When I write poetry what I try and go for is something that makes you shiver. Not as in it makes you cold… just that it makes you shiver. Kind of a strange concept, still. The idea is that I want the words, the images – and ideas created to be ‘strong’ enough – that you read them and just think ‘wow’. Or as I do, you can ‘shiver’. Unfortunately it is hard to get this effect more than once (in a set time period). See when I read something I haven’t for a while I can get the power of it… but if I read it again straight after, it isn’t nearly as good.

An idea I seem to play with a lot is the personification of death. Even in a poem that may not seem to be about death can change and twist. There is a specific poem I have in mind here, however I wont show you as it is around one hundred and twenty lines long. Basically it starts in a riot, not necessarily a riot though – rather something chaotic. Then it turns… Death is personified and becomes the topic, this then leads up to the final conclusion. See there is another twist here. The poem turns to a discussion between death and yourself (the reader), whereas at first it was a discussion about death. The narrator of the poem is actually Death himself, in a way. That poem makes me shiver.

Looking further into my own writings I came across the first poem I really ‘wrote’. I must have written poetry before – but only because I had to, never by choice. According to my computer I have been writing poems for a little under three years now. That said I don’t write much poetry nowadays.

I need a new muse.

Also has anyone read The Book Thief? If you havn’t you really should. It too personifies Death. After all he is the narrator of the entire story.