I've never thought about what my poems mean. I'm not sure what their meaning is, or even if meaning is essential? Maybe I use them in far too cathartic fashion, their meaning is me wanting to be understood, sometimes wanting to shock by truly explaining how things are for me. Not many people get to see the inside of me, and it's not how you think it is. The message I try to get over seems to be:
I am not strong
I am not stoic
I am not happy
Life is unfair
I put on a bloody good front
That's basically my inspiration.
It may be time for me to move on from that. I am interested in the outside world, I'm angry about stuff in the outside world, as well as being well informed and opinionated. I'm proper cross about the roll out of Universal Credit and the deafness of the government to hear how people are suffering as a result. I'm proper cross about the Windrush generation and our country's perverse attitude towards immigrants. I'm angry about the small minded racist bigoted country I feel we became, and where Brexit is the biggest red flag indicator of that. I'm angry for the millennial generation that has got the shit end of the stick as far as jobs and homes are concerned. I'm cross about a lot of things, but so are a lot of people and a lot of people write far better than I can about these. I have nothing new to offer on these subjects, nothing.
Sunday 29 April 2018
Sunday 22 April 2018
Why Poem
I've been challenged to explain why I believe what I believe about what poetry is, and what supports my belief. Gulp.
I have no original thought on this. I'm relying on education.
I was given a poetry book when I was maybe 10 years old. My gran gave it to me. I was hooked on it, and bizarrely, off my own back, learned some by heart. I still remember some glimpses of these.
Things like
When as a child I laughed and slept, time crept
When as a youth I dreamt and talked, time walked
When I became a full grown man, time ran
I wonder, if I google that, how accurate my memory is, and also if the last line had the punch I remember, even though I can't remember what it was!
Then there was the songs of Hiawatha. Oh My. That was amazing. This huge rush of story, the rhythm as it raced along. Just inspiring.
But I didn't start writing until someone gave me Stephen Fry's Ode Less Travelled. It walked me through, step by step, how to write a poem. I got stuck in. And that was about technical things.
But the time when I truly thought about it was on Saturday morning workshops with Peter Sansom in Manchester. In a room with other people who thought maybe they could write poems. And there the concept of if the person doing the writing says it's a poem, it is a poem was put in front of me. OK, I can handle that, I thought, as my eyes opened to free verse. I also chucked away any attempt to be poetic in my writing. Chucked away the weirdness of thinking it was OK to put words in a non conversational order, and chucked away using poetic words too. Turns out I believe that poetry is something small, coherent, intense, intimate and conversational. It has to have words in it that talk to people living here and now. It can deal with big things but it really is equal when it deals with subjects a lot smaller, it's not all about the grand plan.
I have no original thought on this. I'm relying on education.
I was given a poetry book when I was maybe 10 years old. My gran gave it to me. I was hooked on it, and bizarrely, off my own back, learned some by heart. I still remember some glimpses of these.
Things like
When as a child I laughed and slept, time crept
When as a youth I dreamt and talked, time walked
When I became a full grown man, time ran
I wonder, if I google that, how accurate my memory is, and also if the last line had the punch I remember, even though I can't remember what it was!
Then there was the songs of Hiawatha. Oh My. That was amazing. This huge rush of story, the rhythm as it raced along. Just inspiring.
But I didn't start writing until someone gave me Stephen Fry's Ode Less Travelled. It walked me through, step by step, how to write a poem. I got stuck in. And that was about technical things.
But the time when I truly thought about it was on Saturday morning workshops with Peter Sansom in Manchester. In a room with other people who thought maybe they could write poems. And there the concept of if the person doing the writing says it's a poem, it is a poem was put in front of me. OK, I can handle that, I thought, as my eyes opened to free verse. I also chucked away any attempt to be poetic in my writing. Chucked away the weirdness of thinking it was OK to put words in a non conversational order, and chucked away using poetic words too. Turns out I believe that poetry is something small, coherent, intense, intimate and conversational. It has to have words in it that talk to people living here and now. It can deal with big things but it really is equal when it deals with subjects a lot smaller, it's not all about the grand plan.
A poem
What is poetry, and what is it for?
I'm two people when I answer this question, well, probably more.
When I write it's a gushing, it's something I have nowhere to share, but something I want to speak, I want someone out there to see, to hear, to understand. I have a need to be understood, but some thoughts, beliefs, whether flickering or deep seated aren't the things the people closest to me have time for. Or maybe that's harsh. Maybe there are things about what happens inside me that they don't need to know, that would be awkward, uncomfortable or just plain unintelligible, incomprehensible. But perhaps if I write it in a poem there will be an audience, even of one lonely stranger who just gets one line and even if I never know they get that line, the hope that they will is enough. And that's how it is for me to write.
But there is more to writing than that outlet. There is the play with the words, the joy of a rhythm, a sense of pride in a perfectly formed phrase. Never a perfectly formed poem; that's something I've never finished. Even the one or two amongst dozens that I look at and think that's OK, I can be pleased with that, everytime I brush them down, pick them up off the metaphorical shelf, I find something discordant, something I really yearn to put right. I can't always do it. I can just see that it's somehow a bit wrong and could be better. This can go on for years. And sometimes it's just because it's me that's changed in the meantime, my view of the world, my perspective on the incident which triggered the poem that's changed and makes the poem more wrong.
Then there's the me that's the reader of other people's work. That me is fairly uncritical. I love a nicely turned rhyme, rhythm, lines which lead to other lines, lines which bounce, lines which make me chuckle or wince or stare in respect. I like words read out loud and I like them on paper. I like to see through someone else's eyes, to be challenged by difference. I am in awe of free verse writers. So bold, so brave, so something I can't quite do, not with true authenticity and sincerity. I'm all a little bit forced. Trite, ordinary, indulgent. I envy those who can pull it off.
I love a good pastiche. Nicking other people's work and playing around with how it works, learning, always learning, always playing, finding a twist, my twist, my twisted belief system making words suit me.
I'm two people when I answer this question, well, probably more.
When I write it's a gushing, it's something I have nowhere to share, but something I want to speak, I want someone out there to see, to hear, to understand. I have a need to be understood, but some thoughts, beliefs, whether flickering or deep seated aren't the things the people closest to me have time for. Or maybe that's harsh. Maybe there are things about what happens inside me that they don't need to know, that would be awkward, uncomfortable or just plain unintelligible, incomprehensible. But perhaps if I write it in a poem there will be an audience, even of one lonely stranger who just gets one line and even if I never know they get that line, the hope that they will is enough. And that's how it is for me to write.
But there is more to writing than that outlet. There is the play with the words, the joy of a rhythm, a sense of pride in a perfectly formed phrase. Never a perfectly formed poem; that's something I've never finished. Even the one or two amongst dozens that I look at and think that's OK, I can be pleased with that, everytime I brush them down, pick them up off the metaphorical shelf, I find something discordant, something I really yearn to put right. I can't always do it. I can just see that it's somehow a bit wrong and could be better. This can go on for years. And sometimes it's just because it's me that's changed in the meantime, my view of the world, my perspective on the incident which triggered the poem that's changed and makes the poem more wrong.
Then there's the me that's the reader of other people's work. That me is fairly uncritical. I love a nicely turned rhyme, rhythm, lines which lead to other lines, lines which bounce, lines which make me chuckle or wince or stare in respect. I like words read out loud and I like them on paper. I like to see through someone else's eyes, to be challenged by difference. I am in awe of free verse writers. So bold, so brave, so something I can't quite do, not with true authenticity and sincerity. I'm all a little bit forced. Trite, ordinary, indulgent. I envy those who can pull it off.
I love a good pastiche. Nicking other people's work and playing around with how it works, learning, always learning, always playing, finding a twist, my twist, my twisted belief system making words suit me.
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