Film resource: Faber poet Lavinia Greenlaw interviewed

Lavinia Greenlaw can’t remember exactly when she wrote her first poem but in this short film made by Faber for Culture24 and National Poetry Day, her advice for aspiring poets is to get out and experience life. “When you want to write a poem” she says, “the last thing you should do is sit down at a desk and look at a blank page.”

When ready to write she recommends that you don’t use a computer, always use a notebook and read more than you write - especially “the foreign and the dead” . The other great tip for finding the muse is to “learn what it is that causes tension in you, what it is that keeps you awake - those are the things you’re going to want to write poems about”.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Culture24videos?feature=mhum#p/u/6/7UF58zFnu78