Licenced to Write Poetry? by Sandra Horn

 

April is NaPoWriMo, meaning write a poem a day. I can’t do it. There’s something about the conveyor-belt approach that sends me into a blind panic. Ideas don’t come to order, even with a prompt, and drafting and redrafting can take a long time and much thought. Years ago I was commissioned to write poems for BBC Active, for a very, very pernickety editor (sorry, Jayne) and we went, if I remember, to about 12 drafts for one poem. I loved it. I loved the challenge of revisiting something I thought was fine and working to make it finer – to fit the exacting brief. More recently, I bought a copy of 52 Poems, based on the idea of a poem a week, but the live challenge was over by then so I was able to work through the book at my own pace. It was full of excellent contributions from Jo Bell and other poets and not at all prescriptive.

 

  In contrast, the publishing world is full of poetry ‘courses’ with headings such as ‘write about something you lost’, ‘write about something you found’, write about what you can see from your window’. Aaargh! Brainfreeze! If only I could…

Recently, an artist was talking about how they paint and said that every time they started a picture it was like the first time. I find writing poetry to be just like that. Each time an idea, a topic, comes into my head, it needs a fresh start, as if I’d never thought about it before. That means I’m always learning.

Because I had found 52 Poems so helpful and so stimulating, I was intrigued to see a new initiative by Jo Bell and I signed up. It’s online and is called Poetic Licence. It’s unlike most poetry-writing courses I’ve come across. Every month, a prompt, an invitation to use it as a starting point and interpret it freely, poetry to read around the same theme, videos of interviews with poets, words of wisdom and reassurance from Jo – delightful things just keep coming. It’s rich and generous. It has shaken me out of the doldrums and been a much-needed spur to creativity. The group also get to share thoughts and work-in-progress, which is also supportive. Jo’s stated intention is to build a community of poets. Brilliant idea! Here are some of my responses to the prompts we’ve had so far. The prompts alone don’t begin to do justice to all the other inputs along the way, but they are not in the public domain. Suffice it to say that they add richness and context and a large helping of joy to the work.

 

Prompt: Pairs

Relative

We thought him sly.

He had this habit of glancing sideways

for no reason we could see

and that secretive half-smile

for nothing, or a private joke

he never shared.

 

When he was born, the midwife

knew beyond doubt there would be twins,

sat by his mother’s bed all night,

waiting fer her to birth ‘the other one’.

For years, when she passed by the house,

She’d call out, ‘Has it come?’

And we would laugh, then see his sideways glance

and wonder.

 

Prompt: Lines

Dateline double-cross

↓

While we were in the air, a whole day

disappeared,

taken from our lives in the blink of an eye.

We had soared past it, jetted into the future,

leaving its chances, its chatter, miseries and joys,

weather, mealtimes, meetings, forever in the void.

↑

While we were in the air, the hours

rolled back.

We travelled all day and arrived almost

before we’d left. Time we’d already had

we could spend again,

 but not the day that was lost.

 

Prompt: Clear

Glass cabinet

Here are the echoes of our life

in all their bare transparencies;

the everyday squat tumblers,

stemmed goblets, the water and the wine.

Here, six bohemian flutes

delicately etched around the rims,

for when we’re feeling fizzy;

bought on a whim

from that strange shop

one snowy Boxing Day -

we’d only called in for the rocking chair…

 

Here , the inheritances

 cut glass celery vases

(Oh my word!)

used now and then for salad days,

whisky tots for sharing,

catching the light, making it dance and shimmer,

bubble-thin miniatures for sipping liqueurs,

hardly ever used, one short,

victim of a rough tea-towel.

 

Here are gifts; a vase

skilfully hand-etched and gilded

to celebrate our fifty years,

goblets, a pair, with a proud crest

marking your years of service,

a vase from one-time students

messaged with loving words.

a rose-bowl from my mother.

 

Here, at the base, the solid,

 square decanter, wedding gift,

cut crystal, needing two hands to lift.

We’ve never filled it up. Not yet.

 

Responses to poetry are personal, of course. I have friends and family members who just ‘don’t get it’, so these drafts are here to demonstrate how ideas may be formed and run with, that’s all. They may not be the final versions; they are only 3^rd/4^th drafts, but it feels as if they are getting there – that is, reaching a point when I’ll leave them alone for now. Whatever their merits or demerits, they would never have come to be without the input from this learning opportunity, for which I am deeply thankful .