A Poem A Day for April

The month, not the person.

April is National Poetry Writing Month. Me and a few writery type mates have taken part in this for the last few years. We write a poem a day, share them between the group and get bits of feedback.

Some of the poems I write become part of the repertoire. Some get rewritten or dissected into later works. Some get taken out into the garden, shot in the back of the head and burnt. Some even get their corpse burnt over the ash of previously killed poems. Just for good measure. That’ll show ‘em.

The idea of “sharing” these poems isn’t something I am overly keen on. They’re very much a work in progress. A sort of motorway service station on route to an adequate seaside resort.

But I’m also aware that one of the things I want to do here is encourage people to be creative. To talk about the process of being creative and convince people who think it’s “not for them” to give it a go. And you know what, seeing some stuff that’s a bit half finished and talking about it might help. Either way, we’ll hopefully learn something and maybe have a laugh.

Now I’m not going to promise I’ll put every poem I write in April up here and those I do put up I will label as “Work in Progress”. But what I will do is talk a little about where the idea came from and how I constructed it. Hopefully someone out there will find it useful. So let’s start. Even though this is the 3rd of April I do want to go back to the poem I wrote on the 1st. Namely this one. Remember, it’s a #WorkInProgress :

The Tuesday Morning Fred Astaire

The low April sun
might burn like bleach.
The endless traffic
might thrum like a wasp nest.
The contractors
might cackle about tits like stray cats.
But I’m out.
About.
My two legs and a stick
dancing through it all
like I’m Fred Astaire.

From https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Astaire,_Fred_-_Never_Get_Rich.jpg

This poem came about because I’ve had a few medical issues recently. On Tuesday I had to go out and about for work. For the first time in a while I was on one walking stick instead of two, carrying a weighty backpack and on Ibuprofen instead of Naproxen¹. It felt surprisingly good. The morning was also punctuated with a very low Sun which burnt my eyes, seeming endless lines of traffic and some sexist shouting from a building site². Each of those things would normally ruin a chunk of the day but it did feel like I breezed through it. The thought processes came quickly. “It’s like I’m dodging the raindrops. Raindrops. Fred Astaire danced in the rain. It’s like I’m Fred Astaire.”

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Dave, it was Gene Kelly who danced in the rain, not Fred Astaire.”

Yes I know, I realised about 15 seconds after the original thought but does it matter? Is this a poem about who danced in the rain on film? No it’s not. It’s about how I felt that morning. The connections I made aren’t about being accurate to historical Hollywood. In another universe some other synapse fired and instead of thinking about Fred Astaire I thought about Madonna, Michael Jackson or John Travolta. In another universe this poem is called Tuesday Morning Sam Rockwell³. One thing though… say the words “Tuesday Morning Fred Astaire” out loud. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? The repetition of the “t” sounds and where they fall in the sentence. Even “Tuesday Morning John Travolta” doesn’t sound as good.

Originally the poem was called Fred Astaire. But when I put Tuesday Morning before it… well, it came to life.

As for the poem itself… I’m still not sure about the lines concerning the “contractors”. I know with the “stray cats” analogy I was trying to get that feeling of the type of area I was walking through but I’m just not sure about it. One thing I do like is the full stop between “I’m out. About.” The phrase is “I’m out and about.” but the “and” felt too flabby.

And I do love the last bit. The idea of comparing myself hobbling on sticks to Fred Astaire is silly but also sums up exactly how it felt after the last five weeks I’ve had. It’s also a nice little reveal. Normally, a poem like this I’d sit on it for a few weeks and come back to it. Maybe even rewrite it completely and then compare versions. What I’ll do with it and what becomes of it I don’t know.

Either way I hope you’ve found something useful in there. As I said I don’t know how often through April I’ll do this sort of thing but I do want to do it at least two or three times a week if I can. If you’re up for that and aren’t subscribed, please do so. It won’t cost you anything and I’m desperately trying to ensure nothing I do ends up behind a paywall⁴. Also, if you want to ask questions then yell them in the comments. If there is a desire I might even open up the “subscriber” chat feature of Substack.

Take care, and hopefully I’ll stick another of these up in a day or two.

Dave Pitt
Pungenday, Discord 20, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3191

1. Ibuprofen is an over the counter pain killer in the UK and while good it’s pretty weak. Naproxen can only be gotten via a prescription from a doctor and is much stronger. If Ibuprofen was a volume setting on your headphones it would be 4 whereas Naproxen would be 15 and so loud you wouldn’t be able to take a shit without feeling your bowels are being pulled inside out and razorbladed.

2. This, and similar things I’ve seen men do, is probably the subject of a blog post on its own. I won’t go into it here because truthfully, I don’t think another bloke’s voice is what this conversation needs. However, rest assured that while I couldn’t do anything as they were up ladders and I was on a walking stick. I did put on my best Dad face, looked at them and shook my head. I’m not angry, I’m disappointed. They stopped shouting at that point and I felt like maybe I’d done something good in the world.
Guys, let’s do better. Let’s be better. FFS.

3. Sam Rockwell (yes the actor) is a phenominal dancer.

4. That will probably be the subject of another post.