Salena Godden on poetry, short stories and her memoir Springfield Road
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| 'Her writing is urgent, detailed and, like all love stories, her memoir is intense, intimate...' The Times |
McVeigh: You write poetry and fiction, what brought you to write a memoir?
Godden: Around 8 or 9 years ago I was invited to try my hand at memoir by Kevin Conroy Scott. He was my agent then and I blame all of this on him. These stories, dreams and memories were harboured and hidden underneath me. Once I wrote one of these chapters the rest soon began to follow, like moths to the flame, bats out of the cave... I was much more comfortable writing fiction and poetry than betraying myself by revealing my interior world, the darkness I knew as a child and the love. Whilst writing this I went to libraries and book shops and couldn't find my story, my generation, my voice, this drove me to get it right, to get it finished, funded and published and now it is driving me to get it read.
McVeigh: Were you ever tempted to turn it into a
work of fiction?
Godden:
McVeigh: Do you find your work is often autobiographical?
Godden: Yes.
My poetry mostly is isn't it. I try to disguise myself in my fiction but I'm usually in the room even if I am not the narrator or main protagonist.
McVeigh: How did your family feel about you writing
about them?
Godden: My mother was a rock though the whole process, from first draft to here and the finished thing. She provided me with letters and diaries and photographs and all the support in the world. My brother Gus just kept saying "So long as you make me look good..." which makes me laugh, he has no idea how much I love him and what a source of strength and inspiration he was and still is. My family are very proud. My close friends tell me they are proud of me too. Strangers have been writing to me telling they love the book. I am overwhelmed and humbled by the responses, letters and messages. Thank you.
McVeigh: Springfield Road was published by Unbound
which is a unique publishing model. Can you tell me a little about that
publishing model and how you came to work with them?
Godden: I first met the brilliant John Mitchinson and Rachael Kerr when I was performing at Voewood Literary Festival. John said that driving home he heard one of my pieces on BBC Radio 4 and liked the programme I had made. I think it all sprang from there... I love being an Unbound comrade. I feel I am as fiercely independent as ever, just as I was back when Peter Coyte and I were putting out SaltPeter music. Selling books and records: It's always going to be hard work and I have never been shy of rolling my sleeves up and getting stuck in. The crowd fund was sometimes a struggle, sometimes hard to keep going, but most of the time a mixture of very exciting and very humbling because hundreds of complete strangers were being so supportive, generous and kind.
Surely anything good is going to be a bit difficult and hard work to achieve. All of this, the ups and downs, is like a test of your endurance so you just keep going, because there is no turning back is there. The Unbound team are supportive, creative and a lot of fun to have beers with. There is a lot of love for books there at Unbound and also my poetry publisher Burning Eye, my golden number one motto "Go where the love is!" There is a lot of love here.
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| The memoir Springfield Road |
McVeigh: I recognised so many things in the book
from my own upbringing. I was thinking about when you a brought up with little
it is something that crosses cultures, the shared story of those without. What
would you say are the biggest things it taught you?
Godden: So many people are telling me that the book brought up memories of their own childhood and upbringing. When I set out to write this book I wasn't sure what was driving me but now I believe I have succeeded in capturing a time and place in childhood that we can all recall and I'm not sure it was my original intention but I think that is magic. I have had messages from people that read the book out loud to each other, partners and lovers reading to each other, this was a wonderful thing to be told. I am still learning, I am always learning, I'm not sure what writing this book has taught me, some patience, not a lot of patience, but some! My impatience is one of my biggest flaws. That and moving the goal posts.
McVeigh: Could you tell me a story or memory from
your life that didn't make it into the memoir?
Godden: Ah so much was taken out. I wouldn't know where to begin. The original first draft of Springfield Road was something like a whopping 130,000 words, a tonne of stories and characters didn't make it into the book. I wanted to include more stories about some of the waifs and strays that stayed in the house on Springfield Road. My Grandpa George was very christian in the kind hearted and old fashioned meaning of the word, he took refugees and homeless people into the house on Springfield Road. eg. There was a pirate called Burt who stayed for a while, he was covered in tattoos. His arms covered in inky pictures of half naked women. I think he was really an old Naval veteran or something…Me and Gus really liked him.
My Grandpa
George was very Christian in the kind hearted and old fashioned meaning of the
word, he took refugees and homeless people in...
McVeigh: You have an extraordinary memory. So much
detail. Did you have it all in your head or did you talk to your family or use
diaries or example?
Godden: Weirdly I remember more about what it feels like to be nine years old than what I had for breakfast today. My long term memory is good but also I can relate more to the moon-bathing cloud-bothering day-dreamer I was when I was nine than the act of the grown up lady I am supposed to be now.
My mother did give me diaries and letters too, but then that was writing via borrowed memories and borrowed facts but it did give me some factual background. Food, smells, taste and music awoke a lot of childhood memories: the smell of roasting chicken takes me back to my mums kitchen on a Sunday, the taste of a felt tip pen nib, the sound of an ice cream van bells tingling in the distance…
McVeigh: You write in many forms - poetry, short
stories and now memoir (anything else?). When you have an idea do you know the
form it fits or do you try it out and discover?
Godden: I have written poetry, short stories, fiction, essays, radio plays, memoir and music and lyrics...
It all started privately, I started writing songs from 7 or 8. I remember writing love songs and sweet songs about the sky and the sea and that kind of thing. They were 1950's malt shop songs, with easy rhymes and melodies. Then as teenager it was songs inspired by The Beatles and Prince lyrics, songs about sex, peace and love, anti war and anti bombs, drinking cider and tripping on mushrooms.
As I grew older the bank of writings got bigger and fatter but I became frustrated that they didn't all have melodies or fit a verse / chorus structure.
When I was 19 or 20 I met and drank with poetry legend Jock Scot and I confided this to him and he told me that they're poems... This is where it all started. Blame Jock. I did my first poetry gig with Jock Scot in 1994.
I continued to write constantly, writing on everything, beer mats, the back of menus or train tickets, and I'd never know if it would end up being a song chorus, a poem or the opening line in some dialogue, a narrative and a new shorts story. I still have boxes of scraps of notes and beer mats. The writing usually goes where it wants to be, most of my ideas begin as jokes or something overheard or a dream and then blossom from there.
This has nothing to do with the question but I am reminded of this:
I used to play chess with myself. I'd move the white pieces sober and the black when I came home drunk. One morning I woke up and found all the chess pieces in an orgy pile kissing each other. As writers we constantly leave notes, clues, letters and maps, ideas and dreams from different perspectives to here and now, all stashed and banked for use later, like a squirrel.
McVeigh: Do you have a form you prefer?
At the moment I'm enjoying writing short stories. I love making radio more than anything and want to write and record more plays.
I have developed an interest in theatre and for the first time in my life I am imagining a Theatre space and writing something for the stage...
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| 'Salena Godden is a powerhouse' Sabotage Reviews |
McVeigh: You have a presence on the live
performance/reading scene. What is it about the live experience that draws you
there?
Godden: The stage was my first stop. When I was 20 years old the vibe of the live experience meant a lot more to me as young poet than getting in print or on air. I focused on gigs, readings, opportunities to travel overseas to do festivals and the live aspect, interacting with new audiences, this excited me and still does.
Although I did submit work to editors and magazines and had some success getting published in zines etc. I really wanted to read at gigs where poetry wasn't supposed to exist. I read my poetry supporting skate-punk bands like The Flying Medallionsand I read poems at raves and clubs over drum and bass beats. None of these early gigs were filmed or recorded (thank god!) not in the way we film and photograph everything now. I'm glad there was no youtube then. Some of those nights were legendary and in SaltPeter we used to have a right laugh on stage - I hope I still take some of that mischief and infectious anarchy onto stage.
I never do the same set twice, I try to read the crowd, get a feel for what they need to hear V's what I want to indulge in V's the rude poems they know or expect me to do.
I am drawn by new challenges and new audiences, that's why I often do some off-the-beaten-track gigs and appear in unusual places. Nobody wants to preach to the converted. I want to read poetry to people who think they hate poetry. I also want to read my poetry to people who close the gates of poetry and smash open the gates.
Follow Salena's excellent blog Waiting for Godden.
Catch Salena live here:
Feb 8th: Jazz Verse Jukebox / Ronnie Scott's, Soho London
Feb 29th: Rally and Broad / Edinburgh / Gig & Workshop
March 9th: 3 memoirs / Colin Grant, Salena Godden & Gabriel Gbadamosi / Kings Place, London
Listen to her interviews:
BBC R4: 'Loose Ends' feat. Salena Godden is available Here
BBC R3: 'The Verb' Viv Albertine and Salena Godden on Mixcloud
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