The poet as a pundit

Using metaphors instead of cliches

I have performed at football events three times this year. Which is three times more than the previous 40-something years of my life.

I use social media less and less at the moment. The why’s are probably to boring and predictable to share here but the things I do share on social media are typically, poetry, football (specifically Wrexham) and music or art that I like.

And by sharing these snippets of life beyond poetry, I have found myself getting connections in real life to perform poetry at football events. First up was an invite to an incredible event hosted at FC United of Manchester called ‘Course You Can Malcolm’ which you can read about

The Mill

here:

The best club night you’ve ever been to on a Saturday afternoon

As a Wrexham fan the community owned football club was an atmosphere that spoke to me so much more than the megacorp teams of Manchester, from a poetry perspective. The poetry of a megacorp team is still in the stands and on the pitch but a community owned football club is like uncut poetry. A cohesion of messy and beautiful emotions, unsaid but expressed in every moment. As soon as I got the opportunity I knew what I want to write about. I was doing a gig pre-match. My poem had to capture that pre-match buzz. Arguably the best part of a match day, especially in lower leagues or teams that aren’t performing at their peak. I spent a few days scribbling ideas in a notepad and revealed the poem for the first time in Broadhurst Park:

As you can see, book is in hand as the poem was so new and written around the ends of my working week, there was no time to memorise it but it felt like the perfect audience and venue for the poem.

Since then I have memorised it and performed it 4 more times. One disastrously at the monthly event I co-run, Verbose ! When I host this night I think about nearly everything other than my own performance. So having gathered around 80 people and welcomed them I decided I would wow them with my freshly learned poem. Instead I wowed them with excruciatingly long pauses as my mind decided to fog and blank six separate times. I laughed and ad libbed through the longest pauses of my poetic life and to my and everyone else’s great relief, introduced the incredible, multi-slam winning headliner, Kieran King . But I still loved the poem and didn't die, and learned how to handle brain fog with humour and brush myself down. I performed it again a week later, form memory, but with phone close to hand, at Crooked Poets in Prestwich, to a crowd that included a few FC United fans. My faith in myself and my poem restored!

A few days later I was asked by the incredible Wrexham based poet, Evrah Rose, to get involved in Wal Goch Festival in late May. This festival celebrates the culture of fans of football, especially grassroots community football. When I know Evrah has poems like this in her locker I was in football terms ‘over the moon’ to be asked.

They say things come in three’s and my ‘FC United’ poem got a third invitation to be part of an incredible 5 a side football themed poetry slam organised by The Poetry Place in celebration of the Euros at Factory International, thanks to a chat I had with one of their hosts Griot Gabriel at an event we did together in early April.

Being part of a five a side football team is not something I will ever get to do, but to be part of a five a side poetry squad was so much fun. Every poet brought something unique, including the perspective of women. My poem didn’t touch on that, I was just a woman speaking of the universal experience of being a football fan. It was also my second poetry slam, against some of the UK’s finest slam poets. I went in ready to hold my ground, be me and enjoy it. And I did. I felt comfortable and at home talking about something I love just as much as anyone else on the stage did. Football and poetry do that. Unifying us.

And ever since I have been thinking about poets as pundits… on well … life..

Poets are pundits 
     Abundant of emotions 
Equipped with eloquence
    Words with resonance 
Speaking feelings into existence 
    No matter how deep you hid them
Their rhythm pulls at heartstrings 
    Brings a tear to eyes 
At reminders that life is just like that 

Sometimes