I have always had a facility with words and get huge satisfaction from creating word structures which reflect my thoughts, moods and feelings. Unlike these almost subliminal influences, most of the notes attached to some poems were added later, as I discovered links and cross-references (e.g.
Their influence is to be seen in some of my poems, such as Mid Morning Break and Dreams (Shakespeare), Eheu Fugaces (GM Hopkins), Times Winged Chariot (Eliot), On Visiting Milton’s Cottage (Milton), Ode to Autumn (Keats), Strange Season, Toys (Old English poetry), and the Liverpool poets (The Old Queen). With my academic background I was well in touch with the literary heritage of poetry and its techniques, though the studies I had undertaken over the years did little obviously to inspire me to write. I wanted to try to ensure that what I had written would not just be lost in a dusty attic, of interest only to my great grandchildren – and that not certain. The number of poems I had written and my belief that a fair number of them are really good enough to merit it gave me the confidence to go for self-publication. Poetry writing had become an integral and important part of my life. A few good poems in the nineties kept my hand in but since the turn of the century I have written 79 of my 118 poems. The seventies were relatively prolific the eighties produced only one poem. Ideas, word patterns and rhythms began to come to me, asking to be developed, though only for personal pleasure. Then the poems began to emerge instinctively and intermittently, around the time my son was born in 1965 and, at last, they seemed real poems and began to give me a sense of achievement, a conviction that I could really write poetry. Two years training as a teacher and the first 6 years of my teaching career produced nothing apart from a facile Shakespeare parody. Off to Egypt in the army, a long poem inspired by the experience of sitting out a desert storm called Khamseen is crude but has a kind of wild energy, beginning to look something like a poem.
I then composed a long poem about Night, which was largely preposterous nonsense.
Having just left school, I wrote my first poem in 1953, the consequence of a broken heart. My journey writing poetry: how ‘Life’s Lines’ came to be Tony Mitchell is in the back row, third to the left. His guest post is a reflection of his writing journey. Tony has recently self-published ‘Life’s Lines’ a poetry anthology of over 100 poems reflecting on his l ife in a wide variety of poetic forms. He is now retired and lives between Bath and Bristol. The set includes one sturdy, colorful magnetic game board (14" x 18"), and 48 magnetic photo tiles (1¼" up to 2").Tony Mitchell completed his Teaching Certificate at Goldsmiths in 1 957 and went on to teach in secondary schools and become a Senior Lecturer training teachers until 1987. The vinyl photo-magnets provide plenty of play options for learning new vocabulary and categorizing foods by their food groups. Teach your children five basic food groups including meats, vegetables, fruits, dairy, and grains. Children love using this magnetic game to discuss and create healthy meals.
0 kommentar(er)
