Peter Lilly’s poetry DESTROYS modernist-empiricism with FACTS AND SCIENCE!
The Writer’s Gauntlet with Sadie Kaye is a regular column at The Hooghly Review. This article is being reprinted with The Review’s permission.
SK: When you’re stuck on a scene, grappling for a metaphorical weapon, do you precision-strike like a sniper, or spray and pray like Trump?
PL: Both. I start out as a sophisticated sniper, fail to focus the scope, and immediately pivot to full Scarface. The next morning is just me surveying the carnage to see if a single bullet hit the mark.
What’s a word you’ve used in a draft that you definitely don’t know how to pronounce?
Tortuosity. I write it, I don’t speak it.
Would you rather your protagonists sue you for emotional distress and gross negligence or be sentenced to life in a Happy Ending colony?
I’m British , I live in France, and enjoy Russian literature… My natural habitat is camp tragedy.
Would you rather delete your favourite 5,000-word chapter or replace every instance of ‘said’ with ‘ejaculated’?
Option one… but not cheerfully. Besides, my favourite parts usually deserve to be guillotined.
Are your characters named after ancient deities and celestial bodies, or did you just glance at a spice rack and decide ‘Cumin’ sounded heroic?
I’d love to lie and say Cumin fought alongside Ginger and Lime in the great Marinade War. But I’m actually the pretentious option who names them after celestial bodies, only to edit them back down to earth.
If you could magically delete one trope from existence, which one are you throwing under the bus with zero regrets?
None. Even the most annoying tropes can be redeemed if the writing is very, VERY good. Most ‘bad’ tropes are just poor copies of a masterpiece… so I couldn’t magic the trope out of existence without the guilt of deleting the original.
Do your protagonists guide you toward the light, or sit on your shoulder whispering, ‘Kill the mentor, kill the mentor’?
Guide me towards the light, which could include sitting on my shoulder whispering, ‘Kill the mentor, kill the mentor’… Occasionally, the light demands the mentor is murdered. If somebody calls you their mentor, wear a bullet-proof vest.
If your WIP characters were ghosts, would they help you find your keys or rearrange your furniture to match the mess in your head?
They’d help me find my keys, then steal them, lock me out the house, burn it to the ground and rebuild it out of fuzzy popsicle sticks.
What font do you write in, and why is it superior to everyone else’s?
I start in handwriting… then type in Garamond. Garamond is oxygen to me. The rest are font-shaped pollutants.
Oxford Comma: Life-saving necessity or pretentious clutter?
I love the Oxford Comma, but I also know my own predilection towards the pretentious, so…
Plotter or Pantser?
I usually write poetry… which is Panster all the way… the structure emerges later. For fiction, I trap myself in a never-ending cycle of Pantser-Plotter-Pantser-Plotter… I’m currently on cycle twenty for my novel. Send help. And fresh pants.
What’s your writing ritual and why is it a cursed superstition?
I don’t have one for drafting. But when aI’m editing, I blast Rachmaninoff or Thelonious Monk (I did warn you I was pretentious) and pretend my keyboard is a grand piano. But I don’t know a poet who doesn’t do that.
One word that makes you go feral every time you see it misused?
Confusing responsibility and accountability. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR VOCAB OR YOU WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE!
What non-existent job do you wish existed?
Whimsical-sigh coach.
Would you rather find a typo in the first sentence of your freshly published novel or the last?
Both of these make me feel more sick than they have any right to. Next question.
Would you rather your status on Submittable remain forever ‘received’ or ‘in-progress’? In-progress. I’m all for that fleeting spike of dopamine before the inevitable, lifelong disappointment.
What cartoon character best represents your ride or die? (Alternatively explain why ‘ride or die’ makes you go feral)
I don’t want to ride or die. I want to sit in a rocking-chair, whimsically sigh at the sunset and perish quietly.
Which creature adds more joy to your world: butterflies or geckos?
My wife, son, and I have named all the geckos living on the walls of our house. When we found one had perished behind the radiator we held a state funeral. I also have a video of a butterfly landing on my son’s head when he was a baby. So you’ll understand why this is an impossible choice and dead heat!
If you could teleport, but only to places you’ve tripped and fallen, where are you tripping?
Literally everywhere I’ve ever been! Finally, a retirement plan for my dyspraxia.
Cursor status: blinking and judgmental or solid and reassuring?
Winking and waving.
What’s the last thing you researched that has probably put you on a government watchlist?
On the advice of my legal counsel, I decline to answer.
Drafting fuel: coffee, tea, liquor, Haribo or the tears of your antagonists?
There are three parts to my drafting-day: coffee to start, instrumental music to sustain, liquor to finish.
Are you a ruthless assassin or a sentimental hoarder on a kill your darlings scale?
A sentimental assassin. Agonising for months over an edit that I know I’m going to delete anyway.
Stinky Books: old library vanilla or fresh-off-the-press chemicals?
OLD LIBRARY!! It’s the Musk that has given more to the world than any other.
Your author’s bio as a clickbait headline?
Peter Lilly’s poetry DESTROYS modernist-empiricism with FACTS AND SCIENCE!
How do you write: sitting like a human or perched like a gargoyle?
Full gargoyle… until my spine cracks and reminds me that crouching like a stone demon is a young person’s game.
Describe your latest WIP using three emojis and no context.
One word you’ve banned from your vocab because you’ve overused it?
Ontological.
‘Chaos Desk’ or ‘Aesthetic Nook’?
I yearn to be an ‘aesthetic nook’, but I’m a ‘chaos desk’. I can’t help it. I’m a peaceful person, but my desk always looks like the immediate aftermath of a detonation.
Would you prefer a 1-star review that says ‘This changed my life for the worse’ or a 3-star review that says ‘It was fine’?
I’ve had both. The one star hurt more.
Are you an Ellipsis… (trailing off into mystery) or an Exclamation Point! (perpetually caffeinated and/or yelling)?
Oh, an ellipsis. My wife’s always complaining she can hear the trailing of my … It’s one thing having my wife finish my sentences but when the waiter/ doctor/ plumber does it…!
Would you rather commit bookish blasphemy by dog-earring the pages of a rare first edition or reading the ending of every book before you start chapter one?
I’m a irredeemable dog-earer. I accept my bookish excommunication.
In a post-apocalyptic world, is your primary contribution navigating by the stars or knowing which snacks stay edible the longest?
Navigating by the stars and knowing exactly which plants in the forageable undergrowth are mildly toxic versus deeply delicious for gnawing and nibbling.
Who is your ultimate nemesis: the person who types ‘K’ as a full response or the person who leaves 1 second left on the microwave?
The ‘K’ typists. How lazy do you have to be? That’s why God created emojis! Also, I am number 2. I refuse to stand in my own kitchen being hectored by an appliance… k?
If you had to turn into an animal for an hour every day, are you a Majestic Hawk (great view, very cold) or a Fat Housecat (great nap, very judged)?
Fat hawk. Great view, excellent naps, marginally less aerodynamic.
Is ‘breakfast for dinner’ a symbol of freedom or a sign that society has failed?
A beacon of hope amongst all other signs that society is failing.
What’s the most useless talent you possess that you humblebrag about?
I wrote a poem called Humblebrag (that was published in ‘door is a jar’)… it contained these lines:
‘I am a vague imperative,
an enunciated mumble,
a positive test
diagnosing something terminal.’
Does that count?
PETER LILLY – YOU HAVE PASSED THE WRITERS GAUNTLET!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR WIT AND WRITERLY WISDOM!
Peter Lilly is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated poet who grew up in Gloucestershire, England. After studying theology and working with the homeless in London, he moved to the south of France in 2014. He lives in a rural village with his wife and son, where he divides his time between writing, community development, translation, and teaching English. He is the author of the poetry collections A Handful of Prayers (Wipf & Stock, 2024) and An Array of Vapour (TSL Publications, 2023).
More info:
A Handful of Prayers; Peter Lilly. Wipf & Stock. 2024. ISBN-13: 979-8385204380
An Array of Vapour: Peter Lilly. TSL Publications. 2023. ISBN-10:1915660742, ISBN-13: 978-1915660749
https://www.instagram.com/peterlillypoet
https://bsky.app/profile/plpoetry.bsky.social
https://www.x.com/peterlillypoems
Sadie Kaye is a writer & performer from Sai Kung, Hong Kong. Her humour, fiction, rants & reviews have appeared in the South China Morning Post, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, The Hooghly Review, Buzz & many anthologies. Her humour column for RTHK Radio 3, Sharp Pains, received nominations for Best Comedy from the New York Festivals Radio Awards and Moment of Comedy Gold from the International Women’s Podcast Awards in 2022 & 2023. She won the Comedy Women in Print Prize for Flash Fiction in 2024. She’s a producer for Contro Vento Films. Her most recent film, To Love A Narcissist, was released in North America on 19 May 2026 and will soon be available worldwide.
She can be found at https://sadiekaye.tv
Her life motto is you’re only young once, but you can be immature forever.
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