The Workshop Exercise is ‘Write about a Potato’
When I think about a potato
I don’t think about mountains
capped in cloud or lochs
like clasps that hold the sun
or birds scratching the surface
of the sea’s dark eye
somewhere near Mull,
land where I have never
grown potatoes.
A potato is not what comes to my mind
when I think of my love,
or the laughter of my kids
as they run into the distance
in a dizzy dream of light,
and that tall glass of beer
I am working towards
with all this creative fervour
is nothing like a potato.
I don’t want to get personal,
but to me the poet organizing this
looks more and more like a potato,
but there’s no poem there,
so in the febrile landscape of life,
its agonies, its bliss
and hopeless cruelties,
we must carry on rooting,
among the potatoes.
Productive wee time. Creative Scotland were nice enough to give me a writers bursary which will enable me to finish off New and Selected, which is due in March 2012.
Anyone wanting to listen to me talking in a cupboard with Ryan Van Winkle in the latest Scottish Poetry Library podcast should link here:
Shug.
