The Importance of Being A Poet

I have, over the last couple of months, performed quite a lot - which is, of course, splendid. BUT. As my darling has pointed out to me, I am really more of a page poet than a performance poet. I never really intended to get into performance poetry. It just sort of happened to me. I performed at Plymouth's Chestnut Tree Cafe (now defunct, much-mourned) while I was doing my BA, sure, but everyone performs poetry while they're doing their BAs - it's mandatory. 

It all started when I attended a performance poetry workshop at The Nuffield Theatre (Southampton) some years ago. Why? Well, it was a poetry workshop, wasn't it? So that's why. I didn't perform that evening (the first 451) - I was too frightened. The next 451, however, was the scene of my first (post-BA) poetry performance. I remember that I had been preparing for it all day. I remember that I was wearing black. I remember feeling as though I was about to faint as this room of people, all of whom (I thought) must know a great deal more about poetry than I did, applauded me with apparent warmth and sincerity . A kind man made the effort of come up to me and tell me to keep writing, and to never give up. I promised him that I would and wouldn't. And nearly got on the wrong train home because I was so excited. 

And so it goes. I ended up at The Winchester Pub in Bournemouth, where The (now past-tense) Kool Kats Klub (possibly spelled as it was intended ) and (present-tense) Freeway Poets poetry nights built up my experience of performing. And I met Steve Biddle, who very wonderfully took me under his wing and introduced me to a number of people and places. 

My favorite performance so far has been my Archimides Screw Audience Choice slot at The Art House (Southampton) a couple of months ago. I gave it my all, absolutely refused to be insouciant about it, and felt pleasantly like a squeezed-out teabag at the end of it all. That is how things should be.

The thing is, though, performing, and preparing to perform, and traveling to perform, and learning and responding to the lessons that performing teaches one, takes time. Time that could be spent on writing - on sinking below the gaze of The Other (The Sauron's Eye, as I tend to think of it at my most jaded) into the subconscious (in the submarine of time and space and interpersonal invisibility) and BLOODY WELL WRITING. 

"What is to be done?" I will continue to perform. I wandered through the whole of school and college thoroughly expecting (and being expected) to go into acting - I can't give up performance that easily. The thing is (just as was the case with acting as well) I am better at writing (and writing about acting and writing about writing) than I am at performing what I write (and at acting). I am, and have always been, (while charismatic) very very gauche when placed in front of an audience (or placed in front of people in general). It is only when I am absolutely assured of being loved that I can relax (this is probably a neurosis) - which is both absurd and evolutionarily sensible (for who wants to be eaten by lions when fight or flight were alternative options?!?).

Also - I did say, didn't I, that I was going to write a novel? I distinctly remember, on the way home from school, at the age of 11, announcing that I was going to write a novel. And it isn't finished yet.