Here's a poem I have been working on for a long time. There's not many lines to it but getting it exactly the way it should be took patience. It was based on a memory, an image of standing in the foyer of the Taunton cinema and looking at the rain soaked car park shining in the afternoon light. I made up the rest.
unexpectedly half way
through the film
the plot twisted to
mirror
certain events from his
history
he sat in the darkness
once more
tasting his own
indecision
looking out of the glass
doors of the foyer
he thought the afternoon
light had taken on the cast of the sea
the car park a washed
out watercolour
he
was silent all the way home
Does knowing it is mostly fiction detract from the poem? I do not think so.
Sometimes the simple poems are the most difficult to write. This one wrote itself when I heard someone say that they were the opposite of a dancer.
today he feels
the opposite of a dancer
heavy
splay footed
off the beat
as if the alarm clock
had woken him
a fraction too late
Again this is a simple poem and it wrote itself in no time. I have no idea why some take longer than others. Perhaps it is to do with clarity of vision. The clearer you see the poem, the easier it is to write?
Brooke Sharkey has a new single out. It is superb, haunting, beautiful.Until next time.
Have you ever played a trust game? Those exercises that depend upon you trusting the other participants? I did recently for the first time in ages. We had to run across an empty room into the arms of the other people, simple you might think, but you had to wear a blindfold.
I think I took about a hundred years to cross, slowly, four metres. Hence this poem.
trust
twenty of us wait in a ragged line
to catch the blindfold runner
who slows to a tentative halt
two-thirds of the way across
the rehearsal room floor
though the next paces out the twelve steps
he forgets to count before he stops
an arms length from salvation
and so it goes each person quick or slow
then it’s my turn to wear the sleep mask
I totter many miles
before welcoming arms hold me
I am not sure it is complete yet, I only wrote it this week, so am far too close to see the flaws. I was going to call it The Blindfold Runner but I think Trust is a better title. Watch this space on that one.
I don't know why I read old science fiction, most of the novels do not stand the passage of time. Perhaps I am drawn to the idea that the future envisaged by the author is our past. For example, I recently read one set in 1989, twenty years on from when it had been written. It read like a shopping list of the hopes of 1959. This poem reviews a different book, and discretion prevents me from naming the author.
Book Review
the novel he wrote that summer [1967]
was powered by a single idea
fleshed out with scenes from his life
[again]
as usual the future resembled yesterday
and women were confined to walk on parts
cut out characters of no importance
the casual sexism he took for granted
was the most alien aspect of the tale
but the publisher astutely realised
putting Science Fiction Classic
on the reprint’s cover was all that was
needed
to sucker fools like me
I had dithered about buying it, having read other books by the author, I should have listened to myself.
I have mentioned Milton in a poem before, well quoted him. Apparently he went blind in later life, which I was once told, was because he looked at the sun through Galileo's telescope. I'm not sure of the validity of this information but used it in this poem.
the secrets of the sun
hide in plain sight
but you need asbestos eyes
to clock the beauty
of hydrogen become helium
some have tried
Milton for example went blind
hunting solar flares at noon
through a borrowed telescope
so a word to the wise
accept what you are given
welcome the sun’s light on your skin
let it warm those ageing bones
that’s as much as anyone has to do
I got the first line on Saturday and the poem wrote itself over the weekend. I have been revising it up until yesterday. I think it's about there.
I am going to be running a poetry workshop in the near future, if you are interested in stretching your poetic chops let me know.
Here's Joy Crookes, she's got an album coming out soon and is touring in the autumn.
Regular reader of this blog will have been grooving to the music of Pollyanna recently. I met her via Instagram earlier this year and I have been enjoying her music [and her lyrics] since. I can heartily recommend the LP Polly and the Feathers - it's fantastic. But enough from me, let's hear from the star herself!
Music, poetry or film? Which speaks the
most to you?
Obviously, I'd say
music, but as my favourite genre is songs, I guess it's a little bit
of poetry and literature too.
Why music?
Songs
are both verbal and non-verbal. This is what I like about music: it
addresses
another part of the brain, more emotional (or more mathematical?)
even when you can't put these emotions in words. What I like with
songs is that it is also words, but words are not primary in it.
First you get the sound, then the melodies/harmonies and then the
words. It's a bit less intellectual, it doesn't need to be
sophisticated, it's more humble than “hard poetry”, I'd say.
What do you want to evoke in the
reader/listener?
I want my
songs to get into people's mind and heart, and see if we can resonate
together. I'm looking for some sort of verbal and non-verbal
communication. I believe songs can heal, and can make people feel
loved. I also have in mind the courses I had about Virginia Woolf in
college. We were studying The Waves and streams of consciousness, and
how literature and poetry were also an attempt to find some unity in
the world that is, otherwise, a collection of sometimes contradictory
perceptions. I believe songs can provide that feeling of unity.
Especially when you play an instrument: body and soul are then
working together, which is probably something I need. Maybe even for
my mental health.
What's the typical career path of a singer-songwriter?
There may be early or later success or no success at all.
But I think it is important to keep this idea of success at bay: if
you have some, you need to remain independent from it, and if you
don't, you shouldn't be bitter. As far as I'm concerned, I'm between
waters, I don't really have success but I have enough to make a
living out of it, which is already a great form of success when you
think of it. It is not really due to the quality of my songs (though
I hope it's not bad), but rather to my social skills, my stubbornness
and my lack of distaste for paperwork. I think these things are all
connected, though: it all comes from the fact that I really want to
share what I create - but at the same time I don't want to impose.
I'm also always surprised to find people who really like what I do –
so, it's a delicate balance. My path is all about that: being
intermediate, finding a way to exist, share my songs, if not with a
lot of people, at least enough of them to get the real game.
How
has the poetry business/scene changed over your life time?
They
say everything has changed about the music industry: MP3, the rise of
socials, streaming, plus several economical crises, touring... But in
fact, I'm not sure things have changed so much for musicians.
Producers complain a lot but for us, it is still more or less the
same long struggle: build an audience, don't let yourself be screwed
by crooks or mythomaniacs or your own illusions about your own
appeal. The difference, maybe, is that now you can handle a lot at a
very small scale: recording (at home or with cheap studios), touring
(my acoustic amp has literally
saved my life as I can perform ANYWHERE with it with a very nice
sound, even if binds me to a solo line up), and promoting (with
socials). So, today, you'd better also be producer-minded, not only
an “artist”. But, when you think of it, back in the day, you
could also not build a lasting career without some sort of
entrepreneurial mindset. It is sad, but maybe not that much. Maybe
it's especially strong in the French culture, but I personally am
very tired of the image of the “pure” artist who should not be
pragmatic. I think it's a producer and media's scam, to justify the
exploitation of people's talent and also a toxic myth for the
audience (who is led to think talent is some kind of magic only
professionals can reveal). It's a closed workshop, a money
competition. In France, you sometimes feel less talented if you dare
to care for your business, business being the opposite of art. It
creates herds of lazy so-called talented people who make a point to
be irresponsible and unpleasant. I think THIS system is going through
a huge crisis. I'm not sure producers can still finance that model.
So the future might be DIY.
What
makes you angry?
Stupidity,
and the taste of many for fake things: fake talent, fake quality
food, fake love, fake news...
Given
the state of society at this point in time what is the role of the
poet?
I
think now religion is declining (well, not everywhere, but you get my
point), art and culture are crucial. With the economical, ecological
and sanitary crises we are going through, art provides a service, an
experience that can and should be outside the ever-growing
“capitalist” logic. The system is unsustainable and we know it.
It doesn't make us happy as we have never enough.
I'm
convinced my so-called low-key shows are a proper answer to this
“ever more” addiction. It's cheap, if not free, it's low-carbon,
and yet it's a luxury – I mean, not my shows specifically, but live
music in general. It's an easy way to live something special with
your friends or meet new people, or look at life from another angle.
And value yourself.
I
met a few people who had, for instance, deep depression issues and
told me music (even mine sometimes) helped them take less drugs! So,
why take more and more expensive chemicals where music can help with
no unwanted effects? Smaller, friendly shows can reconnect people
between and to themselves, which is probably an issue in post-Covid,
polarized society. “Religion” means “binding” in Latin
(it's a tongue-in-cheek piece of knowledge, I know). It binds humans
together, and each one to God. Well, you can change the word God if
you don't like it but, then, music is a religion: it gathers and
binds people and also connects them to some sort of transcendence.
Like sport, food...
That
works with all kinds of art, but music is a potentially popular and
accessible form, that can transcend cultural and social barriers
(well, I'm aware it does not do this easily, but it's still more
universal than theatre
for instance). That makes it strong.
If
you were not a poet what would you be?
A
cook, of a wine-maker. That is going to sound really French but I
mean it: I find the same kind of sensual + intellectual unity in food
and wine. And we probably have more talent in these fields in France
that in singing and songwriting. In my country, people are more artsy
about bread than about music.
I've been struggling this week to write anything that works. Once in a while I have times like this. I think I need to take things in, to experience, before I can assimilate my impressions and turn them into poetry. I think the pandemic is getting me down.
This is a little piece I am prepared to show.
once the coast was clear
all the humans gone
the gulls moved in to
scavenge
salvage
savage what remained
night was falling
change was in the air
they had been here before
all might perish yet
I wanted to capture the apocalyptic situation we find ourselves in. Birds survived the last mass extinction, who knows what will survive this one.
This second snippet is advice from a character actor, at least that was how I framed the words.
be present but not central
avoid the spotlight
for that lime lighted circle
must fall dark
then where will you be
Somber stuff huh?
Not everything is so bleak. I've been painting the back bedroom and listening to The Beach Boys. This is superb, such harmonies.
