Poetry Swap!
24th October, 5pm-7pm
The Quarterdeck, Margate (near Dreamland entrance)
Bring a poem you like to swap
Next Bookshare: 26th November at The Ravensgate Arms, Ramsgate.
6.30 for food, 7.30 for Bookshare
When Margate Literature Festival first approached me asking whether I’d be interested in doing something similar to book share as part of their events, the idea of poetry swap seemed like it might work. Simply, bring a poem you like, read it out and take another one home, just like book share, but for poems. I’ve told lots of people, and loved how many of them said that a poem had instantly sprung to mind.
I have heaps of neglected poetry books sitting on my shelves, I love poetry but rarely give it the time it needs ( like a lot of things in my life that I love!). With only hours to go, I still haven’t picked the poem that I want to share. Well, I had, just like my friends there was one that sprang to mind instantly. However, upon reading it last night I realised there was absolutely no way I could manage to read it out loud to a group of strangers! Having not read it for some time, I was in tears very quickly. I find it incredible that poems can do that, more so than most other art forms (for me, at least).
The poem is called Defying Gravity, by Roger McGough, and is below. It is about a friend of McGoughs’s who was dying of cancer. It is a moving poem already, but it also reminds me of a family friend, and visiting him in a hospice as cancer worked it’s way through his body at the end of his life. It also reminds me of his poems, and the beauty of his words, and the lasting power of them. He was my year 6 teacher, and contributed significantly to my love of words, with poetry readings in class, and talking me through the impact using a different word would have in a poem. He was also a good friend of my mum’s, a hilarious storyteller and a poetry lover. I think he would love the idea of a poetry swap.
This past year in my circle of friends and family there has been a lot of loss, including to the bastard disease that is cancer. So, because of Mark, and Vid, and Mike and Aiden, and many others, I probably will find this too difficult to read out loud today. I will bring a copy, and post this, in case there is someone there who needs it.
Defying Gravity
Gravity is one of the oldest tricks in the book.
Let go of the book and it abseils to the ground
As if, at the centre of the earth, spins a giant yo-yo
To which everything is attached by an invisible string.
Tear out a page of the book and make an aeroplane.
Launch it. For an instant it seems that you have fashioned
A shape that can outwit air, that has slipped the knot.
But no. The earth turns, the winch tightens, it is wound in.
One of my closest friends is, at the time of writing,
Attempting to defy gravity, and will surely succeed.
Eighteen months ago he was playing rugby,
Now, seven stones lighter, his wife carries him aw-
Kwardly from room to room. Arranges him gently
Upon the sofa for visitors. ‘How are things?’
Asks one, not wanting to know. Pause. ‘Not too bad.’
(Open brackets. Condition inoperable. Close brackets.)
Soon now, the man that I love (not the armful of bones)
Will defy gravity. Freeing himself from the tackle
He will sidestep the opposition and streak down the wing
Towards a dimension as yet unimagined.
Back where the strings are attached there will be a service
And homage paid to the giant yo-yo. A box of leftovers
Will be lowered into a space on loan from the clay.
Then, weighted down, the living will walk wearily away.
— Roger McGough
Last month I was swamped by fabulous theatre and fascinating discussions. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what I love about theatre but a big part of it is the transportation to other worlds, other ways of being and perspectives.
I Am Not Myself These Days showed me a world very different from my own, with the glamorous and fragile Aqua taking us on a tour through the world of a successful drag queen in New York, with all the booze, drugs and hogtied businessmen that that entails.
Despite how alien it was from my own experience, I was struck by the universality of love and relationships. The triangle of Josh (who works as Aqua at nights, whilst working in an office by day), Aqua and Jack (their partner) was shown to us in heartbreaking detail with all its messiness. As Josh navigates his, and Aqua’s, places in the world and in love, I was captivated and moved by their story, and laughed and cried (well, wept, if I’m honest) along with it.
I could see devastating similarities between Aqua’s spiral into despair and alcohol and that of friends, family and people I have worked with as a psychologist. At times I just wanted to give her a hug, and protect her from the world.
In our discussion group afterwards, it made us think about what we have to leave behind of ourselves in order to grow up, to be safe, to be happy. We talked about vulnerability and making mistakes, we talked about what mistakes shape us, and we wondered whether experiences that we don’t regret can even be counted as mistakes.
chatterbetweenthelines 
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