George Tomsett is a new pivotal figure, breaking into the poetry world with his new anthology “Get in the car, the world is ending.” Tomsett talks about the heart breaking nature of love while remaining a romantic at heart, how poetry has always felt interwoven with his life and his love of travel. We talk about a few of the poems in his new book and how it reflects the way he sees the world.
1. When did you first start writing poetry?
When I was seventeen, I fell in love with someone, but I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. I was sworn to secrecy. Also - being so young, and so aware of how real my feelings for this person were - I felt like even if I could talk to people about, no one would understand. I descended into a place where the only thing that made sense were my words down on paper. So long as I was writing, I was okay. About that person, about what led me to that person. It all stemmed from there. From falling in love.
2. How do you write poems? Do you wait for an idea/premise to come to you or do you sit down and just start writing?
I feel very much like I am just a channel through which the words come. Sometimes, if I’m crying or feeling super excited, or if I’m drunk in a pub, or walking in a park, the words will just come to me - and I submit to them. I know that they’re from my brain, but I passively receive them - little sentences of combinations of words or even concepts, and then I go away and formulate a poem around them. There’s a poem in the book called ‘Never Known Løve’, the last lines of which are, ‘Before you, before us, I had never known love.’ And those are the words I said to an ex in an actual dream. I woke up in the morning and wrote them down, and the rest of the poem followed suit.
3. Does your inspiration for your poetry always come from your personal life?
Almost always, my poetry is a reflection of my life and/or real experiences I have either been through myself or heard about from other people. I try hard to assume other roles, other minds, other hearts, but these endeavours are only successful 10% of the time. I’m a confessional poet.
4. When talking about your cover photo for your book on Instagram you explained how you have a lot of water imagery in your new anthology “get in the car, the world is ending”. Was water being an overarching theme in your anthology something you knew you wanted from the start or did it develop over time?
The theme developed over time. One of the expressions I use most in my life, as advice to myself and to my friends, is to ‘keep your head above water.’ Throughout the writing process, I found myself drawing on images of drowning, wading, floating, all these things - because a lot of life does feel like swimming upstream, or being swept away. I am so proud of the cover image because it encapsulates all those feelings, but also how, even if it feels so hard to breathe sometimes, in this crazy world, there is always someone beside you. They might not be able to save you, but they can lend you a helping hand. Connection is everything.
5. By looking through your Instagram I can see that you’re quite well travelled; Madrid, Barcelona, Norway, Holland, Scotland, Germany to name a few. Do you think you write your best work when you’re abroad?
I wrote a poem which is in the book called ‘Mobility’. It’s all about how, even though I have travelled and chased sunsets and seen a lot of Europe (I’ve only left Europe a handful of times), I still struggle to find peace. I think I’m addicted to being in new places. It’s this kind of infectious transience I’m still learning to renounce, in the name of permanence. Worst of all, to answer the question more directly, I never write when I travel. I’m far too distracted by the newness of it all, the moving, the colours.
6. So we know each other because we both went to Eastbourne college, a private school in East Sussex. Do you think that experience prepared you for the real world? And if so how?
I don’t think any school prepares children for the real world, and for that I think we should all be very grateful. The real world sucks.
7. The cover photo of ‘I keep falling for you’ is an image of you on a man’s shoulders on the beach. It’s a beautiful shot, could you shed some light on where the photo was taken and what it means to you?
That photo was taken on a beach outside Barcelona. I suppose it’s a powerful image that also I considered using in the book - but it’s too bound up in the past. I don’t really like those photos anymore - they’re slightly too symbolic.
8. In your poem ‘I keep falling for you’ you wrote “in 1889, I wrote a romantic novel about you; triumphant it’s still on certain syllabi.” Is that your dream end goal? To write something so powerful it’s still analysed decades on.
I suppose that is the dream. Although being canonised isn’t the goal - there’s also a lot of talk at the moment of the reasons certain authors and their works became canonical, and the reasons why others didn’t. I would love for my work to be engaged with in the future, but I’m aware that this is so unbelievably unlikely. All I really want is for someone, somewhere, to have a real connection with what I’ve written. And to say, ‘I get this.’ And that’s happened a couple times since the book’s release. So, for that I’m very happy. I hope I haven’t peaked too soon.
9. In your poem “I keep falling for you” you talk about unrequited love, past lives and soulmates. Would you describe yourself as a romantic? And do you believe in all these things that you talk about in your poems.
I am the most romantic person I know. It’s a very exhausting way to live, and vaguely dishonest; seeing beauty in the world, or rather, forcing yourself to see beauty in the world - even when, oftentimes, it feels like there is none - it’s a challenge. To do that every day. But it makes you happier, I think. I believe every word I’ve ever written.
10. Have you ever written a poem about a specific person? If so, do you think it is a cathartic thing to do and do you recommend it to others?
I would seriously recommend writing your truth down, either into verse or just into a journal. That’s a huge message about the book. I healed from a lot of horrifying trauma just by putting them down on a page. Once they’re there they can’t hurt you as much - you’ve condemned them to live in the exterior, as opposed to festering in the interior.
11. Bonus question: which poem in your anthology was the most emotional to write?
The last poem is twelve pages long. It’s called ‘XXI’ and charts the five stages of grief and twenty-one moments of clarity or injury that made me a human being. It was the hardest thing I have ever written. I struggle to even read it back. Even now.
George Tomsett is a rising figure in the poetry world and his new anthology ‘Get in the car, the world is ending’ is out now! You can follow him on Instagram @georgetomsett to keep up to date with what he does next.