It
was in taking the picture of my desk where I write and seeing the poster of
Jimi Hendrix beneath that I came up with my ‘clever’ title for this piece. In
many ways this reflects how I like to write: finding accidental or more
actively researched – but still found – ideas and/or prompts.
The
poster, an original print from the late 60s, had hung in the hall until it fell
and I placed it under the desk temporarily, a few years ago now. I sit each day
with it from around 7.30 am and begin the routine of checking for emails, the
latest news, new music, any hits/comments on my writing blog, and a little
later, those on my music blog. Because of the latter one, which I am not
writing about here, I will generally be listening to music, which I love, but
also often to review.
I
write all day, on and off so no precise routine, and well into the evening and
night. As a carer – though we get out and about if in brief excursions locally on
occasional mornings – writing is more than a personal urge and compulsion,
which it is powerfully, but also to occupy my time at home. In this respect, it
is a substantial aspect of my daily life because without this desire and
commitment, I would be floundering. I am a social person, love to talk and
would prefer to range further afield. This not being how it is, daily writing
is everything.
I
write mainly poetry, though as a former English teacher who is still appalled
and angered by testing regimes and target cultures, I also vent about this
regularly on my blog. Otherwise, my writing of poetry is driven by a genuine
eclecticism: for many years it was almost exclusively sonnets where I liked and
felt motivated by its conventions, loose as I made them, with the compactness focussing
thought and composition. Though I also always indulged, I have of late been
more solely experimental, from producing concrete poems to a wide range of
found ones, this latter leading to two completed remixed poem sequences based
on, respectively, the English Novel Canon and the Great American Novel.
I am
currently writing a found sequence of prose poems prompted by random themes and
then further findings. So an important other part of my daily writer’s routine
is seeking outlets for this, mainly online magazines and journals and the
wonderful editors who take these and support. The searching and submitting is
in itself a huge commitment – you have to have a strong desire to be published
[and what writer does not want this?] so also experience countless rejections
as well as the huge pleasure of acceptances and seeing writing in print.
None
of this works to set routines within a day, but each day is filled by it all,
thankfully in such significant ways.
Mike Ferguson is an American permanently
resident in Devon, and is widely published in online poetry magazines and
journals. His most recent print collection is the sonnets chapbook Precarious Real [Maquette Press, 2016]
and he co-edited with Rupert Loydell the music poems anthology Yesterday’s Music Today [Knives Forks
and Spoons Press, 2015]. A retired English teacher, he co-authored the
education text Writing Workshops
[Cambridge University Press, 2015]. Writing blog: https://mikeandenglish.wordpress.com/
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