The start.... is the hardest part

..which is the first line from one of my favourite songs from one of my favourite albums by one of my favourite bands- 'A Hiccup in your Happiness' on 'Warmer Corners' by the Lucksmiths. (Phew, too many favourites for one sentence. But let's BREAK THE FUCKING RULES.) And it's true, it is. So here we go. This blog is a way for me to get out some of the thoughts, feelings and untapped creativity in my brain. For many years I've been too afraid to show anything to people and I've decided it's really time to get over myself and just DO IT. 


I've been working on a set of poems set in a University, all about the characters who work, teach or study there. Slightly wanky working title is 'University of Life.' Sorry Alain de Botton, I stole your idea.


Dewey Decimal 021

They say I've been here from time immemorial

They think I don't hear their breathy whispers

The young librarians, with their shabby hair

And too tight clothes. So tight that when they lean

Over the trolleys to put the books away

Acres of flesh are exposed from the back to the buttocks.

Flirting with each other, trying to impress

With their knowledge of Foucault and the history of sexuality.

It's true I came here to study in 1967

And never left. It was my spiritual home,

A place of  rebellion, youth, excitement,

Where I felt free and alive.

Abortion rights, ban the bomb, women's lib,

Away from the crushing boredom of suburban London.

President of the student union, I took a job

In the library to make ends meet.

Gradually I grew older than the other activists,

And found solace amongst the special collections.

Until one day, I woke up, and I was middle aged.

Things change. I always thought I would change with them.

'Our strategic engagement

Must reflect the changing dynamics

Of our service users in the digital age,' they say.

But yet I'm dissapointed. What about the pure joy of

Taking books from shelves and reading them?

I used to get excited when

I found journal articles and copied them.

On carbon paper, inks staining my fingers.

The pleasure of paper and print and words

Indelibly inscribed upon my hands

So it took white spirit and wire wool

To remove them.

I was the one, the one who knew it all.

Long loan, short loan, inter-library, Sconul cards;

The go-to woman of the second floor.

Sitting behind glass, surveying all I knew,

The boundaries of myself within these four walls.

Who else knew the reference for The Faerie Queene

Without searching frantically through hundreds of slips of paper?

Who else could list the items in reference

In alphabetical order, according to author?

But now what use is this knowledge

When a catalogue will suggest further reading

Or a database can search through

What is stored in my brain in milliseconds?

No longer even needed

To stamp books. There's a machine for that now

Books swiped, it spits out a receipt, like a cursory shopping trip.

Sometimes I have dreams about them.

Their young bodies firm, not fleshy

Hiding amongst the books

And fucking so the dust flies

From the books long neglected on the shelf.

The automatic lights go on and off according to their rhythms.

One leg lifted and wrapped around the waist

Of the other.

It's a dream I've always had.

The clothes change

The faces change

But the positioning forever the same

Dewey Decimal 021.

In my dreams it's never me,

My heavy breasts too pendulous,

My thick middle too flabby to grip,

But I peep at them,

Through books on library and information science,

And reminisce on what could have been.