Why Poetry?

I have always had an attraction to poetry. I can't describe it. Obviously when you're younger you love those poems with a noticeable rhythm and rhyme scheme. As I got older through High School, I started to love a much wider range of poetry; the images it evoked, the emotions it provoked, the cluelessness it stoked. I loved not having a fucking scooby what a poem was about (for all you Americans, 'scooby' is cockney rhyming slang. Scooby Doo = clue). I loved trying to decipher what was being said. And as a good British boy, I loved reading Shakespeare. I loved it so much, I did it outside of the classroom.

The problem was, I wasn't really within a culture that heralded poetry. For boys, anyway. I went to an all-boy school that pushed subjects that would land me a more financially lucrative job in adult life. I hated that. And at a school with all that adolescent testosterone, every day you had to wade through the thick, toxic smog of masculinity and BO.

Poetry, Shakespeare, art, that was all 'gay', that shit was for girls. Clearly, there is nothing wrong with being gay or being a girl, but we can all agree that young men historically have been fed lies about what makes them 'strong' or 'weak' or 'manly'. Our views of ourselves and our fellow young men has been manipulated and distorted in the most preposterous way. So I never admitted to liking poetry, reading Carol Ann Duffy and Seamus Heaney in my spare time at home, because, fuck - if I did, I was gonna get seven shades of shit kicked out of me. For being 'gay', i.e. artistic, sensitive, emotional, creative. What the fuck, right? How many young men have we destroyed? I put it all aside when I was 15.

Many years later during University, in my final year of a science course I had no fucking interest in, I tried to prove to an English student friend of mine that poetry was silly, and easy, and any fucker with a brain cell could write a sonnet (that's how indoctrinated I became). To prove it to them, I wrote a sonnet. Took me about ten minutes. It was a fucking disgrace. But - something awoke in me. It was a terrible poem, I can't express that enough. But I loved writing it.

I realised in those ten minutes of 'work', I had enjoyed that effort I had devoted more than anything I had done in my previous two and a half years at University. In that moment, I realised how miserable I had been for so long, and also, why I had been so miserable. I had suppressed one of my great passions for so long, because I had been convinced it was worthless and didn't fit in with my identity... My identity... MY identity. It hadn't been mine for a long time. It was stripped of me, and replaced with someone else's male ideals. That ten minutes changed the course of my life.

I finished my science degree and have ignored it since. I often feel resentful at all those years I wasted without art more in my life, but, really, what you gonna do? I'm making up for the lost time. Reading poetry puts me at peace, it ignites various emotions with me, it helps me empathise, it makes me cry; it's healing. And when I write, it is a way for me to get my emotions out. I have never been a big talker, especially when it comes to how I'm feeling (MEN!) but poetry is a way for me to get it all out, make sense of it, and create something all at the same time. I have had some very dark moments in my life, even in fatherhood. But I can honestly say, writing and reading poetry has been curative, meditative, and invigorating; and I would love to be able to share that with other men and other fathers.

I invite you to look at my poetry - my more lyrical musings on moments during fatherhood. I hope you will relate, and empathise, and feel. Share your thoughts - don't shy away - reach out, send along your poetry and I will gladly share it among the Daddy-sphere. We are all in this together. Let's connect. Let's create a community.