Interviewing Tessa Lang
A businesswoman, mother of sons and servant to three Maine Coon cats finds joy in writing poetry
Battersea Anthology aims to raise profiles of writers associated with the Battersea and Nine Elms area, and foster a strong artistic spirit and community. Learn more about Tessa’s work and her literary pursuit in this interview.
About Tessa Lang
Tessa contributes her poem ‘New Year in a Riverside Garden’ to the 2023 edition of the Battersea Anthology.
She runs a monthly workshop for the Clapham Original Poets, a Poetry Society Stanza that meets at the Bread & Roses pub. If you are writing poetry from the area, please reach out if you want to join Tessa in her monthly poetry workshop.
In this interview, we learn about her experience juggling between so many different roles as a businesswoman, a mother, cat owner and a poet. We also learn the process as a writer, and how did she find writing for the Battersea Anthology.
Q: Tell us more about yourself
An enthusiastic resident of the riverside community, I’m fortunate to enjoy its rhythms and vistas every day. As a lifelong bookworm and scribbler, I can now thank the encouragement provided by the Poetry Society, the Poetry School and Ty Nwydd for my late arrival to enjoy a more social practice, including as convener for the Original Poets’ monthly workshop at the Bread & Roses Pub and Theatre and editor of its anthology, unCommon. A sporadic contributor to a highly eclectic assortment of publications, I am thrilled to form part of the first intake for Battersea Anthology. Other roles include Poet Laureate of St. Mark’s Regents Park, located by the canal, twined with the Zoo, and the originator of Strawberry Sunday – all rich material for plays in verse, sonnet cycles and other commemorations. Leader of Choral Evensong at St. Mary’s Battersea. Businesswoman, mother of sons and servant to three Maine Coon cats.
Q: Do you always have story/poetry ideas in your head?
Yes. Decades ago, one of my university professors described my mind as a heaving Amazon Forest where paths must be hacked and cleared, and are always in danger of becoming overgrown again! The work is in deciding the direction and constructing the path.
Q: How did you decide to start writing this time around for Battersea Anthology?
The prospect of becoming part of a local writers’ community was irresistible, as is the energy and vision of “Battersea Anthology” editor, Priscilla Yeung.
Q: What was the experience of coming up with the idea and putting it down to paper like?
I was guided by the theme of the first edition – ‘Grow and Flourish’. At a time when many are dispirited and disadvantaged, and others perplexed and anxious despite privilege, it offers a positive view of change and the opportunities it presents. Walking by the river provides my meditation, exercise and creative palette, and the experience of an early January garden presented a natural objective correlative, to borrow T. S. Eliot’s phrase. We know he was no mean poet of the spiritual garden.
Q: How do you feel when the final word is completed?
I find poems to be very wriggly things but accept its completion as the poem itself seems to indicate. Rarely, if ever, am I fully convinced of its merits though grateful for the experience it brings. Like lived life, a living poem reflects its own moment. Like any other practice, it could always be done differently.
Q: How did you find the editing process - both self-edit and working with an editor?
When one of my poems is selected, I rely on the publication’s editor to stop me from overthinking and committing some unnecessary surgery on my darling. When they say “walk away from the poem”, I do. Conversely, I am an advocate of the workshop process of taking comments and suggestions on board as there is always much to consider and more to learn.
Q: How do your friends and family feel about you taking on this challenge at your age and your stage of life?
My sons are truly relieved I am involved in other concerns! My friends are supportive, inviting me to write and speak for groups and urging me to make a more concentrated effort to organise and transmit my own work.
Q: Would you do it again? Has writing this piece activated your desire to write more?
Absolutely. I hope I shall be considered in the queue of prospective contributors to Battersea Anthology forevermore. Further, I’m making plans to develop a platform for my writing, workshops, and celebration of occasions with poetry.
