Before I start, I must apologise that last Sunday’s post was so badly written. I was doing it at about 3.30 am after a really hectic day – and it all seemed to make sense at the time… I should have stopped when I fell asleep with my fingers on the keyboard! I’m glad some people could at least see where I was going with it though 🙂
Today, I am doing another open mike event; this time with a friend who will perform as well. I’ve gone through my poetry files to see what else, if anything, I’d like to take.
One of the files is not completed poems but is a list of possible titles.
When I was studying, we had to try writing a poem to a set title. We could pick the title from a list, but the choices were limited. As a result, I realised that my love affair with documentaries was worthwhile (I wrote a piece based on something in a documentary on blue hole diving) but I also realised I respond well to this type of approach.
I subsequently started keeping my own list. Some are obscure and some are silly – but I have used enough to make the activity worthwhile.
So I thought I’d try again. This time I chose a phrase in my second novel as the title: ‘Confined to Earth’
I then had to decide what it meant, and when I got a clear image in my mind I got to work on the poem.
Sometimes I write straight into poem form, sometimes I write notes – on this occasion I focussed on a few words as my starting point. Here are some examples:
Looking up/out; trapped or contained?; what is out there?; sounds around me but I can’t see the source; reality; gravity.
The list you write can go on and on – I will keep going until I think I’ve covered everything I can. Now I have a starting point, it’ll take a little while to put the thoughts into some sort of order, but I can see from what I’ve written that the poem will be about a dream of space, but it will be a metaphor for something (won’t say what yet!) which will become clear at the end of the piece.
My next step will be to write a draft of the poem, which I’ll aim to do in the next day or two. I’ll share the poem in progress next week, so you can see how things develop…
It’s good to remind myself of everything I learnt; I can get stuck in a routine and this is a good way to break up the monotony! Besides, it means I can keep watching documentaries – and say I’m working!
Happy writing,
EJ
🙂
Becoming a writer 
[…] and just in case you’re wondering, I haven’t forgotten the poem from my ‘pick a name’ post, and will get back to that when I’ve checked all my data still […]
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