Sit yourself beside a window, real or imagined. Look out the window and stay focussed on what it is you see, as though you were meditating on the images or actions unfolding in front of you. After five minutes (time yourself), write a fifteen-line poem in three stages. Read the instructions one at a time and complete your writing for each step before reading the next step:
- Write five lines on the whole of what you see; everything included in the frame of the window. Different poets will define “the whole” in different ways.
- After you’ve finished step one, write five lines on a small section of what you see, choosing one single section two centimetres square.
- The final step is to write a further five lines on what is not there, not represented, outside the frame, either in time or in space.