Biography
I was born in 1977 and grew up in Stamford, Lincolnshire. I started writing at the University of Warwick where I studied philosophy and literature – I was fortunate enough to stumble upon the creative writing programme there in its early years. After graduating, I joined Michael Donaghy’s evening class at City University in London and the following year received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors. I went on to do a postgrad year of creative writing at the University of St Andrews. Since 2004, I’ve lived in London. In the past few years, I’ve collaborated with Simon Barraclough, Isobel Dixon, Liane Strauss, Róisín Tierney, Olivia Cole and Christopher Reid on the pamphlets Ask for It by Name (Unfold Press) and The Art of Wiring (Ondt & Gracehoper).
The Interview
So where did the book begin for you, how did the book come to be written?
Most of the poems were written without much consideration of how they might fit together. I think it was only in the past year or two, when I started writing a short sequence of characters (The Contrarian, below, being one of them) that I had a stronger sense of a collection with a centre of gravity and began to figure out which poems belonged to it.
What was going on in your life while you were writing it?
Living in London, for the most part: temping; taking time off to write; doing odd bits of freelance work; getting a job as a subeditor; discovering Jacques Rivette at the BFI; playing tennis; reading; failing, now that I think about it, to significantly expand my culinary skills; making a short poem-film with Luca Paci and Rowan Porteous; trips to Italy and New Zealand; going to readings; doing readings.
What do you think were the real driving elements within the book — the things that moved it all forward for you?
The energy derives from individual images and phrases – the ideas that just arrive, while I’m shaving or out walking, say. The intuition that there is something to be drawn out of a concrete slab outside King’s Cross station, for instance, but not knowing exactly what that is.
How long did it take to bring it all together?
The first attempt at putting together a collection was about four years ago – since then, a gradual discarding and accumulating.
Who was important to you in developing your writing life?
My parents, for their encouragement and showing me that creativity is a valid part of life. David Morley for opening the door. The writers whose work I keep coming back to – Francis Ponge, James Schuyler … I’ve been blessed with the best teachers and writer-friends that one could hope for.
Where do you think you’ll go to next in your writing — what are you working on now?
I’m working on a short prose piece about Schuyler’s Empathy and New Year for the writer’s hub. I love his quiet expansiveness. I’d like to write something in that vein – looser, a longer poem.
The Contrarian
His mind is a tilting pinball machine, a car
with broken brakes. Missing for weeks, then he’s back
with a mandolin and the caffeine sweats, to busk
in a doorway after dark: the words a muttered hex.
Thrifty drifter, clad in biker’s black,
the pool hall’s pyramid of light is his domain
as much as the dry-rot eyrie where he lies
insomniac on a mattress and reads The Egoist.
I’ve heard him play devil’s advocate, then U-turn
mid-sentence: the contrarian must never be consistent
in his contrariness, and on and on. He writhes
inside his beliefs, an escapologist against the clock.
It’s harder than you think to land a punch, he says,
and even if you do it’s you you hurt the most.
Discover more about Luke Heeley
Some poems online
http://rizomatic.wordpress.com/2007/08/20/cold-call-luke-heeley/
http://www.physicgarden.org.uk/chicory/
http://www.thepoem.co.uk/limelight/heeley.htm
Ask for It by Name
Audio – interview and poems at the Poetry of Bees event, Gresham College, June 2010
http://www.poetinthecity.co.uk/events/74/audio
Another great piece of literature.