Tuesday 3 February 2015

Presentations and Poetry

As I've posted elsewhere, I did a presentation at a networking event at work last week - theme Stepping Outside of Your Comfort Zone. Given that there was an audience of about 75 women (including senior management) and the other three speakers all spoke at length about work-related things, I was understandably terrified at talking about non-work-related things! So I gave them the journey of my life-in-crime (law enforcement, please), and how that maybe qualified me to write about it, or maybe just inspired me to make stuff up ...

As I also said, it's like stripping in public - not that'd I'd know, I hasten to add. Talking about work is exposing your intellect; talking about writing is about baring your soul. And talking about writing at work is blurring the lines uncomfortably.

Moving on, I wrote a poem yesterday! Yes, I did. I haven't written poetry since my angst-ridden teens, when I'd curl up in my bedroom with a notebook and biro, and rage in verse over the injustices of life. You know how it is. We've all done it.

So at last night's meeting of my local writers' group, the exercise was poetry. And here's the result. My first published poem! 8-10 lines on the theme A 2 am storm listened to from a bedroom slumber.

Tick, tick, tick - no tock?
I listen to the clock. No time
To wonder at the indoor sounds
As thunder echoes all around.
I slept too deep to hear the rain;
I hear it now - the pane vibrates
while lightning strikes. My body aches
For sleep again. Tick, tick, tick.

My God, I'm good, aren't I? :-)