Thanks, Julia Darling

Thinking about Julia Darling this week - I've written a rare poem..! First in absolutely ages. Seeing on Facebook that it would have been her birthday this week is what brought it about. She was a Tyneside-based writer I knew a little and loved to bits. In 2001 she invited me and Stella Duffy to be guests of honour at her Festival of Queer Writing, and that's what the poem's about.




Thanks, Julia Darling

I’d never stayed in a hotel so posh before,Pouring myself a Bloody Mary soon as I was through the doorOr had my workshop gang take me out and tell me:You have to return to the North. You have to come home to the North.
I’d never had tapas by the Tyne before,I’d never been a Guest of Honour before,I’d never seen twenty-four dykes strumming acoustic guitars singing Marlene Dietrich on a stageAnd I’d never been met at the station By my Festival organizer before…
She was jumping up and down By the barrier in tie-dye,Telling me where she’d bought her daft hat And how I had to check it out.
I’d never led a workshop where the person hiring me was first in the queueTo get through the door, beaming,Excited as anything to get cutting upAnd pasting words back togetherAnd dashing out to fetch tapeWhizzing stuff under the copier’s hoodPiecing together our surreal masterpieceWhich she made us all, every one of us, Stand up on stage that night and read out every lastCrazy word: All the bodices and bonnets and ray guns On the burning sands of Mars To an entirely dumbfounded and delighted crowd.
I’d never been to a festival like it.Right by the hectic Gay Village,A crossways of tawdry pubs and fried food joints,Busy as anything, hilarious with chatty noise And screeching, nosy parker queensI’d never met any Geordie queers before!
I’d had to leave home to find any queers at all.Yet here they were, By Tyne Bridge after midnightLike pixies in vest tops And goblins in hotpantsCavorting and canoodling down the Enchanted wood And all the gorgeous Dockside dens of vice.
That bridge I’d rode over a million times as a kid on the busComing into town to buy fanzines and bootleg cassettesAnd under the massive green machineryDashing down desire paths to the riverAll the queers of Tyneside with hearts set on chipsAnd hot saucy fun
And the view from the boggling height of the gallery Was airy and fresh and a great place to watch The brave nonchalance of everyone gadding aboutAnd going everywhere they ever wanted in a rush.
I’d never been to a festival of writing queers before.Thanks, Julia Darling. Back in 2001.I’ll never forget it.