'As a woman, it still feels radical to say you're angry'

Poet Ellen Clayton's second collection, Simmer, is published by Alien Buddha Press

The author of a new "unapologetically feminist" poetry book says her work is about sharing the many experiences women still face that highlight inequality.

Ellen Clayton, from Ipswich, Suffolk, says Simmer explores "how it feels to be a woman living in current times with a bit of reflection on women's history and folklore thrown in there".

Here, in her own words, she discusses her inspiration and motivation for writing.

People say we don't need feminism anymore

I'm 34 now, and I think all the women my age, even some who are a bit younger, we do have that anxiety that we just seemed to carry with us all the time.

We feel so much pressure, like externally, and it's hard to shake that off.

I've written this book as part of an act of trying to live my life the way I want to live it without worrying about external pressure.

For parents, the expectations placed on mothers and fathers [are really different].

My husband and I have equally shared the childcare up to now.

The comments I get like, 'Aren't you so lucky, he's so good', and I'm like, No one would have said that to him if I was the one doing all the childcare for that day or whatever it might be.

People say that we don't need feminism anymore, but there's still so many ways that women are not equal to men.

It's not about blame.

It's not about saying that it's anyone's fault, because these are part of a wider structural societal issue, and we all operate within that system.

I think we are seeing change, definitely, in terms of maybe how we bring up our children, and I do see a lot of those conversations happening now that I don't think necessarily my parents had.

We are talking to our children, our sons, about how their behaviour affects other people, like a lot of the little kind of insidious sexist remarks that happen all the time.

My job isn't to be palatable for other people

Sometimes things that seem so small, like it might be a joke or just a passing comment, and they don't even think about it, and there's probably no malice intended.

That's probably important to say; a lot of the time, the things that we kind of carry with us as women or that affect us day to day, the people who have said that might not have any intention of causing harm.

But that is how it feels when you know, cumulatively, you are constantly being told to cheer up or smile or someone's commenting on your body or what you wear, it adds up.

My job isn't to be palatable for other people, but unfortunately, as women, that does seem to be an expectation.

Reclaim the Night describes a fantasy of being able to move freely with fear

For me, poetry has always been something that is quite personal, and I do write from a very personal experience.

These are issues that I feel really strongly about.

I've got a daughter, and it scares me that when she's a teenager, when she is a young woman, she might have less rights in parts of the world like in the US than I had at her age, which is just horrific.

To have rational conversations about it is really important, but also to be able to express the strength of feeling that I have around it.

It still feels radical to say you're angry publicly; as a woman, it's still quite taboo in a lot of ways.

It's not necessarily comfortable to talk about these things, and certainly it may not always be comfortable for me to read this work to some people who might not be very receptive to it.

But that doesn't mean that it's not important.

Ellen Clayton with poet and promotor Amy Wragg at the Simmer launch event at the Spread Eagle in Ipswich

Simmer by Ellen Clayton is published by Alien Buddha Press and is available at Dial Lane Books in Ipswich.

A launch event on 19 September was promoted by Get on the Soap Box.

As told to Jon Wright.