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performance of the poem does in fact matter. Perhaps it‘s not just the
process of co-inquiring with poetry that is important?
But is it Art?
“Art? You just do it.” Martin Ritt cited in Cameron (1992 p.141)
Because of writing poetry, I joined a multi-professional organisation called
LAPIDUS (Literary Arts for Professional and Personal Development).
Through this organisation I mixed with ‗real poets and artists‘ or rather
people who attempted to make a living out of poetry and other creative art
forms. I gained a lot of supportive interest in how I was using poetry with
nurses. John Killick, a well established poet asked to review some of them
and gave advice on making them more effective. I tended to name the
emotion in the poem and he encouraged me to remove this allowing the
reader to experience the emotion directly. For example, I changed the
penultimate line of ‗Neck Cancer‘ from ―Perhaps the nurse hears my silent
weary sigh‖ to ―perhaps the nurse hears my silent sigh‖ which makes the
ending of the poem more effective. As Goldberg (1986 p.68) recognised
―Don‘t tell, but show‖ is part of the craft of creative writing. Holmes and
Hunter suggested writing poetry involves 3 phases:
―a) creating an image of experience
b) fully articulating the image and
c) sharing a clear new meaning of the image‖ (1998 p.1192).
Evidently, some of my poems don‘t do this very well, consequently, they
are unlikely to engage and resonate with others. Fenton proposes (2003
p.22) ―the handling of rhythm and form is instinctive rather than codified‖.
Similarly I found I was not consciously aware of how I was crafting the
poem or its embedded meaning which came later, mostly through its
performance. I found a tension in writing poetry which seems to mirror a
tension in reflective writing. In imposing a specific form on a poem this
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