POET INTERVIEW: MAX WALLIS
"Ultimately it's about all those drunken high escapades past-Max did in order to survive." An interview on poetry practice with Poem of the Month winner Max Wallis.
Each month, we interview the poet behind Poem of the Month, our competition for the poetry community. For June, that poem was Thinking of how many elevators by Max Wallis about “how desire, grief, and compulsion can collapse into each other”.
THE POEM:
I’m obsessed with the slash (/) in this poem. I use it as a hinge, a heartbeat, a door left ajar.
ABOUT THE POEM.
What’s the backstory, secret, or spark behind this poem?
The poem came out fast. It was 2am and I was thinking about memory ... about how desire, grief, and compulsion can collapse into each other. I was thinking about gay shame and how we survive it. The slash marks mirrored the flicker of scenes, the way trauma returns as flash, body before thought. But ultimately it's about all those drunken high escapades past-Max did in order to survive.
Was this poem written specifically for the POTM or pulled from your archive?
Written for the comp, in a rush of clarity.
How does this piece sit in your wider work?
It’s a key poem in my upcoming collection-in-progress, which deals with PTSD, queer longing, and what it means to rebuild a self. The poem speaks directly to the body as site of both harm and hope. Desire and consequence.
What role does ‘/’ take in your poem?
The slash is breath, fracture, decision, and continuation. It lets the poem skip tracks while keeping pace. I use it to hold contradiction and simultaneity. I trust the reader to feel their way through the cuts. It's also a sort of pun – a multi-hyphenate approach to poetry.
COMMUNITY and INFLUENCE.
Who or what inspires your writing right now?
Sharon Olds. Blackbirds, trauma therapy, sex, ADHD, weather reports, shame, boys in corners trying not to cry. My body. The body that I almost wanted to leave behind forever in February 2024 when I went to Westminster Bridge intending to die, but chose to live instead for once and for all.
Why did you send your poem to VERVE’s Poem of the Month?
I love the reach and the heart of VERVE ... how it celebrates bold, emotionally charged writing. And I needed a deadline to push through the fear.
What does winning mean to you?
It means someone saw what's inside the bog-body of my new life and didn’t flinch. It means I’m still here. It’s proof that survival has a voice.
Anyone or anything you’d like to shout out?
To everyone writing through the ache, don’t stop. To Suzi Feay and Anna Percy for believing in The Aftershock Review. To my parents. To Jane Tamsna, the Crowdfunders, Cheerio Publishing and Arts Council England for helping get Aftershock off the ground. And to all the glorious men I've ever had the good company of - you are never forgotten and just might enter by the side door into a poem.
Cover of the magazine:
https://www.aftershockreview.com/product-page/issue-1-the-aftershock-review
Tell us about your writing practice.
I write every day; I don't believe in writers block. The only thing that ever blocked me was drugs and booze - I am over a year and 3 months and 3 weeks sober.
My work explores queerness, trauma, shame, and the strange tenderness that persists through it all. I’m drawn to the jagged edge of experience; moments that blur desire and grief, intimacy and annihilation.
Poetry, for me, is where I wrestle with memory until it becomes something I can hold. I write in fragments, in pulses, often late at night or in the aftermath of flashbacks. I write because for many years I could barely put a poem together at all.
What themes or forms do you find yourself drawn to?
Survival, aftermath, compulsion, masculinity, longing. I return to hybrid forms ... diary poems, epistolary poems, litanies, confessions but not always a confession from the moment it occurs. I’m obsessed with the slash (/) in this poem. I use it as a hinge, a heartbeat, a door left ajar.
What does poetry do for you?
It gives shape to the unspeakable. It’s the one place I can form what I really mean.
What snacks fuel your poems?
Pickled onion Monster Munch. Strong mints. Tea (no sugar, colour of bricks). Pokemon Go walks around my northern market town.
Three words that describe your poetry?
Urgent. Tender. Aching.
Have you published or performed before?
My poems have appeared in The Spectator, The Rialto, Fourteen Poems, Poetry Scotland, Vogue, Popshot , Magma, and are forthcoming in Poetry London. I’m Editor-in-Chief of The Aftershock Review, a poetry journal dedicated to work that survives the wreckage. My debut collection Modern Love was shortlisted for the Polari Prize, and I’ve read at venues from the Royal Festival Hall to Ledbury Poetry Festival, to the Royal Opera House. One of my poems from the inaugural issue of The Aftershock Review will be on billboards in Deansgate, Hackney and Chorley. I am very grateful to the Arts Council for their support.
*image taken by Hayley Madden for the Poetry Society at Free Verse Poetry Magazine and Book Fair
Max Wallis is an award-winning poet writing from survival. After spending 2024 in bed with complex PTSD, he founded The Aftershock Review, funded by Arts Council England for radical, resonant poetry. His poetry has appeared in Vogue, The Rialto, Poetry Scotland, and he came 3rd in the Michael Marks Environmental Poet of the Year Award 2024. His debut, Modern Love was shortlisted for the Polari Prize a decade ago.
Where can people find you online?
Website: www.max-wallis.com , www.aftershockreview.com
Instagram: @maxwallis, @aftershockpoetry
Substack: aftershockpoetry.substack.com
VERVE POEM OF THE MONTH COMPETITION
Theme? SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW (Optional, always.)
£100 prize
£3 per poem | £6 for 3 poems
Deadline: July 20th
Judged by: Stuart Bartholomew & Hayley Frances
Submission details and how the money supports our free community poetry projects.
VERVE WORKSHOP SERIES
We’d love for you to join us for future sessions. The next instalment of VERVE’s Workshop Series features the likes of Jane Yeh, The Emma Press, Jennifer Wong, Isabelle Baafi, Tim Tim Cheng, Hannah Copley, and Clare Pollard. Book your spot here, or keep an eye on vervepoetryfestival.com and our socials for updates on upcoming events, competitions, 2026 festival programme and workshops.
Upcoming:
Hayley Frances
Co-Director, VERVE Poetry Festival
vervepoetryfestival.com
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