My last post was back in January. That afternoon, as well as blogging about not giving up, I also submitted some poems to a couple of online publications. The very next day, I was astonished to see that one of the editors I'd emailed had already replied, and had offered to publish two of the five poems I'd sent. This was hugely encouraging, and statistically unlikely (I've only had one other thing accepted - with suggestions for improvement - since then).
I didn't share the news right away as there was going to be a bit of a wait before the poems appeared online, one in March and one in April. I planned to write accompanying blog posts for each poem when it was published, and was excited to be able to include links to my 'real' poems for the first time.
By the time we were into March, however, the coronavirus pandemic, and the accompanying anxiety surrounding it, made it a bit hard to concentrate on writing. I kept putting off writing the post about the first poem 'The thin silence', and within a fortnight our family went into self-isolation, three days before the whole country entered lockdown. A month later, when 'Cope' made an appearance, I had not only lost the motivation to write, but also the time and opportunity, having now become a homeschooler, as well as losing the writing desk and laptop to the working-from-home husband.
Anyway. Better late than never. You can read the two poems here:
The thin silence
Cope
'The thin silence' is based on a 2019 sermon by David Campbell of the same title, which was about depression, and the experience of the dejected prophet Elijah hearing the still, small voice of God (1 Kings 19:12). This sermon resonated with my mental and emotional state at the time, and my response was the poem.
'Cope' was written about a year earlier, and is also to do with mental health (as the title might suggest). It came out of my strong dislike for the word 'cope'. I've always felt like it was a silly, weak word, especially when used to talk about people who are struggling. 'She's not coping very well', or worse, 'I can't cope', sound like a completely underwhelming way to describe an overwhelmed state of mind. One day I decided to look up the etymology of 'cope', and I was surprised at the depth of meaning that can actually be found in the word. At the end of writing this poem, I had managed to encourage myself that a) I can cope, and b) this is more of an achievement than I had previously thought.
As I write, we are still in lockdown, writing is still a challenge, but I am trying to make it a priority again.
