Evolution, Research and the Creative Process

David Hockney on the Southbank Show tonight said that most of his work is research and he articulated exactly what I feel about my own work. Maybe it comes from being a perpetual student and my thirst for learning or maybe it is just the natural evolutionary process of creation but I always feel that whatever I am doing is just a small step along the path to something else, perhaps something bigger and better, perhaps just something different. It is certainly true that my work has evolved over the past few years and I am often pleased and surprised by the new turns it takes.

I also think that as time has gone on I have wanted to do more research around my subjects matters - so that as well as writing from direct experience of the countryside I find that I am now wanting to read books about how the landscape has been shaped. The only trouble is that there is not enough time to read about all the things that I am interested in!

Evolution and Risk Taking in Poetry

It is odd how quickly one's writing can evolve. I have just re-read my post from Thursday and realised that I have already completely edited the last line of that stanza out. I took a risk when deciding what poems to send round for this week's MA poetry workshop and decided to send two that had come from what has been happening to me recently (i.e. my mother's death and all the stuff that goes with it) and the narrative poem which I mentioned in my last post. Sending the poem Fire felt like the biggest risk because as I said before I have written it in a form that I am not entirely comfortable with. However rather than leaving it on the laptop for posterity I decided to take a risk and show it to the class. That way either my fears will be vindicated and they will tell me that it's a load of s*** or there might be something I can salvage from it. In fact they might give me some clue as to how I can use the narrative form in a more successful way. That is what we are on the MA for: to take risks in a safe and supportive environment, which, hopefully, will allow our writing to grow and develop.

(original artwork by pupski)