Wherever I wake, whatever words the day
demands, it begins early (around 5 a.m.) with strong coffee in bed, reading the
London Review of Books or the New Yorker. My brain begins to cast off
sleep and make a plan for the hours ahead…
…for no day is the same. Different projects
– poems, essays, three thousand words of a book, reading a proof for a review
or a blurb – call for different tactics. Prose requires long graft at the desk.
Reading requires that I stay in bed in my pyjamas as long as possible. Poetry
rejects any routine and will probably burst in upon hours that I have dedicated
to other tasks – I try my best to make space for this rare visitor.
Before
I begin work, I practise t’ai chi and drink a glass of water. I then unravel
some of the benefits of t’ai chi by spending an hour responding to emails and
checking social media. How to manage time on Twitter? One writer I know lights
a candle and won’t go online until it burns out. I try not to scroll for too
long, although it is infinitely fascinating: if I see an article or poem that
intrigues me, I’ll save it for lunchtime reading – then stop. I use Twitter to keep
up to date with friends and writing community, and make new discoveries. Today I
read an article by Mayukh Sen in Hazlitt,
tweeted by the writer Nasim Marie Jafry, on queerness in the cookbooks of the
late film producer Ismail Merchant. (It described his dazzling dinner parties,
and I make a note to organise a more modest dinner party of my own, soon.)
I also check on the news, especially in
my own part of the world – wherever that happens to be. As a writer who
responds to place, I’m often on
the move. My full-time writing life began with a residency at Upernavik
Museum (“the most northern museum in the world”) in Greenland during the winter
of 2010. And so my first experience of a “writing day” consisted of 24-hour
darkness! It was a huge privilege to spend time on the island of Upernavik and the
community were generous in sharing their knowledge of the environment with me
over equally generous meals. For the last decade I have continued to work on site-specific
commissions with museums and environmental organisations. I discovered an
additional benefit of the peripatetic lifestyle – not having a home to pay rent
on meant for several years I could dedicate more time to writing.
For the last 18 months, as the UK Canal
Laureate, I’ve been writing poems in response to a network of waterways, from
London’s Regent’s Canal to the ancient Severn River. I need to be able make
notes on the move, so I’ve got hold of a kayak and a waterproof notebook. Some
days are spent out on the water: meeting boaters and anglers, recording their
stories, observing nature. Other days my “desk” may be on a train travelling to
the other end of the country for an evening event. This activity balances out the
solitude of other days.
If I’m at home I’ll cook supper – or wash
up. I discovered today that Ismail Merchant wrote in
the introduction for his first cookbook: “A great cook should be
able to do something well with the snap of a finger rather to toil over it… he
or she should be inventive, be someone who can whip up something from nothing.” My partner can make a meal with a snap of her fingers; but by
the close of the day, my invention is exhausted and I like to follow a recipe.
Sometimes I’ll sit with a draft of a
poem late in the evening. Ideas can come anytime, anywhere, but I find I can
best focus on the poem forwards once night has fallen, and all the day’s tasks
are done. Perhaps I was conditioned by that endless darkness in Greenland? A
glass of Talisker whisky to hand helps. Then bed around eleven. I try to read
but usually I’m asleep within seconds.
Nancy Campbell's books
include a memoir, The Library of Ice (2018)
and a poetry collection, Disko
Bay (2015) which was shortlisted for the
Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Nancy can often be found on a river in
a kayak, or on Twitter @nancycampbelle
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