A Day in the Life of a Poet

Pauline Prior-Pitt speaks to our resident Blogger Dylan Blyth

“Write what you know, and show; don’t tell.”

Pauline Prior-Pitt is a British poet living in North Uist, an island in the Outer Hebrides. She has been writing for more than 40 years, producing numerous books and pamphlets of poetry. She has appeared on Radio 4’s Women’s Hour, Pick of the Week, and With Great Pleasure , as well as on Channel 4, and in 2006 won the

Callum Macdonald Memorial Award for pamphlet poetry.

I sat down with Pauline to discuss her career as a poet; how she got started, her inspirations, and her tips for any budding poets.

This is a day in the life of a poet, with Pauline Prior-Pitt.





I begin by asking Pauline for how long she has been writing.





“I’ve been writing since 1978,” she tells me, “writing in secret for seven years before joining a writing group.”

It was 9 years later, in 1987, that Pauline’s first collection of poems – Waiting Women– was published, with illustrations from the artist Nancy Upshall.

This edition was “revised in 1999, without the illustrations, and included poems form my second very slim collection called ,In the Heat of the Moment ,” Pauline tells me.

Remaining at the origin of her career, I ask Pauline what or who inspired her to begin writing poetry.

“I had been a prize winning speaker from an early age and loved speaking poems to an audience,” she says, “but had never thought about writing my own. Then, when I was going through a rather difficult time in my life, I found myself writing poems about my situation. They were quite angry, feminist poems, but many of them were humorous.”

It is common for a poet to use their writing to untangle the mess of the world; to make life clearer. What makes Pauline’s poetry so special is that it tackles the everyday; matriarchal and married life, the aging process, having grandchildren, the weather in North Uist, death. These are topics she, and many more, face in their daily lives. I ask Pauline why she chooses to write on the topics she does.

“It seems natural to me; to write about things I know about. Getting closer to the truth of my own experiences is an artistic goal. I wanted to highlight the ordinary by making it extraordinary. My poems are mostly political with a small ‘p’; some with a large one,” she adds.





Following from this, I ask Pauline what she thinks inspires her writing.​





“I think there are two main strands to the inspiration,” she says.“One is women; our cradle to the grave experiences. Often in cafes I will overheard a remark and think Oh I feel like that too , and then try to expand and reflect on what I have heard. I experience so much around me every day that inspires me to write.”

“My other strands,” she continues, “is the island of North Uist.

Since we moved her twenty years ago, the landscape and the sea have featured strongly in my poems. Again, I am surrounded by so much stimulation that it is almost impossible not to be writing about this island of wind and water and stone.”

There is no doubt that Pauline is a skilled poet with a cup full of inspiration, but there is one major problem with poetry as a full-time career: it is not always a stable one. I ask Pauline whether she has, or continues to, supplement her passion for writing with other employment avenues.

“I think it is almost impossible to earn a living just from writing poetry,” she says. “Many poets supplement their income by teaching creative writing in various institutions. For many years,I was a special needs advisor for the Coventry LEA, running in-service training courses for teacers. I was also a visiting lecturer at the University of Warwick.”

So if you are considering , a career in poetry keep your other options open: support your passion with a money-earning job (the best would be a teaching or creative writing position, to help refine your craft).





Which skills does Pauline most value in her work as a poet?





“I value imagination, creativity, working alone, the redrafting of a poem, deciding what to leave out, trying to make every word count,” she tells me. “I get completely involved in the process, speaking the lines aloud, listening to the rhythm; the sounds.

It’s all-consuming. Then there is the skill of performance; sharing with an audience. My poems are made to be read aloud, or performed, and I greatly value the opportunity to do that.”





I ask Pauline what her number one tip is for an aspiring poet.





“Write what you know, and show; don’t tell. [Also] join a good writing group.”

I think about Pauline’s expansive, inspiring career, and ask what pleases her most about it.

“My first collection, Waiting Women, sold over 7000 copies by word of mouth at a time when poetry collections were selling in hundreds, not thousands,” she tells me. “[Then] I won the prestigious Callum Macdonald Memorial Award for my pamphlet ‘North Uist Sea Poems’ [in 2006], which led to me meeting Tessa Ransford,​found of the Scottish Poetry Library. She was a real jewel in my life.”

“I’m still performing in literature festivals and getting good reviews in Scotland and England, and loving it all,” she adds.





I conclude by asking Pauline what her all-time favourite poem is. She tells me:





“ The Road Not Taken , by Robert Frost. I like it because it is about the choices we make in life, and because although I didn’t initially take the right road, somehow I have worked my way around and joined the road further along the route, which has led to greater happiness”.

Pauline was 30 before she began writing poetry. It is never too late to get started; to take the right road.

If you are interested in reading more of Pauline’s work, her books can be purchased via her website,

here: http://www.pauline-prior-pitt.com/publications/





On her latest collection, Be an Angel, Pauline told me: “It is a selected works. The poems are alternately funny and poignant and reflect upon the preoccupation of women’s lives. They have been selected from my previous seven collections. I am enormously proud of it, and it is selling very well.”





Here is one poem from the collection, titled ‘On Those Days’.





On Those Days

on those days

when we wake

to the sun

edging in

when we wake

to the silence

of no wind

when we amble

half moon beaches

apples in our pockets

when we sit small

on headland rocks

watching the sea​

on those days

if this is all there is

it is enough.

(‘On Those Days’ by Pauline Prior-Pitt. Used with permission of the author. http://www.pauline-prior-pitt.com. © 2017 Pauline Prior-Pitt)

An Article by Dylan Blyth.