Poetry again

I treated myself to a poetry writing book a few days ago and it's already come into its own. The book is by John Whitworth, unimaginatively titled 'Writing poetry' but I'm really enjoying it. He's enthusiastic about the great and popular poets but irreverent, explaining that they, too, write the odd stinker. It was good timing, another student on my course and I have exchanged poetry and are going to look it over on Sunday before exposing it to the group (possibly, well, me anyway). Her poetry is intense, strong, with a lot of rhymes and slant rhymes, passionate stuff. It makes me wonder if mine is too polite, too intellectual. I used to get told off for writing fiction that had the emotion drawn out of it. It's making me work, anyway, the Greenham poem is growing, and the ideas suggested by the Cixous readings (and others ) I've been doing has helped. I feel as if I read something, the tutor and group explain it to me, then I go back and read it with some understanding. There's no guarantee I will understand Jacques Derrida's piece though, that may be forever obscure. But Cixous, I loved, especially the idea of 'white ink', that women need to write to express their femininity rather than echo men's way of expressing themselves, in order to promote the feminist agenda. I've been reading all sorts of feminist literature, some from the 1970's and 1980's but some more recent stuff too. I've also realised how much of the semester has already ticked away and how little time I have left to put together a portfolio of poems and this Kafka/Freud thing (though I have read Kafka's letter to his father and The Blue Octavo Notebooks, the hunger artist and a few other short stories).

 I'm so tired, I'm looking forward to coming home and looking over the Cairn and writing. Snow permitting, as Exmoor is in the firing line again, and this often closes the link road. Stupid to build a main road lower than the fields all around that catch the worse of the weather! Snow is like a soft and a duvet cover in the wash, the sock goes in easily enough but is less likely to find its way out. Mind you, the worse bit of the journey is usually the steep drive!

Covered with snow it's impossible. We just get locked in. Oh, well. Home soon.