a call to arms of memories

This is something I wrote in bed last weekend after Don't Miss This. A memory and a feeling that came to me very suddenly and strongly. A call to arms.

I really shouldn't ever let myself forget what drew me into the concept of standing up in public and speaking words. I was 16. New. Just discovering a desire to put flowers in my hair and tie it up in bits of cloth. I had an image of myself as a tall, pretty, psychedelic warrior prince. I'd be an author, a poet, a musician. I'd use my writing to describe, inform and inspire - a call to arms.. and to music. Music being my biggest love of all.

I went to workshops, classes. We were, in reality, kids, and Brendan, who was running the show, facilitator-cum-teacher, told us to focus on what was needed. Taught us to pare down. Sometimes removing words from a sentence can clarify it and make a long way more potent. Like the different between smack and opium.

Suddenly a world opened up to me - I'd been writing for years already, but now I read what I wrote and I felt inspired and proud. I could see that I could do this. And when it happened it was so easy.

As we got towards the performance I grew excited, and teenage. I developed a mad crush on another of the older poets involved in the project - a woman called Bernadette, she was 40 odd, cute and spikey. She had a way with word play and vitriol and I thought she was marvelous. I knew I'd never do a thing about it.

All the sharing, bashing out, editing, reading to each other. The day time classroom exchanges, early evening visits to poets houses - oh this is how I could live!

Nothing could prepare me for the feeling I got when I got on that stage with a microphone in front of me to read my own words. It was a feeling of remembrance. Bright, shining confidence. I had never felt so sure of myself, so aware this was where I should be in my whole life. At the time I think I put that down to it being the closest I'd reached to my rockstar fantasies. I look back now and begin to see something different. And very much the same.

I feel a need to pursue poetry. I feel a need to write in my own time, and way and share it. I feel a need to see this as entirely integral to all my creative endeavors - to not be held back or intimidated by the fact I've not studied, not been consistent, and am not yet in that place.

To not be held back by my love of other art forms - my need to curate, to make music - to play with sounds. These things MUST both happen simultaneously.

So - this is my call to arms. Get me on that stage - brimming with that confidence. That power and awareness of how and where to show people, to empower them to act, make these choices, in their own way for themselves. Get me in that space - where people like us find a visceral connection with the universe that is different from any of the others. Where people like us find in the confidence to shine, the inspiration to inspire. These feelings are not negative after all, or a joke. This is something I need in my life.