Offcumdens - Storr, Emma

. .

Résumé :
We can't agree on who came up with the title for this collection. It probably arose between us, popping up in conversation until we both realised it was right. As offcumdens, originally brought up on different sides of the Thames in London, this is our very personal take on Yorkshire, the county we've adopted as our own, even if Yorkshire will never fully reciprocate. There is no attempt here to provide a definitive picture of the county through our words and images. It's an eclectic mix that has evolved from our individual experiences as well as from visiting places of mutual significance. We met first at a poetry event held at The Leeds Library, one of those moments of serendipity that occurred often during our subsequent collaboration. An appreciation of each other's work soon emerged and a realisation that our respective photographs and poems might combine to complement each other. The process of pairing poems with photographs has worked in both directions, usually the poem being written in response to one of the photographs, but photographs also being matched to poems. Occasionally, both have arisen organically as a result of an expedition together to the city, coast or countryside.

Biographie:
My equivalent of Bob's compact camera is a notebook and pen, stuffed into a bag or pocket. At medical school, I wrote light verse, mainly in rhyme. Humour was a good way of dealing with the inevitable stress. When I moved to Yorkshire in the 1990s, I squeezed in a few creative writing classes while working as a GP, medical educator and mother. The experience of sharing work and discussing it in a small class was invaluable. During my MPhil in Writing at the University of South Wales, I began compiling a series of poems based on my experiences of working as a GP and of being a patient myself. This became the pamphlet, Heart Murmur (Calder Valley Poetry, 2019). My poetry is still evolving. It's an exciting and unpredictable process, often surprising me in much the same way that Bob describes when looking at his photographs. Writing is a way of tapping into the unconscious river swirling below the surface, as liable to flood as to dry up. It can also emerge at unexpected places. It's important to me that my writing is accessible and enjoyable. To choose the right words for the few lines of a poem is hard work. All the poems in Offcumdens have gone through multiple iterations. Sometimes I find the discipline of writing in a particular poetic form proves helpful. Perhaps that is why, besides free verse and concrete poems, you will find Japanese haiku and a tanka, three sonnets and a pantoum in this collection.