Writing the Perfect Beast #36

Starting in October 2025, I decided to talk honestly about the business of how I write poetry. There are people who teach how to create poetry, how to format it, how to submit and how publishing in general, works. I am not seeing that many people shining a light on what you need to do with your brain and mental attitudes to make all of that knowledge stick, grow and then evolve. HI THERE.

On what now becomes a new, regular on Sunday post, LET'S GET SERIOUS.

Forest Management S. Reeson - presale, signed

‘A fascinating pamphlet’ - Wendy Pratt; ‘unflinching, inventive poems of discovery, trauma and healing’ - Jen Feroze; ‘...candid, skilful and often unsettling poems; a forest trail that leads us through fear and reflection to a place of revelation.’ - Nina Parmenter

The Flight of the Dragonfly Bookshop

I’ve thrown the last three day’s worth of warmups into a new project, and I feel it’s time to accept that my inability to maintain a consistent pattern of effort right now is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, yesterday’s warmup, which was to a title I’d pre-selected to fit a pre-planned order, was such a surprise that I’m still reeling a bit in shock. The assumption was we were done with personal contemplation.

It turns out there is stuff that still needs dealing with, and that single poem did it so succinctly, so objectively, it does very much feel there’s a line drawn. We are done with adding actual work for now and so there will be a period of poking and reflecting before this goes to a window that I have absolutely 100% no idea about at all. The end result won't be someone else liking this anyway.

The end result is my brain accepting this is a brand new place to begin.

Next week is the most important I've had for a couple of months. In it is the Open Mic slot OF LITERAL DREAMS, three meetings (one with my publisher to SIGN BOOKS) and a significant outcome which, having longlisted for, I will be happy with regardless if there ends up being no further forward motion. Then, on Wednesday, we move into full on Yellow Jug Mode.

It's becoming increasingly obvious to me as time goes on that the less I obsess about the process and the more I focus doing what makes me happy, the better life is becoming, so that's where we are now. It also helps hugely that the little drop into trauma in the week has kickstarted my desire to do everything a bit more healthily. So, that's the other task for the next seven days.

There'll be a #PromptCombo warm-up from Bluesky tomorrow. After that, I reckon we might be able to go back to where we were...