Thursday 10th July – I’m in Hinterland, the vegan alcohol-free bar in The Northern Quarter listening to a poem about kangaroos and masculinity. They're not two images that would normally be mashed together, but that is the beauty of creative writing – it’s allowed. If you can think it, it can go on the page.
Tonight we’re in attendance for Hinterland Poets, an open-mic night of poetry. Dave Stone and Dave Viney present the night, and on entry I add my name to the ‘poetry fish’ – a cardboard cut-out fish – and take a seat. After an intro (Viney tells us of his work in prisons, teaching poetry), the open mic slots begin.
I’m fourth out of around 20 poets, and I finally get around to reading this poem Junkie, that I wrote in 2019. I liked other people’s poems, and they seemed to like mine. I’ve done tons of writing over the years but I can rarely think of anything that would work in poem form – a lot of what I write is event write-ups and psychology musings, normally with a lot of multimedia add in to tell more of the story, so putting things into rhyme wouldn’t really work.
But I’m going to try. I’m making a conscious effort to do other things with my social time than hang around in overpriced cocktail bars. So poetry might work.
The next Hinterland Poets is on 14th August.
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