Susan J. Atkinson’s Writing Space
It has been six years since The New Quarterly published my poem “The Dining Room Poem by Another Poet” in their Spring 2018 issue #146. Six years since I last offered a glimpse into the space where I write. I still maintain the same writing routine when I am home in Ottawa. I still start my morning sitting on my brown couch, composing first thoughts and ephemera in my journal, in the hopes that something will gel and be the beginnings of a poem. Nothing much has changed there but since then I have created a second writing space.
As a child, there were two things I dreamt about being when I grew up. The first was to be a writer. By the age of nine I was constantly making up stories and reading relentlessly. (I had not yet met poetry, hence the general desire to be a writer rather than a poet.) My second dream was to live by the ocean. I didn’t have a specific ocean in mind, I just wanted to be a writer living by the sea.
Once I reached high school I was introduced to poetry and fell madly in love. That’s when the dream morphed slightly, from being a writer to being a poet. And now that I am grown-up (!) I have had the great fortune to realize both dreams as I spend part of my year beside the Caribbean Sea in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. It is here where I have found my perfect winter-writing space.
When I first started writing seriously, I thought I would need an office walled with bookshelves, and stacks and stacks of paper filling whatever floor remained. As it turns out, I don’t need a lot of space, or even a specific room for that matter. Of course, I have bookcases crammed with poetry collections, anthologies and journals, but a desk and a dedicated writing room are not priorities for me.
While in Playa I write on the back terrace, surrounded by tropical plants and the sound of burbling water from a small fountain, fed by a cenote. I sit on a brown teak chair and prop my journal on my knees and write musings and first drafts. When it’s time to input the work on the computer, I bring the laptop outside or stand at the kitchen counter click-clicking away. In a sense my writing spaces have become very portable and nomadic!
I have also discovered a limestone slab, on the beach not far from my place. On my luckiest days it makes an amazing desk, where I can literally write poetry by the sea.
at the end of the day
heat seeps between
the pages of a journal
Susan J. Atkinson is an award-winning poet. Recently she was named Honourable Mention in The New Quarterly’s 2023 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest and was Longlisted for Exile Edition’s 2023 Ruth and David Lampe Poetry Award. Her work has appeared in journals, anthologies and online. Atkinson’s debut collection, The Marta Poems was published by Silver Bow Publishing in 2020. Her second collection, all things small, will be published in Spring 2024. to find out more visit www.susanjatkinson.com