Sarah James, Not Letting Go

British, b. 1975, Droitwich, Worcestershire, England

Sarah James is a published and prize-winning poet, fiction writer and former journalist. Her first full-length poetry collection ‘Into the Yell’ (Circaidy Gregory Press) won third prize in the International Rubery Book Awards 2011. A second, more experimental, collection, ‘Be[yond]’, was published by Knives, Forks and Spoons Press in July 2013. Her website is at www.sarah-james.co.uk . Knives, Forks and Spoons website: www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/)

Thoughts on the Telephone process

This project was extremely enjoyable, though also challenging. It raised all sorts of interesting thoughts and ideas about the nature of both ekphrasis and ‘translation’. How to stay true to translating (rather than embellishing or going off on a tangent to) the inspirational piece of work while also having some freedom to be creative in my own right felt like a conflict at first. What eventually freed from this was returning to the original project criteria. Realising that I was not meant to be directly translating the inspirational piece (in my case a video), but the message that came across from that as the background or original spark prompt, gave me freedom to move further away from the inspirational artwork to add my own intepretation to what I perceived (rightly or wrongly!) to be the original message.