• 
• 

Sometimes it comes from an inner pain or ache that will be brought out into the daylight and is therefore released or assuaged in a creative form.

Poetry is an art form in its own right and the writer is driven to create through the medium of words.

WHAT DRIVES THE WRITER TO NEED TO VENT OR TO EXPRESS THEIR INNER MOST EXPERIENCES AND IDEAS?

By sharing the varied experience of being human, the writer is forging a connection with others who may also have felt the same emotion or been in a similar situation. The reader may simply enjoy the imagery of a well-written poem.  Even though every poem is unique and comes from the writer’s individual view point and experience, it is this communion between the writer and the general public that makes poetry such a powerful vehicle of expression.

WHAT DRAWS PEOPLE TO READ POETRY?

The reader wishes to enter a world of imagination and escapism, to connect with other ideas or images and to visualize and understand the world that the writer is creating.

The reader seeks out this world and wishes to be a part of it as an enrichment of his own experience.

For any artist there is a freedom in creativity, in making something significant or beautiful. It is a release from the everyday mundane life, into a world of words, ideas and imagination that enriches and empowers the writer and also the reader.

HOW IS POETRY RELEVANT IN A MODERN WORLD?

A poet can travel wherever it is possible to travel in the imagination.

All subjects can be covered and considered, from politics to comments on relationships, the weather, world events, the ecology etc.

Poetry is relevant because we hanker for a deep soul connection and can find this in poetry and in the Arts in general. Good writing reconnects us to the themes of our time, whether it is about global warming and the state of the planet or the political misuse of power. Whatever the theme, the page is empty and waiting.

HOW CAN YOU WRITE YOUR OWN POEM?

What are your ideas, thoughts and feelings? Begin to structure your poem in a loose fashion. First drafts are dispensable. Just get your ideas onto the page. Try to listen to that internal voice that is starting to form ideas.

WHAT ARE YOU INTERESTED IN WRITING ABOUT? WHAT STIRS YOU AND MAKES YOUR IDEAS START TO FLOW?

Is it a beautiful sunset and you want to capture the magnificence of the colours you’re seeing?

Do you want to scream out all your anger at your ex-partner and how badly he behaved?

Get all your ideas down. Perhaps start with single words, descriptive words and collect words that describe the sunset like ‘scarlet’

‘sinking’ ‘quiet’ etc and begin to form short chapters. Nothing has to stay in stone. The beauty of writing is that you can throw half the poem out or add things at any point. It is your creation and it is entirely up to you where you go with it.

Try to give the writing some kind of rhythm, for example you can write,

‘The sun began to sink

and as I watched

the purple splash lit up the sky.’

Your rhythm here would be six beats long for the first line, four for the second, eight for the third etc.

You could repeat this in the lines that follow so the poem reads in a balanced way.

Read your poem out to yourself and see how it sounds. Does it flow in a rhythmic way?

HOW CAN I GET STIMULATED TO WRITE?

Joining a writer’s group helps. You’ll have deadlines to push you to write regularly and heaps of support from other people with the same interests. It can be fun and a good social time for sharing.

Most of all read, read, read. Other people’s writing will start to stimulate the creativity in you too.

Read established writers who’ve been at it for years. You won’t like all the writing but it’ll give you some ideas about what you like personally.

Most of all love what you do. Enjoy all the inspiration of other writers and listen to yourself and the words that are waiting to form and jump onto the page!

NO WORDS – AMALIA FISH

No tears
just holding you
and reassurance
at your leaving.

My daughter stands
poised and beautiful
waiting for the plane,
her baby swaddled to her chest;
her life stuffed into the heavy bags
that lie scattered around her.

No words darling
to express the depth of love between us.
You leave only with my understanding and blessing.

I will never hold you back,
have held you for so long
and must now let go.

No retributions.
The letting go will continue,
holding and releasing,
holding and releasing,
giving back to life itself with gratitude and love.

Goodbye darling.
Fly to your new life
as I return to mine.

Tomorrow we will live again,
strangely alive,
awake to new possibilities,
full of love and hope;
wounded with grief
but ready to begin our new day.

Amalia Fish

Originally from the U.K., Amalia Fish is a writer living in Christchurch. Her day jobs are as a homeopath and a mother. She has had several poems published in Anima Volume 5-( a British publication,) in Empirical magazine (Canada), in Blaze Vox (U.S.A) and she also had 3 poems published in a journal of poetry called, "Rolling Stones". She won the Bath Festival for poetry in 2003. Amalia graduated from the Hagley Writer's Institute in 2017 and currently attends a writing group called 'The Airing cupboard'. It's a laid back gathering of women who share their writing and ideas. Amalia's writing is very visual and sensual and covers topics on family connections and on magnificence of the nature and the natural world.