Writer, broadcaster and stand-up poet Kate Fox on how autism has helped inspire her work

At the time, in addition to her busy schedule as a performer and broadcaster (which includes two BBC Radio 4 comedy series and regular guest appearances on Radio 3’s The Verb), she was working on a collection of poems originally due for publication in November 2020.

Many of the poems were about what it means to be Northern, a subject close to Bradford-born Fox’s heart – she completed a PhD at the University of Leeds in 2017 which explored Northernness and comedy – but then the new circumstances in which everyone found themselves led to a shift in perspective.

“When the pandemic hit it felt like everything had changed,” says Fox. “Not only my world but the world altogether and I started writing poems that related to that. I might not have done it left to my own devices but I was doing an advanced poetry course with the Poetry Business in Sheffield – we met every month on Zoom as a group which was such a brilliant thing to do during lockdown – and I also did a couple of projects with photographer Colin Potsig, writing poems to accompany his photographs inspired by our lockdown walks.

"It became evident that those poems had to go into the collection, so I split it into Before and After, because that is how I am experiencing time, like so many of us, I think.”

The new collection, Oscillations, is published this month and together these beautifully wrought, direct yet tantalisingly oblique set of poems provide an incisive, lyrical snapshot of the turbulent and challenging times we are living through. They document the feelings of isolation and disconnectedness arising from the situation as well as highlighting the many kindnesses, a sense of community, and even hope for the future.

Several of the poems are inspired by Fox’s autism diagnosis three years ago – they explore wider themes of loneliness and the potential for misunderstanding or miscommunication that can affect autistic people. Seeking a diagnosis was something Fox had been considering for a while.

“I kept bumping into adults who had either had a diagnosis or were thinking about getting one and I often identified with them,” she says. “Then I was invited to perform at the University of Kent’s Autism in the Arts festival and I met a group of women there who were in their forties like me; performers of whom people would say ‘you can’t possibly be autistic because you are so warm, funny and interested in people’.

"They helped me to realise that getting a diagnosis would enable me to talk openly about autism and that was significant because there is what they described as a ‘lost generation’ of autistic women who don’t have a diagnosis or any access to support. From that point on, I felt it was important to speak out.” She says that for herself there have been definite benefits to being diagnosed.

“I treat myself very differently now, I am a lot nicer to myself, I understand myself more – particularly around my sensory sensitivities and my need for rest. I would constantly burn myself out by doing too much and then the pandemic happened and I stopped burning myself out because I couldn’t and that has been brilliant.”

The interlude has allowed her to reflect and focus on her writing, although that presented a challenge at times because she was suffering from what she now realises were the effects of long Covid. It meant she was “exhausted a lot of the time”, became breathless easily and found it difficult to concentrate.

By the summer, however, she started to recover and build up her strength. “I was able to go swimming outside which has been an important part of my life over the past few years and that made me feel better and happier.”

Previously based in North Yorkshire, Fox now lives in Whitley Bay, where she moved at the end of 2019 after separating from her husband. Being near the sea has provided great solace and the healing qualities of cold water swimming is celebrated in the poem Sea Swimmers (‘Everybody sees we are curing ourselves/of something, but say only they could never face/the cold, that we are brave and mad./We love to hear this, as much as they love/being allowed to say it’).

Other poems touch on connections with nature and loss. The Funerals is an extremely moving poem about the death of Fox’s stepmother last April (‘the day after she died her daffodils bowed their heads’) and the strange intimacy of a funeral limited to just seven people.

The poems are very personal, candid and quite raw at times; there are a couple that deal with childhood trauma which Fox says she hasn’t explored much in her work before. “I have hinted at it, but I realise that I usually control how open I in am in my poems when I perform them because I can distract from the poems by being funny. With these, the poems will be in the readers’ hands.

"That feels potentially a bit exposing, but it’s interesting reading through them now – I almost felt when I was writing them that they were like a documentary narrative of my last quite stressful year whereas actually the poems are more ambiguous and have a wider meaning than that.”

She was approached by a publisher last autumn about writing a book based on Where There’s Much There’s Bras which has been keeping her busy – “my concentration has fully returned, which is a relief” – and she is looking forward to getting back on stage in due course. “I didn’t have the energy before, but now I really miss performing. When live performance can happen again it is going to be so exciting for everyone – audience and performers – we will be renewed, refreshed and utterly amazed by having that live connection.”

While some of the poems in Oscillations touch on dark themes, many offer a sense of renewal and the possibility of positive change. In a note at the front of the book Fox dedicates the collection to ‘all my fellow neurodivergent thinkers. Here’s to a more accepting world’. It is possible the almost year-long stretch of pause and reflection that the whole planet has gone through could result in her wish coming true – and she is hopeful about the future.

“I feel really optimistic for the long-term, because we have experienced this as a world all together. One of the lessons we have learned is the power of community and connection.

“I think that sense of togetherness will stay with us; there has been a massive shift in thinking, and that gives me hope.”

Oscillations is published by Nine Arches Press on February 18. Ninearchespress.com