“Poems, like dreams, have a visible subject and an invisible one.
The invisible one is the one you can’t choose, the one that writes itself.”
– Alice Oswald
Sue Proffitt
Welcome to my website, feel free to explore it.
I grew up on the West Pennine moors, and have written poetry all my life since I was a child. For me, poetry offers the perfect synthesis between ‘right’ and ‘left’ brains: between the un-charted imaginal where nothing is out of bounds, to the crafting and honing of words that creates a finished poem (which is never truly finished).I
I was awarded an M.A. (First Class) in English Language and Literature from the University of St. Andrews (St. Andrews) and then, after many different jobs, subsequently trained as an integrative psychotherapist at the Metanoia Institute (University of Middlesex), and was awarded an M.Sc. (Distinction). After working in the voluntary and statutory sectors for many years I chose to leave the NHS in 2011 to concentrate on my first love: poetry. In 2010 I was awarded an M.A. in Creative Writing (Distinction) at the University of Bath Spa, and have been writing poetry ever since, alongside working as a tutor for www.traumainformedschools.co.uk.
I live in an old coastguard cottage in South Devon and, when I’m not writing, love wild swimming, kayaking, walking the coastpath and experiencing the endless beauties of this part of the world. At the heart of my writing – and my spiritual practice – is a deep love and respect for the more-than-human: the sea, moors and un-peopled spaces around me, and for the animals, birds and plants who live on this planet with us. For me, the Earth is animate, conscious and our greatest teacher, and all life-forms on Earth are my ‘relations’.
I was awarded an M.A. (First Class) in English Language and Literature from the University of St. Andrews (St. Andrews) and then, after many different jobs, subsequently trained as an integrative psychotherapist at the Metanoia Institute (University of Middlesex), and was awarded an M.Sc. (Distinction). After working in the voluntary and statutory sectors for many years I chose to leave the NHS in 2011 to concentrate on my first love: poetry. In 2010 I was awarded an M.A. in Creative Writing (Distinction) at the University of Bath Spa, and have been writing poetry ever since, alongside working as a tutor for www.traumainformedschools.co.uk.
I live in an old coastguard cottage in South Devon and, when I’m not writing, love wild swimming, kayaking, walking the coastpath and experiencing the endless beauties of this part of the world. At the heart of my writing – and my spiritual practice – is a deep love and respect for the more-than-human: the sea, moors and un-peopled spaces around me, and for the animals, birds and plants who live on this planet with us. For me, the Earth is animate, conscious and our greatest teacher, and all life-forms on Earth are my ‘relations’.
Much of the poem’s skill is in its economy – a spareness of language, syntax and form that is perfectly integrated, in service of the deep awe at this elemental environment. Less confident poets tend to overburden their poems, including too many words, unsure what constitutes ‘enough’ – always fewer than they might think….. a poem which promises (and delivers) possibility, radical ecological transformation, without telling us what to feel about it. In a true relationship of equals, we are invited to make up our own minds.
Linda France, on ‘Snow-floes’, Mslexia, Issue 102
