to celebrate his life and the gift of his presence in my life and the life of my family. As mentioned my religious/church background meant I was strongly influenced by the Psalms. The cry of the soul to God for justice, for strength, for grace. I envisaged my poems as prayers/Psalms to life, to beauty, to the exquisite fragility of life rather than a personal God.
Grief takes its own time and I had to wait until the time was right. This was one year ago – 2013. I wrote some poems about Matthew and then found I wanted to write about other things. So began my journey of writing poetry. An accidental journey? Perhaps, yet in many ways it has been a journey that has reconnected me back to something within that I didn’t recognise or want to recognise.
Which Poem means the most to you?
I find it difficult in many ways to say which poem means the most to me, partly because I still feel I am learning so much about writing and crafting poems that are succinct and clear. I feel many of my poems are works in progress, that as I develop skills I will hone them further and polish them.
In reflecting on this question I did come up with the poem Laughter because it reminds me of my son’s laughter. He had one of those infections laughs that brought people along with him in his humour, fun and laughter. This poem reminds me of that and helps me smile at the memory of this.