Welcome

'Writing poetry is like painting. You have the creative idea, sketch it in, add the brush strokes, the colour and then round it off. You form your composition according to subject, mood style and inner feeling. Hopefully it will work!'...

Adrienne Hahne

Why write poetry?

How often have I been asked this! I would like to answer by quoting from ‘Up to Now’ poetry collection, Léman Poets, 2010. From childhood I’ve loved reading and reciting poetry always being encouraged, by enthusiastic teachers, to write my own.

I like the unexpected and I feel poetry is the form that can do this in a contained, emotional way. There is no room for rambling, no waste of space. Each word is important and needs to be carefully chosen. I like the challenge of expressing myself within this frame'.

What kind of poetry do I like creating?

I love delving into the past, my New Zealand childhood, then later the different countries I’ve lived in and unusual places I’ve visited. People fascinate me which makes me want to unravel their mysteries, capture their feelings and imagine situations.

Poetry can say so many things in a sundry of styles. As in all art it can be appreciated in many different ways. This being up to the reader.

Unfortunately, many people think the poetic form is too literary and can only be appreciated by a select few. I debate this, as in other art forms not all poems will appeal to us. If we take time to look I feel there is something for everyone.

Poetry is very varied, so many forms, so many styles.  For example, the traditional, fixed forms usually rhymed, to the more modern free verse. Styles change, from short poems like the haiku, longer ones such as prose poems, ballads, sagas, comic to sad poems. They may be complex, hard to understand, others are simpler with, perhaps, a wider appeal.