Our “Dear Persephone,” video….
Today’s question comes from Persephone Godwin. She asks, “How does a poet create an elevator pitch? How does one describe poetry? This is my challenge with my music.”
Dear Persephone,
I need to caveat everything I’m about to say with the fact that I know nothing about publishing poetry, what editors are looking for, or the formats required. Neither do I know a thing about the music industry, bar watching my friends make their way through it. So you could stop right here, I won’t be offended.
Still reading? Okay. Here’s my view:
I don’t think you can create an elevator pitch for poetry, and nor should you. That is the mystery, the wonder of the form, it’s what makes it the hardest discipline of the literary mediums. It is words and meaning stripped bare, there’s nowhere to hide, it is the description of itself, it cannot be stripped further. You have to read it. End of.
What are the aims behind this question? Who’s asking you to pitch? Are you looking to get a collection published? If so, in my covering letter, or unexpected moment in an elevator with an editor from poetry acquisitions at Faber & Faber, I would say this:
Hello, I write poetry. I’ve written a collection. I’m influenced by Yeats and Larkin, there’s a theme of death running through it, enjoy!
I get the feeling that you’re a multi-disciplinary creative, but that as a singer-songwriter, there’s an electronica genre attached to your work, and I understand that your influences range from Janis Joplin to eighties dance. I wonder if beneath your question lies the bigger one of how to describe you in all your facets, where to put yourself that allows you to be all the disciplines you’re capable of. So I’m going to point out that polycreatives like yourself are more common than we imagine, and I mean that as a good thing. The commercial world likes to categorise, the creative world couldn’t give a damn. As more and more of us take control of the professional aspect of our artistic lives, so time runs out on the limiting system of categorisation that traditional marketing demands. By being all the facets that you are, you become part of that vanguard. Which brings me back to wanting to understand what it is you want. Is it creative freedom? Is it to be signed with, and marketed by, a record label or publisher? I’m not convinced you can have both, and perhaps my digging here is trying to get to the point of what you’re aiming at.
Returning to Joplin, and you as a musician, I noticed in an interview you did with Shout Out LA that you said you’d been frustrated at not knowing where to place your work in terms of category until you saw a documentary about her at the Grammy Museum in which she said, “Well, I lived in a town, and I wanted to sing, and the musicians in my town played blues, so I sang blues.” You mention how struck you were by the unapologetic simplicity of her statement, that you, “felt like she had personally given me permission to release this obligation of needing to define myself as anything other than a singer.”
Your answer is the answer to the greater question. Unless your aim is to be a talent in a specific creative medium, why do it? Why not release the entirety of your creative life from the obligation of needing to be defined? Let it breathe. You are what you produce. No wonder limiting that to one identity feels stifling.
But maybe you want music to take the lead, maybe you want to elevate your singer-song writer life, and the work that fuels it. How to get signed is not my wheelhouse, but I do know about writing, so let’s look there.
I would focus on poetry, it being a foundational discipline which will nurture the development of everything else you turn your hand to. Substack has a wealth of poets,
, and are the first three who spring to mind, and there are many more. Look also to the work of Bhanu Kapil, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize 2021. Listen to her talk. She is the embodiment of the practice. How To Wash A Heart turned my world upside down, radicalised my thinking, and flung open the door to what’s possible. And to flip again to this idea of how to pitch poetry, the back blurb of her book makes a point of saying she, “defies categorisation.” As a stylistic counterpoint, but equally category defining, take a walk through the worlds of John Hegley, David Shrigley and Tim Key. Experience how they handle that exquisite relationship.And to the Gods and Goddesses of multi-disciplinary, category defining artists who have led with music, look no further than Nick Cave and Polly Harvey. In fact take walk through the worlds of all the artists who make your heart swell and see what they have in common. This is your lead and your identity. Concentrate on it fully, embrace it, and what you produce will speak for itself. And if you must pitch, do it with all the genre-defying confidence your talents deserve.
Good luck. Keep the faith. You’re doing great.
Love,
Eleanor
Send us your questions! You can put them in the comments box of this post.
And here’s a link to our introduction where you can read about this project.
I'm enjoying this series and the way you each weigh in with candor and encouragement. I finally thought of a question! Eleanor, your novel has me thinking about multiple POV. I'm currently working on short stories, which may not have the space for it, but in general, one thing I always appreciate about multiple POV is to note the clashes and contrasts between different views of the same event or place or character. And to note alignments when they do occur. Single POV feels constrained, almost narcissistic—to insist on the one perspective. Is multiple POV a more "feminine" way of storytelling, that innate understanding that everyone has a piece of the truth, just not the whole truth? Perhaps a more complete picture emerges from looking at something from multiple angles, or even simply the insight that there *are* many different ways of seeing the world. I suppose that may not be the intention of a particular story, but in these fraught times it feels more of an imperative to consider different perspectives. Would love your thoughts on this. Thanks for considering, TL;DR!
I’m awe of pitching a poetry collection! Fascinating discussion and advice. The two responses are so different this time but still complementary. Really enjoy this series!