Vanessa Kisuule, Rory Aaron, Rona Luo and the New Poets Collective

And though their processes and end results may be much-varied, it’s fair to say that one, the other, or both of those sentiments would be true of almost every poet. Helping poets to discover and consider new ways of enjoying words, or showing off, is at the core of the Southbank Centre’s New Poets Collective. Led by poets Vanessa Kisuule and Will Harris, this free programme is centred around the National Poetry Library, and brings together a group of up to 15 poets to hone their skills, and grow both their knowledge and their confidence.

The second instalment of this year-long collective is set to reach its finale at our London Literature Festival in October, when the poets come together to present their work in our Purcell Room. Ahead of this showcase we caught up with two of the poets to see what they’ve taken from the New Poets Collective, but first we spoke to Kisuule to see what she has learnt and experienced from her tutorship.

So Vanessa, what drew you to poetry as a creative outlet?

I like words and I like showing off. Simple as that, really!

Do you feel more at home performing poetry on stage or at slams, or committing poetry to the page?

The two processes are inextricably linked, you can’t perform a poem until you’ve sat with it on the page or screen and made it something you want to share. That said, I love reading my work aloud and hearing others read theirs. That’s always where the real fun and electricity is for me. 

You’ve been involved with our New Poets Collective for two years now, how did this tutorship first come about?

The Southbank Centre approached me about facilitating a collective, which was such an honour, but also a stark reminder of the passage of time as someone who forgets how long I’ve been doing this for. You never stop feeling like a novice. It’s weird. But that’s exactly why Will [Harris] and I don’t really use a hierarchical style of teaching. We pick poets who we genuinely admire and are intrigued by and we consider them peers rather than students. We take for granted that we have as much to learn from them as they do us.

The benefit of the New Poets Collective to the upcoming poets is perhaps obvious, but has working with the collective also benefited your own poetry?

Tutoring beside and learning from Will has been one of the most brain-growing experiences of my life. I don’t know anyone whose mind works quite like his. One of my favourite workshops he runs is one where he talks about the storytelling methods of graphic novels and comics and how the space between each image is called ‘the gutter’. In the gutter is where leaps of association and inference occur. He then melds this principle into how we might leap from line to line and image to image in a poem, which opens up a whole new way of thinking about our formalistic choices. That made me think about writing in a whole new way. 

What’s the most rewarding aspect of working with the New Poets Collective?

Seeing the relationships and collaborations that build between the poets. That’s something that grows its own life outside of the workshops and happens organically without the oversight of Will or me. I love seeing the WhatsApp groups ping with pictures of them hanging out together, supporting each other’s shows, buying each other’s books, offering feedback for each other’s work. That’s what it’s all about. 

Rona Luo and Rory Aaron are two of the poets who participated in the 2022/23 New Poets Collective, and will be presenting their work at the showcase during our London Literature Festival. Born in Derby and now based in Manchester, Aaron is a former teacher and youth worker who moves between the worlds of poetry, music and theatre. Luo, who moved to London in 2019, is a poet and acupuncturist who currently serves as a mental health consultant for Kundiman, a non-profit dedicated to nurturing Asian American literature. 

What drew you to poetry as a creative medium?

Rona Luo: As a neurodivergent person whose first language was not English, I was drawn to poetry because of the freedom it offered me from the rules of English grammar, and from the linearity that usually informs reading and writing in English. Not to say linguistic conventions don't apply, but poetry gave me room to play, subvert, and transgress those conventions. Coming into poetry as a teen, and being permitted for the first time to throw off the rules of the language I’d been taught was very exciting. 

Joelle Taylor says ‘poetry is the last free art form’, and I very much believe this. Poets for the most part are not represented by agents or large publishing houses. This gives us a certain freedom to create and to respond to each other, and to the world, without constraints of the market. Poetry allows us to take risks.

Rory Aaron: If I’m really honest, I think it was its simplicity. Whereas a lot of other creative forms you need equipment, other people, or a space to practise, with poetry you don’t. You can write on a bus, on your bed, in the back of school textbooks, whilst waiting for friends, or even on the move. When I was younger I loved how immediate it was and how I didn’t have to rely on anyone else. In that sense it’s probably one of the most accessible forms of creativity.

Where do your poetic influences come from? What inspires your work?

Rona Luo: I love hybrid poems that don’t necessarily look like poems, and poets whose work cannot easily be categorised by genre, such as Laura Russell, Victoria Chang and Muriel Leung. Their works embody such freedom on the page, and open my mind towards what is possible. I have a bodily response to encountering new forms I’ve never seen – for example, Muriel Leung’s innovative use of periods tickles my senses in a way that I can’t explain. But beyond this sensory pleasure, I read them to become more free in the way I write and operate in the world.

Rory Aaron: Like a lot of people, my first interaction with poetry came through music and lyrics. At 16 I was obsessed with UK hip-hop, people like Jam Baxter, Jehst, Chester P. I loved the rhythm, imagery and wordplay. Then PolarBear’s iconic piece ‘Jessica’ popped up on my YouTube algorithm and I was hooked. The flow, the story telling, the performance. I loved it. It felt so far removed from anything we were being taught at school.

It was in lockdown that I started really reading poetry, starting with Lemn Sissay’s Rebel Without Applause and then I think I read WH Auden’s Another Time – a book I continually dip in and out of. I love reading poets from Derby and Jaime Thrasivoulou’s collection Our Man and Sophie Sparham’s The Man Who Ate 50000 Weetabix have both had a huge influence on me, and how I write, as has my close friend Joshua Hallam. Other poets I love include Frank O’Hara, Terrance Hayes, and Joy Hayo whose poem ‘Perhaps The World Ends Here’ I’m currently obsessed with.

Until recently, a lot of my writing evolved around my past, growing up in Derby, a complex relationship with class, understanding my own mental health, and who I am. But I feel now I’m at a bit of a crossroad moment; I’m looking at the present, where I am now, who I’ve become and how that feels.

How did you hear about the New Poets Collective? And has it been as useful to you as you hoped?

Rona Luo: I have had a fraught relationship with academia, so when I saw this opportunity on social media to work with a group of poets for a year and receive mentorship without being in an academic institution, I jumped at the opportunity. I moved to the UK shortly before the pandemic, and had no connections to the poetry scene here, so was eager to learn and form new relationships. Will and Vanessa have done an extraordinary job of creating a safe space while pushing us to try new things. After a year of strange experimentation with the collective, the insecure, self-critical voice in my head is a lot quieter, and I have more confidence in trying new things and failing. I am a more daring poet now because of them.

Rory Aaron: I’m not sure how I heard about it, probably through social media, but it’s been so useful. Just being around other amazing writers and hearing their work and the way they think; I feel like I’ve learnt a lot through osmosis. The standard has been unbelievable. I also love how Will and Vanessa have encouraged us to interact with different creative mediums and bring that into our writing.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being part of the New Poets Collective?

Rona Luo: It’s been incredible to experiment with such a diverse group of poets and learn from each of them. Each of their work has impacted mine and given me new ideas. I’m grateful for the friendships and mutual support that I hope will continue long after our time together in the collective.

Rory Aaron: I think it’s having a community of writers who are willing to share, give feedback and provide support. Plus I’ve loved the singing lift in the Southbank Centre, I manage to totally forget about them each month, but then I step inside…

How important has it been to get that additional guidance and support from the tutors for your work? 

Rona Luo: I’m leaving with a much clearer sense of who I am as a poet, and why I am creating the work I am creating. My understanding of my own poetics has sharpened, and that would not have been possible without Will and Vanessa. They did not build the program for us to fit into their mould, which I’ve seen happen in some settings, but rather, fostered us to become more distinctively ourselves in voice and style. 

Rory Aaron: For me it’s been crucial. As I said, it’s been a weird year for my writing. A lot of what I’ve been working on throughout my twenties is now out in the world through my pamphlet Doglike (Bearded Badger Publishings), and long narrative poem 'Within These Cobbled Streets' (Verve Press), so I came into the year wanting to experiment with new material and push myself to write about different topics and try different forms. I think having Will and Vanessa there to chat to, and bounce ideas off, has been crucial.

How are you feeling about the showcase?

Rona Luo: I am still working out what I’m presenting, so I feel quite nervous. But I’ve felt nervous many times throughout my year with the Collective, and I’ve come to see that nervousness as a good thing. It means I’m trying something new, and it means I will be surprised.

Rory Aaron: I’m really excited, I’ve been working on a new narrative piece about this figure in Manchester walking around a city that is constantly changing. It looks at the disconnection of the city, and looks at the relationship between memory and physical places.

Where does your poetry, and do you as a poet, go from here?

Rona Luo: I hope to complete my hybrid poetry manuscript, which is a feminist retelling of my family genealogy as Han Chinese colonisers on Hmong land, and an examination of the lies and omissions in family mythology that serve the work of empire-building on the borderlands. As someone who has lived in the US and the UK, I am driven to explore the similarities between empires, and how we heal and navigate the legacies of violence we’ve inherited. I will also be working with the Southbank Centre’s archive team to produce a commissioned poem that speculatively imagines the future of the Royal Festival Hall foyer. I am very excited about that.

Rory Aaron: I’ve had a busy few years. Last year the narrative poem I published with Verve, was turned into a two person play and debuted at Contact Theatre, Manchester and Derby Theatre – hopefully this is going to tour next year. I’ve got another collection about Manchester, and being a youth worker there, that I’ve started roughly sketching out. However what is interesting to me most is long-form narrative poetry. I’m so intrigued to see how far I can push the performance of it, and in what type of spaces it can be performed.