POETRY has never really been something that requires sitting down at a desk and deciding to write for Gwenda Cassell.
The words tend to arrive on their own, whether she is sitting in the lounge room with her children, watching people go about their days, or lying in bed trying to get to sleep.
The Molong-based might see something, or hear something and think, “I could make a poem out of that”.
“I see things and they just fall into a pattern,” Cassell said.
Looking back, she said she wrote little pieces of poetry as a child, although she had no idea where it might eventually lead.
Her first experience of having a poem read publicly came when she was young.
A radio presenter selected her work to be read on air with music playing behind it.
It’s something Cassell remembers as fitting together “absolutely beautifully”.
Inspired by poets including Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, Cassell’s poetry continued to develop.
One memorable occasion occurred while shopping with her husband.
Cassell went out to the car while he finished shopping, and as she sat there, she noticed a couple walking past. It was enough for inspiration to hit.
She had a shopping receipt with her, so she turned it over and started writing on the back.
“When inspiration strikes me, I put it down,” she said.
The poem eventually made its way into one of her books, alongside pieces about family, work, and the situations she encounters.
“It just progressed from there,” she said.
Cassell has now produced two books of poetry herself, filling them with words from her life.
She is hoping to begin a third soon, with several unfinished poems already sitting on her computer.