Yesterday, at about 10.45pm, I recorded my first poem. Well, that’s not strictly true: a lovely BBC Sound engineer in Manchester did it for me.
At NO POINT in my planning was there provision to get anything other than a mention in passing for this project. It wasn’t about recognition, after all, just to give back to my home town, which I’ve now done with some style. To talk to one of the Project founders, and a poet in residence, was a brilliantly unexpected bonus. It took that Guardian mention and knocked it out of sight. I’m gonna be thanking these people in dispatches for quite some time to come.
EVERYTHING that’s changed my course this year has come from a willingness to be vulnerable, to place mind and body in situations that were previously frightening. The knock on effects from this are only beginning to register, but in last night’s recording I can hear my own fear, nervousness in voice that comes from being exposed to an audience. In time, I’ll get my head around it. It will get better with practice.
All these things will improve with practice.
Here’s the poem I read on the show.
Two Tree Island ::
Bleak, Hoarse
Golden hour,
I came here to begin
next chapter’s transformation
remade through other’s imagery,
inspired
earth to sky,
brown
to gold
adheres, presenting unexpectedly
grubby printed brilliance, webbed feet
pointing path, open silt bar
my usual; steaming,
anticipated
epiphany of
self abstained, regained.
I asked for a sign;
you gave
graffiti covered
rubberised playgrounds
broken boats
peeling
saint’s
names
Pier’s glorious insertion, failures forgotten
thousand harsh rejections sail away
masts of possibility remain,
renewed
mirrored sunrise
into grateful eyes.
Bleak, hoarse failure recedes
to seeds,
green runway, as above, first plane
softens
mumbling to trains.
I really hope this isn’t the last time I read a poem on national radio. This is a pretty high benchmark to exceed.
I do so love a challenge.
The Internet of Words 