We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dean Rhetoric a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Dean, appreciate you joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

I’d have probably wished to have discovered poetry a little sooner than I did. There are so many schemes for young poets, and it’s great that those opportunities exist, but it can sometimes feel like you’re expired as soon as you hit 35 years old and above.

I’ve always written – whether that’s song lyrics, film scripts, or short stories. I was determined to write scripts and do it for a living, but it didn’t happen that way. I ended up writing on some poetry sites around 2013 and it just kind of stuck with me.

When I began, it was a very anonymous thing. I’d work a 12 hour night shift and struggle to sleep in the day, so I’d write and write and write. It was all awful. But I had fun, despite poetry sites being a cesspool of bile, heartbreak, and conspiracy theories about lizard people.

Looking back, I’d have probably benefitted from been more open about the fact I wrote poetry. It took years for me to submit places and to be comfortable admitting I did something like poetry. I’m not sure why.

Maybe it happened exactly when it should have. I’m very comfortable with how it ended up, from scribbling lyrics in notepads to having actual books out in the world. No matter how many/few copies I sell, it’s not something I ever anticipated so I’m grateful. Even if the entire poetry world is run by lizard overlords.

Dean, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Dean and I’m a poet living in Manchester. I’ve got a pamphlet called Cancer [+Pop Punk] and a full-length collection called Foundry Songs. Both are available from Broken Sleep Books (all royalties from Cancer [+Pop Punk] are going to a charity for young widows).

If you’re sceptical about poetry because the stuff you’ve been force fed throughout your life has been extremely dull, please know that there is a huge amount of fantastic indie poetry and it’s full of some of the most breathtakingly inspired work any artists have put out in the last few decades.

It doesn’t particularly sell well, and the bestsellers in poetry still tend to be dead people from hundreds of years ago, but you’re really missing out if you’re not embracing modern poetry.

I’d implore anyone who reads this to take a chance and purchase just one poetry book. They tend to be cheap despite the years of work that go into creating them. If you dig around some of the amazing indie presses out there, I guarantee you’ll find work that inspires you and comforts you, or challenges everything you ever thought about yourself and the world around you.

Thanks! xx

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

In the entire time I’ve been writing, maybe 3 people have personally reached out to let me know how much my stuff has meant to them. It’s 3 more people than I ever imagined would and it’s amazing.

There’s so much out there to read and buy and I think it can be a very liberating thing to just embrace whatever weird little art you’re making and throw it into the void. Effort isn’t always rewarded and reflected in sales or media recognition, but if that’s why you’re doing it, you’ll soon quit.

It’s rewarding to create just for its own sake.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Honestly, I just wish I’d discovered poetry sooner. From my perspective, it was something people did years ago and had no relevance to the modern world. Why? Because when I was at school, you briefly studied a few random sonnets that bored the arse off you then called it a day.

I like that this is no longer the case. I don’t think kids are TOLD something is good and that’s that anymore. It gets discussed and dissected and they’re more likely to use examples of work reflecting what people in the modern world can relate to.