Meet the Author Judith Kingston @Croydon College Croydon College is one of the largest and most successful providers of Further (college) and Higher (university) Education courses in the South East, judged Good at all levels in all areas by external inspections by Ofsted and the Quality Assurance Agency (for Higher Education). Over 8,000 students choose to study with Croydon College each year.
Croydon College like to share the successes of their students and tutors alike and here our focus is on our ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) tutor Judith Kingston, who is gaining quite a reputation, and becoming a rising star as a poet. Judith Kingston, joined Croydon college as an ESOL teacher 5 years ago, and she enjoys her time here . She says “The ESOL department has a lovely team of supportive, fun and inspiring teachers. Also, the college is right next to the Home Office, so we're in a place where we can do a lot of good for a lot of ESOL students who need people to care about them and their future�
Meet the Author @Croydon College
The anthology “Persona Non Grata” was put together by editor Isabelle Kenyon. Who or what inspired you to put this collection of poems together for ‘Persona Non Grata’? Isabelle Kenyon says: “This is the second anthology I've published under Fly on the Wall Poetry Press. I enjoyed creating the first ('Please Hear What I'm not Saying' for charity Mind) so much that I was certain I wanted to start another project. Initially I had the idea that I wanted to create an anthology that raised funds for homelessness - as a Manchester-based editor, this issue is very close to home. However, I wanted the theme to be broader than that, as homelessness is linked to many different factors and I also wanted to give my poets freedom and the space to write, which is where the theme of 'social exclusion' came about.”
Judith Kingston, ESOL tutor at Croydon College, has a poem in this anthology. It is ostensibly about “War”, but she tells us it is really about her students, who are often outsiders in our society. Judith: The poem I have in this anthology started as a poem about immigrants: how we look at them as a threat, as aliens, as other. However, when we see each other in the classroom we are all just people. This made me think about my great-uncle coming back from Bergen Belsen after the Second World War, and how people on the train must have looked at him in the same way – a scarily emaciated man, in need of help people were reluctant to give.
Meet the Author @Croydon College So would you say your role as a tutor at Croydon College complements your work as a poet? Judith: Definitely. My students always give me things to think about and so my work at Croydon College feeds into my writing. Similarly, I use my writing in class. I have written an “Easy English” Pantomime which I am hoping to put on with some Entry 3 students at Christmas time! As a ‘rising star’ in the world of poetry, who or what inspired you to take up writing and pursue a career in it? I think, like most writers, I can barely remember doing anything else – except perhaps read! I have always been an avid reader and there is nothing more magical to me than a book or poem that makes you say: wow, that describes exactly how I feel. I want to do the same: make that electric connection with the reader, where they feel like you have just looked into their soul. What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far? Creating things is brilliant and fulfilling, but getting them published is a long, hard slog. You have to keep submitting your work and grow a thick skin, because you get so many rejections. In fact, an artist friend and I have a rejection competition – who gets the most, that is. Which of your own works are you most proud of? I am quite proud of a poem I wrote called “Alpha and Omega”, which will be published in Riggwelter Magazine in May. How do you make your subject choices for your poetry? I write about things that keep me awake at night. To make sense of things. In everyday life, I am a very upbeat sort of person, but in my poems I look my fears in the eye. My best poems are the ones where I am the most honest with myself. If I've written something that is a bit 'meh', it's usually because I wasn't truthful, and I just wrote some pretty words.
Meet the Author @Croydon College
Who are your favourite poets? I find it hard to choose but top five: Dutch poet Paul Rodenko, French poet Apollinaire, British poet Tony Harrison, American poets Heather Bell and Taylor Mali What is your most memorable experience in your writing career? It was writing a monologue for a theatre production of The Bacchae and then hearing it performed. The actor completely blew me away; the way he brought my words to life was incredible. It served to highlight for me that writing something is always only half of creating art – the magic happens between the page and the reader, or in this case the page, the actor and the audience.
What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring poets? Everyone can write poetry. No, really everyone. Poetry is often seen as an 'elite' form of writing, but the best poems are very simple and from the heart. Try this: write a shopping list with five or six items. Now read it aloud and see if you can tweak it to give it a rhythm. Now give it a title. You have written a poem! See below for an example. LONELINESS 3 bananas a pint of milk a loaf of bread a six pack of beer and the TV guide.
Reviews
http://www.madhatterreviews.co.uk/ interviews.html  https://lindasbookbag.com/2018/10/ 27/persona-non-grata-edited-by-isa belle-kenyon/
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