Poetry is like a bird it ignores all frontiers

POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNING: I do write briefly about my young god-daughter inspiring me to write some children’s poetry.

There are no images in this blog as this is all about the written word!

Poetry has always played an important part of my life. My mother first introduced me to the art form when I was very little. By the time I wrote “The Adventures of PigDog” (aged five) I was already playing around with a stanza here and there. The main inspiration came when she showed me a bound notebook of the poetry that she had written in her late 20s and early 30s. I was intrigued by how the words could be made to sing even though they weren’t a song.

By the time I was nine my mother had given me her poetry notebook: it is still one of my most prized possessions. The intended inspiration worked as during car journeys I would look at the scenery outside the window and compose a poem about what I saw. I grew up in and age before iPads and DVD players (yes there was one!) so I had to get inventive because reading in the car makes me very sick.

We now jump forward until I was 13 when I changed schools. My parents were separated, and we moved when my mother and “step-father”, Ron, decided to set up house together. One of the first memories of my new school was a production they put on of a play about the effects of the Black Death on a small village somewhere in England.

Sounds grim doesn’t it! Well, it was and yet the aspiring poet with found it incredibly inspiring. So much so that I wrote an Epic Poem about the lead character mourning the loss of his love, a girl called Emmett. I call it an Epic Poem because it ran to about 20 pages! Unfortunately, I wrote it in the age before personal computers (yes there was one!) so all I have are my memories of the two first stanzas …

I know not when,

I know not why,

My Emmett dear did die

So now I sit here

All alone

Alone

Beneath the sky

 

We used to come here

Once a week

To meet and talk

And touch

But now she will not come

To me

I miss her oh so much.

 

Not long after this I stopped writing anything, let alone poetry. You see, I’d developed what I call a “Writing Dragon”. My career’s advisor laughed out loud when I told her I wanted to be a journalist: stop being so stupid, get some qualifications and go out and get a proper job! Unfortunately, this coincided with my father started returning my postcards and letters “red-penned” to highlight my mistakes: neither of us realised that I am dyslexic.

I did have a little foray into poetry after Ron died. I think in my subconscious I remember how much I loved writing poetry years ago and I needed to connect with happier times. My parents both died within 18 months of each other and Ron died about 7 years later, so I went through the mill in my mid to late 20s. I never wrote about my grief though, which is strange. Even so I still found writing poetry very cathartic. I guess it nurtures my soul. Here’s one of the poems I wrote after Ron died. I wrote this one afternoon whilst sitting on the cliff top overlooking Cape Cornwall, near St Just.

 

The Cape

The warm sun caresses her arched back

As she stretches out to sea.

Its gentle lapping carried on the wings of cooling breezes

Carried up to cliffs to you and me.

 

But you don’t stop, do you?

You stride purposefully on, like lemmings,

Following a well trodden path.

Snapping frantically at her beauty.

Desperate to capture the memories

Only to consign them to a faded death

At the bottom of a draw.

One more forgotten memory

In the muddle of your hurried past.

 

But if you stopped for a while

Would you see what I see,

Or feel what I feel?

 

Would you hear the wind’s stories

Of ancient heroics and long forgotten loves?

Would you commit every line of her features to memory

And fill your nostrils with her scent?

 

Do you close your eyes and wait

For the wind to gently stroke your face,

Imagining long slim fingers

Caressing sun-kissed skin?

 

If you stopped for a while,

Would you commit all this and more to memory,

Imprinting it deep within your soul?

 

And back amongst the madding crowd

Would you unwrap your precious treasure

Like a hundred Christmases a year

And close your eyes to trace

Each and every line of her?

 

When you close your eyes to dream

Does the wind still carry the warmth of her scent

And the lap, lap, lap of the swell beneath her feet?

 

Age cannot whither her

As she’s been formed by a million storms.

And each time you gaze at her,

Lying in the sea,

Do you fall in love once more,

Falling harder and deeper than before?

 

I will never know, will I?

For you don’t stop, do you?

Your madding crowd’s not so far away

As you follow each other, like lemmings,

Striding to some other spot.

 

But that’s fine by me.

In truth, I would not have it any other way.

Be gone, and leave this place I love.

Be gone, and leave this place to me.

© Nicci Fletcher – 8th August 1999

 

Then my inspiration dried up and I didn’t pen another poem until after our failed cycle of IVF in 2009. Again, whilst inspiration hit yet I didn’t write about my feelings. Instead I was inspired by my then four-year-old god-daughter running around the kitchen table stark naked following her bath. Rather than being my usual calming influence “Auntie Nicci” chased Isabella around said table pretending to be a bottom biting monster. Isabella was had kittens she was giggling so much.

I thought it was fun yet went to bed not realising this was a life changing moment. Yet I couldn’t get to sleep as I tossed and turned for hours with ideas buzzing around my head. I finally crept down to the kitchen at 5am.

By the time Isabella and her mum, Alice, joined me at 8am I had written four poems. Bottom Biting Bear, Hand Holding Hedgehogs, Leg Licking Leopards and Tummy Tickling Tigers. Needless to say, we were all rather astounded. More poems were requested and over the coming weeks I wrote another 22 poems which now make up “Bottom Biting Bears and Other Bedtime Beasties”. This is an A-Z of poems about the make-believe animals that distract children at bedtime.

Yes, the universe decided it would be rather ironic that as I struggled to come to terms with my infertility that I should write a children’s book! Here’s the poem that started it all off:

 

Bottom Biting Bears

Beware of flashing bottoms

Bottoms which are barer

For the bear who bite the bottoms

Could be hiding anywhere.

 

Bottoms that are clean and fresh

From being in the bath

Attract the bottom biting bears

Who Bite them for a laugh.

 

So, when it’s nearly bedtime

And mummy says “be quick”

Better put your PJs on

Before you bottom gets a nip

© Nicci Fletcher 2014

 

Please bear with me (pardon the pun) as I share another one because I do adore this …

 

The Handholding Hedgehog

The handholding hedgehog

Just wants to hold my hand

But what the handholding hedgehog

Doesn’t seem to understand

Is that holding hands with hedgehogs

Causes lots of pain

So, I hope the handholding hedgehog

Won’t try to hold my hand again.

© Nicci Fletcher 2014

 

It wasn’t until August 2015 that I wrote my first poem about being childless not by choice. Once I started I wrote three or four in fairly quick success. I will share two of them with you here:

 

A couple of weeks ago I stared to write a new poem. This has taken a little longer than normal to complete, probably because I have been so busy. Preparing for WCW, publishing the latest issue of the magazine, and preparing for two webinars is not only tiring it also uses quiet a lot of brain power. So, whilst the first stanza is buzzing around my mind and I have another couple of couplets I need some inner space for things to settle.

It will happen, and it will happen soon. I have a feeling this is going to be a real corker, so I will update this blog and share on social media when it is ready. Knowing my luck, I will now be awake half the night, work on it tomorrow morning and it will be finished a couple of hours after this blog has been published!

However, that’s fine by me because “Poetry is like a bird, it ignores all frontiers” [Yevgeny Yevtushenko – Soviet and Russian poet]

So, this has been an insight into some of my poetry, both CNBC related and others. I imagine that some of you reading this will also be poets. If you are, and would like to collaborate on a book, I would love to publish an anthology of poetry to we express our feelings and help raise awareness in a unique and beautiful way.

If you are interested. please email me. The address is nicci[at]Canbace[dot]com

Be kind to yourself …

In Canbace friendship

If anything I have written resonates I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I appreciate that this can be a difficult subject to speak openly about. If you don’t want me to publish your comment on the website please let me know. I will keep your words private.

Click the image below to read Brandi Lytle’s blog “#IAmMe: The Artist of my Life …”