Emerging Poet Spotlight: Katie O’Pray
Meet our 2021 Emerging Poet: Katie O’Pray!
O’Pray is a poet based in Bedfordshire, UK, currently working towards a degree in Linguistics & Creative Writing at the University of Hertfordshire. Read more about their journey as a poet below, alongside their winning poem: “Both gloves”.
RWF: What made you want to become a poet?
O’Pray: I started writing poetry almost instinctively, as a place to put my most overwhelming thoughts and feelings. My interest developed through hungrily reading and listening to poems, that articulated things I wasn't yet able to. When I began studying a creative writing poetry module at university, I gained a wider knowledge of the craft and had more practice, feedback and confidence.
Over the last 4 years, I've been lucky enough to know and learn from so many incredible poets. Becoming a poet has not only allowed me to connect with my own sense of self, but a wider community of whom I am forever grateful. I feel like I could've found the thing that makes sense for me to be.
RWF: What is your method to writing poetry?
O’Pray: I usually find ideas that I'm interested in or odd lines accumulating while I'm doing mindless tasks, like washing up or waiting for the bus. I tend to free write from there. I let my brain jump around, uncensored, and pass no judgement on anything that comes out. I allow myself to be driven by the wonder at where the poem will end up - excited at what I unpredicted thing I could read back when I finish.
This part doesn't always generate phenomenal poetry; it's more cathartic than anything. I return to these free writes at a later stage, and type them up, with a more ruthless and editorial perspective, which leads to the finished poem.
RWF: By now, you know a little bit more about ruth weiss and her history. How does her work inspire you?
O’Pray: ruth weiss was an icon - the experimentation and authenticity seen in her work; the fierce glee with which she lived; the spaces she created to let fellow artists explore their otherness. it is such an honour to receive this prize in her name. ruth weiss interwove poetry with her life in a way that welcomed and shaped generations. even in the wake of her death, she is empowering somebody like me. I hope to engage with her ideology in my own work, and carry forward her love of artistic havens, non-conformity and her gritty faith in "the spiral that keeps on going".
RWF: What does winning this award mean to you?
O’Pray: I am entirely awestruck and just so grateful to have won this award. To have this recognition of the hard work I have been doing, and this faith in me, my vision and my poetry, is incredible. I've been feeling a weird mix of pride and disbelief. This poem was written about a very precarious and fearful time in my life, in the Spring of this year. This is a fitting farewell to that era, and a very sentimental achievement for me. It means more to me than I could articulate.
RWF: What are you planning on doing with the 2021 Emerging Poet grant funds?
O’Pray: I plan to put some of the money towards visiting fellow poets in Brighton, London & Norwich, with whom I would love to work on further collaborative projects. I have a few ideas up my sleeve with the focus of creating online and physical spaces that invite beginners and veterans alike to share poetry. My philosophy is one that acknowledges poetry's inseparability from the poet's innermost emotions, and where they are placed in wider society. With these funds, I would like to share that, and share poetry's inherent links to identity, community, vulnerability, healing and liberation.
