Andy N : part four

Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?

Yeah, it has a lot. Although I did start writing when I was 10 or so, it took me until I went to university in 1998 to start looking at it in a different way in a more measured way. 

After I left university in 2001, I then joined a poetry feedback group in 2006, and from that I began to start measuring my poetry sometimes spending weeks writing a particular piece instead of almost just throwing all of my words down onto paper in a mad hurry almost. 

Now of course, all poems are not the same and I still write some pieces a lot quicker than others but the way I consider poems certainly has by the way I think about them, think about the beginning, the middle and the end and how you lead a reader into it and take them out off it. 

It sounds more complex than what it is I guess the above, but it’s a case of how you look at everything really. I used to really hate a lot of the forms with poetry when I was younger, but my last two full length poetry books have being collections of Haikus which is something the writer from 20 years, even 5 years would have refused completely to even consider, but the older I get and the longer I write, it’s helped me think more be more considerate of my work.