Sharp Words

My creativity didn’t so much dry up in my late twenties as get redirected. From about 1995 onwards, I wrote very little fiction or poetry and even gave up on my journals. It wasn’t until the start of this century (doesn’t that sound grand?) that I started to write again, soon after moving to Northern Ireland. Everything around me was new – experiences and sights and people – and that sparked a couple of years of writing again. A couple of weeks ago, I found one of my notebooks from 2001/2002 – and it had a couple of poems I’d completely forgotten about! But I think my favourite poem from that time is probably this one (October 17th 2002).

Winter’s First Touch
Ice on the windshield for the first time today,
and my car’s reluctant to start.
The hills are sunk into mist
as thick as a feather duvet.
The river is placid,
the glowing reflections of the buildings
disturbed only by the tiny ripples of wind against tide.

Blue sky, bright sun
and winter’s wolf-bite in the air.
(© 2002 C Sharp)

I had another few dry years, but I’ve had a good 18 months now of being enthused about poetry again as well as novel- and story-writing. The evidence is on this blog!

One of my aims this year is to read more poetry, and with that in mind, I picked up some Penguin anthologies of 20th century poetry (from the charity shop, I admit it, despite Jim’s encouragement that we should buy new). These books were put together in the 60s, and fit nicely with the copy of The Penguin Book of English Verse that I stole years ago from my Mum (it was one of her English literature texts at college).

Before flicking through the poems themselves, I read the introductions. And by the time I was halfway through the introduction to The Georgians (a particular school of poetry in the early 20th century), I was baffled. Although I can completely understand that people can prefer certain styles of poetry over others, I was surprised to realise that there were those who dismissed and denigrated whole schools of poetry – in the same way as happens with schools of art, I suppose.

I freely admit that my reaction was a very naïve one. But it made me think. Because I’d been so exposed to poetry of all sorts as a child, I really couldn’t care less in what style a poem is written. Old or modern; rhyme or blank verse; short or long; flowery or matter-of-fact. I like strong imagery and clever uses of words, and I definitely like poems that pose some sort of question or contain a mystery. But on the whole, I take each poem I read on its own merits regardless of when, how or why it was written.

And I’m pretty sure that doing that means I get to read and enjoy an awful lot more poetry! It also means that I get to use a whole lot of different styles in my own work. Perhaps it’s better for a poet to have a particular voice, and I do think there are certain consistencies in how my poems are formed, but I like to experiment too. (Maybe that way I’ll gather more admirers?!)

Anyway, time for a conclusion of sorts. I don’t think my love of poetry has ever waned, although my enthusiasm for writing it certainly has at times. Or perhaps it’s more true to say that I simply forgot about writing poetry for long years at a time.

However, at the moment, my poetry-writing-enthusiasm is at a peak. Every day, I have ideas that I know could become poems, and I’ve got pretty good at making sure I write down even a few words as a prompt for later (for when I run out of ideas, in other words). Of course, I’m still not as disciplined as I should be; I had some great ideas before falling asleep last night, didn’t take the time to write them down, and now of course I’ve forgotten them already.

I’ve also developed more of a critical eye, even just over the past year. I remember posting something a few months ago, and afterwards seeing places I could have edited it – but being reluctant to do so. Now, I’m unlikely to post something unless it’s had at least a few days to one side and then a revision or two. And that has to be progress – doesn’t it?

So I’ll keep on writing poetry while I’m still keen on doing so… and more importantly, I’m going to start tossing it out to magazines and competitions, to try and get some pieces published somewhere other than this blog. And who knows?