The Bunker // Meet Anthony Anaxagorou
Can you take us through the first time you performed your poetry on stage? Where were you? Who was there? How did you feel?
I had just turned eighteen and was in East London in a small community hut. The event was part of the London Mayor’s Respected Slam founded by poet Joelle Taylor. I remember the nerves, that feeling of looking out towards the audience, their faces expecting something profound to happen, my voice booming back at my through the monitors. It was really terrifying, my mouth went dry, my teeth stuck to my gums. I just kept focusing on a little blank spot beyond the audience and imagining it was my mate I was talking to. Something I picked up in an old film.
What is the number one piece of writing you think everyone needs to read?
That’s a tough question. To be honest I think it’s impossible to answer. The older I get, the more I see how different books do different things - it’s like going into the kitchen and saying what is the number one utensil everyone needs. You can say knife and fork but then what happens when your thirsty, you can say a plate but then how big is the plate, how much can it hold etc. I’ve read books which have significantly shifted my world view, the way I think and understand things. That’s not to say I go to books just to have my mind changed, the experience is far more multifaceted. I recently read Notes From An Apocalypse by Mark O’Connell which I loved. The Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli is also an incredibly important and rich read. Anything by James Baldwin, Maggie Nelson, or Kwame Anthony Appiah.
Do you have any writing rituals?
I think writing itself is very ritualistic. How we get started, formulate ideas, zone into those thoughts and have them presented on a page. If I’m already working on something I can just fire up the laptop, open the word doc and jump straight back into where I was. For poetry I need to settle into my head which can take time depending on where I am. It’s a totally different process for me, I tend to read for a bit first, calm the noise in my head, open my notebook to see what’s there, then start to work. It’s far more intense than writing prose, and also more liberating in the ways I let my imagination drive where the poems can go.
What inspires your work?
The world, events, feelings, moods, anxieties, memory, history, discrimination, suffering. I don't know if there’s every a single thing, usually my work wants to wrap all this stuff into one thing which I sometimes need to curtail. Getting to the end of a poem is very rewarding, especially if you’ve no idea what could happen, which is often the case with me. I set out to discover something I didn't know before, or make connections with things, subjects and objects that were previously uncoupled.
If you weren't a poet you would be…?
Lol who knows, the last ‘proper’ job I had was as a security guard, although I was terrible at it and got the sack after a few months. That was in 2012. I could probably see myself getting into fitness, or bookselling or tea. I’m a huge lover of tea, gong fu brewing and the processes involved. I have my little obsessions and just find ways to make a living from them. That’s a good life.
Join us on Zoom on Thu 9 July for Heat Two, featuring the incredible Anthony Anaxagorou joining us all the way from London. Find out more here.
