Spotlight: Cameron Wilson, Finola Scott & Rob Hamberger
One of the greatest privileges of publishing Gutter, is being able to connect with writers familiar and new. Each issue, we’ll shine a spotlight on some of our contributors, to discover more about what inspires them, and where they hope their writing takes them next. Today, it’s our pleasure to speak to Issue 27 contributors, Cameron Wilson, Finola Scott & Rob Hamberger.
Cameron Wilson
Instagram: @cw.poems / Website: https://cwpoems.carrd.co/
What was the inspiration behind ‘Gu Dachaigh’?
My submission was inspired by Glasgow and its undercurrent, and, like many of my poems, was based on one of Bernadette Mayer's writing experiments.
Who do you imagine to be your ideal reader?
My ideal reader is someone who likes to engage deeply with a text, who understands the exponential relationship between effort spent reading poetry and the enjoyment one can get out of it. Research is a huge part of my writing process, and should be part of the reading process!
What's your favourite part of the writing process?
I love when the various disjointed and unrelated notes I have collected in researching fleeting interests finally melt together into one complete piece that somehow makes sense.
What's been your favourite book of the last twelve months?
At the end of 2022, I read Emmanuel Carrère's The Kingdom, and it has altered my brain on a fundamental level in an incredible, enriching way.
Who is an author or poet you think more people should know about?
Fred Voss! I read his 1991 collection Goodstone last year and was blown away! An incredible collection of biting and hugely entertaining poems from a semi-fictional factory floor by a life-long aircraft machinist.
Is there anything else you want our readers to know about you and your writing?
My new poetry pamphlet I Wish Scotland Was Real is available from www.electricfrog.press - a short, dense collection of poems in English and Scots exploring Scottishness, and imagining a terrible version of Scotland that already exists.
Finola Scott
What was the inspiration behind ‘Sleep Apnoea’?
The minute a pal sighed & told me he was feeling off, because of a particularly bad night due to sleep aponea, I was hooked. What a topic and then the questions -How to serve it? How to capture it? What undercurrent might there be?
Who is an author or poet you think more people should know about?
I love Martina Evans, such a huge talent. Caught her at Stanza & was swept away by her vitality, wit & craft. American Mules offers something new each time I open it.
Are you working on anything exciting or challenging at the moment?
I’m involved in an oral history project focusing on Cardowan Colliery. So my head is filled with dark descriptions of the reality of the mining industry mixed with hilarious stories of a solid caring community. There are already poems ! (Cardowan was Shuggie Bain’s stomping ground - but that’s another tale)
Rob Hamberger
What was the inspiration behind ‘Golden Bomber Jacket’?
My prose-poem started from a dream, where its precise elements were still with me like a film when I woke up. I keep a journal and initially wrote it there, but it felt as if it was itching to become a prose-poem (a form I'm becoming increasingly interested in) so I revised and redrafted it to improve its shape. The friend it refers to features in a great deal of my writing, as I continue to make sense of him and our great friendship.
Who do you imagine to be your ideal reader?
I try to make my writing as accessible as possible, as I'd like readers who are not particularly literary to be able to respond to it. I think this is a class-based aesthetic (influenced by working-class writers like John Clare). I have a hunch that simplicity in writing may still be patronised or dismissed by the literary establishment, so I feel quite stubborn about not intimidating or patronising potential readers, about allowing them into the poem, so to speak.
What's your favourite part of the writing process?
Although I love what is usually the initial rush of a first draft, I'm particularly drawn to the redrafting and editing process, the nipping and tucking, the rearranging. I love how a poem (or my recent memoir, which took 25 on-and-off years of redrafting and revising) won't stop niggling the writer until it's finished properly, like a beautiful figure writhing its slow way out from a marble block. Revising can include changing the shape of a poem, prose-poem or (in my case) a memoir many times until the final shape is reached, the shape it always wanted to become even during its quick or messy first draft.
