Rebecca Johnson Bista

Born in Oxford and now ‘via several other countries’  living in Penzance, Rebecca Johnson Bista is a writer and artist who has ‘always wanted to write poems’. Her love of poetry began as a child and she has ‘a vivid memory of taking out Edward Lear’s poems from the junior school library, and being completely enchanted’. Having ‘abandoned poetry for many years’ after ‘it was knocked out of [her] at secondary school’ she gave the medium another chance and though she ‘doesn’t submit poems as regularly as [she] probably should’ her work has appeared in magazines South and Aspier. She has also read her poetry at Penzance Stanza, part of Penzance Lit Fest.

Among her many influencers Johnson Bista lists Rumi, John Donne, Rainer Maria Rilke, TS Eliot, Tomas Transtromer, Sylvia Plath, Rosemary Tonks, Louise Gluck and Abeer Ameer. And since moving to Madron, near Penzance, she has found particular inspiration in the work of WS Graham who also lived in the village, ‘diving into his work and letting it accompany [her] discovery of [her] new surroundings and their recent artistic history’. In her work producing collage poems, she has also drawn on ‘Matisse’s cut-outs, Romare Bearden’s vibrant artwork, and Sophie Herxheimer’s wonderfully surreal collage poetry’.

‘Great poetry captures you and won’t let you go. It asks you questions, it puts its hooks in you and gives them a bit of a twist, it leaves you a little altered somehow… It can reveal to you new ways to understand how things are.’

As someone who loves reading poetry as part of a group and ‘exploring the different ideas and feelings each person brings to their interpretation’, Johnson Bista is particularly excited by the opportunity presented by A Poet in Every Port to ‘work with so many interesting people, to learn from established poets and to focus on writing and performing in a concentrated, guided way’. She is also ‘excited for Penzance and the local area’, and the opportunity to ‘share our amazing landscapes and local culture through our work’, adding ‘it really is a special and inspiring place in so many ways. I hope we are able to leave a meaningful legacy project that can be enjoyed by people for many years to come’.