Not All Poems Need To Be Shared With All

Yesterday was a big poem writing day for me, and I don’t know when, or if, the poems I wrote will be widely shared. So poems may have only one reader who will understand the poem written. But that one person may be the perfect person to read a poem, and find solace, or understanding, or relief from the poem and that is what many of us wish to give …

Author’s photograph

I’ve written some poems, and published them in a collection, that had a limited audience, but those who understood, and felt the truth of my poems, were exactly the kinds of people I was writing for. And those people may well be the ones who will understand the poems I wrote yesterday.

So for that to happen, I’ll need to share the words, carefully, and hope my intent is understood, as one to assist in healing, not trying to rip sheds of skin from already damaged people.

Touching on damages done, can hurt people, but ignoring the truth of that damage can destroy them. I hope my writing is always felt to be understanding, and healing. ‘damaged children, Precious Gems’, a blog, and a poetry collection, have been the way I’ve gone with my poetry in the past, and I have a feeling that blog, and at readings from that poetry collection, may be where I eventually share these recent poems I have written.

Or perhaps it may be that I am the person to gain healing from the writing of these poems, and they are never shared more widely at all. And that is fine. Therapeutic writing is definitely a thing that works, it has done so for me in the past, and does for other people all around the world – it has in the past, does in the present, and will into the future.

Words work, in many ways.

My Regular Big Event!

Today, February 28 is the last day of February, the last day of Summer, and the day of my favourite event of the month. Today is the day my favourite Big Event happens. This Big Event isn’t necessarily big in terms of people attending, but it is huge in terms of the wonderful things that can happen.

The event is the Gawler Poets at the Pub event, incorporating both a writing-related workshop, and after that a Poetry Reading. The event takes place at the Prince Albert Hotel (known as the P/A to regulars, and it has lunch happening too. I am one of the two coordinators of this event, and it is a small part of what the writing group I’m the President of, does.

So Alex Robinson, my co-coordinator, is also the Treasurer of our group, which is the Adelaide Plains Poets. He collects the money, and also brings along books we have as a prize for one of the little mini competitions we hold during the afternoon’s happenings. These new books are donated by a wonderfully eclectic bookshop close to the P/A hotel. It is the Gawler Bookshop, and I love popping in there every now and then to say hi, and thank you to the lovely Ally who owns the store, and can find or get in for you any book you might ever want, I suspect!

So this morning, right now, I’m getting ready to head off to Gawler to the P/A for the workshop our guest for the day will present. The guest is Valerie Volk, and the subject for her workshop is ‘Poetry from Pain’. This is a subject dear to my heart, and to my savings too, because I’ve written and sold my own books touching on this subject. One is my memoir about having Multiple Sclerosis ‘Mick Jane and Me – Living Well With MS’, and the other is a poetry collection about my own story about being sexually abused as a child, teen, and young adult ‘damaged children, Precious Gems’.

So painful things for sure, both of them, but the writing of those books has been therapeutic, and I’m in a much better space in my life now, having written the pain out of my head and onto the pages of my books.

Public Speaker, Workshop Presenter …

I have been a poet and writer of prose, as well as a blogger for quite some years now, but the life of being a Public Speaker, in any big way, has long eluded me. But now, oh now, I feel that is all about to change.

I have a disability, Multiple Sclerosis, OH how sad, right? Not really, it’s under control with medication and lifestyle actions, from diet, to exercise, as well as working to live as stress-free and positive life as I can. It seems to be working, I haven’t had a relapse for quite some time. I know, though, that one could hit me at any time.

I was diagnosed with MS back in 2010, ten years ago, so it’s something I know quite a bit about. I’ve also been interested in dogs, in a few different ways, dogs as pets, showing dogs, breeding purebred dogs, doing obedience training too, in a minor way. And writing about dogs, in both serious, and amusing ways, with three books so far, about a dog who lives in my mind, named Buster the Dog!

Not Buster the Dog, but our Dog, Missy, with her little friend Herman the German.

Gardening is an interesting thing in my life too, and I’m currently getting assistance to get my place made safer for me, and with better quality of life. This is paid for by the government, via the NDIS, and I am grateful for that, or I will be once it is all finished.

I also have lived experience of child sexual and other sexual abuse, fortunately from a much earlier time in my life, my life now is much happier. I have a poetry collection I put together when I was in the healing process of becoming more settled in my life over the things that had happened to me, victim to survivor, and now I can say I am thriving.

So my way of getting through life has relied very much on using my words to heal myself, to entertain others, to explore my life, and the lives of others. And I love to speak to people! Sitting down in small groups and chatting, standing up with a microphone and speaking to a crowd, I love it!

So now, I have a support worker, paid for by NDIS, and she and I are looking to find speaking engagements for me. I give her possible groups I could speak to, and she is working toward getting gigs booked. She will assist me too, once I actually get engagements, by carrying my books I will bring, for possible sales, and book signing, fun times!

And soon, the writing group I’m involved with will be holding its monthly writing workshop, and poetry reading, and I am going to be one of the two workshop presenters, hooray! I will be talking about some forms of poetry, the other presenter another one and some tips of getting small poetry forms published in a particular magazine she has been published in, an Australian one.

I definitely feel like my life, even in these awful Covid times, is heading in a good direction.

Sins of the Father

The Bible is a tricky thing, with ideas

going first one way, and then another,

but Molly felt deep the sins of her father

visited upon her, a child, who dared, once

to smile in his presence, and then no more.

 

This is Molly, who dared once, and learned

a smile is seen as a challenge, to the guilty one,

and a challenge not put down, may rise again.

Molly’s sin of smiling was small, compared

to the sins of her father, but he won, and she lost.

 

He won, over his daughter’s sense of her own self.

She lost trust, and faith in the idea of her worth.

Molly lost her mother, her father, and her virginity.

She lost, if she ever even had, parental love,

and lost her smile, slapped from her face. Forever?

 

Will Molly, can Molly, ever find her smile again?

Will anything in her life, ever again seem something

to be smiled at, even carefully? Or, as with chasteness,

is a lost smile something, never to get back again,

and so Molly remain forever damaged, broken?

 

 

Molly, oh Molly please seek help, there are resources out there to help you, and others like you. Domestic abuse, domestic violence, sexual abuse, child abuse, child sexual abuse, these are crimes, and the perpetrators should be charged and dealt with via the court system. No-one adult of child, should feel unsafe in their own home.

 

Covering Same Issues

With these writing prompts, that I write on every new day, I don’t know at the the start which direction my muse may take me. But the direction I headed straight away today, was to a place I’ve been before. Thoughts on ‘Hidden’ things have been a huge theme for my creative writing, and have brought good results, of various types, financial, therapeutic, and for the broader community too.

I have written more about the kind of thing I write about in today’s poem, on another of my blog, this one. I created that blog to help with promoting my poetry collection of the same name.

I don’t think I need to go to much further here now though, the poem I wrote for today, which is Day 6 of #poemadayfeb, will tell the story. I have been very much enjoying being involved with this daily poetry writing idea, & I hope I definitely stick with it to the rest of February, and perhaps beyond, using writing prompts from somewhere else. I have a box of writing prompts hidden away somewhere, and I have plenty of time to find them …

 

So here it is, my poem for this sixth day of February:

 

Finally Healing

 

It hurt so much, you kept it hidden,

your shame at what you’d done,

& knowing doing that was wrong.

 

But talk of ‘love’, was always there –

on radio, tv, movies, ever present,

& ‘love’ was what he’d  claimed …

 

But love in childhood isn’t that,

love for a child is pure & sweet,

what he did to you, wasn’t pure.

 

You held your story close inside,

until clarity & truth arrived at last –

with realisation fault wasn’t yours.

 

The adult, he was to blame for this,

you didn’t do it, it was done to you –

a child – the fault, all of it, was his.

 

He died alone, his crime unknown

except by other victims, perhaps.

& you’re all alive, your secrets told

 

& in telling, finding needed peace,

forgiving yourself, confident now

to tell your truth, & in telling, heal