How to write a poem - with Roy McFarlane

Hello, I'm Billie from the Poetry Society, and I'm here with Roy McFarlane, poet and canal laureate of the UK's waterways. And we're here in Coseley by the Birmingham Canal to talk about Roy's poem Under a Winter Solstice Sky. Roy, it's lovely to be here with you, as part of your role as Canal Laureate, you've been all over exploring the UK's waterways and canals.

You've been writing about them, you've been celebrating them, you've been exploring them. What drew you to write about Coseley? Oh, Coseley is very close to my heart because really, I'm just living around the corner in Tipton. I used to keep walking down here, jogging down here, just having a good, healthy walk along here. And when I was asked to be a Canal Poet Laureate, I thought, where else would I start than the place that's on my corner? And so, I started to look into the stories around the Coseley Canal and just try to incorporate, almost like, picturesque view of what's happening whilst I'm walking along. And especially that we challenge themes of solstice and this was going to be the first poem.

So it's dawn on like December the 21st. And I wanted to write about the sun rising up on a winter solstice morning over the canal here in Coseley. Sun didn’t come up. It's freezing cold, but I really thought I caught the essence of the of the beauty of this canal. There's a real sense of journey and movement in the poem.

Really feels like you're physically taking us through the place. Can you explain a little bit about what your process was of writing the poem, and how you came to have that sense of journey in the poem? I think one of the key things, especially when asked to do this, the number one thing in my mind I was saying, I haven't got a boat, how am I going to talk about canals? But I equally realized that this is a beautiful inter land that we have access to that as so many stories, whether it's the history, whether it is the communities around here. I even myself, you know, growing up around the Black Country. So whether that's Wolverhampton, Tipton, jumping across canals and taking shortcuts through canals. These are our stories. So, so in writing, this is showing a journey through this particular canal on this particular winter solstice morning. I wanted to begin with this kind of transition from the world that we know.

So Coseley. You'll be walking through Coseley and at a certain part of Coseley. You won’t notice that a canal is here. And I walked behind, I think it was a Methodist church, through a gap in the fence, you suddenly saw this beautiful vista of this canal. And it’s at the back of Coseley. So it's like a magical, opening that takes you into this beautiful area.

And then so I start on the journey and especially theirs a part where I talked about, the heron. And I've got this thing about herons from the very first time I've seen herons, I've fallen in love with herons. And they feel like a spirit guide. And I think that journey on that morning was just perfect timing. Right at the bottom, the steps in the canal was a heron. Absolutely amazing. And then on top of that, to add to the stories I heard about the white lady. So it was just the perfect combination to write about this canal.

Coseley Canal tunnel at the back at Roseville Methodist Church, Moss and tuffs of grass make a patchwork quilt covering broken tarmac and rough terrain. Here, a gap appears in a palisade of fencing a portal onto another world. You stand with a bird's eye view and watch a vein of water freed from a tunnel below. You into the arm of this hidden wonderland. The kiss, kiss and warble sounds of birds, seduce you descending down to this underworld of the white lady who searches for her lost children.

In your poem, you have the myth of the White Lady. It's a sort of local folktale. How do you go about finding out about these local tales and putting them in your writing? I think the most important thing, I would advise writers, first of all, just get the poem out, get the initial thoughts, get that kernel of of thoughts on paper, and then afterwards you can go out and start researching. However you do that. I think either within my memory, somewhere in the back of my memory, there was the story of the white lady. And so I researched it and found out somewhere around 1901, a lady had lost her house, was falling on the rent, and the house is going to be taken from her. She may have had five children, if I remember correctly, and in despair.

Her husband was a drunkard, so it's total despair. She took her two kids and threw them off into the canal. And I think what they speak of is this ghost that is constantly walking through this tunnel searching for her kids. Spooky. And it's a tunnel I dread to go through, but it is just part of the things you look for. These little things to push the story along to make it different, to have these internal twist and turn. Yeah, I think it was a winter solstice. Yeah, that kind of kind of spooky. Yeah. And squirrels playing, jumping from tree to tree. And a heron welcomes you, spreads her wings and leads the way where trees are leaning avoiding the eternal slide down banks into charming waters.

Other trees fallen, bushes converted to the song of the canal bend and drink at the water's edge. Walk under the bridge and you find on a steep bank a discarded bumper, McDonald's cup, a Coca Cola tin and a running shoe and a reminder of the world above. I love in the poem how you you kind of celebrate everything about this canal. You know, you don't just talk about the beautiful heron, but you mention the Coke cans and the other things we might not necessarily think of as beautiful or romantic in that traditional poetic sense.

Why did you decide to include, you know, all of those things? Well, you see, what drove me is this idea of different worlds. So you, the the upper level, we have to go through a Paints. Yeah. Then you saw this beautiful and almost gave it an underworld that you descend into. But it's so beautiful. So all these images, I felt that I included showed different aspects of these worlds in one, one site. And then the idea of time slowing down when I speak of the trees slowly sliding into the into the water. So is all these different playing around with different levels, different time zones, different things. And I just for all that these were encapsulated in the journey of the canal.

And you see her amongst cattails and reeds. Still. Neck raised straight. Periscope height. Lengthened long. Statuesque still. And then she moves smooth criminal, the lean forward. She walks on water leaving no trace. Still. Neck drawn in. S shaped sabre. Ready for the lunge. She sees something. You both stay still, amongst the sounds of industrial roller shutters pulling in their neck, HGV’s stampeding by and a train roar, you both stay still. And a heron flies away.

The heron is a really strong character in the poem. What's the significance of the heron? Is it being like a spirit guide for me? Along these waterways. I really wanted to include in my first poem This Journey of the heron, just like the journey of the water. But I think you'll notice how the poem changes speed, because I think prior to that there's a bit more lyrical, a bit longer. And then when you get the heron that we watching the heron getting ready to attack its prey, there are very short, sentences and clauses and it's just to slow the poem down and just to see the action of this amazing heron and, I can't say any further. I just fell in love with the heron.

It was quite interesting where it was. It was at the bend of, of the canal where you could hear the industry behind you, you could hear the train humming along the side. And in all of that noise, the heron still held. It's like a statue, it just waited and then suddenly I'm like a heron trying to capture him with words, waiting to see what he was going to do next, and hopefully are caught there in that middle part of the of the poem.

Further along, after the waters bend – where coots slow slalom through reeds and the water is clearer, luminous green star plants shine underwater enraptured from another world – locks, these ancient keepers of waters. Locks who have known waters; Industrial waters, leisure waters, working waters, enchanting waters. Locks who have known waters under a Winter Solstice Sky.

Hello, I'm Billie from the Poetry Society, and I'm here with Roy McFarlane, poet and canal laureate of the UK's waterways. And we're here in Coseley, by the Birmingham Canal to talk about how you can get inspired to get writing about the canals and how you can get inspired by the canals near you. So, Roy, you were inspired by walking by your local canal.

And the canals are such an inspirational, beautiful place to walk, and to find things to write about. What advice would you give to someone looking to write a poem about their own local canal? So many things can inspire you, so you might not be a nature writer, as it were. You come along to the canal and you can see beautiful things, and you can see, you can be stimulated by people who are running, walking.

It could be the season. It's a summer. It's a beautiful day. It's winter and it's freezing cold. So many things that can trigger you to write about the canals. If you're a kind of person that loves the history of things, I've been blessed to talk to each riverboat enthusiast who have so much knowledge about their local canal.

So there are all these stories. Personally for yourself. May have fell in love by the canal. You may have got lost in the canal. I don't know, but all of these things are amazing. They have a thing called the Seven Wonders of the UK. Canals. Just have a look even if it was just to start with one of those seven wonders.

And just what how beautiful and amazing those sites are. How can you not write about the canal? So it's really just about getting out there, just being there, going there, finding out, writing, getting the history. And it doesn't just have to be, oh, I saw a beautiful duck I'm going to write about beautiful park there. It can be people.

Yeah, it can be stories. It can be history. It can be anyone who's walking by you imagining what their life could be. Absolutely. You make your own stories. Imagine where this person goes to after they’ve left the canal. Even the animals. Give them a story. What are they doing? How? They're chilling. I’ve got to write a whole book about herons.

Chilling. And I've a lovely time by the canals, but. Yeah. Be inspired. You, come down here morning, noon and night. Come here in all seasons and just be inspired. Would you recommend people sort of jot down lots of observations first, or how would you recommend they start? I mean, for me, I'm the sort of person that will just go straight into it.

You want to capture the inspiration, you want to capture that spark. And so we do this thing like called free writing where you don't worry about the grammar, you don't worry about how it shaped you don't worry if it's a sonnet or whatever it might be. You just write be caught by the image, be caught by the moment and just write and however you twist and turn, let it go.

Then when you go back, you may have a finished poem. You may have a poem that's two thirds good. So you, you know, you start a third in or you might end the third from the end, but soon as you've got the material, you could do all the research, you can do all the, add in and take away what you've got it. And then you do your research, then you add any other details you need to do, but you let the poem, it's almost like a got the poem right and to my hands But you let the poem evolve into whatever shape it's going to be.

Let the poem take over. What are your top tips for creating some beautiful images from the observations people might have collected at the canal? You want to be the new person like Shakespeare, writing cliches that are, not cliches, but writing something that's totally new and people can get a grab a hold of that.

So hopefully that when you see something, there's already something sparking off in your mind. So you get that going. And sometimes I'll often look for alliterations, so that's a repeat of the first letter of the word or the vowels I want, I want ‘oo’ sounds, which may reflect the flow of the water, or I might add a vowel sounds that might, might reflect an animal.

So you you build on words. I think it's always important, not only as poets. We often look young post, new post. We use our eyes. That's what we do. But we got to be about the ears and what we smell and what we taste. Well, though I'm not saying for you to taste anything at the canal, but you want all of the five senses flowing and we feel them.

We hear them, we smell. And you want to bring that across. And I think that's why I hope through the years of doing this that I bring across in many of the writings and, and just encourage new writers, go wherever the mind will make it up, because you're going to be the new person. That people will repeat your words as a cliche.

I can hear when you're talking about the poem and about being out here, how happy it makes you. And we know that writing is amazing for wellbeing and being out in nature is also amazing for wellbeing. How has writing about the canals impacted on your wellbeing and mental health? For me, it's a double whammy writing and walking in this beautiful, nature that that we've created, manmade, I guess, with all the canals that have been made, but still it's like we’re retaining and holding on to this, vein of beauty and stretch of beauty that, that goes through our backyards, that goes through our industrial sites. And then when you go out into the beautiful countryside, it's so beautiful. And I think, that journey is so profound for mental health, for our wellbeing. Certainly for me. I think I've already said prior to getting this role, I would, especially in Tipton, there's not much, green grasslands and parks.

And so the canal was this beautiful place that you can walk for miles. And every time you walk, there is a different stretch, different things that you see. Some places are open spaces. Some places are really beautiful with greenery, with flowers. In some places it's just what you're seeing in the waterway when you look amongst the reeds.

I mean, I've never knew what a coot was until I started walking along canals and researching it. So it is amazing for, I believe, for people's wellbeing. But we got to write about it, tell our stories. Again, I'm saying that many of us have grown, along these waterways. Many of us have holidayed with our families along here and imagine those stories that you can tell.

I've heard stories, we did a poetry competition, and we've invited people to write about poetry. And you got so much amazing stories in a family where maybe they've escaped from the hustle and bustle of of 9 to 5 and escape, and suddenly their whole life is changed. Or you got kids that have grown here and they can remember what their father used to do.

And then you go, all these. I could go on what I'm saying. We have got to save these canals, write about them and tell our stories alright. And on top of all of that, you know, it makes you learn things. It's exciting. It connects you to nature. It's also a lot of fun writing about the canals, being on the canals and writing about them, and learning to write a poem.

So I would really recommend getting down here and writing a poem yourself. Why not try it out? Thank you so much, Roy, for joining us today and talking about your poem. Billie, it's been amazing. Thank you for asking me all these questions, making me think, thank you for listening to my poems going on this journey about writing poetry.

And I hope you'll be out there this year, 2025. We're going to have a barrage. Is that right? We're going to have lots and lots of poetry. So I hope to see some of that. Thank you very much. Thank you.