Tips
Write about things that deeply connect with you
In ‘Poetry in the Making’ Ted Hughes said:
you write interestingly only about the things that genuinely interest you…in writing, you…
Helen Mort has published two poetry collections (Division Street, 2013 and No Map Could Show Them, 2016), a novel (Black Car Burning, 2019) and a short story collection (Exire, 2019). She has been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and Costa Prizes and won the Fenton Aldeburgh Prize in 2015. She is a Senior Lecturer in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Tips
In ‘Poetry in the Making’ Ted Hughes said:
you write interestingly only about the things that genuinely interest you…in writing, you…
Exercises
Read a poem by another writer. Then set yourself the challenge of writing that poem anew from a different perspective, in…
Tips
Many experiments have shown that we think well when we’re active – after a walk, people perform better on tests of…
Exercises
Read this poem by Thomas Traherne. In it, he describes the value of walking but – more crucially – the importance…
Tips
I love novels, poems and plays where the setting feels like a character as much as any of the people who…
Exercises
When you’re writing about places you know well – particularly landscapes – it can be daunting. You worry about producing work…
Exercises
I have been thinking a lot about the traditional form of the elegy during lockdown, not least after losing a loved…
Tips
I’ve noticed over the past year that many of the poets I’ve been working with have been worried about their own…
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