Tracking my life through poetry
Today is National Poetry Day. Apparently the nation’s favourite poet is TS Eliot, although I’m not sure how many of them have read The Wasteland, or whether any of them actually ‘get it’ (I certainly don’t. I’m not sure TS did, either).
This got me thinking about the poems I love and the poems I’ve written in the past and the poems I don’t write any longer (I haven’t written one for three or four years) and whether I could track a narrative of my life through them. I wrote an awful lot when I was younger – my mum always says that I took a long while to learn and then just wouldn’t stop – and there was a rapid change from my pre-pubescent style, which was very reminiscent of Allan Ahlberg, Brian Patten et al, I suppose. Consider the following from when I was about eight:
Easy to make and fun to do
That’s what the instructions read
“Oh, this will be easy!”
I later wished I hadn’t said.
It was supposed to be a ship
But it looked more like a plane
And so I took it all apart
And started it again.
I used to have books and books full of the stuff, interspersed with pictures of unicorns and descriptions of what the people walking past on the street were wearing. Amateur anthropology, I think, or perhaps just spying. I think it was about the same time that I wrote my seminal work, Sammy the Squirrel. It was a tour de force and debuted at our school Harvest Festival to wide acclaim.
After moving house, school and county and feeling drastically uprooted, all of my poetry became very alienated angsty teen (read: inutterably cliche) with (illustrated) moans about being a jigsaw piece put in the wrong jigsaw box. “Unfortunately” I don’t have any examples; they’re all in notebooks under my bed in Shropshire. All very depressing stuff really; as was my oevre in college, although then it took on a Tim Burton-esque goth tinge. As did I. I think I wrote the latter after reading Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.
Falling Apart
a man lived on a hill
the man he was lonely
he dreamt of a girl who was
his one & only
he dreamt of the one who’d
take his pain away
his longing consumed him
by night & by day
his clothes were a mess &
his hair was a fright
his longing consumed him
by day & by night
one day he created
a girl of his own
her hair was of wool
and twigs were her bone
her eyes were two buttons
through which she could peek
her mouth sewn by needle
so she could not speak
for breasts he used padding
he padded them well
though one was misshapen
you hardly could tell
he named his doll sally
he loved her much more
than any possession
that he’d loved before
but cotton wore thin
and holes wouldn’t mend
he tried to ignore it
he tried to pretend
he caressed her hands
as her stitches came free
and watched as her leg
fell apart at the knee
he sobbed as her buttons
fell out of her face
her once sturdy skin
was resembling lace
and with her decay
went the last of his heart
he looked on in horror
as she came apart
so that old man’s loneliness
a rag doll can’t fix
with his grief and his longing
he had loved her to bits
Amanda Fucking Palmer would be proud.
After another uprooting and the loss of home I returned to the intraspective moaning, although to be fair my style was a little more controlled and I’d lost the illustrations of jigsaws and sad faces. I think it’s fair to say that I didn’t enjoy my first year of university, and I still feel some of that same bleakness and student-rage around this time of year when all the freshers arrive:
Winter of the Disillusioned Student
There’s rain and brollies ten-a-penny
(Gouging eyes and catching hair)
Holes in your trainers and wet in your socks
And the Christmas lights went up early this year
Yes the Christmas lights went up early this year
Even though you can’t afford it
And you know that it’s the thought that counts
These days money’s all you think about
Money’s all you think about
And it’s gone down the drain
(With your hopes about the future
And the ever-drizzling rain)
And the ever-drizzling rain
Is matching your state of mind
In the seas of unknown faces
And the seas of “left behind”
There’s flyers in the gutter
Of “BEST NIGHTS OUT!”; now old
There’s girls in nonexistent skirts
Pretending they’re not cold
And all the jobs are Christmas jobs
(When you’re not even here)
And what’s the point of Christmas trees
When there’s no Christmas cheer
Oh what’s the point of Christmas trees
When there’s no Christmas cheer
And you’re far away from “left behind”
And the lights went out early this year.
That one was published in the School of English zine, and I will actually never ever forgive them for chopping off the final two lines. Bad form!
Since then I’ve stagnated poetically; perhaps because I’ve been reasonably happy. After this year’s shake up (another loss of home, both physical and metaphorical), I would have expected myself to sit in a corner writing some more whiney drivel. Then again, I suppose I did. Perhaps it’s just taking a more prosaic blog-form this time around.
Anyway. National Poetry Day! My favourite poem is anyone lived in a pretty how town by e e cummings. Thank you lovely, nervous, marker-pen-twiddling Neil Church of Ludlow College for introducing me to ee (my other favourites by the same, in case you want to look them up – and you should - are gee i like to think of dead and yonder deadfromtheneckup graduate, and I love Danse Russe by William Carlos Williams)
anyone lived in a pretty how town
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.
Women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain
children guessed (but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more
when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to her
someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream
stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)
one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was
all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
with by spirit and if by yes.
Women and men (both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain
-ee cummings
I remember reading it through at 17 and thinking, well that’s quite a pleasing load of nonsense, and then re-reading and suddenly realising that – oh! It’s about two people (the man, anyone, and no one, the girl; in case you haven’t been keeping up) and it’s a love story. I also really like the cyclical nature and passage of time of it, life/death, spring/summer/autumn/winter, the almost folkloric heralding of the seasons.
But mostly, I love that moment of realisation you get with good poetry where you realise you haven’t looked closely enough.
What’s your favourite?
