Susie Wild: How I write a poem

I RUN

baths like I write poems.
Draw the hot water first,
soak the blank white.

Leave it sit for a while 
often too long
’til it soups cold.

Or I’ll run it steaming full,
let out the excess to avoid floods,
that unwanted heat bit by bit, 
top up with the C tap.

Submerge ’til skin 
turns pink, sweat forms 
on my brow, pores burst––

Candles burn for the sake,
too dark to see by, I’m out
dripping puddles, cross-legged.

Capsized I read most of the 4,6 books
scribble in biro, wet-handing the paper.
I forget to shave at least one leg.

I’m dipping in and out 
of foam-infested waters –
plastic sharks, a rubber duck,
a yellow submarine –

wind-up toys 
with their wind all gone
float beside me with painted smiles.

Out of nowhere the shark’s 
cogs turn again, it heads towards me
a finned bullet losing direction.

Susie Wild is the author of the poetry collection Better Houses (Parthian, 2017), the short story collection The Art of Contraception (Parthian, 2010), listed for the Edge Hill Prize, and the novella Arrivals (Parthian, 2011). Her writing appears in publications like Poetry Digest, The Lonely Crowd, Wales Arts Review, The Lampeter Review and Rising and features in the Spring/Summer 2020 issue of The Atlanta Review. 

She has an MA in Creative Writing from Swansea University and an MA in Journalism from Goldsmiths. Awarded a place on Ty Newydd’s poetry masterclass, she has studied creative writing with Gillian Clarke and Imtiaz Dharker, and has also been a recipient of a Literature Wales Writers’ Bursary. 

Wild was a writer in residence at the  Mothership, Dorset, and her poems have been an Ink Sweat & Tears Pick of the Month, a First Thursday performance winner and second place at Literary Death Match at Green Man Festival. She was longlisted for the Mslexia Women’s Poetry Prize and highly commended in the Prole Laureate Poetry Competition 2020. 

She has performed her poems at events like Glastonbury Festival, Hay Festival, Green Man Festival and the Dylan Weekend while her collaborative multimedia commission ‘Sex Change Disco’ was performed at Made in Roath and Cardiff Contemporary 2016.

Born in London, she spent her childhood in Devon and Cornwall. She now lives in Cardiff. Her second collection of poetry, Windfalls is forthcoming from Parthian.