From Attention to Language, Ep. 1

Between the Lines

Jul 06, 2026

Many of you won’t have seen any of my earlier Between the Lines series.

Back in 2025 I began sharing some of the ideas behind how I read and write. Not in the traditional sense of technique or analysis, but the things that happen before meaning arrives.

We explored ideas like somatics, recognition, affective intimacy, and why words often land in the body before they reach the mind.

Over time, some of you may have noticed my own writing slowly shifting from prose towards poetry.

This series is part of the reason why.

Rather than revisit those earlier essays, I’d like to take a different approach.

Over the coming months we’ll explore something much simpler.

Attention.

Because I don’t think writing begins with words.

I think it begins with noticing.

Let’s begin.

Before you read any further, spend thirty seconds with the photograph above.

Don’t try to understand it.

Don’t look for a hidden meaning.

Simply notice where your attention chooses to rest.

Most of us think we look at a photograph as a whole.

We don’t.

Our attention settles somewhere first.

That’s often where writing begins.

Rather than asking “What is this?”, try asking some different questions.

Water

Is it arriving or leaving?
What makes you think that?
Does it feel patient or hurried?
Which part of the photograph tells you?

Stones

Are they holding together or pulling apart?
Which rock did you notice first?
What changes if you stop calling them rocks?
Do they feel ancient or simply old?

Growth

If you couldn’t call it lichen, what might you call it?
Is it covering the stone or changing it?
Does it separate or connect?
What happens if you imagine it moving?

People

What changes because the people are there?
What would disappear if they weren’t there?
Do they make the landscape feel larger or smaller?
Did you notice them immediately or only later?

Sky

Is it watching the landscape or holding it?
Which feels heavier?
Which feels older?
Where does your eye return without being asked?

Notice something.

None of those questions asked you to write.

They simply changed the way you looked.

And once attention changes, language often follows.

Not because you’re trying harder.

But because you’re seeing differently.

Before next time

The questions above aren’t intended to produce better poems.

They’re simply a way of paying attention for a little longer.

The more you practise, the more you’ll start noticing that ordinary things are rarely ordinary for long.

A cracked pavement.

Steam rising from a cup of tea.

The way someone waits at a crossing.

The light on a kitchen wall.

None of them arrive carrying a poem.

But they often leave with one.

This is the first in a new Between the Lines series exploring attention, noticing and the journey into language.

Each edition will use a different photograph, different prompts and different ways of seeing, designed to help you discover how attention becomes language.

This opening piece is free.

From the next article onwards, the series will continue exclusively for paid subscribers.

If you’d like to explore the rest of the journey with me, I’d love to have you along.

Or, if you’d rather support the work more casually:

☕ Coffee, cake, or a book help keep the poems flowing.

Something more from me?