[quote=Simon Whild]I find it difficult to write poetry to order. My day to day work involves writing prose, so I find that a lot of poetic ideas are born from writing about apparently mundane things where a phrase or sentence will spark off a chain reaction that eventually ends up as a poem. In this sense, poetry is often a by-product of other writing. I always keep a notebook handy (I used to use a small hard bound notebook, but now rely on an electronic PDA) and jot every idea and phrase down. When I go back to it, I often find that my subconscious has been working this "idea seed" in the time since I came up with the idea and it will then sometimes develop into a proper poem. 

Very often, I get poetic ideas when I'm in the car. Somehow the act of driving stimulates my "idea pump." If this happens, I use my PDA to dictate ideas for later use. Sometimes an idea will develop, and other times it won't. However, when an idea does start to work, it can take from a few minutes to several years before I'm happy with the result and I get that "it's finished" feeling. Once I get this feeling, I know that there's nothing more I can do and the poem is ready to go to town. If all I get after working on a "seed" is a fragment that doesn't really stand on its own, I file this away in a "Fragments" folder and very often I will write other things that will go with this fragment without being aware that the two snippets are related. There have been many occasions when several fragments, written over long periods, dovetail exactly and I have a more or less finished work sitting there just waiting to be pieced together. 

I often go back to old poems and make alterations and revisions, and in this sense the poem is often an organic thing that can change and evolve over time. Obviously, if the poem has been published, then it's "chiselled in stone" and it's usually best to leave it be. However, very often reading an old poem can act as the springboard to a new totally different one. 

Developing a poem usually involves an element of brainstorming where I'll jot down ideas around the idea in a Buzan box sort of way and often the words then start to flow. This usually results in a raw poem that I file away for a while to give me some artistic objectivity. When I later return to the raw poem, it is with the eyes of someone approaching the poem for the first time and I usually pretend it's someone else's work that I've been given to pull apart. At this point, I begin by scanning the metre of the poem and make correction there to allow form to follow function. This involves creating rhyme, alliteration, assonance etc. where appropriate.

It should never be forgotten that poetry is essentially a verbal medium rather than a written one (with the exception of "shape" poetry) and I find that reading a work in progress out aloud can highlight many of its shortcomings. Once a poem sounds good, I then leave it again for a while (from several minutes to several years -- there's no hard and fast rule) and try it again when I'm fresh. I keep doing this until the "finished" feeling starts to assure me that it's time to leave the work be and move on to fresh pastures.[/quote]