Vicki Feaver

Where and when were you born?

In Nottingham – home of Raleigh bicycles, Players cigarettes and “where all the pretty girls come from’. It was 1943 and the war was still on. I don’t consciously remember it of course but my grandmother lived with us and her only son, my mother’s little brother, serving in Burma, was declared missing early in 1944. The months of uncertainty and the grief that devastated my mother and grandmother when it was realised he was dead must have had an effect on me.

Could you tell us something about your background?

My father was an accountant – unqualified – a sore point with my mother. She was a teacher. She was obsessed with giving me and my sister a good education and shoving us up the social ladder. Grandma, her mother, had kept a pub in Wigan, a fact my sister and I were told never to divulge. My mother was also bitterly ashamed of the fact that she had got a third class degree – not surprising as she had to go home every weekend and help her mother behind the bar.

Were either of your parents or grandparents (or any other relatives) writers? If not, were any of your relatives actively interested in literature?

After my mother died at the age of ninety-three my sister discovered that she had written a vivid memoir of her childhood. She also painted water-colours of flowers. Yet when I was a child she discouraged my interest in painting or literature, telling me ‘English degrees are two-a-penny’. As a boy my father was a talented pianist. He won a radio competition to record Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto when he was eighteen. But his father didn’t think that being a musician was a secure enough career.

Are any of your siblings writers or involved in a creative profession?

My sister was a senior Civil Servant but is now planning to write a Jane Austen sequel. Three of my children are involved in the Arts. Jane is a novelist and poet. Emily is a painter. And Jessica is a cellist with the BBC symphony orchestra in Cardiff.

What was the first poem (or who was the first poet) that turned you on to poetry?

William Blake. I found a little blue-covered copy of Songs of Innocence and Experience in my parents’ bookcase and took it up to my room and hid it under my bed. I still have it – the most treasured and important book I possess – the thing I’d save in a fire.

What age were you when you first began writing poetry, and did you receive any encouragement?

We had to write poems occasionally at school. I found it incredibly daunting, and once copied out ‘Up the airy mountain’ and tried to pretend it was mine. And later required to write a sonnet, I cobbled together lines from Shakespeare’s sonnets. The first poem I wrote that was wholly mine was a sonnet that began ‘What is the life I live upon this earth?’ I must have been about twelve. A bit later I discovered Dylan Thomas, and wrote a poem that I thought very daring about lying in the bracken with a boy. It was constructed in a diamond shape with all the lines rhyming with ‘I’.

When you started writing poetry did you have dreams about becoming a "professional" poet? If so, did anyone advise you against this course of action?

When I was quite young and people asked, ‘What do you want to be?’ I answered ‘a poet’. But later I wanted to study medicine and be a doctor; and then for a variety of silly reasons – partly to fulfil my father’s thwarted ambitions - switched to studying music.

Did you ever get a poem published in your school magazine?

I had a prose poem published in the Nottingham Girls’ High School magazine when I was about sixteen (so I suppose around 1959-60). It was about swimming in the Aegean with little fish sliding between my legs.

Did you go to university, and if so, which subject(s) did you study?

At eighteen I went to Durham University to study music and hated it. I was hungry for ideas and argument and poetry – not a strong point with musicians. I got seduced by an American student who wrote a poem in reply to one of my poems. I then fell in love with an Oxford student who I admired for being an artist and intellectual. I got pregnant and married him when I was still a student and we had three more children. When I was thirty seven I went to University College London and studied English.

When did you first start submitting to poetry magazines? And can you tell us how many rejections you received before having something accepted for publication?

For years I wrote only scraps of poems. I remember saying to my husband, ‘I’ll be happy if I can write just one good poem!’ The first poem I had published was in the London Evening Standard. I won a competition to write a poem for the Queen’s Jubilee. The second poem was in the London Magazine. I remember the day I got the acceptance letter. I’d had so many rejections that I’d gone out to get a frizzy perm to cheer myself up. And when I got home and opened the letter I thought I needn’t have done it.

What was the worst rejection you ever received?

Maybe I’ve blotted the worst rejections out of my mind. But I remember one that called my poems ‘ephemeral’. Actually, even ‘ephemeral’ was better than nothing. The most off-putting rejections were the ones that just came back with a printed slip.

What was your first published poem? Which poetry magazine published it? And what year was it published?

As I’ve said, it was in The London Magazine. It was called ‘The Artist’s Mother’ and was about a painting by Lucien Freud. I can’t remember the year.

Round about the time that you started seriously writing poetry, who were your literary heroes? And would you say they had an influence on your writing style?

Douglas Dunn’s ‘Terry Street’ was very influential. I liked the way he created poems out of ordinary people’s lives. And I liked William Carlos Williams for the same reason: and for the wonderful images in his poems.

Have you ever attended a creative writing course or been involved in a writers' group? If so, did you find it useful?

What helped me enormously in the beginning was attending a poetry class at Morley College run by Colin Falck. Selima Hill was in the same class. I found it incredibly helpful and inspiring. Later I was in a group started by Matthew Sweeney at the Lamb pub in London. This was an extraordinary group with poets like Jo Shapcottt and Don Paterson and Maurice Riordan.

When did you put together your first collection of poetry?

My first collection, Close Relatives, was published by Secker in 1981.

How long did it take to get it accepted for publication? And, if appropriate, how many times was it rejected?

Secker was only the second publisher I sent it to. Anthony Thwaite was the editor and he published a collection by Carol Rumens at the same time. I was enormously lucky, and you could say unlucky as well. It might have been better to have waited and improved on the collection. But there were so few good women poets writing then. It’s quite different now!

How long did you have to wait between acceptance and final publication?

I can’t remember. I don’t think it was all that long.

What sort of critical response did you receive?

It was mixed. I had some good reviews and some bad ones. The most hurtful one was by Paul Muldoon in the TLS. He’d liked some of my poems published previously in the TLS– which is probably why the book was sent out to him – but he found the book as a whole disappointing.

Would you say that your publisher actively promoted the book?

Not really.

Did you do readings and signings at bookshops to help promote the book? If so, did you organise these yourself, or were they organised by your publisher? And would you say that they had a significant effect on sales figures?

I did very few readings and signings. I suppose the few I did had an effect on sales.

How many copies of the book sold?

I’m not sure how many were published. Eight hundred maybe, or perhaps a thousand. Certainly it’s terribly difficult to get hold of a copy now. A couple are advertised on Amazon for a sum no-one in their right mind would pay!

Is it still in print?

No.

At the beginning of your writing career did you enter any poetry competitions? Did you enter a lot or just a few? Did you have any success? And, with hindsight, what are your thoughts about the relative merits or demerits of poetry competitions?

I did enter competitions and I did have quite a lot of success. I re-roofed my house with a cheque for winning 3^rd Prize in the National Poetry Competition. I can’t see any harm in competitions: though I don’t think it is necessarily the best poems that win – just poems that catch a judge’s eye.

Which of your poetry books has been the most successful in terms of sales, and how many copies has it sold to date?

My second book, The Handless Maiden, 1994. It was reprinted but is now out of print. I don’t know how many copies that amounts to – perhaps a couple of thousand.

Have you won any awards for your poetry?

Yes. I won a Forward Prize for the Best Single Poem for ‘Judith’. The Handless Maiden won a Heineman Award and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize. The Book of Blood was shortlisted for the Forward and Costa Prizes.

Do you make a living out of poetry?

No. I taught English and Creative writing full-time in at was is now Chichester University until I retired.

If not, do you make an adequate living through poetry related activities such as teaching creative writing workshops? Or do you have to supplement your income through unrelated activities?

I tried for a while to make a living as a freelance doing workshops, etc; but I found it too stressful. I teach the occasional workshop now.

With the benefit of hindsight, are you glad that you pursued your dream of being a poet? Also, if you could turn the clock back, would you do anything different?

My dream to be a poet is still there, but writing doesn’t come easily to me and in the dry periods I can feel very depressed. At the moment I’m putting a lot of my energy into learning to be a painter.

If a young would-be poet approached you, which poets would you recommend as vital reading?

I think I’d recommend anthologies like Bloodaxe’s Staying Alive and Being Alive and The Penguin Book of Poetry from Britain and Ireland since 1945 and Picador’s The Firebox. The best thing would be to read through these finding poets that appeal and then getting their collections and reading more.

Which poetry magazines would you recommend him or her to subscribe to?

I subscribe to Poetry Review but I don’t read many other poetry magazines.

Assuming that this would-be poet showed some promise, would you advise him or her to pursue a "career" in poetry?

I don’t think it would make any difference what I advised. Poets choose poetry without help or hindrance from anyone else!

If so, what further advice would you give him or her?

To go on reading poetry: so you still get joy out of it in the times when it’s difficult to write.

Finally (and extremely hypothetically), you are selected to appear on the hit reality TV show, "Desert Island Poets", where you are marooned on a tropical island for three months with a typewriter and several reams of paper. You are provided with all necessary provisions, but you are only allowed to take three books with you. Your appearance fee is more than you could hope to earn in a decade and the show is so popular that all previous participants have become best-selling poets. So, would you participate? And if so, which three books would you take with you?

Would I go? I might if it didn’t involve publicity. I like the idea of going off to an island to write. I wouldn’t go to be made into a celebrity. Years ago I might have loved it. But now I’d hate it. The books I’d take: Mary Oliver’s selected poems, Wild Geese. I’ve only just got this but I find it so moving and inspiring. I’d like to find a way of writing that is so observant and uplifting. A book of myths and legends. I love the parallels between the predicaments of living now and the predicaments of living in archetypal stories. A good dictionary.

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