Will Barrett (Poetry School)Well there’s a doozy of a question.
For as long as we’ve been online, there’s been a lot of fervent chatter on the CAMPUS-sphere about where to look for ideas for new poems. Well, dear readers, if we had the magical formula we’d have already shut up shop, moved to the Bahamas and started banging out Coelho-esque poetry self-improvement serialisations.
Secret recipes we have none, but what we do have is an active, alert and incredibly creative community of poets who draw from a huge variety of sources for their poems. So, in the office we thought we’d start putting together a subjective list of things and links that kickstart our creativity when we’re feeling stuck for things to write about, and we’d like to invite anyone reading this to submit further suggestions that will be continuously added to the list. Be as particular as you like – the more idiosyncratic, the better.
We’re just after static resources, like interesting books, museums, archives, newspapers, blogs and so on, not active changes to lifestyle (‘go for a run’ or ‘abstain from wheat-based food products’). As good as those things are for the creative spirit, we’re specifically after juicy links, cherished magazines, curious collections, out-of-print anthologies, beautiful blogs, overlooked places and landmarks, pirate radio stations and whatever else gets your muse salivating. Roddy Lumsden calls these things ‘personal iconography’. A close friend of mine calls them ‘eye-biters’. The rest of the world probably calls it ‘procrastination’.
Anyway – here’s a list of some office favs for starters:
POETRY
Boston Review poetry reviews & essays
VISUAL/ART
An Amibitious Project Collapsing
LITERATURE/BOOKS
SCIENCE/TECH
GENERAL
Youtube (old films and music playlists)
TRAVEL/GEOGRAPHY
PODCASTS
Stuff you missed in history class
ODD/MISC
Send us your distracting things!
I love the Inky Fool blog (http://blog.inkyfool.com/). The books are great – check out the Horologicon if you want to add some interesting words to your vocabulary 😉
http://publicdomainreview.org Amazingly eclectic site…
Here are a few sites I like…
http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/
https://twitter.com/poetshouse
http://www.littlesparta.org.uk/ihf.htm
http://alecfinlayblog.blogspot.co.uk/
http://castlegardenofwatertobeyond.wordpress.com/
http://www.dreamcatchermagazine.co.uk/
http://www.earthlines.org.uk/
A long, unfulfilled ambition of mine is to visit Little Sparta. Lovely links – thank you!
Non-poetry sites I follow, mainly on twitter, and get (mostly visual) inspiration from:
http://creativeboom.co.uk/
http://www.itsnicethat.com/
http://hyperallergic.com/
http://linesandcolors.com/
http://www.printeresting.org/
http://www.aboriginalartdirectory.com/
https://artsy.net/
http://fundamentalpainting.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/project/art-project
For thoughtfulness:
http://abstractcritical.com/
http://theconversation.com/uk
http://www.newscientist.com/
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/
http://www.theparisreview.org/
& its interview archive: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews
And, in print, the best ever painting magazine, Turps Banana (http://www.turpsbanana.com/).
Tony – many thanks for these, a fine crop. Keep your suggestions coming everyone!