Self Expression

Tonight I will attend my third Open Mic in four days. There is a clear enthusiasm at present, in reality and online, for people to use poetry not simply as a means of expression, but also as a pathway to comprehension. Last night’s Substack event for Dr Kim Moore and Claire Shaw was an object lesson in what it’s possible to say in a poem that might never otherwise get to be said out loud.

If that event had been in person, I would also have struggled to stay in the room. Two poems in particular were far too close to personal reality for me to want to listen. The overriding joy of the virtual space is you can simply turn off your camera and mute the speaker, and there was enough content warnings for me to decided if I did or didn’t take part. The key, I suspect, was speaking truth out loud.

We are living in very interesting poetic times.

Propel had, in the time it was active, attracted an impressive set of curators. I tried unsuccessfully for that entire run to get noticed, learning an important lesson in the process. Sometimes, however good you know your work is, there are people who are stronger. Every single poet who was picked in that first run, and were in the anthology, are positive indicators of a poetry ecosystem in a growth spurt.

There's also an important, secondary significance to this announcement: universities are again looking to students to become a part of this process. I know this is not simply happening in Cambridge, for instance, speaking as someone who's had a piece printed in a previous York University-edited pamphlet. There is a sense of cohesion in all of these decisions.

Oh, and let us not forget, there is this announcement from Instagram last week:

Faber, one of the few major houses who will still entertain direct submissions, are ready to start showcasing poetry online, presumably as a precursor to finding new people to publish traditionally. With over 4000 likes at last glance on the post, they're gonna have some sifting to do come the end of October. It is genuinely exciting right now to see more doors opening, and an appetite for new work.

My only concern, and it is a significant one, is the levelness of the playing space we're now being presented with. As a soon-to-be 60 year old poet in nearly their 8th year of work, with a) no collection (so ELIGIBLE!) and b) a collection sitting on their hard drive, if their required demographic top range stops anywhere under my age, I am effectively screwed. Keep your fingers crossed for me, lads.

I'll have to hope that my work can hold its own in an as-yet undefined space.

Just a reminder that if you are interested, there's only eight days left to get your entries in for the YELLOW JUG project. All the details are above, but if you need any more details, please drop a note in the comments :D