Emma StorrMy equivalent of Bob's compact camera is a notebook and pen, stuffed into a bag or pocket. At medical school, I wrote light verse, mainly in rhyme. Humour was a good way of dealing with the inevitable stress. When I moved to Yorkshire in the 1990s, Isqueezed in a few creative writing classes while working as a GP, medical educator and mother. The experience of sharing work and discussing it in a small class was invaluable. During my MPhil in Writing at the University of South Wales, I began compiling a series of poems based on my experiences of working as a GP and of being a patient myself. This became the pamphlet, Heart Murmur (Calder Valley Poetry, 2019). My poetry is still evolving. It's an exciting and unpredictable process, often surprising me in much the same way that Bob describes when looking at his photographs. Writing is a way of tapping into the unconscious river swirling below the surface, as liable to flood as to dry up. It can also emerge at unexpected places. It's important to me that my writing is accessible and enjoyable. To choose the right words for the few lines of a poem is hard work. All the poems in Offcumdens have gone through multiple iterations. Sometimes I find the discipline of writing in a particular poetic form proves helpful. Perhaps that is why, besides free verse and concrete poems, you will find Japanese haiku and a tanka, three sonnets and a pantoum in this collection. Read More Read Less