Michelle is guest poet at Words at Watchet, 22 February 2025 for more info
We're in a climate at the moment that doesn't feel kind, doesn't feel accepting, I thought I'd read “Divergence” today just to highlight the lack of kindness.
“The poem “Divergence” looks at neurodiversity and not feeling like you fit in the world. Because we're in a climate at the moment that doesn't feel kind, doesn't feel accepting, I thought I'd read that poem today just to highlight the lack of kindness. Some of my later poems are actually more about kindness. But, it's hard when you don't fit.”
“I'm allowing poems to mature a lot more. I've learnt the editing process, really letting things stew for a while. It's quite hard, I have this urge to keep producing, keep producing, but I have to sort of tame that and let things stay in a folder for a few months.
My process at the moment is slowing down and really fine-tuning the ones that I think are great.”
“I got published for the first time in 2009 with Life Canon Poets, and they would perform your poems, which was really exciting. So they would get on stage, proper actors, and actually act out your poem which felt really dear and really sort of held and I really loved that. Then I moved to Glastonbury and had my son and a few years of fallow. And in 2019 I had my pamphlet The Dancing Boy and really from then on I've become sort of addicted to poetry-I love it, it's sort of my lifeblood. I've always got a notebook, I've always got a pen in my bag, I sit out, I go to cafes and it's something I do every day.”
“it's integral, I think, to spirituality to have that poetry of the soul- expression,
I mean, I think without poetry, my soul would be very hungry.”
Michelle wished it to be acknowledge that in her final poem When I Rehearse My Deathbed Scene Michelle says “There is no Confession, no last rites” however since the recording of this episode Michelle has returned to her church and has changed how she feels about her death bed protocol.
A Birth Journey in Nine Movements
By Michelle Diaz We are en route to Yorkshire. I stir my latte with a pregnancy test, it shows up positive. All the waiters do the Macarena. My mother finds a Clear Blue box in the fridge – it is full of eggs. We have omelette for tea. The family has never been so together. I am carried around by four angels who guard my apple pip cargo, pump me full of oxytocin, airbrush the stretch marks. My body wages war on vegetables, organic and tinge of green are off the menu. I am possessed by the Honey Monster, only pear drops and Jelly Tots will do. Three weeks to go and somebody has let the bathwater out. Oligohydramnios. The midwife tells me you’re shrinking. The sofa becomes a wet grave I bury myself in. The hospital – I have a bed with a bell, Mr Doc says Emergency caesarean. We float round the room like balloons in denial. Seven days go by – you are still not out, despite Doctor Patel’s insistence, despite the letter on serious yellow paper, despite my dangerously high blood pressure. I sense we are dying. I am probed silence. You have been leaked information. You are not coming. C-section. They find you. I become Mummy. The room breathes morphine, the women sweat. I am in Tenko. The nurse has a moustache. She withholds pain relief, wheels away precious baby. A cold star rises above the saline drip, guards the broken nativity. My old skin lines the corridor, the curt nurse picks it up. Strangely, I cry because you are no longer inside. Your dad closes the curtain in case they think I am depressed. I’m not. It’s just that I will never again know such intimacy.
Michelle Diaz is the special guest poet at Words In Watchet Literary Festival 2025
Michelle Diaz is the special guest poet at Words In Watchet Literary Festival 2025 taking place on Saturday 22nd February, 10am to 4.30pm, The Salvation Army Hall, Watchet. The Xanadu poetry space is a ‘pleasure-dome of the imagination’ dedicated to poets and poems with exciting guest performances, an Open Mic and Special Guest Poet Michelle Diaz. A programme of the day can be found here. You won’t want to miss it!
Michelle has been published in numerous journals, both online and in print, e.g. Under the Radar, Poetry Wales and Candlestick Press. Her debut pamphlet 'The Dancing Boy' was published by Against the Grain Press in 2019. Last year she was nominated for the Forward Prize in the Single Poem category. She is an Elder Bard of Glastonbury and has run poetry groups in and around the area.
She is currently working on her first full collection.
Michelle’s debut pamphlet The Dancing Boy traverses a mother’s depression, childhood pain and abuse loss, sickness, sex, pregnancy, birth and menopause. Humour and tenderness bring their balance. The Dancing Boy follow the link to read a few more poems and you can still be purchased the collection through Michelle Diaz’s email: radgie73@yahoo.com.
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