Way back in the day, when I was first getting into the idea that my poetry might be something I could share, and inspired by the self-produced music fanzines which people hawked in pubs and clubs – and which were rough and ready and cheap and exciting – I put together a series of three pamphlets of my work.
The process of creating them was completely DIY. I’d type out each of the poems, cut and paste them (and I mean with scissors and glue, not via buttons on a keypad) into a template, and source images and cartoons – thank you, obscure graphic novels and magazines of the time – to accompany them. All this was done while sitting on the floor of my room in a shared house, listening to my favourite records over and over. Once the template – a series of sheets of paper – was complete, I’d take it to the printers at Leeds University. They offered a print-only service, and because this was way cheaper than the cost of having them print the booklets and put them together – and because I was time-rich and cash-poor – I’d collect the boxes of printed sheets, head back to my room, and spend a happy afternoon or two stapling the pamphlets together. While listening to my favourite albums again, natch. Then I’d head off to the student union and the local pubs in the evening and sell them. Or try to.
The other day, an old friend sent me a picture of two of them (the second and third in the series, in the unlikely event you were wondering) and it took me right back to those early days of touting my work. And reminded me how much it taught me. I was doing what I wanted in the way that I wanted, and what could be better than that? I had something to say about the world, and I was saying it, and I’m still – all these years on – massively passionate about the opportunity poetry offers folk to make their own voice heard. We need that more than ever.
While the themes in those early pamphlets are ones I still return to – I can trace a continuum from them right through to snapshots from the fall of home – I’d like to think I’ve learned a little more about the craft of poetry over those years. And adapted to the developments in the art of cut and paste, too. While retaining my youthful enthusiasm where possible, of course.
Perhaps it’s best to let you be the judge of that. I’ve got some favourite records in need of a spin.