Meet the Poets: Phoebe Gilmore

Phoebe talks to us about her poem "Bruise like the face of Jesus", the work that inspires here, and the best part of a night out...

Phoebe’s poem appeared in Issue Three of Seaford Review

What can you tell us about Bruise like the face of Jesus?

I wrote this poem a few weeks after I fainted at a Boxing Day dinner party. It was my first time fainting – a new experience to explore poetically. A bruise developed on my inner thigh which vaguely looked like the face of Jesus. I was interested in the way the body carries marks – the bloodwork of a fall.

What poets and poems are you in dialogue with?

I’m currently in the final push of completing my MA at Goldsmiths University of London and have been revisiting a lot of older work by Rachael Allen, particularly her 4chan poems in her pamphlet Faber New Poets 9. Rapidshares /r/ remains a favourite of mine. Allen is so skilled in capturing a certain kind of girlhood nostalgia in this poem. My project for my MA is exploring the similarity between the culture of memes and poetry.

What is your writing practice? Where and when do you write? By hand, laptop, phone notes…?

I usually write lines in the Google Docs app on my phone so that I can develop it straight away when I have some quiet laptop time. It’s turned into a bit of chaos recently as I’ve found that Google Docs is rubbish and I’m trying to transfer over to Word documents — I’m now dealing with two graveyards of drafts instead of one.

What poem do you wish you’d written?

Dream of a dog by Emily Berry. I read that poem again and again and always find something new and delicate in it.

Tell us what’s on your bedside table?

Paracetamol, contraceptive pill, water bottle, jewellery and Cat Bohannan’s Eve: How the female body drove 200 million years of evolution (it is a huge book, I have only read three chapters of it, but I have really enjoyed it so far).

What song helps us get to know you better?

This question is a lot of pressure, so I have just gone to my liked songs on Spotify and the most recent one I have saved is Fame is a Gun by Addison Rae – a great tune for getting ready, which is universally the best part of a night out.