The Inspiration of Profession

Yesterday as I lugged bags of rubble, old ceramic sinks and decaying skirting boards into the skip, our builder offered me a job. Although it was probably not a serious offer, more a phrase that carries an illocutionary force of praise rather than promise, his idea that I could work for him and write poetry about his work was an arresting one, and one which has inspired the writing exercise described below.

There is an amazing poem (one of those poems that makes me coo with admiration every time I read it) called The Boys in the Fish Shop by Kathryn Simmonds, which shows just how successful a poem about a specific profession can be. If you haven’t read the poem before then you can read/listen to it on the Poetry Archive.

Profession as Inspiration

1)      Firstly, select a profession. I’d suggest choosing either one you know about, or one which you are currently in contact with in your daily life - be that via a shopping trip to the fishmongers (like in Simmonds’ poem), the emergency plumber fixing a leak or the gardener you pass in the park.

2)      Secondly, pay attention to the environment. One of the reasons Simmonds’ poem is so successful is because of the detail included about the shop in which the boys work. The environment in which you place your character/characters has the potential to add depth to character, narrative and the overall poem, as well as showing the reader the profession rather than telling, so use it to your advantage.

3)      Thirdly, notice interesting or unexpected traits in your character. For example, Simmonds notes the ‘acne like mottled skin of pink fish’ and the ‘hoop of a lure’ of one of the boys and the ‘hands on hips, an elbow on a broom’ of another. From each of these statements we infer something about each of the boys – character description is your opportunity to show something without spelling it out.

4)      Lastly, if you are writing the poem in the third, consider including some direct speech from your character. Simmonds uses the familiar address to a customer to bring the reader into this world – that ‘Yes darling’ is so indicative of the environment and class. If you’re not writing your poem in the third person but have chosen the first person, then pay attention to vocabulary use – for your character to be believable then there language usage and tone needs to be believable.

Thank you for reading,
Lara  

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Exercises

 by Vida Bailey 

 This post is perhaps more for teaching the appreciation of poetry than the writing of it. Or maybe not so much the appreciation of it as the confidence to form an opinion. That might be the problem for a lot of younger readers who are put off by feeling they don’t understand anything.

So forgive me, if this comes from a secondary school teacher’s perspective rather than a creative writing teacher’s one.

I once went to a seminar where the admirably dedicated teacher running the show gave us Plath’s Black Rook in Rainy Weather to read. Appropriate, given that the muse and writer’s block are its theme. I find it a beautiful poem, its lines touch me immensely with that feeling of familiarity we get sometimes, reading another’s words.

What we did was read the poem, and do nothing more than pick a line or phrase that we particularly liked, that resonated with us. Then we shared our words, said why we liked them, and wrote them on slips of paper. Then we got into groups and had to put together a new poem, using only the words we had. The teacher-trick was to continually tell us two more minutes only! As it’s only ever in the last two panicked minutes of the task that anyone stops faffing and gets something done. I remember lots of faffing, and I’m afraid I don’t know where to lay hands on the actual poem we came up with, but, surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, it was great.  Ok, perhaps it had power because Plath’s words are so powerful, but also it seemed to me that we had managed to distil the essence of the original poem and understand it the better for that, without having read any commentary on it at all.

And another time, the teacher got us to write our own poems, using the simple cue of

‘I am the hour....

I am the day...

I am the week ... ‘ etc.

A few simple sentences, and they contained such emotion.

‘I am the nights I spent listening to my father’s shouting, the screaming of the dog as he beat her

I am all the hours I spent in labour, walking the floors, waiting for my daughter to come.’

For example.

And it’s true. We are those things, are we not? It works well with ‘I remember’, too.

Combining the two ideas, I find Simon Armitage’s poem, It Ain’t What You do, It’s What It Does To You’ another excellent vehicle for encouraging thought and expression, and for accessing the little bit of the poet in everyone. Each verse starts with a disclaimer – what the poet has not lived – and then counters that with a far more domestic achievement he considers equally meaningful.

I have not bummed across America

with only a dollar to spare, one pair

of busted Levi’s and a bowie knife.

I have lived with thieves in Manchester.

I have not padded through the Taj Mahal,

barefoot, listening to the space between

each footfall, picking up and putting down

its print against the marble floor. But I

skimmed flat stones across Black Moss on a day

so still I could hear each set of ripples

as they crossed. I felt each stone’s inertia

spend itself against the water; then sink.

I have not toyed with a parachute cord

while perched on the lip of a light aircraft;

but I held the wobbly head of a boy

at the day centre, and stroked his fat hands.

And I guess that the lightness in the throat

and the tiny cascading sensation

somewhere inside us are both part of that

sense of something else. That feeling, I mean.

I did it with a group of Intermediate language students (look, present perfect!), to mixed results (I don’t think it is a poem, it doesn’t rhyme’). But it was a good exercise one way or the other – I got them to do a verse each, and then a group conclusion. I tried it while I was waiting for them.

I have not written a novel, read by many,

Garnered fame or fortune with its success.

But I have spun tales of dragons, gold and green scaled,

Fierce and friendly

to lull my children to sleep.

Sometimes it’s good to imitate, to piggyback, and find the ideas inside you that way. 

***

Vida Bailey is an accomplished author and teacher who writes at the sex focussed blog: wwww.heatsuffused.blogspot.com.

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The Clerihew

  by Ashley Lister

  The clerihew is a type of verse invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956). Traditionally, it's a four-line poem made up of two rhyming couplets (aabb), with metre intentionally (often ridiculously) irregular. Its purpose is to offer a satiric or absurd biography of a famous person. Here are some of Bentley's own clerihews:

Sir Christopher Wren

Said, 'I am going to dine with some men.

If anyone calls

Say I am designing St. Paul's.'

Edward the Confessor

Slept under the dresser.

When that began to pall,

He slept in the hall.

John Stuart Mill,

By a mighty effort of will,

Overcame his natural bonhomie

And wrote 'Principles of Political Economy.'

What I like about Clive

Is that he is no longer alive.

There is a great deal to be said

For being dead.

Rhyme Scheme

The art of biography	a
Is different from geography	a
Geography is about maps	b
But Biography is about chaps.	b

Note the aabb rhyme scheme which comes from the end-rhyming of the words biography/geography (the ‘a’ rhymes in this poem) and maps/chaps (the ‘b’ rhymes in this poem).

Metre

Metre is from the Greek word for measuring. Metre is a system of measuring the sounds and rhythm of a poem. In a poem with regular metre, the poet will be counting the syllables so that each line contains approximately the same amount. In a poem with irregular metre, like the clerihew, the number of syllables in each line can vary greatly.

Exercise     

 Write a clerihew using your own name. The poem must be four lines in length made up of two rhyming couplets. The metre must be irregular.

Write a clerihew using the name of a celebrity or someone currently in the news.

Write a clerihew using the name of a friend, a colleague or a member of your family.

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Feel the fear ....and write it anyway

by Sheilagh Dyson

‘Just write. Whatever comes into your head. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar, sentence construction. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make any sense. Just write and keep writing for three minutes. Don’t think too much about what you’re writing, just keep writing.’ Thus began my writing ‘career’ last September. I would never have started writing without the prompt of this writing exercise in my first Creative Writing class at college.

I confess that, of the three elements of the course I’m studying, only Creative Writing held any terrors for me. Language? Well, I can read, write and spell, so what could possibly be a problem? (How wrong can you be?) Literature? I’ve read loads of books, so should be all right at that! (Wrong again!)  Creative Writing? Uncharted territory - didn’t know where to begin. So the exercise above was where it began for me and it was the most liberating thing because, on that day, I found that I could write and be pleased with what I had written, even as I look back on it now.

Like many people, I’m a terrible prevaricator. There’s nothing I will do today, if I can put it off until tomorrow or next week or, preferably, three weeks on Tuesday. I’m also dogged by the internal and entirely self-inflicted pressure of being a perfectionist. I daren’t start anything until I’m convinced that it will be perfect – an attitude obviously doomed to failure. The combination of these states of mind militate and conspire against starting anything, particularly writing. Both provide excuses for not writing. So for someone like me, writing exercises are extremely beneficial, indeed essential, in giving me the kick start that I so sorely need.

Emboldened by this experience, my next foray was a trip to Queen Street library, shortly after the course began, to join a Diversions writing workshop I saw publicised in the Gazette. Believe me, I forced myself to go to that one, as I didn’t know what to expect at all. I found myself in the company of experienced writers, members of a writing circle, students studying for the MA in creative writing – people who knew what they were doing! I did consider running off, but decided to save face and have a go. The theme was Blackpool and we were given numerous old photographs, programmes, brochures from the past. We were then asked to choose one that inspired us and write a short piece. Once again, given the bare bones of an idea, I found I could write and moreover, read out what I had written to total strangers. Progress was being made.

Several months later and after numerous writing and poetry exercises in the intervening period I now find myself writing obsessively, editing, re-working, agonising – and all of this, I have learned,  is because I forced myself  to write something in the first place, to despoil that blank sheet of paper. Not with a perfect finished piece all in one go, but with something to work on (and anything is better than nothing), something to enjoy changing and playing with, as new ideas occur and better words leap out of the memory. Nothing goes to waste – all jottings, scribbles, unfinished poems, germs of ideas that haven’t yet been realised – all are kept for future development or for putting together with other, seemingly incongruous snippets, that together can grow into something worthwhile.

After shaky beginnings, I’m starting to sound like a writing zealot, a crusader for the written word, an evangelical wordsmith. I’m not, but I am someone who has been a late developer in this area and am keen to make up for lost time!

I’ll finish with a poem that emerged from a poetry exercise, facilitated by Colette Bryce for the Guardian. The suggested theme was ‘Names’ and this is Maria Taylor’s offering, which made me smile.

Felling a Maiden by Maria Taylor (Maria Dimitri Orthodoxou, as was)

And what did I bring to the altar?
A dowry sack of vowels, a grinding toothache
of consonants. In a few inky moments
I would no longer be foreign or hard to spell.

She was not from round here, she was torn
from fig and oleander, eucalyptus and sea,
though she didn't speak with a faraway voice,
or make lace with her grandmother's needle.

She refused the double-barreled shot
at a new life (the initials would be MOT);
So I was cruel and I was kind
and found an attic for her to slip away.

Becoming a Taylor of the everyday sort,
climbing up the stairwell, saying 'goodnight.'

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Is NAPOWRIMO A Good Thing? Discuss.

by David Riley

It's certainly a challenge, having to write a poem every day for a month. It could be any sort of poem but I decided when I joined in I would do all mine with 14 lines. This means I didn't use the prompts thst appeared on the NAPO site periodically, giving suggestions as to a form to use if you were stuck for ideas. Oh no, not me. I was much stronger than this. Juts manly jaw.

Plus I had a plan so cunning you could stick a tail on it and easily mistake it for Reynard. I'd come across a writing exercise which suggested using other poems as inspiration for your own in a particular way. That'll do then. Sorted. I just needed 30, 14 line poems and Robert is your mother's brother.

That was the theory and it worked. For a bit. Then I started to scrat around for suitably inspiring stuff (doing this hand to mouth, as it were, makes it trickier than I thought it would be). Plus I wanted to do stuff of my own, without the need for this method. It was do-able and it was done...but...

This became a bit of a treadmill. There was no time to revise poems among other things. Also, I tend to write poetry in a very narrative style and need to practise changing that, which NAPOWRIMO didn't give me the chance to do; it was a matter of finish something and add it to the blog. Overall I suppose I'm fairly happy with 10% of what I put up there and they can be revisited and reworked. The rest might form something, eventually.

Would I do it again? It was good to join in with others and suffer together. As for developing as a poet? I don't think so. I need to work on certain things and this didn't allow that, so on balance, fun but not very useful.

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What I Remember About Friendship...

I thought I’d use this post as an opportunity to just write everything that came to mind when I thought about ‘Friendship’; a kind of word association game that starts in childhood and stretches back into the present. I like writing little pieces of writing like this. I like the unexpected that you find within your own mind. I like the possibilities that can sometimes be found; even a potential poem can be lurking within one of your forgotten memories. So I guess that today’s post is more exercise than writing (but hopefully there is a poem just waiting to be written into existence in the near future).

I remember the paddling pool in your garden. An August afternoon of giggles and freedom. The perfect blonde curls that I wished were mine. I remember cutting my foot, and your mum mending it with a plaster. The strawberry patch, buzzing with sweetness.

I remember the peanut fight that broke out on my 8^th birthday between two friends. Crying when the cake was cut. Crying when I had to share it.

I remember leaving my friends behind.

I remember having to make new ones – in a new school, in a new town.

I remember friendship bracelets. Falling out, taking sides. I remember sleepovers. Back garden camping. Cow pat cakes. I remember locking you in the shed. Barking like a wild dog. Apologising. Laughing. I remember starting upper school. Being scared together.

I remember climbing trees. Making dens. I remember trying to fit in. Copying. Matching. Growing up.

I remember liking the same boy, creating code names. Secrets. Cross my heart ‘til I die. I remember promises, daisy chains and cans of Lilt. Penny sweets. Bliss magazine. Problem pages. I remember dreaming. Believing. Taking different paths.  

I remember saying goodbye. Hurting. Writing. Departure boards. Visiting hours. I remember the fold-in-half feeling of guilt and your look of shock.

I remember being lonely. Trusting you. Lying. Forgiving. I remember Saturdays, Sainsbury’s and Girl, Interrupted. Onion rings. Pasta. Pesto. Tears. I remember Christmas ’04 and my 18^th birthday card. I remember smoking. Being sick. Being dizzy. Roller coasters. The face on the Pringle’s can. Ouija boards. Earthquakes and cockroaches. I remember art galleries, love and long conversations. Paulo Coelho, Cindy Sherman and Camden Town  

I remember ducks drowning. Broken wings. Police. Your purse. An abandoned hamster. Newspapers. I remember giving up, curling up, wishing. The brightest star. Escaping, walking, The Peak District. Bats and torches. I remember my trainers being left outside the tent. Writing. Waiting Learning.

I remember English, ghosts, mountains and fear. Welsh dragons and Starbucks. Musicals, asylums and perfection. I remember looking in a mirror. Jumping forward 15 years. Poetry. Barista. I remember picnics, vegan cheesecake, tartlets and running water. I remember falling in love.

Thank you for reading,

Lar   

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Ekphrasis: A Writing Exercise

As some of you will already know (because I keep harping on about it), I spent last week at a writing residential in North Wales. This is the second time that I’ve been to Ty Newydd, and neither occasion has disappointed. Each day was loosely structured to include a writing workshop in the morning, free time in the afternoon to write / read from the vast collection of poetry books in the library, and a reading / Q&A in the evening. I was inspired. I wrote a lot. Most of which is unusable, but there are a few pieces that contain faint flecks of potential – and, for me, that makes for a fairly successful week.

The piece that follows is a written version of what I took from Tuesday’s workshop on ekphrasis. I’d experienced this workshop before (last year in fact), but it has been an exercise that I have employed regularly when I’ve been stuck, or when I have found myself regressing back to my cryptic ways. This workshop was crucial to my development and learning in the first year of my MA, and enabled me to change my opaque poetry into something that was less difficult. I hope that you find it as useful as I have found it.

* * *

The term “ekphrasis” derives from the Greek ek, “out of”, and phrasis, “speech” or “expression”. In poetry and literature it is used to describe a poem or a section of prose that translates or speaks of a piece of art; you have probably read many examples of ekphrasis without realising that you were reading an ekphrastic poem.

For example, John Keats’ poem ‘An Ode to a Grecian Urn’ uses an ancient artefact as a subject, allowing the speaker to address it directly, while also describing some of the pictures on the object’s surface. Keats used one form of art – a stimuli for inspiration – and translated it into another art form. However, it is also possible to construct an ekphrastic poem without a ‘real’ work of art (notional); Robert Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’ is an excellent example of this. The painting that the Duke of Ferrara addresses is not real outside of the poem; it has been imagined by Browning, enabling the Duke to plausibly speak to his dead wife as if she were alive and encouraging the reader to think of her as a real person.

In recent times, photographs have become a popular focus within poetry - and despite capturing a very specific and static moment, they offer a variety of directions and options. The poet needs to make decisions, and perhaps the most crucial decision is POV: who’s eyes will we see through? who will be the speaker in the poem? Personally, I think some of the most successful ekphrastic poems are those that do something interesting with POV. For example, in ‘I Go Back to May 1937’ sees the speaker (daughter) travelling back in time to her parents graduation day (the photograph), just prior to their marriage. She wants to warn them, “I want to go up to them and say Stop, / don’t do it – she’s the wrong woman, / he’s the wrong man”. Similarly, in ‘Long Exposure’ (Neil Rollinson) the use of POV is striking; the poem steps away from the photograph and hovers more generously on the photographer. However, the speaker is a further step away from the photographer, observing his movements and the process of taking a photo. The reader is never given an exact description of the final image; we’re left to imagine the results, only able to see what the twice-removed speaker is capable of seeing / describing to us.

The Poem & the Photograph: A writing exercise

1) Find a photograph. I like to open a book like A Year in Photography: Magnum Archive at a random page and then write. However, things like weekend newspaper supplements, old photo albums, or even a Google image search can offer countless photographs – and endless sources of inspiration.

2) Consider POV. The options here are as unrestricted as your imagination will allow. You could choose a speaker who is contained within the photograph: a person, an object, a shadow. Alternatively, you could decide that your speaker is external (outside of the photograph): the photographer, a bystander, or even (as demonstrated in the Sharon Olds’ poem above) a person’s experience on viewing a photograph.
The above list isn’t extensive, it’s more of a starting point to get you thinking about the importance of POV and voice, and the way in which it can greatly influence the subsequent direction of your poem.

3) Think outside the frame. Don’t allow yourself to be restricted by what is within the picture frame. Photographs have edges, boundaries, but our minds are without such parameters. You can fill in what the snapshot hasn’t captured; the scene around the edges, the scene in front of the photo.

4) Experiment with time. It can sometimes be interesting to shift time, hypothesise about what happened 30 seconds before or after the photograph was taken and imagine what the ‘new’ photo would have looked like. Equally, this can be exaggerated to include greater time gaps; you might like to work away from a specific moment in time towards a future time, asking: Where are these people now? Are they still alive? What happened to them? (See ‘Six Young Men’ by Ted Hughes)

Thank you for reading,
Lar

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