What (do) we do
Excuses, excuses, I could give you any number of excuses, some even rock solid like recent poor health, for why I’ve not been writing. I can’t remember how long it’s been since my last blog, (echoes of “it’s been X days/weeks since my last confession”…)
For some writers (artists, people generally) the pandemic has contributed to them being more prolific than ever, for others of us it’s just the opposite. Some vital nourishment along with the expansiveness/alternative perspective of travel is lacking. For others too increased workloads or teaching online have crushed creativity. Am I the only writer worrying I haven’t yet put a face mask in a poem? My references to Covid 19 are so oblique readers can be forgiven if they miss them. My new book (more about that in another post, promise) was written before the pandemic and while I finished editing it in last year’s lockdown (and the space of cancelled events did help) it felt wrong to try and stick something in just to appear relevant. And of course, the pandemic is not the only thing that has been happening, globally or locally.
If I haven’t been writing much, I have certainly been thinking. There have been events, albeit online, which I’m lucky enough to have been part of and which have provided some of that crucial nourishment for me, and for others I am certain. February 2021 saw a wealth of fantastic of festivals for LGBTQ+ History Month including Coast is Queer – if you missed it events were recorded and can be accessed online, Queer in Brighton focussed on friendship and Lambeth Libraries LGBTQ+ History Month event Pride & Prejudice in Poland shone a light on what is happening in Poland where those in power have condoned and incited outright hatred against LGBTQ+ people, while dismantling women’s rights and democratic process. At this event we were asking ourselves what we do as writers in the face of such oppression. Anna Błasiak felt an urgency to respond, confront – it had changed her to want to write more openly, explicitly as a queer writer. Jacek Dehnel saw the work of literature as a longer project. What was happening currently would not be successfully addressed or reflected upon until some time later, for now the most creative responses were appearing in graffiti, slogans and banners at demonstrations. I am somewhere in the middle. The present situation in Poland has thrown me back to a state of mind I remember where I wanted to come out continually and drape myself in badges or flags, anything, just to be visible. In terms of getting my work translated into Polish my priority has been for the explicitly lesbian or LGBTQ poems to appear – helped here by Anna. But in my current work while I feel the pull of that urgency (anger, dismay, sorrow…) to confront what is happening I also feel the other pull of following what the non-‘authorial’, less conscious voice has to say and to explore where that takes me which is not always immediately apparent or relevant in an obvious way. Emily Dickinson told us to tell ‘all the Truth’ but to tell it ‘slant’ and I find myself coming back to that again.
