Art: Trail 1 / Your Starter For...

A lot of what the Art Trail has presented to me in the last six months or so has been a significant departure from my previous adventures with poetry. This was the first collaboration I took part in, and is notable for several reasons. All are wrapped around respect, care and organisation. It turns out when such states are offered or provided, the time it takes to write a poem becomes unimportant.

Claire is a consummate professional, an organised artist and someone whose business practices I find jointly fascinating and aspirational. When we began this process (back in January) there was, it has to be said, something of a crisis of faith and ability on my part that followed. The original print (shown below) decided to take me on a significant journey of exploration and enlightenment.

We travelled (literally) into the night sky and back, through star charts and ancient history before finally coming to the piece you can hear me reading above. There was also a period of at least a week when I was in full-on panic mode because, I thought, I simply would not be able to deliver the poetry I had promised. As we all know, fear is a great motivator. It wasn't that which broke my block, however.

The work itself finally found a voice and spoke back to me directly.

This print comes from a space that no longer exists, a portion of walkway in the marina where Claire has a studio, which has subsequently been painted over as the area undergoes a period of rapid renewal. On the same day we met for the first time in person, I was literally gifted a poem from the environment which began a process of what became spontaneous output, which didn't stop for ten days.

The last time I created in this way resulted in the creation of Forest Management. The work is out for submission, the logical progression that took place as a result of pushing myself into a new way of working, that forced me to think critically about every aspect of my output. I have no real idea of whether it will be successful or not, but I do know I can't go back. This is the way forward.

When I look back on this space at the end of the year, I will be reminded of the artistic debt that this piece has managed to settle using self-confidence and trust. In a process where sometimes inspiration can be drawn without thinking, a poet needs to learn to syphon from the world around them when their creative well runs dry. For me, this has become the most important lesson of all.

I am hugely grateful to Claire for their time, their care and most importantly their willingness and generosity in creating a space for me in their craft.