An Interview with Catherine Balaq (Issue 8)
ZM: How old were you when you started writing?
CB: I wrote as a teenager, as most of us did I imagine, bits of song lyrics, sulky expressions on my latest heartbreak, scribbles on school books when I was supposed to be doing maths. I was the one to look out the window when a lesson wasn’t interesting. The only class I can recall engaging with outside of art was English. At A level I fell in love with Milton’s Paradise Lost, Marlow's Dr Faustus, Shakespeare's The Tempest, and Dante’s Trilogy. The subject matter of these is still a major influence in my work. I took a degree in Creative Arts and poetry was part of that. After undergrad I trained as a psychotherapist and didn’t write further than academic essays and notes for 15 years. I came back to writing at 40 and in the last 6 years I have published 2 collections of poems and my debut novel is forthcoming.
ZM: Has your writing routine changed over the years?
CB: My writing routine is quite open and free these days. I write around my family, having taken time away from psychotherapy, writing is my main focus. I write from 9am to 3pm with breaks for lunch, swimming, chats with friends. I try not to write in the evenings as my brain needs time to settle before sleep, but if I have a deadline or I’m in a manic creative phase, I’ll be writing at all hours. Sometimes I pull over in a lay-by to get the words down, or wake up in the night to message myself words that often look like nonsense in the morning. Some of my best ideas originate from dreams so I think it’s important to let the subconscious speak, get those first thoughts written down.
ZM: Would you say writing gets easier or harder over time?
CB: I think writing is always hard to some degree, it takes a bargain with yourself to focus inwards deeply, and also look outwards further than we do in day-to-day life, all art does. Things like editing and learning how to structure get easier, as does sharing work for feedback, which is the most important part of getting better at what you do. Of course it needs to be with carefully chosen others whom you trust will feedback to you with honesty and integrity.
ZM: Can you tell me a little about art as an inspiration for your work, and your approach to writing ekphrastic poetry?
CB: I have always been a lover of visual art. I once had my own studio space. I’d work on large canvases using my hands and body as tools to spread paint. I remember this time as one of the happiest in my life, but I haven’t painted for years. Perhaps I need to get back to it. I enjoy writing from art as it allows me to start from somewhere entirely other than myself. With ekphrastic writing I can lose myself in the art, and at other times it brings me closer to who I am. To immerse in the work of someone else, whether it is poems, writing or paintings, produces words that I would not find otherwise. There is a choice to describe directly what you see, in your own creative way, or use it as a starting point to fly off in another direction entirely. The content of the art is often a trigger for deep subconscious process. As part of my MA in poetry at The Poetry School, London, I was lucky enough to be taught by Tamar Yoseloff. She took me regularly on gallery visits where I sat for hours writing in the presence of amazing art. Tamar also runs a small press, HerculesEditions. Yoseloff started the press in 2012 with designer and art editor Vici MacDonald, with the aim of bringing together new poems with visual imagery. Worth looking up for art and poetry lovers.
Catherine Balaq is a writer and body psychotherapist. She is co-editor of Black Cat Press. Her debut collection Animaginary was published in 2023, her second collection Deathless in 2024. Catherine also writes novels and is represented by Donald Winchester at Watson Little.
ZM: And your poem Bathing. Did you have a clear idea of what you wanted to capture?
CB: Bathing was captured on a visit to the Tate last summer. I sat resting on the bench directly in front of the painting and started to describe what was in front of me. The scale of the work allows for nothing else in the field of vision. The figures enchanted me. I saw them as versions of the same being expressed as they moved through and in and over the water, or through life. It became representative to me of transformation from one state to another, the struggle and emergence of something new, the way we constantly need to adapt as humans. Grant’s work is deeply sensual, you can’t help but admire the form of the body, its curves and angles, the bodily sensations that the postures evoke.
ZM: Do you feel the last decade (or two!) has seen any changes in the way we view/read/write poetry?
CB: Times are exciting for poetry, more of us are reading it, it’s more accessible through performance work and schemes that reach out to young writers. It’s a shame that funding has seen such a big squeeze, its going to get a lot worse before it gets better. So many small presses and journals have closed doors over the last 3 years.
ZM: What are you working on now?
CB: I am currently working on my second novel, and third collection of poems which is based on the mythology and psychology of underworlds. My first collection, Animaginary, is available with The Black Cat Poetry Press. The second was published with Verve, Deathless and is available through most book retailers. Both of these collections contain many ekphrastic poems. You can loan both of my books alongside many other poetry works from The National Poetry Library for free. They also have a wonderful range of arts and poetry journals The Pomegranate included! It is my favourite place to spend a few hours.
ZM: Do you perform your poetry?
CB: I perform my poems at poetry nights and launches, but it’s not my main focus. I am an introvert and much happier sat alone writing. Performing at events takes a lot out of me. I found my voice at open mics, cut my poetry teeth by performing at slams. Now I am alone with my words more than I am on a stage with them. Reading out loud in front of an audience is an important skill for a writer to practice and maintain.
ZM: Do you have any top tips for budding poets?!
CB: Do it regularly! Write bad then write better! Get out into the world and test your work, take every opportunity to read with an audience or attend a workshop, and don’t be shy or precious about getting it right all the time. A lot of our work as writers will inevitably be rubbish. It’s the editing and feedback from your peers that will help you develop into a good writer. Find good teachers and really learn not just from their work, but from the way they practice the craft. Forging a group of peers you can share your first drafts with is essential, working in a void produces work for the void, at least for me, I am nothing without my peers and mentors. And read as much as you write, across genres. Poems,novels, plays, journals.Get rich with words! Smother yourself in them!
You can find me on Instagram @catbalaq
