Tag: creativity

2017 – A Year in Review

A long short summary of 2017.

Another year over, and what a year it’s been. It’s had ups and downs and tears and laughter and clichés and bad metaphors. It has been a year.

But I have never felt as successful as I have coming out of this year. This year, I did so many things I didn’t expect me to do ever.

I won not one but two poetry slams, I performed music on stage for the first time since 2013, I managed to write 100 Poems in 100 Days (I still don’t know how I managed that).

I had my first ever stand-up comedy gig (it was terrifying, it was amazing), I got to perform alongside one of my poetry idols and busted some more comedy and broke my roleplaying game cherry with The Comedy Roleplaying Hour at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe.

I had my first paid feature poetry gig, I wrote, produced and performed my first ever full-length poetry show at the Edinburgh Horror Festival, and became part of the team that run the Edinburgh Horror Festival.

I had my first ever compere gig, started a new cabaret band/duo, and started work on a new live poetry event with a good friend of mine which is due to debut early next year. And finally, to top it all off, I was named Stage Time Promotions ‘Best Poetry/Spoken Word Act of 2017.’

Across music, comedy and poetry (and hosting) I’ve performed 36 times this year. That’s insane. That’s 36 more performances than I expected to do in my life. There’s so many people in my life that I need to thank. This has been unexpected. For the first time in 25 years, I feel proud of myself.

It’s not been without its battles. Mental health, homelessness, nerves, losing friends, drifting away from people. No life is 100% perfect.

But this year came pretty damn close.

I’d like to say a huge thank you to all of you, the people who’ve read the poems, the people who have listened to/watched me perform. The people who have let me perform (Inky Fingers’ wonderboys, Freddie and Ross, the beautiful Lloyd and Matt behind The God Damn Debut Slam, my good friend Ross who I produce the Freakeasy Showcase with, the Edinburgh Horror Festival, and the organisers of From The Horse’s Mouth).

My sound operator, Graham, and poster designer, Ash from We All Have Fears.

To all my friends who have supported me and listened to my surrealist ramblings while trying to write something. To all my friends who have been there on any level. My friends online and on the earth. There are so many of you. I can’t thank you enough.

And finally, thank you, dear readers. You don’t know me, and yet you’ve taken the time to stick around and read this. You’ve read the blogs, you’ve read the poems. You’re amazing. And I love that you’ve been hanging around, commenting when you can. Liking, sharing, communicating, supporting. Thank you.

Bring on 2018 and the next adventure!

#PoeticAnswers 54 – How’s The Poetry Challenge Going?

It’s like climbing a mountain of paper,
Or more appropriately, a mountain range
Because there’s a whole range of topics
But they all feel the same and I’m
Trudging through these snow drafts and
Getting colder in an uphill struggle because
I’m never peaking or reaching the
Tops of my potential because it’s a
Pinball tabletop plateau. That’s to say,
It’s feels like I’m falling flat on an incline and
Bouncing around ideas but nonetheless
Doing the same things over and over again.
I’m becoming snowblind and I
Can’t see the line between disillusion and mirage
And when it looks like I’m making tracks
I’m not smiling it’s just my face
Beginning to crack from the pressure and
Altitude and magnitude of the situation.
I’m seeing the same metaphors and visions
Dressed in different expositions but I know
They’re the same. It’s just repetition
Of ideas and images because I left
My originality behind twenty days ago
Because it ran out and I couldn’t carry
The excess weight of the emptiness around
And sometimes it feels like
I’m not even on the mountain anymore
Because I feel buried, like I’m underground,
Like I’m in hell like Persephone,
Five months after the kidnap.
Almost giving up on her
Fruitless endeavours and tired of
Repeating herself over and over.
Just waiting out for a
Bright new day and waiting for
The sun to come out and melt
All the misery away and
Finally manage to make and feel something
New.

Today’s question comes from a chat with a flyerer on the Royal Mile who was interested in what I do.

#PoeticAnswers 51 – What Happens To Your Heart When You Go To Sleep?

The heart keeps going,
Awake and wired like
A caffeinated child.

The heart rests
Takes a moment away from the race
And takes life at it’s own pace.

We don’t sleep when we sleep
Our brains don’t shut off,
Our heart keeps pumping blood,
Our lungs keep breathing
And maybe that’s why
We’re still tired in the morning.
Because rest is a lie and
Our bodies keep going.
We think we’re dead to the world
But we’ve never been more alive.

Our brain dreams,
Processing thoughts and actions
Like a machine,
Like a computer with the screen turned off,
Creating images and flickering lights,
Playing tricks on our minds and retinas like
A limited edition, one-of-a-kind movie
In a cinema screening that no one saw,
Except for a projectionist in a dark room.

And our heart is the soundtrack,
Heart strings and pulsing drum beats,
Slow and steady
But swelling to crescendo,
Racing to action
A veritable ventricle
drum and bass underscore,
Returning to legato then coming to rest.

And, like any true heart,
The protagonist in the story,
Arriving on dampened horseback,
Head- and heartstrong,
The knight in shining armour
Chasing nightmares and negative thoughts away,
Then riding into the sunset,
Reminding you to love yourself

Question from Amanda P. from Facebook

#PoeticAnswers 50 – Is There An Art To Being A Stage Technician?

Yes.

Allow me to shed some light,
Hear me out on this matter,
There is as much artistry backstage
As there is on the stage.

Sonic, scenic and visual artists
Set the scene and the score
And illuminate the microcosms
Of stage and screen while
Remaining unseen and unheard
While building walls of sound and
Tapestries of light and
Entirely illusory worlds.

Because it’s a big-top circus
And we’re the juggler, and trapeze, and the balancing act
Performing behind the scenes.
Getting everything ready before
The clowns enter the stage.
Playing God,
Controlling the light they walk in,
Adding the music and sound to the mundanity,
Cueing them into life.

We are valid true artists.
Hiding in shadows,
Lighting the way
Making the music,
But staying out of the spotlight.
Forever alone in black space,
Making every day our magnum opus
While no one pays attention
To the man behind the curtain.

Question from ‘A Curious Follower’ from WordPress!

#PoeticAnswers 48 – Why Don’t You Have Any Pictures On Your Phone?

If memories were as easy to
Delete as the photographs on my phone,
I probably wouldn’t be happy.
Losing the past becomes as
Horrifically easy as
Just an uncoordinated finger.

New Age amnesia
Has become my downfall
Dyspraxia and tremors
Leave me shaking with anger
As precious memories
Of concerts, friends and my dog
Disappear into the digital aether.

Technology is supposed to make things easier,
An extension of ourselves
Keeping the memories that overflow
In a safe space.
But time and time again, my phone has
Proved it is just as fucked up and broken as me.

Or on the rare occasion that
An android update has not annihilated my fragile memory,
I have only myself and Google to blame.
The delete icon next to the upload icon
Without an option to cancel
Feels like a challenge for my broken hands.

I can feel your criticism already,
Why didn’t you back them up,
Why didn’t you set it up automatically?
It was, but because my phone is me,
It was too much and caused frequent crashes.
Now, my phone has as much memories as I do.
And the moral of the story is
Fuck Android.

This question and poem come are based on an early draft of a poem called “Digital Amnesia”

#PoeticAnswers 44 – Do You Really Think Writing Poetry Can Change The World?

One pen can change a piece of paper.
It’s style may seem insignificant,
But every stroke, every line, every word,
Was put there for a reason.

One person can change a mind,
Planting words and thoughts like seeds,
Which grow into flowers of awareness
That people take the time to notice.

One poem can change an audience,
Maybe not everyone and maybe not all at once,
But there’s a collective ear and a collective thought
As this information is absorbed .

I can talk about the things we try not to,
From feminism to religion
To rape culture and xenophobia
And I have the right to.
But that means I have a responsibility,
A responsibility to let you know that
These things are not okay,
And I might not be the catalyst
But I can be the alchemist,
The herald, and psychiatrist
Experimenting, preaching, advising
On how change the world.

I never said it would happen overnight,
I never said I would do it on my own,
So join me and bust a rhyme, take the time
To write your heart and mind out and then
Plaster your presence on the streets and on the internet.

Take your slam poetry,
Make it battering ram poetry ,
A poetry crash, poetry smashing
Injustice and stigma.
Like a thousand fists in the face of adversity,

Make a difference,
Make ripples in oceans of deep thought
Until you have enough friends and force to
Make a tidal wave of revolution to crash down on
Those who do not seek to address opression.

Take your prose, haikus and sonnets
Stand up and use words as weapons
Because ten thousand voices
Reciting ten thousand poems
Could change the world.

Question from Michael Clark from Facebook

#PoeticAnswers 42 – Is My Autism Showing?

Is my autism showing?
I feel like it is.
But unfortunately it doesn’t fit
In my shirt or jeans.
It just spills out uncontrollably
Like a nosebleed when you get nervous,
That happens to other people, right?
The tension builds up in your head,
And the pressure becomes too intense
And then it doesn’t know how to come out
Except as a volcanic eruption of red and mucus and-

I’m sorry you don’t want to hear about that
Sometimes I don’t know
What it’s appropriate to say or when.
And every now and then
Surrealist and existential garbage
Falls out my mouth like
Teeth in a bad dream,
A non-stop avalanche of confused and contrived
Word-like noises that have some semblance
Of an order that
Hopefully makes sense.

When you put white light through a prism,
It creates and exposes all the colours
On the visible spectrum.
Autism exists in this spectrum.
It might not be obvious
You might not see it
And maybe that’s because you’re colourblind
Or more likely
You don’t know what it looks like.
So it merges into the tail-end of
Indigo-violet, near invisible to you because
We’re not on the same wavelength.
But I see it all the time,
Like a near ultraviolet ghost
Using me as a host
And others like me.
Pretending to be a cape,
Letting me pretend to be a superhero
As if somehow I have superpowers.

Sometimes, I don’t really understand
Anything at all.
We all have a brain that’s bespoke
But I’ve got some manufacturing defects.
I’m wired like a sentient bomb
Too afraid to go off because
I don’t know what I’ll do.
I make and mix up my
Metaphors and malaphors
And I use the same lines and similes
Like a man who can
Make and mix up his
Metaphors and malaphors
Because I like patterns,
I see the patterns in daily life and
Have a carefully constructed routine,
Making my life on an assembly line,
Staying consistent and clichéd.

But it’s a losing battle,
This is an ever changing world
And things break and evolve and devolve
And I can’t prepare for that.
My mental preparation is effectively
To stay in a constant state of anxiety,
Living in a permanent panic attack,
Staying on edge with a brain that’s ready to crack,
Taking beta-blockers and antidepressants
To hide the frustration and confusion
And stop the compulsion to do something
Stupid.

But everything I do
Is stupid,
I’m clumsy and wrestle
And tumble and stumble
Over things like a
Drunk in a dark room
Hallucinating that it’s a minefield,
Falling over shadows and shapes
That aren’t actually there,
Hitting my head on walls and my hands
As they flail like a fish out of water
Clutching for something
Or someone to lean on because
I’ve needed additional support all my life.
School work assistance
Not because I didn’t know what I was doing
But because I didn’t know how to
Verbalise it.
Or even write it down.
I couldn’t hold a pencil and write until I was ten.
Because my brain wouldn’t work that
Because my hands couldn’t comprehend
How to work a piece of wood and lead
Because I’m stupid.

And everything I do
Is stupid.
I keep a firm grip on my childhood
Because it’s a coping mechanism.
Unchanging and consistent,
Using stories and Disney movies
As a hoping mechanism,
Playing Yu-Gi-Oh cards by myself
Because it’s a safe way to fight my demons
Because it just makes sense.
I don’t expect you to understand.
But I grew feeling different,
And these were the things I could relate to,
These are the things that let me feel normal.
Because there was so much that didn’t.

I am not stupid,
The occupational therapist told me
I am not stupid.
That my brain is special,
It’s like having a superpower.
But my brain is supposed to have a superpower,
Then I will play at being the superhero.
Like a pseudo-savant
Playing words and emotions
Like I’m playing piano
Hitting all the right notes,
Solving problems and curious incidents
Like a synth pop Sherlock,

I’ve spent eighteen years
Fighting my lack of confidence
And lack of coordination
With elaborate orchestrations.
Playing viola and violin,
Piano and organ,
Ukulele and accordion,
Banjo, guitar, saxophone,
Drums, harp and computers,
And words.
Going from page to stage,
Performing as another person,
Playing pretend until I became able to
Play myself.
That may have came out wrong.
But as I try to tell you my story,
I’ll be brutally honest as I wrestle
And tumble and stumble with my words
As I become more and more exposed
As I realise it’s becoming too real
And I start to panic and become manic
And words start to fall out my mouth
Like teeth in a bad dream
And my nose starts to bleed and
I don’t know anymore.

How can something invisible
Make me feel so exposed?
I hate change but it’s all I want for me
So, when I ask if my autism is showing,
It’s because it feels as obvious as
A part of glasses or a broken leg,
A debilitating disability
Dressing as a superhero
But the cape’s staplegunned to my shoulders.
I never wanted this.

Question from yesterday’s poem.

#PoeticAnswers 38 – How Do You Put Pen to Paper and Create Pages of Art from a Single Question?

It’s a game,
You don’t play to win
You don’t play to lose
You just play.
It’s word play.

Toying around with the
Definition and etymology
Examining the psychology
Of the written and spoken word.

Playing with literary lego blocks
With Daddy Dictionary
And Mummy Thesaurus.
Building up, breaking down,
Tripping over my words and making a mess.

What rhymes, what emotes,
What persuades, what compels.
Every word has a meaning,
And the words that explain that meaning
Also have a meaning.

I set up interracial marriages
Between Nouns and Adjectives,
Sometimes the most unlikely of couples
Can be the greatest relationship they’ve ever had.

I play the adventurer exploring the infinity
Behind the infinitesimal.
It’s like finding the story
Behind each grain of sand
That helped build the desert.

There are words behind everything.
Every song, every photo, every story.
Those words are there for a reason.
And we don’t know if they were there or it was all accidental.

And those are the stories I want to tell.

Question from ‘A Curious Follower’ from my WordPress Contact Box!  Ooh, mysterious!