Dangers, Strangers, Neighbours
I wrote this poem in response to ‘Girls Who Read’ by Peterborough’s Mark Grist, which I think is just fabulous after seeing him perform it live at ‘Run Your Tongue’ last year.
Many of us have lived not knowing who our neighbours are, that strangers nextdoor are “dangerous” when most people in society are nice and face many of the same issues we do.
In this historic event that will probably go on to define a generation, we are finding out who our real friends are. Coronavirus follows 9/11, Vietnam, Nagasaki and World War 2 in society-changing events that went on to define a generation.
In 20 years a time, I will be 44. Will we be asking each other, “Do you remember the Coronavirus?”
Will we talk of this like nostalgia, as our forbears did about the First World War and Second World War?
Or even as my parents do about growing up in the 1970s and 1980s? Mr Rogers, Whitney Houston, Thatcherism, Michael Jackson and Falklands War?
Every generation has their “where were you?” moment — from JFK to 9/11. When I say “Ground Zero”, everyone knows what I mean. Have a think.
so how do you choose your friends
he says, his eyes walking across the screen
scrolling down his newsfeed, a farce
some prefer clubbing or sports
generally, my friends are into The Arts
I get a bit embarrassed around “manly men”
bench-pressing masculinity like weights
they prefer healthy competition, I prefer the pen
people often ask me how I choose my mates
I choose people that express themselves
people with stories to tell
not people that only thrive on sports
or Formula 1, driving fast cars
but people that thrive on history or arts
Yes. Arts. I don’t
mean just Beethoven and Bach
classical composers that last
but…
I have friends that love theatre
who have an appreciation for spoken word
and absorbs culture and vocabulary
give them a platform, where they deserve to be heard
the arts:
where spleens rupture at the prose
of Zadie Smith and John Green
as caged birds sing to Maya Angelou
women wooed over by Wuthering Heights
and Lin-Manuel Miranda laying it down In the Heights,
talking about slavery in Andrea’s The Long Song
who will spend two hours in Waterstones
silently seeing what they can order from Amazon
what about the film addicts
who sit through cinema trailers and clips
unpicking screenplays, and the dramatic
writers that would’ve been part of the Hollywood Ten
communists (socialists) that did nothing
but defend the rights of the common people, see
activists that would make the Tories weak at the knees
my friends are the first to critique our leaders
narrate the Battle of Hastings, how the
Normans came and gave the poor Brits a pasting
they’ll read books from cover-to-cover
even the past banned ones like Lady Chatterley’s Lover
they read the classics and cannon
lost in Middle Earth with hobbits and dragons
prose, poetry and plays, hunting
through thrifty bookshops for days and days
ploughing through all the LOTR DVD bloopers
standing around with Fantine, Éponine and Mister Tom Hooper
see, some men prefer sports
like rugby or cricket and I occasionally
like to partake in it, but more
importantly for me are people who are kind
