Bex Hainsworth: "The act of writing these poems was very much a celebration"

A chat with Bex Hainsworth about her poetry book Circulaire (Written Off Publishing, 2025)

How would you describe Circulaire in one sentence?

Circulaire is my confessional era, a collection of poems exploring inheritance, femininity, corporeality, and relationships.

How did you come up with the title?

There is a poem in the pamphlet called ‘Circulaire’, the French word for circular. The poem describes two holidays in La Rochelle, ten years apart, which form bookends to the narrative. I felt that this poem best embodied the pamphlet as a whole, with its themes of love, growth, and self.

What was the inspiration for the book?

When I write, I find my poems tend to fall into three thematic categories: nature, personal, and mythology. A collection of nature poems, focusing on marine ecology, was published by The Black Cat Poetry Press as Walrussey. I felt the next logical step was to group my personal poems into a pamphlet, and they became Circulaire. 

There seems to be a link between the domestic and the religious in many of the poems, and I wondered if you could talk a bit about that?

I was raised Methodist and the Church was a big part of my life growing up, with Sundays having a real family focus. As I got older, I gravitated towards agnosticism, but still found a lot of beauty and depth in biblical imagery. My husband had a Catholic upbringing, and so our domestic sphere, as well as that of our respective families, has religion hovering on the periphery, with the spiritual still existing within the secular.

These are very embodied poems, which made me think about how writing is in a sense both an embodied and a disembodied act. I wondered if you had any thoughts about writing as an act of becoming more at home in your bodily experience or if the reverse is true, if it acts as a distancing device to afford some control over disturbing bodily events?

Many of the poems in Circulaire, such as ‘Stretch’ and ‘An embarrassment of swimming lessons’, are odes to my body. I haven’t always been comfortable with my curves, and I think I still have more work to do there, but the act of writing these poems was very much a celebration. In writing these love letters to my corporeal experiences, I have definitely felt more confident existing in this world with this body.

This feels like a collection of becoming, a kind of bildungsroman – starting with the domestic / childhood, the speaker as a young person and gradually moving away into international settings as well as marriage. I was trying to think of other collections that have done this and although I’m sure there are many, I couldn’t think of one – can you?

I absolutely love this description of Circulaire. Jane Eyre, a quintessential bildungsroman, was one of my earliest literary influences, and this has certainly guided me towards collections that chart the cycle of female experience through poetry. White Ghosts by Katie Hale, Dressing the Bear by Susan L. Leary, and Eat or We Both Starve by Victoria Kennefick are a few which come to mind.

How did you structure the pieces?

The poems in Circulaire are structured in a rough chronological order, from my childhood in Yorkshire, to the start of my teaching career in Leicester, to meeting my husband and starting our life together. I thought it was important for the reader to have a sense of a journey, with growth and change being underpinned by the connective themes of family and the femininity.

How did you decide on a publisher?

I’d already been published in Written Off’s Ey Up Again, an anthology of northern writing and photography, so when they put out an open submission call for pamphlets, I jumped at the chance. I really admire Written Off’s ethos and their focus on championing northern and marginalised writers.

How long did the book take to write?

I wrote the first poems from Circulaire in 2020, during the summer lockdown, before I imagined them as a collection. Over the next three years, I found myself focusing on my northern roots, whilst also writing about my present, my relationship, and my mental health. By the time Written Off opened their submission period in 2023, I felt I had a fully realised pamphlet to submit.

Which poets inspire your work?

I will always feel a debt of gratitude to Carol Ann Duffy and Sylvia Plath, the first poets I read as a teenager. They inspired Circulaire’s confessional voice and encouraged my development as a free verse poet. During the years I was writing the poems from Circulaire, I read and re-read collections from Kim Moore, Clare Pollard, Pascale Petit, and Claire Askew. Their assured explorations of relationships and female embodiment urged me to pen my own perspective on these topics.

What’s your writing process? i.e., do you work at a particular time of day / in a particular place? Do you need silence or can you work in a café?

I draft all my poems by hand in a notebook. There’s a comfy chair in my living room that is the perfect spot for scribbling; I usually write on weekends, drafting in a morning, then leaving the poems to marinate for a few hours before typing them up into a Word document. I like to get the language down first, then spend time playing about with the structure and white space on the page. My husband is my biggest supporter: I always feel better once he’s read and copy-edited a poem, then I can send it out into the world.

How is the book similar or different to what you’ve written before?  

My first pamphlet, Walrussey, focuses on marine wildlife and the devastating impact of climate change on their ecosystems. These poems felt very separate to myself as I gave a voice to creatures inhabiting Arctic depths and tropical seas. However, I still used the weaving of religious, mythological, and feminine imagery that is present in Circulaire.

Have you any readings or other events planned to promote the book?

I haven’t any events booked in currently, but a few weeks ago I did have a fantastic time joining Louise Longson’s Last Saturday Poetry Reading via Zoom. I was able to share poems from Circulaire and it was brilliant to see a couple of poets holding their own copies up to their cameras!

Buy the book here: https://writtenoffpublishing.com/shop/p/circulaire-bex-hainsworth