Taylor Strickland: How I Wrote ‘Coille Challtainn’
“If I have an economy of language, it’s the result of twelve years of sleeves-rolled up, punishing labour… when I was younger, the poetry wrote itself. Now I’m lucky if I can write a poem at all!”
Category: Poems
Guinevere Clark: How I Wrote ‘St Non’
“My work has an absorption in the baby or child, reaching into their sensual, physical and emotional world through imagery, speech and metaphor”
Penelope Shuttle: How I Wrote ‘More’
“[As] poets we track and witness what is happening all around the world as pollution and extinction becomes not a prediction for the future, but the very place we live in”
Alan Zhukovski: How I Wrote ‘THE REVOLUTION OF THE BROOKS’
“A poem can grow from a photograph (or several) like a crystal”
Gabriele Tinti: How I Wrote ‘Confessions’
“Every single word, every one of my lines, arises out of the quest for immortality, to conquer death”
Vanessa Napolitano: How I Wrote ‘The list’
“I often find when I write that there is a syllabic pattern emerging and it forms the basis for how I structure my poetry. It’s rarely deliberate in the first instance… but gives me a foundation to build the poem on.”
Radhika Swarup: How I Wrote ‘After Partition’
“The short story form of prose, I feel, attempts to bridge the chasm between [poetry and prose], and can provide intense insight into a moment.”
Karishma Sangtani: How I Wrote ‘Papeeta*’
“It took longer than I expected to adjust to thinking in Hindi, but I think that initial frustration allowed me to appreciate even more the enriching experience of perceiving the world in more than one language.”
Salma Arastu: How I Wrote ‘Allah O Akbar!’
“I was asked to create a painting which showed my reaction to the negativity and biased views about Muslims and extreme Islamophobia around the globe… While thinking in mind about the image the poem happened naturally.”