Blackbird

I have always had an ambivalent relationship with poetry. There are some poems I go back to again and again, like George Herbert’s Love III and R. S. Thomas’s Bright Field. But I don’t deny that I sometimes find the thought of picking up a poetry book just a little daunting. It’s not so much the sometimes complex and vivid means of expression that can be intimidating, but the places where the poem will take you. Poems have an immediacy that can unsettle your world view in just a few lines, and it is often easier and simpler not to ask questions about yourself, to take the safer course.

But, increasingly, I have read more and more poetry because I have come to realise that perpetuating a myth about my indispensability – I am so busy because people need me – was not conducive to my wellbeing, and poetry has helped me to explore the hinterland of myself which is often denied when your diary is crammed full of meetings and appointments. And the older I get, the more I am prepared to leave behind the safe mooring of a secure understanding, and see where the outgoing poetic tide takes me. So when I consider a poem like Stevie Smith’s Not Waving but Drowning, I wonder how often I appear to be waving, giving the impression that everything is OK, when in reality I am actually drowning under the weight of expectation, and trying to get through the day.

I have also put pen to paper (or, rather, cursor to screen), for writing poetry has helped me articulate that exploration with a sense of questing wonder. Looking back, I realise that I have always wanted to reach out to the horizon (a metaphor that’s very strong in my theological reflection), but it is only now that I have had the courage to ‘give it a go,’ set some words down, and see what comes out at the other end.

The result is a collection of poetry which will be available at Easter. I never thought that I would ever publish a book of poems, but my sabbatical last autumn created the time and space I needed to see the project through. It is called Blackbird, and it will be available in all good bookshops – well the Cathedral shop at any rate!

I am aware that such an enterprise can be an act of self-indulgence, but I hope that, in some ways, the poems in the collection might be able to resonate with others because I don’t think what I have written about is exceptional to me; I would like to think that these are shared experiences, shared explorations. There are poems about religious faith, about nature, about people; in short, they are what you would expect a priest in his mid-sixties, pausing for poetic prayer and reflection, to write about.

Reading poetry is a way for me to press the pause button and allow different insights and thoughts to play around my imagination. Writing poetry has helped me to express some of that exploration. We need stimulation, to absorb the creativity of others to help us expand our horizons. But we also need an outlet for our reflective thoughts, and this is what Blackbird has enabled me to do. I cannot judge whether the poems are any good, but they are true to me, and for that I am grateful.  

Dean Roger