written and posted by members of Lancashire Dead Good Poets' Society

Sunday 16 March 2014

Immersion Therapy

21:36:00 Posted by Unknown , , , , 2 comments
Good evening readers,

This week on the Dead Good Blog we've been looking at Absorption.
Absorption isn't something I tend to do lightly. I try and stay out of getting too deep into things for a fear of becoming completely engrossed. In short, I try and stay out of the action if I can. This makes me a bad, lazy poet and so from time to time, I get stuck right in to the books- feel compelled to seek out the landscapes and generally waste about a week submerged in my own little world of thoughts.
There is though, a rapidly approaching workshop at the library that I'm meant to be taking with Lindsay, and so, as I haven't yet had a chance to message her on facebook, be assured that I am considering the options and am aware of a rapidly shortening deadline.
This, I find, is helping me to be a little more poetic. In preparation I have been reading  from 'Poetry in the Making'  by Ted Hughes. The book has proved something of a gem in so far as it has an entire chapter entitled Wind and Weather- the very theme I'm supposed to be thinking about.
Ted's little guide to writing and teaching poetry, with its chapters on topics such as studying animals, has inspired me this week to think about the way I actually write. I've been captivated by the way in which the idea of capturing an animal in a poem can preserve the moment forever. On that note then, I've been working on an idea I got last week on a walk when I saw the first bee I've seen all year out collecting pollen. Obviously, it is still very much a work in progress and nowhere near the standard of the examples in the book but, for a start whilst I'm giving up end-rhyme, it is at least a bit of a poem.

The Bee

Setting out amongst the trees
Perching a while to survey the meadow:
The pollen in the flowers,
The sun in the puddles.
This is the time to collect up the goodness.

Winter held on too strong.
Laboriously it has clung to the isle
Fields flooded out
No petals to see
Then the world started turning again.

Like a cog in the wheel
Turning steady time
It is on to the next, inquisitively
Round and around,
Round and around
 
Until gathered,
it returns, heavy laden
Stains a mark on the page-
This the pollen.



Thanks for reading,
S.

2 comments:

Christo said...

Thanks for this, Shaun - it is super, and I'm glad you have got into the Hughes' "How To..." suggestions which I'm glad you are finding to be very informative.
And that shows in your Bee sketch lines (my term for Works In Progress) as they are very observant.
It is good that we can have the discussion of creativity on here when the Open Mic sessions are so concerned with performance.

Damp incendiary device said...

Sounds like another book for the wishlist :-)

I liked the sun in puddles and the round and around. Reminded me of weaving, like the bee is a small needle, threading its way across the landscape, sewing all the flowers together to make an invisible blanket.