(This is an excerpt of the article in the magazine.)
15/6/2024
Hey Joe, I received your email as I’m returning from a week away with my 2-year-old son in Wales, it was our first father-son trip away. The future feels huge to me, much larger since becoming a parent. I feel exhausted but deepened by fatherhood and for him, I’ve become more future-oriented than past-orientated. I do find the best way to parent is present-oriented. The future can be a daunting, overwhelming exacerbation of fear and future failures. I’ve just written a poetry book which has 2 sequences, a before and after structure, before parenthood, after and during and now I’m thinking of a song my Dad loved by John Holt called ‘Time Is The Master’, part of the chorus is “Time is the master / But time can be disaster / if you don’t care”. Not sure exactly why that comes to mind, maybe it’s the use of the word “care” when thinking about time and the people we love? There’s a poem in Yega’s Adam called ‘Man’ that came out of a conversation we had and my heart fluttered seeing it in the book, these intimately shared words becoming public property. What you say about Yega being many things to many people is true. I’ve just finished my first book of prose, it’s a mix of memoir, essay and lyric-essay, while writing about growing up in Hackney I had long chats with Yega about East London, he spoke to me a lot about his brother and the things he saw him go through and how that shaped him. We were both the little brothers of our families. Those conversations helped me reminisce on how East London and being a little brother shaped me too, it was important to have his ear as I was writing it and I feel lucky that I got to share that part of my process with him. Also, there are three poems in my next collection that Yega helped edit, so it does feel like a part of his print is still held in these ways. I cannot wait for his book launch, it’ll be bitter-sweet and yes, I’ll be there.
You’re right, there are clearly many parts of Yega that we didn’t all get to meet, I never drank in a pub with him because I don’t really drink alcohol, we drank vegan milkshakes and tea in Hackney cafe’s when he came around, that seemed to surprise people who knew him as the bloke in the pub yelling at the Arsenal game on the TV screen. Joe, you and I spoke about not sanitising him too, so I mean, he wasn’t always easy to talk to, sometimes he was curt and aloof when you wanted his attention and that was annoying, haha. Sorry, I’m rambling, what am I talking about? The future? ah, well, presently, in terms of poetry, I think UK poetry is in the best place it has been in my lifetime, there’s a healthy range of styles and influences around, even if we can’t collectively decide on what exactly makes a good poem, there’s something interesting about that. My own future? I’m generally optimistic, I think I’m still learning my craft, still trying to push myself as a poet and writer…and reader too, I think I’m a better reader of poems now and I think that’s also made me a better writer. The thing that has made me a better reader is reading wider, my biggest shift is reading more psychology, a lot of Donald Winnicott, Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes and Adam Phillips in the past year while in therapy. I’m still trying to align my living with the art I adore. By the way, happy 30th birthday, maybe you could write a ‘Self-Portrait at 30’ poem? Sounds like there would be a lot to exhume and examine from that. What might your future be sayin’, Joe?
R☀️
22/6/2024
Hey Ray,
I also received your email while travelling. I’ve been away in Ireland the past week, and am just now settling back into life in London, and sitting down to reply to your email…
It feels apt to end our chat on the topic of the future. It’s been hard of late, in all honestly, to think about the future. Last year I lost some really important family members, I lost a best friend, my book came out and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, I turned 30. I’m still very much living in the shadow of those events, and that’s not to mention the 8 months of genocide we’ve all been watching being perpetrated in Gaza.
Your last email has allowed me to think a bit more clearly about my plans for the future, so thank you for that! I’m certainly very jealous of all your books! So many books, Ray! Please can you lend me one of your books.
So, to answer your question, what might the future hold for me?
I think there are two parts of my future: my life outside of writing, and my life as a writer.
For my life outside of writing, I’d love to become a father, like you. I’d love to make a family with someone. And I think (and hope) I can feel this next stage of life slowly coming into orbit (I now have lots of questions for you about fatherhood, but we’re out of time, so I’ll save them for when we next hang in person).
And for my life as a writer, I’m not sure what the future holds. Perhaps a life without writing is the future I’m staring into. I’ve written one poem this year, and to be honest, I haven’t wanted to write, or even read a great deal. It’s the longest fallow period I’ve ever had, but I’m trying to be gentle with myself. I spent my twenties writing into quite a dangerous headspace, and it wasn’t sustainable. I’m realising (with a lot of help from my therapist!) that writing was perhaps my way of coming to terms with painful things that happened in my childhood. Such a strange thing we do as poets! Publishing our trauma in books! Sometimes I wish I could take my book back, delete it from the public world, make it private again… but that’s a story for another day. I’m now taking my time, trying to continue to build meaningful relationships with the people in my life, to offer love where I can, and to love myself more (how cheesy). Who knows, maybe I’ll be a writer again!
Let’s hang soon!
Big love
Joe x
*
From Magma 89, Grassroots
Buy this issue for £8.50 in UK (including P&P) »Buy Now