Wearing a blue shirt and red corduroy trousers, Gerry smiles and greets me for the first time. The moment I saw Gerry entering the room I was quite shocked. He is totally different from what I would have imagined. The Gerry Cambridge that I had in mind was some high-brow artist with all the attitude, but after a few minutes of chat one can tell that behind his quirky look he is a very humble, smart, and passionate about his work, he is the kind of person you would love to have a long interesting chat with.
Gerry kick-off the session by explaining his role in Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) as a fellow writer.
“I’m a member of The Royal Literary Fund, we are a charity organisation based in London, which one of our aims is to help students to improve their writing skills. We are located in most of the higher education institute in all over UK.”
Although the organisation got writers from all over UK as their contributor, Gerry didn’t claim himself as the representative of the Scottish writers.
“Usually a person who lives in Scotland for a while and move to London will find themselves quite different from the others, they will feel a wee bit Scottish, but I wouldn’t say so, because the writing culture is somewhat different there, therefore I’m not claiming myself as a Scottish representative.”
When we discuss about his works, he admits that most of his art works are influenced by natural world especially birds.
“It’s quite funny how the natural world can draw my interest. The story starts back when I was 13 years old, that’s the first time I stepped my foot in UK (Gerry was born in Morecambe, Lancashire, part of the Irish Diaspora). I was having trouble with some of my friends due to the religious matters, and my getaway was the nature,” says Gerry reminiscing the old memories with a big smile in his face.
Up until now, Gerry already released ten books that represent varies of his works including poets and photography. Even though Gerry is not a Scottish native, most of his literature works, especially poetry, had a strong Scottish flavour in it. He tends to mixed English and Scottish culture in his writing. And regarding to his natural world fascination, birds become his symbol of this interest in his works.
“I grew up in the fifties, back then usually all the boys collected bird eggs. It’s sort of a penis-envy activity back then, but I found it quite interesting, and it last up until now. Its amazing if you know how the continuity life of a bird goes.”
This statement also explains the reason behind his enthusiasm in biological science, and why he is posted in the science department at GCU. “Science is our investigation to matter, but poetry (art) is an investigation to ourselves,” says Gerry quoting the famous American poet Robert Frost.
“It is not forbidden for someone to learn something new. For me pure science is something interesting. At first it’s quite dry, but somehow I managed to get along.”
Gerry spent his childhood moving around from one place to another due to his father’s work. He lives in a caravan from the day he moved to UK until 1997.
“It’s hard living in a caravan with your family. When people are caged in small spaces they will react like an animal.”
In 1972 he decided to move out and live in his own caravan, “When I moved out, I feel so free. I can go to bed whenever I want with out worrying someone frying on my kitchen.”
One problem solves and another one come, living independently means he has to figure out how to cover the living cost. Remembering that back then he had great interest in photography, he decided to pursue his long time dream to work as a freelance natural history photographer by selling his pictures to magazines. But things didn’t go smooth for Gerry, until one of his colleagues told him that it would be better if he sell pictures along with the supporting article. This is the point where Gerry started to expand his wings of talent into writing.
“I’ve managed to build a good connection with The Reader’s Digest magazine. They would ask me to do three or four articles per year. I really enjoy it and the next thing you know you’ve been doing this for the next seven to eight years.”
In 1997 Gerry was appointed as a Brownsbank Fellow. “It was quite an unforgettable experience. I got to stay at Hugh MacDiarmid’s former house, Brwonsbank Cottage. Back there it was quite odd for me working as a responsible writer, but somehow I found it quite enjoyable, it’s interesting and discomforting at the same time.”
Because of his interest in American poetry, and back then he is also working with his fellow Dana Gioia, an American poet-critic, in the early 1995 Gerry decide to make something about the poetry life in both countries. That’s when the idea of The Dark Horse magazine pops up. He wanted to create a magazine that’s unique, different and unpredictable, hence describe the Dark Horse meaning.
“I want this magazine to be a medium for the social side of poetry lovers community. I didn’t look at it as an antagonistic work, but more to a complementary work.”
Nowadays the magazine itself is a well-known magazine among the poets. “I’m open to anyone who wants to contribute. What I’m looking from a contributor is authenticity, genuineness, sufficient craft and skills,” says Gerry who apparently also doing all of the layout, design and print design by himself.
Other than writing and photography it turns out that Gerry also had an interest in music, and his weapon of choice goes to harmonica. He learn how to play it 20 years ago using his girlfriend’s harmonica. And as if he got no limitation in exploring his talent, he mastered the instrument in no time.
“I found it very interesting how this little diatonic instrument can make me so frustrated when I tried to play it with other instruments. But through this limited function one can explore new possibilities in music range, it helped me when I’m playing Scottish and Irish tunes.”
Collaborating with Neil Thomson and Findlay Napier, Gerry produced a few poetry-plated tracks back in the year 2000. Its interesting how one can hear the blues colour on his music, again my perception is usually a poet goes along with classical music.
The last part of the interview Gerry shared his view about today’s poetry writing in Scotland. He thinks that the poetry writing culture is changing into a much more relax form.
“It’s a lot more open, more relaxing when it comes to Scottish identity. I think its because of the influence from one of the great Scottish poet in 20th century, Hugh MacDiarmid, he plays a big role in these changes.”
And when it comes to his next plan, he mentioned that he is going to continue his work on The Dark Horse magazine, doing some freelance jobs and probably launch another book of poem in September. At the end it’s just like what the old time saying ‘sky is the limit’, that’s how far Gerry would go, and apparently he also got his birds to go with him.
www.gerrycambridge.com
www.rlf.org.uk
www.brownsbank.org.uk
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