Episode Two: Sue Burge – Cinematic Poetry

This week poet and film studies and creative writing lecturer Sue Burge talks about her love of film and poetry and where the two meet. She shares some of her poems which blend classic film imagery, scenes from real life and her vivid imagination and sets a writing exercise that encourages you to take the director’s chair as you look back on your life.

Sue has a busy schedule of writing workshops and courses. You can find out more about these and her two poetry collections on her website www.sueburge.uk

Sue’s writing exercise:

Choose a scene/incident from your life and write about it in black and white. Give it a vintage film feel. This is your first stanza, it can be as long or short as you like. For your second stanza, remake the incident/scene in colour – make the language/tone different from the first part, give it a more contemporary feel. You could, for example, do the black and white scene from a child’s point of view and the colour scene from an adult point of view with the benefit of hindsight.

Please send responses via email, post in the comments section below or share on social media with the hashtag #poetrynonstop

Sue Burge lives in North Norfolk.  Her poems have appeared in a wide range of publications such as Mslexia, Orbis, Brittle Star, The Lampeter Review, Magma, The French Literary Review, The North, Stride and Ink, Sweat and Tears.   Her debut pamphlet, Lumière, was published by Hedgehog Press in 2018 and her first collection, In the Kingdom of Shadows, was published by Live Canon, also in 2018.  Sue has undertaken a variety of poetry commissions and has performed and read her work extensively.  As well as face-to-face courses locally she runs a very successful writing course by e-mail subscription, The Writing Cloud.  More information at http://www.sueburge.uk