
My parents came from the Indian side of Punjab. My
father arrived in Bradford in the late fifties then settled
in Yiewsley (near Heathrow Airport). My mother came to Britain
in the early sixties. My brother, Daljinder, was born in 1964
and I arrived in 1966.
We lived in Yiewsley until I had taken my CSEs in 1982 and
then moved to Sheffield where my parents bought a shop, in
Gleadless Valley. Both Yiewsley and Sheffield were predominantly
white working class areas at the time.

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At University, Professor Martin Dodsworth encouraged
me to continue writing poetry after I showed him a poem of mine (he’s
one of the men on the image left). However, I didn’t have the
confidence to continue writing after leaving university and didn’t
start writing again until I turned 30.
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When I first started writing poetry with the aim of getting published I booked
myself on a one-to-one tutorial with Ruth Padel. This was part
of a South Bank Centre initiative in 1998 where anyone could get feedback on
their work from an established poet. I showed her the few poems I had written
and she encouraged me to send my poems to magazines. I also had a one-to-one
meeting via The Poetry Society with Angela Dove who also encouraged
me to get my poems published in magazines. These two meetings really made me
take poetry writing seriously as they were critical yet positive about the potential
in my poems.
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I later booked some one-to-one feedback sessions with Pascale
Petit who helped me develop my editing skills. She was always
honest in her opinions and I really valued this with regard to my work.
I went to Pascale’s tutorial groups for about 2 years and they
really helped me develop many of my poems in my first collection. She
was also the first big publisher, as editor of Poetry London, to publish
a poem of mine (an early version of Digging) and I gave my first ever
reading as guest reader for the launch of that particular edition of
PL.
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Feedback sessions with Moniza Alvi were really good
confidence builders as well. Working with good poets helped me to keep
my self-esteem afloat. I’d often feel I was wasting my time trying
to get published when a series of magazines would reject my poems, so
meeting the likes of Moniza helped massively. I am also grateful to her
in other ways as she was the only poet of ‘Asian’ origin that
I’d heard of in contemporary poetry and reading about her in Poetry
Review’s New Generation Poets inspired me to think it was possible
for someone to write about ‘Asians’ and be successful in poetry.
The poetry world had always felt conservative, cerebral and obsessed with
the Greeks and the Romans, so reading Moniza Alvi’s The Country
at My Shoulder was my biggest influence since coming across Blake’s
Songs of Innocence and Experience in my late teens.
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I never really enjoyed the writing-to-order side of workshop groups as I found
it extremely difficult to write poems under pressure. Perhaps I am too in control
of my emotions and therefore struggle to open up in group settings where I am
given a writing exercise. I enjoyed the discussion side of such groups and getting
feedback on my work made me appreciate audience response, especially as so many
of my poems had got too cluttered after months - and in some cases years - of
editing in isolation. Feedback always helps me get to the final version of the
poem that bit quicker. All writing is collaboration is so many ways –
whether it is the influence of other poems/songs/nursery rhymes you hear from
childhood or the actual support from poets about how to make a poem reach its
potential.
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I attended a really useful Arvon residential course where
Carol Ann Duffy and Jackie Kay
were the tutors. Apart from being a fun week where I met many
wonderful writers in the making such as Jo Bell
(who currently runs National Poetry Day and whose first collection
of poems was Navigation), I learnt how to access my emotions
so the poems were not buried under the craftsmanship. I would
highly recommend residential courses as they accelerate the
developmental side of creative writing.
Arts Organisers such as Geraldine Collinge
at Apples and Snakes and Ruth Padel at the South Bank Centre
really supported me by arranging tutorials for me and by booking
me for key poetry events. I am so fortunate that Geraldine
and Ruth have enough vision to single out poets and help nurture
them.
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Writers need mentors to help them make significant improvements in
their writing. The big development in my writing came when I worked
with the Stephen Knight (poet, novelist, critic) who
has mentored me since I met him in 2002. He made me focus on my craft
and helped me develop as a critic of my own work. He encouraged me to
send a manuscript to Faber and Faber and most of my success is due to
his constructive criticism and his generosity with time.
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I am also grateful to the poet Roddy Lumsden who taught
me how to say what I really wanted to say in my poems. He helped me get
rid of the vague statements that sounded good but were probably pretentious
nonsense.
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John Stammers runs superb poetry workshops. I attended many
sessions that helped me develop an awareness of audience because all too
often I knew what I was saying in the poems but sadly no one else around
the table found the poems to be clear enough. Especially the poems where
I was really trying to be clear! |
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In recent years I have been fortunate to be supported by Simon
Powell (who tragically passed away on 25/10/09). He was a passionate,
brilliant and witty man; a visionary who set up Poetry Live (www.poetrylive.net/news.html)
where anything from 1000 to 3000 students come to watch poets taught
on the GCSE syllabus. Simon and his wonderful poet-artist-filmmaker
wife Imtiaz Dharker book me each year for these events
and I am truly grateful for their support in ensuring my poetry has
a wider audience. Simon’s son Daniel is a chip off the old block
– he too is bright and modest. Daniel is usually the MC for the
Poetry Live days and he now helps to run the show. Left is a photo of
Imtiaz taken by Simon.
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