Development

Normally. when I am inspired to write a poem, it comes out quite quickly. I have the idea and the words swim through my brain and out onto the page or the computer screen. There are usually some small revisions as I try to get the best words in the best order but after a day or two the deed is done and by then the tide of my inspiration has receded.

With "Stanage Edge" I am deliberately doing it differently, putting reins on the emerging poem and sometimes leaving days between my tinkerings and final word choices. You may recall that I first shared my little scheme a month ago in a blogpost I titled "Incubation".

I want to do justice to this poem  because Stanage Edge is so special - not just to me but to lovers of the outdoors  in this northerly region of England. When my late brother Paul was studying biological sciences at Liverpool Polytechnic at the end of the 1960s, he was a member of the rock climbing club that visited Stanage Edge several times and when our children were very small we had a brief tradition of putting the big turkey in the oven on Christmas morning and then heading out to Stanage for a breezy winter walk. Stanage Edge is as familiar to me as Trafalgar Square is to London taxi drivers.

To write a worthy poem about Stanage Edge is a challenging but ultimately satisfying task. I might not get there but I am doing my best. Metaphorically speaking, it would be easier to stay home watching the television of inaction than tramping about on the moorland edge of poetry, exposed to the wind.

Last Sunday as I walked between the Handleys, two lines arrived in my mind like seals coming up for air. I did not consciously beckon them, they just arrived at the surface and when I got back home I remembered to write them down:-

Unfleshed the naked bones

Nothing changes like permanence

I rather like those lines for they do speak of the geology and the seemingly apparent timelessness of Stanage Edge. Now the  task is to incorporate the lines within the main body of the poem though I might leave them as an epigraph that provides a hint or foretaste of what will follow.  

In building the poem, I have written more than 2000 words so far in a Word document and I have handwritten a thousand more words on lined paper. I have researched history, geology, birds and plants as well as the names of rock climbing routes. Stable buildings require solid foundations.

So yes, I have not forgotten my ambition but I think the poem needs more time to mature like cheese or wine. I will keep working on it, editing, polishing, adding new ideas, deleting others. I feel that I owe it to myself as well as Stanage Edge.