Page 9 - Poze Magazine Vol.31(ATR-4 months)

I composed poems about life as a poet and poems about the role of poet in society
compared to that of a regular worker. My poems “Job Description (The Confessional Poet)”
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/job-description-confessional-poet-cassandra-swan-
cassandra-swan/ and “The Pocket Size wreath” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pocket-size-
wreath-cassandra-swan-cassandra-swan/ are both written from this perspective. The latter

won an international competition and was produced as a short film.

The challenges I have experienced on my personal, poetic pathway have been nothing short
of horrific sometimes. You have to be extremely devout, like a bride of Christ lives within
certain boundaries, i.e. poverty, chastity and obedience it is similarly so being a devoted
poet. These experiences are tough and full of major sacrifices but as you develop your voice
your soul is showing you the way and my writing has not suffered! In fact, it has been

enhanced by the suffering! It is essential to know how to convert injustice, suffering and
hardship into creative fuel. I have been writing/marketing my work for over 20 years,
however, instead of writing and churning out poetry for the sake of it, I chose a certain

pathway and courses of action that I don’t know anyone else would! I was writing 14 – 18
hours a day at my optimum output with a muse and mentor in spirit Vladimir Mayakovsky,
he had a huge impact on my poetry. I decided to do all of my own marketing and after 7
years of writing every day and night, I then switched over to marketing my work very
seriously. I have now proved that my work ethic is successful in terms of the projects I have

secured and I am now working on projects with major ballet academies and foundations
internationally, which I will discuss in more detail later in this interview. I also have four short
films in the pipeline based on my poetry soundtracks. Another great accomplishment is the

fact that it took me 13 years - and a lot of blood, sweat and tears along the way - to find the
right Film. Director/Producer for my screenplay and a sequel based on my life story, but I
have secured a Director/Producer and both productions will include my poetry, as it all tells
my story. So my poetic pathway I pretty much carved of my own accord and paid no
attention at all to the restricted means by which other poets slot into with their poetry and

how to present it in the world. For me, I look at something and how it is currently being
done, I then assess what I think would be a better way and do it! I don’t just blindly go with
the flow, if I see a better way I act upon it. This hasn’t gone unnoticed and I believe there are

many critics who don’t work with you but against you if you refuse to go the way the current
systems dictate. I pay no attention to that at all and refuse to be intimidated by such
compromising restrictions. Poets who work within the restrictions I have mentioned are the
ones who outwardly get publishing deals and go reciting and performing their work in
bookshops to OAPs are just not the way I work at all. I am a Revolutionary and I have

nothing to do with the “system” that controls poets.I can remember my very first public
performance and as I waited for my place in the queue of poets to perform, I realised very
quickly that I am completely different from them altogether. I am a one-woman-army with

issues I raise on a political poetic landscape as well as deeply confessional work.