Hi guys. My name's Ruth Awolola. I'm a poet, and I've been asked by the wonderful people
at The British Library to talk to you a little bit about my writing process. Normally, I'd
film this video at a desk, but we've just moved house and I don't currently have one.
That doesn't mean I haven't been writing. Writing is such an unrestrictive process.
All you really need is a pen and a piece of paper, and your imagination, and you're good
to go. So I'm in probably one of my favourite places to write, which is on my bed in my
bedroom, because it's where I feel most comfortable.
The writing process isn't just about the poem at the end. It's about the whole journey you
take to getting there. So I like to make sure that I'm in comfortable surroundings and I've
also got the right mindset, and that is excited. I don't know if this poem is going to be good
or bad when I'm writing it, but I know if I try hard enough, it will be new and different.
And that excites me. With that, let's get straight into it. I want to show you guys
my notebooks.
I've got a range of different notebooks, which are a range of different sizes so I can write
wherever I am. I've got these smaller notebooks, which I like to take out with me when I'm
on the go, because I know they fit right into my coat pocket. So if I have an idea during
the day, I can just jot it down or I can even do little tiny mind maps. On the other side
of the size spectrum, I've got big A3 project books where I like to write the central theme
idea for a poem down, and then just fill the page with every idea that I've got. You can
see here that these ones are color-coded. And I think they're coded by theme, so that
when I come back to write the poem from this, I can see clearly what fits into each bit.
And I've got everything in between, from school exercise books to A4 project books. I've got
a notebook that's going to fit into every single bag that I have. So I know that if
I'm out anywhere, I've got a book that I can take with me and I can write wherever I am.
I also really, really love writing on plain pieces of paper. So I've got some lined pieces
of paper here with poems on and mind maps on. I find with single sheets of paper, if
I'm not committed to the idea or if it's something really, really new and I write something down
on and I absolutely hate it, which happens so, so rarely, I can just throw it away; I
can recycle it and it's gone forever.
But if I like it, I can then write up one of these poems into what I like to call a
neat book. And this is one of my neat books, where I've got a collection of poetry that
I've written, that I've just written up nicely so I know if I've ever got to perform anywhere,
if I ever want to read back any of my work, and I want to make sure that it's really,
really clear, I've got it in one of these books. I think this is what most people presume
all my writing books are going to look like, something neat and orderly, but that's just
not what the creative process is. For every one of these books where I've got poems written
up neatly, I've got 10 of these books where I've just got ... I'm not even sure if you
can tell there's a poem on this page. I've just got words filling the entire page. And
I think this really, really demonstrates what the creative process is most like for me.
You can see, I think I've written the initial poem here. There's lines crossing out. I think
I started this poem and I read it back and I was like, "I'm not happy with that beginning."
So I went back and I wrote in the header here, a whole new beginning. There are words all
up and down the margin from where I had new ideas and I thought, "This has got to go in
the poem". And it doesn't matter that this page is messy because I can just write it
up again, like I showed you guys in that other book. But I know that this is where I got
all my initial ideas on to paper.
My favourite process for generating poems is actually the mind map process, as you might
have been able to tell. This is just another illustration of it, where I've had ... I think
for this poem I had the title of the poem, but I wasn't sure what I was going to put
into it. So I just put the title on this page and I filled this side of the page just with
all the ideas I had about what I wanted to go into the poem. And then on this side of
the page, I've written the poem. And I've gone on to perform this poem many, many times,
and it all started from this mind map just here.
On a loose sheet of paper is actually the mind map for my poem, Superpowers, which is
in Rising Stars: New Young Voices in Poetry. And I knew already before I started writing
this poem, what I wanted it to be about. I'd been watching a lot of films with my little
brother, and my little brother is probably my best friend in the whole entire world,
and I knew something that interested him and that also really interested me was superpowers.
So I started and I put "Superpowers" in the middle of the page and I thought to myself
... I had two questions; I had, "What are the different types of superpowers?" which
I've done down here in this little section, and "What is the aim of superpowers?" So I
thought back to all the content that I'd watched or read, and I thought, "Why have people got
powers? What is their aim and their purpose?"
And I wrote ... These were the ideas I had had. "Defeat the bad guys, save the world,
make things better, get the keys to the city, and get the girl or boy." And I thought these
were my starting ideas, and then from this, I was able to form the poem. And I think the
first stanza goes like this, "My little brother loves superheroes. He wants to change the
world, get the keys to the city, and save the girl." So I was able to highlight all
the ones that eventually made it into the poem. And down here, the highlighted ones
are the different types of powers, and each of the different types of powers forms a stanza
in that poem. So without this mind map, I don't think I would have been able to write
that poem.
So I want us to write a poem together, and I started a little bit earlier, but I will
show you how we're going to do it. So we're going to start by writing about what is probably
my favourite topic, which is me. And you don't have to write about me, you guys get to write
about yourselves. But we start with a mind map, and in the centre of the mind map, we
have the term "Me". And unlike the superpowers mind map, you can see that there are some
words at the top here, which are, who, what, where, why, when and how. And those are the
... I remember I referred to them at school as the five Ws and the H. And these are just
going to help us if we get stuck for ideas.
So I always find that sometimes just being presented with the topic "Me" can be quite
hard. Like, "What do you want me to write there?" But if we use the question words,
it can help inform what we're going to put on the mind map. So ask yourself questions
like, "Who am I? Who are my family? What: What do I enjoy doing? What do I do in my
spare time? Where: Where are my favourite places? Why am I writing this?" This is always
a fun one. "And when: "When's my favourite time of day? When's my favourite season of
the year? How: How do people describe me?"
So just spend some time filling out this mind map, asking yourself some questions about
yourself. I did it earlier and this is what I've come up with. So I have the "Me" in the
middle, the question words at the top. I've got some of the TV programs that I like, the
football team I support. I've got my two brothers, an older brother and a younger brother. It
says loud, kind, and funny here, which is how I think my friends would describe me.
And we've got, "I love the park" because I like watching the trees. And then I thought,
"Why would I be writing this?" And probably the reason I write poetry is because my teachers
told me I could write poetry.
So once you've got your mind map and you can fill it up ... there can be far more entries
than this. Just fill it up with as many things about yourself as you can think. And then
from that, pick one to write a poem about. I have decided to write about "My teacher
told me to." I've done the mind map for that one here as well. For this one, I decided
to make it color-coded, just because I thought there might be a little bit more ideas than
on the original first one. And this is the last one I'm going to do before I finally
write the poem. And for each question word, I've written a question and then put that
in a different colour.
So for example, "Who told me to write a poem?" I was thinking who's ever told me to write
poems, and I've got my English teachers and I've got my poetry mentors. And I've written
Joelle Taylor down here, who's going to make a special appearance in the poem because she
was the first person who made me think that my writing was any good. I've got, "What did
they tell you to write about?" And I've got different ideas here, stuff that I care about.
"Write about what you know. Write anything I wanted. Write about myself" because that's
what we've been doing today. And, "When should I write? Whenever I want." So from this mind
map, I went away and I wrote a little bit of a poem, which I would love to share with
you guys. And it goes like this.
Mrs. Taylor says, "Pick up a pen and write me a poem."
I had so many things to say, but I didn't even know them.
Poems seem so structured, like they take time to organize.
What might makes me a poet? Where can I get authorized?
She says, "You need to pick up a pen and just get started.
It doesn't matter if it's messy, we just care where your heart is.
You can write about anything and anywhere.
Write about Spain, Senegal, about space.
Write at school, in your bed, and on the train.
Write about love. Write about hope. Write about pain.
Write about the sun and the wind and the rain.
Write about anything. Just tell me what's in your brain."
And I really, really enjoyed writing that and it's from all the ideas that I was able
to get from this mind map. So hopefully, you guys can have a go at it too and make a mind
map and then make some poetry from that. Good luck. Thank you for listening.