My First Poetry Reading and the Way Things Live on Beyond Us

I listened to ali whitelock open her launch of Poetry of Encounter: The Liquid Amber Prize Anthology reading a section of my poem ‘Dissociation’. The team at Liquid Amber has given me the heads-up that ali was going to read some lines from my piece so that I would know why I was reading later in the alphabetical order program. Fine by me.

I didn’t know she would begin with me. I didn’t know she would read a full section, one-third of the poem.

I listened to the words. Sounding familiar, they swirled around me shaped by someone else’s mouth. It took a moment for me to realise: she is reading my work.

The words caught me and I lost myself in them. Emotion welled up. Not because it was my poem, but, rather, what that poem said.

I felt the full impact of those words. Breathing deeply—now was not the time to break down—I tried to remove myself from their impact. I was going to read the piece in its entirety and needed to hold it together.

Brutal.

It is a brutal poem. A poem of lostness. Complete and utter lostness.

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This is what happens with poems when they are published and set free—they take on a life of their own.

They begin to interact with people, strike up dialogues, move hearts, open doors to new thoughts, create connections, or, sometimes, just offer a moment of recognition. They do all of this, and more, without any effort from the writer. The work of the writer is finished.

All that is required from the writer is that they avoid placing undue expectations on the piece. It is free and must be freely given in order to become fully itself. Like a child, it must be allowed it’s independence and space. In this way, it goes on to live its own life.

That, of course, is where the analogy of poem and child ceases. A poem doesn’t come home for Christmas or birthdays. It doesn’t need the emotional support that even adult children can expect. The poem becomes more like a bird, free to fly away and never return, singing its song, a familiar yet strange melody echoing beyond reach.

There is no knowing where a poem will go. How far into the future it might fly. How it might live on when you don’t. Or what little thing it will add that is added to and added to again, until the ripple of change becomes a crashing wave.

Life is like that.

We create things every day. They might be poems or paintings or songs or furniture or gardens or houses. They might also be a smile, a kind word, a thoughtful gesture, a passing interaction, a rude comment, anger, or even violence.

All people create. And what we create lives beyond us.

It’s good to remember this sometimes.