Great conversation yesterday with poet and author Michael Symmons Roberts who was in Oxford for a Literary Festival event, and then came and joined us for lunch. Interesting discussions around the whole creative process - like Tom's question:what rituals do you have that mark out your writing time? - and Michael telling us that after the initial burst of creating a poem, it may go through as much as 50 drafts in the making of it. He read some poems from his most recent (and brilliant) collection Corpus, and told us how it feels to have his first novel published this week [Patric's Alphabet] - a bit exposed.... Michael's advice to any us of interested enough in the dance of words to think about writing poems: read lots of different poetry, and then give yourself to the crafting of it. Find out more on the website Michael Symmons Roberts
Thursday, April 12, 2007 - 7:10pm