Shards etc.

I have just spent half an hour cleaning up after a glass bottle smashed onto the terracotta tiles of my kitchen floor. The bottle was in my fridge and contained I don’t know what, but it smelled of some vile concoction of vinegar and herbs (and something medicinal) and must have been there long enough for me to have forgotten about. It was one of those things that take up residence and stay for so long that one just doesn’t see them any more until they jump out of their own accord.

Picking up the glass pieces and the nasty little splinters of glass reminded me of the word “shards” and how it is one of the words that is outlawed by the Poetry Police because, I suppose, it has been over-used. Of course, that might once have been enough to send me to the notebook to write the definitive Shards poem but now I have more pressing things to occupy me, such as looking at the dust particles on my living room window and trying to decide whether to wear socks inside my new Ugg Boots or just wear them like slippers, barefoot. I do in any case have the feeling that Shards is not one of those words that I feel moved to redeem. I remember a letter I received many moons ago (reader, that was deliberate so don’t be thinking you have caught me out) from an erstwhile with whom I had broken up. He had once given me a tulip made of glass, a lovely thing that unfortunately broke during a flat move. In the letter, he said of our relationship that it was like “gripping the shards of a broken tulip: once it was so beautiful but now it draws blood.” Even then, I had a sense of the naffness of this and couldn’t help identifying the two culprit words (beautiful was the other) that weakened what may have been a nicely compelling image, even if a bit overblown, to round off a relationship that had, to coin a phrase, gone some distance past its sell-by date.

I am rallying from what has been, so far, a challenging autumn. I am perhaps unusual for a PWME in that this is often my best season, but it has not been so this year. There may still be time to gather something, though. I have spent a week with a good friend from Poland who has been happy to tune into the variable rhythm of my days as it represented a rest and a refreshment from her usual relentless busyness. We also went out for poetry, music and theatre. Saw The Giant by Anthony Sher at the Hampstead Theatre which you can read about here and here. I particularly liked the set and the costumes but came away thinking that there had been too many words, and wondered if this was a reflection of my energy levels or whether it really would have benefited from more editing. It’s sometimes difficult to assess.

Poetry Police Alert

I have been inspired by Ros Barber’s post, “Words You Should Never Use in a Poem,” to out myself as someone who ought to be on the hit list of the Poetry Police. It isn’t long ago that I sat above a pub at a poetry workshop session having a bit of a hard time on account of including Virgin, Moon, Rose and Heart (I didn’t capitalise them) all in the one poem. Poetry surgery is a dodgy business and I’ve been the one with the scalpel as well as the one on the receiving end; and though I like to think my bedside manner is impeccable there have been times when the knife has slipped a little here and there. I try to leave the heart intact. There, I’ve used that word again. The heart of the poem, I mean. It can happen, and I’ve seen it done, that a piece of work is perfected to within an inch of its life and gives up the ghost.

But I’m a tough old boot and I can take it, especially when there is a bar downstairs selling good beer and one hasn’t yet given up smoking Camel cigarettes. The funny thing was, I thought to myself as I rubbed beer into my wounds, that there I was with Art Garfunkel on the jukebox singing Are The Stars Out Tonight, and outside the sky was clear and full of them shining. I went back upstairs and a great big moon shone through the window and looked at us as we tried to edit her out under the light of a 40 watt bulb.

I know, of course you need to work at a poem, pruning is a part of the work and no-one likes to murder their darlings. It’s because words are so powerful that one pretentious or overblown word in a poem can bring the whole thing down, and I can’t help sympathising with the miserable John Osborne who held it against his mother that she said “lemon” instead of naming the colour yellow. But we also have a duty to put a custard pie in the face of the Poetry Police and reclaim the Virgin and the Rose. You can say Condom and Pisspot any time you like - oh yes, they won’t do you for that, and nor would I come to that. They are good words. But so is Moon – and I have been told in all seriousness that you can’t have it any more because it’s been used too often. Ditto Heart. Carol Ann Duffy can’t have minded this when she wrote “Rapture”.

Anyway, I left in Moon and Virgin and the poem was published. This doesn’t prove anything other than when push comes to scalpel you should go ahead and use the words you feel in your soul (ouch) are the right ones, and let the Police go whistle.

I'd give the moon for a Camel.