Meet the Poets: Cleo Henry
Cleo talks to us about their poem "To Bear Witness is an Act of Love", loud angry music, and the poem they wished they'd written
You can read Cleo’s poem “To Bear Witness is an Act of Love”, and listen to Cleo read it herself, in Issue One of the Seaford Review.
What can you tell us about this poem?
This poem is based on a real event from the village I grew up in, where two dogs were hung over a bridge. I wanted to use this event to explore the role of the witness — our responsibility to see and record, but also the way that witnessing implicates us and can draw us into uncomfortable parallels and kinships with what we observe.
What poets and poems are you in dialogue with?
Whenever I write “pastorally”, I find myself in dialogue with ancient idyllic writers like Theocritus — the way these poems construct the pastoral as a world with its own limits, rules and edges is very interesting to me. I tend to find the history and traditions of forms or genre very helpful to bounce off of, and as a sonnet, this poem was very much in dialogue with other queer uses of sonnets like Alex Cocker's translations of Michaelangelo (and I guess, ultimately, Shakespeare!).
What is your writing practice?
I have a total inability to write at home, so writing always begins with a trudge off to a library, coffee shop or reading room. People often ask me if I think about poetry on my long walks to a writing venue and the answer is no! I tend to listen to very loud, angry and incoherent music and think about absolutely nothing — perhaps a way of wiping the slate clean before I get started.
I have a total inability to write at home, so writing always begins with a trudge off to a library, coffee shop or reading room
What poem do you wish you'd written?
To me, Natalie Shapero is the ultimate magician. Her poems hang together so perfectly and as such discrete objects, but it is really hard to see the architecture beneath it. I have spent more time than I can admit reading The Sky and screaming “how does this work???” to myself.
What drew you to writing poetry?
Although I have tried and continue to try other forms, I am always drawn back to poetry for its sheer density — the way it can hold so much that might be seen as opposed or separate within one object and keep its cool.