Aging and Love are Involuntary

I had a student this week say he follows me on Insta, Hi I!, but he doesn't read these blog posts which is probably a relief. It got me wondering whether will I share my recent love poems, try to get them published, if I know students, co-workers, family members might read them. At this stage, I'm not sure. 

My poetry is almost always personal, leaving me and my life open to interpretation by strangers as well as people I know. A friend in my writing group once said he feels like he knows my kids because of my poetry even though he hasn't met all of them. 

Normally, this doesn't bother me as my poems are always a step removed from me by either time or rewriting, but these poems are different, closer to the bone. Maybe that will change as time passes, as these feelings pass. I'll remove or edit out the more raw, emotional moments and create that distance I need, but right now I couldn't see sharing some of these poems with the people close to me. I'll maybe try to publish a few individually, that aren't so real and right now, but the others may stay closer to my chest.

The poems I've been working on lately are about love, but also growing older. Loving the person I've become. Aging has never really bothered me, but I can see how the world glances side-eye at me now that I look older, for not dying my graying hair or wearing makeup to hide my wrinkles. I feel as if I'm not allowed to age as I see fit, to be menopausal, hormonal, irrational and maybe in love with all of it. Luckily, I and my poems don't care how the world sees me and though I may complain about the aching joints, I am celebrating my newly crazy middle age.

These themes have also been popping up in my GloPoWriMo poems, the write a poem a day challenge for April. I missed Day 22 going back to work. 

Day 21 the poetry of who I was the past filed away in boxes old photos with a gold wash friends and stories still kent over the decades faces I want to forget hard copies blurred and real can I edit them out

Day 23 inspired by a Finnish song joesta järveen Tuonelan Koivut, Kotiteollisuus I thought the song said love flowed from the river to the lake so finnish so enclosed far from the pull of the tide just a collection of emotions hemmed in but it was tears

Day 24 I stalk the heron the bird is not an omen starving for my questions feeding on my promises but a reflection of what of who is hidden in the nettles and dried stalks

Day 25 grace is not required my midlife crisis needs a midwife as much as a birth to find a way through the cravings and softening skull a hand to hold when facing the feverish heights of hormones and the slow fall to decay aging is involuntary

Day 26 - I do wonder who people will relate to Billie these days (it’s Holliday for me) in the unruly hour in the arms of night I am drowning in blues that ache of wanting and wanting more and that voice petal black is the rain and Billie’s sadness she knew

I share some of my work here and in journals, both about love and growing old. Maybe not warts and all kind of sharing, but hopefully enough for people to relate to what I'm going through. Or to at least understand. That's all we can hope for some days, that people will try to understand us.

Take care. 

The Poetry of Who I am Now

Easter weekend and we got 5 days off school for it. I love the luxury of waking up and thinking, 'not tomorrow' especially when the rain is plashing down like this morning. The return to work will come but it's still not tomorrow, so I'm enjoying the lushness of no plans. 

I went to the allotment yesterday and began work, but the rain has cancelled my plans to return. I always thank the rain however it comes. Everything has suddenly greened as a result; the lawn, the tiny buds on the trees. Last weekend the Easter witches came, so my daughter was making wands and wreaths out of pussy willow catkins which I used to decorate the door after the kids had gone. Safe to say spring is properly here.

GloPoWriMo three weeks in and I'm still going strong here. I'm not able to write a whole poem every day, but every day I'm turning up at the page and trying to write something. 

Some of the poems I've written I really like, but I often feel that about poems early on. They feel so fresh and right, but then I put them aside for a bit and when I go back to them, they feel forced or they're trying too hard to be clever. So I work on them a bit and put them aside for longer, then work on them a bit more until I feel they're done. Then I put them aside for even longer and come back to them with a totally different eye. 

It feels strange to go back and read poems I fell in love with years ago. They aren't the same beasts or maybe I'm not. Sometimes I still love them and they still have a rightness about them. Other times they clash and just don't work or strut too much with their own poetic-ness. My writing style has changed in many ways over time, but it's more that I have changed.

Poetry for me is very much what I want to say right now: my emotions, my obsessions, what I'm looking at and thinking about now. Years down the line I may not see things that way anymore, but the poem is a snapshot of that moment, now gone. And like my teenage journals and blurry pre-digital photos I won't get rid of them just because they're cringe-worthy or not who I am now. I love how they show my growth and development. But, as Billy Connelly said, pay attention because it's all going to change tomorrow.

This was me in the early 1990s.

And this is where I'm at April 2025:

Day 13 

I’ve waited for the other shoe

for the truth to be spit out

knowing it would break open

the foundations where I stood

but I wanted to hear it

dug for it in the muck

that was shoveled high

just to be free of its stench

Day 14

I build a cage of discipline

woven with shoulds and musts

to I trap myself

inside I whittle away at time

Day 15 

slow motion summers where we were never pent up

running to the gold overtones of eight tracks and polaroids

we brought goldenrod, milkweed and violets

to the table of gray alleyways and riversilt

sneaker toes kicking the dirt

Day 16 – inspired by a Finnish female rapper who came to our school.

When?

Speculate to where I could be if I only spoke up.

I am just holding on.

Still holding back

hesitate hes     i       tate.

Never too late.

Feel myself close off. Intimidate.

Bite back.

Permission granted.

Day 17 

there’s no happiness in this

no peace either

yet I keep plunging myself deeper

I confess I felt dead

spiraling into silence into dust

Day 18 

rugby in black and white

bodies rumble into motion

pitch churned to mud

limb wrapping limb

grip bind

Day 19 

unstrung

I string myself along

vibrating synched to the wind

high-strung gutted and burned dry 

and fall like a broken kite

the sea pulling me away

I’m given to distractions

to remember to forget

when did I stop talking 

when he stopped listening

I’ve chosen to ignore

the opinions of the wind

Day 20 

myself in the abstract

the rain pelting down             this is content

I am torn from the page of the unmade bed          this is arrival

a husk of the moon                              longing

morning a word                      sanctuary

crumpled at the bottom of the laundry pile                  expectations 

It's taken me so long to write this post that tomorrow is the day I have to go back to work. But it's been a lovely long weekend. Enjoy what's left of your Easter holidays. 

Look at Everything Twice - Editing

I had a job interview this week. I was struggling getting over a cold, overwhelmed by what I had missed at work while I was out, so I really didn't feel it went well. However, my boss told me afterwards that I undersold myself. I'm pretty sure I sold myself as a babbling idiot, so that's hopefully true. 

When I'm asked a question I'm not totally sure on or not prepared for, I just start talking and then find my brain running behind going, 'What the hell is she on about? Somebody stop her!' Luckily, it was interviewing for the job I've been doing for the past two years on a temp contract, so they know I am not an idiot, though maybe also know I'm prone to babbling. 

This is why I feel comfortable as an editor, especially of my own writing. In writing my poems, I often don't know what I'm saying until I have the meandering mess of it down on paper or screen and can sort it out, clean it up, take out the waffling that isn't needed, the details that are just too off the wall or unclear. 

I do the same thing with emails, write it all out then edit it appropriately. I have, in the past, sent out those in the moment, emotional, unfocussed, unedited emails and it never ends well, so I always try to pull back and look a second time. 

I may have mentioned on this blog before that idea as my best piece of advice every given me, 'Look at everything twice'. It was said to me by a Holocaust survivor I met when I was working in a bookshop in my small university town. She came in some Sundays to buy the big papers and chat. One day as she was leaving, she grasped my arm and said this and it's always stuck with me. 

I've never considered the phrase in terms of my love of editing. I've always just thought of it as take a moment to appreciate what's around you, the small things we overlook. By looking twice at anything, we understand it better and our place in it. We should spend that extra time to consider what we're seeing, doing and saying. 

This applies to our writing as well. Slow down and consider. I need to do that when I speak as well it seems. 

I'm still doing the GloPoWriMo - the Global Poetry Writing Month - write a poem a day challenge. I've had a few days that I've managed to get a good basis for a poem, others were I just have a few stanzas with interesting images, but no connection at the moment. I'll give them second looks after the challenge is over. 

‪Day 12

there is no full retreat

climb out of honesty

and disconnect like an island

I insist that the earth tilts

in my favour for at least one day

Day 11 

i loved you in flannel

before grunge

bookending my school crushes

from first grade to high school

you sketched a perfect circle

without me

Day 10 

this landscape is where I fall to my knees

wishing for more

the season as thin as a line drawing

trailing the marks I leave behind

‪

Day 9 a snippet inspired by a typo on my son’s Shelley essay. 

Explode the Monstrous

Peel back my skin and see

how I’ve tied my sinews into knots over you.

I’ve offered my eyes to the ravens

and cast the bones,

but I cannot give you flesh.

‪Day 8 

the darkness expands

unpacking overheard whispers 

muffling me 

in a heavy blanket

I carve out worm-space

to shoulder myself free

‪Day 7 

hands dancing over desire lines 

of whipcord flesh

pickpocketing the mystery

the awe of you

Some fun ideas in there I'll enjoy playing with later on. How are you getting on with the challenge so far?

Poetry Snippets for GloPoWriMo

It's April (woohoo) and I'm bunged up with a head cold and my birch allergy, so I'm hiding indoors though the weather isn't too cold. Spring always gets started without me when it finally comes along as there is just so many birch trees here. Time for writing, watching rugby and indoor chores. Not too bad a way to spend the weekend. 

April is also time for the write-a-poem-a-day challenge from NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo. I've been posting my attempts on my various social media channels and have managed to keep up the first six days. I don't always manage a full poem, but usually have a start I can play with over the next month or so. I use various sites for inspiration, including the official site listed above, Wendy Pratt's Substack prompts, Todd Dillard's thought-provoking prompts (he has the last few years' threads on Twitter, I think, but I won't link to there) and my Substack feed in general. I'm enjoying the break in my day to come up with some lines or just play with words. 

Here are my first six days. I only post snippets as I may want to publish the finished poems.

Day 6 

my children think I’m mocking them

when I play his song

think I don’t get it

overplayed, it’s become cliched

and I don’t

not how they see it

but I remember watermelon

the sizzle, the splash

too eager

when it’s fresh

Day 5

I present as gifts

my scratches of language

the bookshop receipts 

in suitcase pockets

the curled milkweed pods

nettle stings

on my wrist and ankle to kiss

I never forget the orange glow of the city 

and of the crackling aurora

my compass is the cold sea

and humbling rain

Day 4

beneath the barbed-wire taste 

of a rust sunset

I drag my heels to say goodbye

Day 3

let myself drown 

in the salt and cold timing

between us

waves of decades 

and distance that gnaws

and gnaws at me

I am mortal and I love

Day 2

the braiding of long memory

did not foreshadow this rebirth

I cannot utter regrets

to be so carried away

all sense is burned to fragments

time drones on untuned

as I give in

Day 1

I walk my routine

repetition and longing

to the school door

a portrait of my daily self 

worn down

first bell to last