What happens when you don’t write for a week or two?

My Writing Life

I haven’t written anything for a couple of weeks; this could just be a fallow period, frustrating but not fatal. It has been very interesting to observe myself in this ‘writing inactive’ state.

After a day or two of not being able to think of anything to write, and time therefore filled with displacement activity, little bits of poems started rumbling about in my head.

I have had to do a lot of waiting recently, mostly in N.H.S. waiting rooms. They are full of bored people, waiting, and exhausted staff, run off their feet. Rather than write a rant about the inadequacies of funding the N.H.S. I let a poem about the whole experience of waiting  form itself slowly as I sat on a series of plastic chairs in grey rooms plastered with leaflets ranging from the mildly admonishing to the truly terrifying. All my hours of waiting have resulted in a poem written today which I think will work. It seems that the creative juices having been swirling around somewhere in my subconscious.

Reading Week

This week, stuck in waiting rooms, and at home with my leg up, has given me lots of time to read. Like you do when you’re not well, I have been reading thrillers, namely Denise Mina’s trilogy Garnethill. It’s a real page-turner, a fabulous read for when you are not feeling great and a fabulous read anyway.

However, I have also been reading the poetry of Hannah Lowe, whose work I have not encountered until recently. Her book Chick was recommended by a friend from the North of Ireland who had heard her read over there. Lowe’s poems paint a rich picture of her childhood and particularly her relationship with her father. They are deceptively simple, and they touch deep feelings.

Hare in the Headlights

Thank goodness, nothing to report this week! I’ve had enough to deal with!

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