Creator's Conversations with Grae J. Wall

Hey book lover! Your favourite blog kmgreads completed a successful year on 25th January. When I started it, I didn't expect that I would continue it for a year. But your love and support made everything possible and I promise you that I will put more efforts to provide you with better content. To enjoy this happy moment, I invited poet, lomographer and songwriter Grae J. Wall. He is from St Albans, UK. Grae J. Wall's latest poetry book The Sound of Revolution was released on 7th December 2020.

Kangkan: Music, poetry and photography -these three things have always been fascinating us, the humans and you are living the life among them. How does it feel?
Grae: Quite organic I suppose, I really did just fall into the world with an innate need to create and capture and share. My mum was a poet and I was inspired by the poems she would send to the letters page of our local newspaper. I inherited my grandad’s old Kodak Brownie when I was six or seven and then aged about 11 I saw David Bowie on Top of the Pops and my course was somehow set. At the moment obviously, it is a little tough and not being able to get together with my musical cohorts or head off on tour last year was definitely stressful, but on the upside, I had the time to put together a new book and some of the virtual gigs and festivals have been fun to contribute to.

Kangkan: I have little knowledge of music, but I love listening to (everyone does). Both music and poetry are mood changers. Did there any moment occur when music and poetry conflict with each other (with two different vibes) and give you a bad mood?
Grae: Not really a bad mood. Sometimes when I start writing I’m not sure if I’m writing a poem or a lyric and on occasion I’ve taken it in the direction of a lyric and then on completion realised I should have gone more down the poem route. Sometimes something ends up being distinctly both a poem and lyric and that’s nice when it happens. Sometimes of course the very creation is about releasing a wave of anger or frustration and that’s no bad thing, as John Lydon once said, ‘anger is an energy’.

Kangkan: Each poem has a melody(tune). When you add music to a poem, do you feel more comfortable in your own lyrics, than someone else's?
Grae: I definitely feel more comfortable with my own words though obviously sometimes they can be tough to deliver as they are tapping into very real experiences and emotions. I do also enjoy interpreting other folks' songs but I need to feel I can find something of myself in the words and deliver something personal with it. You have to find a way of inhabiting the songs, wearing it like a comfortable coat. I have written songs that I have hardly ever performed live as I’d worry about losing it on stage. There’s a song I wrote about my mum’s passing called Old Brown Sofa and even after quite some years I still find it tough to sing.

Kangkan: A photograph can offer a poet many poems. That's how I understand the relation between photography and writing. How do you take(use) photography as a musician(or as a poet)?
Grae: I’ve recently contributed some poem & photo combinations to online exhibitions and that’s definitely something I’d like to do more of - blurring the lines between the different disciplines. I’m really more a lomographer than a photographer and there is a real connection there. Lomography is all about capturing a moment or a narrative with very cheap tools. I have a few cameras now, most of which cost under £20. It all started with a Holga 135 which captured my heart some years ago. The beauty of poetry, lomography and to some extent music is that you can create something cool, wild and wonderful with the cheapest of tools; a pencil and paper, a battered old guitar or a cheap plastic camera. This all stems from my punk roots, that year zero that opened the door and beckoned me in. Art should not be the preserve of the affluent but available and accessible to us all. That ethos is something that has pervaded all my artistic endeavours but also my various roles as an arts facilitator and promoter. I’ve just recently contributed a musical soundtrack to a photography project online by Nic Madge for his Pandemic Portraits series which was exciting and again that cross-genre collaboration is something I’m keen to explore more.

Kangkan: I love listening to your songs when I am driving. Remember you this way, Blame it on the night, Sitting in a bar in East Berlin -these three songs have blown my mind. When did you feel that music can't be separated from your life?

Grae: Thank you, that’s lovely to hear. The songs (and poems) do often come from quite dark moments and as such have been a very necessary outlet for me since my teenage years I guess. For example both Remember You This Way and Sitting in a Bar in East Berlin are both about very real people who were important in my life that sadly died way too young (both took their own lives). I have sadly lost quite a few friends and relatives too early and if I sat around internalising that I’m not sure I could really cope. Somehow relating, releasing and sharing those stories enables me to cope with that sadness and allows those folks to live on a little in those moments. The same could be said of just trying to make sense of a world that seems so intolerably sad and unfair so much of the time; it just feels like everything needs fixing and a poem, a song or a photo is a more creative and hopefully positive way of releasing that angst than just punching a wall or self-medicating. Having said all that, I think I manage to find humour and some positivity, even celebration in these outpourings. In the past we have challenged audiences to count the number of deaths that appear in our sets - there’s a gallows humour at play there. Blame it on the Night, by the way, is a Kevin Coyne song that I recorded for a tribute album after he died and illustrates quite well the answer to your previous question - as in it being a song that I felt a genuine connection to, something I could wear quite comfortably.

Kangkan: Tell us your expectations from your latest poetry collection The Sound of Revolution, which was out on 7 December. The title of the book is very attractive. I think the poetries inside have much more to offer.
Grae: As I found myself doing more poetry events last year at various online festivals and exhibitions, a number of people asked me if there was a book available and the simple truth is there wasn’t. The last little book I published was around 7 years ago, just a short run that sold out fairly fast. Since then I have been happy to mostly just share work at the little poetry page I run on Facebook - The Poetry Underground. In the back of my mind though I’ve had the thought to put together a new book for some years and being furloughed, locked-down and isolated from my bandmates allowed me the time (with the help of my daughter) to collate the book and put it out there. I chose the poem The Sound of Revolution as the title as it just seemed to work with the moment but you are right in that really only a few of the poems address those world issues, others are just about coping with demons and those little personal revolutions and observations. It’s definitely not a heavy political manifesto, there are poems about my cat, train travel and life in the back-room bar! Thankfully I have sold some physical copies through my website and I have also put it out as an e-book so we’ll see how that works out (I have to admit I have never actually read an e-book or used a Kindle!). What I’m most looking forward to is being able to sell the book at real gigs face to face, at the bar after the show.

Kangkan: Whom do you show your poetries right after writing?
Grae: Occasionally my wife but to be honest I usually leave the poem for a while and then return and judge whether it is worth sharing somewhere. I’m a fairly harsh self-critic. There are many poems and songs that don’t make it out into the world. The Poetry Underground is a great little space for sharing, a bit like a virtual open-mic night. There are some great poets in the group and it’s always good to get any feedback that emerges.

Kangkan: Now I am going to ask you three questions which are popular among the readers of "kmgreads". I ask these three questions to all the guests of Creator's Conversation.

1. Nikita Gill, a famous poet on social media once said in an interview, "Eight billion people are living their life in eight billion ways."- what is your way of living life?
Grae: When I was going through a particularly dark patch around 20 years ago I found much solace in reading Buddhist texts and poetry and some of that either resonated with my own thoughts or inspired new ones. I do believe to a large extent that there is only the moment. Yesterday has gone and there’s nothing that can be changed there whilst tomorrow is really an unknown and none of us really knows if we will see it. Therefore live that moment and if you can, help others to live theirs. I take little heed of anyone’s position or title, only their compassion and wisdom. Countries, borders and nationalities I think are largely an irrelevant construct that tend to get in the way of meaningful global development. That said I recognise the contradictions that lie within us all - a citizen of the world who still wants England to win the world cup.

2. Tell us a secret of your life that you have not shared with anybody.
Grae: My immediate family already know this but I tend to cry at the silliest of movies. Not just the obvious ones like It’s a Wonderful Life or The Muppets Christmas Carol but things like the Toy Story and Ice Age movies - I’m a real sucker for those.

3.There are so many readers of my blog who want to become full-time writers. What will be your message to them?
Grae: There’s a poem in the book that illustrates this quite well - A Man sits on a Train. The greatest advice I can offer is to relish the journey and allow yourself to be taken by the wind. I have known so many that have set their plan for success in stone and ended up missing out on so much fun and adventure by sticking to their often fruitless path. Listen, love, travel and absorb. Be kind and generous of heart for those cherished spirits will enrich your tale tenfold.

Kangkan: Thank you so much, Grae. I think one interview is not enough to understand you and your thoughts. I will shortly call you again and you have to sing for us in that interview.
Grae: Thank you so much for having me - it’s been a pleasure and I look forward to the next time.

I hope this interview will add some value to your life. If you want to know more about Grae J. Wall, you can follow his blog. You will also find him on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. If you enjoy beat poetry and lyricism, you can consider reading Grae's The Sound of Revolution. Looking at the length of the interview, I couldn't add your questions that you asked Grae on social media. To compensate that, I will again invite Grae to my YouTube channel shortly and I'll add your questions there. So, please subscribe to the YouTube channel and you will get the notification whenever I upload the video. If you loved this interview, share it with your friends, foes and family. Keep reading, keep smiling. Bye!