Right outside the window of the Spread the Word writing room at The Albany, Deptford the bustling street market was in full swing. We fuelled up with coffees and compulsory cake and flapjack from The Albany café, put our heads down and waited for Jacqueline Saphra’s critique and feedback on the next batch of poems in our current manuscript.
On this occasion we were both much more relaxed than in our first mentoring session and one of the first things we discussed was the many different ways of giving and receiving feedback. It was reassuring to hear from Jacqui that even the most established poets share poems with each other and have differing ideas about which bits to edit out and which bits to leave untouched. Bolstered by this knowledge, we engaged in lively discussion about individual poems and about how to make them the best they can be. Pretty soon, there was almost as much noise inside the room as out . Look, said Jacqui, you’re both making suggestions and comments about each others’ poems unprompted by me.
Progress!
By the end of the day, we both had London Undercurrents poems – new and old – ready to overhaul. Some only needed a little tinkering with (technical term). Others, a complete rethink. Alongside this, we talked about research material for new poems, and just as the three of us started losing our voices, the bin men saved us by playing Christmas carols so loud we couldn’t hear ourselves think. We locked up the room (thank you Spread the Word for your hospitality) and headed out into the dark cold night energised and excited. That’s the magic of – coffee? cake? mentoring? poetry?
London Undercurrents 