Wendelin Law On Being a Poet in Turbulent Times & Finding Community with Hillfire Press
Wendelin Law is a writer from Hong Kong. She is the co-winner of the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award 2024 and the winner of the Verve Poetry Festival Competition 2023. Her debut pamphlet, as wild as, is upcoming.
Being a Poet in Turbulent Times
No poem has ever directly stopped a bullet or toppled a totalitarian regime.
Poetry cannot stop the onslaught of turbulent times, but I find myself going back to poetry as if it promises some sort of salvation.
Maybe it is driving political change in intangible ways; maybe it is totally ineffective; maybe it will bear witness and spread a forgotten message in years to come; whatever happens, do not give up on words even though they seem to be failing you.
We must keep writing what we believe in – never let any voice apart from your own voice represent you.
The more oppressive our times become, the more we need to strive for the freest form of language expression, one that speaks truly of our human experience.
In the end, as poets, all we have left is this trust in words.
Being Part of Hillfire Press
When I started submitting poems to literary magazines, I realised quickly it was going to be a lonely process full of rejections. I didn’t want to give up because I’ve only just begun, but there were also conflicting thoughts e.g., what if I was wasting my time; how long should I persist?
Just as I wondered if this was going to continue forever, Lena (founder and editor-in-chief) invited me to contribute to Hillfire Anthology Volume 1.
Hillfire is a very important community to me.
Instead of faceless, unexplained rejections, we work together in groups and multiple editing rounds to get everybody’s work published in the anthology.
There’s nothing better than writerly support and discussions.
Because of the editing rounds, I get to analyse different pieces of writing in new lights, and this process also elevated my poems, some of which would otherwise have been scrapped.
The Hillfire editing process is a fulfilling process of rediscovery and poet self-love, where I learned to re-evaluate effective and ineffective elements in my work, instead of discarding them completely!
I’m really proud to be part of the Hillfire community!
