“If you are not reading likely you are not writing.” Be wary of others’ methods or manifestos. Any sort of declaration. Two degrees, ten books and less sure than ever. It happens rarely every day. A few things resonate more than others – Tom Raworth’s Earn Your Milk (especially ‘Letters from Yaddo’ and ‘Letter to Martin Stannard’);…
Category: Interviews
Mike Jenkins on how he writes a poem
“All poems are journeys without a known destination, but none more so than those which derive from an inspirational moment.” There are no rules. No self-help guides and no course which can tell you definitively the way. Each poet must find their own method, or lack of one. For me, different kinds of poems generally…
Rosemarie Corlett on how she writes a poem
“I don’t follow a skeleton, or pad out a structure, rather the poem emerges like a road lit by headlights.” I never know what a poem will be about when I start writing it. And if it’s a successful poem, I won’t know what it’s about once it’s finished. I write line by line, and…
So Mayer on how they write a poem
“[T]o write, for me, is to fill my mouth with worry. To worry at something: at tooth with tongue; seeking instabilities, gaps and that fleshy give. Feel it, and the anxiety floods in. But you keep fraying at it, a frayed knot: afraid not.” ‘we have filled our mouth with worry, beads.’ — Veronica Forrest-Thomson,…
Jonathan Edwards on how he writes a poem
“Beyond all of them stands time, that vicious git, with its sieve of tiny holes we all want to try and sneak a poem through. But before all those the writer has his own sieve and, let’s face it, most of us have crap sieves for our own work.” In ‘Teaching the Ape to Write…
Rhian Elizabeth on how she writes a poem
“I like how words can fall on the page of a poem, how words look when they are put in funny and wrong places. I like not having the pressure of capital letters and full stops. It feels a bit naughty, a bit cheeky. And I like being cheeky.” I keep saying, whenever I’m asked…
Iris Colomb on how she writes a poem
“I eventually chose to respond to an anecdote he told about his five-year-old daughter walking off in a park. Instead of telling her to come back he started following her, wondering what she was thinking about. This went on for about an hour, during which she never looked back, and when she finally did, it…
Dan O’Brien on how he writes a poem
“Perhaps this is the playwriting side of my nature, but I want the poem to retain something of my present tense, my breath and body.” I don’t know how I write a poem. Saying that poems come to me or through me—an image, a voice, the misty, muddy movement-without-form—may sound precious or pompous (and of…
From the Archive: Peter Finch on How He Writes a Poem
For the month of April we have the inimitable Peter Finch musing on how to craft a poem: Collect the data. All of it. Research endlessly. Nothing should be below notice. The more specialist the better. Scour and store. Absorb this stuff. Think about it and then absorb some more. When there’s enough the poem will emerge….