P o e t  t h e  J u l e s

Jules! Hello!

Hello, hello, hello

Thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed today. We can’t wait to get chatting. We are so excited to have you as an Associate Artist. So, quick-fire round. What are you watching right now?

Excellent question. I watched Good Omens, twice. It’s my current hyper-fixation and I’m absolutely fucking obsessed with Michael Sheen and David Tennant.

I’m also trying to watch all the lesbian cinema I can find, but that’s a more on-going thing.

Nice! What music currently serenades your commute?

It’s a mixture. I’ve been listening to a lot of classical music at the moment, ‘cox I’m trying to build up my knowledge about it. But then I’m also researching queer music from the early 20th century. So, that’s been an interesting mix of 30’s, 40’s, 50’s Artists who are queer. Then also, ‘coz I just went to a metal festival, I’ve been listening to a lot of really good metal music. So, it’s been a good mix of those things.

Gorgeous. And our last quick-question is: any books on the go?

I absolutely love that question ‘coz I read so much. I always have two, three books that I’m reading at the same time because… ADHD.

So, I’m reading the Good Omens book right now, but reading that at night. In the day time I’m reading With the End in Mind by Kathryn Mannix, it’s about death and dying… it’s a bit depressing, but really good. What else am I reading? I also started the Wayfarers series by Becky Chamber, so it a good mixture of fiction and… death.

Nice. Well you completed the quick-fire questions! Well-done. So, tell us a bit about yourself and how you got into your writing and creativity?

Ooft! Really good question. How I got into the creative stuff…

I’ve always been writing, my whole life, ‘coz my mum used to read poetry to me, and there was a few children’s book’s I always wanted to write myself. At first, I was writing stories and then that evolved into poetry. But I didn’t start performing, I did some theatre, but I never performed poetry until I moved to London. I, like, read it to people in the classroom, but I never did the performing part. Until I met my first friends in London, and they were just like “Oh you like poetry? There’re these open mic nights…” that was Spoken Word London (@spokenwordlondon). 

So, then I started performing and I started doing open mics every week, and then after a couple of years I started to take it more seriously. I submitted some work to the Education Trust, then some work to a competition at Tate Britain, slowly, slowly I started getting some stuff published. Then I just reached out to loads of venues that I thought were amazing, and started doing it professionally - somehow ended up in all the right situations.

What would you say your work is about and who / what inspires you?

My work is about how I see the world, and what I feel about it. It’s such a vast world within me, within all of us, and I’m just trying to put that on paper. And it’s a lot of writing down what I feel and what I see and what moves me, but then it’s also a lot of political things – stuff I wanna talk about. Like neurodiversity, I wanna talk about mental health, I wanna talk about being queer, I wanna talk about politics, I wanna talk about violence and pain and death and… I don’t know. All the things that people can relate to and that make our world what it is – the good and the bad. I think for me, it’s a very important part of the process, part of being human. Also, part of starting conversations, ‘coz I think art is very much a conversation.

Who inspires me? I think first and foremost the people around me, like everyday things, just, like, sunsets, and sun, and rain, and nature, and London, and people... Also, the London poetry scene. I’ve met so many talented poets, oh my god, like, I ask myself with every single one of them, 'Why aren’t they world famous?’ Because they’re fucking amazing.

But also, then again, I read a lot, I’ve been reading Emily Dickinson all my life… I love Andrea Gibson… I just… pick up poetry everywhere. Other people are poets.

Do you have any advice for anyone who wants to be more creative or start writing poetry?

Yeah actually, I’ve thought about this for a while. I think, the best thing one can do, in most situations, is try to sit in silence and listen to yourself. Spend some time alone, spend some time with nature and just... let go. I think it’s the most important part to let go… see where it takes you. I feel like, if you wanna make something happen, if you wanna do something – that’s great, and sometimes it works, but I feel like, a lot more often than not it’s nice to just sit in silence and let the world speak to you.

I do a lot of meditating, and journaling, and dancing, and… just singing and screaming, and letting all the emotions out in different ways. That when it comes to, when I really wanna be creative, I feel like it’s a mixture of writing everything down, letting it all out and trying to look in.

So that’s my advice. And patience! Be patient with yourself. Its takes time. It’s a process, and it can be exhausting. Give yourself the grace to not write the next amazing poem, one of them will be amazing, but actually, they will all be amazing anyways ‘coz you wrote it.

That’s it.

Perfect, brilliant. Thanks Jules. So, what’s next for you and is there any projects you wanna shout about?

I never know what I’m up to next! Obviously, performing with you guys which I’m super excited about.

I always have a couple of performances coming up, I’m always doing open mics. I really wanna focus on… maybe doing a show, or finally publishing some poetry. Two main things I really wanna focus on is writing a book, I’ve been writing on it for a while now, but I really wanna make it happen ‘coz it’s important to me. I also wanna go back into acting. I really love poetry, but I’ve been doing some acting recently and I just wanna do this for me right now and find out whether it’s still something that’s fun. But I’m always writing and doing the next thing, going with the flow, I guess.

Wonderful. Thank you so much Jules, we’ve loved speaking to you today!

Thank you!