For starters, I found this difficult on several levels. For many years I created poetry when under pressure. Often (mostly) this pressure was the presence of other people - usually within writer's groups - where my contribution was regarded as quirky. However, I felt no such pressure in the workshop run by Jennifer Eades as resident poet at the Adelaide City Library. We were all there for the same reason. For me, this was a chance to get back into writing poetry as I had recently completed my first novel and the inspiration for the second threatened to be overwhelming. I wanted the kind of head space poetry allows.!
"I do not have a home" is something I could so very easily written while I was living it! My official address for many years was "No Fixed Abode".
![Travels1 039.jpg]
(
After a few ups and downs, including having both a home and chance to travel occasionally
I have now settled down to a home in the city and no car. This means I walk instead of drive which is okay as macular degeneration now causes my driving licence to be restricted to daylight use and the walking is doing wonders for my weight.
Now I have the home
(with patio, bird bath attracting murray mapies, bronzewing pigeons and sparrows), I found it very difficult to wrap my head - and memory - back to those days.
But I had been encouraged by the positive reactions to my open mike presentations at several local venues, leading me to the notion I would run out of material (read from my published collection) and had better get my skates on and start writing again. We all presented our work at the library and poetry with pictures are being displayed for some weeks.
Do you find writing in a group setting a challenge? Where is your head space happiest?
