Thoughts on TMA03

I think I've completed my poem for TMA03. I can't think what my tutor will make of it as it's the first real poem I've attempted since I was at school many, many years ago. In fact that's just what people say isn't it? this is my first, whatever, since I was at school. In truth I don't ever recall writing a poem at school, or anywhere else. This could be a life first.

Under the strict university code I can't divulge either the poem or any details about it in public. Well that's not entirely true, I've bothered my partner about it often enough, and for all I know, though I seriously doubt it, she has shared the poem I sent to her with all her friends and family, together with all their friends and family, their tennis partners etc, you know the joke. I think what I'm saying is that I should not write it down anywhere lest it gets caught in the OU's searching software and later defined as plagiarism when the TMA is first read as a putative original work. So specific mention of it in public written form will have to wait.

That said I've elected, against the advice of everyone it seems, to go with a forty line poem - making the forty lines in one hit, a single amorphous lump if you will. It was almost a sestina - get me - until I learnt that sestinas are 39 lines with recurrent endings throughout the stanzas. Bit late for changes now and in any case turning it into one of those would be poetic suicide as it would doubtless unsettle the whole work if I messed with it now. I've also found some other technical terms that I've forgotten that by complete chance this poem, structurally might be described as being. If I remember I'll be sure to blog this as it might help fix them in my mind for when I do the dreaded commentary.

The poem itself is a mighty work of effort on my part. But only because I'd no idea what I was doing until I started it. Rather than mess about with the Workbook and struggle on with W N Herbert, about whom more later, and attempting all those exercises; I thought I would craft something that would always be my final work, and as I learn things along the way, allow the poem to evolve by constantly changing it: adding and removing words and phrases, introducing new helpful sounds; manufacturing alliteration and assonance, sharpening the beat counts, alternating form through experiment, constantly trying to improve flow, inventing new ideas to link in with the old; all whilst reading the chapter and learning about ideas and techniques - but always working on this individual poem and its ultimate purpose: to be submitted as TMA03.

So this poem might well be the result of much effort, but only because I've avoided many other exercises from the chapter by working constantly on it. Many other students would've done a lot more work and in some cases doing it still before embarking on their submission work. I'm really not sure whether I would recommend my form of studying, it works for me but I somehow doubt that it would work for others. It's a kind of inverted study where you start as if you know everything and then gradually confirm what you already knew, that you know nothing, and then steadily apply the new you to the page. I suppose it's a bit like a painter with a blank canvass that's begging to be transformed into art, bits of ideas, inspiration, choice. It's like learning your craft and what you might be able to do with it, along the way whilst others, in this case, encumber themselves with WN's lists, and experiments with onions and marrows (write from within etc). Then, and this is crucial to why I do what I do, leaving the TMA - the only thing that really matters, the only thing that will determine whether you feel in your bones that there's a writer in you and or a decent degree result - to the last few panicky days or hours in some cases, when maybe, maybe, it's too late.

I've promised to re-acquaint myself with the Herbert chapter today now that my poem is very nearly complete. I actually think he appears a rather engaging fellow and there is some good stuff in his chapter that I will take fresh note of as my poem goes through its final buffing. I refuse to join others in ripping his poetic heart out and feeding it to the wolf pack and joining the braying fray who are busily learning poetry from Stephen Fry's Ode Less Travelled. Herbert is a published poet, Fry is a dabbler who rages against free verse and is great as General Melchett. That's it.