“Big poetry tip: make a private anthology. Look for poems you want to learn from, ones that do things you’d like to be able to do in your writing but can’t yet. Re-read each phrase as you’re typing and feel the language pass through you. Make notes on the effects of techniques and line/stanza structures, how they conjure up emotion. This kind of reading puts tools in your toolbox, providing your brain with new strategies both for creating work but also for solving problems later when you turn to editing.”
John McCullough
I really like this idea from one of my favourite poets. Especially the idea of typing out the poems rather than just cutting and pasting. I’d suggest in addition, in a separate document, try playing with the line breaks and/or stanza breaks and see what happens.
John’s work includes Reckless Paper Birds 2019, Winner of the 2020 Hawthornden Prize and Shortlisted for the 2019 Costa Poetry Award, Spacecraft, 2016, Shortlisted for the Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize, Guardian Best Books for Summer 2016 and Longlisted for the Green Carnation Prize and most recently, Panic Response 2022, which I adore and imagine will receive similar accolades.
“John McCullough has a reputation for crafting lyric poems of the everyday with a surreal twist.
– Ben Wilkinson, The Guardian –
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