Media contributions
1Media contributions
Title Some thoughts on Merlinda Bobis’ process Degree of recognition International Media name/outlet Poetry in Process: Understanding poetic process from inspiration to final edit Media type Web Country/Territory Australia Date 1/11/19 Description Hello poets and readers,
In our recent podcast with poet Merlinda Bobis, she notes that consciousness of process comes about after the fact. While writing, she is too busy leaping from one thought to another to allow for this kind of reflection. Something captures her and makes a poem possible. She describes the initial impetus as an accident –her book title Accidents of Composition reflects this – the poem has to retain an element of surprise. The poem leads her, and further accidents happen as she writes, through associations; the poems seem to compose themselves. Analysing her own text, she remembers what gave rise to it, an act of contextualising how the work happened, and of looking at it as a reader. Even her return to poetry from the novel was accidental. Her writing often begins with strong images; sometimes she takes photos to use as prompts – the sense of ‘something else’ that is in the image becomes the poem.Producer/Author Owen Bullock Persons Owen BULLOCK