(Video, audio, print)
When you are a creator, you need to try new things and explore your creative gift. This has always been a challenge for me as I often struggle with confidence and I become unsure what my “whats next” should be.
It’s a journey and one thing I have learnt over the years is that I need to keep on trying!
Keep on pushing beyond my labels, both given and ones I have grown onto. I need to keep on challenging my mindsets concerning the fears of being vulnerable. This means accepting that poetry is about being vulnerable, period! Full stop! There is no discussion or argument, it just something I need to embrace!
“Poetry is about being vulnerable, accept it”
So being aware of that ‘push,’ that drive to ‘keep things moving’ and ‘try new (or re-visit forgotten and old) things, I have started to (again) do You Tube videos. I hope to connect, and perhaps re-connect, with the audience in a different way.
Written poetry withholds the poets voice and rhythm, audio poetry helps to restore that ‘unknown voice,’ but video/ visual poetry goes further and aids body/ facial expression, making the experience more intimate/ personal/ real.
I love doing audio poems because it helps me to focus on my voice and slow down my speech, hopefully making my words sound more clear and the poem message understood…
…And lets not forget my first love, printed poetry…
It’s day
20 of this lock down ting
And I can’t help but be unsure of things
My minds gone wild
I’m swinging in trees
Howling in the breeze
Clothed in animal skins
For a moment I’m lost in confusion
Taped and sealed in a box, padlock and locked
Key dashed in the bush
Gone I can’t see
Stilled in shadows
I watch
Trapped in silence
Head-locked with self
Wrestling until morning
It hurts when I’m breathing
Burns my throat
Like over proof liquor I shouldn’t be drinking
I feel myself sinking
I’m tired of this lockdown thing!
I wake up one day
Not understanding my speaking
Thinking I’m dreaming I close my eyes
And say nothing
Too scared
Another uncertainty baffling my brains
I rather not go there
Head back on the pillows
I inhale exhale twice
Scratch an itch on my arm twice
Watch a fly on my ceiling
Hear neighbours arguing
Wish I was sleeping
Someone knocks on the door twice
Internally I mumble
About answer “yeah what do you want”
But something else comes out my mouth
Shocked into silence
It sounds like star trek speech
Now fully awake I shuffle under the covers to wake a year later
To normality
Public sanity
A new society
I’m tired of this lockdown ting!
Most mornings I sit in the garden
Whisper prayers between coffee sips
I listen to birds and notice the sounds my feet make on gravel
Sometimes I hear the wind and Gods word
I think of the self-control I need to not get vex
At people, at government, at self
I think of the new rules I live by
And I sigh at what I have become
Don’t sneeze, don’t touch, don’t spit
Don’t cough, don’t smile, don’t sit
Don’t come near me because I’ll growl
Don’t breathe over me because you’re fowl
Don’t watch me funny when I wave you from my space
Don’t laugh, don’t hug, don’t grieve
Don’t give, don’t love, don’t see
Don’t talk, don’t cry, don’t breathe
I’m tired of this lock down ting!
“Lockdown Ting” Copyright © 2020 Traysi Benjamin-Matthew
All rights reserved. No portion of this post may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or by otherwise without the express written permission from Traysi Benjamin-Matthew