Poetry, Screenplay and Prose

Three forms of expression through writing - poetry, prose and script. Each is different from the others.

But the dialogue in prose and script is very much like poetry. It has brevity and rhythm. It wants to be spoken aloud. Similarly, descriptive passages from prose and poetry can be filmic. Perhaps the forms are not so different as we might think.

Today I will be enjoying all three forms. This blog is prose. I am catching a moment to write it after an hour or so of script writing - which I will be going back to shortly (after a cup of tea and a moment standing in the morning sunshine.)

This evening, I'll be going to the weekly meeting of Leicester Writers' Club. Today we have the adjudication of our annual poetry competition. I know I'll be hearing some excellent material read out - which will be a treat. I enter this competition every year, though with little hope of winning as the club is blessed with many fine poets these days.

My experience of working in all three forms is that each enriches the others. Working with poetry freshens up my prose writing. And vice-versa. Working with script sharpens my storycraft.

I'll end here with a poem - not at all in my usual style. It plays with a peculiarly dyslexic appreciation and confusion of left and right. It was first published in a pamphlet distributed around NHS waiting rooms in Derby.

Bilateral Symmetry

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
I can’t work you out at all.
I stare at you and see the sight,
of me turned round swapped left for right.
But I can’t work out how you know,
not to swap me head for toe.
If I were now to twist you round,
would I see me up side down?