How we 'practice' poetry writing

Poetry (pen) Pal letter #53

Photo by Tom Crew on Unsplash

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the joy of ‘practicing poetry.’

I’ve been thinking about it in relation to my kids, who practice it without trying, without ever calling it by it’s name. In the rhymes they make up, laughing hysterically over dinner time. In the tales that randomly fall from their mouths about the moon resembling a giant balloon.

I’ve been thinking about it in relation to a journaling project I am launching next month for my other Substack publication - Journaling Wild. A project where as a community we will 'Journal the Year’. We’ll be using the Celtic, ‘Wheel of the Year’ as a guide to ground us in the seasons and provide regular pausing points to reflect and review. We’ll be creating our own unique ‘journals’ that are part commonplace book, part ‘wonder log’, part dream catcher. There will be journaling prompts, invitations to create (in the form of ‘field studies’) and of course, poetry. Poetry shared and poetry written. The latter not necessarily with the intention of ‘writing poetry’ (or by women who might call themselves ‘poets’ at all), but with a firm belief in the ‘practice of poetry’ and all the benefits that can bring (we start on 2nd February btw, if this sounds like it might be for you I’d love you to join us).

And I’ve also been thinking about it in relation to the next 100 poems I hope to write in 2025. I am still aiming for this btw - a new log created in my journal, a new intention set. I have realised this goal forms a sort of gentle background music for my writing during the year. It doesn’t dominate (like the first time I tried it) but I’d notice if it went quiet. I’d notice and that would allow me to attend to the dials and turn the volume up a touch. It keeps me writing, basically.

You see, when I look back over my list of poems from last year, a chunk of them are probably not quite ‘poems’ at all. Some are, ‘almost poems.’ Some are, if I was being annoyingly finicky (I’m not) they are probably mini vignettes. I’m not talking about first drafts (there are a lot of those too but they make the cut). And actually none of this matters of course, it’s not school, no one is judging, no one cares. I don’t care.

In fact, I realised, I really love some of these, what I’m calling, ‘pre-poems.’

They demonstrate a full year of ‘practicing poetry’ - by which I don’t mean practicing the craft of writing poetry but I mean practicing the writing of a poetic life. A life full of noticing, of paying attention, of deep care, curiosity of mind and a desire to capture feelings using words.

While I am very keen to practice my craft, I am very passionate about poetry as a craft and fully appreciate that it requires expertise and dedicated time and energy to ‘learn’ the how, I am also fully committed to the what, the work that comes first. The heart part, I suppose. It’s what pulled me here in the first place.

‘Practicing poetry’ in this context is also a skill, of sorts.

It requires dedication to get out of the shower shivering and dripping water all over the floor just to write down an observation of a shadow on the wall. It requires a retraining of the mind (which has been told efficiency and productivity matters most) to slow down and notice mushrooms on a walk or to not answer emails in the post office queue and instead listen to other peoples’ conversations (such a great source of material!) It requires perseverance to keep writing random snippets of lines and words and weird metaphors that make you laugh knowing they might not ever make it into an actual poem but that’s not the point. It requires bravery to sit with an uncomfortable feeling or thought or fact long enough for it to translate into some sort of incoherent rambling on a page if only that one day you might be able to say, “look, it so awful so let us find the beauty.” It takes ‘practicing poetry’ to uncover the type of alive that surely later leads to staggeringly good poems.

I’ve gone on too long. My coffee has gone cold.

Suffice to say that while I might not always post out poetry prompts each week going forward, I do plan to keep dipping into the joy of ‘practicing poetry’ within daily living.

Something that is available to most of us. The playing (you know it’s my favourite bit). The pulling at the loose threads and piling up of possibilities for poems. The pre-poetry. And if a poem just happens to fall out at the end, well hello!

With that in mind, here is something I noticed this week…

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A pre-poetry prompt:

You’ll notice I didn’t say ‘writing’ prompt. You might want to write of course but for me this was more of an investigate / be on the look out / keep thinking about prompt. And when I tell the universe (my brain, whatever) that I am on the look out…well…it helps.

Check out this brilliant poem - ‘Complexion’, by Annick MacAskill, which I found on the online publisher, RiddleFence.

Aside from the content of the poem, which I really enjoyed and related to and the fact the narrative voice is great, the whole poem is almost cinematic, I was intrigued by the use of the quote at the beginning. There is probably a term for when you do this (and ‘recycle’ each line within your own) but I can’t recall what it is.

I became fascinated about what came first, the quote or the poem. Did they have an idea for a poem and found the quote and decided to ‘write them together’? Or did they love the quote and think up a separate story that might bring it to life? Or had they already written the poem in full when they found the quote and then edited it in?

I looked it up and ‘Museum of the Thing’ is a poem by Karen Solie (look it up, it’s good, I can only find a link to FB so I’m not gonna force that on you, ha). But I actually hoped it wouldn’t be a poem because I wanted to pull from a wider pool. I liked the idea of it being a ‘piece of advice or guidance.’ A sort of quote on living or a definition of something.

I wondered if I might think of a story or theme I fancied trying to write about in a poem and then look out for a quote to be my ‘coat hook.’ Or I could return to a poem that I didn’t get right and do the same.

OR, because we are talking pre-poetry here, I could just be on the look out for the sort of quote that one day will work itself into a piece of writing. That is enough.

I’ll be observant. I think I’ll know it when it arrives. Do you?

Nelly x

P.s What did you think of this poem? Like it?

P.p.s I have used the singular American spelling ‘practice’ during this piece. Why? Just because that was easier if I’m honest. Actually though, if I had another hour, the difference in the two spellings might have been handy to demonstrate my point! Ah well…