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Seni Seneviratne is a poet and the author of Wild Cinnamon and Winter Skin.

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ABOUT

Seni Seneviratne is a writer, poet, performer, singer and creative artist born and raised in Leeds, Yorkshire and of English and Sri Lankan heritage. Her work as a poet and live artist has been praised particularly for the unique talent of engaging an audience through poetry and song. Her poetry is published in the UK, Denmark, Canada and South Africa.Seni’s first collection, Wild Cinnamon Winter Skin (Peepal Tree Press) offered a poetic landscape echoing themes of migration, family, love and loss and reflecting her personal journey as a woman of mixed heritage. One of the poems from this collection was highly commended by the judges in the Forward Poetry Prize 2007. The collection was praised by Professor Ramey (California State University, Los Angeles) as “a virtual master class between covers which represents two decades of commitment to poetic craft…..The poet’s vision is given over with consistent generosity and empathy towards the human spirit, to a glorious populace of individuals… whose lives will be permanently commemorated with respect, dignity and affe

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I Don't Call Myself a Poet

Interview with Seni Seneviratne by Lakeshia Sterling-Henry

Seni’s website.

1. What made or inspired you to start writing poetry?

I was very interested particularly in war poetry. So I used to find poets I liked and copy them out into a book. I actually still have them, all sorts of handwritten poems that I really liked. I guess I started writing poetry just for myself really, you know issues to do with growing up, identity and I never showed my poetry really to anyone they were just really personal. It was only really later, probably in the late 80’s, that I started to show my stuff to somebody else, there were a couple of other women and we started to show each other our work. So yeah I could say I got into it from a very personal route I would say – a way of expressing myself and how I was feeling. That was kind of the way I wanted to do it.

2. How old were you when you first started writing poetry? Starting form a young age at school you mentioned above, that must have been very difficult, from being at such a young age? Did you

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Seni Seneviratne

I am a poet and creative artist of English and Sri Lankan heritage, published by Peepal Tree Press. My latest book Unknown Soldier (2019) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and highly commended in Forward Poetry Prizes 2020. My last book The Heart of It (2012) was influenced by my Fellowship experience.

My 2009 Fellowship funded several months in South Africa. As a poet and a psychotherapist, my Fellowship topic combined my passion for poetry and the creative arts with a desire to explore creative responses to trauma. During that time a South African psychologist at the University of Cape Town, who had served on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, invited me to present a paper at a conference later that year.

Speaking the Unspeakable through Poetry, which draws on my experiences and research in Cape Town, has been presented at international conferences and symposiums and has informed other work such as: a poetry course, Witnessing War, (Poetry School 2012); a residency with refugee and migrant writers for English PEN (2011); a retelling of Ovid's t