Tag: poet

#PoeticAnswers 2017 – Done!

100 days, 100 questions, 100 answers as poems.

102 days ago, I would’ve said “that’s impossible!” But here we are.  And I’m a mix of emotions about it. Pride, accomplished, relieved, astonished (I honestly thought I’d give up after day ten) but also… I’m not completely satisfied.

I’m proud of dedicating myself and finishing the challenge, and there is a lot of work that I’m proud of. But there’s definitely some poems in there that didn’t turn out how I wanted them to or I was just generally not happy with.

I think there’s a lot of material that has potential and there’s some I may rewrite entirely, but right now, I’m all poemed out and could use a wee break.

So, if you’re interested, all of this year’s poems can be found here, please feel free to peruse. The future is on it’s way and it involves videos and more new writing. If you have any questions or want a chat, hit me up.

Huge, special thank yous belong to my friend Dave, who has been a very dedicated and supportive friend (he wrote these out in a book! It was the best birthday present ever!) and finally to Michael Clark who has contributed around 12-15 percent of these questions! Thank you both so, so much.

And finally, I’d like to say a huge thank you to all of you. The readers, the questioners, without you, I wouldn’t have gotten to this. Thank you for your love and support.

I’ll be back soon with more poems, posts and gig updates!

 

#PoeticAnswers 94 – How Did Your Gig Go?

I wore my heart and soul
On my sleeve and vocal chords.
My heart jumped out my throat
And my soul dripped onto the floor
Like invisible rain,
Letting me get out the pent up rage
And depression that has
Inspired and incentivised
My life’s work.
Or at least my work from the past few months,
Because I’ve been writing everyday
For a hundred days.
It feels like a hundred seconds,
And tonight felt like a hundred minutes
As I took my time to tumble and stumble
Over each carefully crafted word and rhyme
That took a hundred hours of my time
To piece together like a jigsaw that
Didn’t want to be solved.
The audience listened but
I don’t know if they heard the
Meanings and cries for help
Dispersed among the one lines
And stanzas of depression-infused
Derivative metaphors.
But I stood on the stage,
And I got to speak.
I spoke like a man too afraid to stop speaking,
Too afraid for the stage lights to fall,
To afraid to lose the moment and
Get lost in the moment.
Adrenaline and benzodiazepine
Running at the same time,
Dancing with each other
To an off-beat rhythm that they’re both playing.
I stood on the stage
And I felt alive.
And it felt fantastic

#PoeticAnswers 82 – Are You A Poet?

I know it seems hard to believe
That I wear my heart and soul on my sleeve
And my vocal chords and
Stand up in front of my fellow humans
And regale them with poetic tales
And awful rhymes about
My time on this earth.

Because I don’t fill the traditional mould,
I’m not young enough to be fresh on the scene
And I’m not old enough to be established
And I’m not clean shaven enough
Or too beardy to seem as wordy
As I try to be.

And I don’t have a degree in English
From a top university like Edinburgh or Cambridge,
I went to a uni out of sight and mind
And studied sound and lighting design
So I understand the quiet rage
That some people have when I step on the stage because
I spent years trying to hide from it.

And I don’t have a beret
Or skinny fit jeans
Or a memory strong enough
To remember my own poems and
It feels like I’m in a dream because
After this I have to go back to the
Corporate machine and

I don’t have books of Wordsworth or
Shakespeare and I don’t write every day and
It gives me the fear that I’m a fraud and
All of this will disappear like
Chalk on a pavement or rational thoughts into a beer so
I’ll take this neuroticism and use it to
Justify all my actions and make this seem real, so

Yes I am a poet because
I’ve got crippling depression and
And a a tormented childhood
And a mental state that barely exists
And I’m not afraid to show it and
That makes me a troubled artist.
So yes, I am a poet.
But I’m not sure I know it yet.

Question comes from a work colleague who didn’t realise what I do as a sideline.

#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