I DON’T KNOW
PodBean Link for those who like to listen.
This morning the herring gulls are laughing and the air smells cleansed. I stand still in the moment and feel gratitude for last night’s Mary Chapin Carpenter concert and the clear starlit sky that ended the day.
Alt text says this week’s photo is a person smiling with a scarf around their neck. I say it is me modelling The Imperial Cowl by Kath Andrews Designs and enjoying having my photo taken.
Whilst wondering which poem I would like to record for ‘Poem of the Month’ for my YouTube channel I found myself thinking about what Alan Parry wrote about one of my poems about grief. In his review of Welcome to the Museum of a Life he says: “I Don’t Know explores the uncertainty of loss with a quiet, devastating honesty: “I don’t know if biting one by one / through a dozen budded tulips would help.” Finch does not attempt to impose order on grief; instead, she lets it unfold organically, offering moments of both revelation and ambiguity.” I was drawn back to this poem and decided that it was the one I wanted to set down this time.
This led to me leaving a note on my desk to remind myself that I had chosen which poem to record. When I saw it the next morning and it said, “Poem of the Month: I Don’t Know”, I chuckled because very often it is actually the case that I don’t know until the last minute which one I will record and sometimes I can go to bed knowing and wake up no longer remembering!
I do know that the regular habit of recording my work has been a good way to develop my confidence with sharing my words as well as being able to share the poems as they sound in my head. When I read them silently to myself I see and hear the words as I read as if they are transported from the page – they scroll like a script. There was a lovely moment of revelation when I reached the end of this particular reading this month as I heard myself realise my nan is always with me. There was a wonderful sparkle within me at the whole resonance of that.
I have always thought of it as a quiet, contemplative poem, and I was surprised and pleased when both Julie Stevens and Susan Richardson engaged with it shortly after the book was released. I love seeing which poems from a collection others enjoy reading.
I am also grateful to Josephine Lay of Black Eyes Publishing for working with me on the editing of this poem to get it ready for publication. This led to the altering of some of the don’ts to can’ts, and I loved feeling what that did for the poem. It was good to pay attention together to which lines would change in their power by taking on this different starting word. It definitely made a positive impact and I know I wouldn’t have seen that change if we hadn’t explored it together. I love the duality of the meaning for ‘I can’t’… where one human can’t know the exact feelings of another and also the essence of, ‘please don’t tell me, I fear it will be too painful’.
During my coaching training we thought about the power of just getting going with things when you have an idea or a goal. I have seen this come to fruition in my recording of poems, and can clearly see the journey I have taken. I am glad I didn’t wait until I was ready! I love the fact that since my change of career I have also leant into this and this has enabled me to be willing to model Kath’s knitwear – after all, there’s always a delete button and actually I don’t mind looking at myself now. I also cracked on, and started a podcast so that I could see how it evolved. It has been so good to move away from the nerves that tickled at my very edges when I started!
I get the feeling writing some more poems is going to be a priority pretty soon because I don’t want to be in the position of not having many to choose from when it comes to poem of the month! Time to open the writing journal and set a seven minute timer...
Here's to finding out which steps you want to take, taking the first one and the next. And then the next.
I will leave you today with my recording of poem of the month: ‘I Don’t Know’.
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