By which I mean when a poem comes through to one and you are simply recording it rather than writing it.

The clearest experience for me was when I was one day mowing a lawn with my mind fairly blank (no wise cracks please) concentrating on the task at hand. I then noticed I was kind of unconsciously reciting a poem.

I ran into the house and wrote the words down as they came through and that is how 'To be a condom' came into the world.

I am not a person who believes in the supernatural and I tried to objectively examine how it might have occurred. I can't remember thinking about being a condom before the poem came to me or being concerned about condoms in any way.

I did remember, I think, that someone's radio was playing 'to be a pilgrim' as I was mowing and that was perhaps where the phrase 'to be a condom' came from. However, the rest of the poem came out fully formed and needed no editing from me afterwards.

It was a very strange experience but one that has happened (unbidden) several times in my life and I have no explanation for how or why it happens.

I'm pretty sure that it's coming from my subconscious as the poem/song/story seems to be in my style and often seems quite, what can I say, known to me somehow. And I can't believe it's coming from somewhere or someone else.

Still a bit of a mystery to me.

Has it happened to you?

I sense that I'm going to love this thread.
That has never happended to me Paul. I have to be emotionally engaged or angry with a subject for my poems to self write. Clearly you weren't angry or emotionally engaged by the thought of a condom, unless the pilgrim music in the background brought forth a rush of something.

I would be overjoyed if something similar happended to me whilst mowing the lawn. I would be a little more worried, if, whilst 'on the job', your mind turned to the thought of lawn mowing. But who knows - poetic inspiration of that nature might be fortuitious and produce a more enduring piece of work.
I'd love to read your condom poem. Is there any chance of re-posting it?

The thought occurs to me. Perhaps it was the souls of all those unborn lives, those might have beens, those near misses, speaking through you about their nemesis...

Fascinating. It will be interesting to hear what what people have to say. For me - whole poems never. Phrases and lines, yes.

My latest poem is called Dust. It just settled on me.

I can completely identify with what you are saying, Paul, as it happens with me a lot of the time...

Do you too have a condom poem up your sleeve then Francine?

I guess it's not unreasonable to suggest that with a "condom" themed poem you might well have a foretaste of what was coming . . .

Or perhaps it's a question of déjà nu...

Interesting thread Paul.. for me at least :-)
and some quite witty comments following on from yours too. Just the sort of comments i would expect from anyone who hasn't experienced it :-)

I have often wondered if there is any real difference between what some people describe as inspirational writing and automatic writing? Discussion welcome.

As many people here already know, i came into poetry at a late age and very new to it, having read very little, practically no poetry at all by published poets.
Having said that... almost everyone seemed to think my writing 'had' something poetic about it.
All the poems i wrote which came unsought were the ones which received most comment and favourable comment at that. The ones which i actually sat down intentionally to write were always faulted in some way or suggestions on how to improve them because they were forced and didn't scan.

I admire those who can sit and write great poetry in a strict format. It does nothing for me whatsoever except to restrict the natural flow and in some cases actually stop it completely to the point of writing nothing at all.
I do think reading poetry as well as researching some basic principles on how to write it can assist automatic writing though.

Any more thoughts anyone? Funny or otherwise?

I would agree with you there Janet. Prior reading and learning can only help to make that 'automatic' writing sound good - often without us even realising just how much we've absorbed from it. It is so important to read the work of others, amateur or otherwise - just to make ourselves more rounded philosophically as well as technically.
I think that very many people confuse inspired writing with automatic writing. I have known a couple of people who actually think in poetry, talk in poetry. A conversation with them is like listening to poetry. Although I have had a few poems that I think self wrote - they didn't come to me pre-formed. I still worked on the sentences after, brushed them up before I released them. Those capable of automatic writing are wired in a different way - I'm very envious of them - though I've no doubt it could seem like a curse at times.
Those are my serious thoughts on the matter. x

I have been known to wake up early in the morning...not very often as I have become somewhat lazy since breaking my leg and can't jump up like I used to do but sometimes words, poetic themes, would pop into my head and I would right them down but on fully waking up they never made any sense,so in the bin they went,usually I find that a phrase I have heard becomes the basis for my poems.

I understand where you are coming from there Isobel. Do you not find though that some of those little words that you edited out still accidentally slip out when actually reading them out loud?
I think that's what i mean when i say poetic flow. Sometimes the pauses are in the wrong place and removing some words stills or halts the natural spoken flow :-)
I say that at the risk of going slightly off topic.

Chris - they say we should never bin anything. It might be useful for another poem one day :-)

Hey Paul! Maybe the condom idea was so your poem wouldn't get pregnant?
Capping the flow so to speak :-)

No Janet - once something is committed to paper and posted, it tends to stay that way. The editing I do is deliberate and normally improves the flow of the poem when I perform it. I think the problems arise when you are trying to work within a formal structure that you are not comfortable with. You have to be at ease with the language and structure you are using or it becomes hard to perform - in my experience anyway.

Would agree with Chris on the early morning poetry thing - how many of us have done that? I refuse to wake myself up now. Automatic writing doesn't exist for me - not enough to lose sleep over, anyway. The problem I have it is at the other end of the day, switching off from it...

Yep, happens to me quite a lot. I haven't written anything for about 12 years, and a lot of my recent writing has felt like it's 'fallen' through me.

A word or phrase will stick in my mind, and I can't stop thinking about it. So I write it down, and then if I sort of 'relax' inside (it's really hard to articulate how it feels - almost like my insides separate from my skin, and I 'detach' from reality and my current surroundings), a lot of the words will fall through me, like a waterfall.

The first line from the recent Ramblin' Man poem was taken from a discussion about exactly this. The person I was discussing it with said that he felt that creativity, the process, was like a fountain, but I feel (literally) like it's more like a waterfall, falling through me.

It doesn't 'write' ENTIRE poems - but it does affect most of it. I generally do a little tweaking for a while after the main bulk has been put down, but not for too long.

Like Janet, any time I sit down to deliberately try and write something, it doesn't work. Comes out as terrible nonsense, doggerel in fact.

phrases or ideas pop up naturally- usually when i'm driving. but only once or twice has poem just written itself, with minimal edits. i thought automatic writing was more like 'stream of consiousness'? am i mixing the two up? you just write and write and write and then you can either use the end result in all it's randomness and gobbledygook or fish out the best bits to resculpt something new?

ps. isobel- you are dead funny :-)

i used to when i was younger write poems in one draft and then never touch them again only.. As far as I am aware like Louise, it is more stream of consciousnes, nowadays I am a bit more slower rather pacing, teasing the piece out until it sometimes can be totally different from the original meaning!

writing workshops are totally different however, i feel in the sense of you are given a few minutes to scribble a idea down.. that's when things can be different for me! A

I'm not sure that Paul has the actual 'intent' of 'automatic writing'.Although 'recording a poem wholesale' is in the right ballpark. Historically, it is supposed to be a 'conscious' subordination to your 'unconscious', a wooing of your deepest mind to move your fingers automatically, unbidden, into pushing a pen, making the 'words/message' that comes from 'somewhere else'. It sometimes came out in 'codes' or 'pictures' or 'scribbles' that had to be duly interpreted. The idea had a heyday with witch-hunting; or similar messages channelled 'directly' from angels and/or God through selected persons, to condemn people to death with this 'proof'. I think we need to define exactly what we're talking about. Perhaps a whole new approach using the same terminology but not the method is now in artistic vogue. Let's be clear. 'Recording that which is already known' seems a good start. But I do think the title of Paul's overheard song was a catalyst to a very relaxed but active mind seething with ideas, which may have hooked up to the lawn mower catching grass or aborting natural seeding. Who knows?

I wouldn't call what Paul is talking of "automatic writing" which I associate either with trance states or with surrealism. Yeats was a believer in it bringing "messages" from the spirit world. The surrealists used it as part of their "derangement of the senses" technique.

Much of the stuff i write comes like Laura's. I would describe that as inspirational rather than automatic.
I can understand what Steven talks about with regards to trance states and surrealism.
I'd like to think that Yeats was right. I tend to feel the surrealists are/were under the influence of strong emotions or perhaps a hypnotic state induced by drugs/medicines/fever etc..

I've read a lot of Pete Crompton's poetry and there have been many which are similar to streams of consciousness with several themes running through them. Almost as if there is two or even three separate poems in one stream. I don't know if Pete himself knows where they come from. Pete? Are you there? ;-)

and Isobel, yes i know. Showing my ignorance again. It shows that you work on editing your poetry and if i'm honest, i almost envy your ability to do it for yourself and to your own satisfaction ;-)

I agree that it isn't automatic writing in the sense the 'psychics' use it. I don't know what else to call it. It is taking dictation of words that are coming through one without, as far as I can remember, consciously thinking anything i.e. just concentrating on catching the flow of the words not consciously forming them.

Also, I have to say, that sometimes it is total rubbish and I bin it immediately.

here's tomtom toes he never mulled and crotchets came to him in hiccups. So, my Genghis thoroughbred imbroglio who milks your stature, when do you expel ringtones from your domain? How came the munchkins to be spared enslavement, who opened the footlockers where they had been imprisoned yay unto the seventh delegation? How many slipped moons oops night's sentient underfelt. What's in a name? Cellulite.

Personally,i have had times when poetry seems to flow really easily,and feels "inspired".I guess,if we take the literal meaning of what automatic writing actually is though,(as per Steven's response)we've probably just recorded on paper what has actually been relayed to our senses at some point,even without our realising it.Even so,when "inspiration" comes without us having to think too hard,(or seemingly at all),it is a wonderful experience,and not easily explainable.Laura's response to this topic is fascinating for example.

Yes I love Laura's description of her writing process - it almost sounds like poetry - she needs to write a poem on it!

Janet, you are bang on with Pete Crompton being capable of automatic writing - I would say Rachel Bond maybe also. Their poetry reads like a stream of consciousness and I believe they can also talk like that. Perhaps they are a new species we could study. What a shame neither of them are contributing to this thread - it would be fascinating to hear their point of view.
Re the editing of my poetry. I can normally edit to my own satisfaction but that doesn't mean to say it is to the satisfaction of one and all. The most important person is yourself Janet. It is great to take advice on board from others and I am not so big headed that I don't seek or listen to that advice. It is you who will be performing the work though - you are the one who has to be comfortable with it therefore.

Moxy - all I can say is 'thawat?' I'm sure that contraction of words probably comes from middle english, or IS in fact middle english. We are very true to the original english language here up north - and not a lot of people know that. x

Sorry about that, Isobel -- I had no idea I'd written anything until a creeping feeling of having been recently overtaken by a rancid muse overwhelmed me. Obviously my automatic writing function had triggered itself. 'Thawat?' indeed. You'll get no sense out of me. Who said that?

rofl