I’ve been having a go with different media lately, exploring the potential for combining images and words, audio and visual representations of poems. Here’s my first attempt.
It’s a poem from my Flarestack Poets pamphlet, Lapstrake . I think there’s always places to go with poetry, that we shouldn’t feel too constrained by genre. It was relatively easy to make, and I’ll definitely be having another go, probably with something slightly lighter. But my mood is quite dark right now with all the stuff going on with the cemetery.
I did an interview with a community television company yesterday, trying to highlight the need for the bereavement process of grieving parents to be looked at in a slightly different way to other grieving processes. It is different. You do not lose the instinct to parent when your child dies. Somewhere where you can be a parent, look after them, bring gifts, cleave things that comfort them, that is a comfort to you. I feel quite worn out with it all.
My intent was never to attack any body, but to highlight the way that it has been managed, that steps need to be taken to be kinder, to avoid the psychological impact that this sort of thing has on grieving people. It doesn’t have to be black or white, nothing does, there is room here for compassion. We made 1000 signatures. I’m very humbled by the way people are backing this. Thank you x
Wendy Pratt 