A Conversation With Kestral Gaian For National Poetry Day

On The Table Read Magazine, “the best arts and entertainment magazine UK“, on National Poetry Day, we’ve been lucky enough to get an exclusive interview with poet and author Kestral Gaian, just ahead of the release of Tubelines (Reconnecting Rainbows, 4^th October) at the Poetry Society in London.

Tubelines firmly establishes Kestral as a poet of depth, humour, authenticity and originality. As a prolific writer, Kestral is due to release their next YA novel ‘Flint and Ember’ in spring 2026 – the first in a new series called ‘Reality Quake’. Think contemporary mystery with sci-fi and fantasy elements. This will be Kestral’s fifth book and second YA, and they will be signing books and talking on a panel at YALC (Inspiring Indies Zone), Olympia in November 2025.

1. Your new poetry collection Tubelines launches just after National Poetry Day. What inspired you to write a love letter to London through the rhythms of the Underground?

I wouldn’t so much call it a love letter to London as it is a love letter to people, of which London just happens to be full. On the Tube, you see people at their most raw and unfiltered. A woman adjusting her lipstick between stations, a man balancing a Greggs pastie like it’s the crown jewels, a teenager glitter-smeared from the night before. Those little bite-size bits of humanity fascinated me. London can be overwhelming, but underground you’re trapped together in the same tin can, sharing silence, sweat, or laughter. And to me, that’s poetry.

2. This year’s National Poetry Day theme is “Play.” How does the spirit of playfulness, surprise, and discovery come through in Tubelines?

I’m a pretty playful person throughout my life, and that’s evident in Tubelines. A lot of the poems began as me scribbling fragments in a notebook between stations, not worrying about polish, just playing with words. I treated overheard phrases like toys to juggle. One of my favourite things about the Underground is how you never quite know what you’ll get — an empty carriage at midnight or a drag queen at rush hour. I wanted the poems to carry that same sense of surprise, of turning a corner and finding the world slightly stranger, and infinitely more wonderful, than you expected.

3. The Karma Kid is already being called a standout poem in the collection. What do you hope readers take away from that moment of unexpected kindness?

Every act of kindness matters, even the small, unintentional ones. The world can feel impersonal, even hostile sometimes. But then someone steps aside so you can board, or helps pick up your dropped earbud, or just smiles. The Karma Kid was a physical manifestation of that. Someone’s choice in wearing a t-shirt with a positive message, with no idea that it might have an impact on someone else’s day. The poem is about looking up, noticing the tiny things, and letting them ripple. I hope readers are reminded that they can be the spark of kindness in someone else’s crowded day.

4. Identity is an important part of your work. How do your own experiences of queerness and identity influence the voices and perspectives you write across genres?

Being queer has taught me that life is best lived in-between categories. LGBTQ+ people learn early that the world doesn’t always reflect you back, so you build your own mirrors. That sense of looking sideways at things, of noticing the gaps, the absences, the possibilities, runs through everything I write. Whether it’s a poem on the Underground or a novel about reality itself breaking apart, my characters often sit on the edges of things. And that’s deliberate. The edges are where the all the most interesting stuff happens!

5. You work across genres — poetry, fiction, theatre, and YA. What does poetry give you that prose doesn’t, and vice versa?

Poetry is quicksilver. It lets me catch a mood or a moment without having to explain it away. Prose gives me the space to stretch out, to build worlds and relationships and let characters breathe. They balance each other. Poetry sharpens my sentences for fiction, and prose reminds me to ground the poetry in story. Together they keep me honest.

6. Your upcoming YA novel Flint and Ember launches in 2026 (Reconnecting Rainbows) as the first in the Reality Quake series. How does writing for young adults compare with writing poetry for all ages?

Writing for young adults is brilliant because they don’t tolerate nonsense. You can’t waffle, you can’t hide behind cleverness or assumption, they’ll see straight through it. That keeps me sharp. Poetry, on the other hand, is forgiving of strangeness and abstraction, which I love. But at their heart, both are about connection: whether it’s a teenager who sees themselves in a character, or a commuter who recognises a moment they experienced on the train. I write for, primarily, anyone who wants to feel less alone in this weird and slightly chaotic world. I know I do!

7. Themes of resilience, mystery, and imagination seem to link your projects together. Do you see your poetry and YA fiction as two sides of the same coin?

Absolutely. Both are about finding light in unlikely places. Tubelines finds imagination in crowded carriages and midnight journeys. Flint and Ember explores the resilience you need when your very reality is called into question. Hidden Lives explored the mystery of connection. They may look different on the page, but they’re all rooted in the same fascination: how we survive, adapt, and keep imagining in a world that doesn’t always make sense.

8. You’ve described poetry as a way to “make sense of the strangeness of the world.” What recent strangeness sparked a poem for you — and were you on the London Underground at the time?

The last poem I wrote came after a recent house move. I opened a drawer in the kitchen and found a single, used shoelace. Why was it there? Who left it? What happened to its twin? It was so utterly mundane, yet so absurd, that it begged to become a poem. That’s the joy of poetry: it lets you honour the oddness of life, whether it’s a shoelace in a drawer or a hastily-consumed sausage roll on the Victoria line.

9. Many of your characters — in poems and fiction — are outsiders or quiet disruptors. Why are you drawn to telling stories through those lenses?

Growing up feeling like a quiet outsider, I struggled to find characters in books that I could see myself in. So, I suppose that started it – but the more I explored the world, the more I realised that outsiders notice things others miss. Disruptors question why things are the way they are. Those voices have a clarity I’m drawn to. They’re often dismissed as difficult or strange, but I see them as deeply human. They remind us that fitting in isn’t the only way to belong.

10. When readers close Tubelines, or later pick up Flint and Ember, or any of your other books and writing, what do you most want them to feel or remember about your work?

I hope they’ll find something in my work that makes them smile, but ultimately, I want them to feel seen. Whether it’s a poem that reminds them of something they once experienced, or a character whose fears, joys, or accomplishments mirror their own, I hope they carry away the sense that their weirdness, their resilience, their small kindnesses, all matter. If my work lingers, I’d like it to whisper: “you are not alone.”

Find more from Kestral Gaian now:

Paperback: https://amzn.to/4gSzLaH

For more from Kestral Gaian and their writing: https://kestr.al/

https://poetrysociety.org.uk/event/tubelines-launch/