girl was born - an exploration of a poem

I was recently asked to write some background to one of my poems and explain why I used a particular form for it. It is interesting going back to a poem and trying to remember the intention behind it. I couldn't remember when I wrote the poem - except I knew it was before I moved house in 2021. The intentions were clearer to me and the reasons I laid it out as prose poem with slashes. I will share the poem and what I wrote. The poem is from my book The Telling.

girl was born

girl was in the world / her mother was a horse / and her father was a pony / or was it the other way round / girl never knew when a day would turn sour / the world was a farmyard full of plastic animals / the houses were wooden / tiny painted rectangles for windows / nothing to look out from / girl looked out of her rectangular eyes with longing / girl reached for quiet / she reached for making sense / the words danced themselves up and down on the page / until finally she understood them / girl was born too late / or too early / she became a sister / then she became a sister again / she ran up the slippery stairs two at time / she jumped down them / girl was a ratty tennis ball / somewhere along the way she lost her bounce / girl was born a second time / girl was born of the woods / her father was a pine tree / her mother was a bramble / the house was full of midges / there was no way of returning to where she had come from / she picked up a twig shaped like a gun and aimed it

I wrote this as a stream of consciousness piece. I was thinking about how it felt like I had two different lives as a child. The first life from birth to three years old where we lived in a bedsit in my mum's friend's house in London (Ealing) - the friend had three kids, a dog and was a dress maker, the house was always busy. And then the second life when we moved to Thetford, a small town in Norfolk. There we had a two bedroom council house and I was the only child until my sister was born two years later. In Thetford the house was quiet. During the day it was just me and my mum. We lived opposite a pine wood - that wood was a big part of my childhood and often creeps into my poems, as does the pine forest that Thetford was surrounded by. I was a bright (some might say precocious) child (I was also neuro-divergent but we didn't know that then). I refused to go to nursery and also insisted on learning to read when I was 3 or 4. I learned using the Dr Seuss books. I was also a tomboy - preferring cars and guns to dolls. 

The poem is about a girl trying to make sense of the world around her. The objects (such as toys) become anchors or signs to steer by. Sometimes the separation between the girl and the object becomes blurred. I have always imagined people as different types of animal and object and vice versa. It helps me to make sense of things and is probably heavily influenced by the types of book I read as a child - fairytales, Tolkien and Enid Blyton - books where animals and trees talk and the most surprising and surreal things can happen. 

The order of the poem is not logical, it is not a linear chronologically ordered narrative. Memories are generally not linear - one memory can spark another and another. I knew it would probably be a prose poem as I was writing it. I like the density of a prose poem and the way it can keep that stream of consciousness feel. When it came to editing it, using conventional punctuation like full stops and commas felt wrong. Commas and full stops made each thought (each segment) feel too final, too separate somehow, but I still felt like I needed to break up the text with more than just a simple space. The use of the space in place of punctuation feels (to me) like it slows down the speed at which one reads the text. I like the use of slashes in poems - it feels like each slash is a momentary pause in thought - but exactly that - momentary, the eye moves on fairly quickly as the text feels more cohesive than if it had gaps and line breaks. It also means that you can break the syntax of the poem in unexpected places (a little like enjambement I suppose). I like this and when I read the poem out loud, I do read it with these tiny breaks. It might sound a little jarring at first, but I like this - it feels right for the voice of the poem.  Natalie Diaz says of her slashed poems "I hope they make the readers’ eyes uncomfortable, that they physically and musically express the disjointed, jagged experience explored in the poem."

You can buy my book The Telling from Nine Arches Press - https://www.ninearchespress.com/publications/poetry-collections/the-telling

Photo Project Revisited

Back in February I posted about a new sequence of poems I was writing that concerned photographs from my childhood, both real and imagined. I had a flurry of writing these poems and then, as often happens, I got distracted by other topics and stopped writing them for a few months. While I was having an editing session a few weeks ago I revisited some of them and this led to me being inspired to write a few more.

I often seem to work like this. Occasionally I will write a sequence pretty much all in one go over a few days or weeks, but other times I will find I write a sequence that I leave alone for a while but keep coming back to. My prose poem sequence about the religious family was written like this - I have written quite a few poems in the same voice (that of a youngish girl) over the space of several years. Sometimes I think I am finished with it and a few weeks later will find another poem in her voice clamouring to get out.

My photographic series seems to be working in much the same way. I become bored with it or lose momentum and leave it for a while, and suddenly weeks later something will spark a memory that leads to another poem.

This is the latest one in the sequence - this is an imagined photo of a real incident.

Visit

This is the estranged aunt
who arrives out of the blue
with Easter eggs in a fancy vase
and a cuddly rabbit,
this is her at the kitchen table
in her fur coat drinking tea,
this is how you loved the rabbit
by pulling out his whiskers,
this is the aunt leaving in a taxi
before your dad gets home.

The Writing Process Blog Tour

I was nominated to take part in the blog tour by Heidi-Jo Swain.

What am I working on?

I have recently finished putting together my first poetry collection with the help of my rather marvellous mentor Pascale Petit - I was lucky enough to get some funding for this from 

I was recently shortlisted for The Poetry School Pighog Pamphlet Competition so I have been making a smaller pamphlet sized collection from my larger one - which is not as easy as it sounds - I want the poems to work together as a whole with themes running through, not just be the best poems of the full collection. 

Right now I am working on a sequence of poems based around numbers. The poems were sparked off by a prompt on Jo Bell's 52 blog. Each week for year Jo, or a guest blogger, posts a writing prompt along with links to poems to read or listen to. It has been surprisingly inspiring and last week's prompt found me frantically writing almost an entire sequence. 

I am also in the process of co-editing issue 5 of Lighthouse along with prose writer Anna de Vaul - a process complicated by the fact that she is currently on the other side of the world with a patchy Internet connection! As well as that I am supposed to be writing a book review for Ink, Sweat and Tears.

How does my work differ from others in its genre?

That's a tough question to answer - and of course there are those who would argue that there is no such thing as an original idea. I like to think that I use language in an original way and that I look at familiar subjects (such as family, household objects etc) from a slightly different viewpoint to other people. I am very much taken with Viktor Shklovsky's ideas of ostranenie or making strange - making familiar objects appear unfamiliar. This is something that Getrude Staein also liked to explore and I found her prose poems in Tender Buttons particularly inspiring. 

I like to have an element of realism in my work too - combining real life experience with fiction and a hint of oddness to try an create something unique but believable - as in my series of prose poems about a dysfunctional religious family.

I am sure that there are some similarities between my work and other writers. And of course I think that when we are often, whether consciously or unconsciously, influenced by what we are reading especially if it is really inspiring. 

Why do I write what I do?

I love both poetry and fiction - I am a great advocate for the ability of literature to change peoples' lives for the better, and I have always written (and read) both poetry and prose. In fact in my early 20s I wrote a book of short stories that was rejected by several publishers. When I came to do my creative writing degree in 2006 I thought that I would be concentrating on prose,  however what actually happened was that the course (and the tutors) rekindled my love for all things poetry, and I subsequently went on to do The Poetry MA at The University of East Anglia (UEA). 

I write because I have to - I have a compelling urge to put pen to paper - and I would still write even if there was no chance of ever making it into print. I think it is my way of making sense of the world - and I hope that in some small way it can help other people make some sense of it too.

How does my writing process work?

I tend to write sporadically and manically. I may go for weeks where I don't write much at all, and then an idea will seize me - this is happening at the moment - and I will be scribbling away at every opportunity. I think one of the reasons I don't write all the time is because I am busy, and everyday life has a habit of interfering with the creative process. A couple of years ago I had some money and I took myself off to a house near the sea for a week. Removed from all my usual distractions (internet, phone, work, emails, Facebook, household chores, teaching...) I found that I became amazingly productive and I wrote a whole sequence of poems that has since become the final sequence in my collection.

I do try and do things that encourage my writing practice. I aim to write morning pages every day - although in reality I manage about three to four days a week. I read both poetry and fiction (although I have discovered that if I read too much prose I stop writing poetry), I belong to a critquing group and I also try and get along to readings and other literary events. All this feeds into my writing practice. I write long hand into lined notebooks, then edit on the computer. If I am feeling really blocked a train journey always seems to free me up - I start writing almost as soon as the train sets off!

I am not so good at editing though and I often put it off for weeks - sometimes even months. Sometimes I will take my lap-top to a cafe when I need to get some editing done - it is amazing how much work one can get done without having the Internet as a distraction! Deadlines too are good for making one work harder.

I hope you enjoyed this stop on the blog tour - please check out the blogs I have nominated next week.

Helen Ivory

Helen Ivory was born in Luton in 1969 and began to write poems at Norwich School of Art in 1997, under the tuition of George Szirtes. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 1999 and then disappeared into a field in the Norfolk countryside to look after two thousand free-range hens. When she emerged ten or so years later, she had two collections with Bloodaxe Books and had helped, with her own bare hands, to build several houses.

She is an experienced creative writing tutor and workshop leader and has taught both undergraduates and in adult education for around ten years. She has also run workshops in schools and is a freelance tutor and mentor. She is currently an Editor for The Poetry Archive,  Editor of the webzine Ink Sweat and Tears, and Course Director for Creative Writing for Continuing Education at UEA. Her fourth Bloodaxe Books collection is Waiting for Bluebeard. (2013)  She is Co-editor with George Szirtes of In their Own Words: Contemporary Poets on their Poetry (Salt 2012)

Meryl Pugh

Meryl Pugh was born in 1968, in Ely, East Anglia and grew up in Wales, New Zealand, Suffolk and the Forest of Dean, where her family settled. Educated at Queens’ College, Cambridge and the Institute of Education, London, she has a Distinction in the MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths College and is currently studying for a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at UEA.

Her first pamphlet collection, Relinquish, was published in 2007 by Arrowhead Press. Selections of her poetry have appeared in four anthologies: Goldfish 3 (eds Maura Dooley & Blake Morrison, Goldsmiths College, 2011), Reactions 5 (ed Clare Pollard, Pen & Ink Press, 2005), Promises to Keep(ed Dean Parkin, Jerwood/Arvon, 2004), Entering the Tapestry (eds Mimi Khalvati and Graham Fawcett, Enitharmon, 2003). Reviews and poems have appeared in many print and online journals, including Horizon Review, New Welsh Review, Poetry London, Poetry Review, Poetry Wales andThe Rialto.

Pugh divides her time between Norwich and Leytonstone, East London (her home for the last thirteen years).

Rosemarie Blackthorn

Details coming soon...

Questions about writing

Arvon is asking for writers to answer some questions about their writing practice, some of which will be included in a new book published later this year. I found this a useful and enlightening exercise and thought I would share my answers here. if you want to fill in their questionnaire head over to http://www.arvonwritingroom.org/

How does a book or piece of writing begin to take shape in your imagination? Do you feel your writing is a process of inventing or discovering?


I would say that it is both inventing and discovering. Some pieces of writing come as an overwhelming urge, there is a sense of urgency that drives pen to paper - rather like an incredible itch that you just have to scratch. 


Other ideas bubble away under the surface for a while until they are finally ready to burst forth into the light of day - this quiet bubbling of ideas can take days, weeks or even years.


What things trigger your imaginative process (for example, significant personal experiences, particular people, places, objects, dream imagery, myths, history, etc)?

There are a huge variety of things that can trigger ideas for me. Travel is one and if I am feeling blocked I often go on a train journey to another town - I think it is the physical movement of the travelling rather than the destination that is important to my writing process.

Reading the work of other writers is another sure fire way of getting the creative juices flowing. I read a wide variety of prose and poets, but do have a few favourite poets that I go back to time and again if I want a sure fire hit of inspiration (C.D. Wright, Alice Oswald, Agnes Lehoczky).

Other things that inspire me are my own past, myth and fairytale - I could go on and on. Workshops with other writers are a rich source of material - and Arvon courses are great!

How do you work - do you plan carefully or explore in the dark, trusting the process?

I generally go where my inspiration takes me and then edit carefully later. Sometimes I have in mind that something might be part of a series but for the initial germ of the poem I generally go with the idea that comes.


Do you feel in control of your writing or are you responsive to the requirements of the work as it unfolds?


I am in control of the editing and of creating the right conditions for creativity take place, but the ideas themselves sometimes seem to come from some higher place. I can sit down with an idea of something and end up being taken in a completely different direction.


Do you write a first draft quickly and then revise it, or build carefully from the start?


I tend to write my first drafts very quickly - sometimes the ideas are almost tumbling over one another to get on the page. Then it is a case of excavating the poem from the initial piece. Occasionally a poem arrives almost fully formed but more often than not a lot of editing and re-ordering takes place before I am happy with it.


How do you deal with blocks in the writing process?


Going on workshops, reading and travelling.


Do you write in service of any particular values?


That's a difficult one. I am not guided by any higher religious or political ideals. My main object is to be true to the poem - that is that the poem doesn't have to be true (as in relating a true  event as it happened) but it has to feel true to the reader - a kind of universal truth I guess if that makes any sense.


I am also in service to the idea of refining one's art - I want to be the best writer that I can be, which is why I continue to go to workshops, workshop work with my peers and attend readings and lectures. There is always something more to be learned.


What have you learned from the practice of your craft?


Patience firstly - as a young writer I would dash something off and think it was the most marvellous thing I had ever written. Practice and guidance has shown me that time and editing can improve your work no end.

What is the relationship between the writer's imagination and that of the reader?

The product of the writer's imagination is what speaks to the reader through the poem.  The writer needs to give the reader recognizable anchors to hold onto and then they sky is the limit.

Do writers have any moral responsibility in their work, wider than fidelity to their personal vision?

That depends on your audience - obviously if you are writing for children you would temper your content accordingly as they may not yet have moral maturity.  I think I would largely apply the same morals to my writing as my life - actually that isn't entirely true - I don't always like the morals of the characters in my work - sometimes this is what makes them interesting and I leave it for the reader to jusdge them.