CREATIVE WRITING
FINDING poems
As National Poetry Day approaches, poet Kenneth Steven offers a thoughtful writer’s guide to the process of finding your poems – and opening up space so a poem can find you
The worst of it is that we’re distracted by a busy world. Whether we like it or not we have to face it: every day there are new emails to answer, telehone calls to make, messages of whatever kind to send. We’re all contactable, and while I recognise there are writers who can cope with that (and some who very much use it to their advantage), there are plenty who won’t, plenty for whom that daily deluge of disturbance from the motorway of the modern world is too much.
I’m hardly alone in believing we need places where we can hide away. Somewhere out of reach, somewhere you can hear the inner voice, the words you want and need to capture. I started off with the simplest of cabins at the bottom of a garden, but there’s no need for it to be somewhere outdoors. It can be a room in the main house, but preferably one that you’re going to at the best time of your day. By that I mean either very early or very late: we’re all either larks or owls, so setting aside our best creative time makes every sense in the world. I think it’s important to make your creative place attractive; make it somewhere you look forward to being, somewhere you feel hugged by. I’ve seen some hideaway writing spaces that feel more as though they’re designed for penance. You’ll know how best to create and cosy your space. But I do believe it matters.