Before The Poem with Vanessa Kisuule- Writing and Wonder

In the first episode of Before the Poem, Rebecca Tantony is joined by poet, performer and writer Vanessa Kisuule for a conversation about ritual, creativity, and the mysterious forces that shape our work.

Together they explore the role of ritual and spontaneity in writing practice, the creative act of motherhood, and the parallels between making art and making life. They examine faith and questioning, beginnings and starting points, and the ways our deepest curiosities can lead us towards the page.

From moments of doubt to the giddy highs of writing and performing, they share reflections on what it means to feel guided by something beyond ourselves, and how we learn to trust those fleeting moments of inspiration.

A thoughtful, joyful and expansive conversation about creativity, devotion, and what comes before the poem.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello, my name is Rebecca Tantoni. I'm a writer and host of Before the Poem. This is a conversation about poetry, spirituality, religion, language, and the mysterious act of making meaning. This is a space open to all, believers, agnostics, atheists, and anyone curious about creation and the creative act itself. Each episode I speak with a contemporary poet about the spiritual landscape that shaped them. Childhood rituals, silence, prayers, doubt, imagination, grief, creativity, and the search for what lies beyond ordinary language. Together we explore writing, not simply as proud, but as a way of listening, reaching towards the unknown, a form of attention, perhaps even a kind of devotion. I'm interested in what poetry can say where all other language fails. In the connection between creation and creator, in the words we inherit and the ones we spend a lifetime trying to find. I am so very glad you are here. Hello Rebecca. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Oh, are we giving the honest answer? Um I have not had much sleep, but it was because I was having a very fun-filled night of debauchery, so yeah, a worthy reason to be underslept, but full transparency, yeah, I'm I'm sort of at a half-mast.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

That's where we're at.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Yeah, but it's still lovely to be here with you.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

And uh I came bearing flowers and croissants, so hopefully a little bit, little bit of balm for the weary heart. And we we're going through a heat wave now, so yeah, it's feeling good. So for context, we're in Vanessa's gorgeous flat, we're surrounded by books, flowers, a really nice, is it what's the sofa? Velvet. Velvet green sofa. I love that's my aspiration.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

I love that you said we're surrounded by books. It's very kind of you. I mean, she means clutter. No, we're surrounded by clutter. I'm a maximalist. I love to be surrounded by stuff, um, which is not ideal in a tiny flat, but yeah, there are a lot of books.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

It's comfy, it's nice, it's beautiful. Thank you. So we're gonna begin and we're gonna start exploring this interesting relationship we have as poets with something beyond us, the mystery, you might call it divinity, creation, and where we potentially try and make sense of these subjects that are vast and grand and beyond sense. So, my first question for you, Vanessa, and this is a question I'm gonna pitch to all my poets, is what was the spiritual religious landscape of your childhood? This is a question really inspired by the On Being podcasts, and yeah, I think it really gives us an initial grounding of where we've come from and where it all began.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

So I grew up with a Christian mother, and I don't have many memories of going to church with her, funnily enough. But I was in and out of various schools, and most of them were religious in some way. Um I had a stint in an all-girls Catholic boarding school. Did you? Yeah. I didn't know that. That's pretty intense. Uh I actually had a pretty good time, but my most vivid memories of church are from that time. We had these, you know, very solemn uh assemblies where we'd sing hymns, sometimes in Latin. Can you imagine? Um yeah, there was an entire hymn that we used to do in Latin, and we had a procession that would go through the whole school, we'd be holding candles, we used to have to do rehearsals of it. So, yeah, the the sort of the grandiosity of ritual um that is very inherent to the Catholic faith. Uh, I have very strong memories of that. And it's interesting, my mum would always be sat with her Bible and sort of muttering um the words to herself. So I think I learnt from her this notion that faith could be a very private, solitary, insular thing too. And so there's an interesting contrast there from the pomp and circumstance of the Catholic Church and the candles and the liturgies, etc. Uh the self-flagellation, the guilt, etc. etc. And then this very small, quiet, um almost impenetrable faith that I used to witness in my mother and still do. Um and so yeah, I think without knowing it at the time, I was starting to see that distinction between faith and religion, which is you know sort of more of a societal infrastructure, right? Um and faith, I think, is a far more nebulous thing in terms of how we all experience it. Um but I I mean lose faith isn't the way I'd phrase it because I don't know whether I ever had it. I think I went along with the rituals and the processes because that's what you do when you're a child. You're told to go to church, you're told to say the Lord's Prayer, and you go with it. Um, and you know, maybe there would be a sense of um comfort that that would give me, but then I think that comes with any routine or any um collective experience, right? Um, but I think as I started to be more questioning and examining, you know, what is this God? And do I actually believe in him? And when I say these prayers, do I feel like I'm speaking to something? I started to realise that I didn't. And that that was a that was a really sad reckoning.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Um, so I think that fell away from me in increments in my I'd say late childhood, so we're talking, you know, maybe 10, 11.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

It's interesting the age we start questioning, isn't it? I went to a Catholic primary school as well. So I grew up Church of England Christian. My dad was very much the kind of at the forefront of that. My mum was always like she went along with it, but she didn't necessarily believe. I know that now, but at the time I just thought maybe she had a quiet version of it. But my dad was very much, he loved the regular church, he had his Bible, similar to your mum. It was always quite a private thing, particularly in times of challenge. I noticed my dad really turned to his faith when he struggled. And it's not that he didn't go there when life was easier, it's just it absolutely came the centre point. What did that look like in personal terms? Removal, so removal and then him on his own with the Bible, reading the Bible very much so. But interestingly, when I went to this Catholic primary school, because I was Church of England, I wasn't allowed to take part in mass. Right. So I I'd have to sit on the sidelines while all the kids got the free wafer, the free wine, aka Ribina. Yeah. And yeah, I I always felt this sense of like, oh, I can't belong to this God, like he isn't for me. And I remember once like sneaking into the queue, taking the wafer, having the wine, and then getting in trouble for doing it.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

But simultaneously having this feeling like, yeah, I've got something sacred in me, in my stomach, Jesus like Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

You really felt that, that you had the body and blood of Christ in you?

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Yeah, but I don't know if it was because I had some kind of religious moment. I think it was more that I had access to something I was told I wasn't allowed. And that was a really interesting moment for me. But but like you said, then I soon started questioning and I was like, who is this? Who is this God? And and yeah, where do I reach him and how do I find him? And why doesn't he belong to me, but he belongs to all the other kids? For sure.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Yeah, yeah. And I remember reading R Richard Dawkins at a certain point, not at 10 years old, my goodness, imagine. I was precocious, but not that precocious. Um and that definitely woke me up. I mean, I'm I'm not really a fan of um that particular spate of really quite smug and I think uh incurious um atheists that were quite popular at the time and publishing books on you know why religion is uh a delusion. I think the book was called The God Delusion. The God's delusion, it was, yeah. Um, but I think it was it was very instrumental for me at the time to have this robust scientific uh takedown of um this notion of God. Um but you know, I've I've kind of circled back, not not to religion, but to the sense that it's so feasible that there is something more, and I I can't speak to what that might be. I've not got any shape for that. But um, you know, I find it deeply arrogant that there are people walking around thinking that science gives them a license to shut that door and to not even allow it to be a little bit ajar. I think I I do think that there's space for science and empirical evidence and also this notion of the unknown. Yeah, I don't think they're side by side. I don't think they're opposed. Yeah, absolutely agree with you.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

And when you talked about ritual, I thought about the ritual of writing and how it is a ritual of sorts, and I know like our writing practices shift and change, but there is something about that commitment driven from within ourselves, no one else is here telling us to write, unless you know, in some moments we have an editor or whatever at the end of an email. But you know, there's like a ritual to it, yeah. Do you feel any of your early like experience of ritual has informed any ritual in your contemporary living? When it comes maybe to a writing practice or it's an interesting question. Um do you ever ritualise it? Do you ever like light a candle? Like, do you do you do anything before you write it?

SPEAKER_01 12:25

I actually don't. My excuse me, my writing process is pretty scattergun. Um I could probably afford to incorporate ritual more into my process, but I was just thinking about the ritual of the reading, and I think that for me is where it comes in more, and where there's these really recognizable and consistent um tropes of the performance, both as a performer myself and as an audience member. Um, I know it's pretty divisive in our community, but things like you know, clicking um during a poem, uh even the ways you say yeah, right. Um, and how a lot of these things have been borrowed from other ritualistic um processes, you know, I think about the call and response of the church, for example, and how um that's then found its way into certain performance poetry techniques, and um yeah, I think there's something for me that's very ritualistic about getting ready to go on stage and having that moment where you're in front of the microphone and you take the room in, you feel the energy in the room, is it is it stilted or are people already excited? You know, like it's it to me, it's like a string, you know, the energy can be really taut or it can be really slack, and you know, you you can feel that in your body, right? When you're on stage, you're so hyper-aware. So I think there is a ritual of of getting myself to that kind of porous state of being able to feel that energy. Um, and I talk a lot when I run workshops about performance and getting people confident to read their poems. Like you have to treat the stage like it's your living room, like set it up with some reverence, with some ritual, you know, put your water bottle, you know, on the little table, and you know, make sure you've got your poems noted with some sticky tabs, like really uh create a space where you can just relax into um the set and be with the audience rather than being with the busyness of your anxious mind. So, yeah, I think there's more ritual in that for me than the writing process, interestingly enough.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

I totally relate, and I think where it feels closest to me to some kind of surrender to let's call it divinity, is before I go on stage and I'm nervous and my head's going and my heart's going, and you know, not always, but in my better moments, I just hand it over. Yes, and I don't quite know what I'm handing it over to, but it's some kind of like okay, like there's nothing I can do other than just show up in my in myself as a poet, in my you know, quote unquote power as a poet. Let me just throw that up into the air, walk on that stage and yeah, see what comes out. It's pure presence.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

When when you're in the true flow state, it's pure presence. What a feeling. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

And it's in those states where you know, I walk off that stage and I'm like, oh, this is why I do it. But it doesn't feel for me personally just me doing it. It's like there's a little pact before I walk on with something bigger than me. Again, I don't know what that something is. Maybe it's just creation in itself, but we've made a little pact, and I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna hand it over to you, you're gonna hand it over to me. Let's just surrender, show up to this wonderful audience and go for it. And those moments where you are in that flow state, oh, it's so good.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

It's like a drug.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

It's I'm so serious.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

It's really I I think in my younger years I was addicted to it.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Yeah, yeah. And there's certain poets, like I think of Buddy Wakefield, for example, where I've seen I feel like he really encompasses that presence very well when he performs, and I've seen you know, Buddy perform and felt like wow, there's something like holy going on here, and I think it is just because he is able more often than not to just be so present with his work and with the audience. But when a poet is presenting like that, it feels magic. It really does. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

And yeah, again, I think the parallels with church are there. The sermon. Yeah, and people gathering and listening to one voice.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Um for an elevated yeah, state, not necessarily a high, but some kind of shift out of the ordinary of where they're at. Yes. Like a new emotion, a new perspective. Uh yeah, like it's such a powerful thing. Sometimes my writing practice at the moment is a bit all over the place because of having my daughter and yeah, navigating other commitments, but I do sometimes sort of mark my writing. I might light a candle, I might go for a walk, I might do a bit of free writing before I begin, and I'll do something at the end to sort of close it. And I love I think I love a ritual.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

I think you're very good at that. I think I think there's something about your constitution that really lends itself to that type of um what would the word be? Forward thinking and sort of being able to imagine and create a scene for yourself. Whereas I feel like I sort of stumble into the writing process. I almost have to trick myself into it. Uh so that you're like, no, no, we're just washing up, we're just up.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Right, we're just gonna sit at the laptop, we're just gonna sit at the laptop.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

You know, and send an email. And if a work comes, if some words come out, some words come out, right? There has to sort of be a sleight of hand there. Whereas I think in so many aspects of how you are, I see an intentionality and a and a reverence that is you know really admirable. I think in in way in ways I like and in ways I also don't like so much, depending on the day, I think I have a very um spontaneous, um sort of iterative way of working.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

That's such a key word because I I love that you see that in me, and there is something I I absolutely do like lean towards in terms of ritual and and the power of that, and how many times I've seen that in different religious communities and it's spoken to me, but I do think it's a bit of a control thing as well. Yeah, like it's a lack of spontaneity, and it's a you know, in the mad chaos of art and being an artist and the world at large, it it's some kind of you know, it's a marker of time, it's a it's a bit of a control technique as well. That I'm sure that's part of why it's in religion and in church and and so on as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

I mean, everything has its shadow aspect, right? You know, all traits. So yeah, there's a the control thing, and I guess there's also the associative power, right? The Pavlovian conditioning of okay, when this when this candle is lit, when the smell of it starts to float through the air, I associate that with the act of writing, right? And how you're sort of you know kicking your your mind into gear in that way, um, which I think is a very good thing. I think association is so powerful, you know, if you have the luxury of a room that is just your writing room, right? And the the associative power of that. Um, whereas, you know, again, like I said, you know, sometimes I'm writing on the sofa, sometimes I'm writing at the table, sometimes I'm writing in bed, sometimes I'm writing, you know what I mean? So there's that that that sense of place and specificity is not really there. Um, and you know, it's not good, it's not bad, it's what it is. But I do think if you can create associations, it's really powerful, but not to the extent where, oh, I can't write unless it's a mole skin and this particular pen, or I can't write unless you know I've got myself facing window. And you know, people can start to get into some preciousness of needing X, Y, and Z. And at the end of the day, you can write with anything anywhere in the most inauspicious of circumstances. Don't wait for the optimum time where you've got a whole day to yourself and you've got you know perfect notebook and the perfect pen. Like, if you can have that, great, but don't let that be the reason that you don't write.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

And you know, I have to go to that church, I have to hear that prayer before I can fully start talking to God, I have to, you know, smell that incense or whatever. And it's like, do we? Or is there some direct channel to God, to creativity, to ourselves, whatever it is that you know, and I think it the same applies exactly like you're saying when it comes to our writing practice. It's like we don't need all these things, we just need to keep showing up to that expression and that relationship and see what comes out. Absolutely. Do you um do you think there is a relationship between creativity and the sacred? And when I say the sacred, uh insert whatever version of that feels relevant to you because I know how bored this is and yeah, I mean these these these words intimidate me, you know, words like sacred.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Again, because you know, if I was going to put a label on myself, which you know I I I'm not super keen to do, I guess I would fit in the agnostic box. Um so notions of the sacred are harder to grasp within that. Um like I said, I'm very open to the idea of there being something more, and I've definitely had moments in my life that sort of uh defy language, honestly, where I have this sense of something something larger, something um profound uh that can't be accounted for with science or with logic. Um so I have I have that there, and when it pertains to writing, I do think there are moments, and it's so cheesy, and you know, it's been said in different ways by many people, where you do feel like you were the vessel for something that just sort of existed fully formed, and you happen to be sitting down at your desk at the right time and the right place to catch it, but the sense that you are the author of that doesn't quite feel right. Yeah, I really know what you mean. Um, I mean, this is a very rare experience for me.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

So for me.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Absolutely. And I imagine there is a way as a writer you could probably um train yourself and your mind to have these experiences more often. But every now and then something sort of moves through you, a story, an idea, a poem, and it's sort of it just it just it it slides, it glides, it's it's um it's not work at all. Um you completely forget yourself, you sort of you're not even in your own body. And then you almost come to and you're like, oh, and the poem's there, and you barely need to edit it. And you know, it's it's it's it's quite it's quite scary actually. Um because again, you know, I can't account for it, I can't explain to you what that is. And you know, people have talked about, you know, the the the muses, and and I think Elizabeth Gilbert talks about it in Big Magic. Um, I know that you're a fan of her most recent memoir. Um, so that's not a new idea, you know. The Greeks talked about that. Um, you know, divine inspiration, and the word inspire means to it the Greek root is breathe, right? Like to breathe in, right? So that sense of you know something's moving through your body. So, you know, there's there's a sort of etymological uh sense of that process, right? Of um of writing an inspiration um that has a long precedent. Um but yeah, the word sacred, oh gosh, it's so big, you know. I mean, this all of these words are big, her this conversation's big. Yeah, and I think as a writer that you know really quite delights in the silly and the profane, um, and you know, you know, sacredness in the in the in the profane and profanity in the sacredness, right? You know, everything is everything. Um, but yeah, I think words like sacred are not really in my vocabulary, but as I think about it, there are definitely moments I've had as a writer, both in the writing process and as a performer, that have just felt like like bigger than anything I'm able to articulate with my puny English language. How about you? Writing and sacredness.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

It is a big word. And like you said, I love applying it to the ordinary and thinking about the sacred within our everyday lives. The the moment we get, you know, as friends, where we're giggling on the sofa, the moment I get with my daughter, you know, like the sacredness that we find within the mundane. I absolutely have had those moments, both performing and writing, but they feel very far away now in this moment of thinking. I couldn't recall when, how, what it felt like. I just know it has happened, and it's it's absolutely felt in terms of writing that something has taken over, and you're not consciously like, ooh, I'm being possessed. Yeah, yeah. But something has taken over. Um, at the end of the process, you read it back and you're like, wow, like this is formed, I don't need to edit it. It's powerful, it makes sense, it's interesting, and yeah, it feels like a moment of sort of in inspiration has landed for whatever reason, and it feels great, of course. There's no struggle, there's almost a sense of um what's the word? Like, yeah, there's not so much ownership as well, it doesn't belong to you as much, so there's not so much sensitivity around it. And absolutely, I've had those moments on stage where it's felt, as I said earlier, that just something very magical is taking place and it's happening through me. But yeah, it's been a while, and I think now in this conversation, why has it been a while? I think my life right now is it's very heady, it's I'm in the kind of thick of quite a lot of challenge, and it makes complete sense that the the sort of ease of inspiration just entering and leaving, it it's not as it doesn't land as as easily, does it, when you're kind of in the trenches.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Is there is there any process more creative than parenthood?

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Like the constant creation that that well, there's the sacred in the ordinary, isn't it? That that you couldn't get more, you know, shitty nappies and you know, sleepless nights and all of the most kind of boring, mundane, but yet this profound love, this profound sacrifice, this profound creativity.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Again, I want to reiterate creativity. I don't think people think of it that way. They think about the love, they think about the sacrifice, they think about the the duty, and yes, certainly, as you say, the the mundane routine. But to me, good parenting is a deeply creative act. You're constantly having to unlearn the child you knew yesterday or last week because you know they've changed again, their tastes have changed, their um how they how they walk has changed, their developmental stages just keep coming and coming and coming. You're having to respond to this new person who sees the world through these fresh eyes, and you're having to look at look at the world again. You thought you had the measure of things, you know, you're pretty jaded, you've been there and done that, and then a kid makes you look again and again, right? Um Do you feel that you you've experienced this with your godson? Um, absolutely, absolutely. I just think it's so I'm having to think on my feet all the time. Yeah, you know, he's now at that age where you know it's the big questions, the questions that make you go, God, I don't even, I don't know. You know, you're Googling, like, what is that? Um and just, you know, the the the really funny slips of language that are incorrect but are in like, you know, incidentally poetic. You know, many is the poet that's stolen lines from their toddler, right? Because they're just so genius. Yeah, they're so um unself-consciously and um accidentally profound. Um, because again, they're not filtering through um wanting to be liked or wanting to sound wise or sound funny or whatever, right? So they say all these brilliant things, they are more inherently poetic than we ever are, right? We're so much of what we're trying to do in workshops is to get back to that sort of unmediated state of thought and play, right? That stream of consciousness. Yes, exactly. So um I think being around children and raising children is a very creative act, and the probably the only reason we don't think of it that way is that you know it's been largely the preserve of women throughout time, and you know, that's no shade to fathers, there's lots of present fathers. Um but you know, I think the very fact that we often have a lot of outsized praise for fathers for doing their job, um, and a mother is just expected to be doting and to play with her children and to always be coming up with novel ways to keep them occupied and delighted and affirmed, which again is a very creative thing to be constantly doing. Um no one sees it that way because it's just what women do, supposedly. Um, but I think it's really important to reclaim that as a creative act, especially for mothers who are artists and feel like being a mother compromises there are, and I'm sure in many ways, you know, that's a perfectly legitimate way to feel, right? That you have less time and less energy for that, and that is a sad thing, but to sort of reframe it as like this is like not my new project, you know, your child is not your project, but like almost like this collaboration, like this this, you know, 18 plus year long collaboration of creation between me and this this child.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

That's I love that. And I mean, obviously, even the act of just creating the child, right? You know, like birthing the child, carrying the child, like it is the closest I've ever felt to kind of representing something godlike in my own being. It's like, wow, I'm I'm literally creating life and birthing life, and yeah, you can't get more, you can't get more God than that. Right, right. How incredible.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Yeah, and it happens all the time, so we don't often sit with the absolute miracles. Yeah, the unfathomable brilliance of that. You know, it's just cook up a whole other human being in your womb. Like, how insane. Yeah, insane. Um, yeah, and there's no other experience that it's comparable to. Um, you know, people will often talk about, oh yeah, you know, I birthed my book, you know, when people have written books, or you know, oh I'm a dog mum and whatever. You know, people try and make the comparisons, but I just think it is such a singular experience.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

It really is, but you know, there is something of the book. The dog mum thing. I'm sorry of the dog mums out there. I've got a lot of dog mum friends, and I I quietly am like, I hear you. I've got a gorgeous cat called onion who was my son for a very long time before I had a child, and it's it is enough, it's a different ball game.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Listen, I listen, you're being very diplomatic. I don't respect that. I'll respect that. Let's let's wind our necks in. Plant mums, dog mums. Have a day off. That's not we're not doing that. Sorry, plant mums and dog mums.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

But there is something about the book that you know it's such a long commitment. It's such a long going, ongoing relationship that at times you you do feel sick, you feel weary, you feel exhausted, you feel elated, you feel inspired, like and then it literally is birthed. It's suddenly in the world, it's in people's hands, people are passing it around, people are breastfeeding it.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

No, do you know I mean the analogy analogy started to crumble? Um I hear you, but I think I think there is something very specific about um the you know being pregnant, giving birth, and then raising that child process that is different, which is that yes, like you know, the baby gestating is its own thing, but then the work begins when the baby's born. Whereas when you uh publish a book, you sort of let it go. You let it go. So, you know, you've done your work, and yes, you might, you know, do some book events, etc. But there is a sense of like, and on to the next. Whereas, you know, when you give birth to that baby, you're not you're not like well, some people do, um uh you know, that does happen, but you know, for the most part, that's when the work starts. So that's another reason why I don't think it's quite analogous. But I for sure the process of writing can feel very arduous. Um you go through the whole gamut of emotions for sure. But you know, out of respect for all of the parents I know, I just try not to compare. I don't think it compares, you know. And you know, as someone that's done both, you know, you can you can really speak to the differences and similarities.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

But I mean, of course there's differences, absolutely. We're talking about a human and a book, but there is something mentally and emotionally that yeah, where there is connectors. I think just in being in process and so consumed by something that comes from within you, and you then let out of you into the world, and in some ways, you know, every day that passes, I'm kind of letting go of my daughter, which is heartbreaking as the way it is. And I think, yeah, there is something about the book as well. Like you said, when it's free of you, it's into the the world and into the hands of everyone else, and we let go of that. I'm gonna um ask you a question, which I think is related. Um, this idea of like awe, and you know, I I think I've come so close to awe through the birth of my daughter, but you know, I could recall lots of other moments of as well. I know someone actually who wrote a PhD paper on awe, AWE, and um he was researching what ignited that feeling most in people, and he concluded it was the murmuration. And people, yeah, watching the murmuration.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Do you remember we went together we went together at Hamwall?

SPEAKER_00 37:05

I do remember the Starlings, yeah. So beautiful, I do remember that with Ursula, wasn't it? Yeah, beautiful. Um I'm thinking about awe, and I'm thinking about how that ignites in us, and of course, we then translate inspiration onto the page, don't we? Like we need to be moved, inspired, questioning something to then want to write about it. Can you think of any particular experiences of awe and this sort of how and how would you define awe? Like what's the feeling of that to you? And is it I guess my next question, if you remember this when we start talking, is do you then translate that onto the page? Or does sometimes you just have experiences that are just finesse in the world and it doesn't have to be art? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

I think it's very important that everything that not everything has to be uh metastased and made into art and specifically a product. I mean, I think there's worth in writing a poem or you know, a song or whatever else that doesn't go anywhere that's sort of a um a manifestation of that awe that you might have felt when you went for a walk or you know, after you know going to a really great party, or you know, there's so many different things that might give you that sense of awe. Um what does it for you? I'm curious. Um lots of things, lots of things. Um nature, um and you know, it doesn't have to be something exceptional. I think people often think they have to be, you know, at the on the on at the top of Kilimangiro or Machu Picchu or the most stunning untouched beach, and you know, for sure. But in a way, it's almost there's something a bit crass about the need for things to be the most stunning and the most picturesque, the most heightened, exactly, and you know, I think there's a lot to be said for you know your local, your humble local park, and you know, it might be a very common flower that you see, but just because it's common doesn't mean it isn't beautiful. Pigeons, you know, some of them pigeons with the little iridescence they got on their wings, like yeah, fab. Wow, you know what I mean? Um so I think for me, again, it's about uh accessing that childlike part of you. Like a child that's never seen bubbles before, they're looking at the bubbles like yo, and then you look at the bubbles as an adult that's seen bubbles how many times, and you and you go, actually, yeah, wow. So I think it's about getting into that mindset. But um, yeah, I think that's the beauty of it is that when I'm feeling jaded and sort of um misery and small for whatever reason, like I could be on the most stunning beach in the world and feel nothing.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Oh, I remember that so clearly years ago being on a beach in Mexico and having that really clear feeling of like everything here is paradise, and yet I've brought me along with me. Right. Um and it doesn't feel nothing matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter because yeah, right now what's happening in me is not paradise. Right. Therefore.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Yeah, I might as well be in an alleyway on Secretary Road by the bins, right? Whereas if I'm feeling spacious and open and childlike, and I'm actually looking at the world rather than being an autopilot, I can be walking down a street that I walk down all the time and just see things and be like, oh wow, cool. Um, look at that like chair that someone's left outside their house. Oh, it's got the interesting colour there. And again, like even things that aren't quote unquote beautiful typically, um, I can find the beauty or the or the story in them, right? Um, you know, a little bit of uh rubbish, you know, you're like, oh, I wonder who dropped that, or you know, so often, even just our eye level, right, gives us a particular lens on the world. But when you just look up, I often think about this when you're like walking down a street with loads of shops, and then you look up, and there's often um residential housing at the top, and you look, and you know, you'll see someone's like put like an interesting little figurine on their windowsill, or you just see a person sort of really quietly reading a book or whatever, and you get a little glimpse into a world, and that's one thing about me. I'm very nosy. I love to, I love to if people have their curtains open.

SPEAKER_00 41:37

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

I'm trying to look in, I'm trying to see what's popping in there, what's happening, what they're talking about, were you watching the telly? Like what's the I try to like work out the dynamic between two people and the sofa's like, why are they sitting so far apart?

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Like but this is the the you know, it's the artist, it's the storyteller in us, isn't it? He's looking for those narratives, he's looking for those conversations. Or and curiosity are like very close cousins, yeah, for sure. Um Do you have the next, not that it's a level up to this at all, but do you have the next inquiry to that where say you see that turn the side of the road or you see a your gorgeous pigeon? Are you it is that enough in its own right for you to feel like wow, beautiful or or curious? Is there then the next level of inquiry that's like what is this? Why is this here? Like, what is all this beauty? Is there some is there someone beyond this? Is there something beyond that? Or or do you sort of just leave it as it as is? Your experience of it is enough?

SPEAKER_01 42:40

Yeah, I think so. Um, you know, the the question why, again, another one that you know young kids love, you know, that they want to know why, why, why, why, why for everything. And I think it's a very important question. And I think, you know, being an artist is preoccupying yourself with unanswerable questions, in essence, right? If you if the question can be answered, there's no point writing a book or a play or a film about it, right? Um, so there is that, but I I do really love just letting something be because I think you know, for our for us as professional artists that make money sometimes from from what we create, um, that process of constantly looking at the world and and being in relationship to people and thinking about how you're gonna make art from it that might make you some money, I do think it can creep into something quite sort of extractive.

SPEAKER_00 43:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

So there is something restorative for me in just experiencing something or looking at something and thinking it's beautiful and that being enough. Right. That that that still being an act of creation, the fact that I took the time to engage with something and experience it and and acknowledge, I think that's really beautiful or I think that's really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

And we've talked a lot lately about this shift in us both towards peace and y you know, just really wanting. Like a peaceful, easeful kind of existence where we are noticing the sound of a bird singing, and you know, the way the light moves through the tree, and and that being enough. And maybe that's aging, maybe that's just navigating certain things in life and reaching a point where what you once prioritise shifts. But I'm feeling like there's less to prove, you know. Yeah, maybe less to prove and less to find. But I must say, you know, I absolutely have those moments where I'm embracing the the beauty or the curiosity or the joy of something, but I do quite often slip into and why? Like, why why is this and why is this here? And I I notice myself, and maybe this comes back to the example my dad gave of like it's in it's an extreme, so it's either when I'm in some form of despair and I'm like, why? And I I need this kind of dialogue to then happen, and I need a a sign or some kind of exchange where I'm on the phone trying to reach G O D, whatever G O D is, and I'm like, come on. God has a phone, yeah. Did you not know? Unlimited data. Yeah. Oh two unlimited. Amazing. Um great signal.

SPEAKER_02 45:27

My God has a telephone. Here we've calling every baby.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

Or it's in times of elation and joy where I'm like, wow, this is so beautiful. Let let me try and make sense and have a conversation with you about this.

SPEAKER_01 45:57

And um Yeah, you know, I find it's in those kind of lows or highs that I'm that reminds grabbling around for yeah, that reminds that reminds me of um a bit from Vladimir Nabakov's book Speak Memory, and he talks about how you know this sort of this desire to pursue beauty or to sort of possess it is like a lepidopterist. So um someone who studies butterflies, and you know, they they take them and they pin them, right? So in order to to have the beauty, you kill it, right? And I think sometimes that happens. I mean, of course, you know I think I'm almost you know bashing the process of you know taking experiences and writing about them. Of course, I I I still do that and love that, and my whole life is reading books where other people have looked at the world, made observations and then written them down. So obviously I am an advocate for that. But I do also think, ironically, in this book, what he describes is very true that sometimes that pursuit to to to try and um articulate or to understand can like kill kill the thing, you know, and sometimes something being ineffable, inexpressible, uh elusive is is part of it, part of the beauty.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

And our going back to our surrender of it is and us just going, yeah, this in it in and of itself is God, is not God, is everything, is enough, is okay, like, yeah, and we don't have to keep questioning or adding more to the mix.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

It's yeah, but I think I think I think to add to that, questioning is great, actually, but I think as an end and of itself, right? To not actually want an answer necessarily. Because once you have an answer, then then then something's closed, right?

SPEAKER_00 47:46

I remember when I was starting to question as a kid if there was such a thing as God. So we moved from Margate when I was eight. So and it was I was at a sleepover at a neighbour's house. I was definitely before the age of eight, and I was already like, what is this? Like I really clearly remember going into church with my dad and them saying, Our father, our father, and I thought they were talking about him. I was like, anyway. Um always, yeah, it's always been such a masculine thing, the Christian church for me. Anyway, so I was at the friend's house, let's say I was six, seven, and I wet the bed and I was mortified. I think they were like a a little bit older friend, I was absolutely mortified, didn't know what to do. I really remember this. I remember praying so hard. If you're real, if there's a God, please like take this we away from the sheets, basically. I know. And I woke up in the morning and it had gone. And it had gone, Vanessa, because I probably did it very early in the evening and it had dried. Yeah. But at the time, you know, I didn't clock that, I didn't realise it had dried, I just thought a miracle had taken place. And I'd reached out, I'd picked up the phone, I'd made my requests, and I'd been heard. And I think that yeah, I absolutely agree, and I love this commitment to a life where we are just moving through it and we're being inspired and we're moved by things, and sometimes we write about them, sometimes we just let them be in their own right. And I also love this part of us as humans that goes, and are you listening? Whatever might be out there, like, are you listening to this this request, this anguish, this joy, this this curiosity? And um I don't have an answer if if it is being heard or not. I reckon if there is a god, they'd be listening to this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 49:51

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. On his on his on his headphones, yeah, with his with his phone and his data plan.

SPEAKER_03 49:58

Falling and falling, falling into falling, falling into an ocean tide, an ocean tight and big. You're an ocean tide.

SPEAKER_01 50:44

Notion tight and I think when you're someone who is open to science, you'll you'll find them, you know, and people who are very cynical and skeptical about that sort of thing, but that's not a that's not real. Again, that very sort of science-minded thing. Um but you know, people talk a lot about, you know, oh, if you've um lost a loved one, I think it's when a robin, no, is it a robin? There's a particular bird that will come and that will come and like visit you to sort of let you know that you know your loved one is okay. Um and you know, you could say, you know, what's that? That's hogwash. Um and you know, I think there is a part of my brain that accepts that you know that's one of those arbitrary through again you're looking for comfort and you will place it in whatever you see. But I I another part of me really loves the idea that we are symbol seekers, right? Um and whatever you believe is true, right? Because again, this is actually science, like um we have uh cognitive bias. So whatever we believe, we we seek out, you know, we look for proof of what we already believe. So, in that sense, you know, I I do think the world gives you the symbols that you need to reiterate whatever view you have of the world, which obviously can be quite dark if you've got a dark view of the world, but you know, if what you're looking for is is comfort, a sense of belonging, a sense of there being forces outside of you that are sort of you know um loving and supportive, um and you look for signs of that in nature and in other people, I I I I think that's a beautiful thing, and then it and then it becomes true because you're looking for it and you're hopefully like exuding that energy too. And so that that cycle I think is a is a very beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00 52:47

I love that. Right, babe. Wrap it up there. I think um, yeah, I think this is the moment where I say thank you so much with your gorgeous hangover. Well, you're just tired, huh? I'm just tired.

SPEAKER_05 53:01

She's just tired in your gorgeous flat.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

Yeah, thank you so much for joining me on a Saturday morning. It's as always so good to talk to you and pick your brain and your your heart. Oh, thank you. I love hearing your uh perspectives and your yeah, your ideas about the world.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

Well, thank you for the duty questions. All right, all right, that's that. Hi, bye everyone. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 53:53

Thank you so much for joining us. My name is Rebecca Antoni, host and creator of Before the Poet. I want to end giving a huge shout out to our supporters and contributors. Firstly, thank you to Vanessa Kazule for your generous time. Secondly, thanks to Imblaze for your support, for your belief in this idea, for our continual relationship. Without you, none of this would be possible. I want to go to our credits and list everyone who has contributed to this as today. To VJ Galaxy for the choral Christian Latin music, Little Squirrel by Panther Panther, Moonlight in Over by Panther Panther, Pigeon Theatre Crowd and Applause from BBC Sound Effects Library, Sweet Lament by Panther Panther, Aaron Fraser, My God Has a Telephone, Falling Into You, Poppy Villarez Sacred Song, Roy Green and Pro Tone You Did This, featuring Jewel, and all other music, sound design, and incredible skill when it comes to audio is by Panther Panther, aka Happy Love Villarreal. I want to give one last shout out to our plant mums, our dog mums, our cat mums. I love you, I see you, I am you.