This week, family has been on my mind a lot. There are a number of reasons for this, some happy and some very sad; I don’t want to go into details but this month has been rather up and down – so the tone of this post is quite reflective.
Whatever happens in our lives affects us, and inevitably we include elements of our life in our writing.
For me, my tendency is to explore my life and my experiences through poetry. Sometimes I can write about an experience straight away, and sometimes it takes months, or even years, to feel able to frame the emotions I want to convey, and to separate the writing from my feelings.
Experiences that are short-lived – a visit to an abbey, or sitting in the garden with an ice cream, for example – are quick to write. It takes very little time to remove myself from them and edit them.
When it comes to people and important experiences it is much harder. It took seven months to write a poem for my cousin and her partner when they got married. I have been working on a poem about my Grandfather – who would have been 100 today, and celebrating his 71st wedding anniversary – since July 2011, around the time I found and claimed his old cap (I call it my thinking cap now, and I’m pretty sure it’ll get its own poem one day!).
It’s important to note that my poems aren’t rigid records of the past. Some of the ideas may come from experiences, but the poems has their own form and the content will change to suit the form. At the end of the writing day, I am not an autobiographer or biographer. I am a writer whose poetry is influenced by my own experiences.
Memories are precious, and can shape some wonderful poetry, but unless you want to focus on life-writing, remember that your memory and the words on the page part company the moment you start editing.
If you’ve never tried before, give it a go and see whether you agree!
Happy writing,
EJ
🙂
Becoming a writer 
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