My Honest Poem is a collection of autobiographical poems in which Jess Fiebig, 30, tussles with childhood neglect, abusive relationships, depression and self-harm. It is brutal, but also beautiful. Fiebig lives in Christchurch and works for Parliamentary Services. This is her first book.
Have you always written?
I loved writing as a child and I wrote a lot as a teenager as well. I went to the School for Young Writers in Christchurch for about seven years; they had a series called The Redraft and I was in that several times. One year my poem was the title poem. Then when I got to university, I stopped writing poetry and I didn't write for five years. At the end of a toxic relationship I wrote really intensely for probably two to three years. I had a lot to say about everything that had happened to me in my life, all of a sudden. I try to write a few times a week before I start work in the morning; it's a good practice for me.
"His hand tasted of salt, a metallic tang of rust, the hot edge of petrol from the pump still lingering on his fingers." - from Dislocation
To what extent are the very specific details in the poems things that have happened to you – your mother's boyfriend dislocating your jaw when were 6 and ate "too many" Fruit Bursts, for example?
It's pretty much all real. It is exposing, and a little nerve-racking. It has lots of detail about the hardest things I have experienced but I don't think these are unique experiences. There are things in my book that will resonate with lots of people, especially young New Zealand women. Unfortunately. While it is a bit scary to put it all out there, and it's exposing to some of the people who have been in my life, for me it's in defiance of shame. It's not something that I'm proud of but if I had to go through it, I'm allowed to write about it – to reframe it and make it mine.
"I'm the sharp stone in his shoe, the craggy reminder of all things uncomfortable." - from Loving a Depressive