Award winning UK poet and spoken word artist Hollie McNish, is the author of Papers and poetry albums Touch and Push Kick.
The 2009 UK Slam Poetry Champion has performed across the UK including stage appearances at Glastonbury festival, Ronnie Scotts Jazz Bar and Cambridge University as well as touring in Belgium, Australia, France, Portugal, and Latvia. Hollie’s poems have been commissioned by Radio 4 Womans Hour, WOW festival, Tate Modern and Channel 4 Random Acts and now in 2013 she continues to take the creative industry by storm.
What do general tasks in your career as a poet consist of on a daily basis?
I work as a poet and I am a mum, so that changes things a lot! Last week I was in Sheffield, Lancaster, Manchester and London. Then I will be off to Marrakech for three days and then I have a gig in London. The experience is amazing, but its hard to juggle life as a poet, mum, girlfriend and normal human being!
Why did you decide to become involved in poetry?
I got to the stage when I was about 22 and I had written over 300 poems but still had no confidence to share them with anyone except my mum and boyfriend. I don’t live in a big city with tonnes of open mics and arts centres so I didn’t have a clue where to go. My boyfriend is an emcee and he kept saying he thought other people would like to hear some of my stuff and basically forced me to go and read it at a local café. It took two years for me to do that! I was about 25 when I read my first poem out to other people and it was scary!
When did you make a start on your career?
The more gigs I did is the more poets I saw and I realised there was so much out there to see. I only gave up my job about 4 months ago, so until then I was mainly focused on working in an Architecture Centre. It’s a massive shift of career! I started being a full time poet at 30 years old, my age now. I love it, but I was also content behind a desk and loved what I was doing before so I don’t want to completely give that up.
How did you set it up?
I kept getting asked to do gigs and then people started asking me to do poetry workshops and performances in schools. After doing that for about a year, I formed my own organisation called Page to Performance where we work with young people, carers, bike and skate groups and rappers such as Inja and Skuff and also the collective I’m in – Point Blank Poets. We run different poetry projects and also a yearly poetry slam, it’s been hard work, but I have been working in administration for four years so it’s been okay to organise.
Who helped you?
So many people! My boyfriend mainly. We share everything and I can go away on gigs for three days and know my daughter is fine. We swap days and share bedtimes so we can both work every other evening. My mum and my partners mum help a lot too. Also, my collective have been very supportive – shout out to Dean Atta, Sabrina Mahfouz, Bridget Minamore, Deanna Rodger and Chimene Suleyman and all London poets who are amazing. My daughter keeps me sane too and forces me to stop for three days a week and climb trees, swing and feed ducks – I don’t work when I am with her.
What have you learnt during your experience?
I am still trying to learn that most people are pretty lovely and will help if you ask, its impossible to do everything by yourself. I have also learned to say no! – I used to say yes to every gig, even when people couldn’t pay me and I had to pay for my own travel expenses. Now that this is my full time career, I can’t afford to do that. There’s a MASSIVE difference between male and female spoken word artists in terms of what they ask to be paid for gigs / workshops. Once when I sent someone my invoice and they asked ‘Hollie what are you doing? Guys are asking for twice this amount and you can’t live on what you’re asking for.’ Sometimes it seems as if women are embarrassed to even ask to be paid.
What advice can you offer to aspiring poets?
Share your work and go to open mic nights, poetry cafes or writers groups. People are nice and audiences like listening. I was so nervous when I started but it’s been the best part of what I do. Always try new things but don’t force yourself to write if you don’t feel like it, just let it come naturally. If you want to make it into a career, don’t be scared to ask about budgets and travel expenses! Most importantly, be yourself.
