Not a poet and I know it


I recently attended a couple of events at this year's Penzance Literary Festival. The first was a writing and mythology workshop, facilitated by poet and prose writer Angela Stoner. I mucked in as a steward for one event the following day and that turned out to be Angela's as well. I hope to interview her soon either on this blog or the sister blog www.strictlywriting.blogspot.co.uk
Like many writers I found expression through poetry in my teens, although no one dug my doggerel at the time. Maybe I was channelling my inner William McGonagall
The session Angela gave on myth took me in an unusual direction when I got home. I started to think about those elements of my storywriting that come from other people, often without their knowledge. Those precious slivers of overheard conversations that I skewered on my notebook pages, the borrowed memories, and the brutal cannibalisation of other people's experiences.
Graham Greene is said to have said: "There is a splinter of ice in the heart of a writer." Some say it's jagged glass, but I prefer the idea of ice as it suggests the possibiity of a thaw.
Anyway, taking all of the above as inspiration, here's a poem.
I Confess - More or Less
I stole your pet's nameAnd I took your cousin's too.I ripped your life into ribboned stripsAnd sewed them up anew.
I altered crucial detailsTo hide my heinous crimes.I changed the date you met your fateI lied about those times.
I painted myself in the pictureWhen I wasn't even there.I made a heroine out of youAnd pretended that she cared.
I moved you to a countryWhere I know you've never been.I gave our lines to othersAnd reordered all the scenes.
I wrote you out of contextWith a wild and wicked pen.I plunged an ice shard in my heartTo serve the story's ends.
I'll never share the secretsOf a thousand personal worlds.But I'll scatter fragments liberallyTo turn them into pearls.
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Published on July 11, 2015 07:49
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