Poetry In Motion

Like a lot of other people, I suppose tonight I'm sitting here with the royal wedding on in the background. I'm not terribly interested in it, as such, but I used it as an excuse to make and eat date scones (this is not a good thing). It also serves to remind me that when I write royalty I never get it right -- I tend to make them too isolated, in terms of how they live their day to day lives -- but oh, well, I like pretty things. And London. I really should pick up and move to London...

All that aside, though, I spent some time earlier today at something a little bit unusual for me: a poetry reading. I always claim to have never been a fan of poetry, but when I consider it...I must have always have had something of a soft spot for it. Which is just because I'll say "I hated studying poetry in high school!" but then I will admit to loving Sassoon and Owen, and there will always be a part of me that cries to hear Sara Teasdale's There Will Come Soft Rains, thanks to Ray Bradbury. I think my attitude actually changed, though, when I took a Modernism paper my first year at university. It's entirely the fault of that paper that the first time I saw the second Spider-Man movie I burst out laughing at Alfred Molina's deadpan delivery of the line: I finally got lucky in love when I met Rosie here. She was discussing T.S. Eliot, and I was discussing... I still don't know what she was talking about!

But yes, the myseries of Eliot are still strongly influencing my own work; I also developed a fondness for Browning and Yeats, which was fairly unexpected. But even though I didn't much care to read poetry, I did attempt to write it. Naturally, being that I was an emo kid, it was angsty teenaged drivel best never considered again. But I suppose I ought to dig some out for posterity?

Change In Shadows

Where do you lie,

Oh fallen Angel?

You have walked in darkness

And now you lie in shadow

Swiftly fallen, angel,

Where do you lie?

You lie to me,

Oh fallen Angel?

With a raven life in shades

Of grey and charcoal burnt black?

Swiftly fallen, angel,

To whom do you lie?

Still do you lie,

Oh fallen Angel?

An honest sun shone on you

Yet you cast no true shadow

Swiftly fallen, angel,

Why did you lie?

I'm fairly certain that was written about Zurin, one of the characters I've been writing about in Hibernaculum the last week or so. Although he's changed a bit recently; my talking heads thing from the other day has led me to believe that Zurin also needs to sort his shit out and do something useful in order to justify his existence, as well as his behaviour. Poor thing, it's not like I haven't screwed him up completely to begin with...

But yes, that is evidence of the reasons why I stopped writing poetry. But the thing is, listening to the four poets tonight reading their work? Reminded me of how I love imagery in my own writing. I have been told by numerous people I have a poetic sense in my prose. Certainly I am mildly infamous for my mental metaphors (I love metaphors -- the more unusual, the better). Which is why I am glad that this weekend, I signed up for both workshops. I was just going to do the speculative writing one tomorrow, but I decided to do the poetry one too.

...I suppose it helps, that listening to Joanna Preston gave me chills. And a girl-crush. Ha. Seriously, the way she read her work? Was magical. I should lay my hands on a copy of The Summer King. In the meantime, I should do some Zumba to undo a little of the damage of these scones, have a shower, and get to bed. And also I need to stop giggling at the Archbishop of London, because a) he looks like Santa and b) any time anyone says "marriage" at this ceremony all I can think of is The Impressive Clergyman.

I am a Bad Person.