Poetry (pen) Pals #4 - Poetry rules?
Our guest Lisa O'Hare asks us to break them
Hey pals,
Oh am I excited about this week because we have our first guest post!! I first met Lisa a few years ago at an open mic event. She is one of the warmest, most genuinely supportive, determined writers I know. You might want to come back and read Lisa’s story of her move into poetry, because this in itself is an inspiring example of turning a dream into a reality.
But before you do that, have a read of the poem that she has sent us (as well as the numerous poet recommendations) and her suggestion of a prompt for this week. I think we are going to have some fun with this one.
Oh and a little admin. Incase you missed it, you’ll find our January Poetry Book Club discussion here, and if you like a good read and some beautifully evolving community spirit, please do pop back on a Friday to share any poetry you’ve discovered or written. Here’s the link to last week. Even to share a single line or a, “I’ve done zero writing this week but I did drink a lot of tea.” All comments welcome :)
Right, over to Lisa…
The poem I have chosen is Ten Rules for Aspiring Poets by Brian Bilston.
I love Brian Bilston's work. He seems to take so much joy in word play and I chose this one because it has fun with the concept of poetic rules.
I think I have broken all of the 'rules' in Brian's poem, just in the same way he does within in his own poem. Which kind of shows that maybe rules are there to be broken (oh no! I just broke a rule and cliched!!). Or that, as many believe, poetry has no rules.
I was super lucky to hear Simon Armitage read and do a Q&A in Eccles Library last year. His insights into the precision of truly world class poetry was incredible. He talked on his strong view that lyrics to songs are not poetry. Poetry is a specific art form. Lyricism another. He was reading from his book of his own lyric writing, Never Good with Horses. He didn't dismiss the creative beauty and joy of lyrics, but he was precise in how he differentiated that type of writing from the academic practice of writing poetry. I left his talk with a huge appreciation of how seriously he takes his work and how utterly incredible his writing is. I also left thinking 'he'd rip my writing apart!' if he ever saw it. But I don't need to hold myself up to his standards. That feels like that would be a lot to expect from myself.
It took me until my 40s to find any type of poetic voice so even if it isn't up to the standards of the laureate I won't be putting down my pen/keyboard. I am here to write, not be right (to quote myself) whilst still being able to gasp in awe of masters of the craft like Simon.
Since I started writing poetry many people have asked me how do I do it. How do I know what do to? And I tell them honestly, I am not sure I do know. I definitely do not have rules. Sometimes the idea for a poem will come to me at inconvenient times, like when I am driving and I have to hold it in my head until I can make a note. Sometimes the poem goes before I get a chance to make that note. Some notes never transform into poems. I have so many one liners in my notes app and notepads.Some one-liners I will come back to months afterwards and suddenly the rest of the poem appears. Some notes I will never be able to understand why I wrote them in the first place. I have one poem that I know I loved when I wrote it but I cannot find which note pad it is in and I wonder if I will still love it if I ever do find it again. Sometimes I can't stop writing and a poem arrives almost fully formed. Sometimes I will stew over an idea for hours and give up. Sometimes I sit down with a specific prompt in mind for a submission opportunity. Sometimes I remember to submit the poem on time. Sometimes I don't submit it on time and the poem becomes homeless whilst I work out where it belongs in the world. Sometimes I write a poem specifically with the idea of performing it in mind, so I focus more on sounds and rhythm. I have managed to learn and follow poetic form in workshops where I usually feel safe due to the guidance being on hand if I start to think I am getting the concept a bit wrong. The only rule I think I actually have is to write what I feel like writing. Sometimes that is silly, sometimes it is telling a story, sometimes it is putting a part of my heart on the page, sometime it is entirely abstract. Sometimes it rhymes, sometimes it doesn't.
My first poetry obsession was the book 'Silly verse for Kids' by Spike Milligan. I would read it, learn the poems and recite them and laugh. I loved the rhythm of the words and how cheeky they felt. They didn't feel like the poetry we had to learn at school, which at primary school age would have been more like nursery rhymes, so very safe. Spike was encouraging silliness through word play and rhyme. I recall loving Roger McGough as a child too and being lucky enough to go to children's workshops he ran in Liverpool, possibly through the Puffin Club that I was a loyal member of as a child. I still gravitate towards word play and rhyme when I read poetry. I love Rob Auton, John Cooper-Clarke, Henry Normal, Harry Baker and Tim Key for this type of poetry. Tim Key's lockdown collections and his most recent collection, Chapters are utterly wonderful. I also adore their production qualities, which becomes part of the book's narrative with Emily Juniper. It isn't just the humour that appeals to me, it is the word play. The element of surprise and surrealism they all apply. They all write with an apparent simplicity that makes you see the world, or at least their world, a slightly different way than before you read the poem.
And maybe that is the only thing any two poems will ever have in common. They make the reader/listener think about something in a new or different way.
Your poetry prompt for this week:
The prompt based on my poetic ponderings would be to write a poem based on one of Brian's rules or a poem about your own thoughts about poetic rules. I would love to see what you come up with!
More about our guest this week:
Lisa O’Hare is a poet and storyteller from Manchester in the UK. Her storytelling and poetry show, ‘Do you remember the first rhyme,’ was shortlisted for a Saboteur Award before she performed it at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023. You can find out more about Lisa on her website here and she also writes a great Substack about discovering creative life in your 40’s.
Until Friday friends,
Nelly x
Thanks for introducing me to Lisa. A new poet for me ✍️✨ So relatable, how she talks about ideas coming to her at inconvenient times, like driving // feeding baby // on a walk with no phone // late at night when too tired to jot it down! Love that she didn’t properly get going until her 40’s creatively - gives me hope! 🤪
Oh this insightful and sounded like the person who lives in my head. I love how her words are masters of themselves too, like,mine, coming at inconvenient times. I also have that one poem I can’t find, it’s somewhere, I definitely wrote it down, now it’s hiding. I actually started an essay on whether lyrics are poetry only last week, talking to my singer songwriter daughter about it all. I actually wrote a poem about the from of poetry whilst I was in college. I was fed up with the tutors feeding us word and form to write with that were old fashioned and stilted. I’ll save that for Friday and try another one too.
I love Brain Bilston too, I use one of his Christmas poems about Xmas trees dropping word needles most years as my avatar on FB.