“I grew up in a bookless house - my parents didn't read poetry, so if I hadn't had the chance to experience it at school I'd never have experienced it. But I loved English, and I was very lucky in that I had inspirational English teachers, Miss Scriven and Mr. Walker, and they liked us to learn poems by heart, which I found I loved doing.”
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I have piles of poetry books in the bathroom, on the stairs, everywhere. The only way to write poetry is to read it.
Auden said poetry makes nothing happen. But I wonder if the opposite could be true. It could make something happen.
You can find poetry in your everyday life, your memory, in what people say on the bus, in the news, or just what's in your heart.
The moment of inspiration can come from memory, or language, or the imagination, or experience - anything that makes an impression forcibly enough for language to form.
