My First Poetry Reading

For those who don’t know I am involved with a poetry group that Martin Malone runs in my school. And a few weeks ago Mr Malone (I can’t call him Martin it sounds wrong to me) asks the group of four if we would like to go to his poetry reading and possibly read out poetry while we were there.

Now can I just point out that I am not the most confident person in the world I am probably the least confident out of the four of us who were asked to read. I have trouble reading in our small group with a teacher and three people who I basically have known for best part of six years.

So even the thought of reading in front of complete strangers terrified me.

But not only are they strangers, these people are published poets and reader of poetry and had such knowledge of the subject and that thought alone that experts on the subject would hear my poetry terrified me.

 
The other problem that I had when Mr Malone asked me was which poems am I going to read?

I knew that I would read ‘Odds’ but other than that I had no idea. I didn’t want to read something too personal, thought that didn’t happen; I ended up reading ‘Tommy’ mainly because speaking in disjointed Japanese wouldn’t help my confidence.

All in all the poetry reading went well; I read my set and didn’t slip up and spoke fine. Ok it could have gone better. I could have spoken louder or clearer or not held my poems in such a way that everyone realised I was shaking because I was so nervous.

Can I just mention there were about 20 people at this poetry reading.

 
But after everything was done I really felt proud of myself there was a time about an hour before I was meant to go out I really didn’t want to read but I just threw myself at the challenge and I wouldn’t have wished it to go any different.

This spark of confidence has served me well. I realise that I can do things that I know are very scary to me and that I can get through those challenges and come out the other end very proud of myself.

So thank you to Mr Malone for letting me read and I hope that I have more opportunities to do things like this in the future because believe me it did me a world of good.

House with a View - Part Two



Last Night at Twlight

So yet again I had a sunset like no other.



I have been to the other side of the world seen sunsets over the Bay of Islands in New Zealand, I have watched the sun going down over the sea in Coratia and a sunset haze over the London skyline.

But nothing toped last night.

I wrote about my love for the view and the amazing place that I live in yet I failed to mention that as soon as I can I will be out of Cumbira like a shot.

Some people ask me why I would go when I live in such a beautiful place.

But I say that I have to go, leaving is a need not a want.

Last Night at about 10:30

I need to see the rest of the world. And not just fly over it.

There are so many amazing beautiful places in the world and I know I live in one of them but I want to see everything.

It may seam like I have travelled everywhere when you are reading thins blog but I have only been to: Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, France, Belgium, Jersey and New Zealand.

I know people who have been to nearly every country and I envy them for it.

This morning at 8

The world is such a beautiful place and I want to see more of it.

In my eyes there is not much keeping me to Penrith and Cumbia and with that it gives me the total freedom to go wherever I want.

I don't know what I want to do with my life but if I go to somewhere that could inspire me I can find out what I want to do and who I am.

A House with a View

Derwent Water when it was frozen 

I live undoubtedly in one of the most beautiful places in England.

I used to live in Chester not overly industrial but views like in Cumbria were hard to come by and when I first moved to Penrith I was awestruck by the beauty.

Every weekend my mum, sister and me went out to the lakes and just spent months just looking at the beauty of the place.

I also a few days after moving remember asking one of my new friends at Primary School what it felt like to live in such a beautiful place. She said she didn’t really think of it that often.

I found this really odd at the time.

Yet living in Cumbria for such a long time has given me the same attitude of my friend.

The view form the rock

The beauty is there; I wake up to a view of the Ullswater fells every day but I don’t think of it as overly beautiful now.

I don’t know why.

It could be going to other countries has coloured my option of this one; Slovenia and New Zealand to be the two main culprits.

The view of north from the rock at sunset

Or because I am immune to the beauty now.

I don’t know.

I swore I would never have that attitude of “Beauty… meh”. But over the last eight years I have developed it.

There is a place just up form the road from my house. It is basically a field that people go to walk dogs and play football.

 

The rock

Last week when me and two of my best friends had a sleep over together we all randomly decided to go up there at eleven o’clock at night.

Whilst there we were talking about the beauty of the place we were in. And it was there on a rock at eleven o’clock at night with the sun setting and a twilight haze over the mountains I realised my love for the Lake District again.

I hope the love stays because hundreds of people would love to live where I do, not many people can say they wake up to one of the most amazing views in England everyday.

The view form my bedroom in Winter

View from my window in Spring

Equal by Death – A Poem

Row upon row of Men.

            Every Man different

   made equal by Death.

 
In life They were different
            Stature, Personality, Status;
    Now this is gone
Left equal through a grave

They are not the same

  Yet all similar in three ways:

            They Served.

            They Fought.

            They were Brave.

This poem was one of two that I wrote when I was in Belgium for the World War One battlefields tour that I went on with my school.

I remember writing this on a coach being very cold and tired but inspired to write.

Throughout the week that I was in Belgium I had seen hundreds of graves, graves that were all the same. Each man had an equal grave.

It was poetic in a way because it showed that no matter who the men were they would all be remembered equally; all equally brave.

Whenever I look back on the photos of the graves and Tyne Cot I think of this poem I wrote, especially the first line. Because in Tyne Cot there was rows upon rows of graves as far as the eye could see.

I remember walking around to the entrance to Tyne Cot, you have to walk around the outside down to the bottom of the road then you can go to the cemetery and the walls are really high walking around but half way down the path you have the first look of the graves.

When we were walking down we were all talking in groups laughing and talking but the second that we saw the graves everyone stopped and stared even if it was only for a second.

We stared at the number of graves. We had already been to the Menin Gate and seen all the names on the walls but it was so different seeing the numbers as graves.

I will always look back on my time in Belgium to be one of the most heart breaking journeys of my life. I had known the casualties but seeing the graves is so different.

I’ll never forget the time my time in Belgium and France as Siegfried Sassoon said in his poem ‘Aftermath’: Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.

Early Morning Walk - A Poem

Spring time, misty sky

  A girl playing with a friend newly found.

            I sit and view this scene of

   happiness, while a lamb feeds off her mothers milk.

Farmer, good man, great father,

   sees his daughter and watches her with

            concerned eyes. She rides with elegance and

grace as the horse trots down the road.

This poem was formed in my poetry group, we were given the last lines and we had to form the poem around those lines and we had about 10 minutes to write it in.

When I was writing the poem I was thinking of a country scene because of the words: milk, sky and road.

It was originally going to be a poem about someone observing a play ground scene but it formed in to a country scene that I am so familiar to.

For those who don’t know I live in Cumbria which is very rural and the other half of my life I lived in Chester, not as rural but still had a few sheep here and there. So country scenes are always something that I am exposed to and this is the very first attempt to write a country scene poem.

I am trying to write more poems about where I live because I can take all the photos in the world of where I live but I think poems express feeling beyond a photo or painting could ever do.

So that can be my challenge to write another poem about the country.

Encounter with a Thrush – A Poem

You land on my grass; you hop about as I paint. I see you outside. You fly to the tree, you fly near me. I look over and see you. I smile, I stare.

We exchange glances, then you leave. I smile and wish I could be that free.

I wrote this on a Monday afternoon after I realised I didn’t have a poem to bring to my poetry group on Tuesday.

So looking out of the window for ideas I saw this cute baby thrush.

And I thought that would be fine to write a poem about.

So after writing the poem in my normal way I realised it was better fitted as a prose poem so I made it in to that.

Also an un-known fact about me was that I wrote my GCSE English creative writing exam piece in a similar style. I started to rhyme and then couldn’t get out of it. I don’t know if it made any difference to my mark but I still got a B so I’m happy.

Tommy - A Poem

I hadn’t seen you in five years

and then I found you…

        On Facebook.

First contact with you,

            Oldest friend

Reminiscing about you

That very first memory…

      Just walking to school.

When you said to me…

      ‘When we’re married, can we live in London?’

Our last time together…

       A simple hug and a good-bye.

Checked your pictures,

   Still as I remember.

            Only more mature.

the same eyes and smile.

I miss my old life and you.

I miss you, Tommy, my first love.

This poem is dedicated to one of my best friends, Tommy. Other than a few simple lines written to each other on Facebook I haven’t seen or spoken to him in over eight years.

But still to this day I will remember him.

I’ll remember him as a friend how was always there, a friend who found me again, and the friend who was my only childhood love.

For Utada Hikaru, Thank You - A Poem

In a language far too foreign,

            you speak more clearly than anyone.

Your words inspire me

            to Write, to Dream, to Love.

So may truths behind your words,

            They lift me up

I decode your words as

       they decode my life.

With a few simple words

      (that help me let go)

Jibu no utsukushisa mada shiranai no

            But it’s only love

For those who don’t know me I love Japan and Japanese culture and half a year ago I asked on a forum for Japanese female singers and one person suggested Utada Hikaru more specifically her song ‘Beautiful World’.

Once I listed to it once I fell in love with the song and indecently her music.

Even though ‘Beautiful World’ is in a totally different language and I have to google the lyrics just to remotely understand them; Utada Hikaru’s lyrics are more true to me than any other artist.

‘Jibu no utsukushisa mada shiranai no’ means ‘you don’t even know how beautiful you are’

A lyric that every one can relate to, even in the smallest way.

Not to go in to too much detail but I wrote this poem sat alone in the morning on a Thursday and I didn’t feel to great about who I am or what I looked like or basically anything about me.

So I decided to turn on my iPod put it on shuffle and just listen to forget everything. And as you guessed ‘Beautiful World’ came on.

Once the lyric was sung I was happy again.

I remembered that I am beautiful and creative and all the special talent I was born with made me special.

So this is why this poem is for Utada Hikaru because I owe her for that lyric.

Thank you Utada Hikaru, for everything.

Odds - A Poem

How to decode

   The flip of a coin.

Even Odds.

I say instantly

Coins hate me

    you choose.

My fear of odds.

‘Odds’ is one of those poems that I wrote in the shortest time possible. This is down to two things the first is it is one of the shortest poems I have ever written (if you exclude the hundreds of Haikus) but also it is short due to the fact I don’t think it needs to be any longer!

The poem started of from the words ‘Coins hate me, you choose’ this is something I have always said when having to flip a coin in some form of decision making.

I don’t know what stated my fear of odds when it comes to coins but with any other aspect of my life I will always try to break and beat the odds of a situation.

Recently I have been starting work on a project for art with the theme of Alice in Wonderland. I am making all five dresses that I will need for the project and my best friend said to me I was insane for even trying.

I’m still going with the dress making and I enjoy doing it but some part of me doesn’t just want to do the dresses because I like making them but because I want to beat the odds.