Queer, feminist, love poetry: Bron Bateman introduces her new collection
Love exists in many forms, and in her new collection of poetry, Love Like This Isn’t Harmless, Bron Bateman writes about the wide variety of love she’s experienced, from self-love to erotic to familial, and even harmful. In this article, publisher Georgia Richter asks Bron about her writing process and what goes into creating poetry about love … just not as you know it.
Can you tell us about the different kinds of love that exist within this work?
The point of this collection is that love comes in many guises. It can be harmless, harmful, evocative, meaningful, aberrant, familial, at the ends and beginnings of relationships, can be examples of self-love, psychological wellbeing and even of mental illness. I emphasise that self-love is a love which enables us to take care of ourselves, when others can’t or won’t. I have often written familial poetry, love poetry and erotic love poetry. These poems featured prominently in my three previous collections. This collection is a little different. In it is the focus on the end of a queer relationship and the ambivalence of feelings that exist in this breakdown. I have also written some queer love poetry, with male and female protagonists, and poetry that adopts a feminist lens, with protagonists who assert their personal, embodied experiences, standing up for themselves in a patriarchal world.
Where does a poem come from for you? Do you know what you are going to say before you say it?
Very few poems come from being ‘struck’ with inspiration. Usually a poem emerges from a prompt, another poet/poem, or an idea I wish to explore. I can sometimes be really literal with my writing and think: I need to write a poem about X, to fill an absence in the collection and then begin the work required to create such a poem. At other times I can get an image, or an idea and then tease out its implications. Sometimes I know where I need to get to, in order to complete the poem, but the process of ‘getting’ can require some work. I can also write the less brave or grounded version and realise there is another poem struggling to emerge from what I am hiding from myself. And then, seldomly, a poem emerges fully formed and can be put down on the page in under an hour. That is the reward for all the sweat and tears that go into writing most of the other poems!
Which poem within this collection surprised you the most, and why?
The poem about abortion, ‘Reprieve’ (p. 58), surprised me the most. It was one of the easiest poems to write, in that I got the reprise ‘size of a bean’ running through my head one afternoon and sat down at the computer and wrote the poem relatively quickly. It was my galvanised anger at the appropriation of women’s bodies and bodies with wombs that fuelled the rhythm and intent of the poem. I have written a number of poems about childbirth and pregnancy, and it was powerful and compelling to write about reproductive health from another perspective.
Can you tell me a little about what it means to be, as it says in your bio note, ‘a queer, crip poet, editor and educator’? Are these necessarily political positions and identities?
Queer, crip (disabled), feminist, creative and educator are all political positions and identities as far as I am concerned. I know that I am speaking to a sympathetic audience when I say this. I do believe that now, more than ever, with the global political climate where lies are spoken without any pervasive sense of their immorality, or any squeamishness in uttering them, that asserting my identity as a person of marginalised groups is necessary, truthful and agential. My coming-out stories are repeatedly iterated and although sometimes I can grow weary of this, I will not cease foregrounding these marginalised positions.
What’s next for Bron Bateman?
I am compelled to keep on writing and am already at work on my (as yet untitled) fifth collection. Poetry is my legacy to myself, my family and my community. As a feminist, I am focused on telling the embodied stories and experiences of women I know, and women who influence me. I am appalled by the rate of family and domestic violence perpetrated on women and marginalised women in our culture (crip, queer, mentally ill, trans, etc.). I do not pretend or intend to be a voice for all women, but in my small sphere of influence I believe writing from a feminist, queer, crip perspective is my call to arms for us all. If we, as women, can carve out a space for ourselves, we must use that space as a place to fight against patriarchal, cultural and capitalist appropriation of our bodies and our lives. These are the stories I am compelled to write in my next collection.
Love Like This Isn’t Harmless is available in all good bookstores and online.
