MAL FOSTER : a poet of the ordinary man

Poetry Online's Kathy Kelso ask's Mal a few searching questions about his writing career.....

1) So what got you into poetry?

I actually started writing at school. I was seventeen when my first poem was published and it seemed at last I had found something I was successful at.

2) 'The Girl Addict' is one of your best known poems - tell me more about the infamous 'Daily Star' debacle.

Following its publication in the Surrey Advertiser in 1986 I was asked by the Daily Star's feature editors if they could use my poem 'The Girl Addict' as part of a campaign they were doing against drug abuse. The poem is actually a merger of two separate story lines - poetic license I suppose - but one of their journalists turned up at the bedsit I was living at in Farnham at the time and tried to sensationalize everything. They even took a picture from a photo on my mantelpiece thinking it was the girl the poem was about. It wasn't her, so naturally I was a bit shocked to say the least when the article eventually appeared a few weeks later and saw the picture there. I did hear they sacked the reporter shortly afterwards.


3) 'Wire Poetry Magazine' was hugely popular and a great success in the early nineties - so why did you decide to cease publication?

I loved editing 'Wire' and yes it was very successful. Many of the authors whose work we published have now achieved so much more after using it as a step up for their literary careers. The magazine attracted hundreds of submissions every month and we were inundated with material. The downside was that people who were submitting work weren't really interested in subscribing as well so it became a very costly enterprise and left me embarassingly out of pocket. Poets have to realise they do need to invest a little bit if they want to see their work in print. As we all know - nothing in this world comes completely free!

4) You are a keen advocat of Self-Publishing - how did you get involved?

This is one area where writers can have complete control over their own published work and keep a tight reign on finances. They don't fall victim to the so-called vanity presses and certainly don't have to put up with a constant stream of rejection slips from larger publishers. I got involved simply because I wanted to publish a booklet of my work. 'Re-Invented' for instance cost me less than £40:00 to publish and produce. So there is a way and further information will shortly be available via this website.

5) 'Re-Invented' - is your debut collection under your own name - what do you mean 'own name' ?

Foster is my mother's maiden name and the name on my birth certificate. After she died on 27 March 2004 - many of my remaining family members rallied round and I even met some relatives I hadn't seen before. From 1964 I had been blighted by my step-father's name and covered it up when publishing by using the Cieslak pseudonym. I promised them all that I would start to write under what I regarded as my own name (Foster) and in light of everything that was going on - it was a very easy decision and certainly the right thing to do, albeit long overdue.

6) What plans do you have for your poetry now?

I have a definitive collection of my work also awaiting publication. This will be out in a perfect bound paperback format hopefully some time in the near future. Some of the poems already appear on this website. After that if all goes well, I will probably concentrate on helping other writers get into print with my new concept self-publishing project. There is no greater sense of achievement in knowing that you have helped another writer realise their greatest ambition - a book of their own in print.

Mal (right) with a familar face, Hampton Court, November 1998 

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