Poetry. Women’s Studies.  I once wrote to a poetry advice column because I was afraid of my emotions and the havoc they wreaked on me. I called them ‘a huge problem’ but Diana Hamilton comforted me and wrote: ‘Feeling pleasure is a legitimate way of developing as a person-writer!’

We got a kitten and I tried to write poems for her. Or some other (many) times I had a thought and realised I shouldn’t say it out loud only to find myself speaking it. When these turned to poems. Could there be a poet in the sense of a hare or another graceful creature or perhaps bitter and less warm-blooded… – Elena Gomez