Featured Interview With Deniz Besim
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I’m a thirty years old lady who lives in London and has enjoyed discovering expression in poetry by writing in forms including sestinas, villanelles, pantoums and sonnets.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My fascination with books stems back from all the way back into my school years. I was always more an avid reader than I was ever a writer and have probably read a lot more books than I’ve written. It’s important to realise that to be a good writer one would need to be an even better reader.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My own poetry forms has been inspired by studying poets including Dylan Thomas (who wrote villanelles) and John Ashbery (who wrote pantoums). I’ve also studies both Shakespearean and petrarchan sonnets, such as Composed Upon Westminster Bridge by William Wordsworth.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest poetry book is The Valley that Calls which is a collection of one hundred and twenty poems that includes both an exploration of nature and more intimate and erotic themes. Few poets have explored these themes the way I have within this poetry book. Some of the poetry is also about the valley itself – the title of the book – and that is an imagined location designed to stir up our creative fantasies.