Monday 20 April 2009

Poetry Matters (5): One Word Ripples



Saltmarsh: ripples and reflections
WWT Llanelli

Those who know me know that I love to experiment with poetry forms and unusual words. I read somewhere recently of a challenge to pick a single word as the starting point for a poem. I took this photo with my new camera (I am really quite a techophobe or technodunce, but again I love to experiment); and the ring of ripples in the centre, which you can enlarge if you click on the photo, has kickstarted a poem idea. In the past I have sometimes been helped by a spidergraph: I wonder how your poems develop? There must be a myriad of methods: I would love to list some of your answers!

5 comments:

Susan Richardson said...

Beautiful image, Caroline!

I often use spidergraphs too. It's only very very occasionally that a poem pops out onto the page fully formed without lots of exploration of the theme beforehand.

Crafty Green Poet said...

gorgeous photo!

My poems often start from an idea that sits simmerign in my mind for a good long while before I start writing. Occasionally a poem will arrive seemingly fully formed, but usually even then the idea has been around a while

Mistlethrush said...

I use spidergraphs with groups and find them very productive.

Love the photo. It seems that you and your new camera are going to get along very well together.

Matt Merritt said...

Love the photo too, and WWT Llanelli is a great place, isn't it. About this time last year I went there to do a story about birding by canoe, and I can recommend it very highly.

I tend to start poems with a single phrase, and work from there. It's rarely the opening of the poem, though. I usually have to let it sit in the notebook for weeks before I try to turn it into anything.

Caroline Gill said...

The canoes looked great. I wonder what you saw or heard, Matt, out in the channels along the marsh. The warblers were much in evidence near the waterside hide, and I'm pretty sure I heard a frog.