What I do in preparation for a poetry open mic night.
1)
Ensure husband is well enough for an evening of
child wrangling alone.
2)
Get changed out of the clothes I’ve worn for
child wrangling all day.
3)
Go into town.
4)
Sit down with a tea/wine/cider inside the Number
Five Cafe in Cedar Square.
5)
Relax and listen to everyone else perform.
It’s no secret that I’ve been to a huge number of Dead Good
Poets’ open mic nights and not performed. I have read other people’s work
though. It’s just my own I seem to have a problem with. Poetry has never been
easy for me. It’s not something which comes
naturally. The only poem I have ever written outside of an academic or
workshop environment (or school for that matter) was after the birth of my
second child. He had just finished feeding and it popped into my head that I
would write a poem. I actually liked it too. It was only about four lines long,
and I haven’t kept it. But I didn’t force it.
I want a
poem to come to me in the same way that did. Without judgement, for my eyes
only. My naivety at the time didn’t know whether it was academically
worthy or the metaphors were pleasing on a literature level. I felt the same
way about the sketch I did of him sleeping. This has also gone; I don’t tend to
keep my work. The only reason I have some my writing is because computers are
handy like that. I didn’t use one then.I think I liked it because there was no
pressure. No rules. I just enjoyed it. I’ve struggled writing for the past
year. I am hyper-aware of my language use, because I am studying again. Partly
through low mood. But I think I broke through a little last Wednesday. I signed
myself up for a project that Standard has been running, Haunted Blackpool. We
have to submit ghost stories (the clue’s in the name) and I had one ready from
another project I was involved in and had planned to submit that. But when the pressure
of having to write went I had an idea, and I actually enjoyed
writing it. It wasn’t the pulling teeth rigmarole I’ve been subjecting myself
to for the past year for Uni and the blog. It came quickly and I loved every
second of it. It may be rubbish but I remembered why I want to write.
At school I wrote every break time, lunchtime and after
school. It was mainly crap, shitty metaphors jumped from wild plot twist to formulaic bollocks but
I loved it. I hope to reach a balance between good writing and enjoying it one
day. Then I will read something at the Dead Good Poets, but I want it to be
something I enjoyed writing, not something I forced myself to for the occasion.
But I will do it. Whether or not my voice will croak or I will shrink into my
coat or possibly die of stage fright may be another matter.