Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
A writer, playwright and poet whose skill with language earned him an MBE and admirers including Desmond Tutu; first poet commissioned for the London 2012 Olymp
On the island
Eight records
The keepsakes
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:34What was it you were trying to say as the first poet commissioned to write for the London 2012 Olympics?
I had to look at the Olympic site and uh find a poem. There's a poem in there somewhere waiting for me. So you have to kind of excavate until it it you you find that seam of gold. And there was a matchmaking factory that used to be there. It was run by women. They went on strike and I found an article by a woman called Annie Besant. who took on the struggle of these working class women.
Presenter asks
4:46How have you yourself done most of your learning? Are you self-taught?
I don't know how I learned. I didn't go to university. I didn't go to college. You just leave the children's homes, that's how it was when I was in care. Nobody sugges nobody suggested that I should go to university. Nobody had those aspirations for me. So, uh, I did the best I could with what I've got, you know, and I've I was always a sparky, intelligent child. I was dying to soak in everything.
Presenter asks
6:01Why do you think people go to poetry at weddings and funerals?
Actually, poetry is around people a lot more than those times. Poetry has a bridge between the spiritual and the physical, and that's why it's in the Bible, that's why it's in the Quran, that's why the Buddhist faith uses it. So, when you feel a desperate need for that bridge at a wedding, at a funeral, when you're leaving work after 25 years, you know, there's always somebody who's right, right, I've got a poem for you, John. All right, okay. And it's a funny poem, but it's kind of poignant. It's a beautiful thing to see a poem read at uh a funeral or a wedding. And if you go round graveyards you find poems are the last thing that people leave to them. Why is that? It's because poetry is the bridge between now and then, the past and the future. It's an incredibly powerful thing and it is around us all the time. Often it's not great poetry, so I I will go round the graveyard with a little chisel just to You know, just to edit.
The book
if I ever get saved, if it's Muslim people on a boat, I want to go, Look, I've got a Koran and if it's like Christians, I'll go, Look, I've got a Bible And if it's like a mixture of them two, I'll be like, That's so funny because I've got both and they're in dialogue.
The luxury
Presenter asks
15:03How do you manage to forgive your adoptive parents?
I Because of what they did to me I refused to believe in any higher power. And now I do believe that there is a God uh greater than my understanding. And I have to trust that. And in and in trusting that, I can forgive.
Presenter asks
27:52Your poetry is born out of your difficult life. Is there a contradiction in that?
I don't think that as an artist you need to have a terrible story. If you're lucky enough to have sparked your creative self, you've been given a gift from God. And we've all got that, by the way. Do you really think we've all got it? Oh, God, yeah. You know, um, if a mother is managing how to get an idea over to their child, they are being creative. You know, when a child says, you know, uh, the sun in the sky is like a bead on a blanket or, you know, this this this Twitter thing that's going round at the moment of a kid who came home with a piece of black paper and said, Dad, I've got some of the night You know what I mean? The creativity is is who we are. I really do believe that. And you know, it's just a shame that people wait till they're sixty and say, Right, I'm going to knit a novel. Do you know what I mean?'Cause you you know, if you want to knit a novel, do it.
Presenter asks
30:11Has constructing your truth and curating your past worked? Do you feel surrounded by yourself and who you are now?
The most important lesson I learned is to let go of it all. To let go of the family. To let go of anybody who doesn't want to talk to me and to accept anybody who does. It it's not to hold on to this narrative uh and to sort of hug the bruise. I am not defined by my scars, but by the incredible abilities of it to heal. But uh you have to live in the present. Which means I can laugh and I can be scatty and I can be depressed and I can be blah, but I have to live in the present, not in the past, and certainly not in the future. And I find that to be the most powerful place to be. It's the only place to write from.
“I was so happy. Like, I thought the world smiled. Just smiled. Everybody in the world smiled. Uh and I didn't realize that it was me smiling at the world smiling back at me.”
“I reserve the right to be emotional about what happened to me. You know, I reserve the right to feel.”
“Because of what they did to me I refused to believe in any higher power. And now I do believe that there is a God uh greater than my understanding. And I have to trust that. And in and in trusting that, I can forgive.”
“I don't think that as an artist you need to have a terrible story. If you're lucky enough to have sparked your creative self, you've been given a gift from God. And we've all got that, by the way.”
“The most important lesson I learned is to let go of it all. To let go of the family. To let go of anybody who doesn't want to talk to me and to accept anybody who does. It it's not to hold on to this narrative uh and to sort of hug the bruise. I am not defined by my scars, but by the incredible abilities of it to heal.”