Frieda Hughes: The Interview

Anthony Mason from CBS has made it to Wales: I’ll bet

That Obama and Springsteen weren’t vacuuming owl feathers from their kitchen floor

Moments before Anthony walked through the door. Did I say too much? Or not enough?

Did I talk too fast? Or leave too many gaps for a viewer’s thoughts to slip into

So they get up to go and make tea? Was my pale denim shirt the right look

For a poet, artist, author, gardening-motorbiker and lover of wildlife?

Did I digress so that digression distracted me from my purpose?

And what was my point?

Did I tell him everything he wanted to hear and that I wanted to say?

Or did I miss the verbal links sometimes lost to four hours sleep and ADHD?

Before his arrival, my idea that presentation was everything grew bigger and bigger

Until it was all-consuming; preparation filled hours, days, a couple of weeks

At least. And suddenly, we were on, two cameras rolling soundlessly

As he framed each question carefully, leading me from magpie rescue

To self-rescue, from life without meaning, to the meaning of life,

And in the end, a motorbike ride racing their drone.

At a trucker’s café I sat for an hour, unravelling not unwinding,

My disturbed parts settling back into their dust, their shadows, and their secret places,

Now not so secret, as an editor reassembles me elsewhere for others, and Anthony

Heads off to interview the Rolling Stones.