World Poetry Day
One of the unexpected side effects of being a writer is that friends and family often approach me to write poems for special occasions. Now, I think people generally assume that writing is just writing. Whether it’s a novel, a short story, or a poem. Allow me to take this opportunity to disagree. I love writing stories. It’s something I’ve pretty much always done, even as a child. I’m also lucky in that I can usually sit down most days and bash out some chapters (or a few thousand words) a day without too many problems. It’s not always easy, but I luckily don’t conform to the tortured author trying desperately to get the words in their head onto the page. Poetry, however. Well that’s a different kettle of fish. It’s bloody hard. Takes an awful long time and, if I’m being brutally honest, it’s not really something that comes naturally to me. So I always experience slight feeling of dread when someone asks if I could ‘just write a few words’ for a special occasion. But I always comply.