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In pursuit of verse
Updated On: 08 May, 2021 09:31 AM IST | Mumbai | Dalreen Ramos
It is never too late to be a poet and a 96-year-old, whose self-published anthology of poems went viral recently, proves that. City-based poet Rochelle Potkar shares how to get started with the literary form
Gordon McCulloch with 101 Poems, a collection of his life’s works. Pics/@jessica_keachie/twitter
English essayist William Hazlitt famously insisted that “Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life.” And Gordon McCulloch seems to have taken note early on in life. Last month, the 96-year-old from Braidwood, Scotland, self-published an anthology of poems he had written through the years, titled 101 poems. Sharing the news via Twitter his granddaughter Jessica put in a request to her followers: “A review would make him so happy.” The tweet notched over 290K likes and led to the book taking the first spot on Amazon’s best-selling list of poetry anthologies. So, if you’re keen to delve into poetry yourself, Mumbai poet Rochelle Potkar guides you on how to navigate the literary form with ease.
Reading over writing: Although you may want to put pen to paper, as a beginner, you may not have the vocabulary for poetry. “The more you write, the more refined your writing gets. But if you want to enrich it, read a lot of good-quality poetry that is freely available online,” she says. These resources can be found in international magazines such as Poetry Foundation’s Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review and The New Yorker. Another way to ensure you get your daily dose of poetry is to subscribe to newsletters that guarantee a poem in your inbox every day; Potkar vouches for the one offered by American poetry magazine Rattle.
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