Reporter Sarah Smith speaks to poet Jude Rosen on her latest release, her rediscovery of Hackney’s marshlands, and her family history.
Jude Rosen sits serenely in a wicker chair at Islington’s eclectic Candid Cafe, ready to share her poetry wisdom.
The acclaimed London-based poet has never forgotten her Hackney roots, and her latest release, Reclamations from London’s Edgelands, is inspired by Hackney’s marshlands. “It was a great discovery for me, really,” she says, “because I’ve lived on the edge of the marsh as a kid, but my parents kept me away from them, so it was a kind of rediscovery.”
It is hardly surprising that Rosen is releasing a work centred on voices and speech, for she’s always been interested in oral history. She says: “I drew on a very big oral history project that I’d been part of evaluating in 2011 to come up with my poetry.”
“The idea of the marshlands was to have a panoply of voices that had been retrieved, as well as my own lyric voice from moments of walking the marshes.”
The marshes provided fertile creative territory. “I’ve come across orange-tipped butterflies, frogs croaking and herons just taking off. It’s so wonderful to suddenly be confronted by elements of the landscape that you’re usually blind to.”
Rosen has met a variety of people during her walks in the marshes, from asylum seekers making barbeques to veterans on dog walks – one of whom inspired her poem “Bill”.
“We live in a very hyper-individualised society,” she says, “and people are quite separate from each other. One of the things that I like about the marshes is the huge variety of people that you meet.”
Still, Rosen has never forgotten those closest to her. Her 2009 poetry collection, A Small Gateway, was inspired by her grandparents.
“part of that collection was an invitation to explore and wander and roam these wonderful open spaces which, unless they’re loved and used, won’t be preserved.”
“My grandfather was a shamash in the synagogue, which means he was a religious functionary who showed people to their seats. And part of that collection was an invitation to explore and wander and roam these wonderful open spaces which, unless they’re loved and used, won’t be preserved.”
Her great uncle’s family did not escape Poland during the Holocaust. Her second cousin, Esther, was never seen again after leaving the partisan-occupied forest in southern Poland to look for her fiancé. This news was relayed to her grandmother by Esther’s best friend. Rosen only discovered this part of her family’s history as an adult, when she interviewed her mother and great aunt.
Rosen says: “Poetry particularly gives voice to those marginalised and forgotten, or the losers in history.” She then quotes noted German intellectual Walter Benjamin: ‘History is written by the victors.’
Rosen is also a translator, specialising in Italian and German. Commenting on problems of poetry translation, she says: “People tend to translate it in a prose form or free verse form… I don’t think you get the particular sense or rhythm of the original language.”
Rosen’s poem “Merisc”, from Reclamations, was inspired by the time she took an Italian friend to see the Lea Valley reserve. “It was so funny, her reaction to seeing the marshes for the first time. She goes, ‘It’s green, it’s so green’. And she responded with a Mussolini fascist imperative, ‘Marciare per non marcire’, ‘March rather than rot’, which is a really horrible fascist slogan. But then it’s a play on ‘marshes’, ‘marches’.”
And so being a poet, says Rosen, is “not about message”; rather, it is about “following the music” and “the language following your subconscious”. “I think [poetry] is really a conduit to your subconscious where the fusions and the sound patterning and the world selections are coming from.”
“Read, read, and follow your passion in reading.”
What about the would-be poets among us? Rosen has some advice: “Read, read, and follow your passion in reading. Read widely and find a group of writers and poets who want to write and read poetry.”
Rosen will be speaking at Homerton Library on Thursday 29 May as part of the History Festival.
Sarah Smith is a postgraduate Newspaper Journalism student at City St George's, University of London. She is currently reporting on the Springfield ward in Hackney. She has experience writing for the Climate, Books, Lifestyle and News sections of The Boar, and she has also done work experience at Essex Live. In her spare time, she likes to watch Disney films and spend time with friends.