Wise woman's life in religious war

May 7 2010 by The Journal

Poet Bob Beagrie answers David Whetstone's questions about The Seer Sung Husband, which was inspired by a visit to Old Mother Shipton's Cave in North Yorkshire.

What was the spark of inspiration that brought this book to life?

While visiting Mother Shipton’s Cave and Petrifying Well with my daughter a few years ago, I started wondering about her life. It’s a very atmospheric place and I scribbled a few notes.

When I learned she was married at 24 to a carpenter called Tobias, it really whetted my curiosity and I wondered what it must have been like for him.

Very little is known about him so he seemed to be a perfect candidate to use as a possible narrator. That’s how the poem started, and as I read more widely around the period I realised that their lives coincided with the Henrician Reformation and the Pilgrimage of Grace, an uprising that briefly threatened Henry VIII’s power, and their calls for a Northern Government, and wondered how it affected by them.

Have you always been interested in history?

Yes, but the problem is that it is too often presented as “other”, something that doesn’t belong to us. I think fiction and poetry can break down that barrier and allow readers to identify much more with figures from the past, as well as to see their own lives as part of history.

Tobias and Ursula Shipton lived in turbulent times of radical social change and a shift in ideas around faith, identity and belief. I was interested in how differences in world view and spirituality that co-existed and clashed could be explored through these characters.

What is it about the verse epic format that appeals to you?

I like the way it draws the reader into a rich narrative, allowing a story to unfold, while also employing poetic effects and heightening the musicality of the language. Listening to epic verse becomes quite hypnotic and spellbinding.

I wrote The Seer Sung Husband in verse rather than prose because it was a natural progression from some earlier poems I had written using specific historical voices for epic style verse, such as a crewman on James Cook’s first voyage which I published as Endeavour: Newfound Notes (Biscuit Publishing, 2004).

What would you like readers to take from the poem?

Firstly I’d like readers to enjoy the story and the play of lyrical language, but I’d also like to think they would take away a flavour of the period. Because the poem shifts between realities, on a deeper level perhaps readers might go away with a sense that we all simultaneously live in a multitude of realities defined by the narratives we create from our own lives.

What is your writing routine?

I lecture part-time at Teesside University and work as a freelance writer on community projects and in schools, so often my writing has to take a back seat. However, I’m constantly scribbling notes and grab whatever time is left to develop them. I go through periods of intense writing when I get obsessed with an idea. The Seer Sung Husband came out of one of these.

The poem has a strong sense of the North. How important is the region to your poems?

The characters and events are part of the North’s history and mythology so it was bound to have a strong sense of the region.

However, this sense of northernness is something that runs through a lot of my work and I keep coming back to the question of regional identity. It’s a difficult and complex issue but I feel we live in a very different country than the England of the South.

How we define this, beyond easy cliches, is a challenge for many northern artists and writers.

Many people see poetry as irrelevant or anachronistic. How do you respond to this view?

There is a vibrant poetry scene in the UK with many dynamic young poets bringing poetry to new audiences through performance poetry and spoken word events. It’s just largely ignored by the mainstream media. New technologies are allowing poetry to develop in new directions, escaping the confines of the page.

What gives you the most satisfaction as a writer?

I love the stage when the writing seems to take over and just flows, like you’ve tapped into something beyond your consciousness. When you look back at what you have written its sometimes shocking because you can’t remember writing parts of it. Other times it is a painstaking process of fiddling around with a few phrases and it feels like you are getting nowhere.

Did you always want to be a writer?

When I was a kid I wanted to be a comic book artist. Later, when I failed the foundation course at art college, I began to focus more on the writing, though it was always stories then. I didn’t encounter poetry until I was studying for my BA in creative arts where I specialised in creative writing.

:: The Seer Sung Husband is published by Smokestack Books.