Meet Nicole Durman …
We interviewed Nicole to discover how a nurse was drawn to write poetry …
● Could you please tell us what inspired you to be a nurse?
My grandmother and mother were both nurses, so, of course, I resisted becoming a nurse for as long as possible. My first university degree was a BA in English. I worked as a journalist and then in advertising. But although I enjoyed the work, I never found it very fulfilling. When I moved the UK, I got a job as a carer. The work was hard and I was very green, but it felt meaningful. When my estranged father died and I helped care for him during and after his death, I finally decided that I wanted to train for my nursing and focus on palliative care. I felt I had a lot to give to my future patients.
● And how does that sit with you being a poet?
I spent most of my late teens and early twenties writing poetry. When you’re with the radical poetry crowd as a young person, you think you’re going to change the world with your words. And it was a lot of fun. But once I moved to the UK and became a mother, I stopped writing poetry for a long time. I credit my re-entry into the poetry scene to a local annual poetry competition, The Page is Printed. I wrote exactly one poem a year to enter that competition. After I won two years in a row, Graeme Ryan, who runs the competition, invited me to become a member of the Fire River Poets. I was thrilled to be asked, but very briefly worried: I would definitely need to write more than one poem a year now!
These days, I still consider myself a nurse first, and a poet second. Actually, it would be more like a nurse, wife, and mother first, then a poet. Being in Fire River Poets has helped me develop my poetic identity again, and get in that mindset to create. But I don’t think of it as a “job” or “talent” or anything. I don’t know. It’s just another mode of expression. A continuation of the thoughts in my head. It’s difficult to reconcile.
● We asked if you would read some of your poems for a short video to post on social media. Do you think a poem should be read aloud or is it better for the reader to experience it silently, on the page?
I have always felt that the written and spoken word should go hand in hand. The litmus test of any poem I write is me reading it aloud. If it sounds awkward or trite I edit, edit, edit. It’s a rather holistic approach to poetry – using different parts of the brain to write, read, and listen. And it makes the experience more accessible to everyone.
● How important do you feel accessibility of meaning is in poetry? Should the reader have to work a little (or a lot!) to understand what the poet is saying?
In my poetry group and beyond, I get a lot of questions about the medical terms I use in my poetry. Nursing is kind of a different world, with its own language. I’m told sometimes I should insert a glossary at the end of my poems, but I mostly resist this. If I do use a medical term, I try to put it in a context that people can understand without knowing exactly what the word means. If they’re really curious, they can hopefully Google it. But I don’t want people to get stuck on those words, because the truth is, you will never 100% understand the words of any poet you read, no matter what they’re writing about. You can still enjoy a poem and “get it”, without understanding every single word.
● What is your favourite poem from your collection and why?
Probably The Goodbye Song of the Last A&E Porter. It’s a poem I wrote for my husband, who is a porter, but also my goodbye poem to A&E. It was very bittersweet moving from A&E to Hospice. I love both areas of nursing.
● Does writing energise or enervate you?
Oh, it depends. Some poems flow out of you like magic. Sometimes, it feels like you’re pulling your own intestines out.
● What is the best thing someone has ever said about one of your poems?
I am thankful for any praise of my poems, especially from other poets and poetry fans. But I am especially moved when someone who works in healthcare, or who has cared for a loved one, or has been cared for, comes up to me after a reading and tells me how much they identify with my work. That’s really special.
● If so, do you have any advice for someone who would like to write poetry but doesn’t know where to start?
Notice details. All the little stuff that flies under our radar. Write them down. Start with a word or phrase and build your poem, like the frame of a house. It can be difficult to sit down and think, “Today I’m going to write a poem about ______”. Instead, it might be more fruitful to have a little detail (like an odd phrase someone said, or a stain on your coffee table, or whatever), and think, “I wonder how I could turn this into a poem?”
● Do you have a routine for writing?
I don’t work to routine, but instead, to a deadline. I’ll have a poetry group meeting or a competition coming up and that will spur me to write a poem. I don’t have a lot of free time, so I tend to write poetry on demand, rather than finding the space to muse. Submission dates give me power.
● Could you please describe your writing environment – eg where do you write, what can you see around you?
I write my poetry on an ancient temperamental Chromebook, usually on the sofa while my toddler watches TV, or I’ve escaped upstairs to sit in bed. We live in a very old cottage and there’s nowhere to hide. I don’t think you need to have ideal conditions or a special desk to write … if the idea will come it will come, even if you’re not in a leather armchair in front of a bay window.
● Who are you writing for – how would you describe your audience?
Anyone who wants it! But specifically, healthcare workers, carers, patients and former patients, fans of poetry, my friends and family. That’s who I think about when I write anyway.
● Please share with us some of your favourite poets and why you like their work.
I may be biased but I love the classic American poets. Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson and ee cummings. Simple but powerful language. Interesting use of punctuation. Easy to read, but stick with you, instantly quotable. When I’m feeling dramatic, it’s Eliot or Plath.
● Is writing a poem letting your guard down or building a barrier?
When you write about patients and colleagues, you always have to keep your guard up. Even if your subject is made up (and a lot of them are, or amalgamations of different people), those who read it will always assume who you are talking about. I’m very lucky in that I get to say things in my poems that I cannot say in my job: all the words and phrases that are left unsaid in the moment. But I feel comfortable writing that into my poetry as I have the utmost respect and care for my patients and fellow nurses/carers/doctors. I would never paint a patient or colleague in a negative light in a poem, because I don’t think about them like that. But as a nurse, it’s easy to get jaded about things that would upset a layperson. So, in some ways, I can let go and write my feelings, but in some ways, I need to take care that I don’t sound callous to these situations.
● How much do you edit and how much rely on the flow of writing?
Honestly, every poem I write is a working draft, forever. I don’t ever consider my job finished when it comes to editing. I am always tinkering and taking suggestions. It’s making publishing these poems in a book very difficult.
● What question should I have asked you?
Maybe about how this book came to be! I was extremely privileged to be a part of the Bournemouth Writing Festival last April. My poem, “Hand in Hand on the Edge”, was chosen to be part of the Lines in the Sand anthology (and is also featured in The Ghosts of Nightshifts Past). I was also chosen to read at the Bourne Jammy event, with backing instrumentals. It was an incredible night, and an amazing festival – it really invigorated me as a poet. Being part of the anthology put me on the Dithering Chaps’ radar and the rest is history. I owe a lot to that festival and Dominic Wong, who runs it, and to the Chaps, of course.