Chris Jones : part three

Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?

I began reading and writing poetry when I was fourteen so my initial grey-haired response would be: yes! However looking back at my teenager writerly self, there are plenty of things I still recognise in those formative attitudes and approaches to versifying.  One: the first poems I got published were rhyming quatrains and sonnets. Two: I am trying to be both formal and conversational at the same time in the tone of my work.  Three: the poems are driven by trying to capture feelings, however nebulous that might sound. Of course, I have a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of poetry now, but have I really gone that far from my original impulses and designs?  I would say the fact I’ve been teaching creative writing for over twenty years, to a fundamental degree, has changed my consideration of the art form. I’ve had to think how poems ‘work’ (or don’t work) - and different kinds of poems at that. I’ve always tried to read widely and try not to be too prescriptive about what is good or bad, engaging or dull etc.  I increasingly regard poetry as an outward facing form of entertainment - that my poems should tell a story, move my readers, talk about the stuff that really matters to me (and them, I hope).   Maybe I’ve always felt that - it’s just that I have more perspective now: I can reach forwards and backwards and keep my balance in a more sure-footed way.