Writing is play
I like games. You like games. We like games. Let’s play a game: wave your hands in the air and wiggle your knees if you like games! Is everyone wobbling about like they’ve turned to elastic? Good.
For me, writing is play!
Stories are just games that I play – games with words. I’ve always loved puns, rhymes, jokes and riddles. On one old scrap of paper I found from when I was a kid, me and a mate had written out all of the characters from Star Wars, only we’d made them items of food. Flan Solo. C-3PeaO. The red lasers were ketchup, innit.
Games are a way for me to have fun, but they’re also more than that. I’ve often found it hard to talk about big feelings or remember small details about my friends’ lives. But when I game, I feel this close connection with the people I’m playing with.
I think Press Start to Play, my first poetry collection, came from that impulse. From having lots (and I do have LOTS) of silly ideas, and wanting to write them down. From wanting to play. And from wanting to connect!
I’ve always written poetry, but never shared it much. I love how every poem is its own thing. A little mini world that you get to explore and work out the rules for. When you write a poem, it’s like you get to reset all the rules of writing. It can go however you want it to go.
Poetry’s for everyone.
But not everyone likes poetry. If that’s you I’m talking about, maybe you could look for poetry in other things. You could look at hip-hop, or riddles, or not-too-rude limericks, or the lyrics of your favourite song, or the weird little catchphrases that members of your family always say (like my nan, who will look at a cloudy sky and say ‘well, as long as there’s enough blue to patch a sailor’s trousers.’ Which means that as long as you can see some blue between the clouds, it won’t be miserable weather.) There are lots of things that are really poetic without necessarily being poems.
Have a look in the back of my book – there are loads and LOADS of poem ideas and games in there for you to explore. Play around with a few of them here. And if you have any poetry games for me to play, send me a message and let me know!