Here’s a little quirky poem I wrote a while ago for my poetry course.
I fiddled with the title for months and then settled on the very first one. But the title was certainly not the only thing I fiddled with; the line breaks also had to endure a lot of editing…
Playing with line breaks is one of my favourite things to do when writing poetry because they have so much input into how the poem is read, especially in terms of rhythm and intonation. In Thoughtwalker I mainly wanted to use this to convey the jumpy thought-hopping I was writing about and the way puppies too seem to start something new in the middle of something else.
In a way, writing poetry too sometimes feels like trying to keep 5 overexcited puppies walking in the same direction:
transcript:
They’re a band of puppies on leashes
that I have to walk
up and down the street, they leap
over each other, and run
in different directions.
Sometimes, the ones that leave
are not the same ones
(they’re a different colour or a different breed,
and I think: Where did you come from?)
that come back.
Or they just don’t come back at all…