The Uninvited Poet

My first ‘Joyful Connection’ blog was about my very first solo adventure to foreign climes. I also shared the fact that I wanted write about things that are important to me, the things I am passionate about. Most especially the connections we feel as human beings.

We live in a time of change, when the world seems upside down and makes very little sense. One thing however, which has always made sense to me, is poetry.

My mum was a huge fan of poetry, which is really where my passion began. My mum hailing from Scotland, loved poetry written in the vernacular which when I was little, sounded absolutely bonkers.

However, there was something in her delivery when read aloud that helped me understand. The poem below was one of her favourites. It is about a toad who boasts how wonderful he is to anyone who will listen.

Just as he finishes waffling about his brilliance, a heron flys by and eats him!

Like most young children growing up in Britain in the 70’s I watched ‘Opportunity Knocks’ (one of the first talent shows in Britain) with my parents. This was probably the first time I discovered the ‘Spoken Word’ in the form of Pam Ayers and her comedic stanzas of rhyme.

I recently listened to her in an interview, in which she said she didn’t see herself as a ‘Performance Poet’ I beg to differ, even as a child I could see the profound effect she had on an audience and my parents.

Later in life I had the privilege of watching three Performance Poets at the age of seventeen.
I had no idea of their greatness at the time, they were just three scary guys who came on as the interval entertainment during a ‘Ska Music’ gig in Camden.

Introduced as ‘The Ranting Poets’ Lyndon Kwasi Johnson, Benjamin Zephaniah, and John Cooper Clarke. They were terrifying and amazing in equal measure, in a time of racial intolerance and ‘Thatchers Britain.’ Even though I didn’t fully understand everything they said I didn’t forget how their words made me feel.

I recently met Benjamin Zephaniah (at one of his performances) and told him that he had terrified me, he laughed and asked if he was ranting about ‘Thatcher’ when I explained he was, he said it was because he was so angry.

That’s why I love poetry, it is an expression of how we feel, connecting through language to convey those thoughts.

Benjamin Zephaniah, I was so in awe!

I have written poetry for as long as I can remember but only recently began to perform my poetry to strangers.

The reason for this is that I had written a poem about the loss of one of my best friends. Someone too young, who was extraordinary.

I think I needed to make sense of it all and validate her life because it had ended far too soon. I needed to share it with the world, to confirm that she was here and that she mattered.

I knew I needed to do this on my own and I really was worried that it just wasn’t good enough or that it wouldn’t justify her existence.

I had seen an advert for a local Folk Festival in Leigh On Sea in Essex, which included a spoken word evening in one of the local churches and so nervously, I went along.

I signed up and sat down at a table with another lady sitting on her own. We chatted and introduced ourselves. The lady’s name was Lillian, she wasn’t a poet but she told me that she loved listening to poetry and shared her love of the arts.

Lillian was such a lovely soul, I explained it was my first time. The connection with this lady was so special and something I won’t forget as her kindness about my poetry made me feel ten feet tall which is really something, for a vertically challenged squirt like me.

The comments from others and their reactions to my poem, cemented for me, that my poetry is meant to be performed and heard.

A very clever poet called Adrian Mitchell once said:

“Most People ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people”

That is exactly the type of poetry I want to write and perform, poetry for everyone. It is also the poetry that most people respond to when I perform.

I attend lots of ‘Spoken Word’ performances and everyone is so very supportive. There is so much talent out there, both young and old and every time, it takes my breath away.

So, when I recently attended a poetry event in Kings Cross in London to celebrate ‘Women Poets’ albeit famous ones, I expected to be exhilarated. However, I felt the opposite, as if I didn’t belong.

Of course the writing was incredible although the poem which had the biggest reaction was the simplest poem of the evening, by acclaimed poet Gillian Clarke. A poem about life in the form of a pebble. An audible sigh in the audience (myself included) for the poem’s last line confirmed that everyone had felt a connection.

The other poets really had an absurd effect on me, their words making me feel that my poetry wouldn’t ever be good enough. I’ve never felt that deflated before, whenever I’ve been to see a recognised poet I usually leave inspired and full of admiration. Maybe it was the learned way they were introduced that made me feel so inferior.

I really did not expect my reaction which made me feel both angry and sad. I do know it runs deep for me, having been accused of plagiarism at the tender age of fifteen by an English teacher. This relating to a poem we were asked to write for homework.

It was the fact that she believed I would hand in someone else’s work, that knocked me for six. Especially when I was so very proud of it, I still am.

So, I had a word with myself and told myself how ridiculously I was reacting and I remembered that ‘anyone’ who writes a poem is a poet, recognised or not and that it doesn’t matter where you were educated. If the words are written from your heart, it is indeed poetry.

I would like to think all poets feel and believe this, no matter who they are. 💗

So here is my retort:

Women of Poetry

A Radio 2 listener in a room of Radio 4

Words beyond measure

Iridescent, intellectual, eloquence

Her lexicon of thought, felt crude and insignificant

Oxford and Cambridge

Platinum and crystal

She is aluminium and glass and earth

Doubting worth and abandoning why?

Imposter breath invades her lungs

Resurgence of ambiguity fills a new found void

Until the timid roar, growls

Her uncertainty, clear

She has a place

In smiles of unfamiliar faces

In tears that reach the soul

Flesh and bone

She is, the same

Joy M Louisa

I apologise for the huge spacing, I tried to change it but not being computer savvy, I failed miserably.

I would like to add that I’ve nothing really against Radio 4 and I do tune in occasionally when there is an interview I particularly want to hear, but essentially I’m a Radio 2 kind of a girl.

So there you have it, a connection I thought I would have but didn’t and I then found.

One final thing to note, when I arrived back at Upminster Station in Essex after the oddest evening, a peculiar Dickensian figure (in as much as he looked like Fagin in a Parker with missing teeth) spoke to me like I was in a Victorian novel:

“Long night Miss?”

I swear he tugged at his forelock.

Such a strange night …