#136 Cara Thompson: „Poetry asks us to make a connection.“ [30:24]

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
...with Vanessa Guinan-Bank. And today, as you may hear, we have a bit of a different episode for you. And I'll switch back to English in a moment. 
Wir haben heute eine etwas andere Folge für euch. Und zwar ist das unsere erste englischsprachige Folge. Denn Bremen ist ja eine UNESCO City of Literature. Und wir wollten uns mit AutorInnen aus anderen Cities of Literature verbinden. Deswegen haben wir heute eine AutorIn aus Nottingham in England zu Gast. Und da sprechen wir natürlich Englisch. Also, ab jetzt geht's weiter auf Englisch. 
So as I just said, this is our very first episode in English, but ever since Bremen became a UNESCO city of literature, we've been wanting to connect with other cities of literature and we're delighted to have Cara Thompson from Nottingham as our guest today.
Cara is a writer, performer and interdisciplinary artist, and she's also Nottingham's first nature poet laureate. We'll talk about what that is and what that means in a bit. Cara does written and spoken word poetry and we might also get to hear some of her work later on. She's a proud descendant of Jamaican migrants who came to Britain as part of the pioneering Windrush generation. 
Cara, welcome. I'm so glad you could join us. 

Cara Thompson
Thank you for having me. It's an honor. 

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
Cara, you're Nottingham's very first Nature Poet Laureate. What is that?

Cara Thompson
Yeah, it's a good question. It's often the question I kind of have to answer the most with this role because it's quite unique. But essentially, a Poet Laureate here in the UK is a ceremonial role that's offered out to poets, sometimes to represent a country, sometimes to represent a city, sometimes to represent a cause and here in Nottingham the cause that was decided to be represented was nature. 
Basically Nottingham is also a city of literature like Bremen and the Nottingham City of Literature group recognised a need for there to be more work done around the topic of nature and climate change and the urgency of that you know as something that we respond to, be that practically or creatively. And so this role was sort of made to hopefully inspire people to get out in nature more, to respond and form deeper connections and relationships with nature. 
And poetry can be a really powerful and interesting way to do that because it kind of, I think poetry asks us to make a connection with something. So that's kind of what the role is and that's what I'm here to do. 

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
That's so interesting that poetry like asks us to connect with something. When you were awarded you said that you wanted to challenge what many people may initially expect a nature poet laureate to be. Can you expand a bit on that? What do you mean by that? 

Cara Thompson
Yeah sure, so, here in the UK at least, nature poetry is a very old tradition but it's often very much associated I think with a very specific kind of person, often somebody that's quite wealthy, often that is a man, often that's sort of roaming the countryside hills on their very big estates and often that isn't a person of colour as well.
It's just not something that you see in terms of how nature poetry has been represented here in the UK. And often I think the first kind of poem that a person is introduced to is a nature poem, you know, often whether that's in school, it's just the kind of very traditional English idea of poetry and I think it often comes with a lot of baggage because of that.
And it's not something that I growing up felt very represented by and equally, you know, with my, just in my life I grew up in a city in an urban area I wasn't surrounded by you know pristine landscapes or had a lot of access to those sorts of um environments.
And so I'm really interested in kind of how we speak about nature maybe from a more disconnected place or from a marginalized place and how do we um make people who maybe have felt alienated from green spaces feel more welcome and like they belong in those spaces so I kind of went into the role being very direct about that if I was going to do it I was going to do it very differently to maybe what somebody would expect a nature poet to be.

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
And how do you kind of try to inspire people or make that deeper connection between people and the natural world?

Cara Thompson
So a lot of it what I've been really enjoying is finding nature spaces that maybe are often kind of overlooked within particularly within urban areas. You know there are these little pockets of greenery all over Nottingham that we often kind of walk through rather than experience or enjoy or reflect on. 
And so I'm really interested in bringing and inviting people who maybe don't typically place themselves in those situations to come out. You know I'll deliver a workshop in these spaces. We actually just did one in the caves here in Nottingham which was really fascinating we went underground and –

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
What are the caves?

Cara Thompson
Oh yeah so Nottingham is have like and we have a massive network of caves basically underneath the city where people lived and drank and met and gathered and you.. Kind of people will experience them maybe once or twice it's like a little school trip or like a tourist destination but I was really interested in like what kind of stories could be like unearthed from that space um so we took about a group of about 20 people down into the caves and delivered a workshop in there with an archaeologist. 
And the work that was generated was just so interesting and so inspiring and that's what I'm excited about. There's there's already so much potential within the city and so much room for imagination. 
So for me it's about bringing people into spaces that they may already even know but just haven't thought about in that way or bringing in people that would never think to put themselves in those sorts of places and hopefully creating something with them that then lives on whether that's in an anthology or it becomes an installation or anything like that really just giving them a little bit more a sense of belonging and a presence in a place. 

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
I love this cave example. Was the work generated there, was it poetry?

Cara Thompson
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we went down into the caves and an archaeologist would kind of start with giving us a bit of history or, you know, a story about, you know, what happened in the specific cave that we were in. Because there's over a thousand caves under the city. So you can, there's a lot to explore. And then once the archaeologists gave us like the historical context I would give like a creative prompt which the group would then start to write and jot and inspire about.
So that we did all sorts of things I got people doing like cave rubbings on the wall where you take like a crayon and rub against the wall and write around that and we had them writing you know stories as if they were living in the caves or as if they'd discovered a cave and just let them kind of really go free with their ideas. 
And then afterwards we went into a workshop space and really dug into the work they generated and made more kind of you know descriptive finalized poems together and we're hopefully going to be displaying that in in the caves as well so that'll be really cool.

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
That's so fascinating. You already mentioned a bit that you like grew up in an urban environment. What does nature mean to you then?

Cara Thompson
It's a really interesting question and it's something I had to ask myself coming into this role. And I think coming into it, there was a degree of discomfort with nature because of what I've described. And this feeling that it's not a space that I really have the authority to speak on or the right to represent. 
But the more I've kind of been involved in this role, the more that's been unravelled, I think. And I think it's quite a dangerous view for us to have of ourselves that we don't belong in nature because we are nature. And the more that we kind of distance ourselves, the more disconnected we are from ourselves, I think, inherently. I also have quite an interesting view of nature through my heritage as well, I'd say. 
Like I mentioned, like you mentioned in my bio, my heritage is Jamaican. And so my parents and their parents came from Jamaica to the UK in the 50s and 60s. But, you know, Jamaica itself is such a lush and beautiful island. And often I was growing up hearing all these stories about just how naturally beautiful and connected my parents and ancestors were with the land.
And I actually only visited Jamaica for the first time two years ago but going there it really I think opened my eyes to how deep the relationship with nature goes particularly within my culture and how I think coming to the there's a lot of nostalgia and longing for nature in my community that isn't really addressed or spoken about as part of the migrant experience. 
So there's something in that too. For me, it feels like I'm reclaiming something and returning to something that I didn't know was missing. And I've definitely felt that I felt very grateful that I've been able to, through this work, experience nature in a much deeper and more personal way than I ever have and it's been pretty life-changing in that way actually um knowing that that's available to me all the time.

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
Wow, that's amazing. Would you say like nature, I mean you mentioned like the nature poetry traditionally in the UK, was it like a class or a race thing in that it was like so connected with like rich white men? And that you felt disconnected?

Cara Thompson
Yeah, I'd say so. And I think, you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with there being those perspectives, you know. Like nobody has the blanket authority over who should be writing about what. But I think the problem is often young people are offered that as this is what good poetry is. And this is what it means to be a poet, this is what a poet looks like, this is what a poet sounds like.
And if it sounds nothing like you or looks nothing like you or represents nothing that you've ever experienced before how can you connect you know. Or even how I think that there's more work to do around how we build connections between young people and poetry. Like what's the way in to a poem? Rather than just kind of offering them this work, saying, this is good, memorize it, you know, which is what I had to do. 
I remember the first poem I ever remember reading and studying was a poem by Wordsworth called ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’. And I was about seven years old and the whole entire class had to memorize this poem word for word and then recite it.
I didn't understand a single thing that he was saying, you know, I didn't connect with this idea of walking through a field of daffodils and being like so inspired. I was like, well, what is he talking about? And I'm like, it's more so I think educators, people that are teaching literature, it would be really amazing if more thought was put into how can we make a poem accessible or make, give people the opportunity to reckon with a poem or interrogate a poem or dig deeper into a poem. 
Rather than just kind of slapping it in front of you and saying this is what it is so I think that's part of the issue as well. 

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
Yeah, slap in front of you and then learn it by heart which also doesn't really help you you know connect with it. So, how did you you start writing poetry? Was there like a particular moment or something in particular that inspired you? 

Cara Thompson
Yeah, so, I mean I think I’ve always loved writing. I used to inhale books as a kid and I think writing was always just the topic, like english was was favourite subject going to school and stuff. But poetry didn't really start until like my teen years and it actually sort of came out of more of an activist kind of practice. 
So around the time when the Black Lives Matter movement was really very active and we were sort of witnessing these police killings of black people, I was involved in a few different sort of activist groups. But I also started to turn to poetry as a way to kind of articulate some of my feelings and just some of yeah some of the outrage as well that I was feeling. 
And what surprised me was that the poetry and the things that I was writing were reaching more people and connecting with more people than I ever could just sort of at a march or like a you know speaking at a protest or anything like that. Not to say that those things aren't all so important but I think it showed me that poetry can be a really powerful way to communicate.
And I think it also, I also see poetry as a kind of conversation because even if I'm the one that's written the words, it's up to that person, how they interpret it and take it forward or reflect on it. And that really interested me. And so I continue just sort of writing into my experiences as a woman of Caribbean heritage and just navigating the world you know as a teenager and I was really just surprised at how responsive and warm people were towards it. And I think it made me a lot braver in in communicating certain issues. 
So yeah, that's kind of how it all started and then I moved back to Nottingham – I was actually in Manchester studying for university – moved back to Nottingham during Covid. And when I came back there was the opportunity to join a collective called GOBS Collective which, here in the UK, gobs means like big mouth. And I applied for that and that was a huge thing for me because it was weekly sort of online sessions where we're learning how to improve our craft and putting together like an online poetry showcase. 
And I'd say that's really when it started for me to feel like this is something I really want to do like something I could really see myself putting up, putting myself towards applying myself to and since then it's just kind of continued, so yeah.

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
It’s so interesting that you found a community during the pandemic because I feel like a lot of us were kind of lacking community during the pandemic. 

Cara Thompson
It was honestly such a saviour. That like that was such a big thing because you know I'd been at university for however long and coming back to Nottingham. Sure I had like some of my childhood friends that were still here and everything. But it was so isolating and I really was really needing like a sense of community like a sense of creative community. 
And so, seeing that opportunity appear was just like, oh my gosh yes. And it's funny I actually applied late because I'd not seen the opportunity until the day it had closed and so I basically begged the organizers to let me apply and they thankfully did. 
And you know since then it was just amazing and I even ended up becoming an assistant producer for the collective which was amazing as well. Getting to help others that were then joining the collective to go through the similar journey. 
Yes, it's been it's been huge for me in terms of my development and just a sense of community as an artist.

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
So, maybe this is the moment we hear a poem from you?

Cara Thompson
Yeah, sure. So I feel like this one would be fitting because it is quite a big part of my story. So this poem is a poem called Island Screams that I actually submitted into the UNESCO Cities of Literature competition Slamovision, which is an international poetry competition again during COVID. 
I applied, performed this poem over video and I actually won Slamovision that year and it was again a huge reminder that poetry, no matter where it's being read or received, can just translate and cross boundaries. 
And I think it reassured me that, and it gave me a lot of confidence and trust in people that they can kind of hear my story and hold it. 
So this poem is called ‘Island Screams’ and I'm reading it from my debut poetry pamphlet called ‘Bring It to the Altar’, which I published last year.

Island Screams. 

Where are you from? 

Nottingham. 

No, I mean, where are you really from? 

Oh, I see. Well, that's easy. 

I'm Windrush. Hybrid. Island spawn. 

I'm sun. I'm sea. I'm rain. I'm storm. 

Cast out, cast in. 

I'm hope reborn and lost as soon as it was formed. 

I'm bloody rivers. Battleships. 

I'm ackee, saltfish, fish and chips. 

I'm cocoa butter on your lips. 

I'm soursop. I'm apple pips. 

I'm from the land of wooden huts and bras made out of coconut. 

Where ganja burns and Europe tuts from inside of their history book. 

I'm blue magic and hot combed hair. 

I'm from the blood-stained windows where the ivory banks of Europe glare and leave my empty pockets bare. 

I'm from a distant echo threat, 

an island that I've never met, where sun and sea and toil and sweat are called your favourite vacay yet. 

From Caliban and animals, two steps away from Crusoe and his cannibals, an island of black cannibals. 

You dream about that package to Montego Bay you found on Thompson holidays 

where trees bend back and snap their roots to guide you on your merry way. 

So many days of mine are spent repenting for a helpless crime. 

I swing upon a slowly snapping vine until I realise 

I'm sugarcane. 

I'm wind. I'm rain, 

I'm hurricanes that tear the ground. 

I'm ancestors that won't be found, 

whose bodies beat from underground. 

I'm red skin ghosts that haunt your dreams.

I'm nanny, seacole, pukamania screams 

that call across the sea and find their way right back to me. 

Does that answer your question?

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
Thank you so much. That's lovely. 
I wonder, could you like, so you said that you, you like poetry because it's kind of like people can read in it, or have to like read in it what it says to them. I read kind of like an affirmation of your heritage, maybe. 
But could you maybe give us a bit more context to the poem? Like, what does it mean to you?

Cara Thompson
Absolutely. So as I've mentioned, my heritage is Jamaican, but I was born here and here in the UK. And I think that gives you an interesting kind of identity marker, because you're both from here and not quite from here. And growing up, you would often get asked this question of where are you from? But no, like, where are you actually from? 
And, you know, I've lived in the UK, it's all I've ever known, but I'm also very proud of this other side of my heritage. And so this poem is kind of me wrestling with that and almost, I guess, fantasising about what I would really answer, what I really want to say when people ask me this question, because it's not a simple question, you know.
And even though it's a question that's often directed at people of colour, I find, I think it's actually a really dense question for everybody, Like the question of where are you from? You know, when we go deep into our roots, it's, it's, you know, migration is in everything. We've all kind of moved and transitioned. 
And, and this, I think this is just like almost digging into the slight absurdity of that question while also trying to, I guess, celebrate and reclaim all the sides of myself. Like the title ‘Island screams’, know yes Jamaica's an island but Britain is an island also and I'm kind of imagining them kind of shouting at each other from across the Atlantic and that's kind of exactly what this is it's wrestling with all these different parts of myself until I reach the point where I'm all of it.
Like it's I'm all of that. Take it or leave it sort of thing. So that's yeah that's home. You're the first person to actually ask me that as well. I've never been able to actually explain you know the rationale behind that poem. But yeah it's a really important one to me and I think it's it's the first poem where I really felt like I was writing in my own voice and so I've always tried to kind of return to that feeling when I'm writing. 

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
Do you feel your voice has changed since you visited Jamaica? 

Cara Thompson
Oh that's a good question. I think.. Possibly there has been... I think some of the things that I was wrestling with in Island Screams kind of became slightly more solidified through going to Jamaica.
I think when I wrote that poem, I was writing to try and own those things and reclaim those things. But once I actually went to Jamaica, I think it played a massive part in actually solidifying that now I am all of these things. This is all of me, this is part of my heritage and I think there's been less need to kind of prove anything since going which is really nice. 
I think also it's been quite special in that I've been able to sort of connect with family members out there and I even have a cousin out there that's also a poet I discovered. And so it almost again reaffirmation of like this is where it's all coming from. But yeah I think I think we as poets like we are and should be changing all the time like I would be concerned if I was writing the exact same way that I was like when I think this was 2021 you know so yeah I'd hope that I've changed a bit.

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
That's amazing that you have a cousin who does poetry as well. And I mean within this ever-shifting need for poets to change has your like how your poetry reflects nature shifted since you became the nature poet laureate and maybe also since your trip to Jamaica?

Cara Thompson
Yeah, so I think I'm becoming more aware of how I feel like nature has always existed in my poetry first of all. But I hadn't noticed at first. Even in that poem you know. When I was like applying for the role of the Nature Poet Laureate I was sort of blown away, flicking through my work, how nature has always been a character that's just sort of been chilling in there, without me realizing. 
But I think, I'm definitely more conscious and inspired by nature in my writing nowadays. Which is really nice, it sort of sort of opened up a new door of inspiration you know and it's a new creative resource for me that I didn't have before. And it's also I think made me more aware of of climate justice as a theme within my work.
One thing that really you know brought the urgency of of nature poetry into the forefront for me, was, about a month or two after my selection, there was a hurricane that hit Jamaica called Hurricane Melissa that had an absolutely catastrophic effect on the island. They're still recovering to this day. 
And Jamaica gets hit by a lot of hurricanes. They have a whole hurricane season, but this particular hurricane was absolutely awful. And I was in, obviously I'd been to Jamaica by this point, so I was also in communication with family who were just trying to rebuild their lives. And I think unfortunately as humans, we often kind of need to experience something to kind of be shocked into action. 
But that in particular, really just made the, I think the often imbalanced effects of climate change very clear to me, you know. Climate change predominantly impacts the global south, even though they're the ones doing the least damage to the environment. And it made me, I think, quite sharply aware of the privilege we have here in places like the UK, where we don't get, you know, annual sort of traumatic experiences of climate disaster, where we can just kind of sit back and relax. 
And I realised that climate justice is something I also want to write about and fold into my writing. So I do also have a poem I actually wrote called Melissa in response to that and that's very important to me. It's all about the way that hurricanes are named and how I think they should be named by those organizations that are causing a lot of the damage we're witnessing on the planet. But yeah, it's become more important to me to highlight those issues.

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
And not women's names maybe. 

Cara Thompson
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
You entered poetry through protests, would you, or through activism, would you say poetry is a form of activism for you?

Cara Thompson
Yeah, I would I'd say it's a pretty important form. I think poetry is it's it's many things you know. I think, it can be many things at the same time. It can also be like a catharsis or it can be like a celebration. But I think I fall in the camp where I inherently think poetry is political. I think it communicates. 
I think even just having the freedom to write poetry is political. It's not always a given, you know what I mean? We can’t always have the privilege of writing and putting our voices on paper. It's not guaranteed everywhere. So it's something that I try to be mindful of and be aware of just as I'm writing and everything. And, you know, I'm sure everybody's stances on that are different, but for me, I find it very hard to separate the creative from the political.

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
Maybe that's a good final word. Thank you so much, Cara Thompson.

Cara Thompson
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Vanessa Guinan-Bank
So that's it for today. If you want to hear more from Cara, check out her website. She has several videos of her performances linked there, as well as info on all the other exciting things she does. 
Und das war's mit dieser Folge. Die nächste Folge ist dann wieder auf Deutsch. Vielen Dank fürs Zuhören und bis zum nächsten Mal.

---

Der Text wurde KI-gestützt transkribiert.