so much more to read, learn and write from, not least of all, learn and be inspired by the example of other poets. There are really so many incredibly talented contemporary poets whose work I deeply admire. Too many for me to name them all here, but let me share a few thoughts about two here.
Firstly, I need to mention the work of Brenda Shaughnessay. I cannot get enough of her poems! How to describe her poetry? And, then, it’s influence on me?
What I find in Shaughnessy’s poetry is a deep feeling and love for the imaginative reach and possibilities of a poem. Including, ways of intimately engaging the reader. Of being drawn really close to the face of the poem and it’s speaker!
Rather like Selima Hill, I find in Shaughessay, a very intuitive use of metaphor and skill in turning a poetics of language, the body, as a lens upon human relationships.
Simply said, her work challenges me to push my own poetry into new directions by asking me to feel more deeply, imagine more deeply, into language, into the heart of metaphor, and weigh up the balance and tone of each and every line of a poem I write.
John McCullough is another poet whose imaginative aliveness and invigorating freshness of language, allied to his wit, heart and deeply slant, queer and surreal vision on everyday life- expand my own sense of what a poem might be able to do and achieve.
Both these exciting and very accomplished poets, inspire me to write more creatively into my own life and writing practices as a poet. Their work, like the work of so many other contemporary poets, feels like a gift that keeps on giving to me, as I grow into my own voice.
About Julian Day
Julian Day is an emergent poet & writer based in Surrey. He has been a featured poet by Blackbough Poetry and had work published by them in two recent anthologies. Julian has been nominated for a Best Of The Net by Blackbough. His poetry has also been published in The Storms journal and appeared three times, reading his poems, on Eat The Storms podcast.
Links
Patricia M Osborne 
Another fabulous feature Patricia. Julian’s is a fascinating journey. To work as a mental health professional for so long is admirable. That the work took its toll is not surprising. Thank goodness Julian found writing and poetry again. His sixth form teacher inspied him. His interview has inspired me. Keep writing and keep well, Julian. xx
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Thank you, Madalyn and thank you so much for reading. I’m so pleased to hear that Julian has inspired you, as I’m sure he will be too.
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