That woke me up! I finally got myself along to the local writer’s group and this morning began the first poem I’ve written for years. It doesn’t have much to do with the exercise someone had prepared for us, but that isn’t important.
I read a poem that I’ve worked and reworked for ten years and it was received with approval (well, they’d have to wouldn’t they) but also with useful comment, which reassured me. There’s a large membership which ebbs and flows, the people present last night are all very agreeable; one I know quite well. Their work is worthy of my attention. (No point in being mealy mouthed about it. If they had all written in rhyme and were modern day McGonegalls* then I wouldn’t have wasted time I could be spending sleeping in front of the TV.)
My style isn’t going to win me any prizes; I know that. I like words but, more than words, I like ideas, and these days I think poetry that comes into the light is ‘accessible.’ Immediate. Coming from current events or from well-trodden emotional paths expressed in imagery that surprises, giving a freshness to common experience. Something everyone can empathise with.
What matters more to me is the therapeutic value of refining the shorthand of language in pursuit of an idea.
The poem I’ve started began with one of the elements we were given to weave into a story: An event to take place on the doorstep. Since I’ve lived on this estate I’ve been doorstepped too often and that will get worse over the next 18 months as the Independence referendum gathers heat. That’s the sort of reality I generally ignore. I’m not sure I can ignore this one but for the moment I am, and the poem is NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with politics.
I might call it ‘Don’t Look at the Sun.’ May I?
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* Wikki on McGonagall: Of the 200 or so poems that he wrote, the most famous is probably "The Tay Bridge Disaster", which recounts the events of the evening of 28 December 1879, when, during a severe gale, the Tay Rail Bridge near Dundee collapsed as a train was passing over it.
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.
(Me again. This poem went on, and on, and on, and got no better as it went, turning a tragedy into - something else. You really wouldn’t want him writing about the Boston bombing.)
1 comment:
Glad the writers group was a positive one. I pinched the title from Richard Hawley song. So feel free. To me it made me think of how gorgeous the sun is when it comes out [rarely at the mo] but at the same time if you look at it one is blinded. Like ones "art" it is glorious when it works, but destructive when it doesn't ................
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