This has been a week of big achievement. If you follow any of my social media you’ll recall I had two poems shortlisted in Ironbridge Poetry Competition, which is as close to being on my doorstep as possible, unless the cat starts to take up a new role a literary mogul. I was invited to read and whilst my first instinct was “I can’t” the fact that the venue was just two minutes walk from my front door made me want to take the opportunity. I’ve been reading and recording my work a lot more as part of my editing process and of course I recorded my video for Sanofi. This practice helped but nothing quite prepares the body for the power of its flight response.
So there I was. Sunday morning, in a suitably poet-like dress ( I restrained myself from the Byron sleeves this time) the comfort of chunky boots and my jade pendant that goes with me to every scary situation. This was going to be the first time reading in real life. I shook ( just the one leg bizarrely) but my voice stayed steady, I managed to look up at my audience, pause where I wanted to pause and even breathe occasionally. In hindsight perhaps choosing to read a poem about one of my last conversations with my Dad added a layer of difficulty I didn’t need, but I’ve never been one to take the easy route. Unless I’m hill climbing. Then I’m scouting for it before I set foot on the path.
I felt lovely. Energised, and pleased to have spoken my poem as it needed to be spoken, with the added boost of praise from a poet I really admire. I’ve put off reading in public for a very long time and realise that it is something I desperately want to do – to hear the sounds of the language I have chosen, and to test out the impact or effect on those who are listening.
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It’s time to push my poetry further
That’s not what I want to write about today. I’m curious about something else. I seem to be at a point as a writer where I’m being shortlisted for a lot of things – good things that I wouldn’t have even entered a couple of years ago. This is positive. But I’m not winning which shows there’s something missing from my work. I’m very pragmatic about the whole business of having work selected for publication and winning awards or competitions, after all, poetry is subjective, judges and editors are human. But for this to be happening so often there must be something I need to improve.
I feel a little closer to the answer and it’s because of something mentioned by Pat Edwards, curator of Welshpool Poetry Festival and judge for Ironbridge Poetry Competition.
“The winning poem struck me on the very first reading and it became clear to me that this was the one every other poem had to beat.” Pat expanded on this at the live event, describing how the winning poem Scrabble by Helen Kay “wouldn’t leave her”.
Hearing Helen read her poem I understood exactly what Pat meant. There are so many elements that make this poem stand out for me – the click of the sounds all the way through that mirror the scrabble tiles of the opening lines, the line stops that mirror the disjointed train of thoughts, the details that place the poem in a specific time and place and the final phrase that is so subtle and so devastating. Helen’s poem has stayed with me this week too.
How does this inform my own journey to the altar? To become the bride rather than a perpetual bridesmaid? I realise I need to be more brave. More bold. Stop censoring. I refine and cut out not just to improve a poem, but to avoid causing offence, to avoid upsetting people, avoid making them feel bad. I think this is perhaps part of the inevitable people pleasing that is a classic trauma response. I also realise that this is perhaps why I have chosen poetry as my primary means of expression. Imagery and metaphor can say exactly what I want them to say, without me having to say it. The joy of post-structuralist understanding that meaning is fluid, always in flux renders my role in meaning less stark, less involved. There is freedom in this. Freedom in poetry. I am going to embrace it. What are your thoughts on this ? How can I take my poetry beyond the joy of the shortlist to the heady heights of being picked?
My next couple of weeks will bring more work on my pamphlet – it’s failed to be snapped up by the first two competitions so I’m taking this as a sign that it needs a little more something. It could be the order, it could be a missing poem. It could be I’ve just pitched to the wrong place. The joy of keeping going is not lost on me. I’m having fun, of the most devastating, heartbreaking challenging kind, but as I said at the start of this post, I’m rarely one to take the easy route. I’m enjoying Ros Woolner’s Unfinished Sonnet Project as well as working on my annual attempt to be published in my most hallowed of magazines Under the Radar. I’ve a few more bespoke poetry commissions too, which give me chance to indulge in a different type of writing which brings a different type of joy. I feel very, very lucky to be living this life, disjointed and frustrating as it may be at times. I am safe, I am warm and I get to write.
Until next time,
Kathryn
xx
Kathryn Anna Marshall 