Forwards

Posted by Niall

October 24, 2008

It was quite a surprise to find that I had been highly commended by this year’s Forward Prize, and that my poem “The Father in Law” had made it into the Forward Book of Poetry 2009. I can’t say that I write with the expectation, or the goal, of prizes and wider recognition but I’m not complaining. By the time a new book has done the rounds and won a smattering of attention, I’m onto the next thing, watching the next volume slowly emerge as I finally shake off my “edit” head. Like some rare breed of turtle that lays its eggs every few years, I’m entering my active season. Poems and scraps of ideas fill pages, images flood my mind and spill out into the empirical world in the form of scribbles and mutterings. I have no idea what is good and what isn’t, in the same way that the turtle has no ideas which of her offspring will flourish as she buries her eggs into the sand and slopes back into the uncertain depths of the ocean. Now is not a good time to ask me for submissions. Try again in 18 months, when my critical eye will refocus. For now my head is down and the words are flooding out, Commended, eh? Very good! I’m chuffed, anyway, must be getting on…

Since January I’ve been pounding the track around Brockwell Park. Distance running has come quite naturally to me, must be some kind of underlying mentality. I’ve always been good at getting my head down and setting a steady pace. I did it as a gardener, never exhausting myself over a well measured day of hard work. Some guys went out of their way to look like faster workers, getting the job done in half the time, but I always got the job done. I used to love the slow, analytical jobs that the others hated, such as pruning roses. You had to keep a bare attention on what you were doing, not too intense though. You couldn’t daydream too much either as you sloped the cut downwards from the outer facing bud.

As I run, I get over taken by spunky young types, lots of snap and swing in their step. I never see them again over the next lap, usually I see them exit the gate a little while ahead. Middle distancers. Each to their own. This is how I set my goals and get things done. Five laps and out the gate. Two days on the park’s rose beds and the job’s a good’un. Twelve years, two books and a commendation. I tend not to look either side, at the middle distancers overtaking; the agency workers running a quick hedge cutter over the rose bush; the bright young thing with a feature in the broadsheet. That isn’t the pace I’m running nor the goal that I’ve set.

You guys go on ahead now.