In a number of ways I’m a poetry outsider. No literature degree (mine was in Physics and Philosophy). No Creative Writing MA. Something of an poetry autodidact with quirky areas of deeper knowledge (and some bits of ‘the canon’ that I really should get around to). But coming at something from the outside isn’t always a bad thing. I feel free to ask poets really dumb questions sometimes - for which they often have good “I did it like this because…” answers. But sometimes not.
And here’s maybe the really dumbest question to any poet (coming from the outside where it isn’t taken for granted that one writes a poem at all): why do you do it? Because - well, here’s a really big confession. When I was at school and university, even a bit beyond, I used to write poetry because it fitted with some Keatsy-tragic self-image whereby my lack of social skills with the opposite sex would be forgiven because I wrote poetry. Once I realised how dumb that was, and that I could get more women if I just talked more, I stopped writing poetry for a good few years. I’d love to do a survey – one of those word picture surveys that asks “which of the following most closely describes your reasons for writing a poem…” Could it be “Because I just couldn’t not do it” (very passionate, not infrequently stated but, hell, a bit vague!) Or “Because I just have to scream at people ‘Look, the world is like this, not like that‘ .” Or “To show all those other idiots that I can write a much better poem than them”. Or “Well, I’ve told everyone I’m a poet so I’d better write a poem about something”. Or “Some people like to sit and play the piano, I like to play with language”. Or, or, or… I really do wonder – anybody out there really know why they write poetry? Not that I imagine there’ll be a consensus. But if you’re thinking ‘well, it don’t matter why – so long as you do write poetry’ – hey, as an outsider, I stay bemused. And there’s a lot of folk on the outside.
PS. A really clever answer would be “If you have to ask the question – you ain’t ready for the answer” – but I go there before you!
PPS. Since I’m about to float a poetry collection (about being a bomber pilot) out into the stormy ocean I suppose I should show you mine before you show me yours. In the intro I wrote:
… Why read such a book? Because it is easy for the natural distance between a society and its military to become a chasm of incomprehension. If this is allowed to happen, the decisions a society makes about the employment of military force are liable to be erroneous. I hope that these poems throw one thin thread across the chasm.
David
