Writer's Block with Kerrie O'Brien - The Gloss Magazine

Writer’s Block with Kerrie O’Brien

SOPHIE GRENHAM talks to KERRIE O’BRIEN about the vibrant SPOKEN WORD SCENE in Ireland , escaping to Paris and why POETRY makes her gasp …

Photograph by Eoin Rafferty

Kerrie O’Brien’s voice has breathed fresh life into Irish poetry; producing deeply romantic work that displays a splendid appreciation for life, love and art. Kerrie’s BA in History of Art and Classics from Trinity College Dublin has undoubtedly played a part in her clear, visual style.

Kerry’s debut collection Illuminate has earned respect from pillars of the literary community such as Sebastian Barry and Joseph O’Connor, who said ‘The pieces engaging with painters have a sort of touching delicacy in the face of grandeur. I adored this book. It’s like carrying Paris around in your pocket.’ Illuminate was chosen as a New Statesman, Irish Times and Irish Independent Book of the Year in 2016 by the two authors, respectively. The collection was made possible by a literature bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland.

In 2012 Kerrie was the first poet chosen to read as part of the New Writers Series in the Shakespeare & Co. bookshop in Paris. Her flash fiction piece, That Night, won the RTÉ Arena Flash Fiction Competition and Culture Ireland sponsored her to read in Los Angeles that same year. Kerrie has since spoken at countless prestigious arts institutions and literary festivals all over Ireland. Her words have featured in Cyphers, The Stinging Fly, The Irish Times, Banshee, Irish Examiner, Southward, Orbis and The Penny Dreadful, Poethead and Hennessy New Irish Writing. Kerrie is also the editor of Looking At The Stars (2016), a limited edition anthology of Irish writing which raised over €21,000 for the Dublin Simon Community. Kerrie’s poem Dublin is now on the Junior Certificate syllabus.

Illuminate (€12) is published by Salmon Poetry and available from bookshops nationwide. Kerrie is currently in Paris working on new projects.

On home

I’m currently based in Cabinteely. My mother has an apartment with long windows that look onto a hill with an old Celtic cross at the top. They’re doing a lot of development in the area at the moment and they’re actually building a Beckett Park, as he used to walk these fields with his father. I mainly like writing in cafés, I can focus while life goes on around me and I’m seriously into coffee. I used to write a lot in libraries but I find them too quiet now. I live in walking distance from Cabinteely village and there’s a really big café there called Urban, which is a great space to spend a few hours in. I’m only a ten minute bus ride from Bray so I like to go there a few times a week and walk the seafront. They have a cluster of brilliant Italian cafés there which all stay open late, which suits me as I’m a night owl. I’m also very close to Dun Laoghaire, so some days I’ll go down and walk the pier and do some writing in Hatch in Sandycove. I always like to write by windows.

On roots

I moved around an awful lot as a child as my parents separated when I was five. I was born in Kingswood in Tallaght, then lived with my grandparents in Templeogue then spent the majority of my teenage years in Clondalkin. So I kind of have all sorts of scattered memories from growing up. My grandmother was from the country and was a tremendous cook and gardener, so I get my love of cooking from her. My memories with her are very much rooted in baking bread, cooking apple tarts, lighting the fire and watering flowers in the evening. Very stable and nurturing. My father’s side of the family were a bit wilder, so a lot of my time with them was spent in pubs, snooker halls and summers down in Clogga, going to the beach with millions of my cousins and the arcades in Courtown. It’s only more recently that I’m writing more about that part of my childhood.

On creating

In 2015 I broke my foot and couldn’t walk for six months so I literally couldn’t leave the house and that’s when I wrote Illuminate. It was during the summer and I spent a lot of time writing on our balcony. I have a desk in my room which I have ever never used for writing. I think I prefer my room to be a sort of sanctuary. I have a large Nan Goldin print on my wall and a Rothko print I’ve had since I was 15. I have tall white bookshelves which I love – I got them from Ikea and my granddad built them for me. I have a habit of buying first editions of certain books so I keep them on the top shelf.

On bookshops

I’ve loved independent and second hand bookshops since I was a child. I used to go to work with my mother a lot and read while I was waiting around – there was an excellent second hand bookshop called Readers in Dun Laoghaire where I could exchange books. I’ve worked in a lot of the bookshops in Dublin and I try to support the independent ones as much as possible. My favourites are Books Upstairs, The Gutter Bookshop and Raven Books in Blackrock. The staff in each shop are always passionate, generous with their time and give excellent recommendations.

On her nightstand

There’s three at the moment – A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin, the collected essays of George Orwell and Lunch Poems by Frank O’ Hara. I’ve read them all before and I keep going back to them. They’re beside my bed to remind me of what is possible through writing.

On favourite escapes

For me it’s definitely Paris. I’m still not sure exactly why it keeps drawing me back. I feel there’s a slower pace of life there, people focus much more on food and conversation than smart phones etc. I love the galleries, the parks, the beauty of the streets. I’d like to live there properly at some point.

In Ireland I think Bray is definitely my retreat place. I find being by the sea always has a calming effect on me and it’s the main thing I miss when I’m abroad. When I’ve been away for a few weeks I always really appreciate the fresh saltiness in the air of Dublin.

On poetry

As much as I love novels and art and music and dance, poems are the only things that make me gasp. In school, poetry was always something that felt obscure and inaccessible to me. I was always into song lyrics though and I’d make a point of buying CDs and copying out the lyrics, which is maybe what started my interest in simple but powerful images and lines. It wasn’t until I went to college and had access to everything in Trinity’s library that I got seriously into reading it, particularly contemporary American poets. I find that poems have the ability to express certain emotions or experiences that everyday language simply can’t articulate. I think that’s quite magical.

I think there is [a resurgence] with the vibrant spoken word scene that exists in Ireland and internationally, with the rise of online journals and online poetry resources such as the Poetry Foundation and the increased focus on creativity in schools, along with the growing number of third level creative writing programmes. Poetry is becoming a lot more accessible in general and people are responding to that. I find a lot of people want to read poems at weddings and funerals, which I think is a testament to the high regard that people have for the power and beauty of poetry.

On what’s next

I’m spending a month in Paris learning French and working on a novel and my next collection of poetry. In September I’ll be reading in Slovenia, spending a few nights in Trieste which I am really excited about as Joyce wrote the majority of his works there and it looks so beautiful. I then fly back to Paris to read in Shakespeare and Co. bookshop on Thursday, September 14 and after that I’ll spend a week in Glasgow with Scottish Pen working on their homelessness project. I’m excited to be able to travel for so long; it always inspired my writing and I’m looking forward to a new adventure. I have no plans after September but who knows what will happen by then!

@SophieGrenham

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