Subjects and Themes for Poems

If you consider Ted Hughes poems for a moment - take a look at where his inspiration to write poems came from. Hughes poems are often from episodes from his childhood. Pike for example or Pig. He takes these subjects and explores greater themes during the writing of them, turns memories once seen into poetic thoughts about them and other things that concern or interest him. There is footage of Hughes talking about thinking. Thinking about single things and concentrating hard on them - pushing invasive thoughts away and gradually conceptualizing images of those things through words, trying to find the words that illustrate the thoughts. And succeeding through sheer effort.

If the idea of a poem comes from a more intangible inspiration where there's nothing to stare at - the thoughts themselves are the solid matter, love, fear, awe and so on. I love the idea of writing poetry about awe. I recently (keeping with the animal theme, thanks Ted) saw a film clip of a jaguar prowling the banks of a South American river in search of prey. The astonishing denouement and the reason it had made it into the public arena was that the big cat attacked and killed a caiman crocodile. It was seen swimming out to a small river island and with incredible stealth approached the sleeping crocodile, leaped onto its back and administered a powerful bit to its neck. In an eye blink and with even more audacity it then jumped back into the water the caiman's absolute predatory territory, with it in its mouth. Impossible to believe unless seen.



The prowling cat its musculature
gleaming through patterned skin
treading banks for tidbits and carrion?
Tiny mammals scurry, insects flick away,
untroubled in his laser sights.
Instead the granite-scaled sleeper
toughened by centuries-long survival
unbroken by fear,
basking the sun-baked mud
lulled by the waters lap
resting machete teeth
resting terrible power.



Obviously that's not really a poem it 's just a few desultory ideas about where it might go or how the blocking process might begin.