British poet Jacob Polley reveals how his family fuelled his interest in poetry

British poet Jacob Polley discusses the verses, his works and the Upanishads

When I discovered poetry as a teenager, I was rediscovering a pleasure in a power that I’d first encountered as a child. This pleasure has only increased with age,” says Jacob Polley, the English poet, who was recently announced as the winner of 2016 TS Eliot prize for his collection of poems, Jackself.

An author of four collections of poetry, presently teaches at the Newcastle University. “My interest in stories and rhymes was recognised and fed by my family — with books, stories played on tapes, and regular trips to the public library. I’m extremely lucky to be well-fed,” says Polley, who is also the winner of 2010 Somerset Maugham Award.

Now, in his 40s, the poet says he first read British poet TS Eliot as a young lad and it taught him a lot about the clarity of language which is employed in poetry. He elucidates, “My mother had a copy of TS Eliot’s The Waste Land and Other Poems, in a green hardback. I remember reading The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and becoming dimly aware that here was an extraordinary clarity of language put to the service of a kind of mysteriousness, which is perhaps as good as a definition of poetry can get.”

He hasn’t ever visited India but he is acquainted with the Indian culture through the Upanishads, “As a teenager, I studied the Upanishads as part of Religious Studies A-level, which was taught by some charismatic teachers. I can never forget the experience and the joy of thinking about the vibrancy and wisdom of Indian culture, as it seemed to radiate out of verses of the Upanishads in English, in a grey classroom in the north west of Britain.”

I can never forget the experience and the joy of thinking about the vibrancy and wisdom of Indian culture

JACOB POLLEY, POET