Spotlight On Writers
Stephen Kingsnorth
- Where, do you hail from?
- What is the greatest thing about the place you call home?
I trained for Methodist ministry, so my ‘home’ around the UK changed several times, including Liverpool, though my final 20 years was spent in a non-congregational community ‘chaplaincy’ in Warrington – the adopted town which gave me the Freedom of the borough, when I retired through the onset of Parkinson’s. My wife and I live now in Wales (the nearest house that we could afford!) in a village where our small cottage overlooks wonderful scenery and buzzards wheel above our heads, with good neighbours and doctor!
- What turns you on creatively?
I am excited by ekphrastic prompts, possibilities with wordplay, and smithery generally. I do tend to write in metric forms, rooted in the first poetry I met in my adolescent years; reflections on the past 70 years are often my inspiration.
- What is your favorite word, and can you use it in a poetic sentence?
Serendipity:
Genetic codes, experience,
the fall of serendipity,
they all combined in who I am,
prospectus for wordsmithery.
or
When serendipity appeared
(‘divine’ seemed blaming God for much –
their absence, trinity, from most)
they claimed the same brought privilege –
and I could not agree the more
that fortune’s door opened for me;
I did grab, grasp it with all means,
my mentors, training, family,
the opportunities of wealth
in academe, for those who would.
- What is your pet peeve?
Reading the poetry of others, I too quickly think of ways in which it might, in my view, be improved, having forgotten that someone else has given birth to their best!
- What defines Stephen Kingsnorth?
A lifelong family pilgrim (less certainties with every passing year), whose Parkinson symptoms are relieved by distraction, which affords me hours – when I might otherwise be walking the hills – seated at the laptop writing poetry instead!
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