Why I explain my poetryMany writers don't offer explanations, preferring to allow the reader to interpret the meaning of a piece of work themselves.
I like to offer an explanation for at least some of my pieces, not least because when I read the poetic works of other writers or look at any form of artwork, I like to know the story and motivation behind its creation. |
Index of PoemsInside:
"The Quietened Beasts" This piece was inspired by the seemingly unconnected topics of lost love and taxidermy. From a young age, it thrilled me to be able to get very close to and touch animals which could never have been touched in life - igniting dreams of anthropomorphic adventures. Similarly, when love is lost, and the initial heartbreak mellows to nostalgia, I am apt to reminisce in eternal tableaux - rendering the protagonists as static, posed characters in a gilded theatre of imagination. "One Woman's Temple" I've never wanted children. I keep getting asked why. This piece goes a little way towards answering that question. Outside: "Round here" recounts memories of part of my early life. My family lived in a tower block in a marshy backwater on the south-east London/Kent border which, far from being quite the terrible experience imagined, provided me with a wonderland of scurrying adventure. Home is home, wherever. We all have the tendency to romanticise, and perhaps this piece is guilty of such, but, I recall my childhood with nothing but fondness. "Transubstantiation" was inspired by a piece of eroded copper piping I found on the beach at Warden Point on the Isle of Sheppey. It was full of holes where the salt water had eaten away at it over a period of time. To me, it seemed a beautiful object which had transcended its humble purpose through the process of being shaped by natural forces. I wrote "Hands" in response to how I felt upon seeing my Grandfather after he'd died. His, being the first human body devoid of life I had ever laid eyes upon, understandably stirred up many different emotions. The most striking was the realisation that his hands, dexterous and clever in life, despite the rotten rheumatoid arthritis which blighted him so cruelly, would never turn another piece of wood on his beloved lathes |