I wrote poetry when I was a child, probably from around the age of eight to the beginning of my angsty teens. Between my inability to critique my own poems & the dawning realisation that I was being an awful cliché, I resisted writing any more (you will never, ever see my childhood poems). But while I was studying at university, I sometimes found myself scribbling poems — some short, some very short. Still, I never thought of writing poetry to be one of my hobbies: I considered it a freak occurrence — a moment of weakness — a lapse of the brain. Yet I stumble across them every so often, all origins forgotten, and it seems a shame to lose them. I’m getting over my prejudice, I think — not to mention my good sense & self restraint.
So now-here there is a page called WORDS, under which you will find, should you be so reckless, poems of varying ages and a series in progress of cut-up poems. I think of them as book poems, which is not the most helpful name one might come up with but that is what my brainhead seems to have decided upon and by my brainhead I shall abide.
For a long time, too, if someone told me they wrote poetry, my reaction would always be something like, “O no! Keep it away from me!” (Not that I ever said that aloud, of course.) So I understand if you are similarly prejudiced. If you do read them, I’m quite touched & hope you don’t regret it later.
