Back To (Poetry) School

Some people sit down and poems seem to come to them, unbidden. I find courses help me to enlist the Muse's help - or is it self-belief? - and tap into my creativity.

After a fairly dry month poetry-wise, I started a Poetry School course with John McAuliffe last Tuesday evening. It's absolutely great to be back in the classroom! John is such a fun tutor - enthusiastic, energetic, knowledgeable - and how! But more importantly, supportive and encouraging. We took a look at Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rilke - a poem I love and which I've featured on this blog. Then Leda and the Swan by Yeats which was new to me. Our homework is to write a sonnet, but to deconstruct the form and make our own of it. Yikes! I left the class buzzing, but with no idea of what I would write. By the time I got home I knew what I wanted to write about and started as soon as I got in, aided by a couple of glasses of red wine, which I frequently find helpful! I woke early on Wednesday with more thoughts and by Wednesday night I had a first draft to work on. To me, this is always the start of the most exciting stage of making a poem. Now I've been through several drafts, my poem is looking in ok shape and I'm relieved to be back in the saddle.

Sun through Clouds

Still miserable, but as the sun has come out for a change, I will get up and go, not to Innisfree, but to dig the garden.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

W.B. Yeats

(picture is of Cardigan Bay, not Sligo)