Researching for writing. People sometimes ask about where ideas and inspiration come from. I know this exasperates some writers but I don’t mind. I often say that poems can be prompted by objects, by places, by ruminations, but also sometimes by other poems or stories themselves. A story can sometimes generate a kind of power for an individual. It holds the attention, haunts the mind, hangs around and calls thought back to it. As a poet I sometimes take this as a cue to spin something of my own about it. 

This spinning can take two forms at least. One form is to allow the original piece to work like a trigger, to spark off something of one’s own, so the original piece is a kind of springboard or launch-pad. The other form is to re-tell. I only re-tell if I’m particularly motivated to do so. There has to be quite a strong impetus or impulse to prompt this. Why bother otherwise? There may be several good available versions of the tale. So why add to the pile unless you can bring something special to it by a new treatment? 

At present John Lawrence has just completed his final artwork for my verse retelling of the Wayland legend. Wayland was the Norse or Northern European blacksmith and metalworker to the gods. He shoed horses, made armour and weaponry and also created wonderful jewellery and treasures of all kinds. I hope you’ll read all about it when our book is published (Wayland or The Heart Song of Wayland Smith, pub. dfb forthcoming…). The book consists of a full verse retelling of the legend, ballad style, a curious blend of traditional and contemporary. It has a coda which is a single lyric poem, which reads more fully and feelingly to those who know the story. 

Originally I showed the lyric poem The Heart Song of Wayland Smith to David (Fickling) as one of many poems in a putative collection. David liked the poem very much and was equally (& characteristically :) interested in the synoptic note that recounted some main facts from the legend, to assist a reading of the poem (I think I’m known now for unashamedly sprinkling my poetry collections with little notes to inform the reader of facts pertinent to particular poems). I’d already written many narrative verse retellings for my books with David (The Tale of Tales, The Storyteller’s Secrets, The Seal Hunter, ‘The Selkie Bride’, ‘The Woodcutter’s Daughter’) and he asked if I might be interested in using that mode to retell this story which he thought a tale of great power. My fire was lit. This was definitely a project to get me going.  Read the rest of this entry »