Finding My Inner Poet

In honour of international poetry day yesterday I thought I would share with you a poem I wrote this week in my creative writing group. Our task was to write about somewhere that inspired us, I could almost hear Bob hurrying up the stairs to join me as soon as I had finished reading the brief and instantly knew what I wanted to write about. Despite my mind often turning to stories I do find I end up writing a poem even when I least expect to and Tuesday this week was no exception. I am often amazed at what comes out of my pen in the shortest amount of time (in my group we usually have 15-20 minutes to come up with something) and true to form Bob did not disappoint me. I guess it came as no surprise to me that the place that inspires me the most is a library or an old book shop. There is something about them that makes me smile, I feel at home here. I admit it I am a book sniffer, perhaps I think it links me with their previous readers, that somehow everyone that picks up the book did the same, linking us through time in some sort of book appreciation society. That I can somehow sense their presence turning the same pages as I do.

I recently came across an old book that once belonged to my grandmother with her ancient handwriting scrawled across the first blank page. Having that book in my hand seemed to transport me to her, I never knew her in life but I felt her presence in that book, I saw her hand writing the inscription I was now reading so many years later, I saw her turning the pages. There aren’t many objects that can do that,  I certainly do not get the same feeling with my E-Reader and I am glad that others are realising that actual books still have a place in the future over their electronic counterparts.

I love finding old books with inscriptions in and notes to the recipient, I find it stirs my imagination, who were they? what were they like? was this book given as a gift of love or for educational purposes. I found a book from someone who must have been a professor of geology and he had given the book to one of his students with lots of notations and theories in the margins (ordinarily I am appalled at this sort of thing), but for this book it seemed to fit, to bring it to life. I could feel his enthusiasm and passion for his subject something I was in no doubt was his whole life. Books are wonderful, I may be destined to write more poetry than novels at times but I hope my words in whatever format they are in end up being found in old books later in time and that someone else sniffs the pages and maybe finds me hidden there.

A Place of Inspiration

Lots of little nooks

filled with many books,

among the dusty tomes

I felt right at home

In poems, stories, tales of woe,

I lost myself never wanting to go;

To leave this place, this new found world,

on a well worn sofa I wanted to curl.

To read all its secrets, its stories to share

of the outside world I did not care.

In getting lost, I was found.

My story to write, to be printed and bound

for others to search for, for others to see,

for in this library of books

I’d found the real me.

M J Fletcher March 2018