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Wednesday 16 July 2014

Poetry as Escapism

There are many ways people deal with depression. Anyone familiar with my poetry and other writing, or indeed my style of performing, teaching and workshop leading, might be hard pressed to find signs that I have suffered from, and to varying degrees continue to suffer from, depression. There are a handful of places that might yield some clues: I acknowledged it in one of my first blog posts, and some of my poems contain a dark edge that I hope distinguishes me from the plethora of exclusively humorous and whimsical children's poets, but the truth is that signs of my condition may not be obvious to those who know me primarily in my capacity as a poet.

One of the reasons for this is because, working as a self-employed freelancer, I haven't really had a 'boss' or 'colleagues' for whom this information is necessary. On the thankfully very rare occasions when I have been unable to undertake an assignment, I have been able to pass this off as being down to some other more mundane, less awkward form of illness. In any case, I almost always find that getting out of the house and my mind and into a school to work with children helps my mood. If people see me at all they almost always see me on a 'good' day, and working as a peripatetic poet (how's that for alliteration!) means that I seldom spend long enough in any one place to be anything other than the high-octane entertainer those places have paid for. Which suits me well, I think.

Another reason is that, the aforementioned dark edge aside, much of my poetry is light-hearted, even a little bit silly. Since dabbling with confessional, angst-ridden poetry as a teenager - which yielded some of the most truly execrable writing ever produced by humankind, I should add - I have tended to shy away from writing anything that hits me too close to the bone. There are again exceptions, notably a piece I have used with teenagers, which is reprinted at the end of this blog entry, and this piece, which ended up getting the most 'likes' out of anything I've ever posted on Facebook. (Because that is of course the most important way in which popularity is measured nowadays.)

I have tended to avoid writing overtly about feeling depressed in part because, when writing is used primarily for catharsis, it is very easy to write badly. Or it is easy for me, anyway. But a more important reason, a reason that strikes firmly at the heart of who I am as a poet, is because I tend to view poetry, both in terms of writing and consuming, as a kind of escapism. This means that depression is integral to who I am as a poet, but that this manifests itself in ways that are not obvious. When I am feeling really low, for example, I usually find that it serves me better to write a funny poem about Dracula than it does to reflect on the injustices I perceive myself to suffer. Similarly, I almost always find watching stand-up comedy, or a poet like John Hegley or Tim Key, preferable to watching poets who wear their hearts on their sleeves (some of whom, like Shane Koyczan, I find emotionally unbearable in their intensity). Absolutely none of this is to elevate one mode of expression above any other. None of this is to pass judgment on what other people enjoy or find worthwhile; it is not even to say that I don't myself see the often transformative worth in a lot of the more hard-hitting, confessional life-writing that people call 'Spoken Word'. It is simply to say that, in my capacity as a depressive,  it is fun children's poetry that really hits at my core. It is that which gets me out of bed (and occasionally keeps me out). And coming up with a nifty piece of alliteration, finding interesting synonyms, playing about with rhyme-schemes, finding a funny punchline - these are the things that, to borrow a phrase from my teenage musings, 'salve my wounded soul'. As does writing about it in this blog entry.

Thanks for your time.

What It’s Like To Get Out Of Bed When You’re Depressed

It’s the weight of the room
pressing down on your chest, and heaviness
holding hostages in your throat.
It’s light charging under your blinds
like an invading army, occupying you,
and birds cursing the day
with their cynical songs.
It’s vomit in your stomach and shit in your brain.
It’s bullying voices telling you to get up,
and a crate of leaden limbs
unable to obey.
It’s your mum crying outside your room, wondering
what she’s done wrong; your dad
slamming the door on his way to work.
It’s hot acid shampoo in the shower,
searing into your head and shoulders,
and old clothes hung like sackcloth
across your scarecrow bones.
It’s standing in a field with
the day an open chasm before you.
It’s having arms with no joints,
So you can’t get the fallen fruit