Seven years is a long time in anyone's book, but for poet Emily Hinshelwood it was the gestation period needed for her first collection.
The idea for On Becoming A Fish was born in 2005 as she walked the breathtaking coastline at Amroth in Pembrokeshire with her family and found herself wanting to write a longer sequence of poems for the very first time.
Searching for a theme, Emily decided she would pen the poems as she walked the 180 mile coastal path in various stages and searched for inspiration in the landscape and the people she met.
The collection of 70 poems, which has just been published by Seren books, features many sights and sounds those familiar with the area will recognise, but it also explores the idea of boundaries from social to geological, fact to fiction, while teetering on the edge between land and sea.
Emily, who has won many awards for her poetry, including the John Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry, told me she had never intended for it to be so long in the making, but what started as a flash of inspiration on a family stroll soon became a labour of love that has taken her on an incredible journey.
Emily Hinshelwood. Photo courtesy of the poet
She said: "At the time I thought it wouldn’t take that long but I did find it really hard to write the sequence at first and then it took me a long time to be happy with the final collection.
"I realised a lot about myself as a writer during the process and that nature writing doesn't come naturally to me.
"It took about a year to find something I could hang the poems on that I was happy with. That something was the idea of boundaries and walking a thin line between the two masses of land and sea.
"Most of the poems take nature as a starting point and explore the issues I had in my mind at the time, either the news or history and its relevance to Pembrokeshire as I was reading about the area the whole time.
"There were many times I wanted to give up because it was taking so long, but I'm really glad I stuck with it."
The poems feature everything from skinny dippers to sandpipers, from cavemen to quarry boys, from glow-worms to Las Vegas.
One of the factors that did inspire Emily to keep going with the task was the people she met on her many solitary walks.
She said: "I met a woman who was brought up in one of the lighthouses at St Anne's who remembered when a shipwreck I had taken lots of photos of during my walks had happened.
"She was only a little girl but could remember taking out soup and blankets for the crew. It was so fascinating to talk to her."
Emily also spent a day on the waves with the lifeboat crew in Fishguard, hearing their tales of rescues and getting to experience first-hand their passion for their vital work.
But for much of the distance, she met nobody and had only her camera and notebook for company.
"Over the course of time I really developed my own kind of style - something I had never quite found when I was writing single poems in the past. I do feel much more confident as a writer now."
Despite the low points and the time it took to write the collection, Emily is not to be put off and is forging ahead with a second book that will accompany her walks along the old Heart of Wales train line from Shrewsbury to Swansea. The 193 mile route travels through many unspoiled and remote parts of south and mid Wales.
As she lives on a smallholding with her partner in Tair'gwaith, Neath Port Talbot, the walks will again involve much travelling by public transport.
Emily, who also works as community arts facilitator for the charity Awel Aman Tawe, based in Cwmllynfell, has a deep interest in environmental issues.
She said: "I have already begun the next walk and am asking everybody I meet three questions about climate change.
"The rule is I have to ask everybody, even if they are drunk by a railway line or a farmer screaming at me to get off my land or they'll shoot me even when I'm on a public highway! This last one has already happened and I did manage to get an answer to my three questions!"
On Becoming A Fish was launched earlier this month at the Pontardawe Arts Centre with some accompanying animations by Emily and music from harpist Delyth Jenkins. The book is available from Seren and below is the title poem from the collection, courtesy of Emily.
On Becoming A Fish
Emily Hinshelwood
Tales of the sea didn’t prepare me for this.
It all seemed so Jack Sparrow, so Barti Du,
perhaps a mermaid flung on a rock,
whales. Jonah.
You know what I mean.
Even the fish stall with its ice trays
and neat lines of flat eyes, even he spins yarns
as he slices heads into a bucket.
When you stop coming up for air,
when your lungs implode to a stillness
all that talking ceases.
All that endless talking.
And you half-remember poking
at a lobster with rubberbanded claws
noting how prehistoric it was
and someone said something about the future.
Sounds now are just noise
against my body
This is my story.
I keep telling it over and over.
For it’s just me
defying gravity.
The swish of my tail
darting.
It’s starting to feel like I’m dancing.
