Elaine Feeney: ‘I write what I know, so the west of Ireland aesthetic permeates everything’

Your new poetry collection, All the Good Things You Deserve, is published on the same day as the paperback edition of your latest, Booker-longlisted novel, How to Build a Boat. Does one form of writing come as naturally to you as the other?

Writing poems feels natural to me, the routine of writing novels is more structured. When I’m in the middle of writing a novel, I work on it every day. Poems come along sporadically, like waves – but less predictable. When they do, I try to catch them.

You’ve said ‘My poetic psyche is quite dark’ whereas your novel is very uplifting. Is there a unifying theme to the new collection? How would you describe your work in terms of style or subject?

This collection asks how do we love in the aftermath of trauma, how do we trust? Can we make art from difficult experiences? In terms of style, I aim to be allusive and linguistically playful, a melding of a west of Ireland demotic with new forms.

[ How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney: This boy’s life ]

It’s seven years since your last collection, 17 since your first. Has your poetry evolved?

My considerations have changed over the years, I’m not sure evolved is the right word, but I am more open to love and being loved and this has influenced the work.

You published four poetry collections, Indiscipline (2007), Where’s Katie (2010), The Radio as Gospel (2013) and Rise (2017), before your first novel, As You Were (2020). Why did poetry come first?

I had a full-time job and a young family when I wrote those collections and I didn’t have the space to imagine a whole other world, let alone write it. Poetry always felt very powerful to me – I was hugely influenced by it in school.

The gossiping neighbours in As You Were, set in a west of Ireland hospital ward, reminded me of Cré na Cille by Máirtín Ó Cadhain. You spent a long time in hospital with life-threatening sepsis. Did the book come directly from that experience?

The novel came in the immediate aftermath of this hospital experience, and was fuelled by the auditory stimulation of a hospital ward. I love Cré na Cille, so thank you. As You Were is full of manic conversations in the moments before death.

You still live in the family home near Athenry where you grew up. How big an influence are your Galway roots?

I write what I know, so the west of Ireland aesthetic permeates everything.

Tell us about How to Build a Boat, about 13-year-old Jamie and his teachers Tess and Tadhg. You taught for years in a secondary school in Tuam and are a mother too. How did this feed into the writing?

Schools with a strict religious ethos, and single gender schools were a consideration in the writing of the novel. The anxiety of parenting was also a catalyst.

You now lecture at University of Galway and are creative director for the Tuam Oral History Project. What does that involve?

I work with an interdisciplinary team at University of Galway on the Tuam Oral History Project. It is currently archiving the first-person narratives of those with experience of the Tuam institution. We are also delivering creative writing workshops, and there is an ambitious educational project ongoing also, more about this will be announced soon.

Which projects are you working on?

I am working on a new stage piece for the actor Steven Ogg and writing a new novel. I am currently working on a lot of laundry too.

Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage?

I have made a few, but a stand out was a visit to Thomas Mann’s house, Nida, Lithuania.

What is the best writing advice you have heard?

“Hold your nerve,” from my agent, Peter Straus.

Who do you admire the most?

The Palestinian people.

You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?

This question fills me with anxiety. It’s fascinating how power often attracts the greatest fools. I don’t want to join their ranks, not even for a day.

Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend?

Sunjeev Sahota’s The Spoiled Heart is a fascinating and brilliant new novel on class and identity politics. The Zone of Interest directed by Jonathan Glazer is a superb film and deeply unsettling. I enjoy The Stinging Fly podcast.

Your most treasured possession?

A tiny wooden jewellery box that belonged to one of my grandmothers and a small wooden side-table that belonged to my other grandmother.

What is the most beautiful book that you own?

An early copy of The Dark by [John] McGahern gifted to me by a dear friend.

Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?

Percival Everett, Naomi Shihab Nye, Rita Ann Higgins, John McGahern, Anton Chekhov, Eavan Boland, Lucia Berlin, Madge Herron and Tobias Wolff.

The best and worst things about where you live?

I grew up here. I grew up here.

What is your favourite quotation?

“Poor people wait a lot. Welfare, unemployment lines, laundromats, phone booths, emergency rooms, jails, etc.” Lucia Berlin.

Who is your favourite fictional character?

Leopold Bloom.

[ Elaine Feeney: ‘I was shocked at what boys were expected to do from a young age’ ]

A book to make me laugh?

The Trees by Percival Everett (blackly comedic, yet deadly serious).

A book that might move me to tears?

The Grass Arena by John Healy.

All the Good Things You Deserve is published by Harvill Secker