1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:18,120 Welcome to episode 2 of Bladi Da, I decided to call it. 2 00:00:18,120 --> 00:00:21,640 I was trying to work out what the hell am I going to call this thing, you know? 3 00:00:21,640 --> 00:00:27,240 I went blah blah, and then I went Bladi Da. 4 00:00:27,240 --> 00:00:32,280 And then that just felt right, and I'm usually not good at naming things. 5 00:00:32,280 --> 00:00:40,960 So yeah, that felt like okay, must be on the right track, or path, or whatever. 6 00:00:40,960 --> 00:00:51,720 Today I just want to talk randomly about ideas on poems and getting into them, finding your 7 00:00:51,720 --> 00:00:58,520 way into a poem, and just writing and finding your style and your voice. 8 00:00:58,520 --> 00:01:06,000 Just a few random things I've picked up over quite some time of writing. 9 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:16,400 I've been writing properly for, properly inverted commons, I don't know, 12 years, and maybe 10 00:01:16,400 --> 00:01:26,680 coming up with creative ideas since I was 16, so that's 30 years I'll say. 11 00:01:26,680 --> 00:01:36,320 Yeah, how I found my way into poetry was, really just, I wanted to be a cartoonist. 12 00:01:36,320 --> 00:01:42,360 I loved drawing, and I loved writing and putting them together. 13 00:01:42,360 --> 00:01:49,720 I did that for, yeah, 15, 20 years. 14 00:01:49,720 --> 00:02:00,360 Eventually just found just plain old words, unadorned, felt more real somehow. 15 00:02:00,360 --> 00:02:12,080 Even though I love the confluence of drawings and words and the symphony, they can kind 16 00:02:12,080 --> 00:02:19,200 of create like 1 plus 1 equals 2, or sorry, more like 3. 17 00:02:19,200 --> 00:02:28,720 But yeah, I did find myself just loving, just plain old words, they're kind of, they 18 00:02:28,720 --> 00:02:33,400 really, they leave nothing to the imagination, but everything to the imagination, if that 19 00:02:33,400 --> 00:02:34,400 makes sense. 20 00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:46,600 But anyway, one of my first thoughts I'm writing is finding your perceived inadequacies and 21 00:02:46,600 --> 00:02:49,600 then call them style. 22 00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:55,640 So I've always been in a rush to do things, because I'm kind of, I'm scared that if they 23 00:02:55,640 --> 00:02:58,480 get to stay in my mind, they'll never exist. 24 00:02:58,480 --> 00:03:06,120 I always felt that magic, that's magic for a thought to become a real thing that you 25 00:03:06,120 --> 00:03:13,440 can touch with your hands or turn the page with your hands. 26 00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:23,000 If that, if, yeah, that sort of, yeah, blows my mind that something can go from the head 27 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:24,880 into the real world. 28 00:03:24,880 --> 00:03:35,600 But yeah, laziness is a style, just I rush, I often rush things and just like fire hydrant, 29 00:03:35,600 --> 00:03:40,360 the shit out of ideas and thoughts, even if they're crap. 30 00:03:40,360 --> 00:03:46,640 And yeah, 99% of the stuff I write is pretty average to bad. 31 00:03:46,640 --> 00:03:55,880 And I can feel the mechanics of my brain and the, and I've got a preconceived destination 32 00:03:55,880 --> 00:04:03,600 and that's usually the shit stuff, because I, I know it's not an adventure. 33 00:04:03,600 --> 00:04:16,080 But yeah, laziness as a style is, yeah, I've eventually just turned my, my often poor inability 34 00:04:16,080 --> 00:04:28,400 to structure a sentence or even order ideas and edit into, I felt like it became like 35 00:04:28,400 --> 00:04:32,360 a, like, almost as a, yeah, it felt like a style in the end. 36 00:04:32,360 --> 00:04:38,960 Like to begin with, I was, I was very unconfident about it and it made me feel like, ah, I'm 37 00:04:38,960 --> 00:04:43,760 not good enough or this stuff is just rubbish. 38 00:04:43,760 --> 00:04:52,880 But I kind of love the energy that I'm just going blah, blah, blah, blah, blah on a page. 39 00:04:52,880 --> 00:04:57,960 And then pulling it back a little bit, like a bit of editing doesn't go astray. 40 00:04:57,960 --> 00:05:06,480 But yeah, I kind of feel, I feel like I'd try to be efficient with things and get you, 41 00:05:06,480 --> 00:05:09,760 get you out and that go, that'll do. 42 00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:15,720 It's like, yeah, it often doesn't work for me, but the ones that do, it's like, yeah, 43 00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:17,760 fuck yeah, that works. 44 00:05:17,760 --> 00:05:26,520 I don't know how that, why that is working, but I can feel an extra energy behind it. 45 00:05:26,520 --> 00:05:34,760 Because, yeah, and sort of speaking to that, I always felt like just my stuff and how I 46 00:05:34,760 --> 00:05:36,240 play life. 47 00:05:36,240 --> 00:05:41,400 If I was a football team, using analogy, I'd be, I feel like I've got all my players 48 00:05:41,400 --> 00:05:44,040 up forward and no one in defense. 49 00:05:44,040 --> 00:05:49,360 So I feel like I'm kicking a bunch of goals, but also conceding a shitload as well. 50 00:05:49,360 --> 00:05:56,120 So I feel like, um, so often there's no, there's no balance in that, but those, those kind 51 00:05:56,120 --> 00:06:00,480 of games that I'm playing, all, all attacking no defense. 52 00:06:00,480 --> 00:06:05,960 I reckon I often lose, lose those games by just only a few goals because I'm kicking 53 00:06:05,960 --> 00:06:10,480 a shitload, but I often think, fuck the score line. 54 00:06:10,480 --> 00:06:14,960 I'm just worrying about the highlights real and you know, it's get a sort of a fun highlights 55 00:06:14,960 --> 00:06:18,960 real if you're, if you're kicking a bunch of goals, even if you don't win. 56 00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:23,040 It's like, yeah, that's, that still works for me. 57 00:06:23,040 --> 00:06:25,720 Um, and that's what I love about poetry. 58 00:06:25,720 --> 00:06:29,600 Poetry is about losing games. 59 00:06:29,600 --> 00:06:37,000 It's not all, it's not about, um, yeah, just winning a, winning a Premiership or whatever 60 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:40,040 the fuck year after year. 61 00:06:40,040 --> 00:06:46,280 Another thought on writing poems, I love my favorite personal ones that I've written. 62 00:06:46,280 --> 00:06:51,240 Uh, when they, they're not even a poem to begin with, they start off as something else 63 00:06:51,240 --> 00:06:54,880 and I don't even see the potential of them as a, as a poem. 64 00:06:54,880 --> 00:07:00,120 I haven't sat down at a desk and gone, I am going to write a poem. 65 00:07:00,120 --> 00:07:03,160 Usually those poems are pretty shit. 66 00:07:03,160 --> 00:07:11,320 Um, yeah, so one of, one of my, one of my favorite ones as I started off, there was 67 00:07:11,320 --> 00:07:19,560 a, there was a door in a house, um, a share house and it was broken and the person I was 68 00:07:19,560 --> 00:07:25,600 living with asked me, can you fix it and um, said I wouldn't even know how to fix a broken 69 00:07:25,600 --> 00:07:31,280 door, but I can probably write a poem about the broken door and how it makes me feel. 70 00:07:31,280 --> 00:07:36,000 And I said that as a joke thinking that's, that's pretty funny. 71 00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:40,880 And that's that, I'd, I'd retell that joke sometimes thinking that's pretty hilarious 72 00:07:40,880 --> 00:07:41,880 over a few years. 73 00:07:41,880 --> 00:07:47,480 And then one day I thought, um, that's, that could actually be an actual poem. 74 00:07:47,480 --> 00:07:57,200 I was right about like my, how unhandy man that I am, um, or how uninterested I am in 75 00:07:57,200 --> 00:08:02,840 being a handy man and, and just writing about my feelings about a broken door. 76 00:08:02,840 --> 00:08:12,920 And um, that, that poem, um, which started as a joke and turned into kind of this almost 77 00:08:12,920 --> 00:08:27,640 meta to do slightly melancholy, um, sort on, um, yeah, fixing things by not fixing things, 78 00:08:27,640 --> 00:08:28,640 but with words. 79 00:08:28,640 --> 00:08:36,040 Um, but it was a short list for, um, Newcastle poetry prize, which was, yeah, that, that 80 00:08:36,040 --> 00:08:39,400 was like, yeah, it was crazy, but it started as a joke. 81 00:08:39,400 --> 00:08:52,800 And there was another poem I wrote that, um, where it started off as me going to the Melbourne 82 00:08:52,800 --> 00:08:56,760 cemetery, which I had been for over 20 years. 83 00:08:56,760 --> 00:09:04,600 And I'd, I'd go there and write in this beautiful garden or play guitar or, um, bring a picnic 84 00:09:04,600 --> 00:09:12,080 with friends or whatever, and, um, and sometimes I just have a nap there in the garden in the 85 00:09:12,080 --> 00:09:20,120 afternoon in spring and it, and it was, yeah, a sort of a beautiful poetic feeling. 86 00:09:20,120 --> 00:09:21,640 It felt, it felt good. 87 00:09:21,640 --> 00:09:33,080 Um, and, but, um, I ended up writing that as a joke in, um, where it was, it, it starts, 88 00:09:33,080 --> 00:09:38,400 it goes, dear diary today, I had a lovely nap in the Melbourne cemetery, just practicing. 89 00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:39,400 Yeah. 90 00:09:39,400 --> 00:09:46,480 So I put just practicing on the end of it and just to give it a bit of a stupidness to 91 00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:47,480 it. 92 00:09:47,480 --> 00:09:56,040 Um, um, but yeah, I love, I think that's the best stuff is when you intend on doing something 93 00:09:56,040 --> 00:10:00,200 and then, and then trick, trick yourself. 94 00:10:00,200 --> 00:10:06,120 It's like, it's like, you know, you can't, you can't tickle yourself, but along the way 95 00:10:06,120 --> 00:10:12,960 you trick yourself some, somehow into being able to tickle yourself. 96 00:10:12,960 --> 00:10:18,720 And that's, I kind of feel, yeah, the best poems for me, uh, when you are actually able 97 00:10:18,720 --> 00:10:26,000 to tickle yourself, um, they, but they begin as nothing, but then you almost take a U-turn 98 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:34,040 or a side street or, and you end up in a place that you weren't expecting, almost adventure, 99 00:10:34,040 --> 00:10:35,040 adventure poetry. 100 00:10:35,040 --> 00:10:38,680 Um, yeah, that not, that doesn't often happen. 101 00:10:38,680 --> 00:10:46,640 I feel like I can get stuck in my little ruts of, um, going to the same places, the same, 102 00:10:46,640 --> 00:10:51,480 same thoughts, pressing the same buttons and pulling the same levers. 103 00:10:51,480 --> 00:10:55,280 Um, so yeah, those poems are, are rare. 104 00:10:55,280 --> 00:10:59,320 Um, every now and again they happen. 105 00:10:59,320 --> 00:11:02,880 And yeah, this is a thought that I had pretty recently. 106 00:11:02,880 --> 00:11:08,520 Um, I'm not even sure if I believe it yet, but I'm just, just going to put it out there. 107 00:11:08,520 --> 00:11:17,520 That I've thought that some, some, yeah, poems are like novels, but just the first sentence 108 00:11:17,520 --> 00:11:23,680 of the novel without the plotting story that lasts another hundred or more pages. 109 00:11:23,680 --> 00:11:28,800 I kind of feel like in that way, I kind of feel like poems are beginnings that don't end, 110 00:11:28,800 --> 00:11:34,680 but when you put the poem down, the whole, the, the rest of the tip of the iceberg becomes 111 00:11:34,680 --> 00:11:40,280 the whole iceberg throughout the day after you've read the poem, as it just keeps extrapolating 112 00:11:40,280 --> 00:11:43,960 and becoming something, um, bigger. 113 00:11:43,960 --> 00:11:48,880 I kind of feel like, yeah, they're the best poems that just, they're just the first sentence 114 00:11:48,880 --> 00:11:49,880 of a novel. 115 00:11:49,880 --> 00:11:57,400 Um, and often novelists try to find their best sentence, um, as the first sentence and, 116 00:11:57,400 --> 00:12:02,640 and the last sentence, but um, yeah, I kind of feel like they, they're just the first 117 00:12:02,640 --> 00:12:08,400 paragraph of a beautiful novel and the whole, the rest of the book, just unpack. 118 00:12:08,400 --> 00:12:12,680 So like a, a book of poems is sometimes like 40 novels. 119 00:12:12,680 --> 00:12:16,880 Um, well, if they're not sort of going over the same idea. 120 00:12:16,880 --> 00:12:19,160 Um, yeah. 121 00:12:19,160 --> 00:12:29,600 And just one, one more idea I had like always felt my best writing is, um, is, is holding 122 00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:37,520 a feeling in my head and that feeling is either usually personal or comes from a piece of 123 00:12:37,520 --> 00:12:42,000 music or, or a combination of the two. 124 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:46,440 Um, and then try, then try to write towards that feeling. 125 00:12:46,440 --> 00:12:52,400 Um, so writing off the edge of a cliff and, and writing towards the anchored feeling on 126 00:12:52,400 --> 00:12:59,280 the other side of that cliff face and, and floating, building a bridge through midair 127 00:12:59,280 --> 00:13:01,640 just with words, one word after the other. 128 00:13:01,640 --> 00:13:07,160 And when it works, it's, yeah, it's so, it's, it's incredible. 129 00:13:07,160 --> 00:13:14,760 It feels so good, but again, they're less than 1% of anything that I've been able to 130 00:13:14,760 --> 00:13:18,280 write, but kind of feel like it's worth digging. 131 00:13:18,280 --> 00:13:25,960 Like I kind of feel like the, the older I get, the harder it is to dig for good ideas. 132 00:13:25,960 --> 00:13:33,720 Cause I feel like I've gone over the same old stuff and chasing the same old veins, veins 133 00:13:33,720 --> 00:13:34,720 of gold. 134 00:13:34,720 --> 00:13:38,840 Um, so much digging or so many holes. 135 00:13:38,840 --> 00:13:47,320 I'm just, you know, um, yeah, they're hard to get, but I kind of feel like, yeah, they're, 136 00:13:47,320 --> 00:14:09,800 they're still there.