Photo by Nikita Nikitenko
I have always loved writing poetry in a kind of ‘off the cuff’ way. No overthinking it, just letting it flow on out when the creative clouds gather and press down upon my thoughts. They arrive like rain and the inspiration can go as quickly as it came, much like the weather. I can’t do perfected, or polished. That would be taking myself far too seriously. So, I just write.
When I came to study a module in poetry at university, of course we focused on structure, form, rhyming and meter. And I hated it. Our assignments were to write poetry set to different format and the very thought of writing something by a group of rules rather than from a place of inspiration infuriated me so much that I submitted my final collection with a strong foreword plainly refusing to conform, including my philosophical reasons why. There was no comment from my tutor. I’m not sure whether she agreed with me, thought I was pretentious, or didn’t actually care, but I scraped a pass and that was that.
There are so many poems that I love and I realised recently that the ones I can recite from heart all have one major thing in common: their patterns… it’s how they touch you. Poems like William Blake’s ‘London’, Tennyson’s ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’, and ‘A Daughter of Eve’ by Christina Rossetti (below) that I think I pretty much speak out loud to myself every day in the most Keira-Knightley-In-Love-Actually voice I can muster because it’s just very enjoyable to do so. Give it a try yourself?
A Daughter of Eve
A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.
My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It's winter now I waken.
Talk what you please of future spring
And sun-warm'd sweet to-morrow:—
Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
I sit alone with sorrow.
Christina Rossetti
After 19 contrary years, I decided to at least give writing to a pre-determined frame a chance. The subject matter came about when one of the dubious men I have dated (it was Sad Minty Fuck) was explaining to me how he wanted to capture in a graphic how brave it is for the song thrush to be the first to sing in the morning. When I tried to engage with him on it he became very dismissive, as if he just want to wank on about a pretty concept rather than actually fulfil it. Shortly after, I also realised he was secretly dating someone else despite so strenuously denying it, so I whizzed him a link to Aubade by Philip Larkin (as you do), signed off with a ‘fuck you’, blocked him, and set about completing the job that he wouldn’t even start because that’s about as vengeful as I get.
I named it after another of Rossetti’s poems because it felt fitting. And, fuck me, is it hard to rhyme and write to pattern, yet also quite satisfying. It’s good in parts (I think), a bit weak in others, but hey ho here we go, here’s to challenging your own bullshit:
My Heart is Like a Singing Bird
Knows not that light will come to reign
So brave, so bold his buoyant shriek
The edge of night this sweet proclaim
Echoes down the choral chain
Thrush that breaks the morning bleak
Oh Robin Red your song is next
Tune of cheer and honeyed chitter
Soft flutters on your proud puffed breast
Sun warmed upon your rouged round chest
Your merriment a-twitter
The tilted throat of blackbird’s shrill
Pure cries good omen for the day
His yellow flute plays louder still
All to hear their thrilling trills
These music birds that kill the grey
Not singing birds, but some nice pigeons having a chat in the mist on the bridge in Canterbury. Photo by me.
If you liked reading this poem, you might also like these:
The Black Barn > (this one is about a gorgeously fascinating man child)
The Milk Moon of May > (this one is about my grandma in 1918)
One Man Island > (this one is about a narcissistic ex)
Duncan Always Loved An Apple > (this one also about an ex, but he was lovely, albeit eccentric)