This year, I started performing poetry again. I got to rediscover old poems by learning them, tweaking them slightly, and giving them life on stage. It was a good year. Especially since I've now been writing for over a decade!
I kept writing too. Here are some of my favourites.
I wrote two poems this year inspired by the musical styling of Hotel Brooks and Listener, who are bands with this really cool semi-shouting raw vocals that I really wanted to learn to emulate myself. It's always a good thing when words seem to flow naturally, and I really do think it's a new form that I can explore even more.
She could never believe she was beautiful (directly inspired by the themes and rhythms)
To be trees (taking the rhythms, trying to make something new)
A big poetry thing for me this year was starting to perform again (shot out to York Howlers). The way their nights work, I've been focused on memorising and perfecting some, but also giving a second chance to some slightly rougher work, depending on what the mood is that week. Then again, even knowing I'm going to be performing has got me exploring the rhythm of poetry again in a way I think I've let slide a little bit.
How to make the perfect Victoria sponge (an earlier poem in the year I revisited)
I'm feeling a rhyme (a poem written with performance in mind)
I had a little bit of a rough year stress-wise. So some of my way of dealing with that is always going to come out in the poetry. The idea of knowing that things wont always go well and how to deal with it is something that was big on my mind.
You can never behave perfectly (accepting imperfection)
I am a fixer, I swear (the need for redemption)
One thing I will always love is conversations with people. I love discovering a new group of friends and having that feeling of easy conversation flow. Conversations can seem like a very small part of our day-to-day, but they can also be very major things in our life. The latter poem is dedicated to a very particular conversation.
Why we Smile (a conversation-style poem)
Words on Wind (dedicated to Tim Keller)
I started to realise how impactful some of the things I do are this year, to the point I'm really catching myself in decisions where I'd be happy to let things flow before. And there is a balance - times when it's good to recognise those moments. These are also two poems with very different forms an inspirations - the first inspired by a night core song with <1000 views, and the second one of the first four-line poems I let myself do (after 10+ years of writing, I no longer feel like I'm cheating if I write a short poem).
A moment (night core inspired song)
The task ahead (an actual short poem)
