Poetry

    Not every poem has a happy ending.  Sometimes a poem- whether you’re writing or reading it- is a way to sit with a difficult emotion.  In terms of looking after yourself, sitting with a [...]

We’ve talked about how poetry can influence our wellbeing through the process of accessing and sometimes confronting memories, emotions and personal experience.  Everyone has a story to tell.  [...]

As we are sometimes reminded, writing about how we feel doesn’t necessarily make for great poetry.  I would argue that it is essential to put emotion into your poetry, to give it some heart. I [...]

In the last two posts we’ve spoken about the ways writing about the past can be healing.  Now we turn to the present, to the ways that writing poetry can be helpful in the here and now.  [...]

   In the last post we talked about memories, and how they can make great starting points for our poetry.  But confronting our memories can be scary.  What if the good isn’t as good as we [...]

Poetry is self-expression.  Whether you are writing about your deep inner feelings, or a vase on the windowsill, you are expressing yourself.  Your thoughts and reflections about your emotions, [...]

If you ask someone to write a funny poem off the top of their head, they’re likely to come up with a couple of rhyming lines.  This is because rhyme sounds pleasing to the ear, and also because [...]

Louis MacNeice, ‘London Rain’   MacNeice was no Londoner, but he helped London during the most tumultuous period in its history: The Second World War. He was a fire watcher, which meant [...]

We often think of poetry as a ‘serious’ art form. Poems have a reputation for being dense, difficult to read and written about significant subjects – love, death, time, age. In other words, they [...]

There is an image we have of the poet – sitting alone, at a table, slowly writing words with a pen on paper. She is totally focused on her work, not distracted by any noise or a ringing phone. [...]