POETRY WORKSHOP
Work it out
The workplace offers valuable seams for poets to explore, as Alison Chisholm reveals via an expressive poem about memories of working in the probation service
Alison Chisholm
Writers are always being advised to ‘write about what you know’, and this advice is often embraced by poets. Wherever we start the poetry journey, most of us write about our lives and experiences at some stage. Childhood yields plenty of poetry opportunities, and the big moments of life, its celebrations, triumphs and tragedies, also feature in a lot of work.
There are not nearly as many poems written about our day jobs, and poets who neglect to write about these are missing a potentially rich seam of material. Whether the day job is thrilling or mundane, its highs and lows may well be worth recording, and even its tedious moments can produce poems readers will enjoy.
Poet Helen Shepherd of Yarm, North Yorkshire, was inspired by her work in the probation service to create a fascinating and disturbing piece. Remembering Probation gives a view of a demanding job, and the narrator returns time and again to anxieties regarding performance, emotional reaction, and the lasting resonances of the work.