Gentoo Penguin at Antarctica by jan-borgstede. Used under Creative Commons license
I have had a new poem, 'The Worst Journey in the World', published on Josephine Corcoran's And Other Poems website, here: http://andotherpoems.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/clarissa-aykroyd/
The calibre of the poems and poets already published on the site may tell you something about why I am so pleased to be featured here.
I wrote the first draft of this poem in a workshop with Sean O'Brien about transitional states and places. I actually did once find myself stopped on the train at Earls Court when I was reading The Worst Journey in the World, and my eye fell on a comment which Apsley Cherry-Garrard made about something in Antarctica which had reminded him of Earls Court - that was a very strange and rather beguiling moment. The poem is roughly fictional otherwise, but it has something to say about a) why I sometimes want to be in Antarctica rather than London (my friends know about this side of my personality), and b) the kind of peculiar inner dialogues which can take place in a pressurized atmosphere such as a slowed-down Tube.
As I noted in the previous blog entry about this workshop, the poems produced by many participants tended to be both funny and slightly scary. I don't think this was an exception (although the poems were all very different.) Only after I had written the poem did I realise that there might be something in it of the atmosphere of my first days in London, which happened to be in July 2005, a few weeks after the 7/7 bombings. Unfortunately, Londoners occasionally have reason to feel anxious and unnerved when mysterious incidents and slowdowns take place on public transport. But still, this is a poem which is more funny than sinister, I think.
I saw your poem on the And Other Poems blog. I thought it was great. Your blog looks interesting too.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much - I'm glad you like the poem! (And the blog!)
DeleteYour poem has had an odd effect on me. I think it really captures the strange combination of oppressive concentration and mental distractedness one finds when trapped on a crowded underground train. The line 'The stale air is open for conversation but no one pays attention' is a good example of this: the air itself seems (almost malevolently?) alive, but only for a group of individuals who exist in separate states of concern and abstraction. The whole poem, for me, is like a kind of springboard to dimensions of mental transition. You even had me looking up the history of Earls Court itself, a little adventure on its own.
ReplyDeleteYour comments are always so interesting! My mother told me that she laughed (out loud) when she read it, but you seem to have perceived more of the sinister side. I suppose the atmosphere is rather claustrophobic - the Tube can be so uncomfortable anyway at times that I cannot imagine how nightmarish it would feel with claustrophobia. I like what you said about "a springboard to dimensions of mental transition." You've nicely articulated one of the reasons why I'm drawn to write about it.
DeleteAs well, you probably know more about Earls Court than I do, now!
Thanks for the link, Clarissa, and for your kind words about And Other Poems. I always enjoy learning about a poem's journey from early draft to finished piece and I'm delighted that you've shared the poem's origins here.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the opportunity, Josephine, it was much appreciated!
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