The new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘Unseen’ by Karen Ankers, a moving poem about children and parents. In her interview with Write Out Loud Karen says that “when I was 17, I became a member of the Chester Poets and discovered, to my surprise, that other people enjoyed reading and hearing my words ... I sent a few poems off to magazines when I was younger, but then went through a period when I was writing very little, while I was busy with my three sons …  It is only in the last few years that I have started to take my writing seriously again.”  She has just started performing her poems at an open mic in Holyhead, Anglesey.

 

How long has poetry been an important part of your life and can you remember why it became so?

I seem to have been writing poetry for as long as I can remember.  I spent most of my childhood, according to my father, “with my nose stuck in a book” and all the reading I did definitely inspired me to write.  But I suppose I started writing poetry seriously when I was a teenager.  It became a way to say things that I wasn’t brave enough to say out loud. When I was seventeen, I became a member of the Chester Poets and discovered, to my surprise, that other people enjoyed reading and hearing my words.  Publication in their anthologies gave me the confidence to write more and doing a degree in English literature gave me the opportunity to read some wonderful poets. I remember being particularly inspired by TS Eliot. I sent a few poems off to magazines when I was younger, but then went through a period when I was writing very little, while I was busy with my three sons. It is only in the last few years that I have started to take my writing seriously again. Poetry, for me, is the best way to articulate subtle emotions. I am interested in the use of poetry as therapy. I certainly find both reading and writing it very therapeutic.

 

What kind of poetry do you write?  What motivates you?

I don’t know that I write a certain kind of poetry. I dislike the constraint of rhyme, so that is something I rarely use. My poems can be inspired by the smallest things – the sound of a bird in a railway station, or a pair of butterfly wing earrings given as a gift …  I try to see through objects to the emotions and urges behind them and see connections where others might not.  Poetry, for me, is the link between the material world and the emotional one. I am often motivated by things that make me angry, particularly cruelty, in all its forms, and write poetry as a way of asking why.

 

If you could only have one poet’s work to read which one would you choose?

It would have to be Patrick Jones. I remember reading ‘This Terrible Honesty’ shortly after I lost my mother, and finding its brutal truth very helpful. He wasn’t clothing death in platitudes, he was describing raw emotion. And, like me, he gets angry about cruelty and unkindness. I think he is one of the most important voices around at the moment.

 

Do you perform your work and if so, where are your favourite places to perform?

I have only just started performing my work at a monthly open mic night here in Holyhead. It is something I intend to do more of and I will be looking for more places to perform.

 

If you found yourself cast away on a desert island, what luxury would you pick?

A pile of notebooks and a supply of pens! Just think of all the free time I would have to write!

 

 

UNSEEN

by Karen Ankers

 

 

you cried when we left the house where you were born

not for friends left behind

not for lost secret places in the garden

not for the bedroom where soft pencil lines

marked your growing

 

you cried for the purple tiger who lived on the roof

afraid he’d get wet if it rained

sure the new people

unaware of their tenant

wouldn’t think to bring him inside

 

 I tried to assure you

 he would come with us to the new house

was already loping behind the car

soft wind rippling his violet fur

 

you looked at me sadly and explained

the roof was his home and anyway

purple tigers weren’t allowed in Wales

and so it was over

tears dried you never spoke of him again

found new friends

a pink dog

Lancelot

and a dwarf whose name I forget

but whose strength and sword protected you

when my love could not

 

an actor now, paid to pretend

you laugh when I worry the purple tiger

might be still on the roof

shivering

rain streaked

lonely

cold

 

you say you don’t remember

but I wonder if you saw in his eyes

the homeless man you talk to because no one else does

in his hunched form

the rag wrapped woman you offer food

because she has none

 

you know now tigers are not purple

time and rain washed his colour away

but you cared then as you care now

for those no one else can see