My Kind Of Writing

Flying

It’s easy in my dreams

knowing the trick that no-one else does

running up stairs cut into the air
 

how all you have to do is trust

your arms, keep up speed,

look straight ahead, avoid clouds.
 

It's only the weight of my quilt that holds me down,

the closed lid of the ceiling keeping me in.

I've written many things: children's novels, short stories for adults and children, stories for women's magazines, poetry, essays, shopping lists etc. But it's the poetry I enjoy most, although I'm more likely to tell people that I'm a writer than a poet. Andrew Motion said, if you're seen reading poetry in a train, the carriage immediately empties. Wendy Cope pointed out that this could be an advantage: 'This stratagem's a godsend to recluses/ And demonstrates that poetry has its uses.' (From Strugnell's Sonnets) but on the whole, I'd rather not scare people away. So it's only when I'm feeling particularly brave or reckless that I admit that I'm a poet. If this doesn't result in the other person backing away or suddenly remembering an urgent appointment, they sometimes ask me what sort of poems I write. Hmmm...

I can define the children's novels (now out of print); they are funny. The children's stories tend to be humorous too although, for some reason, the adult stories rarely are. And the poems are never funny. Some are more lighthearted than others. 'Things That Fall', the title poem of my pamphlet, is merely a list of things that fall (the clue is in the title) with a playful side; some of the objects fall literally (conkers, light rain...) while other fall metaphorically (women, mercury, pearls of wisdom). But most of my poems have a more sinister side. Abductions, blades, missing persons, dentists... There always seems to be something darker going on under the surface. Don't ask me why - it's not something I aim for. It just happens. I have deliberately written 'happier' poems, with some success. But it's the darker ones that really grab me, intrigue me, make me want to carry on.



The poem above, 'Flying', isn't very sinister, although that 'closed lid of the ceiling' does make me think of a coffin. But how could I describe what sort of poem it is? It doesn't rhyme, but some of my poems do. It's not a recognised form, but quite a few of my poems are. It isn't a nature poem, or a concrete poem, or light verse. But what is it? I only know that it is one of my poems, and that I can recognise it as such. I suppose the only answer to the question, 'What sort of poems do I write?' is 'My sort of poems.'