Lisa O’Hare is a Saboteur Award shortlisted poet and 2023 BBC Words First Finalist and has been writing herself into existence since 2019. After two decades of letting her creativity lie dormant, Lisa who spends her time between Manchester and Wrexham, has resoundingly reclaimed it through live performances and readings and her debut collection of poetry. published today
Rhythmic, relatable, and reflective Lisa’s poems sit perfectly at the intersection of the personal and the universal. Exploring existing in the every day, within the pages of Proving I Exist you will find a range of works from the reflective to the ridiculous.
Lisa’s work has been featured on BBC Upload in the North West, BBC Radio 3 and she is a regular feature performance poet across the UK, including taking a one woman show to multiple fringe festivals including Greater Manchester, Camden, Morecambe and Edinburgh. Her work has taken her to Boardmasters festival and Worthy Pastures (aka Glastonbury in Lockdown) and iconic venues such as Band on the Wall, Manchester.
We spoke to her about her inspirational story of self-discovery.
What did your involvement with the Manchester spoken word night Verbose teach you, as a poet and in your hosting role?
Verbose was one of the first open mic evenings I went to and attended the most regularly just before the world went into lockdown. Then when Verbose ran open mics online during lockdown I followed them there and having written a collection of poetry in (and about) lockdown I was delighted to be one of the first ‘in real life’ again headliners.
The biggest skill I think attending poetry nights has helped me develop is that of listening. Really hearing other people’s stories, perspectives and expressions has benefitted me in my day to day life in many other ways.
When I was invited to become part of the team to run Verbose in early 2023, I was thrilled. Since then, I learned a whole new range of skills beyond poetry and my day job. I managed the social media, I booked headliners and venues and promoted the events on local arts websites. I even ventured into flyer and poster design and distribution for collaborations with Bad Betty Press and the Greater Manchester Fringe. I learned that anyone organising grass roots arts events puts in so much than they ever expect to get back. It is a passion to giving people both a platform and a great night in a great grassroots venue.
I also quickly learned that there was more talent than time I had with Verbose to book. Leaving room for spontaneity in programming vs looking out for new book releases and giving a platform to regular Verbose open mic acts when they hit publishing milestones was a real juggling act. I was also aware that Verbose isn’t about the team that organises it, as that passes from team to team every few years. Like Doctor Who, but with poetry hosts. New faces arrived on the open mic each month, who would bring new audience members, and it is the a different mix each month of people, styles or writing and performance that made each one a joy. Also watching where people take their words next is also so exciting. You feel like tiny part of other people’s poetry stories by creating the events.
Just before/during lockdown seems to be a time of change for you.
Of course, none of us had no idea lockdown was coming but in early 2019 I took redundancy from an office-based role and before I jumped straight into another ’proper job’ I really wanted to use the slice of time and money to try something I had always wished I had done. Something I would look back on and be glad I gave it a try.
And I went big… by signing up to do a whole one woman show at the Greater Manchester Fringe. This was influenced by years of going to the Edinburgh and Manchester fringe shows. It wasn’t a poetry show, it was more a lighthearted piece of fringe theatre about daydreaming of more exciting things my character could have been doing than being stuck on the most useless conference call of all time (it was written pre Zoom being part of everyday office life.). One of the daydream scenes was being a poet… I played the whole show for laughs but it was ultimately about imagining a bigger life.
I started to go to poetry open mics after meeting someone else (a ‘proper writer’) doing the Manchester fringe who mentioned Verbose. After my Fringe show was done and dusted, I kept going to open mics. I was just finding my feet in that world when lockdown came.
I am so glad I had reclaimed my creativity before lockdown as staying in touch with poets I had only just met online and continuing to write (and paint) helped me switch off from the endless news cycles of the time. Joining open mics online and putting more of my work on social media continued to open up more connections I would never have otherwise made. Lockdown was rubbish but without a creative escape / connections it would have been worse for me.
What was having your work broadcast on BBC Upload for the first time like, and what effect did I have on you?
I submitted my first poem to BBC Upload before I had submitted anything to any publisher or zines. I just thought ‘well if they don’t play it I’m no worse off than I am now’ so went for it. When it got chosen I felt incredible as this was the first group of people who had never seen or heard of me had said ‘yeah, that’s good that’. And for it to be the BBC, felt like a really special bit of validation. It gave me a lot of confidence to keep going, especially with the performance side of poetry over the printed form. I later found out I was the first uploader and went on to have many poems being featured on the show and even had the privilege of going into the studio in Media City a few times, which felt super fancy. I never ever expected I’d set foot inside a radio studio when I started this chapter of my life.
I eventually had a bigger BBC moment when I noticed there was no age limit on the BBC Contains Strong Language programme for emerging spoken word talent. I applied and got selected for their workshops. I met an incredible group of poets and musicians in these workshops and wrote and performed a new poem at the end of the workshops that won me a place in the showcase at the BBC Contains Strong Language poetry festival that was held in Leeds that year. The recordings of this performance was eventually remixed by sound designers and played on BBC Radio 3.
Talk us through how applying for Greater Manchester Fringe shifted things.
This was where I jumped in to reclaiming my creativity, both feet first. It was a case of literal winging it. I applied before I had written anything, in over 20 years. Beyond being part of a show choir I had also not performed in over 20 years, but my gut instinct drove me to do it. Once I had signed up I made a commitment to myself to make the show work. The whole goal was to do the thing. If people showed up to watch that would be even better, but the main personal objective was I could say I had done it. I had no idea going into it that I would enjoy the process so much. No idea I would meet people who would encourage me to attend spoken word and scratch nights. No idea I would be writing poetry that would take me on a whole new adventure after the show was over. Taking that leap to apply to Greater Manchester Fringe was the catalyst for everything that has happened since.
What was Edinburgh Fringe like?
This was my true creative dream and I enjoyed every moment. The key to that enjoyment was doing it for the experience of having ‘done it’ . I only did three nights and I was lucky to be able to stay with cousins. I did a guest spot, a cabaret and the infamous ‘anti-slam’ event as well as my show. I loved the stories I gathered from flying for my own show and when I saw people in the audience that I had flyered, that felt like a ‘full house’’ bingo moment. I truly felt I had completed the fringe.
You got bored of getting your poetry collection long listed in competitions, but what was the final push or thing that made you go it alone and publish Proving I Exist on your own?
There is a section of this book ‘Slave to Algorithm’ that was longlisted but after a few rounds of submission to different small publishers, I decided I wanted the book to exist more than I wanted the validation and perceived importance of a publisher. Sending your collection around publishers is a long and competitive process that requires a lot of time and I felt I want to use some of that time differently. I had also seen many other poets self-publish and admired them for taking that control over their own work.
I was also getting more aware that the subject of Algorithms and phone use will quickly date. Even during 2024 I have deleted X and some of the poems reference ‘tweets’ which technically was obsolete a year ago. As a History graduate I am ok with sharing dated references but the shelf life of continuing to send this collection to publishers was decreasing.
Once I made that decision I started to put together a collection that is way more personal than would fly with a publisher. I was able to create a collection that reflected more sides of my writing as a result. It is a very different collection to the type I would send to a publisher – where I would feel a lot more pressure to stick to one theme.
How did it feel, pushing the publish button?
A terrifyingly exciting sense of accomplishment. This is five years worth of poems that I have whittled down from a whopping 300+ to ‘just’ 100. I started the process in April, and it is a culmination of so much work beyond the writing of the poems. There were times in the process I couldn’t see when I would be in a position to press that button, so pressing it felt like a real milestone.
You’ve said the next phase of existing for these poems will now be with the readers of them.
Once the book exists I have no control over whether people will or won’t buy it. I really hope they do, as the poems are shared looking for an audience and a connection. Each reader will have a different experience reading it, with different preferences and experiences that will inform their interpretation of the words. I hope unexpected connections emerge when people read the poems. I am really looking forward to see if that happens.
The collection is a reclamation of lost creativity, you’ve said. Why do you think you lost it, and how did you find it again?
Reclaiming my creativity has had a certain element of wanting to exist beyond my day job. I want to look back on more than a bunch of spreadsheets! They and the meetings will largely blur into one big blob, but the day I got a poem played on the radio, shared a poem on the open mic, became a BBC Words First finalist. Well, they will stand out as moments I am glad I got to experience.
In my Fringe show ‘Do You Remember the First Rhyme?’ I have a poem about how I retreated from performing after taking part in a University Drama Society production in my first term. It wasn’t the experience I expected and I left the society and just focussed on my studies. I then just ploughed on from university into the world of work and didn’t really notice I’d let a whole part of my character just disappear as I focussed on my job.
Tell us about the book’s title, Proving I Exist.
All art is a little bit of proof of the artist’s existence and their experience or perspective of the world around them. This is mine. The title came from a seed I planted in my own mind in a poetry workshop where I wrote a line about ‘writing myself into existence’. Poetry has definitely added a new layer into my own existence. Sharing words on a stage on a page is a form of connection.
What about the ‘Pulp font’ on the cover, and how your fandom has informed your writing, and performance?
This collection is peppered with pop culture references and my Edinburgh Fringe show was called ‘Do You Remember the First Rhyme?’, so I thought there would be a nice nod of continuity to use the Chromium One font on the cover. Although there are not any specific Pulp references inside the covers, Blur does get a nod, in the poem dedicated to the Buckley Tivoli. I have always loved storytelling in song and Pulp are one of the masters of the art. Lyrics and the rhythm of words in songs and poems are big influences on how I write. I often find myself paying attention to rhythm as well as the story of the poem when I am writing.
What is your favourite Pulp song, and why?
Tough question but I’ll go with Something Changed. It is just incredibly clever storytelling that grabs your heartstrings and imagination and just musically incredibly tight. Not a note or word is wasted.
What would you say to other women, perhaps not in the first flush of youth, about the importance of following their dreams and ambitions, and creative urges?
Go for it. Your stories and art has an audience waiting for you. Share it and see where the ripples lead you.
Proving I Exist by Lisa O’Hare is published on Thursday 28 November via Amazon.
The book’s online launch takes place that evening.
