writing and writers – Page 67 – don't confuse the narrator

perspectives

Regular readers will probably have realised I rather like dandelions.

Well, not just dandelions, but catsears, hawksbeard and coltsfoot, and all the other wonderfully named, bright, yellow composite weeds with flowers like the radiant suns that dot the pages of children’s picture books.

I like the seed heads, too, with their downy parachutes counter-balanced by tiny elongated seeds.

Which probably explains why there are so many of them scattered across the pages of this blog. Perhaps not as many as there are on the wide green lawns in the park, but plenty, nonetheless.
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changing voice and mood

Next week I’m taking part in an evening of readings and yesterday I received an email reminding me that I needed to supply a biography and also give some idea of genre and tone for the pieces I’ll be reading. The suggestions offered were: “prose/ poetry; fiction/ non-fiction; light/ serious”.

I understand that the running order will probably work better if tragedy isn’t sandwiched between doggerel, but I don’t usually make decisions very far in advance – after all, I might yet write a new piece that is just perfect for the occasion – so just at the moment I have no idea what I’m going to read.
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taking notes

Yesterday I mentioned that I haven’t been writing recently. This is, of course, a lie: there are always fragments of ideas that get jotted down or filed away in memory until the right context and focus is found.

Those that remain in memory will surface sporadically, looking for something to connect to. And I’ll come across odd phrases scribbled on paper some time in the future when I’m clearing up and maybe type them onto the computer or add them to a file of papers where they are less likely to get lost.

Eventually some of them will link up and a poem may start to brew, or I may find a use for some of them alongside a photo here on the blog.
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not my idea

I reckon I started writing poetry some fifty years ago.

Since then, there have been periods when ideas have flowed thick and fast. There have also been times when I have forgotten about poetry, perhaps for years on end.

And then there have been times when I have not forgotten about poetry, but it seems to have forgotten about me.
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