Happy New Year, valued readers, and welcome to my first blog for 2020. I wrote it months ago, but each time I went to post it, something else came up and I found myself writing a new one. Today, though, is the time for this piece and I hope you enjoy it.
You may remember that in my first blog, I mentioned that I write poetry. Back in the day, at primary school, I knocked out loads of the stuff. If there were competitions for budding young writers, I didn’t know about them. Life might have turned out very differently if I had.
I can still remember sitting in Class 9 at my table, pencil gripped firmly in hand, composing some kind of ode, written on orange sugar paper. If I shut my eyes, I’m back there. It’s probably autumn (a season which is important to me) and outside, the sumac tree by the big playground is dropping scarlet tears near the water fountain, the huge weeping willow is sighing gently in the breeze and the oak by the hall is turning the tarmac brown and slimy with its falling leaves.
“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity”
Back then, I knew nothing of William Wordsworth and his assertion that poetry is emotion recalled in tranquillity. [2]It’s a good line, though, and it’s true. Stuff happens, it hurts, you push it down and hope never to see it again. If you keep on doing that, plus blaming yourself for it for most of your life, you’re going to end up with plenty of emotion to recall.
I wrote a lot of poems about Epping Forest (the village I lived in is right in the middle of it), the weather and whatever topic our teacher gave us. At 10, I was already constructing the foundations to become a freelance writer, exactly what I am now.
At the same time, without realising it, I was building up a fine reservoir of sadness, doubt, pain and anguish which was going to come in jolly handy for my poetic efforts later in life. I always think there are two ways to look at challenging situations. Either you can wallow in misery (and I’ve done this), saying how unfair it is and how everyone had it easier than you, or you can take the vast piles of ordure life handed you and let them mulch down (much like those oak leaves in the playground). I mostly do this.
I studied poetry for English Literature at secondary school and loved it. I hated nearly everything else, but poetry was my friend. I got it. And I still wrote it, but not nearly as much. By the time I escaped from school, Essex and my miserable life, it was firmly on the back burner. I still read plenty of it, discovering new poets with joy (Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage, Wendy Cope and so on), but I wrote no more.
And that was it until two years ago, in the autumn (naturally). I went to see a counsellor. I was rather hoping he would make me feel happy. As it turned out, he took me to a door, helped me to open it and then stood back while a torrent of emotion foamed out, recollected in tranquillity (sort of).
Gosh, though, it was weird. A phrase would drop into my head, I’d sit down and out would come a poem. They were all really, really cross. Either that, or really sad. None of them rhymed. I showed them to my husband. He’s not a crier, but on several occasions, tears poured down his cheeks. My close friends reacted in a similar way. I was surprised. But also pleased. I’d watch as their lips trembled and their eyes filled and feel really, really happy.
Once they’d read a poem, I’d quiz them on their feelings. “So that made you feel sad?” I’d enquire. “How sad? A dull ache? Sharp pain?” They would explain their feelings, wiping away tears, and the sadder they were, the more I felt I’d succeeded.
This is exactly the opposite of my normal behaviour. I hate it when my friends are upset and will do anything I can to make it better. Seeing people responding viscerally to my words, however, was quite another matter. Something powerful was pouring from my heart on to the page. It took me a little while to realise what was going on. Long-buried memories, none of them pleasant, were coming out into the daylight. One of the ways I processed them was to write poetry.
Reading my poems doesn’t make me cry. I remain quite imperturbable. But then I suppose I would. I’ve already gone through the pain and misery which occasioned them. They do say, “write what you know” don’t they?
The great thing about poetry is that you can write a poem which isn't about a specific person but was inspired by a situation or experience.
One of these days, I may put one of my own poems into a blog. I nearly did with this one, but decided against at the last moment. Emotion recollected in tranquillity is great when you feel tranquil, but perhaps those emotions need a bit more time to simmer down. A bit like making jam. There's a poem in that .......