Coming Home

Today's poetry prompt is from my friend, artist and poet, Janice Windle. "DAY 6 NOVEMBER

Imagine that you meet yourself when much younger than you are now and write a poem about the experience.

This could take the form of a dialogue between your two “selves” or a narrative including a context for the meeting. Would your younger self be disappointed by, proud of, satisfied with, relieved by, shocked or amazed at, approving, disapproving of the way your personality and outlook has developed since you were, say, eighteen? Would your present self be surprised, ashamed, proud, envious, disapproving, approving, of your younger self? Would the two personae get on? what issues would they agree/disagree on? How confrontational would the meeting be?

If you feel very imaginative and intuitive, project your present self into the future and introduce a third character into your poem – yourself as an elderly person meeting the other two."

I have finally started writing my Morning Pages again. I'd recommend this practice to anyone who wants to write. Today's prose poem was a freewrite. It was one of those rare and delicious moments when the piece just wrote itself. It's not a very happy piece but one I hope that has some resonance for others. I always come back to the same spot - writing is the one thing that keeps me sane (ish). It's the only way I know to detangle what's inside.

Coming Home

The story starts like this. The condensation on the windows, the early morning cough and throat-clear of distant traffic, two magpies on the branch of the yellowing tree in the garden, and the promise of a brighter day behind the blanket thick clouds. Most of the house asleep and the air cold and still - and quiet enough to hear the patient hum of the fridge and a blackbird, out of view welcoming the morning in.

You would like to be happier than you are now but last night's novel got under your skin. The female protagonist is a little too much like you. She's lost, self indulgent but kind enough under the confusion. She keeps on trying to think her way out of things when she should just be feeling her way through. Autumn never ceases to make your eyes fall in love with it and all the colours its brings, rivalling May (your birth month) for your heart.

And then the text. From an unknown number. 'I'm back'. It says 'Did you forget about me?' Of course you know immediately who it's from and think about deleting it. You wanted your life to be one neat paragraph after another and when a page was turned, that was it, there was no going back. But no one told you the truth about ghosts, that you could be haunted by your self. You open the text again. Now it says 'Why did you forget me?'

You know the sender, 22 years old her hair far shorter than yours now. A precise barber shop cut, shaved at the sides and a neat halo of bleached curls on top. She's wearing black and the only shine comes from her market bought gold hoops hanging from both ears and the vague glimmer of hope shining in her eyes. She's been dancing all night at a word of mouth warehouse party and still has energy for the weekend ahead. She wants to live life without stopping but something keeps pulling her under the waves, something she doesn't have a name for. You know she has stopped writing poetry, spends her weekends on the hunt for what you, at 47, are still looking for.

A wasp buzzes towards the one light on in your kitchen. What he wants so much will kill him. The heat of the bulb will fry his tiny wings. He seems dejected when you switch the light off but you have to save one life even if it's not your own. You text back 'Please don't ever stop' and then delete it immediately. It feels lightweight and unreal.

Of course you want to tell her that you love her, to keep going and that the only things that are her fault are her fault but the rest is the world just spinning on its axis, and all the people living there and that she is not responsible for everything. Some of it is the dry old physics of being and that there's no maths that can explain why things happen the way they do, that she's not to blame. You want to say keep writing or that she should get out more, or stay in more and not run so much.

You have so much you want to say and so few ways it can be said, here, in this text. You type the text again, trashy as it sounds 'Please don't ever stop being who you are' and hope she can hear it this time.

Boomerang

I was in a stuck and foul old mood today, I was resistant to the beauty offered by Autumn's changing colours. I moaned, stomped and swore ignoring my emails and my ever lengthening to do list. In search of some much needed emotional catharsis I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed the bathroom and kitchen floors. For a few moments I appreciated hard work in the way only those that don't really do enough can. Then it was back to the week long wrestle I've been having with myself.

Then an opportunity. It was my friend Andrea Robinson's turn to post a prompt for our Poem a Day challenge. It was only after I finished the poem I realised that I had mentioned both boxing and wrestling which seems indicative of my mood ! I also think I need to take a moment here to acknowledge once again if there's one thing that really helps it's writing. I spend so much time fighting it off but she's (I see my muse as a she, and a very determined one at that) the boomerang that won't let me go.

Shadow Boxing

Shadows wrestle with what little light there is. Did I tell you I dreamt of being a boxer, to feel

my fist hard against anything that held still long enough, until the thrust of air and knuckle spun it

through time and space. A pendulum swings irrelevant of what you feel and, like light,

follows its own science. I wish it could be that way, always. Swinging back forth, back forth; a mobile

waiting for sound to happen, wind chimes holding their breath until the wind arrives; a quiet completion.

Instead the wrestling shadows, how time moves every last thing on, each counter on the board, step by chequered

step. The burglar always breaking the rose's neck, the fever mistaken for a passion destroying one's life.

Quotes used: "True rebels after all, are as rare as true lovers,and in both cases, to mistake a fever for passion can destroy one's life" — James Baldwin

"The ghost of your memory/is the thistle in the kiss/ and the burglar that that can break a roses neck" - Tom Waits

First Thoughts

Yesterday I struggled with my poem a day and did not actually complete it until way past midnight. I was determined to respond to today's challenge first thing. I woke up to Malika Booker's very special prompt and this inspired me to write the poem below.

Here's the prompt for anyone who would like to join me in writing a poem.

1. Go to this link on The Wellcome Trust Library. http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/

2. Then click onto the nature section.

3. scroll down to the Mars, Mercury and Saturn images L0030659 / L0030662 / L0030670

4. Look at all three of the Pictures and read the descriptions below.

5. Use these pictures as a starting point. Take the name of a planet or a Zodiac sign and personify the name like the picture does e.g 'Saturn sitting under a tree."

6. Write a poem using "Saturn, Libra etc" as a person. You can also use words or phrases from the descriptions or the pictures in your poem as well.

Sun and Moon

The Moon's tresses are a hand-throw of stars, her whispering calls you over and over again. The Sun's arms vast as any embrace you've known.

Sun's a child and if his embers catch alight who knows what houses, towns and cities will burn with his magnificent force ?

From Moon's butter-soft lips comes a sweet tune, blowing hot on sun's kindling until he's the brightest star in the sky.

And whilst the solar boy-child is shining proud and true, Moon is silvering the night, the slow hum of her dark wisdom everywhere.

Wherever the Sun

Yesterday Jasmin, my niece, popped over with this book. It's called Wreck this Journal and has been described as the anarchist's Artist's Way. It's a book that encourages freedom of artistic expression. I thought it was particularly apt that Jasmin, who is 13 years old, quoted the T Rex's song title Children of the Revolution.

Every day during November I am taking up the challenge to write a poem a day. April is National Poetry Month in the United States and a popular worldwide challenge arising from this has been to write a poem a day. A small group of us on Facebook have taken up this challenge for all the months of the year with 30 days in them ie April, June, September and November. I have to confess that after April's marathon writing activity I was pretty exhausted and did not take part in either June or September.

Like any daily practice it's very educational. Some times a poem arrives and sits in your lap, or writes itself in to being on your laptop and other days it's a hard to struggle to get out even a few words that don't sound cliched or forced. The trick is to write through it and, whilst engaging fully with the writing, observe the arc of one's own emotional narrative.

I will be posting some of my first drafts here along with the prompts (which we take turns in posting in our group) that inspired them. Today's poetry prompt is from writer Karen McCarthy Woolf. It's posted on her site Open Notebooks. Today's poem is a freewrite which means that it has not been edited and was written in one sitting without stopping. I am hoping to bring some of the energy and enthusiasm Jasmin has for her 'Wreck this Journal' project to my own poem a day writing adventure.

Wherever the Sun

Nothing much happens here anymore. Nothing that we notice anyway. It's not bad in the way it was. That's when the cries of a woman being dragged by her hair were common place or the boots, always the boots. Marching, kicking down doors. The anonymous boots kicking faces, kicking at our art and our statues. We still carry the kicking inside us. Perhaps that's why it is so silent now. The shops are fuller, fatter than they were. On Tuesdays we buy eggs and eat omelettes together. On Sundays we cook chicken and the vegetables we grow in the big square in the centre of town. In the bad days, the worst days of our lives there were public hangings. So now we grow vegetables. Potatoes and carrots, tomatoes when it's hot enough. Wherever we seek out the sun there's a seed to be planted. Those old bullets have knotted my heart and I know sleeping is not easy for those who cannot forget. We garden and weep and walk barefoot in honour of all those we have lost, our toes darkened with wet mud and memories written in blood.

Pregnant Again

My sleeping has been pretty erratic recently. I have a sense of urgency, something that almost feels like panic but isn't. One of the wonderful things about writing poetry is the clues it can give us about all the feelings and responses we have inside us that we do not have names for yet. Most of my work begins as a freewrite. This is this morning's poem written before the traffic began and when the house was still asleep. It has a deliberately attention seeking title and one, I hope, that makes the connection between procreativity and creativity. Pregnant Again

Perhaps you get to be awake at this hour because the one who's always looking for the moon is up, tugging at your sleeve, telling you to open the shutters and face the milk-black sky and just wish on the cloud thick neon hum, the blue choked with the night time orange. Just wish on anything. Even if it's invisible or, worse, not even there at all. Do it anyway and feel the sensation of hope, that slow crawl inside you. The thing that tells you hard as you are, you are not a lizard. You are a creature so big, one of such impossible substance and size that desire will always be thorny. An appetite like this can not be fed with just one gulp. Get over yourself. Love the insomnia and the moon-cry girl. Wear what you must to face the weather, breeches if you must - anything you can ride a horse in. The mythical won't wait and, like your wide-awake heart needs the sort of song you only sing when facing the sea, with a belly full of whiskey and too many stories to tell in one night. So give in to it. Let it spill. You may feel like a rock, but the shell is there for the cracking. Tell it like it is. Howl at anything that will listen. Live a little. Break open. Yolk or blood it will run and run. Let it. Breathe and pray. And let the wishes run your hours, pregnant again with the possibility of being more than you are.

The Beginning of Autumn

Autumn always gives me that going back to school feeling. Even though this golden prelude to the winter is more about harvesting than growth, for me it's about new beginnings too. It seems fitting for my writing residency to finally finish at this time of year. It's been a real education about both the limits and possibilities of a writing residency and I feel a more creatively confident than I did a year ago.

For my last day I had a final one to one session scheduled with Annette, whose poetry you can read here. I have seen Annette's poetry really develop over the months I have been working with her. I was chuffed when she said 'You know I now realise how important editing is in poetry.' I am such a stickler for thorough editing !

After our meeting I took a walk around the garden one last time and thought about the residency, the highpoint being the Poetry Gazebo festival. I took some photographs of the falling petals and the last growth of summer. Last winter I bought a digital camera off my old friend Jacob and one of the unforeseen outcomes of my residency has been my renewed fascination with photography. In February 2011 I have an exhibition of my flower 'portraits' at Oval House. All in all not a bad outcome at all.

Culpeper Community Garden Residency - two poems

Square Foot Gardening is a gardening done in a square foot plot . At my residency at Culpeper Community Garden, Angel, Islington this is one of the gardening methods employed. After a suggestion from one of the volunteers I decided to write my own Square Foot Poem, 12 lines. Sadly my counting skills have much to be desired and it has 14 lines instead of 12! I shared the poem with garden users from The Stuart Low Trust – I think it went down pretty well ! Wallflower – A Square Foot Poem

This pretty blue dress waiting to be picked happy peeping her shy face from between red brick. A coy blush. I wait for the thaw, Christine sorts seeds. They fall like hailstones from dry husks, windows misted. Outside the ice clings, foot and paw prints a who’s-who of walkers and those who love the rough bite of cold on skin and fur. Inside we sup soup, dunk our bread, compare wellies and thermals, look for signs of mice. The wallflower is always welcome here, like us. Drinking tea, it’s lovely here. A poem about happiness catches us, silences our chatter, tells us that ‘happiness floats!’. It’s good to hear, cocooned in warmth when outside robust kale ignores the snow, seeds will grow again.

I also had some chalk with me and it was suggested that I made a poem from the following words that people contributed - GRASS, MYSTERY, HORSE, BIRDSONG, GROWTH, SUN

So I went outside and wrote the following poem including all the words above. Growth

Growth is a mystery, from nothing something comes, the grass trodden flat by boot and sneaker climbs and greets the sun. Birdsong flutters its gentle notes resting in the ears of a solitary horse, beautiful, wise and still.

Wall/Flower - a group poem for National Poetry Day

I thought it would be a great idea if we could celebrate UK's National Poetry Day together so emailed some of my favourite poets and asked them if they would like to take part in a group poem. The guidelines were as follows and we emailed back and forth throughout the day coming up with the lovely poem 'Wall/Flower" below.

1. You can post as many or as little times as you like but to ensure that everyone gets a go ONLY POST TWO LINES AT A TIME

2. Once you have added to the the poem allow a couple of other people (at least) to add to the poem before you post again.

The poets who took part were: Katrina Naomi, Heather Taylor, Nev'l Lewis, Paul Ross, Miriam Nash, Kamaria Muntu, Sean Thomas Dougherty, Jacqueline Saphra, Mahogany L. Browne, Nena Black, Sabrina Mahfouz, Warsan Shire, Den Rele and Naomi Woddis

Wall/Flower

Should I tell you that I'd reached for you, reached for your city, punched through that stupid wall.

Or should I curl my hand in to an embryo, a sleeping bud yearning for the light ?

A faint bulb beats in me I cast its flame as wide as I can, a fishing rod.

A sea that pulsed once with shoals of silver is viscous now. The bait waits on the hook,

a streak flashing across the murky Thames swallowed in the morning gloom,

I had wanted to call you, I held the empty phone to my ear as they fished the suited woman out of the river,

I was left with the echoes of my breath your warm voice nowhere near my heart.

And then the distance begins, the sky slate, and the chalk dust of our hands.

Scanned ticket prices, hotel deals are reminders Of days before highway exit signs claimed you

a lazy wave laps at the mucky shore, reaches towards the blank silent bank walls

On a lay-by, I see weeds growing through cracked tarmac, their gaudy flowers shimmering like jewels

I tear at their string bodies, pulverize buds under nails. My fingers are wet with their slush.

a reminder that I am enamoured by the slick glimmer of chance, where carnations bloom in your mouth

But I have only descended in body, decaying now upon the shore And my soul now waits beside you, just out of reach for you to see

Can you catch me, I'm the wisp that covers the moon it's silvering eye freezing you with my glare.

call me dear moon, as our footprints stretch across the sky and i scratch your name into the clouds,

That I am now in white moon of cul de sac A house spun away from it's rooms

a spine for your welcome mouth, a hollow doorway anticipating your wretched smile. breath me like water

For I was the energy of the bird in flite and before that The sunflower propped up against a old Roman Wall

And now I am the vastness of poppies and plains wide open like a hungry woman's legs

Moving forward, forever forward till the climax of my soul

clings back and decides that this is all too much a touch, just a touch, is enough

yet held -- motionless, suspended -- with all the impetus of the four winds, sans the sun that moves them

Your light so bright, it worms my soul But the veil I stand behind, God I can not let go

Take just that one step to stand with me my love So we can walk within the puddles of eternity

All I wanted was a conch But you've stolen the sound of the sea.

I think about her again, drowned amongst weeds, the siren call she did not hear.

her face pale mottled like sharkskin her perfect ears wet and glistening like seashells

With her face calm, eyes closed, at peace now As the rope around her neck gently moves in the tides breath

you pick up, a coarse hello, my tongue knots itself among molars the lover beside you coughs, pulls you closer, i swallow your dial tone.

I am drowning, falling in to the moss green water your voice is the hand to save me, I grab your finger tips.

And swallow. My ribs aching with a kick, The sight of you my lift from blindness to light

4 ever more you were more than your my soul, my light & my dark. You were the air that I breathed,

the song in my head, the dance in my feet.

The Red Letter - David J

My friend and great talent David J sent me this poem and I post it here (with his kind permission of course) Are you a Lamb or Tyger In life in order to move forward ancient scriptures of the times past Can be quoted as saying seeing what is most important Is not what you keep but what you choose to leave behind in this story What was left behind was the thoughts of a thinker. In a top pocket with a hole in it . This note had a hole right thru the middle of it was found in a war correspondents top pocket Positioned over the left side of the chest After wiping the Red fluid that covered the letters I was able to re -write it . Are you a Lamb or a Tyger can you combine the attributes of both of these animals’ weakness and strength to survive I many believe lambs are sacrificed to the most high to redeem others an some become martyrs Depending on what you truly represent when you project your inners feelings thru your throat passages With songs of innocence They will expose the movements of the deceptive But if what you speak is To close to the truth you will be found guilty of being innocent In a court full of frauds before the last judgement I have seen when political prisoners are on house arrest behind fortified gates It’s like a Robin redbreast in a cage It puts all of heaven in a rage Restriction of freedom in inner elevation to access spiritual planes One can utilize the breath of life in a phrase to etch poetical sketches on the cortexes of a human brain To enlightened the chosen to transcend the obstacles of multidimensional gridlocks an frames Nothing has changed the tyrannical tygers still give out stripes in fearful symmetry The more I see stripes awarded for bravery The I see more boxes in cemetery’s wait can you see it look !! The First Tyger Now we can observe the movements of the tygers elegant broad shoulders during its predatorial Approach towards its next victim calculating its attack Camoflaging the facts To get to its next kill In the marriage of heaven an hell I heard an angel say they refuse to divorce evil So they continue to rotate around the axis of murder cycles So while many lambs are cuddled together in flocks an pray The tyger sharpens it claws an teeth to prey Also but its not in the same way they prey Its void of compassion an emotion its desire is to mercilessly slay The 2nd Tyger Uses lenses with the ability to zoom in an out at close proximity It marks its kingdom and territory with reporter’s magazines, newspapers sex scandals They are constantly walking their serebus dogs Against peace an love Satan is inflicting more boils on job to get their mission done They clinically choreograph propaganda So the truth is missing like child benefit records on 2 cds, Lamech scrolls or honesty In the mouth of the unscrupulous We must lure them closer an closer in order to expose the unseen Make the media develop pictures of the faces behind the crash at pillar Thirteen Come closer, closer paparazzi take pictures of the Poison tree come closer closer to enhance your depth of field come closer to the leaves An please please take another bite from the forbidden apple sink your serpentillian teeth Into the fruits of deceit At the nest of the ravens feet An be lost forever in the land of dreams The 3rd Tyger Revolves around the bosom of a gun chamber full of military bullets It marks it turf by leaving holes physical forms during Senseless massacres That are instigated, supported and funded And time duration elongated So the body counts so high it has to be imagined it’s too large to be estimated Can you see the hapless soldiers? Forced to watch wounded colleges Crawling like caterpillars on the floor abroad Many are awarded medals pinned on to uniforms That remains unseen in the morg If you maintain those seconds of silence you can hear their souls crying thru the bullet holes of their bullet wounds Their final movements Are to place final letters Of their last breath To finalise their final thoughts for their family’s back home To remember what was in their minds and hearts before they died Cuddled around the TV to frightened to answer the phone Nobody wants to give the news to the parentless children who don’t know They will never see them again so These Red letters leave infant sorrow that returns when they are old enough to know The true feeling of the vibration of grief an Sorrow As the phone rings once its answered do you hear that The sound of teardrops rolling from eyes on to the check bones then hitting the carpet an as its being absorbed into its fibres The crying becomes louder Lambs and Tygers seemed to be sacrificed in the same way In the same places For other peoples purposes and gains Are you a Lamb or a Tyger can you combine the attributes of both of these animals’ weakness and Strength to survive? Do you think what is most important to you? Is not what you keep but what you choose to leave behind? After I finished writing the Red letter I placed it next on a pile of other Red letters Each of them had a hole right thru the middle of it I sometimes think to myself When each of these individuals are being prepared to go Are they prepared to go Or are they just being prepared to go Copyright David J 2009

Talking with Lemn Sissay - A Lifelong Project

This article first appeared on Metaroar. Lemn Sissay is a stalwart poet and performer whose work has been enjoyed throughout the UK and across the globe for almost twenty years. Those who have never been to a spoken word gig will know of Lemn. He is funny and serious, truthful and mischeivous, profound and playful. His poems are universally accessible but never shallow. His autobiographical play 'Something Dark' has been touring internationally for the past 3 years. It tells the traumatic story of Lemn's childhood and the quest to find his mother, and birth family when he was 21 years old.

I meet Lemn one cold winter's morning on London's South Bank. The sun fails in its attempt to break through the clouds and the sky is low and grey. Lemn is wearing sunglasses. Two days previously we had talked about his new scratch performance 'Why I Don't Hate White People' on the roof of the Lyric in Hammersmith. Today he greets me like an old friend and I am genuinely excited at the prospect of spending the next two hours with him.

'Why I don't hate white people' is a 20 minute scratch. Lemn shone when I saw it. Twenty minutes went like five and I didn't want it to end. Afterwards there was a Q and A session. One woman in the front row, the wine smudging the edges of her waffling consonants said, in a far back accent. "I want to know about how you distinguish between being African, British or Caribbean."

"Well,' he replied calmly, "I am not Caribbean, I am actually African."

The woman was drunk and undeterred "You see" she continued "I just see you as British" hoping that her colonial spirit would be adhered to at all costs. As other members of the audience asked questions and contributed to the discussion about how and where racism lurks Front Row Woman could be heard echoing throughout the Lyric studio "I mean to me you are British. You just are. Everything about you..." her voice trailed off with another glug of red. Lemn was patient, extraordinarily so. He explained that the day that one can define themselves for themselves is very important both personally and politically. He underlined the point that people can be more than one thing. It made no difference to this audience member.

When I recall this incident over soupy coffee a few days later, he comments "If I had been less articulate in my response what would have been clear is that she wasn't listening to me. It was really important that I didn't bully her, that I didn't get angry with her. So look at all the things I didn't do to at least open my mouth. What I want to articulate is that invisible language between the words that are spoken. I am interested in what happens in the spaces in between."

He continues "That’s what 'Why I don’t hate white people' is about. It’s saying that there are a lot of rules that are established about how you perceive other races before you even had the language to articulate what those rules were. That’s why families introduce religion early on. You have two choices good or bad. All these ideas are stuffed in to your childhood through a series of individuals who then you have a lifetime of relating to."

It is not surprising that Lemn’s clear vision is now getting a chance to be aired. Living many an artists creative dream he is presently Artist in Residence at the South Bank a position of which he is enormously proud. 'The umbrella frame for my job is to inspire and be inspired and one cannot happen with out the other.' he tells me. When I ask him if he is enjoying the responsibility and challenges of his new role, he replies "This is like the BBC for the arts. Jude Kelly has said I want artists here, I want them to develop and grow. There is no better place to be. For me. On earth. Right now."

I cannot resist asking him which writers he would programme for a fantasy event at the South Bank, dead or alive. He answers without pausing for breath.

"Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Isabelle Allende, Khaled Hussein, from San Francisco, oh my god that would be great ! Benjamin Zephaniah. Linton Kwesi Johnson Alice Walker, Toni Morrison."

"Do you actively hunt down looking at new performers and new artists?"

"Basically I see who keeps coming in to my orbit and then I take a look. I don’t find myself inspired by the desperate events where the only desperation is to be successful rather than to say something that matters. I don’t mind if someone writes about a tree but I want to know it matters to them beyond me appreciating it."

We talk about the war in Iraq and the sad fact that despite incredible opposition few poets actually wrote or spoke about it. This frustrates and angers him.

"It's important for us as poets to ask questions that are not being asked and to rail against whatever the popular opinion is. John Burnside said, 'poetry is the ultimate statement against globalisation.' The act of writing itself is the biggest force against this because what you are doing is exploring your individual voice against the adverts, against the globalisation if ideas. And that is a wonderful thing. If a poet doesn't recognise that's what it is, then they are reaching for popularity and flirting with the antithesis of what poetry is."

I wonder how Lemn copes with his notoriety and how he deals with the constant beckoning of the Bitch Goddess.

"Popularity is very seductive but it’s not the driving force that will give you longevity. I don't write to be popular, whether you like me or don’t like me is not where my head is. If I didn't write I wouldn't be alive. The more I do, the more I realise what I have to do. Nothing is the endgame, there is no end, there is no project where you've arrived.

The thing is, fuck everybody, I'm humble only to my work. That's where I'm a boy. I feel like I'm the dresser of the poems and they're the king and I dress them the best I can."

This spring Lemn decided to give up drink. It shows. He cannot contain the enthusiasm of a man released from the confines of alcohol. He jumps up two stairs at a time, looks trim and happy and wants to world to know that he is now free from its clutches, that he thinks clearer and, although this poet's mood still bobs below the surface now and then, he does not have those demon days any more.

"You know that at 40 years old I stopped drinking. I looked at my life and thought what is destructive that you are doing. Alcohol is a venus fly trap. Not drinking is such a wonderful thing, it’s been such an improvement on my experience artistically and of myself and of the world around me."

It is a lot to ask someone to reveal all to a complete stranger. It was not even that I expected him to. After the interview I found myself going through the transcript, wanting to protect Lemn from his audience. I wanted to jump in and say "No don't say that, you are making yourself too raw. Hold back." I kept wondering was there nothing to protect?

Lemn is in full flow now and I am flattered and overwhelmed by his honesty. "I am one step away consistently, in my head, from begging on the street for money. And people don’t perceive that about me. So I have to look after myself, I have to be my own parents and handing all of that responsibility over to alcohol is a very scary prospect. I don’t have any family. I found them and they don’t talk to me because of the play that I wrote about finding them. I don’t have anyone who knew me as a child. Nobody."

His fear of destitution is something I have often heard from those denied the rightful safety of childhood. He lights a cigarette and the tape recorder chugs its old fashioned way to the end of the cassette. It feels like the whole interview is pivoting on this one fact:

"What people forget is that family is about relativity, it’s not about whether they are nice or good to you, and actually you have a life time to patch it up. If you don’t have that oh my god, it’s mind blowing."

I note that whilst Something Dark was highly autobiographical Lemn’s creative concerns have become more about the social world and less about himself directly.

"Creativity is at the centre of what we are as human beings. As an artist you have to fight for the right to do that and it doesnt happen about fighting out there. I knew at twenty two I wanted to write Something Dark. Every time I had a book out, every time I won something there was no one backstage. The more successful I became in my art the more obvious it was that I had nothing. With Something Dark I was waiting for my artistic ability to catch up with when I could personally translate the story without it hurting me. It took twenty years for that to happen."

"When it’s raw, its still a wound." I observe.

He nods "Absolutely and you know we are constantly mending, it's a life long project."