“This poem addresses the anxieties I feel around my hearing loss – including being able to share the experience of watching a film with my husband. It then reveals the creative adaptations I seem to have unwittingly put in place.”
Author: J.S. Dorothy
Iris Anne Lewis: How I Wrote ‘Inundation’
“The form is intended to convey a geographical sense of The Netherlands and England of being on each side of the North Sea. The Doggerland section spans across the page over the two other sections to symbolise that once the two countries were part of the same land mass.”
Tim Relf: How I Wrote ‘Teeth weren’t fish’
“Handling time shifts can be difficult as they can be disorientating for readers and can present tonal challenges, but I’m interested in how people – and their priorities – change over the course of a lifetime.”
Jane Campbell: How I Wrote ‘Campfire’
“My hope for this poem is that it reminds dykes of our unity when so much of the world tries to undermine us. Campfires give us a way of celebrating the rare joy of being in a majority.”
Forester McClatchey: How I Wrote ‘Elephant in Hannibal’s Army’
“Perhaps the best one can hope to do when writing in the voice of an animal is urgently point to one’s own ignorance.”
Content warning: animal cruelty, war