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| The Shuttle Method From Interview no. 33 • Redraft a lot. When you think a poem is finished, put it away, don’t send it out. Forget about it for a period of time, and then come back to it so you can read it with fresh eyes. • Sharpen your critical faculties: Look at your poem as though it was written by a student in a seminar you are teaching. What would you recommend to them? • Listen out for what you can overhear in streets, in cafés, on trains. Listen in your dreams. Keep your radar on. • No morning commitments? Go back to bed and read, or start a new poem, or write down your dream. Do some writing in bed. • Focus elsewhere. Do yoga or read a book or a newspaper. While doing so, a phrase might leap out at you. Use that as a starting point for a new poem. • Drink one morning coffee, then stick with tea for the rest of the day. • Handwrite poetry into notebooks, even if your hand is rubbish with arthritis. Reviews, essays, memoirs can all be written directly on the computer screen. Poetry requires that active hand, that physical action. • Keep six or eight notebooks on the go with early, handwritten drafts you may have written a while ago. When you are ready, type them up and work on them (if you are lucky, you’ll find the poem you are looking for). • Visit your poems and change them. When you’ve got a second or third handwritten draft, that’s a place to start from. Type it into the computer and get to work. • You don’t need a special poetry writing hat. Keep things random to start with. If you get stuck on a poem, go on to something else. • Keep your eyes and your mind open. • Use assonance a lot, rely on sound patterns. When you get the form right I can only say it’s like having a pair of shoes on the correct feet after stumbling around with them on the wrong ones. • When organising a collection of poems, try different combinations and sequences. Be sure to take a mental step back: it’s not a randomising process. Generating the raw material has a more random aspect to it; when organising the completed poems keep it very specific. • Live in a place that inspires you. • Don’t restrict or limit yourself by adhering to the ‘popular’ writing models of the time. Explore the library stacks and find models and inspirations that work for you. • Be generous with yourself: give yourself time to write.  |
'Visit your poems and change them. When you’ve got a second or third handwritten draft, that’s a place to start from.' |
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