FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The poet who will speak to the Pensters writing group on Saturday has an important message to writers. He says to write about the things that pour out of you — the things you can’t keep held in.

Rob Gray, author of two books of poetry and director of the Program for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning at the University of South Alabama, said that while he admires poets who write every day, that is not the way he goes about it.

“The way I write best is, I have an idea and I don’t push it; I let it set for a day, a week, or six months,” he said. “Then I come back to it when I have a flash of what it should be. I wait until I have something of worth to say.”

Gray said he will tell the Pensters that while craft is important, it is not the only important aspect of writing.

“It’s important to say something well, not just to paint a little image that follows all the rules,” he said. You want something that makes people think or feel something, not which just inspires academic appreciation.”

His two books of poetry are on subjects that poured out of him in this nature, he said.

The first book, “I Wish That I Were Langston Hughes,” is about the different poets he admires and how their ideas about good poetry shaped his ideas of good poetry. The book has 30 poems, many of which are acrostics; they spell a name or word down the left margin.

His second book, “DREW: Poems from Blue Water,” a verse novel, contains even more outpouring subject matter as it delves into his brother’s death.

“The book began with the intention of it being entirely about Drew, and in the end, it is primarily about him,” he said in an interview with Negative Capability Press. “About a third of the way through the writing of the book, however, I wrote a few poems about how the experience affected me psychologically and spiritually, which led to a couple more about the effect Drew’s illness had on my development as a poet.”

“This all happened around the time I decided to move from a chronology to more of a flashback approach and gave the book a narrative focus it had been lacking.

“This also enabled the inclusion of the poems that are essentially poetic meditations.”

P.T. Paul, president of the Pensters, said Gray’s take on the importance of experience will be valuable to the group.

“Rob has chosen as his topic ‘Writing What Must,’ a nod to the imperative that generates most writing, the need to quantify and qualify experience by writing about it,” she said.

He will help all the writers, not just the poets in the Pensters, she said, because, “although both books are poetry, there are organizing principles involved in both projects that could inform the non-poet as well, while Rob's experiences with publication will be valuable to every writer.”

Larry Sampson, a Pensters member, looks forward to the session for many of the same reasons.

“He has heard my writing and I will be interested in hearing what he thought he heard, and what untried approaches might be calling,” he said.

Paul also discussed the importance of workshops for writers to grow in their craft.

“Nothing exists in a vacuum, writing is a response to living in the world and interacting with other human beings. Just as brainstorming can help a group of engineers or advertisers create their next project or campaign, attending workshops and fellowshipping with other writers breaks the writer out of his mindset, exposes him to new ideas and helps him find like-minded individuals with whom to discuss his interests,” Paul said. “The final product of writing has an intended audience, and the goal of the writer is to find that audience, which workshops and fellowshipping can help him accomplish, particularly when it is the stated purpose of the group, as with the Pensters.”

The group will meet at 10 a.m. to noon at the Fairhope Public Library.