LIBRARY LIFE

Gladstone's Library, Hawarden

By Rhian Waller - Gladstone's Library PR and marketing

Gladstone's Library is about to welcome its next Writer in Residence, so we thought this week's column would be a good opportunity to introduce her.

Poet Jane Yeh is from the US and grew up in New Jersey. After leaving university, she undertook a postgraduate course in Creative Writing.

Since then, she has written three collections of poetry, including Discipline, the book that secured her place as a Writer in Residence at Gladstone's Library.

Discipline features vivid, challenging and wry looks at life, and grapples with questions of gender, language and reality. It has a distinctive transatlantic flavour, taking readers from Doncaster to New York and back again.

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She said: "What drew me to poetry was that I thought it seemed kind of magical, in a way. When I started writing, I was a kid and I wrote stories because that's what I was reading. Then, when I was in high school - you know, that period when you're depressed and things are changing and you have lots of emotions and you try to express them - I discovered poetry.

"I found the language of poetry worked in a different way to fiction in that it expressed so much but could be so compact. You can say so much in so few words."

Hailing from New Jersey, one of the most populated states in the US, Jane then settled in London where she has lived for 20 years. Urban living has influenced her poetry.

She said: "I tend to think of things in the context of a city.

"A lot of British poets write about the countryside a lot, which is not really my thing. It will be interesting to stay somewhere like Gladstone's Library and see what new influences the setting brings."

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Jane will lead a talk on February 21 at 7pm, about finding inspiration about art - and how art can be found anywhere.

She said: "I'm interested in art and go to galleries for leisure. Sometimes the influence is more random. I'm on Twitter and Instagram, and in a way, in the modern world, we're exposed to so many images and everything is so accessible. Anyone can see an image and read about it. You don't have to be part of some elite circle!"

• You can find out more about this intimate event, held in the Gladstone's Library History Room, at: https://bit.ly/3HIDPJu