How I Did It
How I Did It: ‘On First Meeting Margot’
One Thursday afternoon in May 2014, I left my Poetry School class and headed to Waterloo for the train home. On Lower Marsh, I bumped into my friend Alice, who I had not seen for quite some time. With her was Margot, her small daughter whose father is a close friend of mine, the poet…
Roddy Lumsden
How I Did It: ‘How to Renovate a Morris Minor’
I was having a conversation this week with a brilliant Welsh poet, who’s currently at work on his second collection. He said something about his creative process which resonated strongly with me: he was working hard, he said, to get to the stage where the poems wrote themselves. That’s always been it for me: the…
Jonathan Edwards
How I Did It: ‘Sow’
Like many of the poems in Black Country, it took a long time for ‘Sow’ to travel from its first notes to its final form. It began as a scribbled note in my diary in May 2010. I was walking along Highgate Tube platform in a new pair of black boots and, hearing them trip-trapping,…
Liz Berry
How I Did It: ‘Burnt Rose’
I wrote ‘Burnt Rose’ in Newsham Park in Liverpool, on a nature-spotting walk with my son. Sometimes we take our notebooks to the park, along with a football and some snacks, and write down — or draw pictures of — what we see. That day we found, under a tree, a rose that had been burned: it was…
Chris McCabe
How I Did It: ‘Fat Dandy’
Most people know me as a “performance poet”. I don’t like the term, it’s rather restrictive and plenty of what I write ends up in books, not on stage. Sound is very important though. I want the poem to sound good, to rattle off the tongue, or fall on the ear like a big, soft…
Luke Wright
How I Did It: ‘The Shipwrecked House II’
I wrote ‘The Shipwrecked House II’ at my grandmother’s funeral. I know this because this image is my contribution to her funeral book. A few weeks later I met Tom Chivers for the first time to discuss my yet untitled collection. I wanted to go with ‘Hook’ in memory of my grandmother (her maiden name)…
Claire Trevien
How I Did It: ‘As they pulled you out of the oxygen tent / you asked for the latest party’
This is the last poem that made it into my new book, just as the publishers and printers were calling time. It’s a definite Summer of 2013 snapshot. When I wrote it, all these things were in the air: the David Bowie Is exhibition at the V&A; BOWIEOKE (David Bowie karaoke) at The Betsy Trotwood,…
Julia Bird (Poetry School Staff)
How I Did It: ‘Violet-among-the-Harpsichord’
I was commissioned by Claire Trévien to write a new poem for her Penning Perfumes Christmas Special. In the Penning Perfumes projects you are sent a mystery perfume to write a poem about. Once you’ve completed the poem, the scent is revealed to you. The idea is that you are able to work with the…
Amy Key