Poet - Peter Knaggs

The A63 Revisited

Poet - Peter Knaggs

Waterstones in Hull are extremely supportive of Hull & East Riding writers, and carry a stock of many of the books mentioned on this site.

Peter Knaggs

Peter Knaggs

I came to writing late. I wanted to be a pop star. I decided to become a writer at the age of twenty eight. I was in the bottom group for English, at school, perhaps I shouldn’t have been, I wasn’t in the bottom group for anything else, but my English teacher hated me, and the feeling was mutual. I don’t remember ever looking at poetry, at school and I left school knowing nothing about it.

At sixteen, I went to work at Rowntrees. I worked in the flavour department for Black Magic, which meant roasting coffee beans, filtering rum and boiling raspberries. After less than a year, I went to work for a lighting company, boxing up lampshades and wiring up bedside table lamps, I worked there for four years, but I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life, I was still going to be a pop star, but in the meantime, I decided to go to college and study business studies. I also went to night school and studied psychology and English Literature. I had a wonderful English teacher. I found the writing really easy, and fun and I got A grades all the time. Having writing skills, I think really helped me over the next few years, as I left York and went to The University of Derby.

I still wanted to be in a band, and hadn’t I been writing all the song lyrics. From the age of fifteen to twenty three I had built up a book full of all these words to songs, all my future number ones! At this point, I sent some lyrics to a record company, and they made some demo tapes of some of my songs. At the time, I was a student in Derby, I spent a lot of time listening to night time radio. They started to have guest poets, Simon Armitage, Joolz, John Hegley, Ian MacMillan and Martin Wiley. It was my first exposure to poetry. I thought the way Joolz wrote about real life was terrific, the puns and jokes in MacMillans and Wiley’s poetry were hilarious. Most of all though there was something about this quiet intelligent Yorkshireman Armitage, I just fell for it. Looking back now, three Yorkshiremen and Joolz poetry from Bradford, they spoke to me about my life, and in some small irrevocable way, changed mine.

I finished my degree. I was twenty eight and it had dawned on me, that being unable to play any instruments and having no ability as a singer might hinder my prospects of being a pop star, plus being able to write, and not needing anyone to read out my poems for me, I started to write poems instead of songs. I had started to buy a few poetry books too. I liked William Butler Yeats and Patrick Kavanagh. I set aside every Monday night as my writing night. If I didn’t write anything new, I’d edit. I bought more poetry books, I loved Ian MacMillan, Armitage and Edwin Morgan. I had some early success, winning two poetry competitions. It spurred me on to write more, I kept editing, re-drafting. I was determined to improve and I started to send my poems to magazines. I joined a writers workshop, which was brilliant. It made my writing feel valid. I kept getting my poems posted back from the magazines, often with critical letters, although they hurt my feelings, I carried on writing, it’s often a compulsion.

Kettle of Fish and Cushty, those were the titles of the first two pamphlets I put out. I think I printed 30-50 copies and I sold them to friends and I organised my own readings to launch them. I went on an Arvon Course, a holiday for writers, where two poets teach you and a dozen others for a week. I joined a writing programme called The Opening Line. I did really well on the programme and a publisher called Route published a book Half a Pint of Tristram Shandy, three books in one, my contributory book was titled Tolstoy on Horse. At this point a couple of other lucky things happened to me, I was chosen as one of the top five young writers to have attended any Arvon course. I finished my manuscript for Cowboy Hat, my first proper, on my own collection. I sent it to Yorkshire Arts and it won a Yorkshire Arts Writers Award, which I was hopelessly pleased about, if I remember rightly, it was £1500. I cried when I received the letter informing me.

That’s my story. My book went to number one, knocking Harry Potter off the number one spot, in Hull, in one bookshop, for one week. I still write or edit, (I edit a magazine of the biggest boozers, rascals and crazy yahoos in the poetic underbelly, it’s called The Slab) one night a week, at least, I’ve won prizes in competitions and I’ve been on another writing programme, The Poetry School, in Huddersfield. Fingers crossed, I should have a new book out, this year. Unfortunately, I don’t earn enough from writing to stop working, which is the big downside for most writers. We don’t want to be chained to a job. All we want is a window, a typewriter and a couple of bottles of beer.

Peter Knaggs- Half a Pint of Tristam Shandy

Click on picture to go to Waterstones.com

"Half a Pint of Tristam Shandy" (collection including Peter Knaggs)

Peter Knaggs is interested in how the ordinary and extraordinary interweave. His poetry is about storytelling and characters. Informed by modern poetics and culture, Cilla Black has as much to do with the outcome as Simic, O'Brien, Sweeney or Armitage. Tolstoy on a Horse, is a chronicle of his time spent as poet in residence of his own home, 75 Chanterlands Avenue, Hull.

Also .....

Click on picture to go to Waterstones.com

Peter Knaggs - Shakespeare Ate My Sonnet

Click on picture to go to Waterstones.com

Enter supporting content here