The Wonder of the Workshop

This time last week I was packing for a weekend in London to attend a two-day poetry workshop organised by Poetry London and led by American poet Matthew Dickman. It was an intense weekend and it always takes time for me to allow my thoughts to settle in such situations. Over the course of the week, I’ve reflected often on the special magic that occurs in a creative workshop and just how much work can be produced in a short space of time. That makes me wonder just how it’s done and whether I can replicate that at home.

The first element to recognise is that the workshop was very well organised and held at the Poetry School - a short walk from Waterloo station - in a bright and airy room, well stocked with tea and coffee. I think these are all elements you can replicate at home – make an appointment with yourself to write and honour that. It is very easy to let this slip - there is always housework to do, demands from a boss, a partner or children, a friend you haven’t seen in a while – but there’s no real reason for this. Can you imagine, for example, telling your friend you can’t meet them as you’d promised because you have to finish washing your bath towels? If your friend is worth the commitment of time then so is your writing.

You can make sure in advance that you have everything you need to write and make sure that’s easy to achieve – for me, that’s a block of at least two hours to work, some instrumental music to shut out the rest of the world (current favourite is gypsy-jazz guitarist Remi Harris but I also recommend classical pianist James Rhodes for a more dramatic accompaniment) and a ready supply of coffee. I respect the time I’ve given myself the same way I make sure I achieve work deadlines or meet friends on time.

The second is the external input of new work. Over the course the weekend, Matthew Dickman demonstrated his great knowledge of modern poetry and opened my eyes to some wonderful writers. Again, this is something you can replicate at home, even if you don’t have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the current poetry scene. Sometimes I think coming at something completely new is an advantage: pick up an anthology or poetry magazine and choose a page at random; consider the poem in detail, what it can teach you and how you can apply that to your day’s writing.

Finally, the real magic of the workshop comes, I think, from the fact that there’s no backing out. There comes a point where everyone else in the room has their head down writing and you must follow them. It’s something like the adrenaline rush of an exam and harder to replicate at home. I think it helps to consider the fact that everyone in that circumstance is writing something new and that’s part of why the experience is so creative - that thought is liberating. It means when you sit down at home, you should remember that every writer  - even if they’re not next to you in a classroom - starts with a blank page and has to get their head down right now. There’s no pressure to be perfect or to hit the nail square on the head at the first try, you just have to keep writing.

I have carried more than these lessons with me from that workshop and I’ll include my thoughts on those later. Looking back on such an incredible creative weekend, I am glad to know I can take that feeling with me. There is a special kind of magic in the air at a workshop, for sure, but it is a form of practical magic that is always within reach.

All the world's a stage

Last weekend I went to an amazing workshop organised by Poetry London. It was such an intense two days that I’m still organising my thoughts, but while I was staying in London I also indulged in what might be considered extra-curricular activities and saw two plays. Although not a part of the official programme, these were as much a part of my weekend of learning as the classes.

Given that the workshop class considered the wildness of poetry, it seemed appropriate to choose to see The Libertine the same weekend. The production was gorgeous; artfully directed and well served by the beautiful Theatre Royal Haymarket as another aspect of the seductive musk of the whole play. The production, like Dominic Cooper in the lead role, walks the knife-edge between being repellent in its opulence and irresistibly charming. Like a recent production of Dr Faustus from the innovative Jamie Lloyd Company, the play uses humour to trap the audience in some very dark places. There is collusion between the actors and the audience in The Libertine; both have a role to play in telling a story. In poetry, the same is true. Although I think it’s a fool’s errand to try to write for an audience, I’m not sure how a poem exists without a reader who may choose their own perceived balance of dark and light if you put them both in contention.

If The Libertine used luxury to both conceal and reveal the rot underneath, the second play, Unfaithful, took a very different approach in a production stripped almost bare. In the small studio space, there was nothing but a bed and the rest of the surroundings were conjured from the language of the four characters. Much rests on the actors in a production like this; it really brings home both the talent and the hard work required to truly serve the words as they’re written. For me, it served as a reminder of the power of words spoken aloud - what we say, what we mean and everything created in the sound of language and the silence that sits between those words. Reading drafts of poems aloud is a very important part of the process for me – I record myself reading a draft and listen to it over and over – sometimes with the text in front of me, sometimes without, until I can pick out what is working and what isn’t.

The other aspect of the play that got me thinking was the way all the actors were on view all the time – if not participating in a scene, they sat blank-faced and waited. It made me think that every time I write a poem – make a noise in the world – all the poems there ever were and ever will be are there, waiting for their turn on the stage. Each poem is a break in the silence and becomes part of a conversation with a troop of impassive actors.

This is all by way of saying that I recommend both of these productions wholeheartedly and I don’t believe that my excursions were skiving from the primary purpose of taking a poetry class. In fact, the plays inspired me to new ideas, reminded me of the power of language and, as all good writing does, took me way from myself and brought me back somehow changed. I think it’s good for writers of all types to have it played out, in real life, exactly what we’re here for.

Where do you get your ideas from?

It’s become a clichéd question to ask a writer, and yet the answer can be fascinating. Every writer works differently; what is true for everyone is that you need to show up and write for any kind of inspiration to arise but where it arises from is the interesting part.

Research: some of my poems come from researching a particular topic, such as my recent MA Dissertation on the Roman invasion of Britain. I read books from and about the era, watched films and documentaries, visited ancient sites and museums. I made a lot of notes and took a lot of photos. After immersing myself in the subject, I then wrote out all the things that had caught my eye, often a small detail, and expanded on each. Even if you aren’t interested in pursuing a single subject at length, go to a museum if you’re ever stuck on what to write. Each one is stuffed with ideas, waiting for you to find them.

Reading: I wrote a sequence of poems on the Dido and Aeneas story as presented in Virgil’s Aeneid Book IV. I have also written a response to Keats’ Lamia and reworked a section of Shakespeare’s As You Like It for a recent commission from the Winchester Poetry Festival. Your reading can prove to be a rich source of inspiration, from re-writing in a different era or from a different perspective to responding to the text in some way. There are so many ideas and opportunities between the lines of everything you read.

News Stories: I make a point to read a newspaper on Sunday. I know I can get all the news I need from twitter and the BBC News website, but there is something about setting aside time to find out more about the world that helps you to see everything differently. Sunday papers are good for this because they have more in depth reports and interviews but local papers are also an amazing resource.

Conversations: I count both conversations I’m a part of and those I overhear. Sometimes I’ll be talking to someone who will say something so beautiful, or we will stumble on a subject so fascinating that I will write about it. My favourite, though, is the snatches of conversation you can overhear in public places. Those tantalising scraps can often lead you down really interesting roads.

Writing Prompts and Exercises: When I am entirely stuck, I use writing prompts. I’ve collected many over the years and I keep them on scraps of paper in a bowl on my desk. I pull one out and free write for at least ten minutes and then develop it from there. You can find books of prompts to work from, or find them on writing feeds on instagram and tumblr. In his books On Poetry and Drinks with Dead Poets, Glyn Maxwell presents a number of writing exercises that can get you started. I can’t recommend them, or his brilliant books, enough. I can’t say these approaches work every time – sometimes I think you’re just stuck and you need to go away, read some more, live some more and come back another day – but I’ve had some success with poems written this way. I love the fact that they’ve come from playing games with words, almost as if they grew themselves on the page.

So the short answer to where I get my ideas is from the world, in all its beautiful, frustrating, baffling, frightening, funny and melancholy glory. When the world fails me, there are always the words.

What kind of poet are you?

It’s my least favourite question because I don’t really have an answer. I have very supportive friends who sometimes introduce me to people as a poet and in most cases those people smile and nod; some back away and others ask what kind of poet I am. I never know what to say.

My favourite follow up to that initial question is, “Are you a modern poet?” I had to bite my tongue to not respond that I wasn’t at all modern and was, in fact, a time-travelling Victorian poet. I think that question was actually code for “Does your poetry rhyme?” and my answer to that is that sometimes it does - and sometimes even at the end of the line in a regular pattern - but sometimes it doesn’t.

Other people might ask cautiously if I write personal poetry; I think this might relate to the popular image of the doomed poet and they’re really asking if I’m obsessively grieving over a doomed love affair, about to die of consumption, or perhaps one step away from putting my head in the oven. I think that’s why people sometimes back away and to be honest, were any of those to be the case, I wouldn’t blame them. So again, the answer is sometimes I write personal poetry and sometimes I don’t.

Another response I get is that people tell me I don’t look like a poet. I don’t really know what to say to that because I don’t really know what a poet is meant to look like. To be honest, I’m pretty lazy about my appearance, I live in jeans and you’ll prise the Doc Martens off my cold, dead (comfortable) feet. If I have an hour to get ready for a night out, chances are pretty high I’ll read for most of that hour and then grab whatever is clean ten minutes before I have to leave. Sometimes I wish I could look more like a poet, more romantic and ethereal, maybe, but sometimes I think of whatever book I’m reading and I’ll want to spend time doing that a lot more than I want to do my hair.

So what kind of poet am I? One who loves history and legend but can be inspired by the modern world, one who writes about political and social issues and sometimes discovers personal stories woven into the work. In short, one who loves words and puts that love first – all the time. 

My name is Zoe and I am a writer

This may seem like an obvious title for my first blog post but creating this site was, for me, a very clear commitment to something I have been working towards for years. It can take a long time to call yourself a writer, I think. Everyone is still learning, everyone faces the terror of the blank page when you forget everything you ever knew about writing and everyone waits for the moment where they feel legitimate as an artist.

It’s taken me a long time to realise that the only person who can really give you that seal of approval is yourself. If you write, you are a writer and it’s really as simple as that. If you’re still on the fence, I can recommend reading Sara Benicasa’s book Real Artists Have Day Jobs  or The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer to help clarify your thoughts on what it means to be an artist and how you can build belief in yourself.

This blog, and in fact this whole site, is an attempt to document my life as a writer, to state loud and clear who I am and what I do. I have a lifelong love of words and that, rather than any personal or political agenda, drives my writing. Of course I have views on political issues and emotional responses to my life that appear in my work but for me, writing comes less from a burning desire to share those opinions and feelings and more because I love to play with words. I love the look of them on the page, the sound they make, the way they work together.

Stephen King said that books are a portable kind of magic; each word, then, is an ingredient for a spell. You’ll see under each highlighted publication I’ve explained a little of my inspiration and motivation for writing each piece. Over time, I’m hoping this site will become something like a book of spells, reminding me where poems come from and helping me when I lose my way. I hope that the site can help you, too, as a reader or a writer. It’s nice to meet you. My name is Zoe and I am a writer.