Letters to the future

When I was thirteen I started a ritual. I got the idea from a novel - the name of which has long fallen out of my memory.

Each birthday I sit down and write a letter to my future self. A real handwritten letter on paper and sealed in an envelope for a year. Then at 3pm each birthday (my birth time) or as close to it as I can manage, I open it, read it and write the next one.

I did it for ten years, then stopped for ten years, and started again last year. Ironically I think the years I wasn't writing it were probably some of the hardest years I've had: the ones where that annual reflection and reminder from my past self might have been more useful than usual.

I've only ever showed those letters to a few select people in my most inner circle, but maybe there's something in there for other people too. So here's a snippet from last year's letter:

"When you are lost, you only need to remember. Look at who you have been to remember who you are. Look to the dailiness of love that you have lived, even when the softness of it was not there. Trust your reserve and your patience and kindness. Follow your sensitivity."

For me those letters have become a touchstone for the person I am. A way to reconnect with who I have been all along, a reminder of my ambitions and daydreams and yearnings. Sometimes reading them makes me sad at the contrast between one year and the next; sometimes it leaves me with a wry smile at the surprising wisdom of my younger selves; and then sometimes it's incredibly grounding.

People write letters to their younger selves all the time, but that seems pretty useless to me. We can't go back in time. Our youth cannot be shaped by the adult we will become, but the reverse is usually true.

So, what do you want to say to your future self?

The weird and the wordy

When I was having one of those getting-to-know-you conversations a few months ago, I mistakenly included - in the list of things I'm into and spend my free time on - the phrase "I write poetry". To which my conversational companion at the time replied "Poetry. That's weird." Heavy emphasis on *weird*.

I hastily added something about how I know poetry isn't for everyone and that's why I think it needs to be accessible and people tell me my poetry is fairly accessible blah blah blah like a defensive poet in a socially awkward situation (oh wait, that's not a simile).

My feelings closely resembled those of a person who has been unexpectedly slapped across the mouth. And I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. (Probably doubly so because this was a person of the male variety whom I already held in some esteem and felt attracted to. How typical.) I resolved anew to stop telling new people about my secret strange life as a poet.

I've always known poetry is not a typical occupation of time or a mainstream form of self expression. Hell, go to any poetry event and you'll hear wryly self-deprecating comments about the kind of people who go to poetry events. But I don't think I've ever had it pointed out to me so plainly that poetry is weird and apparently reserved for the weird.

Today I met a poet friend for lunch. We swapped poems and talked about poetry and the writing of it and it was all wonderfully word-nerdy. Then we went to a poetry reading and listened to more poets talk about poetry and share snippets of their innards with us. I looked around the room and observed the motley collection of humans that had assembled to share in this thing called poetry. And I realised my metaphorically-face-slapping companion was right.

Poetry is weird, and the people that write it are weird, and the ones that like it are weird. They're often quiet and have odd mannerisms and wear closed shoes with no socks. Some are extroverted and quirky and juxtapose the crudest of swear words with reverent references to the many deities of the world and thankfulness for fucking.

These people understand the world in the same ways that I do and they are able to articulate it. They can reach into others and stir them in ways that some may never experience.

So here it is, my coming out:

Hi. I'm Nicole, and I'm a poet.

Bone

There's a poem lodged
in my throat like the
clear bone of a fish
thin and prickle-ended
a filament of clarity that
I swallowed in the night
giving way to the heavy
drape of unrequited sleep

It's jammed in that place
before air can become a word
stubborn as a memory
so I cough and harrumph
swallow and stretch, trying
to dislodge the bone of a
poem wedged in my throat

Any way is fine, up or down
I don't mind if only I can
get it out, unstuck. I have
better uses for my throat
for my scratched voice: today
I must warble like a magpie

A warning for my future lover/s

Be careful of taking a poet for a lover
for she cannot wear her love in silence

She will catalogue the flaws in your skin
and the reasons she finds them there
the flow of your breath when you sleep
and your exhalations when you make love
the soft dough of your face when you wake
the rumble of your laugh spilling over
the wonder of finding in the dead of winter
that her hands are always warmer than yours

She will tell everyone about the way that
(despite your worldliness and machismo)
you kiss her mouth as if you can’t help yourself
of the way your thoughts simmer and surface
surprising, like bubbles in hot mud pools
and always she will write, of you, of herself
trying to find better and better words for
the mystery, the matter that binds you together

Be careful of taking a poet for a lover
for what a poet loves she must write

How to write more poetry

leave your phone at home all day
you don't need its buzz and blink
the waves of sounding interrupting
crashing into your lapping thoughts

keep a secret smile barely held back
for the giddiness of sleep and waking
to sunrises and crunchy leaves and breezes
grateful for the constant thrum of blood
rushing past the inside of your ear

pay attention to the firm sound of
your boots meeting cold pavement
to the snag of ragged autumn air
in the clutches of your throat
feel the yearning of your body
for the rooflessness of the sky

always keep ink and paper close by
or write on napkins and paper bags
on the backs of your curled hands
the margins of abandoned newspapers
write the memories pressed into your skin
and the lives you have never lived

stay up past midnight scratching
your musings into the dusky page
write your horror and your heartache
until all that's left is your fatigue

leave the embers of your words
for paper strangers to discover

Assessment and poetry don't mix

A little while ago I paid for a poetry assessment through my local writer's centre.  $75 got me half an hour with a renowned poet who is also an editor and well involved with the 'academic' poetry world.  I had been to a poetry reading by this particular person before, and loved her work.  I thought of all the professional wordsmiths to show my work to, she would be a good fit.

I knew it was a mistake as soon as I stepped in the door.  The person I was getting was not the sensitive soul with a skillful pen I had observed elsewhere.  The person I was getting was friendly but business-like.  I was getting the poetry critic, the professional, the lecturer.  In short, I was getting what I had paid for.

I was prepared for my poems to be critiqued.  I anticipated constructive criticism.  She told me that my line endings were predictable, that I should use more metaphor and simile, less abstraction.  Essentially that the little collection of poems I had presented were not bad, but could be better. It made sense, I could see her points.

What I forgot to allow for were my feelings.  I've always been emotionally attached to many of my poems.  They are my life story, in snippets. They are my impressions, my thoughts, my experiences distilled into brief lines. So, logic aside, criticism of my poetry has always felt like criticism of me, in some way.  Though I tell myself it is not, it is.

Critiquing poetry has always seemed sacrilegious to me, from an early age.  I remember stuffy high school classrooms; being hunched over my desk trying to analyse and pick apart famous poetry.  Trying to guess the poet's intention and meaning, talking about their use of language, rhyme, pace, alliteration.  I've always hated it.

Now I find that I haven't written a single poem since that fateful half-hour in an upstairs room with yellow walls and a sloping ceiling.  In and of itself, this is not an extraordinary thing.  I often have long dry spells, usually accompanied by an overindulgence in working too hard, doing the things I like least.

But the difference is that I am shying away from it now.  I don't want to try, don't want to write more "not bad" poetry.  I don't remember feeling this way before, not this particular strain of wordless-ness.  Perhaps it's fear.  Perhaps it's a bruised ego.  I'm not sure.

The one thing most likely to pull me out of a slump is to spend time in the presence of poetry, and poets, those who see the world in a similar way.  So for now I am reading, soaking up what I can.  Hoping that I can fill myself up with enough lovely, piercing, elegant words that some of them will start to spill over again.

heavy sun, gentle river

a slip of a girl waits
in monsoon-muddied waters
her hands swim, elbow-deep
together, apart, together, apart
like slender, courting fish

her raven head is hot and damp
she waits, hands swimming, alone
only the water feels like home
in a place where sunlight has weight
and a slip of a girl is nothing

her dress is soaked through
and the tips of her hair drip
with monsoon-coloured water
soon her naanii will call her
from the gentle tug of the river

a slip of a girl waits
with the Ghanges in her skirts
for a mother who can't come back
her hands swim under the surface
together, apart, together, apart