{"id":4510,"date":"2011-11-11T11:20:16","date_gmt":"2011-11-11T11:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/?p=4510"},"modified":"2011-11-11T11:20:16","modified_gmt":"2011-11-11T11:20:16","slug":"cardiff-character-susan-richardson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/2011\/11\/11\/cardiff-character-susan-richardson\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardiff character: Susan Richardson"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>A peek inside how an ecopoet finds inspiration in Cardiff<\/h2>\n<div id=\"attachment_4511\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 480px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/culture_6_susanrichardsonpoet1_nc.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4511\" title=\"culture_6_susanrichardsonpoet1_nc\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/culture_6_susanrichardsonpoet1_nc.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/culture_6_susanrichardsonpoet1_nc.jpg 480w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/culture_6_susanrichardsonpoet1_nc-300x138.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4511\" title=\"culture_6_susanrichardsonpoet1_nc\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/culture_6_susanrichardsonpoet1_nc.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/culture_6_susanrichardsonpoet1_nc.jpg 480w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/culture_6_susanrichardsonpoet1_nc-300x138.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Susan says she\u2019s disciplined and must write every day<\/p><\/div>\n<p>It\u2019s so early in Chapter Arts Centre caf\u00e9 that it\u2019s another ten minutes until breakfast can be ordered. It\u2019s Saturday morning, but Susan Richardson is already here. As an ecopoet, her work has taken her around the world, whether through pilgrimages to the Arctic or via the airwaves as a resident poet on BBC Radio 4\u2019s Saturday Live. So, a caf\u00e9 might not seem so green or glamorous \u2013 there isn\u2019t even a pot plant inside \u2013 but she\u2019s early and excited for a workshop in performance. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to be a participant,\u201d she says, \u201cbecause I\u2019m usually the person teaching it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Susan says she\u2019s very much a morning person, particularly from 4am onwards. \u201cIt\u2019s closer to that sleepy, dreamy subconscious state,\u201d she explains. The early rises might be the secret behind her productivity: poetry, plays, short stories, travel writing, tutoring and even availability as an after-dinner poet.<\/p>\n<p>In particular, she\u2019s excited about returning to the Arctic. Her first trip was funded by a Churchill Memorial Travel Fellowship. \u201cI followed in the footsteps of an intrepid eleventh century Norse woman who was born in Iceland, moved to Greenland and then set up a settlement in Newfoundland. I spent time in her birthplace, Snaefellsnes Peninsula \u2013 a long arthritic finger jutting out into the North Atlantic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Susan was born in the less polar environment of Monmouthshire in 1968, but now lives in Cardiff, still away from wilderness. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be the Arctic. I walk the dog twice a day through Pontcanna Fields and Llandaff Fields. Me and my partner decided we don\u2019t want children, but we have a dog that takes up rather a lot of time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her mother never wanted her to be a writer. \u201cI think she was scared that I would never make a proper living from it. When my mother died, it was quite a moment.\u201d She pauses. \u201cShe wanted me to go into something much more conventional. My first collection came out after she died, so I feel sad she never got to see I made the right decision.\u201d That collection, <em>Creatures of the Intertidal Zone<\/em>, was followed by <em>Where the Air is Rarified<\/em>. On her next project, she teases, \u201cIt\u2019s looking at the concept of wilderness and the idea of human-animal transformations.\u201d The writing starts next month.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it has to be equal,\u201d she responds when asked if it\u2019s possible to collaborate with nature. \u201cI find wilderness is what I\u2019m most inspired by, but it\u2019d be impertinent to call it collaboration when I\u2019m really insignificant in comparison with it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, Susan\u2019s voice is regularly heard by almost 2 million people on Radio 4\u2019s Saturday Live. She admits, \u201cThey\u2019re not expecting complex poetry, so I do more with rhymes and patterns of sounds.\u201d In the show, she performs two poems in response to current events, but the internet gives them a life beyond their topicality. \u201cI love doing it, but it\u2019s not what I want to be remembered by. It\u2019s ironic because they\u2019re the poems that get the biggest audience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The internet means it\u2019s easier to find archives or have your voice heard. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely democratised it,\u201d she says, quickly adding, \u201cbut it might be more difficult to wade through everything that exists.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Further down the line? \u201cI don\u2019t know if there\u2019ll be poets in several centuries.\u201d This is clearly a topic that bothers her, especially she means it literally. She explains, \u201cI\u2019m quite gloomy about the state of the environment. So many species are dying out with global climate change and I feel our days are numbered. We\u2019re at a dangerous point in our history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Until then, she has advice for future writers. \u201cRead as much as you can. There are people writing poetry who don\u2019t read poetry. They don\u2019t want to think about tradition \u2013 they often write prose and chop it up into lines that become poetry. It\u2019s important to know the rules and history of where you\u2019re coming from, but also if you\u2019re going to break those rules and why you\u2019re going to break them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She follows her own advice as preparation for her next book involves reading poetry and academic texts, but also shamanic journeying \u2013 an ancient tradition that, again, features lots of travelling. She explains, \u201cThe shaman would journey to the upper, lower and middle world. I\u2019ve been using it not as a healing method, but a way of getting in touch with the subconscious.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Unsurprisingly, Cardiff doesn\u2019t feature much in her poetry. \u201cI\u2019ve become more of a wilderness poet since living in Cardiff. I\u2019m reacting against the urbanism of it. I find I go to every green spot imaginable and on the coast whenever possible, as far away from the city.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On that note, she departs for her workshop, with poetry offering her own escape into the wilderness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A peek inside how an ecopoet finds inspiration in Cardiff It\u2019s so early in Chapter Arts Centre caf\u00e9 that it\u2019s another ten minutes until breakfast can be ordered. It\u2019s Saturday morning, but Susan Richardson is already here. As an ecopoet, her work has taken her around the world, whether through pilgrimages to the Arctic or via the airwaves as a resident poet on BBC Radio 4\u2019s Saturday Live. So, a caf\u00e9 might not seem so green or glamorous \u2013 there [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":252,"featured_media":4554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1061,1062,1063,1050,95,440,441,1064,1065,234],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-ecopoet","tag-ecopoetry","tag-global-warming","tag-interview","tag-nature","tag-poet","tag-poetry","tag-radio-4","tag-susan-richardson","tag-writers"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cardiff character: Susan Richardson - alt.cardiff<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/2011\/11\/11\/cardiff-character-susan-richardson\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cardiff character: Susan Richardson - alt.cardiff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A peek inside how an ecopoet finds inspiration in Cardiff It\u2019s so early in Chapter Arts Centre caf\u00e9 that it\u2019s another ten minutes until breakfast can be ordered. 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