A Change Has Come
Hey all. Today I thought I'd just let you all in on a secret. Something has happened to my poetry. I've had a bit of a sea change in what I'm writing about.
So, up until now I haven't really toiled too much over my poems. It's a bit lame really, but I focus more on story telling rather than poetry, so normally I just spend a little time rattling them off without much thought to editing, or evolving them. I know, it's bad. I should put more effort in, but I just see them as a writing exercise really. They normally come out quite well and I like their raw feel.
Anyway, I'd say that normally my poems are quite conceptual. Obviously I do write about specific things; politics, music, nature, etc, but most of my poems are esoteric, conceptual pieces about what it is to be a human in the modern world.
Here's an example:
Changing Weather
And the sun shines down
Burning away all memory of rain
The light cancelling out the gloom
As if it had never been
Laughter does the same
The visceral impact of joy
Rejects the very notion of misery
Yet
Rain will fall again
And we will once more fall into melancholy
It is all just weather
So as you can see this kind of poem is pretty much just a rumination on our changing moods. I use the weather as a metaphor to show how we put our emotions out of our mind when we are experiencing the opposite feeling, just like we forget the rain when the sun is shining. It's pretty straight forward. Nothing very clever, just a play on thoughts with some nice language really.
Well here's where the change has come.
At some point in the last week, I had a small revelation. An epiphany if you will. I was looking at some illustrations online and realised that these illustrations really kind of defined what I want to achieve in my poetry. I suppose it was a kind of visual cue for what I should be doing.
Here are a couple of examples of the illustrations I mean:
So obviously these are just examples of the kind of thing I mean. I was looking at these images and found them really inspiring. It wasn't just the content, yet they are amazing. It was more the feel of them. The textures, the colours, just their whole atmosphere really.
Well, anyway, I absorbed these and thought nothing more of it. But since then my poems have changed. At first didn't even notice. Then I realised that I'm focusing on different things. Character for one. I'm now getting more into defined characters rather than just speaking about a generic "we". I'm now using characters as metaphors. And I love the way a character can draw you into a poem. Also, textures too. I'm looking for more specific words to capture an atmosphere rather than just going for florid language to show off my vocabulary. The poems aren't so sparse now either. I really used to like the whole zen feel of few words on the page, but now I'm more interested in telling the story of the poem; trying to embrace the fuller piece.
Here's an example of one of the new style poems:
Patchwork Love
Eddie was a patchwork dog
He was old and he was tatty
He'd fallen apart throughout the years
Handed down and a little mistreated
His leg was sewn out of Mollie's dress
His other out of denim
His belly was a gingham towel
And his ear was torn and ragged
His button eyes didn't even match
His smile slightly crooked
His right arm stiff, his left so floppy
His body filled with stuffing
And though he looked worn and scruffy
It wasn't really tragic
For he was made with love and care
And survived on memories and magic
So there we go, now you know where I'm at with poetry at the moment. Who knows if it's a trend that will continue? Is this my new style? Will this define how I write from now on? Or maybe it's just a momentary phase. Maybe I'm just exploring this aspect of language for the time being.
Keep yours eyes peeled to see if I keep it up, or if I change again...
Cheers!
M...
