Do you see my spectacles with their heavy rims? Perhaps you noticed my quiet, unassuming nature? You must be aware of my absence at times of literary intrigue? Yes, it's true. I am Olive, the plain-clothed bus conductor of 1970s sitcome fame. What the writers of the TV series failed to explore was Olive's alter ego, Sunflower, so named for her love of chasing the sun.
So, Sunflower is my alter, alter ego and I'm beginning to think this introduction is a little over-contrived. Sunflowers follow the sun. I follow poets, like a dog follows the smell of crotch (to add another helpful layer to this catastrophic conceit). What I most enjoy at present is gathering an awkwardness of poets into a small, quiet room and throwing short writing exercises at them until they a) throw something heavy in my direction or b) write something amazing. Fortunately for me the crotches, which is to say poets, that I have followed so far have opted exclusively for option b.
This Saturday, conjunctivitis allowing, I will be herding the awkward crotches into a small quiet room at Central Library. If, after two hours, I am still conscious, the world will know a new collection of sonnets. And that is the real super power.
It's a power I developed after a hair from Ashley R Lister's beard fell into my coffee. I'm not complaining. He can't have the hair back. Facilitating the creation of poetry is akin to a super power. It certainly feels supernatural. I yabber on for two hours and BAM! a curdle of new poetry is born. A curdle which other poets will take with their own cups of coffee which will, in turn, inspire other more curdled poems until the ultimate miracle happens...Cheese.
So, if you have followed the nonsense above, congratulations on your powers of tolerance. Please find below a sonnet which I created while testing Saturday's workshop. I do hope you'll join us at the library and I'm sorry for calling you a crotch.
To the Mourners
In February wet clay clads the day
Dawn’s meagre prayers wrapped tight in dismal clods
To you this clinging sadness I convey
Dug fresh from river bed for you to hold
Exhaustion is a cliff edge slick with mud
I tremble in tired grass before the drop
Then April’s buds bunch close on ruddy wood
Late morning’s blood burns tracks through sleepy sods
You see excitement written in the leaves
Like secrets burst from lips pressed tight too long
A giddiness of bubbles, scales release
This trembling, root to tip, I would prolong
Though sadness fills your pockets up with stones
Excitement transforms granite into foam
