Poems of Identity

This section could also be called Poems of the Self. Being an interior sort of person – some would say an introvert - I’ve devoted a lot of attention in poetry to the exploration of myself. This is never an easy thing to do. In fact, this kind of poetry is often quite intense, for a great deal of conflicting emotion is likely to emerge. Two examples of that are in other sections of this website: Midlife Crisis and The Soul’s Complaint. Some of that intensity is also evident in The Shape of Our Perfection, though here the feeling is muted to a degree by philosophical detachment.

The whole subject of identity is one of many dimensions, for we humans are complex creatures, and when I review my work in this area I find that philosophy is present almost as much as feeling – philosophy being one of my main preoccupations in life. Who are we, what is happening to us, what should happen to us, what might we become? Keen readers may notice that my poetry is sometimes loaded with question marks, for all of these issues of identity are a constant puzzle, and indeed a constant challenge.

Thankfully, there is humour too, or at least a realisation of the lighter side of life. Balloon is a fun poem, as airy in tone (I hope) as the actual experience of riding in a balloon. Aspiration is also a fun poem, and an example of play in poetry, trying to make the visual shape of the work an additional component in the overall expression.

As time goes on, moving from the existential angst of the twentieth century to the who-knows-what of the twenty-first, there is a danger that the poet’s own identity will bulk too large; in other words, that poetry will become too private. I’m never afraid of writing about myself, but not, I hope, to the point of being irrelevant to other people, or simply obscure. Self-obsession and obscurity are not, in my view, virtues in poetry.