As part of our series of features on the Southbank Centre events and initiatives, it’s a pleasure to showcase artists from the venue’s New Poets Collective. With support from the TS Eliot Foundation, the Southbank Centre’s New Poets Collective recruits a new cohort of poets every year, helping them hone their voices.
Born in Derby but based in Manchester, Rory Aaron moves between poetry, music, and theatre. An experienced creative facilitator, educator, and youth worker, Aaron was a part of the BBC New Creatives scheme in 2020 and has showcased his work with bodies such as MIF, Young Identity, and Apples and Snakes. Aaron has published his first collection with Bearded Badger Press, and a second with Verve Press. His first two-person play, This Town, was showcased at Contact & Derby Theatre in March 2023. We had the opportunity to speak with this rising star about his work.
Thank you for taking the time to chat with Occhi Magazine. For those who may not be familiar with your background, what initially sparked your interest in pursuing a career in the arts?
If I’m being honest, growing up I never really considered it. I went to an inner-city state school in Derby, and like so many other boys, I was much more into sports until I was about sixteen. I was captain of my local Sunday league football team and ran cross country to a fairly high level, so I was really preoccupied with that. A turning point was getting my school report in Year Nine, just before we had to pick what subjects to study at GCSE level, and the only other positive comment after Physical Education was from my drama teacher. It was a bit of a surprise, but I thought I may as well just pick that, if the teacher likes me.
As for writing, my dad did his GCSEs the same year as me to get some extra qualifications under his belt, and he loved English so I think his enthusiasm rubbed off on me. I ended up taking both Drama and English for A-levels and enjoyed them both. At that time in Derby, there was no real space to showcase poetry or theatre but there was this old pub called The Vic, where local bands and rappers performed. I was there every weekend for a couple of years, just taking it all in.
But I moved away from it all by the time I was eighteen. I wasn’t particularly creative until I was about twenty-six and moved to Manchester, where I was offered a job as a youth worker. Manchester’s open mic circuit is really buzzing. Nights like Switchblade and Verbose are constantly giving platforms to emerging talent. From there, things just started to snowball. I was part of MIF’s Breathe collective back in 2019, the BBC New Creatives scheme in 2020, and then had my own show commissioned in 2021 by Contact and Derby theatre.
Can you share some of your early influencers and how they have left their mark on your career?
Growing up, I was really into UK Hip Hop, Jam Baxter, Task Force, and Rodney P. I was obsessed with flow and used to print out their lyrics and study the different rhyming patterns they used. One day, Polarbear’s poem ‘Jessica’ appeared on my YouTube. The whole piece blew me away. The way it was delivered, the rhythm, the rhyming, how it was so powerful just with him and a mic. From there, I was introduced to Kae Tempest, Inua Ellams, and Dizreali. It wasn’t until much later that I began to read poetry. That mainly happened in lockdown. I bought Lemme Sissay’s ‘Rebel Without Applause’, and then Audren’s ‘Another Time’. I ended up getting mentored for a bit by Anthony Anaxagorou and he really opened my eyes up to the world of page poetry.
I think you can really hear this blend of influence in my book ‘And Within These Cobbled Streets’ that I’ve published with Verve Press. It’s a long narrative poem that acted as the foundation of the play ‘This Town’, which came out in April. I wanted to write something that could potentially have the same impact on some seventeen-year-old that Polarbear’s ‘Jessica’ had upon me. The poem is about ten thousand words long and you follow this young boy called Joe as he tries to navigate his way through life. At its centre, I look at the way The Army targets working-class areas to recruit and question the ethics of that. I play with rhyme and rhythm throughout; it took me about three years to write and it’s by far the best thing I’ve done.
I’m currently working on a new collection that is all about my time in Manchester, and my relationship with the city. I’ve been working quite closely with John McAuliffe, who has been a supportive mentor throughout.
You were part of the BBC New Creatives scheme in 2020, and have showcased your work with bodies such as MIF, Young Identity, and Apples and Snakes. Congratulations on your collaborations. How much have these experiences shaped your appreciation of the arts and prepared you for a long and fruitful career in the industry?
The BBC New Creatives scheme was huge. Until then, I’d just been performing at open mics and slams, so to get the opportunity to make a short film with a full team, and a decent budget was incredible. I’m forever grateful to Loran Dunn, who directed me to the opportunity. It also gave me the opportunity to step away from just performing, and back into acting. Something I hadn’t done for about eight or nine years. The poem I used for the film ‘Doglike’ came from my first pamphlet that I published with Bearded Badger Press. It’s all about masculinity, and my own mental health. I was going through some PTSD at the time, as were a few of my friends that I grew up with (for totally separate things) so getting to bring these internal struggles to life was really special, and quite therapeutic work. The other day, somebody called it trauma-informed work, but I think it’s more just looking at life and deciding to deal with it in a creative way.
Working with MIF (now called Factory) is always really special. They just blow everything up and push you as a performer out of your comfort zone. BREATHE was great, it looked at the way poetry and dance can come together. I met some incredible performers through it. As for Young Identity, their workshops and platform were really crucial in developing my first pamphlet. It’s the same with Apples & Snakes, who supported me in publishing an article about the collection. Those writing development schemes are crucial in finding new voices in the poetry world
You’re a current member of the Southbank Centre New Poets Collective 2022/23. Can you tell us a little more about the initiative and how it’s supporting your career?
It’s been amazing. Firstly, Will and Venessa work perfectly as a duo. The sessions are so engaging, and I always leave feeling inspired and motivated to write. Also, an important shout-out to Sophie for producing the whole programme and making it work behind the scenes. For me, the collective has just provided a space to come, connect with a network of like-minded poets, learn from each other, and learn from Will and Venessa. It’s also been a great introduction to London. The fact we’ve been financially supported has made everything a lot easier and more accessible. There is no way I’d have been able to do it without that.
Are there any particular emotions or experiences you’re trying to convey through your poems?
I think for a long time, I was trying to navigate the different experiences and people I met through growing up in Derby. I love the city and the towns that surround it. Growing up, I never imagined I’d leave it. There is a funny story from when I was young – we went as a family away on holiday, and I was miserable the whole time. When we returned to Derby I kissed the ground… that being said, there are obviously a lot of people struggling, and at times (or at least when I was growing up) it can feel like an angry city. A city that has a point to prove to the rest of the country. I feel like ‘Doglike’, ‘And Within These Cobbled Streets’, and ‘This Town’ are all trying to explain that anger and resentment to the rest of the country. At the same time, the countryside surrounding the county is really beautiful and just as inspiring.
Now, I’m starting to look at Manchester and my time here. As a city, it is constantly changing in quite an aggressive way, and I’m looking at the way that aggression affects different communities. The collection I’m working on brings in a wide range of voices, from myself to different young people I’ve worked with, to different situations I have found myself in, and how places, where you build important memories, can just disappear as if they never mattered.
Can you share an experience where you felt particularly satisfied or rewarded as a poet?
Turning ‘And Within These Cobbled Streets’ into a two-person play, and performing in it, was cool. Just seeing something you have written and envisaged being brought to life on that scale was so surreal. I performed next to Kate Ireland, and I’m still getting over her performance. It was unreal, the way she brought all those characters to life.
Last year, I also ran a 12-week writing course at Contact and I loved that. Watching younger writers find their voice and style is really rewarding. In general, I love running creative sessions with young people, and just seeing the impact that a positive, safe, and creative space can have on their lives. I’ve just started working at HOME where I’m devising and directing shows for the young company there. It blows my mind how talented some young people are. I’ve also taken poetry to homeless centres, pru’s, prisons and think that work is really important to do.
How does your environment or daily life inspire your poetry?
I’m constantly writing, and trying to be inspired by everything. I find it much easier to write when I’m on the move. When I got funding to write my show, I spent a lot of time just on buses riding around the city, with a notepad or my phone. A lot of my previous work was reflecting on growing up in Derby, and the small towns to the north of it, but now I’m writing a lot more about Manchester, how the city is changing, how I’ve changed, but also how the spaces I’m existing in are changing and how that alters my voice.
To what extent do you experiment with different poetic forms or styles to connect with an audience, and how do you determine when a poem you’re working on is finished?
I don’t know if a poem is ever finished. I’m constantly playing around with old poems and finding new meanings in them, or different ways to present them. Recently I’ve been going through old songs I wrote when I was sixteen and seventeen, and seeing how those lyrics relate to the stuff I’m writing now.
In regards to form, it’s always something I’ve stayed away from, as I traditionally found it really restrictive. However, I’ve started to look at sonnets, and how some of my newest work can fit into that form.
I also love narrative poetry, which does feel a bit out of fashion at the moment. I think it comes from the fact I come from a family of storytellers. My mum’s side is Irish, and my dad grew up in Liverpool. I think storytelling is so embedded in those cultures. At family gatherings, I’d just sit around and listen to everyone, particularly my Uncle Selby, tell stories about growing up, and the mischief they got up to, or my Uncle Martin who worked on the docks in the sixties. I liked how the stories would often change a bit every time they told them. Facts would get altered, moments would get bigger, and you just go with it.
I also think narrative poetry lends itself so well to theatre, and that’s a space I’m really keen on exploring further.
What advice would you give to aspiring poets?
The best advice I’ve ever been given is by Keisha Thompson, who is now the artistic director of Contact. I met her when we were both younger and running creative projects around the city. We are the same age, and by the time we’d met, she had just released her first collection alongside her second play. I’d barely even performed at an open mic, so I asked her how she managed to do much, and she just kind of shrugged and told me to throw energy into the direction of the projects I’m most passionate about.
Your first two-person play, This Town, showcased at Contact & Derby Theatre earlier this year. Can you tell our audience a little more about the project, and whether we’ll see its return to stage anytime soon?
Yeah, it’s taken ages to get up on its feet. It began life as a narrative poem, and I wrote the opening about six or seven years ago one morning. I’d just met an old friend at the pub we used to hang round in when we were young, so I changed our names and free wrote this piece that was about five minutes long. It was so different to everything else I was writing, I never did anything with it. I didn’t even perform it at an open mic. It just kind of sat there for years.
Then one day I had an online interview with Derby Theatre, and they asked if I had ever written anything about Derby that could work for the stage. I pulled the notepad from off the shelf and read it to them. I didn’t get what I was interviewing for, but they said they would commission me to finish and extend the piece. It happened just as I was starting to headline open mics around Manchester promoting my first pamphlet. So I started to include that poem in my set and mentioned how it had been commissioned by Derby Theatre to be turned into a play. That’s when a producer from Contact saw it, and they jumped on board as co-commissioners. I then spent a year getting the poem right. I went back to my old school (Saint Benedicts in Derby) and spent some time with Year 13 students, workshopping little bits, and just getting their thoughts on the piece, and I worked with Army Vets who had spent time in Basra, to get the character Liam right.
The team I had for the show was incredible. Cheryl Martin’s direction just brought a whole new level to the piece, Crisby Brown was the movement director, and he was great to work with. Also my producer Roxy Moores – she just had this vision for how big it could be, and definitely believed more in my writing than I did.
We’re looking to take it on tour for Autumn 2024, so keep your eyes peeled.
What can we look forward to in terms of your upcoming projects?
I’ve got two main projects at the moment, both are based in and around Manchester. The first is a new collection that reflects on my time here, at the moment it’s called Cycling along the Spine of A Faulty Step Ladder, and it looks at social mobility. As you can imagine, being a youth worker in the city, you see some amazing things, but also the harsh reality for a lot of people. The second is a new narrative poem.
Where can our readers find more information about you and your work?
https://www.instagram.com/rory.aaron/
https://twitter.com/rory_aaron1
For further information on the New Poets Collective, visit the Southbank Centre website.
Images, courtesy of the artist, provided by Southbank Centre
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