Exclusive interview Celebrated poet and writer Owen Sheers discusses life, literature, the environment |25 February 2022
Owen Sheers
Back in early February 2020, a matter of days before the pandemic changed our world forever, the Seychelles had a visit from world-renowned poet, novelist and screenwriter, Owen Sheers as he came to share his insights with school students who were studying his work for A-Level. Now, two years later, in collaboration with the British High Commission, Owen is back in Seychelles working with A-Level students at the International School Seychelles (ISS), Vijay International School Praslin (VISP) and School of Advanced Level Studies (Sals). He is also turning his attention to environmentalists in Seychelles with a screening of his recent BBC-produced movie on the topic of climate change. In this exclusive interview, Owen sits down with deputy headteacher and Literature specialist, Phil Brown, to discuss life, literature and the environment.
PB: It is almost exactly 2 years since you first visited the island – what brings you back to Seychelles?
OS: The same thing that brought me here the first time I visited – poetry and writing. I’ll be working with school students on Mahé and also at a school on Praslin island. We’ll be discussing and analysing some of my own poetry which they study, but also having sessions on other works of literature and broader concepts such as feminism, environmentalism and approaches to critical analysis. As well as this work with school students I’ll also be screening my recent BBC One climate change drama The Trick at the British High Commission. The Trick is a film about the human story at the heart of a series of events in 2009 that became known as ‘climategate’, in which hackers stole thousands of emails from climate scientists which were then used to create a devastating misinformation campaign.
Having said my reasons for visiting are the same as two years ago, I have to acknowledge that’s not entirely true – I’m also here again, with my daughters, because of the nature of those two intervening years. From the moment we landed back in the UK in 2020 we were already entering a period of time that would become shaped and coloured by Covid. For two years, like so many people across the globe, we went hardly anywhere and our world, like so many peoples, shrank to a closer, much more intimate orbit. So when you and the British High Commission kindly invited me to return, I have to confess, the idea of travelling to the Indian Ocean, of experiencing the difference and connection of travel once again, was even more enticing than it had been two years earlier.
PB: Last time you came to Seychelles was a matter of weeks before we entered the darkest days of the global pandemic. How does it feel looking back over the last 2 years to your first visit to Mahé? What were the abiding memories?
OS: Well, as I say above, the two years since my last visit have been years of contraction for everyone – years when global and national inequalities have been further highlighted by the pandemic, when systems and relationships have strained under the pressure and when, for all of us, both the absurdities and beauty of how we live and who we are were brought into sharp relief. It’s felt like a lot longer than two years, and yet returning here, the sensory memory kicks in to make it also seem like only yesterday. The smells, the heat, the quality of light and sound – it’s been lovely. To return so neatly to where I was just before Covid began, it feels somewhat like closing the circle. Not that we’re at an end of the Covid era of course, but it does feel like a return and therefore a progression of some kind.
PB: As a writer, your focus seems to have transitioned from the deeply personal subject matter of your poetry, to the national concerns of a novel like Resistance to the truly global concerns of the climate crisis in your recent movie The Trick. Have you consciously been broadening your scope with the passing years?
OS: It’s interesting to view the progression of my writing over the last couple of decades in terms of a broadening of geographic and political scope, and I think it’s a valid reading of what’s happened. That was never the driving idea behind the projects I’ve chosen though. It was more a desire to contribute in some way, to put my shoulder to the wheel. A few years ago, with works like Pink Mist and The Green Hollow, I found a renewed passion for writing in telling the stories of others, in the role of the writer as a conduit for other voices, not their own. So yes, I suppose what comes with that is a broadening of scope. I also think as you get older and you look down the line, and you see your writing time diminishing, you can’t help but ask yourself what is important, what needs to be said? That was certainly what led me to write The Trick. The climate and ecological crisis is, without a doubt, the defining challenge and issue of our age. We have been, for decades, and continue to colonise the future with our harmful decisions and actions. We know what needs to be done, but still we’re not doing it. There’s been a failure of imagination in envisioning new and different ways of being – and that is the challenge, I believe. Not so much one of action as one of the imagination. It’s very difficult territory for writers, especially those working in fictional forms, but it’s also vital territory, and one in which I really believe the storytellers can make a difference. I certainly hope so, anyway.
PB: One of your most deeply affecting pieces of writing is the verse drama Pink Mist where you chart the lives of those impacted by the war in Afghanistan. Have the events of recent months made you return to that work and revisit your thoughts on that period of world history?
OS: How could they not? Especially as Pink Mist only tells the story of a few British service personnel who were impacted by the conflict, and barely touches upon the huge numbers of civilians who were affected by those years of violence. I remember one of the veterans I interviewed telling me of a saying the Taliban had when he was serving in Helmand Province – ‘You have the watches but we have the time.’ That’s come to my mind a great deal lately… But I also can’t stop thinking about the millions of Afghans who have been so cruelly abandoned by the western powers. The whole episode seems to have revealed just how ineffective, blunt and naive a tool violent conflict is when trying to effect change. A few years ago I did start work on a piece about two Afghan brothers who were trafficked to the UK when they were children, and the bond they developed with their foster parents who went on to effectively adopt them. Somehow the story didn’t quite come together. These recent events have made me want to return to the subject though, to try and find a way to give shape to some of the ongoing lived experience of those whose lives have been altered and impacted by the conflict.
PB: Your poetry still continues to move young people across the world, including those you are going to be working with in Seychelles this month. What role does poetry have to play in the lives of young people in 2022?
OS: That’s probably a question for a young person to answer! What I can say, though, from my work in schools and on other projects, is that there’s no doubt that at times of extremity, personal or global, people do seem to reach for the economy and power of poetry. With new technologies come new ways of spreading and receiving work, such as instapoetry and YouTube, and these have certainly meant that new voices can find new audiences. But at its heart the reasons that people of any age turn and return to poetry is because, I think, of the equation of ‘less is more’ – the ability of a good poem to take you a great distance over a short space of page – and to hold enough potential for change and interpretation to merit reading more than once, too. I also hope that poetry has something to offer in our age of the attention economy, when our minds are being continually asked to fragment and jump from subject to subject. A poem asks you to slow down, to focus, to reflect. These, today, are all significant offerings…
PB: Part of your work this month will involve a session with the Feminist Society of a local school, where you pick out themes from your book Letters to the Future. What does being a feminist mean to you, and what sort of journey have you been on with this?
OS: The mistreatment of women and girls at the hands of men is the number one human rights abuse on the planet. That’s a fact, and a tough one to look at straight in the eye. Why does this have to be the case? What are the causes? Why does 50% of the population of the planet have so much to fear from the other 50%? I was brought up to always value equality and equanimity, to question culturally-imposed stereotypes, but to be honest, it wasn’t until I wrote the piece that appears in Letter to the Future, in which I address my young daughters about the nature of these issues, and my hopes for what might change, that I really took the time to research the pandemic of sexism that blights our world. The angle of entry in this piece is to look at how we might reform dominant ideas about masculinity. At the moment, for much of the world, the bandwidth of ‘what it means to be a man’ is very, very narrow, and damaging to men and women alike. What’s really astonishing, is how early on in life we begin imposing these damaging ideas, how early and in how many ways we begin telling boys that they have to behave in a certain way.
The meeting with the Feminist society was both inspiring and frustrating. Inspiring in that I met a group of incredibly intelligent, well-informed and passionate young women who want to make things better. Frustrating because in talking to them I realised once again just how much they are up against. But I’m hopeful. In just the last few years we’ve seen sudden shifts in the conversation, we’ve seen progress. I hope that progress will continue, but it needs everyone to be in the room, girls, boys, men, women. It seems absurd to me that subjects such as gender equality or violence against women are often considered to be only a ‘women’s issue.’ I mean, women aren’t the perpetrators here – shouldn’t we start asking ourselves why this violence and prejudice is happening? Children are naturally loving. As one of the girls said in our meeting – ‘I don’t understand it. So many of the boys are really kind, sweet people. Then as they get older something happens, it’s like they aren’t allowed to be like that anymore.’
PB: Now you are partway through your second stay in Seychelles, can we expect a visit from Owen Sheers to be a regular fixture on the national calendar?
OS: Well, I can’t say. It depends on if such visits would be worthwhile for people and students here in the Seychelles. There are certainly lots of subjects, from Feminism to action on the climate and ecological crisis, that can be really interesting to discuss in small nations. I’m from Wales, a tiny nation, but being small I do often think we’re well placed to be the pioneers, to trial and blueprint the new ideas. And well, I can’t imagine you get many people saying they wouldn’t like to be invited back here…
PB: In an era of divided social and political divisions, what power do you think writers and artists have to bring people together?
OS: So much of the polarisation of people and ideas at the moment is driven by a lack of empathy, listening and a de-humanising of certain issues. The best of writing and art runs counter to all of this – it asks us to listen, to learn, to encourage and engage empathetic thinking and, perhaps most importantly at this time, to join the dots; to look at information and perspectives critically. Above all, though, it’s about connection. When a work of literature or art speaks to someone, or alters their internal weather, a connection is happening. So yes, I do think writing and art have an important role to play at the moment, but at the same time, I think it has to be as popular as possible. We need art that genuinely offers us the ability to communally imagine alternative ways of being, that offers hope and enables us to see that the present moment, the present systems, which seem to concrete and inevitable, are maybe just the creations of those who benefit most from them, and that other ways of living together on this one home we all have called Earth are not only vitally required, but also possible.
Contributed by Phil Brown
All images copyright Phil Brown 2022
