Cheshire Poet Laureate 2006
Cheshire Poet Laureate 2006
A few starting thoughts about poetry...
There are moments – as a teenager, feeling the rush of unexpected emotions, or in grief – where people instinctively turn to poetry. ‘I just had to write’ they say ‘trying to put it into words.’ The results - although very therapeutic - can often be embarrassing in the cold light of day. The poet, I think, is the person who doesn’t stop feeling this necessity to write. For whatever reason, they need to respond to their life with written words.
As soon as you write something down, it’s as if you split yourself – instead of one person feeling something intensely, you now have become two people – a writer and a reader. The very act of putting the words down and then re-reading them distances you from the raw experience, but also begins a certain shaping of that experience. Pinned down into words it all makes a bit more sense.
Even if you are the only reader of your work, it has already moved out from your head to a more public place. When you show it to somebody else, a few more things start to happen. Will it be accepted or rejected? Does it make sense? Does it say to the other person what it says to me? How could I make it clearer? How could I make it more memorable? These are the big questions of poetry, and to answer them is the work of a lifetime.
At this point there is a huge resource available to help you – the cumulative experience of poets throughout the ages, and especially those who are writing now. So read. And when you find a poem that moves you, look for more from the same author. Get inside a poem, find out what it is that speaks to you, what moves the poet makes. Listen to feedback from other people, particularly those who are writers. Go back to your writing and read it as if you have never seen it before. Rewrite it, change it, experiment.
A few starting thoughts about poetry...
There are moments – as a teenager, feeling the rush of unexpected emotions, or in grief – where people instinctively turn to poetry. ‘I just had to write’ they say ‘trying to put it into words.’ The results - although very therapeutic - can often be embarrassing in the cold light of day. The poet, I think, is the person who doesn’t stop feeling this necessity to write. For whatever reason, they need to respond to their life with written words.
As soon as you write something down, it’s as if you split yourself – instead of one person feeling something intensely, you now have become two people – a writer and a reader. The very act of putting the words down and then re-reading them distances you from the raw experience, but also begins a certain shaping of that experience. Pinned down into words it all makes a bit more sense.
Even if you are the only reader of your work, it has already moved out from your head to a more public place. When you show it to somebody else, a few more things start to happen. Will it be accepted or rejected? Does it make sense? Does it say to the other person what it says to me? How could I make it clearer? How could I make it more memorable? These are the big questions of poetry, and to answer them is the work of a lifetime.
At this point there is a huge resource available to help you – the cumulative experience of poets throughout the ages, and especially those who are writing now. So read. And when you find a poem that moves you, look for more from the same author. Get inside a poem, find out what it is that speaks to you, what moves the poet makes. Listen to feedback from other people, particularly those who are writers. Go back to your writing and read it as if you have never seen it before. Rewrite it, change it, experiment.
posted by Andrew Rudd | 3:08 pm
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