EXPOSED: poetry and risk taking

I write to communicate. Of course I love the texture of words, their shape, their inner life. Of course I love the way that words lead me down paths I didn’t know were there, how they illuminate corridors in my brains, how doors in my mind swing open. Of course I love the craft for its own sake, the satisfaction of job done, a poem as solid as a new box; the magic of the art, the poem as its own being brought into sudden, independent life.

But ultimately I write because I want people to listen, or read, or understand. The world is very big, and I am very small, and I need to feel that there are people alongside me. Writing brings me more fully into the human community, especially those parts of me are most excluded.

Perhaps that’s why I have never kept a diary, or journal. I have no desire to write just for me. It’s certainly why National Poetry Writing Month works well for me: not just that I am held accountable by the daily sharing of early drafts, but also that I feel myself to be part of a conversation and a community.

It’s also why my writing workshops - especially my in-person workshops - encourage the sharing of work, even if it’s just a single word, or phrase. There’s something about sharing work in the moment of creation which returns it to its most basic and vital function: a human being talking to others.

But of course that comes with risk, and a sense of vulnerability. During our recent week as tutors at Moniack, Kim and I both attended each other’s workshops and shared early drafts alongside the other participants. It’s a powerful reminder of how scary that experience can be; the emotional risks we repeatedly ask our workshop participants to take. The whole process of writing is, or at least ought to be, a little risky. We allow the words to take us in directions we don’t consciously choose - that’s what gives them their life - and then we share that work with each other.

In climbing and hiking, “exposure” refers to “the physical and psychological sensation of being high off the ground with a vast, open drop or empty space below you”. (I extracted this definition from a UKC discussion board and will return to this exploration in future article). For now, all I’ll say is that sensation was a big part of the reason I climbed. There is a calculated risk: we believe we are very unlikely to fall, and we push ourselves beyond our fears, we see that what we are afraid of in in fact beauty and liberty, we feel the world open up and we take our place in it, stronger because we are more vulnerable, freer because we take more risks. Perhaps every workshop facilitator should subject themselves to this feeling - and to their own workshops - once in a while.

So tonight, the newly-returned Kim and I will take our own medicine, and read our new and unpublished work: paying subscribers will find their free link after the paywall. If you’d like to join us, just take out a month’s subscription for £5 (£50 for the year): you’ll get all sorts of added benefits including access to our archives and free admission to monthly online events.

I hope to see you tonight at 7.30!