Patricia M Osborne

I’m delighted to welcome Corinna Board, a fellow tree poet, to Patricia’s Pen. Corinna is celebrating the release of her new poetry pamphlet, Arboreal, published with Black Cat Poetry Press. Without further ado it’s over to Corinna.

My Writing

Corinna Board

I fell in love with poetry after reading Sylvia Plath at school. I didn’t really understand the poems at the time, but I was intrigued and fascinated. I wrote quite a few poems as a teen, but (luckily?) none of them survived. Then I moved to Paris at the age of 19, and life got in the way, as it often does. I started writing poetry again in 2021 and reading as much as I could.

The seeds for Arboreal were planted during a free Ginkgo Prize Zoom workshop called ‘In Praise of Trees,’ which was facilitated by Seán Hewitt. I had just read Tongues of Fire and was really excited to attend. I remember my Wi-Fi played up, and I couldn’t get back into the Zoom call because it was full! Luckily, a recording was made available afterwards. I worked through the writing exercises and found myself with a bunch of drafts. These poems formed the foundations for my pamphlet, and for months I couldn’t stop writing about trees, I became a bit obsessed with them! At this point, I also realised that I really wanted to focus on eco-poetry.

Inspiration for Arboreal was often found inspiration on weekend walks through the fields and along the bridleways and footpaths surrounding the village where I grew up in The Cotswolds. I spent most of my childhood on my grandparents’ farm, so those memories also naturally wove their way into some of the poems (they’re not all about trees).

My writing process varies and depends mainly on me having enough time! Lines of poems tend to come out of nowhere at the most awkward moments. My favourite way to begin a draft is in one of my trusty A4 kraft notebooks, but sometimes I make notes on my phone. I recently tried speech-to-text on a walk through a field on a windy day and ended up with some very odd stuff…

When I can, I sit outside to write. I recall sitting on a fallen oak trunk in a patch of woodland to write snippets of one of the poems in my pamphlet. Sometimes you need to see, hear, smell and touch things to translate them into words. Many trees were hugged in the process, and I don’t regret it one bit! I also drew on mythology, fairy tales and art for inspiration.

Going forward, I’d love to concentrate more on giving a voice to the more-than-human in a respectful, as authentic as possible, way. One of my favourite poets, Jane Burn, does this marvellously, and she was kind enough to write the blurb for Arboreal. Writing about the natural world is a humbling thing, and my main fear is not doing it justice. I hope I get a few things right.

Corinna Board teaches EAL (English as an additional language) in an Oxford secondary school. She grew up on a farm, and her writing is often inspired by the rural environment. She particularly enjoys exploring our connection to the more-than-human.

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If you’d like to purchase a signed copy direct from Corinna, please contact her via Twitter or Instagram.