Holy smoke

Having an odd week, after such a good week last week with the writing of poems about pigs. I've just returned from a few days away in Holy Island , a writing retreat with some poetry colleagues. Came back feeling? Odd. That's about the only word. I haven't stayed on Holy Island before, and the place is so different to anything I've experienced before, it is such a beautiful place, and I went expecting the isolation. What I didn't expect was that because the island is so small you can never really be alone, you go for a walk and there is always someone everywere you go, strangers. It is a quiet place were I seemed unbareably loud, the jangle of change in my pocket, the buckles of my boots, I felt invisible in many ways when I was there, and yet almost wanted to be because the place demands it. Travel is a funny thing, you start to think too much, because there is no one there who knows you, about who you are really, and it seems a difficult question to answer. We are all so constructed by the people around us, what they see, what they reflect back to us, that being away makes you wonder what is really there, wonder if there's anything at all. All around the island there are notices, signs to make you aware of things that could happen, intructions: Beware of falling rocks,
We are not a cafe,
Naturally occurring poisonous algae,
a strange feeling of an awareness of visitors the islanders don't want to bother with. I have quite a high threshold of being able to be alone, but this feeling of not quite being alone is new to me, and something that made me an unwelcome visitor in my own skin.

As well as the physical aloneness I suppose there was that awful feeling of being misconstued, things you have said that have been re constructed by interpretation, which make you feel invisible in a more sad sort of way. I sat around worrying about not being entertaining, about being quiet, about people thinking I was not really there and engaging with them, and it was a feeling of being exposed I suppose, of people discovering the parts of you that are worried about on a bad day- what if I'm boring, silly,no good at it all, what if I just have nothing to say? I wanted to have jokes, to wear them like a mask and nothing would come. I just felt quiet, as if I was thinking about things I couldn't identify yet. In terms of the writing I took scattered notes and that's all, and I realised that my process has changed. I used to be a workshop poet, could write something there and then and have something to show. For some reason I'm not like that anymore (mostly those workshop poems could never be used again anyway, maybe 1 in 10) , something has changed and i'd be interested to know why. I just take notes now, the odd line, which I have to put away and return to, and be at my desk to sort out. To see the poems typed as I make them seems essential, for the spacial awareness. If I was to describe now the way I used to write I'd say it was like making a stir fry,so many colours, a little flash tumbling into one another, now it is more of a casserole, plainer but needs to simmer for so long. I didn't know this about myself, I think something about being given the time to spend on my writing may have something to do with it, I can approach everything alot more slowly,have more time to think. I didn't see that I am working in a different way, and just sort of needed time to process the things I had thought about there. When I came home I was able to process all those odd little notes more I think, and have written two poems (one of them quite long, one short.) I am saying this stupidly, as if size matters, and maybe sometimes with me it does, most of my favourite poems are quite short, but when it comes to my own work I somehow feel more justified to myself if I have produced more lines (which is just so wrong, and something I hope will go if I can gain more confidence in my abilities.)

The whole experience was interesting. The negative thing about it was thinking too much, being faced with my own limitations, and wondering if my poems are any good and if I will get them out there. I think I am thinking about this because I am at a stage with the current poems were I have been writing away, and am in need of some reaction to them/feedback, as the doubts are trying to creep in before I've actually given the poems a chance. My hunch is they are different to my previous work, but are they better? They are certainly simpler, but am not sure if that's a good thing. They are more assured in the respect that they do not try to be clever or witty in any way. But I don't know if this is a bad thing. I was trying to think of working class women poets who have made good, and couldn't think of many at all. In terms of poems in magazines, poets who win competitions, etc etc they seem to have alot in common, a sort of class neutrality, and often location neutrality, which doesn't allow for exceptions.Don't get me wrong, they are always good poets, but is it possible that poetry isn't as open to diversity as much as we would like think? Cultural diversity seems to be embraced by poetry, with this one exception. It also seems to be somehow more acceptable to be a working class man than a working class woman. I worry about this a great deal. If I wasn't so working class, infact even if I was a man would magazines etc be more interested in my work? These are things I don't want to think about, that suspicion that I'm just not the right type of poet, but maybe I have to. So the question is what can I do about this?

I wanted to wear the shoes in the picture when I was away, because I so rarely am anywhere were I don't have to wear big shoes to be taller, but the weather didn't allow it. When I got back all the cherry blossoms I could see from my office window had gone.