Mentors Blog on Emma’s Poem for voices.

Friday, June 5th, 2009

HELLO ALL, POEM COMES AFTER MY COMMENTS…SAVE THE BEST TILL LAST.

Re..APoem for Voices.

Hello Emma,

I’ve tried reading the poem lots of ways to check out the narrative. So, I read all the colours together..ie..all the blue, then all the green, red, magenta to see if they stood on their own as small narratives, which they did. Then tested on my daughter to see if she could tell which were the different voices. (Hard, because just me reading them) Anyway, she COULD tell when the voices changed…which is a very good sign…..!

I think the narrative voices are very clear. It might be the fact that I work with Theatre companies a lot, but I imagined the voices all doing an activity…ie..The green voice, voice of the worker, I saw her looking up from paper work as she talks. It stands out from the other voices, as its very domestic, which is great, gives a good contrast to the other voices, which have a strong inner life full of imagery. The poets voice, with her notebook, writing and crossing out…and the other voices, sitting on a bed…new sheets folded at the end of it, waiting for the new occupant.

I particularly love the magenta voice……beautiful is the word I would use, the protaganists creating homes in each others bodies, fantastic notion, I almost wanted more of that voice…I know you may have put a repeat of the “thursday” verse in by accident at the end, but I like it…if you do keep the repeat in. maybe it should end on

“that will build mansions where others see slums. “

although the pearl and oyster verse is a great ending too.

The only thing I would say, and it’s a small thought, is be careful of the red voice, it the early verse, which I know is sort of yours, sounding too guilty that she/he is not homeless too. I know its hard, because of course you are very empathetic and feel compassion, it could be read as relief and gratitude for having home..which is fine, maybe see what others think on the blog?? What do you think others???

I feel if I should be picking over with fine mentors toothpick, (I have corrected a few typo’s and word back to fronts), but I can’t find much to pick at…was reading it for the story and imagery.

To sum up…

1. The different voice work very well…will you be able to perform it with other readers??? It doesn’t matter of you can’t…Claire Williamson who I also mentored, performed her piece herself , she had seven voices, I directed her before she did it….maybe be good to have an outside eye when you rehearse it???

2.I want to hear a little more from the magenta voices…..just a little..that voice gets to the absolute heart of the piece subject, place being each other, not a building..

I love it.

Anna.

HERE IT IS EVERYONE, EMMA’S FABULOUS POEM, PLEASE READ IT ALOUD, DYLAN THOMAS EAT YOUR HEART OUT.

A Poem Play for four voices.

Blue voice.

Today I spoke to nobody,

Not the butcher, the baker

Or the candlestick maker.

Today I found my life random as a dream

woke where the cold blows

Sleet snow,

I was told a café was a no go,

I was Billy Goat’s Gruff Rough

as I stretched and rubbed my barnacled hands,

wandered streets and streets

with names like King and Queen, Duke

and Lowther.

My shoulder was watch tower

I craned my neck to see,

my mother knows a man

and that man he knows of me;

his fists are sharp edged shovels.

Green voice.

Hi my name’s Danni

And am a housing support worker,

It’s a bit like being a mum to somebody

Else’s son or somebody else’s daughter

Blue voice.

Today the fog was stuck with glue

and the sea and the sky were the same,

I wrote my name in the sand so the rubbish

would know me

I curved the letters with a stick

that was smooth skinned wash-up

I found a slipper and a bottle top,

an empty beer can, used condom,

a deflated orange balloon with a trail of yellow string,

each one with a place in a Cinderella story.

I toe-nudged the stones disturbing a buzz of sandflies

who’d slept snug bug like

and then dizzied each other in annoyance

The tide shlurked with the sound of

a secret whispered

and I was bone lonely

Remembered popping dried seaweed

with a man who said he loved me.

Green Voice.

The late shift starts at six

So I like to have supper with my youngest first,

Give her a kiss,

We might have a pizza or we might have chips

And it’s hard, you know, to leave them when they’re only young

But I have to explain to her; where do you think the money comes from.

Blue Voice.

Tonight I’ll sleep on some sofa

Tomorrow I borrow a bed,

I know I used to have a home

Where the pillow in its crook

Had the shape of my face

And I on winter mornings still

Filled with the stuff of sleep

Saw the pattern of

Its floral creases etched about eyes.

Red Voice.

Today I woke in my own bed,

made coffee in my kitchen

there were no rules no regulations

no fire extinguisher attached to my wall,

there’s a coffee cup I was bought for Christmas

and heart shaped sugar bowl

three dogs and a cat and a lover

and I have keys to my front door

and keys to my back door

Blue Voice.

Now I sleep in strange beds

Like a lonely one-night stand,

I’ve known seven different sheets in a week

Brushed my teeth in seven sinks

Seen the stars from different streets and

Woken to discover how light draws angles differently

like the room shed its night-time clothes

woke up all creased face and groggy still yawning

as I slurped tea made by somebody who needed to ask how I took it.

I’ve come to discover that my own pillow did have

A smell so odorless as the scent of my own skin

That I could mold myself to it, become its creases

As it became my bones

And that you can’t mold yourself to something or someone

in one night spent clutching at the promise of sleep’s stillness

you can’t know what is comfortable

until you’ve done the uncomfortable

but in a strange house

in a strange bed

you don’t stretch too well.

Snow White was bold

when she pushed together those seven small beds

and arranged herself width ways.

Green voice.

I’ve worked here for a few years now, seen the kids come and go

sometimes we get brothers and sisters a few years apart,

Blue Voice.

Today I close behind me doors

That I know I’ll never own a key to;

for me Tuesday is Friday

Saturday was Thursday

Monday was Sunday

I don’t know if it’s this week or last week

I knew it was Wednesday

because the pub shut early,

drunks with bloodshot balance bereft eyes

wheeled like seagulls blown by the wind

I remember a night where the tide spilled

sopping

over the harbour walls

I found myself, drawn there

like blood ,

And a memory from

Somewhere,

tells me this is a

Spring night,

Highest of the high,

lowest of the low.

That night I had

nowhere

To

Go .

And the loneliest hour?

It was between three and four .

Green voice.

The kids have a curfew

They have to be in by 11’0lcock

After that the door gets locked.

So we sleep here, over night,

of course it’s not you own bed

But you know, that said,

the sheet is always clean changed by the worker before

and the bed’s not bad

Blue voice.

You know there are people in the night you never

Hear of,

They’re not doctors on night shift,

Lorry drivers making the distance trip

If these people were to turn up your dreams

You’d wake up and your mouth would taste of screams.

I got found by the police sleeping

In a doorway like a dog

Curled up tight

Knees to my chest

Even the blow of my own breath

Had turned cold

And tells me there’s procedures and

Rules and solutions

I get told to fill in forms

Find myself starred and ticked and asterisked

Tonight I am a new number

Tomorrow I’ll be counted as one of many

another Tom, Michael, Chantel,

Charlie, Jenny.

I see myself hoop jumping

t-shirt scrunched by my dirty fists

I run my tongue over the word “homeless”

And find it empty like a gutted fish.

Green voice.

so you’re a writer are you, oh I would love do something like that

have me name in print;

well don’t you be forgetting us when you’re famous,

oh a poet,

a poet and you don’t know it.

Red Voice:

I’m here

in a house known as

home

and work

and charity

and care scheme

and as a trust.

I’ve shown security accreditations

passed checks,

there’s CCTV

on the step,

in the kitchen,

in the lounge

on the stairs, on the corridor, in the hall

I’ve met this woman who talks like a train

the sound of rain gurgling down the drain

it’s a train that’s forgotten to pick up its passengers

she goes At to B. A to B. destination calculation estimation

tick box check list time sheet.

I meet this girl

she tells me of a home

she built with her mother

it was yellow like buttercups

there was the taste of honey

There was fairy cakes

and a gold -skinned brother

But the sickness came and the wind it blew;

her mother held a flower to her chin

it reflected a belly so bare so empty

that the whole house wretched.

Green voice.

we all get along,

occasionally we get a kid who’s,

well to say they’re bad is wrong,

Some of these kids, they’re just desperate for a hug

Others they’ve got themselves a bit mixed up

In booze and drugs,

Red Voice.

She tells me her mother knew no solution

to children who hollowed themselves like Halloween pumpkins

for children whose skin was sagged grey and bursts forth

spots of malnourishment

She tells me there was no prince charming, despite her best efforts,

but her fairy godmother

came in the shape of a

grandma.

Green Voice.

And the parents, well,

The kids never stood a chance

Who’s going to put up with being battered

By a stepdad.?

For me a home is where your heart is

Mine is with my family, two kids and my husband Gary,

He makes a joke when I work here over night

Says he can stretch in bed

normally I have the left side

He has the right,

Magenta Voice.

They find in each other a home

He sees chimney smoke rise between her breasts

And she sees windows with flowers and roller blinds

In the curves of his abdomen.

Together they kiln bricks with the thrust and push of their passion

that will build mansions where others see slums.

She makes garden paths on the length of his leg

Walks them with spindly fingers

he carpets her ankles

carves her bones

she paints his finger nails

and they talk about the colour they would paint walls

what will be the colour of their front door

(ILove this above)

Red Voice.

She tells me of a brown home

With sharp edges that made her think of bones

She says this was a home with no mirrors,

This was a home full of locks on medicine cupboards

this was a home with marks on the milk to measure how

was drunk but they could never measure what she spilled

what was washed down the sink with water to mask the smell

this was a home where she dreamt of cold metal misted footprints

on the bathroom scales.

Magenta Voice.

and he knows the song that they’d like to get married to

and they dance tremble with the treble

locked in each other’s loving

they’ve taken these tablets

and their heads are humming

buzzing

breaking a sweat beneath the blankets

she’s seventeen and screaming sweet sensations

he’s sixteen and smiling

like his life depended on it

he’s loving it massive large

giving it winning it

he hasn’t felt this good since he smashed

up his dad’s car

then he found out he was a drug dealing thieving

scumbag

and this girl she’s called Lisa

and she’s like every car you ever dreamed of owning

all your good memories wrapped up and given

to you one Christmas morning

and she never lies and she fades and she never cheats

and she’s home

awesome.

Green Voice.

No, the kids they’re not aloud to room hop

Some of them you just can’t stop

And to be honest at that age who wouldn’t

All the beds are single mind,

we’ve had pregnancies here before,

they get moved on when the baby’s born

to a shelter for young single mums.

We went on a course to learn how to make a new

Young person feel welcome

they said sit on the bed for half an hour

In a room that is otherwise empty

Soak up the space and imagine;

well the quiet hit me at first

then feeling alone

you pace around measuring the length and breadth

you might move the bed

alter where the wardrobe stands

there’s no sheets, no duvets, no pictures,

when I did I felt desperate

I was glad to get out of there,

do you want another coffee?

In this hostel the walls and the carpets are

Bare blue, in the other there’s all patterns and swirls

it’s a bit like being at y Nana’s house

Red Voice.

He tells me home is a place where his memories live

And remembers being brought up by his Nana

Then she says of this home we sit in

that she’s painted her room all pink

and bought a pink duvet

and her coat hangers have pink covers

her brother’s photograph is framed in the shape

of a fluffy pink cat

she has ten teddies on the bed and each one has name

and a home and story and a journey.

She has last years birthday card on her bedside table

“Happy sixteenth, love mum”.

She says all her food tastes of brick

imagines she’s a sewn up bag of stones thrown to the sea

But when her belly bursts there’s only brine water

And the wash is foam slicked

Today I meet this boy who goes for the first time

To meet his father

He’s all kitted out in his football shirt

All hair gelled all ironed and stiff shaky with excitement.

He’s hopping

all hot footed

full bloodied

he tells me his spoken with his father on the phone

and his father says for all the years he’s missed

for all the times when pillows went unplumped

when a young boy pulled his own duvet round in his chin

and nobody tucked him in

and a fairy story was forgotten

for all this

he will buy him a gift

to set all records straight

clear all slates

even all scores:

he will buy him

a tattoo.

The boy now 17 and scrawny grown can choose any design

But must stick to three colours.

He tells me will have a football boot

And I can’t help thinking of that little old woman

Who lived in a shoe

They say she had so many children she didn’t know what to

But I don’t remember any part where, to make it all better

She bought each a tattoo.

Magenta Voice.

Today I am leaving,

My bed a shell

For some other oyster;

A pearl in the making

Thursday

They find in each other a home

He sees chimney smoke rise between her breasts

And she sees windows with flowers and roller blinds

In the curves of his abdomen.

Together they kiln bricks with the thrust and push of their passion

that will build mansions where others see slums.

(She makes garden paths on the length of his leg

Walks them with her spindly fingers

he carpets her ankles)

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