Poetry Station

Desk with laptop etc — my desk for writing poetry

I am busy crafting poetry for the third assignment of my Open University course A215 Creative Writing. Or rather I am indulging in a little displacement activity right now. However I will be back to work in a few moments.

You will see from the picture of the table I’m using as my desk a number of things. Most useful being Stephen Fry‘s The Ode Less Travelled which is a very good introduction to poetry that I heartily recommend. Next is the video camera that I’ve been using to record myself reading the poetry out loud so that I can listen back and refine it. This is my own take on poetry being about the sound of the thing, much more so than prose. I think that’s what makes poetry harder for many people (myself included) because it takes much more effort to craft 40 lines of poetry than it does to make thousands of words of prose.

Of course, the other main thing there is my ancient computer, which with Libre Office is giving me the canvas to paint the words on. Each draft is track changed from the previous one and saved religiously so that I can go back and restore the bits I change or cut out completely in the process. Also there’s a couple of memory sticks so that I don’t lose anything I’m doing. As I type this there is yet another backup going on just to be safe.

Lastly, there is the cup of coffee to keep me effervescent…