Feature: Poetry - The Hitcher. By Hannah Low
Published: 31 March, 2011
by DAN CARRIER
Hannah Lowe’s poetic debut showcases an authentic voice full of promise
IT was teaching a poetry anthology to young students whose attentions were not always focused on the job in hand that first prompted poet Hannah Lowe to turn from literature teacher to scribe. Her first collection, The Hitcher, is out now and publisher Rialto have unearthed a voice that draws the reader in and gives a crystal clear view of Hannah’s world.
“I started writing relatively late, around four years ago,” she says. “I was teaching A-level English, and found myself more and more drawn to reading poetry, and then wrote one or two myself.
“I found writing pleasurable and exciting – surprisingly so. I signed up for a City Lit course. I feel regretful that I didn’t start writing earlier, but I also think my life experiences brought me to my writing, and that it wouldn’t have happened in any other way.”
It was worth the wait. Her poetry collection is more than promising: one of the most authentic-sounding anthologies of modern poetry I have had the pleasure of reading for a long time. She is an exciting talent whose understated dramas play out in punchy stanzas, the magic lying in her ability to use few words to paint enormous pictures.
The poetry gives us an insight into the writer’s mind with real clarity.
“The poems in the pamphlet are directly or tangentially related to my life, but are concerned with experiences we all have: love, the loss of love, happiness and grief.
“There’s a strong emotional content to my writing, often revisiting the past. Some poems go back to when my father was alive, and recreate moments in our relationship.
“This said, my poems aren’t all sad and serious – the tone is sometimes ironic and often self-deprecating.”
Hannah’s stage is London writ large: “An urban context is certainly there in my writing – the city is the backdrop for many of the poems,” she says.
And she captures the rhythm of the streets.
“In terms of style, some poems are free verse, but others are more traditional in form,” she says.
“I’m drawn to writing in terza rima. There’s a few poems about journeys that use this tumbling rhyme scheme to create a sense of movement.”
Her father features in her favourite piece.
“‘Those Long Car Silences’ is a poem that is important to me,” she says. “I often regret that I didn’t talk to my father more about his life. We spent hours in the car together – him giving me lifts to places, or driving to see family on the other side of London, or on errands.
“Often when I think of him, or dream about him, he’s waiting in the car for me, smoking a roll-up. But we rarely talked, sat side by side together in the car.”
In the poem she writes: “All those long car silences, the miles and miles, you drove me through this city, strange words, lit up in neon, Lucky House, The Taj Mahal, Hal.
“I kept my voice held back for nothing, but to punish you...” It is a cathartic piece.
“Poetry has allowed me to go back and in some ways, give us both a second chance,” she says.
“At the end of the poem, I dream myself as an adult and my dad still waiting for me in his car, but the silence is comforting and familiar, rather than wasteful.”
It is hardly surprising that the City and Islington College teacher says she finds inspiration not just from her own life but from the written word.
“Ideas for poems come to me in all sorts of way, but most commonly they are sparked off by reading other poems,” she says.
“I’ll read a line and an idea will jump into my head, not necessarily related in subject matter, but perhaps in tone or voice. This, for me, is an essential facet of writing poetry.
“If I want to sit down and write, the first thing I do is read.”
Next up is a collection that looks at her family’s roots: her father's ethnicity was a mixture of Chinese and Jamaican, and provides a base.
“He came to England in 1947,” she says. “He worked as a croupier and gambler in the East End, so I’m writing poems about Jamaica, migration and gambling.
“I’ve been doing lots of research – it’s a very interesting time for me.”
• The Hitcher. By Hannah Lowe. £5.50, ISBN: 9780955127359. Bridge Pamphlet 4 published by The Rialto, PO Box 309, Aylsham, Norwich NR11 6LM, www.therialto.co.uk