Words Against Mental Illness Part 6 - Poetry Is for Everyone With Ann MacKinnon

Transcript

Nobody gave me sin for this That’s reason why I try both This is all that’s old, I can see a thousand times of this I’m here with Anne McKinnon Hi, my name is Anne McKinnon and I’m a poet I do write a little bit of prose but mainly poetry This year I’ve been the marker for the Federation of Writers and one of the roles in that is to encourage other people’s creativity and one of the roles in that is to encourage other people’s creativity It’s to get people more interested in writing themselves A lot of people are a bit frightened by poetry but if you just break it down I’ve just done a workshop in here this morning and I broke it down into saying where they are, what they’re doing and just breaking it up a bit It gets people involved in the writing process As part of my macroship I’ve done a bit of mentoring with people I’ve got them to send me their work and then I’ve made comments on it and we’ve had a conversation about it trying to just tweak it a little bit to improve the writing So that’s been one of my main roles I’ve also done quite a lot of adjudicating of competitions this year and I’ve been absolutely fascinated by the amount of creativity out there So that’s what I’ve been doing this year And so you’ve done a workshop in here today What sort of people are turning up to a workshop like that? Have these people got any prior knowledge or interest? Are they coming to you with stuff that they’ve already written or are you just taking people from zero? Well, when they asked me to do the workshop it was to be a taster for poetry So that’s really what I was looking at today So I did ask everybody what their relationship to poetry was Some of them had written quite a lot Others, that was their first attempt at poetry So it was quite mixed There was a lady there who was interested in visual arts but interested in spanning to poetry So that was quite good So it was a real variety Two people said they’d never written anything in their life and they wrote a poem today So that was the kind of thing we were doing I find poetry, as a visual artist myself, I find poetry quite daunting I actually wrote some quite recently I’ve got a little book of the stuff and I actually was just writing what came out of my head I had a lot going on, I had a lot on my mind and I just started writing some stuff And I was like, well here’s some things that I’ve wrote and I show it to people and I go, well that’s poetry And I was like, no, no, I don’t write poetry I don’t really understand poetry So that can’t be poetry And they were like, well but it is though And I was like, okay And so, I mean, for me, I accidentally stumbled into it And to what degree do you feel that it is sort of a skill that must be honed versus just almost like a primal urge to get the words and the feelings out I think it is that And certainly that’s how I started Things were bothering me I had some things that were issues And I was writing them down And they kind of formed themselves into small pieces And I think that’s one of the beauties of poetry as well It doesn’t have to be a great long piece And one of the chaps up there today said It’s like an emotion that you’re capturing and putting down on the page And so, I really think poetry Anybody can write it I mean, some people think that it’s got to rhyme or it’s got to have certain things in it But I don’t think so I think if you capture a piece of emotion And I also find it’s a very cathartic thing It gets a lot of emotions out And I do think it’s a great thing, poetry for that I think, because that’s how I use visual art, right, for me Partly it’s just, I find it very calming to do So in some senses, what I produce is kind of irrelevant, right The process for me is what’s important But then I also get cool pictures and stuff, right And I can try and sell those But a lot of this is about confidence, right The difference between me just making some pictures and piling them up in the corner versus the stuff I’ve got up on the walls here is purely confidence And it took me quite a while to get to that point So when you first started doing this stuff What was the trajectory and the timeframe between Oh, here’s some words that I put down that represent something I’m feeling to Oh, I’m a poet, or I can guide people on this Yeah, it’s quite difficult to know really when it started I think maybe what happened to me was I had this poem that I had written And I put it in for a competition And it won And I thought, oh, that was a poem I’ve written something And that started me thinking Maybe I can write more of this Because I think before that I hadn’t really shown it to anybody But then I joined writer’s groups And I think that makes a huge difference If you’re in a group of other people who are writing And you can show them your work And they can tell you whether they think it’s good or not So that competition definitely got me started Actually showing it to people And in showing it to people I think that got me confident enough To actually produce yourself a little booklet So yeah, I think somebody praising you and saying, oh, that was good Yeah That’s basically Well, and then we get into even better if territory And what I’ve found is that I’ve read books on poetry and stuff And if you get into the mechanics of poetry and all the work Somebody’s talking about spondes and stuff And it’s just like, well, what is all of this? And so it’s like art You can do the same thing with anything, music, art And suddenly it gets really technical And it really put me off Because it felt so exclusive and like, well, you can’t be part of this club Because your name’s not Yates or something, right? And so I was a real I stopped for years because of that, right? I stopped even trying And it seemed so antithetical to the actual practice of poetry to me And I don’t say that I’m a good poet But I really value the ability to be able to get this short blast of pure emotion out Yeah, I think it’s very, very good for you We have quite a few people I run an open mic in Baloch And we have quite a few people who come to that And really, they get a lot of their emotions out And they’re in a company that appreciates them, if you like And, you know, people will comment on There’s one girl in particular who always just writes about her emotions, how she feels And she says that it’s really good because people come up afterwards And speak to her about it, and it’s a good thing to do I think people are very supportive, especially if you’re being out there in open Because I did some readings at the open mic here And that was, I mean, I don’t mind an audience, right? I’m good, I love the attention, but that was quite daunting But I sort of feel like, in some ways, it doesn’t matter what words you use That they’re like good words, for want of a better term That the words represent how you really feel And so that you don’t have to be using big flowery prose Or making up words like Shakespeare Well, actually, funny enough, maybe that’s easier for you But, like, you just have to pick words that say the thing that you want to say, right? And how do you sort of coach people to sort of bridge that gap between That fear of, you know, the technicality of poetry And, you know, suddenly we’re reading The Wasteland or whatever, you know what I mean? To just doing it, right? Well, I think, probably, I was an English teacher So I did have to teach poetry, if you like And I didn’t like the way they analyzed poetry You know, they take a poem and they go, you know, this is this and this And I never liked that because I felt a poem should just speak Whatever you’re saying, it should just speak to people And I don’t think it needs to be technically accurate I don’t think it even needs to be spelt correctly sometimes, you know, it just depends So I’m very much off the get it down on the page You can maybe look at it later and think, you know, I’ll change a wee bit off it Maybe not, you know, maybe just leave it the way it is It’s funny, really, because the poetry is sort of seen in some ways as like the pinnacle of writing It’s the high art of writing But for years, I would just look at it and going, I’m not being funny, but that’s not spelt right That’s not how I was told to do punctuation Where’s the paragraphs, right? And you’re supposed to be here, the pinnacle, this poem of written English And you can’t even do it how you were taught to at school And for me, I found that really confusing at first Because how do you jump from, you know, paragraphs and sentences, paragraph Well-written things, structured thoughts, subjects, predicate, blah blah blah A bunch of other stuff I don’t understand very well But how do you think about the structure of the thing that goes on the page? I think that’s one of the difficult things because they talk about poetry And you have to watch where your line breaks Because the lines are actually the punctuation, you know, sometimes And sometimes you really have to think, is that the right place to pause And if you’re going to perform it, obviously, you want it to get the pauses in the right place So it’s really just, I don’t know, I think sometimes it just comes naturally You can get it The other thing is, somebody said to me that you should always try and end a line on a strong word Whatever you’re talking about, don’t just put and and then go on to the next line Have something strong in every line And come to a good conclusion as well I think you need a good bang at the end of it almost Yeah, exactly, you want to make your point, right? And it’s not that different from something like speech writing or something And for me, actually, the best advice I think I ever got was effectively You’ve got to say it out loud You don’t have to say it to someone And I’m all good with poetry being a solitary exercise I mean, Emily Dickinson didn’t see any of her work Only a few of her works were ever published But you’ve got to say it out loud, it’s got to be sayable It’s got to be sayable in your voice And when you say it, you’ve got to feel it And other people have to feel it And once I sort of understood that You start to realise that the sort of mechanics of the written word for essays or articles Is a bit, it’s uncomfortable It’s not the way that you’re going to speak It’s absolutely what you want to convey information via the written word But it’s no bloody use if you’re saying it So I write these big podcast scripts And they are essays, really, that I’m going to read out But then I have to then go back and break them up into sayable chunks And where do I put the breaks? I put the breaks where I’m naturally going to pause And I think that once you get your head around that, I think that’s when you make that jump between oh So this looks weird But it makes sense when you say it out loud And poetry kind of needs to be said It needs to be spoken I think it’s definitely spoken Poetry has to be spoken I know we can read some on the page But it’s the sound of it And what I like as well is to have heard somebody speaking So that when I do read their poem, I can hear it in my head It’s not so different from music You can read the stuff on the staves But you can’t need to hear it It makes sense, the voice matters And the author’s voice matters I think You’re lucky to I hate my own accent People like it, it’s weird But Scottish people just sound great I spend a lot of time listening to Scottish people in stands alone And open mics reading It’s just nice accent You’re blessed Somebody said to me it’s a kind of chewy feel to the words You kind of chew your words There’s maybe a bit slower I don’t know You also swear magnificently as well Thanks, Billy Connolly And so, okay, so Just wrapping this up Because I could talk all day on this one Right So what if someone wants to get into it You mentioned the community aspect, I think it’s really powerful So if someone’s looking just to want to get into this And do a little bit more than maybe just some scribbles or whatever What’s your advice? I would say try and find a writer’s group of some kind You know, whatever group we can find locally We have several in my local area And that’s the first step, I think, is to go in Sit down and get started, basically And what? I mean, that sounds scary Go amongst the group, I know But I do think if you just sit at home and just write and write and write You’re not communicating It’s not going anywhere So I think one of the scariest things, I think, is to read your own stuff out You know, you’ve written something and you think, it’s okay And then you stand up there and you’re reading it and you think, oh, is that okay? And that’s where the writer’s group’s quite good Because they’ll tell you, or they might say, oh, I think you should maybe change that And do you find, and would you say that for someone coming into it Knew that that would be a welcoming environment? Very, very welcoming, yeah And everybody that I’ve spoken to has said that Because I think writer’s groups, they’re not in competition with one another They’re just, everybody’s writing their own thing And they’re all very willing to help you, you know, if you need a bit of help with things I was just speaking to a girl there that was at my workshop And she’s in the same writer’s group as me And she said she can’t believe how helpful it’s been She’s only been in it a few weeks, but she’s really enjoying it Yeah, and I think writing is a solitary thing, right? You’ve got to write it first Yeah, exactly, you can’t write in a noisy room with people talking out here And I think that you kind of need to be coaxed out, right? You kind of need to go and share it with people and share that experience Because otherwise you’re only getting half of the thing But I think, how much do you enjoy just, you know, just being, do you write with a pen and paper? Or are you not in front of a laptop? Because I can’t read my own writing, so it’s pointless I could try and do it with pen and paper Some people go straight on to the laptop But I’ve always had this feeling that it comes from my head through my arm And I have to write it, you know, and then I type it up And it’s when I type it up that I sort of change it a wee bit maybe, you know, because I’ll see something in the typed piece But I scribble a lot, you know, I’ve got notebooks full of scribbles, basically Amazing, I love scribbles You should put them on canvas and make a big collage Amazing, and if people want to find you, are you out there, find a book on the web, or? Yeah, well, the Federation of Writers has got a Facebook page, a web page And that’s where you can get a hold of me I’ve not got a web page of my own, because I’m not very technical Ah, they’re not even using the web anyway anymore And what have you got planned coming up? Well, Book Week Scotland’s the next big thing And I’ve got two workshops for that in different libraries And then at the end of the month, we’re doing a St Andrew’s Night open mic on Zoom Oh, okay So you can actually zoom into that and do your stuff on Zoom if you want to Amazing And it’s got like a Scots aspect to it, because it’s St Andrew’s Night, but, you know And I have to say, my other passion is Scots writing So I’ve been doing a Scots word of the week on the web page for the Federation And I get loads of comments on that Give me a Scots word of the week Gleek it Okay, what does that mean? Oh, you know what gleek it means? Stupid Oh, right Gleek it Amazing Or the Scots one, everybody says nobody You can’t get an English word, it’s drich You must have heard that here, drich No, I really haven’t Which is weather that’s dark and damp and white today I love that The thing is, Scots, people who speak that dialect often just intermingle it with just English That’s kind of what we do Right, and the great thing about it is that it’s so sort of lyrical that I don’t really need to know what it means You just catch it in context and you think, I can just hear what that means Yes I love that and I love listening to Scots because you can follow along And some of it sort of, it feels a bit like, I don’t know if it’s the wrong word, she’s a hybrid English But it’s like, there’s enough recognisable stuff to it And then there’s all these amazing extra things in there that it’s like, and it just sounds so amazing and beautiful So yeah, you’re lucky to be able to speak that I can barely speak English, I don’t think Scots, come on So where do you come from? I’m from south-east of England, so I grew up in Buckinghamshire, just the other side of Slough But I’m up here because it’s too crowded down there It’s just too many people And I love it, I love south-east of England to a degree anyway I mean London’s amazing, right? But it’s become so sort of patchy and weird and cliquey And there’s so many people down there and I like being alone I like the fact that I can just walk out my door here and within, say, five minutes I’ll be somewhere where I just won’t see anyone And I can just get into my own head and just think the thoughts I want to think And not have to worry about other people I’m autistic, so I need breaks from people It’s essential for my mental health And you just can’t, the flip side is the case in south-east of England You cannot go and be alone without locking yourself in a room And I love being outside You just can’t be alone And it’s always people Here, you walk up there and there will be a bloody waterfall or something Just sit in there If it was in south-east of England someone would have put a bloody ticket booth next to it And there will be a queue of people trying to get into it And it’s just like, ugh, it’s just everywhere here You just go and look and there’s all this amazing stuff Great for rhyme poetry, I can imagine Yes, I’m good to the matter Arms Against Mental Illness