DOORWAYS BECAME PROBLEMATIC

I'm at Tropical Pressure this weekend. On Sunday I'm running a poetry workshop and I'll also be reading around the site. Report to follow next post. To prepare for the festival I've been reading at events but since the pandemic live poetry in Torquay has been thin on the ground. Here's a revised poem that I realised didn't work as well as it could once I began reading it to audiences. You can read the previous version here.

GROW A TREE ON YOUR HEAD

I had a plan

once the sapling took root

I gave my hats away

though that winter was cold

my bare head and thin trunk

shivered in the cutting wind

increasingly doorways become problematic

do I bow or do I stoop?

as my branches spread

narrow entrances were impossible

so I have to shout through the window

when I want bread from the baker

I drive with the sunroof open

increased petrol use wind in my leaves

in preparation

I ate for two in autumn

my thoughts sluggish this second winter

as the tree on my head slumbers

I've changed the fourth stanza, it was too bald when I read it live. Here's another poem I've revised for similar reasons. The last stanza sounded inelegant when read to people, you can read the other drafts here and here.

a love story

it was love at first note

the wind and the bass solo eloped

straight out of the window of my car

[I was crossing the bridge at the time

but this is their story it is not mine]

seven miles out bopping on the sea

gently held in the breeze

the notes rearranged as they please

delighting the dolphins with their atonality

I cannot stress the importance of reading your work out loud, especially if you can read it to an audience and listen to theirs and your reactions. Here's a link to a post from 2011 that offers 10 Top Tips to aid your writing. These have not changed in the interim.

I leave you with Juanita Euka, who is on Saturday.

Until next time.