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 somethi...