Denise O’Hagan – Fevers of the Mind

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Denise O’Hagan

Q1: When did you start writing and who influenced you the most?

Denise: It was probably seeing my parents writing that got me started. When I was still at school, I remember my mother typing at the kitchen table, paper everywhere – she’d started writing seriously by then, also composing and illustrating stories for me. I felt that story-telling was a natural expression of life rather than something we consciously set out to try and do, and my friends and I would often get together and write our own stories. On a practical note, I grew up in a small apartment in a busy city so learned quickly to make a world from what was at hand!

Two writers had a particularly strong early influence on me: Dante, whose wildly expansive symbolic imagination is so beautifully compressed into terza rima in the Divina Commedia that it still takes my breath away; and Seamus Heaney, whose Selected Poems remains one of my all-time favourite collections. Now I read widely, and find myself returning to those whose writings chime with something within me: David Malouf, Antigone Kefala and Eavan Boland, for example. If I meet a poem that resonates with me by someone whose work I don’t know, I’ll search out more by that poet. In this way, I picked up a book by Tomas Tranströmer the other day, and now am deep in his work.

Q2: Was there any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer?

Denise: To be honest, it never occurred to me to be a full-time writer: I was under no illusion how hard it was (and still is) to make a living from writing. I had the example under my nose of my mother whose thriller, A Roman Death (Macmillan 1988) sold well along with being translated – but she couldn’t have made a sufficient income to live from her novels. The closest I could imagine to being a writer was becoming an editor, which is what I trained to do. Later on, I squeezed a little writing in around my editorial jobs, but it was when my husband suggested I ‘do what I most enjoyed and see where it took me’ that was a pivotal moment in my making the decision to carve out time to write.

In some ways, I regret my ‘lost years’ in commercial publishing, though they provided a professional, if at times brutal, grounding in manuscript editing and book production. Yet I also believe that as we journey through our lives we build up a reservoir of experience that we can tap into at any stage. Nothing is ever wasted, even when it may feel that way.

Q3: Who has helped you most with writing and career?

Denise: As mentioned, my biggest early encouragement was from my parents, whose belief in the value of the creative arts was unwavering. Paradoxically, as I grew up it was the difficulties I faced (moving countries, family spread over different continents, and later still my son’s serious cardiac condition) which prompted me to find a language to express these realities and possibly see a way through and beyond them. I feel that an experience, once expressed, is subtly changed, and further am intrigued by the idea held by ancient Japanese court culture that no significant experience can be felt to be entire until it finds expression in verse. I sometimes wonder if, had my life been simpler and devoid of challenge, would I have still wanted to write, or make the experience ‘complete’?

More recently, Dave Kavanagh, manager of the fabulous Dublin-based journal The Blue Nib, urged me to take on role of poetry editor for Australia/NZ (2019-2020), which had an immediate and lasting effect on me, plunging me into the many and evolving forms of poetry, as well as a lively awareness of how writers work. Every poet I’ve worked with, every interview I conducted and every editorial I’ve written in the Nib enriched my appreciation of the art of poetry.

The live poetry events near me – such as The Sydney Poetry Lounge | Facebook and Live Poets at Don Bank | Facebook – have also affected me profoundly, not least on account of the warm generosity of their convenors who effectively bring to life the poetry community and keep it thriving.

And finally, I’ve had the great good fortune to have met many gifted writers-turned-friends along the way. I’ve found our exchanges utterly invaluable and they continue to inspire my own process of writing.

Q4: Where did you grow up and how did that influence you? Have any travels influenced your work?

Denise: I was born and grew up in Rome as my father (originally from New Zealand) was working there, until I left to go to study and later work in the UK. Rome influenced me deeply; how could it not? Its sheer beauty and warmth and its rich heritage finds its way into many of my poems, a recent example being ‘In among the ruins, love’, accessible here:

First Prize | My Site (wbyeatspoetryprize.com)

But there were also the rumblings of political turbulence as the Red Brigades gained a foothold in Rome the late ’70s and early ’80s. Bomb scares at school were not uncommon, and we automatically watched out for unattended bags in public areas. The kidnapping and chilling murder of Italian politician, Aldo Moro, in 1978 gave rise to my poem ‘Fifty-five days’, published in Backstory journal. You can read it here:

Fifty-five days – Backstory (backstoryjournal.com.au)

While I lacked the security of growing up in a country where I felt I belonged which spawned a sense of being a perennial outsider, my background also afforded me the opportunity to be immersed in another culture, and grow up surrounded by people of all nationalities. I learned how to watch and listen – a great starting point for creative writing and poetry in particular, which requires the ability pay close and deep attention to the world around us.

Q5: What do you consider your most meaningful work creatively to you?

Denise: Ah, that’s a hard one! I will take ‘meaningful’ to mean the work with which I feel most satisfied. I resist the notion that a poem is a tool or utilitarian, written to ‘achieve’ something; for me, a poem is its own meaning, even though it may well prompt us towards a new perception of things, or even action of some sort.

In my case, the poems which hold the most resonance for me are not necessarily those which are attractive to publishers or elicit the warmest praise. That said, however, there is one poem which embodied all my hopes for it, and clearly pleased someone else too. ‘Love was almond shaped’ is published here: Winner of Dalkey Creates Poetry Competition: ‘Love was almond shaped’ by Denise O’Hagan – Books Ireland (booksirelandmagazine.com)

Q6: What are your favorite activities to relax?

Denise: Bushwalking, drinking good coffee, reading (yes, poetry mainly!), hanging out with our four rescue cats, and watching thrillers on SBS TV far too late into the night. Recently I’ve been immersed in Scandinavian noir – The Bridge, Trapped and so on – and the Italian movies L’amica geniale (My Brilliant Friend) and Il cacciatore (The Hunter). Covid has a lot to answer for!

But there’s also bliss in, for want of a better phrase, doing nothing. Our ultra-technological age encourages us to become addicted to the state of ‘being busy’; there’s pressure to fill every moment, do more and do it more efficiently. Becoming aware of, and inhabiting, the unchartered spaces between daily activities brings its own relaxation, too.

Q7: What is a favorite line/stanza/lyric from your writing?

Denise: Now there’s an interesting question! It’s hard to isolate a line or even a stanza from its context. But there’s one instance that springs to mind, because the words came to me one day and wouldn’t leave me alone, so I had to write a poem around or rather before them, as they were the final couplet in a terza rima – a case of the tail wagging the dog! They are:

What exquisite irony that we’ll not tire

Of being lashed by the winds of our own desire.

The poem ended up being called ‘The winds of our own desire’, in which I explore what the shade of Francesca da Rimini might have felt when she encounters Dante in the second circle of Hell (Inferno, Canto V). It ultimately found a home with the gorgeous Dublin-based journal, The Madrigal, earlier this year, and you can read it here:

The winds of our own desire (themadrigalpress.com)

Q8: What kind of music inspires you the most? What is a song or songs that always come back to you as an inspiration?

Denise: I enjoy many kinds of music from rock to jazz to classical, and count Edith Piaf, Leonard Cohen and Adele among my favourite singers. But if I were stuck on a desert island, it would be Renaissance and Baroque music I would want to take with me, and if there were one composer’s music I could take, it would have to be Bach, whose sacred works are absolutely sublime.

Q9: Do you have any recent or upcoming books, music, events, projects that you would like to promote?

Denise: Thank you, David, for the opportunity to mention my second poetry collection, Anamnesis, due to be published in October by the Canberra-based company, Recent Work Press:

Anamnesis – RECENT WORK PRESS

Bonus Question: Any funny memory or strange occurrence you’d like to share during your creative journey?

Denise: I do, and this is really rather spooky. The first complete piece I ever wrote as an adult was a short story called ‘The hanging’. It was inspired by my father mentioning once the horror he had felt when, in Turkey for work many years prior, he accidentally found himself caught up in a crowd which he realised had gathered to witness a public hanging. He never elaborated, but his words stayed with me, and my story wrote itself. When I showed it to him, he was shocked and said that that was exactly how it had been (except for the twist at the end). I was also surprised because there was no logical way I could have arrived at knowledge of specific details. Appropriately, the story was published online in Bewildering Stories:

The Hanging (bewilderingstories.com)

Please include any links, bio, a photo to be posted on the website.

Website: https://denise-ohagan.com/

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Denise O’Hagan is an award-winning editor and poet, based in Sydney. She has a background in commercial book publishing in the UK and Australia, and in 2015 set up her own imprint, Black Quill Press, to help authors publish independently. Recipient of the Dalkey Poetry Prize and former poetry editor (Australia/NZ) for Irish literary journal The Blue Nib, her work is widely published both in Australia and overseas, including in The Copperfield Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Quadrant, Books Ireland, Eureka Street and Hecate. Her second poetry collection is Anamnesis (Recent Work Press, 2022).

Denise O’Hagan Home

Ekphrastic Poetry by Denise O’Hagan: After Alexandrine, maybe

After Alexandrine, maybe

Blu-tacked to the kitchen wall
The paper holding you is starting to curl,
Ghost of a long-ago, far-away soul.

Your poise has teased us through centuries,
From a bust carved in original marble
Through a bevy of terracotta look-alikes
Counterfeited in countless art studios
By slick-eyed, eager apprentices,
Rendering you, in each process,
A shade more indistinct.

A solitary finger of a plait
Leads our gaze down to yours
But you’ve lowered your eyes,
Your lips spell dissent, and we realise,
As the snake of suspicion bites, that this
Is no eighteenth-century childish deference,
And that beneath your well-bred hauteur
Lie the seeds of defiance.

Had you shrugged off a governess’s request,
Shirked a soirée, flounced off from Madame?
Had they told you you’d be off to the convent?
Or were you simply on the edge of a tantrum
For quite another reason?

Speculation still laps at your edges
Spawning fascination and theories,
Muddying our modern thirst for
Hard-edged, unassailable fact.

Yet with petulance pencilled
Into the swell of your cheek,
And that perfect pout,
You’ve snared a feeling
In every grown-up child
Who recalls only too well
When their biggest rebellion
Was to sulk.

After French sculptor Jacques Saly (1717–76) whose bust of a young girl made in Rome (c. 1744) was much copied. Speculation as to her identity endures, one theory being that ‘La Boudeuse’ (she who sulks) was Alexandrine d'Etoilles, nicknamed ‘Fanfan’ (daughter of Mme de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV), who died at nine years of age in the Convent of the Assumption. This sketch by Dominic West (2019) is based on a reproduction.
First published in The Ekphrastic Review, 28 April 2021
https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/after-alexandrine-maybe-by-denise-ohagan

Artist: Jacques Saly. Title of artwork: A young girl. Medium (of original): Marble.
https://www.boutiquesdemusees.fr/en/european-art/bust-of-a-little-girl-saly/698.html

Author bio

Denise O’Hagan is an award-winning editor and poet, born in Rome and based in Sydney. With a background in commercial book publishing in London and Sydney, she set up her own imprint, Black Quill Press, in 2015 to assist independent authors. Recipient of the Dalkey Poetry Prize, her work appears in various journals including The Copperfield Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Quadrant, Books Ireland, Eureka Street and Hecate. Her second poetry collection, Anamnesis, is due to be published in October 2022 (Recent Work Press).
Denise O’Hagan Home

Poetry by Denise O’Hagan : Treading carefully

Treading carefully

Lu-ma-ca, es-car-got was how I knew them,
Three-syllabled slugs with shells and antennae;
I warmed to the sound of their names as much

As them. But ‘snail’ has quite another effect;
I loved it less, this glutinous gender-bending mollusc,
Sly hugger of the dark side of our terrace flowerpots

And the undersides of damp garden things, curled
In fallen autumn leaves or clumped into compost.
We see them, the mornings after rain, slinking

Their way across the pavement, up walls. I tread
Carefully, to avoid the sickening crunch of shell
Underfoot, the gulping back of guilt. All things

Considered, they’ve had bad press: dismissed as
Pests, disdained for being slothful—a symbolism
Foisted on them in haste—at best, they’re routinely

Transmogrified into a delicacy of buttered up and
Garlicked steaming shells in wine to feed another
Deadly sin—our drift to gluttony. Small wonder

They move slowly, carrying the weight of judgment
Coiled heavy on their backs. But how many of us know
That snails respond to having their shells caressed?

Originally published in Brushstrokes II, Ros Spencer Poetry Contest Anthology 2020–21 (WA Poets Publishing, November 2021)

Author bio

Sunday Roast by Denise O’Hagan

Note: Broiler chickens, as the meat industry calls them, are those chickens raised for their meat, as distinct from laying hens. This poem relates to the practices of commercial chicken-farming adopted worldwide. The information in this poem is derived from the following sources:

Animal Ethics: https://www.animal-ethics.org/animal-exploitation-section/animals-used-food-introduction/chickens-hens/

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/factory-farming/chickens/chicken-industry/

First published in Literary Veganism: An Online Journal, 8 August 2021
https://www.litvegan.net/2021/08/poetry-by-denise-ohagan.html

Sunday Roast

You pull your cardigan tighter as you walk through the cold section,
pausing at the rows of shining plastic-covered poultry, on special

fifty billion chickens and hens are killed
every year for human consumption

Later, in your state-of-the-art kitchen, you unpack the bird and
wash it thoroughly because, as your sister says, you just never know

they spend their lives confined in crowded sheds,
permanently treading in their own excrement

You lay it down in your baking tray, drizzle it with extra-virgin olive oil, sprinkle it
with coarsely ground pepper and Himalayan sea salt (you never could resist that pink)

unable to move properly or spread their wings,
they become so distressed they start to attack one other

Prising it open, you spoon in the moistened aromatic breadcrumb-and-herb
stuffing – your speciality! – until its cavity is well and truly full

some avoid eating altogether so as not to be attacked,
dying of starvation, dehydration or cardiac arrest

You circle it with potatoes, carrots and garlic cloves, stepping back to admire
the effect – it’s a good plump bird alright, enough to feed a family of seven

fattened up to twice their natural body weight,
most struggle to stand, their legs weakened and deformed

An hour and a half later, you set the table in the apricot glow of the
late summer sun (kids at the far end). Ah, the joys of alfresco dining!

the first daylight the chickens see is
by truck on their way to the slaughterhouse

At dinner, you raise a toast to celebrate long life and your husband’s father’s
seventieth birthday, drawing a shawl of pure contentment about you

at six to eight weeks, they are killed;
in their natural habitat, they live up to fifteen years

Author bio

Denise O’Hagan is an award-winning editor and poet, born in Rome and based in Sydney. With a background in commercial book publishing in London and Sydney, she set up her own imprint, Black Quill Press, in 2015 to assist independent authors. Recipient of the Dalkey Poetry Prize, her work appears in various journals including The Copperfield Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Quadrant, Books Ireland, Eureka Street and Hecate. Her second poetry collection, Anamnesis, is forthcoming (Recent Work Press, 2022).

Denise O’Hagan Home

Poetry: Twenty-two years by Denise O’Hagan

Twenty-two years

since I last heard your voice, or saw you
step off the plane at 76, quite an age to emigrate,
newspaper in hand as my mother pushed the trolley,
aware you weren’t quite the man you used to be,
unaware of what you brought by merely being there,
grasping your trusty cherry wood walking stick
shiny handled from all the years of grasping,
time enough to scrape a meeting with my son,
who grew up not knowing what he missed—
yet still that great grey slab of time keeps stretching,
getting no more distant for being more thinly stretched
week by year by decade, and now you’re doubling back
two countries ago, tea-towel slung over your shoulder,
pouring a glass of red and flipping potatoes in olive oil,
steadying the fry-pan with the wobbly black handle
as I slice garlic and onion, and tear off a chunk of bread,
jamming it between my lips as my mother taught me
to shore up the watering in my eyes.

First published in Tarot (Issue 1), New Zealand, 1 December 2020
https://www.tarotpoetry.nz/

Author bio:
Denise O’Hagan is an award-winning editor and poet, born in Rome and based in Sydney. With a background in commercial book publishing in London and Sydney, she set up her own imprint, Black Quill Press, in 2015 to assist independent authors. Recipient of the Dalkey Poetry Prize, her work appears in various journals including The Copperfield Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Quadrant, Books Ireland, Eureka Street and Hecate. Her second poetry collection, Anamnesis, is due to be published in October 2022 (Recent Work Press).
https://denise-ohagan.com