---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 15:39:34 -0000
From: Sarah deNordwall <[log in to unmask]>
To: R I Caddel <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: RE: questions, questions
Hi I'm Sarah de Nordwall, I'm new to your list and I've never been on any
kind of list before and I'm not even sure who this reply will get to , so it
feels a bit like leaping off into the void.....but I'm sure you'll catch me
and write back...
In answer to your question I write poetry so that I can find out what I'm
thinking...
...because my poems are wiser than I am and they know things that I
don't...
...I write poetry because somehow it manages to soften the blow ..... and
get people talking because they read more of themselves into it than they
would read into something I just "said".....
that's why I perform my poetry and have created a Poetry Cabaret Theatre
show out of it with another actress called Sarah Myers - The show is called
"Lipstick is a Spiritual Experience" and we've performed in about 15
different cities in Britain now
........
...I write and perform poetry because it gives me the privilege of being
invited into the lives of other communities in a way that commercial theatre
doesn't - a poetry show seems to make people feel safe enough to come and
talk to you about issues that trouble or inspire them and they do so because
even today a Poet retains a certain archetypal significance of someone by
whom and to whom the truthful can and must be spoken.....!!!!!
well that sounds a bit high brow, but to be honest I'd never really thought
about WHY I write before, since generally something just makes me laugh or
something starts to become clarified and it has to go down on the page
before it's lost.......
....lastly though, I suppose I continue with writing because I once read
with absolute joy (while I was a primary School Drama Teacher!) about the
8th century Irish Poets who were worth the Kings Ransom....no one could kill
them in a battle and they had to encapsulate all the culture of their
day...the stories, the theses, the folk songs, everything.....and they had
to live close to the earth so they could tell its tale as well as move in
the highest circles so that they could speak the mind of anyone in the
land.........That, I thought was a job description I could relate to aiming
for.......and now I'm a little nearer than I was then....having left my job,
moved to London.....lived in a wood in Canada....and returned to let poetry
lead the way...............
Do write back....I'm looking forward to meeting you all.................
Best wishes
* has this letter just gone to RI Caddel or does it go to everyone?
Sarah
xx
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From: R I Caddel[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 01 December 1998 14:55
To: british n irish poets
Subject: questions, questions
I've enjoyed the Dare du Gord write-in slots, and so welcome Doug's
call
for a few more questions. Here's a couple, which aren't meant to
stop
anyone else having questions, and which are fairly capable of being
bent
to anyone's specific needs. Feel free to answer to the list: if GdN
likes
the results they may (with the poster's permission) recycle them:
1. Why? or perhaps What For? It's easy enough to avoid poetry in any
of
its forms, from an early age, and even having met some, it's easy
enough to walk away. Thousands do. But people on this list have for
some
reason or other stayed with it, either as net producer, net consumer
or
service trade. Why you? Wonderful teacher at school? Deep moral
inner
vision incapable of other expression? Wish to impress another for
sexual
purposes (in which case how successful was it)? And subsequently,
after
that initial hook, why stay with it? And finally, what would make
you walk
away at some stage?
2. Community - odd or what? Poetry's generally a fairly solitary
sport and
has its share of difficult individuals for sure, but I was surprised
when
someone pointed out that of the poets interviewed in "Prospect Into
Breath" I was the *only one* to confess to some feeling of community
(of
poets, readers, etc) around me as a writer - is this unusual doc?
should
I get specialist help? Do other people imagine themselves part or
not-part
of something, however nebulously expressed? This isn't about
dis-agreement
(see below), it's about agreement, sense of kinship. We're talking
lumping
taxonomy here, not splitting taxonomy.
I'm not too worried about the present list lull, which I don't think
is so
much to do with dispute (implied sulking in several corners, which I
don't
think's happening) as with having talked the last thing to a
standstill
*for the present* - it may surface again when there's an occasion
for it
to do so. And I don't think it's the case that we can't disagree (in
fact,
a look through the archive will disprove that...). Anyone looking
down the
list of listmembers will be aware that the differences - of method
and
belief - encompassed in this gathering are so strong and fundamental
that
it'd be hard to even get 'em to order a takeaway together in other
circumstances - but here we are, listening to each others' news and
- to
be sure - putting in our pennyworth when it's seen as needed, and
although
it's a contact sport, no-one gets permanently hurt. As in any
list/seminar/party, there are a few blurters and some lurkers, and
some
who swing both ways...
RC
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