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FGLF 2016 Author Interviews : Mona Arshi
“Principled, obsessive, optimistic” is how author Mona Arshi describes herself. Mona’s debut collection titled ‘Small Hands’ introduces a brilliant and compelling new voice. At the centre of the book is the slow detonation of grief after her brother’s death but her work focuses on the whole variety of human experience: pleasure, hardship, tradition, energised by language which is in turn both tender and risky. Mona was born in West London where she still lives. She worked as a Human Rights lawyer for a decade before she received a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and won the inaugural Magma Poetry competition in 2011. She was a prize winner in the 2013 Troubadour International Competition and joint winner of the Manchester Creative Writing Poetry Prize in 2014. ‘Small Hands’ was published by Pavilion Poetry, Part of Liverpool University Press and won the Forward Prize for best first collection in 2015.
Tell me about ‘Small Hands’. What was the inspiration behind it?
I have been working on ‘Small Hands’ for 6 years - many people think the title refers to the small hands in the last line of E. E. Cummings poem 'nobody, not even the rain has such small hands' and partly that's true as I love that poem, but actually the book is animated by hands - my younger brother’s hands (to whom a number of elegies are dedicated ), my mother’s hands and my hands. Alongside that, the book is an electric mix of formal poetry as well as more experimental poems so prose poems and ghazals rub alongside sonnets, free-verse poems and ballads. Death rubs alongside, spirited daughters, surreal cousins, Lions, Punjab aphorisms and birds, lots of birds..
What’s the single most challenging thing about writing poetry?
They say that a writer should be writing the thing they are avoiding writing about. For me the challenge or the constant battle I have, is writing 'the default poem'- or settling into using a pattern, a form or a voice I have used before because it has been successful in a past poem. I think there is a number of reasons why this happens. I think we as human beings are naturally afraid of being uncomfortable but that discomfort and estrangement is the area where you need to travel to as a poet -confronting that fact and accepting it is so, helps I think.
What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received about your writing?
Poetry does many things and has a number of functions - first and foremost I love language and so if a reader reimagines the world in some way because of something I have written that's a huge compliment.
Favourite pastime?
I am going to sound incredibly boring but poetry used to be my pastime and now it's become something that occupies my time more and more. I spend so much of my time in isolating concentration, alone that the antidote to that inward activity is getting my fix of friends and family and spending as much as I can-otherwise I fear I would go mad. I don't think you are much good as a poet if you don't imbibe the world around you, open your eyes, walk, examine the physical world and use your senses.
Expectations for GLF 2016?
I am so incredibly excited about GLF. It's a really unique opportunityto meet other poets and novelists and hear new work and I am hoping my poems will reach a wider audience.
Expectations for Sri Lanka?
I am beyond excited - I hope I have some time to see some of what's going on locally and explore this fabulous country.
3 things no one knows about you?
1. I can't swim.
2. I have a fish called Kavita (she scares small children though I am not clear why. I think she's a she), she is a Koi and over 20 years old.
3. I often start poems on the back of my hand.
Future plans?
I am working on a new collection - and a novel - I am writing both at the same time and though this might seem rather oppositional, the two actually have a symbiotic relationship.
Mona Arshi is one of the many writers who’ll be attending the Fairway Galle Literary Festival 2016.
Interviewed by Jennifer Rodrigo
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