Vintage Verse

Vintage verse - the shame and the pride

I feel a little sick as I open the old notebook with its hard marbled covers. Lined paper, page after page of writing. Some carefully inscribed, some scrawled with crossings out, while others are plainly ‘best efforts’ to write the words neatly. Yes, my old poetry book, compiled in my teens.

There’s something disturbing about plunging back into that maelstrom of youthful emotionsthat makes me want to run for shelter. Oh, the melodrama of thwarted desires, the fears of incipient madness, the elegies to nature and the river of life! (I’m quite getting into the mood for metaphor now.)

But, actually, there is good stuff here too. And some poems that are nearly good. My message to fellow writers is, therefore: don’t throw out your poetic babies with the bathwater. Even if some of the phrases make you groan, don’t give up on the whole lot. For every cringe-making expression of love, loss or despair, there is probably quite a good line embedded in your verse. The youthful poet seems to swing between the extremes of cliché and originality, so you’ll probably find both when you go back to the roots of your writing. And, after all, who wasn’t a poet at the age of eighteen?

Poem written under my then name of Cherry Phillips

I boost my flagging confidence by reminding myself that I have proof that I could write well, now and again. One of those poems was accepted by the prestigious Poetry Review and published in the autumn of 1967. The editor, Derek Parker (who later became a good friend, but that’s another story) wrote me an encouraging letter and sent me money. Real money. For writing. Wow! He also suggested I should send him more poems. Did I? No, I was too caught up in the excitement of growing up, and didn’t bother. Been there, done that. 

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Doing the folk thing at school - I'm the guitar on the right

And I wrote a kind of 60’s beat poem about a folk club, my favourite haunt of the era. (Think Birmingham, Irish Folk Clubs of the late 1960s. Anyone else out there remember them?) I sent it off to ‘Sing’, an America folk magazine which was, I think, just beginning to be published in the UK. It was 1966. A few days later, the phone rang. Now, a phone call in those days was an event; the black Bakelite phone stood in the chilly hall and access to it was restricted to wartime standards of brevity and necessity.

‘It’s the editor from America on the phone for you!’ they said in tones of wonder.

Eric Winter wasn’t actually calling from America (that would have been equivalent to signalling earth from a space satellite) but from London.

‘Loved your poem!’ he said. ‘I just read it out at the Albert Hall. We’ve been doing a big concert there.’

What? I was both thrilled and embarrassed. The event was so out of keeping with my everyday world that I almost ignored it. And I don’t still have a copy of the magazine where it was subsequently published.

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A terrible mix of teenage casualness and lack of confidence is mainly responsible both for losing my copy and abandoning writing poetry, at least as a regular activity. I’ve written poems over the years, sometimes quite frequently, but never with such endeavour or so often.

Perhaps it’s not too late to try again?

And while I’m rooting through the past, I find references to my glorious rise and disgraceful fall as a contributor to Jackie magazine, also in my teenage years. But that story can wait until my next blog post. Till then, here's one of the better poems from my teenage collection, written in 1967.

                                                            May Day

                            All in green and yellow

                            We leap up the dandelion hill

                            where white ponies snort for joy

                            and celandines swim by marsh-lined streams

                           All in singing

                            the breathtaking bound to the top of the hill,

                            Tossing away the spread of the view to watch

                            two bees humming in harmony, and

                            a new swarm begin

                            All in a blow of white

                            the mayflower, the cream and bitter black tree that

                            waits for fetching home by those who do not forget.

                            We have not forgotten, we hug

                            huge spiney armfuls till petals float in our hair

                            All in running

                            down, down the flying grass

                            while hedge birds circle above

                            and the old oak swoops to meet us.

                            It is all now,

                            to swing on its flaking branches

                            and watch the sky upside down