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| Interview with Joolz Denby by Melanie Ashby ANTAGONISTIC but good-natured; ‘alternative’ yet oddly old-fashioned; a loose cannon who’s known for being professional and courteous. Joolz, a British institution when it comes to performance poetry, and of late a new breed of crime fiction writer, is a rattlebag of contradictions. With a face-full of metal and the stature of a bruiser, the now 46-year-old punk poet is the epitome of grace and cheeriness as I join her for a coffee in her second home, Starbucks in Waterstones. It’s not as crass as it sounds: housed in Bradford’s Corn Exchange, we look across to elegant arched windows and carved stone-work, and down on the reverent hum of customers browsing the bookshop below. Beyond, the light reflects the gentle yellow stone of the city – the backdrop to most of Joolz’s writing. This edifice to tradition and commerce is, interestingly, one of Joolz’s favourite haunts. Her extensive array of tattoos and piercings place her as an avowed rebel – even in these days of two-a-penny body decoration – but an easy, chatty manner combines with a gentle beauty to abrogate her tough-nut image. The marriage of hard and soft has worked well for Joolz: from the early days in the mid-1970s her biker-lady dress-sense managed to upset the establishment (one outraged critic railed that ‘a person who looks like this should not be allowed on an English stage’). Her on-stage persona, however, is welcoming and homely – warming the audience before she lets loose her raw and passionate energy: ‘I always walk up smiling, or whistling. It’s a chimp thing… For the whole interview, read Issue 15 » Subscribe! Go to » Joolz's Method |
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For more on JOOLZ, go to www.contemporarywriters.com go to www.joolz.net
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