Pathways to poetry
Written by Alison Hramiak
It’s not always easy to find that rare combination of time/space/mindset to write. How many times do you seem to be able to manage to achieve only one or possibly even two of these? Some people may need even more than these, especially if you’re caring for young or old, or when your part-time job extends so much further into the working week than you thought it would.
In this blog, I want to encourage and empower part-time poets to find a way to write when they are not doing their ‘normal’ jobs – as it were. I want to show all you part-time poets out there – leading by example of course – that it is possible to be both busy and a budding poet.
In what I hope will be a regular blog here, I want to reach out to people who might be struggling to find a way to partition their time between their job, (the way they earn a living or the way their time is taken in other ways) and writing poetry. I want to reach out to people who might struggle with actually getting to writing in whatever free time they have, no matter how large or small that amount of time is. And I want to reach out to people who struggle with knowing what to write when they do find some time/space/mindset.
These are my main limitations when it comes to writing poetry, so I’d like to share with others, my methods, and my approaches to dealing with them. I’m hoping that by reading my blog, you too will find the means to write, and to write regularly – because as we all know, poetry is good for the soul!
This is not a blog about writer’s block. There are lots of good ideas out there for that - have a look at Rebecca’s ideas on this here. Rather, this blog aims to tackle this as well as the other things that inhibit the writing process, particularly for those of us who also work part-time with only limited time and space to give to poetry.
So, where to start? I’m leading by example, so telling you a little about myself might be a good place. I’m a part-time teacher-educator and poet, living and working in Yorkshire. You can find examples of my published work here, here and here.
I went part-time a few years ago to spend more time at home (ill husband) and to write more. I naively assumed that on the days I wasn’t working, I would just be able to sit at a desk and write poetry. Foolish indeed.
My first problem was that it took me some time to properly divide my time between work and poetry. Work often ‘bled’ into my non-working days. If I’m honest, (and I am) it took me a couple of years to get this right. Now that sounds like a long time, but when you’ve worked somewhere for a long time, and worked in education, you will know that students come first and so it wasn’t always easy to say ‘No’ to things. I’m much better at this now.
The second problem was about getting past the fact that my study at home, where I work when not physically at work, was where it was best for me to also spend my non-work time writing poetry. For some time I avoided my desk purely because it felt like I was going to work. This was a mental block that took a while to get past. I tried writing at the dining table, by hand, and in notebooks, but this just added to my woes. It felt like ‘makey work’. Having written things by hand, I then had to type them up anyway – at my desk – and realised what I already knew, that editing is so much easier when done electronically.
The third problem then was getting into the ‘mood’ for writing poetry. Although I was under no external pressure to write, there was a nagging voice inside me telling me that I should be writing as surely that’s why I worked part-time. There were days when I genuinely felt guilty if I had not managed to write a poem or even a few words, or ideas towards a poem. Particularly if I had had both the space and time to do so, this can be the biggest barrier of all for many. The way I got around this was to get a bit systematic about it, in the hope that my scientific/analytical approach (I used to be a microbiologist) would somehow show me the way to getting past this.
It worked. I used a range of approaches, including a spreadsheet (and I really don’t like anything to do with numbers) to record all the places I had submitted poetry to (with the outcomes), I joined some online poetry groups, and I started reading more poetry for ideas and used magazine articles to list places I could explore on the internet for even more ideas and submissions. I even reviewed some poetry anthologies and became brave enough to attend the Huddersfield Literature Festival to read my poetry I recorded all of this in ‘to-do’ lists – making sure that each time I made such a list, I could always immediately tick off at least one of the things on there to make it look like I was getting somewhere. We all do it, don’t we?
I also found that once you get to a place where it is starting to come together, your confidence grows, you write more, you write differently, and often better, and so the confidence grows again. Like an upwards spiralling double helix, (remember, we all know what DNA looks like after covid now don’t we?).
So, my intention is to help others to get to this place by giving practical, (and possibly impractical if needed) advice on how to get to that place where you have all three things you need to get started – time/space/mindset. Come with me, and I will share my experiences with you…because it is possible to be both busy, and a budding (and successful) poet.
ALISON HRAMIAK is a part-time poet and part-time teacher educator living and working in Yorkshire. She has written poems from an early age and has been published in several Forward Poetry anthologies, New Contexts 4, and also on various websites such as Dirigible Balloon, Impspired and the Causley Trust. She writes for occasions at www.poetryforlives.co.uk and regularly blogs about poetry there. She reviews poetry, and also poetry anthologies, and has recently started performing at open mic sessions including at the Huddersfield Literature Festival.