P is for poem

I hope anyone who knows me in person is sitting down as this may come as a shock. Yes, I know I'm always the one who says "I don't do poetry". It's not that I don't like poetry. I love reading it or hearing it spoken aloud. I just have no concept of how to write it. When an idea comes to me, my first thought is how to make it into a story. Not a poem, song, novel or article, but a story. That feels the most natural form for my writing to take.

In my horsey phase, twenty years ago, I confess I wrote a little ditty for the riding school's magazine. But it's been lost in the mists of a steaming pile of horse manure, and I'm sure Carol Ann Duffy is very relieved about that. Any other attempts to write poems have been brief. Two lines long, on average, before I think "Oh, this is too hard" and give up. Until...

Recently I had a rather horrible day. I went to bed with a single thought going round and round in my head. I remember thinking that if I was someone who wrote poetry, this was exactly the kind of thing I could make into a poem. Through continuing to play with the idea on paper the words somehow arranged themselves into what looked like a verse of four lines. I was quite pleased. But where did I go next?

The following day I received Liane Carter's email containing her guest post (below). Her words about throwing the truth onto the page were what I needed to push me onwards. To make progress with my poem I saw I had to go deeper into the idea and explore the emotion behind it. I kept on adding a couple of lines here and there. By last weekend I'd reached four verses. I felt like I had said what I wanted to say. Gosh. I had written a poem. It was a satisfying feeling, and a bit of a surprise.

Perhaps we all have mental blocks about certain things that we think we cannot do. But sometimes it's good just to try. Just to see.

I enjoyed writing my poem. Maybe I'll write another. You know... in twenty years or so.

Guest post by Liane Carter

My March guest here at Zigzag Road is Liane Carter. Liane's first novel for children, 'The Chronicles of Joya', is proving a real hit. Living between England and Spain, Liane's writing credits also include a regular column for the Costa Blanca News, and articles for Writing Magazine, plus numerous published short stories and poems. On top of all this, Liane writes songs with her husband. She does the words. He does the music. What a lovely combination. I asked Liane to tell me a bit about how the process of writing a song compares with that of writing a story, and this is what she said...

"I began writing poetry at school and had the vague notion that I went to some other place to write it - I thought up on the clouds, dangling my legs.

When I learned the basic chords on guitar I started writing songs. At about seven or eight I wrote my first song, 'Momataro', inspired by the delicious Japanese book about a boy who emerged from a peach. The book, strange like me, taught me something fundamental: I had a problem chip in my brain: impatience.

If I couldn't think of a few key lines for a song, I'd search my brain until I found something - anything - to throw in to have a completed project. If I left the song half-done, I couldn't concentrate on anything else. I'd walk into things, be unable to concentrate and make myself more visible in a world I tried desperately to shrink from.

Years later I still had the problem of the first verse flowing and then the slam on the brakes from my inner genius to block the second verse. I wondered whether my ego had sabotage plans. My husband, who does all the music for the songs, told me I had self-destruction stamped across my skull.

I didn't mean to keep going back and tweaking the melody, changing the words and causing him more work. But that's the penalty for rushing, for having to finish, for impatience.

When I started getting serious with writing short stories and novels, I uncovered the truth: the ideas, my genius, wanted time to grow and take different turns. They wanted to delve on deeper levels. I had to be stripped raw with editing to uncover the gold within. And the sick thing? I loved the pain of it.

I discovered fear blocked me from that second verse: fear of not being able to top the first one; of boring the listener; of giving them less than perfect; of facing emotions within me.

The joy of digging deep and discarding impatience came in one of our songs, 'Damage Done'. Truth is painful to write; this song had me crying the first twelve times I sang it through. Yet when I decided to be editor and warrior on that second verse, to go deeper in truth, I unravelled a superior second verse I fell in love with.

It proved two things for me. Firstly, whether it's a song, a poem, a short story or a novel, expose yourself. Throw the truth out on the page and the treasures will fly not just into your lap. They'll flood your heart. Your writing will breathe and bring life into the people who share it.

Something painful that happened to me went into 'The Chronicles of Joya' and so many people have resonated with it. If I hadn't been brave enough to write the pain, many people would have lost out on the pleasure.

Change names where necessary: you don't want to hurt anyone else. And maybe once you go back to edit, you'll lose that piece altogether. It may just have been a healing process to write your pain on paper.

Secondly, I learned the incredible power of the inner child, who will not come and write her genius if I refuse her demands. She's more stubborn than I am. She's also stronger and wiser. I have a lot to learn from her. I'll play up and push her too hard and whip her to work.

She'll stop mid-step and strike. Sometimes I listen to her and sometimes... I don't. So for those of us who sometimes 'forget' to feed our inner child with play, here's a song I've written which helps me vent some frustration at myself and at her for running off. Happy writing!

Sing to the tune of 'Yellow Submarine' and clap. She likes it.

Inner child wants to play
She doesn't want to write today

I try to drag her by the hair
She runs a mile, leaves me despair

I thump my skull and shake my head
I may as well return to bed

Chorus:
We all live with a bolshie inner child
The genius who's wild
Who likes to run a mile
We all live with a bolshie inner child
The genius who's wild
Whose words we have on file

If I don't feed her with fun
She folds her arms or sucks her thumb

She stamps her feet and turns away
Waits for treats and time for play

But I push for her to write
Ignore her needs for some respite

Chorus:
We all live with a bolshie inner child
The genius who's wild
Who likes to run a mile
We all live with a bolshie inner child
The genius who's wild
Whose words we have on file

So I buy her Plasticine
Watch a film with Mr Bean

Dance around the room and sing
And watch the magic in me begin

Her genius begins to flow
She writes and tells me, "I told you so!"

Chorus:
We all live with a bolshie inner child
The genius who's wild
Who likes to run a mile
We all live with a bolshie inner child
The genius who's wild
Whose words we have on file."

Jo: Gosh - thank you so much, Liane, for taking the time to write this. I will never listen to 'Yellow Submarine' in the same way again!

For more about Liane and her novel 'The Chronicles of Joya' please visit her websites here or here, where you can also listen to samples of her music.