Jayne Fenton Keane : Hmmm... starting off with a tricky one there. On the one hand I resist the idea that poetry has to serve any kind of purpose. On the other, I know I am motivated by a desire to express a point of view about the world I live in - though that is my particular choice and not one I believe should be the overarching purpose of poetry. I am concerned about the way the social order operates but it is not the only reason I write. There are many strands to explore inside the word 'poetry'. I like to write in response to noticings that concern me but I try to avoid a rhetorical approach - I don't find that very interesting. Sometimes I like to write from a point of view that I don't agree with in order to create a more interesting poem or discover something. Anger, outrage, compassion or sympathy may be great catalysts for poems but they are not enough. The challenge is to engage with language and ideas, forms and inspiration in a way that adds to the possibility of discovering new poems inside the one being written. The poems I find most interesting are the ones I don't fully understand on a first read, and that mean different things over several readings. I hope I manage to write like that at least some of the time. The 'injustices and inequalities' I write about often stem from the personal stories of people I have worked with or met or read about. Sometimes people tell me their stories because they want me to write about them and I feel it is important to honour their courage inside the survival of extreme experiences. Sometimes the most honest way to do this is to tell it with minimal 'poetic' decoration. At the moment my work involves visiting psychiatric institutions and the homes of people with severe physical and intellectual disabilities. It is impossible not to be concerned about 'issues' when they inform your daily life.
B M-S : How relevant do you think poetry is to the ongoing discourse which centers around issues like peace, prejudice, religious intolerance, the sexes, etc?
