I had no choice really, although it was not quite a question of publish and be damned! I had not set out to write with the aim of going into print and satisfying some boyhood dream. I had not ‘set out’ to do anything really. In fact, I did not pen any poem until I was probably about 27, and I have now turned 60.
But words and thoughts always jingled around in my head as a youth and young man, and I guess there was a certain restlessness in me as I questioned what to make or not of my life, how to get involved in things and people, or not get involved. Not too unusual a condition (‘state of being’) I suppose.
There was though some sort of compulsion to put lines down on paper and see if they could stock up to something meaningful, or at least and at last get ‘these thoughts’ out of my mind and return to a more sobre state.
The most I actually achieved was the odd flirtation with writing and elaborating some sort of thought process which had occupied me from time to time. Yet it’s amazing how a small collection of ‘works’ builds up and you say to yourself that they sound ok, there’s almost a rhyme in there somewhere, and you have actually completed a poem which could be considered as hanging together.
Next comes a concern as to whether you should actually show these to someone and seek an opinion and whether you do this intimately with a friend or lover or someone who is supposed to know something about it all. In your heart you know that this will lead nowhere. Comments such as ‘a pleasant little jingle’, or ‘quite a funny way of putting it’, or even a supposedly ‘that’s really good’ do not take you to the moon and back.
Then life often takes over and on you go to serious work, forging a future, marrying and settling down, rearing a family, achieving job targets and purchasing this or that. Years of relative or at times absolute inactivity follow and it’s only when life circumstances change – often for the worse – that you return to your former self, begin to reflect, suffer periods of doubt, loneliness or regret, need to call upon the life force – and to experience familiar thought processes of old – and you take up the pen again.
In my case certain setbacks, isolation and a need to forge a future set off a series of thoughts in me as I sought to understand where I was and where I was going. Call it existentialism if you like but it had a lot to do with appreciating what I was about and what was important to me, and this in turn gave rise to a new crop of poems. Add to this the opportunity or need to write for work reasons and an understanding that people actually enjoyed ‘my style’ of translation, my way of putting together a newsletter, of producing a promotional piece, or my focus when presenting an article for publication on a serious or even frivolous matter, and a little voice says ‘maybe I do have something here’, ‘maybe people will read and interpret my poems and gain something from them’.
Then comes the ‘jump moment’ when one starts to consider how to put things together, produce a collection, and think of what to do with any collection – is it a way of just putting life in order as you would do with documents, cardboard boxes and photo albums, or is there something else urging one on? Then, low and behold, comes the audacious phase when you begin to craft past poems, and not only past poems, but you actually apply a sense of craft to your writing and revision (where did that ability come from?) and even envisage how your body of work can be presented in an appealing and distinctive manner.
And probably a common and decisive factor, or at least in my case, is if you want to say something to people, to leave something as part of a legacy, to show that something you have done has been worthwhile. I can’t sing, I can’t play an instrument, I make no contribution to the arts which I feel are the essential element of life – am I just a damp squib which will pass away and reside in the not so thrilling region of thick ribbed ice? And in a sense this drama mirrors my professional side which over the years has dwelt on business development and the corporate requirements of strategic objectives, mission and vision. Am I so miserable that I cannot practise what I preach and adhere to the fundamental tenant of writing down what my goals are?
Legacy often rears its head when one encounters dreadful circumstances, as in time of illness, death, rejection and exclusion. Sometimes you get to a time where you simply say ‘All I want to do is be good and do good’ and keep a low profile in trying circumstances. At times such as this poetry is a comfort and a passion, something to cling on to, and something which can give a great positive force for life, force for good, and force for the future.
These are some of the elements of my story and elements which have provided the compulsion and the force to produce this collection.