Probably what I get asked most often is "Where do you get your ideas from?" and it's not a straightforward answer. It could be a phrase I hear my 7yo say, or an everyday observation, or something creative is stirred by reading a poem by someone else, or by the rhythm/beat of something, or...or...
Occasionally, I can tell you precisely when and how the idea came about. My poem The Balloon, published in the Toys edition of The Toy Magazine, began with a real pink balloon spotted on the school run. I took a quick snap of it on my phone because it was such a striking image. The poem came quickly - one of those rare 'it wrote itself' kinds.
One of my first published poems, What the Cat Knows, published on The Dirigible Balloon website, and in their first charity anthology, Chasing Clouds, came about after locking eyes with my cat through the kitchen window. It got me thinking about what he might be thinking, and a story grew from there, becoming my poem about a broken vase and who might be to blame.
I've been talking in schools (and to the Women's Institute!) lately about writing for the Macmillan anthologies Heroes and Villains and Gods and Monsters. When the opportunity arose to write poems to submit to G&M, I had no poems already written on myths, and very little decent knowledge of anything mythological. That was a very different kind of poetry-writing altogether. I squirrelled myself away and studied: researching, discovering, learning, and only then actually writing. Two of the five poems I submitted were accepted, AND now I know more about myths than I did before. Win-win.
I wonder what tomorrow will bring.
Happy reading, writing, and poeming,
Attie x
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