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Clare Pollard

Clare Pollard’s fifth poetry collection is Incarnation, published in 2017. Her plays include The Weather and a new version of Ovid’s Heroines.

Writing Tips and Exercises

Writing Tips

Listening to the letters

Genre: Poetry

Letters are the building blocks of language. Take time to be aware of language at the level of the letter; of the sound in the mouth. Even if you’re not a rhyming poet, you should be conscious of the way words echo off each-other (coat and cat, lamb and drea...

Clare Pollard

Writing Exercises

Serious nonsense

Genre: Poetry

Coining neologisms (or new words) is a great way to think about sound in your poetry, whilst also getting to be playful with language. There is a history of writers experimenting with made-up words, from the nonsense poetry of Lewis Carroll (‘Twas brillig an...

Clare Pollard