Welcome to
p&g - if you are on the blog tour, take a walk round and see what the weather is like...if not, just do what you normally do!
Thanks to
Jules Horne for giving directions to here. She has asked some questions which I will attempt to answer. (Don't normally do this stuff - click on a few topics on your right to get a feel for our everyday
p&g.)
1)
What am I working on?
Well, too many different things probably - my own collection, the Fragments project (
http://fragmentsinwords.tumblr.com/), a longer poem on commuting, Bimblebox 153 birds (
http://bimbleboxartproject.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/bimblebox-153-birds/), constantly distracted by vintage petrol pumps, disused buildings, Elizabeth Bishop, old roads, shepherds, Victorian engineering, taxidermy, lichen, John Leyden, renaissance gardens, elegant code etc.
2)
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Good question - in fact like all poets I respect what went before and try to learn from it. I have been working on a verse form based on
William Shakespeare's satiric use of a courtly style of speech in
Much ado about nothing (based on
John Lyly's
Euphues the anatomy of wit, a speech style hailed at court as the
new English). This involves for me balancing opposites like black and white, harmony by mentioning each seasons, or times of day, and adding whatever else I feel like to a poem structurally - preferably so the reader is unconscious of it - unless they look closely - in which case they can share the joke. Above all, I value a human response to poetry. Nothing is set in stone.
3)
Why do I write what I do?
I used to write and put on plays at school (crocodiles, nightclub singers...) and always thought I would be a novelist. But poems scare me. They are the most ancient form of all. And also the most up-to-date. Generations use poems to remember history, laws and family history from ancient manuscripts to birthday cards. They have no boundaries.
4)
How does your writing process work?
Walking round in circles helps. Outside. Usually. Or driving the car places. Then sit somewhere and write stuff down. Edit it later. And again. But sometimes it all happens quickly. And that's cool too.
Next stops on the tour (and more on these 3 shortly)
Elizabeth Rimmer here
http://burnedthumbblog.blogspot.co.uk/,
Andrew McCallum here
http://andramccallum2013.wordpress.com/,
Dorothy Bruce here
http://jingsandthings.wordpress.com/ and back to
Jules Horne here
http://juleshorne.wordpress.com/And if that isn't enough for you try
Jane Aldous' Jane's Writing Shed
http://kitchenpoetry.blogspot.co.uk/
