Of Stones and Changelings
The experiment with writing a poem per day continues, though I use ‘poem’ as a generic noun here as I am under no illusions about the quality of my output thus far. I also continue to read poetry in the early morning; current favourites are Alice Oswald, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Seamus Heaney and George Mackay Brown,
I commented to a couple of friends on WhatsApp that I would call the majority of what I have written ‘verse’ rather than poetry, which rather begs the question of the difference between the two. I was pointed towards this useful article that I’ve been thinking about.
The question of the difference between verse and poetry is an old one; it goes back to at least 1873 when Gerard Manley Hopkins made notes about it (and no doubt earlier but I didn’t look too hard.) There is an aspect of the difference that is semantic but there is a deeper difference: we would all recognise, I think, that Pam Ayres and Seamus Heaney were engaged in different enterprises.
If we put aside snobbery, as we must, one of the differences is ‘literary’ intent and approach and the pursuit of inner truths rather than external, but I don’t think that’s all there is to it. For some, poetry is not an activity but the expression of something that lives within them, in the essence of their being; it isn’t simply casting words into a particular form, it comes from how the poet perceives the world. When you encounter the real deal you encounter a changeling, swapped into their cradle at birth with continuing links to somewhere else. It is like learning to play an instrument then encountering someone for whom there is no barrier between themselves and music. It is not about craft, it is existential. No matter how hard you try, you cannot teach yourself to be George Mackay Brown.
And so, describing my writing so far as pedestrian verse rather than poetry is not simply a defence mechanism – though I suppose it is that too – it is also a recognition that I am not a changeling. And that’s OK. Sometimes it is enough to do your best and work at craft while taking inspiration from those in whom the muse lives, hoping to absorb something by osmosis, to find your own voice.
I have decided to vary my experiment, though. With the best will in the world, although I write something every day the efforts cannot be described as completed every day, they need to be edited, revised and polished to something closer to a finished state, and even that will be provisional. So my plan now is to write for all of July then choose what is worth revising and polishing in August before restarting the cycle.
All that said, I am aware that even after nine days I now spend a lot of time paying attention and watching out for lines or thoughts that are worth isolating, noting and playing with, and more often than not casting the net for unforced rhymes and echoes.
Each day now I find myself
Scavenging for my wordhoard,
Turning syllables in my mouth
As a lapiderist washes stones.
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