A Poem for Every Question by Brian Bilston

Recently, we sent a series of questions to poet, Brian Bilston about his new book, A Poem for Every Question.  Check out his answers below!

Where did the idea come from to create a book of poems around questions?

If truth be told, the publisher – Farshore Books – approached me with the idea. It’s rare these days for me to take on a commission, but I was really taken with the idea and thought I might be able to do it justice. I loved the thought of writing across such a wide range of topics and finding creative ways of answering fun or challenging questions. I knew from the beginning that it would get my imagination going.

What came first- the question or the poem?

Always the question. I don’t think the book would have been as effective if I’d tried to ‘reverse engineer’ a question out of an existing poem. Having the question in front of me meant I could explore different pathways to come up with my poem – whether that was to do with mood or form, or whether to tackle the question head on or more obliquely. Sometimes I’d end up writing two or three different poem responses before settling on a final version.

Was it tricky to find the subjects for your questions?

Again my publisher helped a lot with that, but together we were keen on having questions which covered a wide range of subject areas – from science and nature to history and the arts; from socio-cultural issues to sport. We came up with a hundred questions in the end – but it could have been two hundred!

Did you find some easier to write than others?

Absolutely. Sometimes a particular question would instantly trigger an idea for a poem. The question ‘Who had the first holiday?’ (spoiler alert: it was the Romans) was one where I knew straightaway that I’d like to write my poem in the style of a travel agent.

Others were harder. ‘Are bats the only flying mammal?’ was a question which took me a while to figure out. Eventually I settled on the idea that I could write a poem about a dog who was building an aeroplane in the hope she could become only the second mammal to fly.

Do you have a favourite question/poem in the collection?

I’m not sure I have one particular favourite but I do have a fondness for ‘Are unicorns real? ‘The poem concerns itself with a meeting of unicorns in a cave, who are debating about how to make people believe in them. One of them suggests a ‘Back to School’ campaign to get unicorns featured on pencil cases, notebooks and schoolbags. When another wonders why they don’t simply emerge from their cave to make themselves known, he is reminded by the others of the fate of the dodo and the quagga and other now extinct animals. The surface tone of the poem is intended light and comic, but I hope readers taken on board the more serious message beneath.

Would you like to do a further collection on this idea?

I would – although I may need to take a little breather first!

Do you ever get suggestions for questions?

I’ve just finished my first event for the book, with its brilliant illustrator Joe Berger. At the Q&A at the end of the event, one young lad put his hand up and asked ‘Why is there a universe?’ That seems like such a big and deeply philosophical question, I’m not sure that any poem I write could ever do it justice.

What do you hope readers will take from this collection?

I’d love readers to come away with the sense that not only can poetry be fun, but it can help to shed light on a huge range of topics and questions. It would be lovely to think that some readers might think of their own questions and then try to answer them in poetry form.

 

Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Federation.