The DIY for poets, or friends of poets. Everything you need to keep poets happy - including the 'Ivory Tower'.
Not to be taken entirely seriously!
Excerpt:
Give them an Ivory Tower We all know that poets die young – unless they’re Wordsworth, so a good insurance policy might be useful. However, there are poets and poets, and not all of them are as depressive as Coleridge, nor on laudanum (like Coleridge), nor have difficult family circumstances (like Coleridge), nor find themselves unappreciated
(like Coleridge!).
But every poet values their own Ivory Tower. It may be a shed at the bottom of the garden, a favourite chair, a room at the top of the house (when it’s not the computer room, the guest bedroom, the box room, the overflow playroom…). It may not be a room at all. If you are like Wordsworth, then booming loudly around the Lakes (and scaring all passing tourists) is your perfect opportunity to ‘sound out’ your poems.
Because all good poets love to read their work aloud – even to themselves (quite often, only to themselves). You would not object to a musician practising out loud, nor an artist painting on a beach somewhere, so why consider the tools of the trade (pen and notebook) less ‘work’ than other arts?
Doodle Bugs
It may have been fashionable in the 18th century, for poets to use quill and parchment, but nowadays they use pen and paper. Some of them even use computers, laptops, MP3s and social networking sites. Poets don’t need an excuse to doodle, just give them a little space, or grit, or disaster, and you will find their fingers begin to twitch. This is a serious affliction. There is no solution, except by giving them the desired choice of recording equipment.
It is unfortunate that some poets are afflicted as soon as their brain changes gear – by driving the car – and then the only safe option is to pull into a lay-by. Since writing poetry takes more energy than using a mobile phone, it is advisable to switch off the engine – and the heating – because otherwise you could be delayed for hours.
It goes without saying that most experienced poets will leave a notepad and pen in every room in the house – including the smallest. No, it’s not to write shopping lists.
Most poets’ scribbles may resemble shopping lists – do not be fooled –a list of unrelated objects is the beginning of a genuine (even, a prize-winning) poem. Quite honestly, no-one else has the genius to see beyond a shopping list as broad as the Encyclopaedia Brittanica.
