I love reading poetry, but am terrified of writing it.
I almost didn't do the Open University Creative Writing course because of the poetry module. I even phoned them up at East Grinstead and asked if it was possible to skip it. The rotters answering the phone got a tutor to call me back and talk me into it...
I'm glad I did it - I wrote a couple of poems I was surprisingly pleased with, and I did pass the module. But I probably will never write any more.
An excellent post. I'd never read A Portable Paradise, by Roger Robinson* before but loved it. A lot of my favourite comedy writers - Galton & Simpson, Barry Took- worked hard at cadence, the rhythm of language etc.
I've had an ambivalent relationship with poetry ever since, well, forever, probably because I could never memorise lines (and to this day still can't) and never understood why I should, not being an actor. I do remember being picked on out of the blue during an English lesson at school, aged about 15 — being asked without warning what I made of a poem we had been told to read. Horrified, I read the few short lines hoping to ferret some vestige of meaning from the jumble of words, while the teacher — and evidently, the class — hung on my response. But it was to no avail. The "poem" was stubbornly impenetrable to me, and with a sigh I was forced to admit it. "Nothing at all. I have no idea what it means." The teacher seemed taken aback at this, but did at least attempt some kind of explication, though I've entirely forgotten what it was. What I do remember is that several of my classmates approached me after the lesson to thank me for saying what they'd all been thinking.
"Although most of us prefer to ignore it most of the time, many of us turn to poetry at emotional times."
For pithy encapsulations of life's triumphs and tribulations I turn to Shakespeare. His plays, for me, are all the poetry I'll ever want. This may mark me as a philistine, but I blame that on deficient teachers.
An excellent post. I'd never read A Portable Paradise, by Roger Robinson* before but loved it. A lot of my favourite comedy writers - Galton & Simpson, Barry Took- worked hard at cadence, the rhythm of language etc.
I love reading poetry, but am terrified of writing it.
I almost didn't do the Open University Creative Writing course because of the poetry module. I even phoned them up at East Grinstead and asked if it was possible to skip it. The rotters answering the phone got a tutor to call me back and talk me into it...
I'm glad I did it - I wrote a couple of poems I was surprisingly pleased with, and I did pass the module. But I probably will never write any more.
An excellent post. I'd never read A Portable Paradise, by Roger Robinson* before but loved it. A lot of my favourite comedy writers - Galton & Simpson, Barry Took- worked hard at cadence, the rhythm of language etc.
I've had an ambivalent relationship with poetry ever since, well, forever, probably because I could never memorise lines (and to this day still can't) and never understood why I should, not being an actor. I do remember being picked on out of the blue during an English lesson at school, aged about 15 — being asked without warning what I made of a poem we had been told to read. Horrified, I read the few short lines hoping to ferret some vestige of meaning from the jumble of words, while the teacher — and evidently, the class — hung on my response. But it was to no avail. The "poem" was stubbornly impenetrable to me, and with a sigh I was forced to admit it. "Nothing at all. I have no idea what it means." The teacher seemed taken aback at this, but did at least attempt some kind of explication, though I've entirely forgotten what it was. What I do remember is that several of my classmates approached me after the lesson to thank me for saying what they'd all been thinking.
"Although most of us prefer to ignore it most of the time, many of us turn to poetry at emotional times."
For pithy encapsulations of life's triumphs and tribulations I turn to Shakespeare. His plays, for me, are all the poetry I'll ever want. This may mark me as a philistine, but I blame that on deficient teachers.
An excellent post. I'd never read A Portable Paradise, by Roger Robinson* before but loved it. A lot of my favourite comedy writers - Galton & Simpson, Barry Took- worked hard at cadence, the rhythm of language etc.