A Chat with Rhiannon-Skye Boden | Big Green Experts

This weeks Big Green Expert is poet and creator, Rhiannon-Skye Boden, who takes us through the inspirations for her spooky writing challenge, Blood and Ink.

Tell us a bit about yourself - how did you get into writing and what/who were your initial inspirations?

Hi! I'm Rhiannon-Skye, I'm a professional freelance content writer and copywriter, as well as a poet and spoken word artist. I do gigs, I write commissions, I run workshops, and sometimes I venture into combining poetry with songwriting and music.

I've always wanted to make writing my day job, but I didn't start taking writing poetry seriously until university, when I suddenly noticed how much was going on in the Leeds poetry scene that I was completely ignorant of. I wrote my first ever spoken-word piece about anxiety my first year of uni and immediately competed in a slam with it, and the kind feedback I got from that baptism of fire gave me such a taste for performing and writing. 

Before I did poetry I was in a band, and so I've always been inspired by people like Billy Bragg and John Cooper Clarke, who straddle the music and poetry worlds. I'm also a huge fan of Toria Garbutt and Matt Abbott, who write politically minded pieces with real heart, and draw on their regional experiences with such nuance and pride.

I was probably most inspired by poets like Ben Norris and Erin Bolens when I started writing for performance, since they have such a warmth when connecting to an audience, but thematically I mostly draw from my own life. Dance studios, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, bad teenage crushes, classic movie monsters and the moors, are all things I pull from when trying to write about nostalgia, queerness and mental health, which are the themes I touch on most frequently.  

From hobbyist to professional - what steps did you have to take to set yourself up in your current role?

I'm definitely still starting out in the industry, but the most important thing I did once I knew I wanted to take poetry seriously was show up. Regularly attending my local open mic nights allowed me to meet people in the community and support the vibrant scene that already existed. I tried to accept every gig that was offered to me, whether it was as for a support slot, as a headliner or just for two minutes. Showing that you're truly passionate about poetry, whether you're on stage or not, goes a long way. 

I also became involved with the Spoken Word Society at Leeds University, and that allowed me to put on my own events, try my hand at hosting nights, and run workshops. Getting to run workshops and poetry nights on themes that mattered to me, with a team of people just as dedicated, was a huge learning curve that made me more adaptable and informed about what it really takes to be a professional poet.

Any advice for spoken word artists working remotely right now with a lack of events and festivals?

It's okay to not be working! Lockdown is a weird time, and if you find yourself not wanting to or unable to create, then that's totally normal! With that said, if you're desperate to be creating and performing, most local scenes are running online slams or showcases that you can ask about performing in. If you can't find an event to join, then something as simple as streaming on Instagram Live or running a mini-slam with friends on Zoom can be hugely creatively rejuvenating.

Social media has a vibrant poetry community, so it can be a great way to connect with an audience of equally poetry-hungry people that you might never have been able to meet through physically touring. 

What inspired you to start Blood and Ink? What were your spooky influences when creating the list?

I started planning Blood and Ink in 2019 after mourning the end of Escapril for that year. After seeing how motivated the commitment of daily poetry had made me, I wanted to create a monthly event just for myself, and I decided on October because I'm drawn naturally to writing about monsters anyway. 

The first year, I just mind-mapped a huge page of spooky-adjacent words and compiled the ones I thought would make the most challenging prompts. This year, I tried to make the prompts even more specific, and deliberately chose more abstract and open-ended prompts, with the hope that it would push my poetry in some weirder and less expected directions. 

As for inspirations, I tried to pull from nostalgic Halloween properties: Tim Burton movies and Disney Channel Halloween specials, but also 80s and 90s seasonal commercials, horror films you would find on TV at 3AM, and the semi-goofy scary stories you'd find in Anthony Horowitz novels or Goosebumps. I wanted to evoke the cosiness of a childhood Halloween, which can feel whimsical but dangerous at the same time.

You've grown a community around Blood and Ink, do you think social media is the future of writing communities and groups?

I love performing live, and I love going to different cities and digging into the specifics of what makes a local scene vibrant and unique; I don't think the internet could ever fully replace that. However, social media allows you to find poets you may never have come across otherwise, and collaborate with people miles away. 

Blood and Ink has allowed me to find and showcase poets and artists who I was completely unaware of before, and to curate an online space filled with spooky, experimental and exciting work. I think there's also the question of who feels safe to perform IRL, who has access to a stage or a microphone, and who is often excluded from the conversation? Online events and spaces aren't the solution to creating more diverse performance landscape, but social media can give a poet a safe place to share their work, or the reach to get their work seen more widely.

Blood and Ink prompts are open to all creative interpretations, have you experimented with creativity this time?

I've loved seeing people take Blood and Ink prompts and create illustrations, animations and even dance pieces using them as starting points. I've stuck pretty closely to poetry, but I've tried to move away from the kinds of narrative, structure and meter that I usually gravitate towards. I've seen some poets during Blood and Ink push the boundaries by writing in fictional languages or from the perspective of abstract concepts, and I've tried to enter into the same spirit of experimentation and exploration. Blood and Ink has never been about creating the best quality pieces, just making space to try new things and be unafraid to get weird. 

How has lockdown affected your creativity and how have you stayed motivated as a poet/creative?

It varies. There have been months where I haven't written anything, and months where I've been super motivated to create. I've tried to let my brain do whatever it needs to, whether that's working on poetry, reading trashy YA novels from my childhood, or getting away from words completely and baking or dancing. 

Blood and Ink has given me an expectation of daily creation, which I've loved and has helped me have more sustained motivation, but there's a fine line between needing a little push to make stuff and forcing yourself to create when you're not in the headspace to. I've liked using lockdown as an opportunity to explore things like cooking, baking, drawing and journaling, and I feel like it has all made me a better poet, even if I didn't notice it at the time.

What are some of your favourite events and festivals you’ve attended that you think other people should check out?

Leena Norms did a 24-hour poetry lock-in on Instagram that was a ton of fun: she interviewed poets and publishers as well as running prompts and free writes, and the whole thing felt like a giggly sleepover with all your favourite poets in your living room. I've also attended Ruckus Retreat for two years, which is an interdisciplinary creative retreat honestly changed my life; it gave me a community of creative peers, completely changed how I thought about working as a professional in poetry, and showed me how many pathways into the creative world there actually were.

Leeds also has some incredible spoken word nights, so many I couldn't possibly name them all, but Leeds University Spoken Word Society do great work, as does The Sunday Practise, OFF YOUR MIC and Outspoken. 

There's still time to get involved in Blood & Ink on Instagram, just by following along with the prompts and tagging me in the results! I'm also performing in Love Arts Words on the 20th of October, an online poetry night filled with awesome Leeds poems, which you can find out more about here: https://www.loveartsleeds.co.uk/event-details/love-arts-words

You can find Rhiannon on Instagram and her website. Don’t forget to share your responses to the prompts on social media!