Aoife Mannix is an Irish writer and poet based in London. She is a seasoned performer, having captivated audiences worldwide, from India to Austria. Aoife is currently hotting up for her latest UK tour of her new show, Growing up an Alien, supported by the Arts Council.
Here she talks to Rachel Besser about performing poetry on Mumbai beach, inviting elephants to dinner and wanting to walk on the moon.
What do you do all day?
I wish I could say I spend all day every day in a frenzy of poetic inspiration but in reality I seem to spend a lot of time answering emails! If I haven’t got an early workshop, I try to do a bit of writing first thing in the morning before I get caught up in other stuff. I generally find I write best in the morning. I haven’t really got a routine though because my days are often very different. I do quite a bit of teaching, which is running creative writing workshops. Often these are in secondary schools but I also work with adults and young people in other settings like arts centres or libraries. Occasionally I perform my poems at school assemblies but most of my gigs are in the evening, mainly in bars or theatres. If I have a gig that evening, I’ll spend the afternoon rehearsing for it. As I tend to learn my poems by heart, I tend to spend at least as much time learning them as I do writing them.
What are you doing today?
Today I’ve been rehearsing for my new show Growing Up An Alien. It goes on tour in a couple of weeks and is on at the Southbank Centre on October 25th and 26th. In the morning the designer, Kerry Bradley, showed the company manager, Sandra Davenport, how to set up for the show so that she can prepare and clear the set for each performance on the tour. We then did a run through of the whole show – it’s an hour long and is performed by myself and Janie Armour. I’ve written the words while Janie has written the music, which she performs, live on the accordion. Mike Kirchner, our director, gave us notes on the run through and then we worked intensively on rehearsing three parts that we felt still need looking at. I’m very interested in how poetry and music and theatre can compliment each other so working on this show has been fascinating for me.
What made you become a poet?
I started to write poetry when I was eleven. It wasn’t a conscious decision. I didn’t even realise I was writing poetry till my mother asked me what I was doing. She read what I’d scribbled and pronounced it a poem. My family had just moved from Dublin to New York and I think I took up writing to cope with the culture shock!
What’s the best thing about your job?
It’s never boring. Or very rarely. I get to go to all these different events and workshops and meet all kinds of different people. I get to spend my time doing what I love, namely writing and sharing that with others. I feel incredibly lucky.
And the worst?
The worst thing is being offered a really good gig or a project I’d love to do when I’ve already agreed to do something else on that day. Sometimes managing doing lots of different stuff at the same time can get a bit stressful. But when I think back to the routine of being in an office that I used to have, I can’t really say I miss it.
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
I wanted to be the first woman to walk on the moon. Then I realised I wasn’t very good at maths so I decided to be a writer instead.
Do you remember the first poem you ever wrote?
Yes, it was about a frog in the rain. I was only 11 so I can’t remember it that well.
Why poetry rather than prose?
I write prose as well but I started out with poetry so I guess that will always be my first love. What I like about poems is that you can say a lot in a short space. Also I think poetry is closer to music, which I also love. The rhythm and the sound of the words is I think as important as the meaning, it’s about creating a feeling or an atmosphere similar to the way music does.
What are the triggers that make you start creating a poem?
Just life in general. I tend to write about things I see or hear or people I know. Much of what I write is quite personal though I also like to write more political poems. When I first started writing, I used to write listening to music. I don’t do that so much anymore but for me it still starts with a rhythm in my head that the words than fit to.
Freehand or word processor?
Freehand – though my handwriting is so bad I have to type them up within a few days or I can’t read what I’ve written!
Where is the most unusual place you’ve performed your poetry?
On a beach in Mumbai. Actually it was a restaurant right on the water’s edge but they had set out rows of chairs in the sand. I had the sun setting behind me into the sea. It was really beautiful. The British Council via Apples & Snakes sent me to India for a few weeks and I had an amazing time.
When performing abroad do you use a translator?
The British Council also sent me to Taiwan and Thailand. In Taiwan they translated my poems into Mandarin and published them in these lovely booklets as well as projecting the translation behind me as I was performing. I also ran creative writing workshops in both countries with a translator to help me. I was a bit anxious about how this was going to work but it was surprisingly easy. Mainly I think because in both cases my translator also worked for a theatre and really understood what I was trying to achieve. Also people were so friendly and enthusiastic that the language barrier didn’t seem such a big deal.
The Elephant in the Corner is your first anthology. Can you explain the title?
The title is taken from one of the poems in the collection called ‘Taboo Animal.’ The first line of the poem being ‘the elephant in the corner that nobody ever spoke about was an awkward beast.’ The expression ‘the elephant in the corner’ of course means something that everyone knows about but can’t be said. In the poem, I’m playing with that idea of family secrets by imagining an actual elephant at a family dinner and how being ignored makes the elephant feel. I chose it for the title of the book because I think poetry is essentially about finding a way to say what may have been unsayable.
Which other poets do you most admire?
I’m a huge fan of Carol Ann Duffy, Roger McGough, Jackie Kay, Michael Donaghy and Raymond Carver. I also really love the work of Malika Booker, Zena Edwards, Lemn Sissay, Polarbear and Roger Robinson.
What are you most looking forward to this year?
I’m very excited but also nervous about the tour of my show Growing Up An Alien which starts in a couple of weeks. A collection of the poems from the show, also called Growing Up An Alien, is being published by Tall Lighthouse. It’s due back from the printers next week so I’m really looking forward to holding a copy in my hands.
What advice could you proffer to budding poets?
Write loads, read loads and go to see loads of other poets. Sign up for open mics and share your work with an audience. I think really the most important thing is to try to find your own voice and stay true to that. So it’s not about copying anyone else but rather opening yourself up to being inspired.
Growing Up An Alien opens at the mac in Birmingham on October 12th and then tours to various venues around the country, including the Southbank Centre on October 25-26.
The Elephant in the Corner is published by Tall Lighthouse.
