:00:00. > :00:00.much for joining us on the Papers. Stay with us. It is time for Meet
:00:00. > :00:13.the Author. Poetry as performance is more
:00:14. > :00:18.popular than ever and among younger poets who are sharp and sunny and
:00:19. > :00:20.wise, holy McNish has made a name for herself. Dashmac
:00:21. > :00:23.Whether on the page or on the stage, Hollie McNish has made
:00:24. > :00:27.Her collection, Plum, is about the memory of writing
:00:28. > :00:29.verses at school and how they seem now, looking back.
:00:30. > :00:32.And so it's about all the fears, embarrassments and growing
:00:33. > :00:48.You write very graphically about all these embarrassments of adolescence.
:00:49. > :00:53.Do you still feel them or do you just remember them?
:00:54. > :00:57.I still feel embarrassed about things now, though,
:00:58. > :00:59.so I don't know if it's changed that much.
:01:00. > :01:04.Well, I'm bound to say in this book that if you're embarrassed by them,
:01:05. > :01:07.you're dealing with it by writing them out of your system.
:01:08. > :01:11.Because there's no subject that you don't touch, here.
:01:12. > :01:17.I think the only thing I wouldn't want to do
:01:18. > :01:21.Although, having said that, there is a few about my school
:01:22. > :01:24.friends but I have asked them for permission.
:01:25. > :01:27.One of the things I should tell people about this collection is that
:01:28. > :01:30.you publish lines that you wrote when you were very,
:01:31. > :01:35.And then you write about what it's like to look back on them, in a way.
:01:36. > :01:39.How much were you writing when you were seven, eight, nine?
:01:40. > :01:42.When I was seven, eight, nine, not a huge amount,
:01:43. > :01:45.but I started writing a diary when I was about eight
:01:46. > :01:51.I don't know why, I used to just read a lot of kids' poetry.
:01:52. > :01:54.Did you ever think that you would be a professional poet?
:01:55. > :02:00.And you enjoy, judging by this collection, these short, pithy,
:02:01. > :02:06.repetitive, very rhythmic poems that sort of hit you quickly?
:02:07. > :02:08.I think this book has got those in it.
:02:09. > :02:12.So this book, I specifically chose poems that I maybe
:02:13. > :02:18.So I still write quite a lot and a lot of them are long
:02:19. > :02:21.and windy but I kind of chose the shorter ones.
:02:22. > :02:24.In short ones, do you often find yourself performing them before
:02:25. > :02:31.Yes, I think of them and then write them down very quickly.
:02:32. > :02:37.I worked with a brilliant editor, Don Patterson, which I've not really
:02:38. > :02:40.done before with my poems, which is probably why they are a wee
:02:41. > :02:43.bit punchier because he said you don't need to repeat
:02:44. > :02:51.As a performance poet, I know that's a phrase that covers
:02:52. > :02:54.a multitude of sins, but if we just use it for the sake
:02:55. > :02:58.of it, somebody who comes on and delivers the poems in a very
:02:59. > :03:02.punchy way as part of a gig, what is it that the audiences like?
:03:03. > :03:05.Well, from what people have said, they like the honesty in them
:03:06. > :03:11.and I guess they like someone saying things they might consider too
:03:12. > :03:15.rude or that they maybe wouldn't want to talk about.
:03:16. > :03:17.In other words, they want poems that don't seem too
:03:18. > :03:19.artificial or contrived, but actually hit you
:03:20. > :03:24.And I guess that they can understand.
:03:25. > :03:28.A lot of poetry, you have to read it five times to understand it
:03:29. > :03:31.whereas I think if you are speaking it, that's hard because you can't
:03:32. > :03:35.just ask the person on stage to read it again and again until you get
:03:36. > :03:40.In a way, what you're doing with these poems, when you said
:03:41. > :03:42.that the embarrassments and fears and eruptions of childhood
:03:43. > :03:46.and adolescence never really go away, you are trying to touch people
:03:47. > :03:49.I don't think I'm trying to do anything, really.
:03:50. > :03:56.I think you're stirring old memories among people.
:03:57. > :04:02.I guess because most people don't write a diary,
:04:03. > :04:05.most people don't record all these things whereas I did so I guess
:04:06. > :04:10.You say you started writing a diary when you were eight
:04:11. > :04:19.The last book I had out was just my diaries,
:04:20. > :04:24.Yeah, so a few of them I haven't put in.
:04:25. > :04:28.Let me ask you, how will you feel when your children are old enough
:04:29. > :04:32.That is the main thing that crossed my head and I wondered
:04:33. > :04:35.whether I should take certain things out of every book I have
:04:36. > :04:42.And actually, if my daughter doesn't like me because I had some
:04:43. > :04:45.strange sexual experience when I was younger, I hope she's
:04:46. > :04:49.It's that they're the usual mixture of embarrassment,
:04:50. > :04:52.failure and occasional success that probably most people go through.
:04:53. > :05:02.Most people don't write them down, they're trying to forget them.
:05:03. > :05:04.I think most people want to talk about them.
:05:05. > :05:08.After gigs I find that's the best bit, when I 'm signing books
:05:09. > :05:13.Yeah, they just want to tell me their stories.
:05:14. > :05:20.They don't ask me, they just tell me their stories.
:05:21. > :05:23.That this one struck home because it reminded them
:05:24. > :05:28.Or the first time they tried on a bra or being shy
:05:29. > :05:32.You're particularly sharp on that transition to adolescence
:05:33. > :05:36.And I suppose you were writing in the knowledge that
:05:37. > :05:38.in contemporary society, the pressures, particularly
:05:39. > :05:41.on young women, young men as well, are enormous.
:05:42. > :05:44.That's why I wanted to put those poems in this book, really.
:05:45. > :05:47.I feel for young girls it's more complicated than anyone
:05:48. > :05:50.because you're told basically at once to be sexy all the time
:05:51. > :05:54.We've got this strange dichotomy, especially with young teenage girls,
:05:55. > :06:01.If you look a certain way, you are teased for it.
:06:02. > :06:04.I think it's tough for young boys as well, actually.
:06:05. > :06:07.I don't know what it's like to be a young boy
:06:08. > :06:12.With any good poetry, there's nowhere to hide for the poet.
:06:13. > :06:19.I really don't know how people are going to take this book
:06:20. > :06:22.but I think I'm probably prepared for people knowing
:06:23. > :06:25.Well, you're exposing yourself in the sense that you're
:06:26. > :06:28.going back to your feelings, some of which are very funny,
:06:29. > :06:32.some of which are very familiar to people and for others it
:06:33. > :06:40.Yet, but I think it's kind of important for me.
:06:41. > :06:45.I don't think they're good, especially as young people
:06:46. > :06:47.are growing up, taboos around your body, around sex,
:06:48. > :06:49.around relationships, I think actually people feeling
:06:50. > :06:53.that they need to keep secret about things...
:06:54. > :06:58.Yeah, just stop being so ashamed of everything we do and everything
:06:59. > :07:01.we feel and all the lust or whatever it is.
:07:02. > :07:03.I'm just boreed of those things being the things
:07:04. > :07:09.So you really want to just draw the curtains and let the light in.
:07:10. > :07:13.Yeah, I feel like if I'm alright to embarrass myself then it might be
:07:14. > :07:15.helpful for a few people, then I'll just keep
:07:16. > :07:19.It does look as if you've enjoyed embarrassing yourself?
:07:20. > :07:31.And now to end the programme, Hollie McNish is going to read one
:07:32. > :07:36.of the poems from her collection, Plum.
:07:37. > :07:44.We don't call on each other any more, we all live too far away.
:07:45. > :07:48.And now impromptu visits worry - you might interrupt my day.
:07:49. > :07:51.You do not wake me up on weekends with screams pitched
:07:52. > :07:54.Do not ring my doorbell more than once.
:07:55. > :08:04.You do not comb my hair for hours to practice plaits.
:08:05. > :08:10.I count our meetings down like holidays.
:08:11. > :08:14.The dream each time the doorbell rings -