In the corner, in the spotlight
Dialect mentee Kate Keogan on being caught in the spotlight and not fitting in…
Image: Liam Welch
Thinking about The Man Who Fell To Earth while waiting to have the light of ten suns fired at my retinas is not the wisest move but my mood is sufficiently buoyant I decide I can risk indulging in a brief, carefully contained, catastrophising session. No harm done.
It’s funny how opticians always remark on my distance-vision: we might see one like you a year… . There’s a metaphor here, no doubt, but it must be right under my nose. It’s an effort to bring it into focus. I come away with a prescription for new reading glasses, with light-sensitive lenses so I can take my books into the garden next time April stops reminiscing about January and gets on with the business of ‘breeding lilacs out of the dead land’ etc. Several days later and I have yet to get my ‘sea-legs’ with these glasses. While I’ve got my nose in a book they’re grand. But I forget I’m wearing them and am halfway down the stairs before dizziness catches up with me and I have to grab the banister and re-calibrate.
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Last Sunday I attended my first poetry workshop, on Zoom, for NaPoWriMo. It was…challenging! I must stress there is nothing wrong with the group: they seem nice people. But everyone apparently already knew everyone else and there was a lot of chat and, as usual, I kept my distance, wondering what I was doing there, observing my fellow-humans as if they are an alien species. I am not unfriendly but neither am I sociable. I lack the talent for (and, if I am honest, an interest in) small talk. I miss my cues and by the time I’ve figured out what I’m meant to have said, the conversation has moved on. It took many years for me to be anything like at ease with myself on this account. To accept my quietness and not take on other people’s potential discomfort as something that I am responsible for alleviating. Not least because I’m a poet, for God’s sake: it’s not my job to fit in and make everyone feel nice and cosy! However, successive lockdowns have left me out of practice. I considered leaving the session, especially when the main writing prompt assumed a shared experience I don’t have. I didn’t leave: I worked some more on a previous prompt (and have since written two drafts of a poem) and even spoke up and shared something at the end, though to do so is like coaxing pears from a willow tree. I am determined to give it at least one more go, and see if it gets any easier.
UPDATE: I attended a second session yesterday and actually enjoyed it, even when we went into break-out groups and there was no corner to hide in! And I came away with the rough beginnings of two more poems.
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On Wednesday afternoon I went to the Cotswold Playhouse in Stroud to record my story for Stroud Short Stories’ next event, to be broadcast on YouTube on 9th May. Strangely, sitting in an upstairs office in front of a camera and microphone, I was more nervous than the previous time reading live on stage to an audience. Perhaps because then I deliberately shifted into ‘performance mode’ whereas this time I still felt like ‘ordinary me’. If my voice is a little nerve-strangled at times I do at least have the consolation that it fits the story. (I hope I have not over-compensated and delivered my poor words like the Ten Commandments coming down from the mountain-top.) I don’t get a preview. I will watch ‘my bit’ from behind the sofa but I can’t wait to hear the other stories!
Kate Keogan is a mentee on our Arts Council supported mentoring programme. You can read more about her on her website, here.
