Gaia Holmes, 2022 Competition Adjudicator,
"What Am I Looking For?"
What I’m Looking For
The poet, Emily Dickinson, said “If I feel physically as if the top of my head was taken off, I know that is poetry.” I agree with the sentiment in that I feel a poem should have a palpable effect on the reader. For me a good poem is a poem that lingers in the mind after reading, a poem that haunts, smoulders, resonates, leaves something behind, be that a scent, an emotion, an atmosphere or a striking image. A good poem will continue to hum in the heart (or the gut) for a while.
I like poems that look at the world from a different angle, poems that engage with the senses, poems that have strong bones and muscles, poems that illuminate the hidden lustre of the everyday, poems that seek out the magic of the mundane.
I’ll end with another quote, this time by the novelist Ali Smith. Smith says “Writing, writing anything at all, is to invite a dynamic meld of anarchy and discipline – to leave our prints in the fizzing fuse-lit possible places between order and chaos. I love this quote and use it often, and I love poems leave a print on my day.
Gaia Holmes is the author of 3 poetry collections, Dr James Graham’s Celestial Bed, Lifting The Piano With One Hand and Where The Road Runs out (Comma Press). She is a writing tutor and pet/house sitter and lives in Halifax in a tiny flat above the tree line on the top floor of a ramshackle Georgian mansion. She is currently working on her debut collection of short stories.
The poet, Emily Dickinson, said “If I feel physically as if the top of my head was taken off, I know that is poetry.” I agree with the sentiment in that I feel a poem should have a palpable effect on the reader. For me a good poem is a poem that lingers in the mind after reading, a poem that haunts, smoulders, resonates, leaves something behind, be that a scent, an emotion, an atmosphere or a striking image. A good poem will continue to hum in the heart (or the gut) for a while.
I like poems that look at the world from a different angle, poems that engage with the senses, poems that have strong bones and muscles, poems that illuminate the hidden lustre of the everyday, poems that seek out the magic of the mundane.
I’ll end with another quote, this time by the novelist Ali Smith. Smith says “Writing, writing anything at all, is to invite a dynamic meld of anarchy and discipline – to leave our prints in the fizzing fuse-lit possible places between order and chaos. I love this quote and use it often, and I love poems leave a print on my day.
Gaia Holmes is the author of 3 poetry collections, Dr James Graham’s Celestial Bed, Lifting The Piano With One Hand and Where The Road Runs out (Comma Press). She is a writing tutor and pet/house sitter and lives in Halifax in a tiny flat above the tree line on the top floor of a ramshackle Georgian mansion. She is currently working on her debut collection of short stories.
Gaia Holmes: "Poems that look at the world from a different angle..."
