Poetic Post #1
Poetic Post #1
The Legend of the Strange, Indescribable Man (and an introduction to Poetic Posts)
Ugh. Poetry. Yuck.
That’s what I used to think. To the extent, even, that I dropped A Level English a week after starting, having learned that we’d be dissecting poetry for a term. Politics, can you believe it, seemed a less torturous option.
Looking back, I’m not sure what shaped this attitude of mine. Perhaps it was my fear of misunderstanding a poem, of being unsure how to read it, and feeling intimidated by a perceived inaccessibility of poetry, an idea which came from I don’t know where.
It makes little sense to me now. I clearly loved particular poems and poetry books as a child, for they’ve remained in mind twenty-five years since first encountering them. Allan Ahlberg’s Please Mrs Butler, and its titular opening poem, especially so. Michael Rosen and Quentin Blake’s Quick, Let’s Get Out of Here, too.
What do I remember most about them? They were fun. They made me laugh. They were relatable: Yes! I thought, I know just what you mean - that’s happened to me, too! I loved the way the words rolled off my tongue as I read them aloud; the way their cadence carried them forward, gave them momentum, ending in a climax or twist that surprised or amused me; the way they enlivened the mundane, how they provoked thoughts and questions about everyday subjects and occurrences otherwise ignored. I loved their heart and humour, and their ability to make me feel. I’m certain that those books and poems, more so than any fiction I read, played a huge part in developing my love of language, wordplay, and writing in rhyme.
And, often, it’s poetry to which I turn when I am feeling uninspired, or worn down by trying to earn a living from writing, and just want to have some fun. That’s exactly how I felt at the end of 2020; I’d had a productive year (by my standards), but was feeling a bit ‘picture-booked-out’, and lacking inspiration…
Thankfully, inspiration soon arrived in the form of Chris Harris’s brilliant poetry collection I’m Just No Good at Rhyming: And Other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups (illustrated by the equally brilliant Lane Smith). As an immature grown-up and formerly mischievous kid, it was always going to appeal to me, but I needed reminding of just how much FUN one can have with poetry, both reading and writing it – that poems needn’t always be serious and solemn, profound or prettily-written to have value.
In the space of two weeks, I wrote 60-ish poems – and suddenly had a collection of my own: It’s Weird Inside a Beard…and other peculiar poems.
I’m not sure ‘peculiar’ does justice to quite how weird many of them are. But weird is good, I think. So is funny, and I hope they will make readers of any age and level of immaturity laugh. Hopefully until their cheeks hurt and bellies ache. Perhaps until they wet themselves. If that happens, so be it. What more could an author want?
Well – to have it published, I suppose. Alas, that hasn’t happened. It’s Weird Inside a Beard went on submission in 2021, to 13 publishers – and, to my disappointment, few responded (as far as I’m aware, at least). One editor did wish to take it forward, but ultimately couldn’t get it through, for understandable reasons (which always makes a rejection easier to swallow). However, there was an upside: the editor loved one of the poems so much that she decided to offer for it as a picture book…
…and The Circular Square, brilliantly illustrated by the very talented Neil Clark, will be published by Templar this November. I can’t wait!
Anyway, the point of that rambling backstory is to welcome you to my Poetic Post series, for which I’ll be posting a poem every Tuesday. So… welcome!
Your first poem is called ‘The Legend of the Strange, Indescribable Man’, which is about a strange, indescrib – actually, I’ll just let you read it…
The Strange, Indescribable Man
“I saw him!” I scream, as I burst through the door.
“The Strange, Indescribable Man!”
“Well, what did he look like?” my family ask.
“Enlighten us all if you can.”
“Okay,” I reply, as I give it some thought.
“It’s tricky to know what to say.”
“Some words?” offers Dad.
“Well, I guess the guy had…a… je ne sais quoi,” I relay.
“A ‘shunnay say kwah?’ What on earth does that mean?”
(My brother has quite a small brain.)
“It means, silly brother…I. Do. Not. Know. What,”
I patiently try to explain.
“So, why did you say it, my sillier sis?”
(My brother is SUCH a big pain.)
“Because,” I remind him, “he’s hard to describe!
Just listen! I’ll try to again.”
“Okay…So…Imagine…a…man,” I begin,
And search for the words in my mind,
But cannot describe indescribable things!
The words prove too tricky to find.
“Let’s start with the basics – the shape of the man,”
My smug little brother chips in.
“How tall was this fellow? Quite lanky, or short?
And round, just like dad, or quite thin?”
I pause and I ponder. “He sure wasn’t short,
But nor was he notably tall…
He wasn’t a pudding, nor thin as a rake…
It’s hard to describe him at all!”
“That’s helpful,” my brother sarcastically says.
“No worries. What shade was his hair?
A black or a brown or a ginger or blonde?
Quite dark or much lighter and fair?”
I grimace, and then, with a sigh, I reply,
“I can’t give an answer to that.
I promise I saw him, but here is the thing –
His hair was obscured by his hat.”
“I knew it!” my brother remarks, with a laugh.
“You’re lying, and that is the truth!”
“I’m not!” I reply, “and I saw him, I swear.
And also – I’ve given you proof!”
My brother looks puzzled. “You’ve shown us no proof.
You cannot describe who you saw!”
“Exactly,” I say, but my brother is stumped,
And needs me to spell it out more.
“The proof’s that I cannot describe him, you see.
The truth is that nobody can.
If I could describe him, he couldn’t have been
The Strange, Indescribable Man!”
My brother looks broken, and knows that he’s lost.
“OKAY!” he concedes. “It WAS him!”
Which really is something, cos here is the truth:
I made it all up on a whim.
Thanks for reading. Expect more nonsense next week! See you then…