The second LWH website competition to find the best piece of writing published for feedback and comment on the LWH “Your Writing” page has resulted in a First place win for Keith Dalton’s poem “Passing Through”.
As well as Keith’s winning poem being published on the main pages of the LWH website, along with a profile and interview, Keith also wins a copy of the LWH anthology of poetry and prose Word Soup: Year One. Congratulations Keith!
When asked for a biography of himself, Keith says ‘I suppose you could say I’m just an old rock ‘n’ roller. I’ve been hanging around the place a long time! I’ve been in and out of music and writing for years,travelled a lot, and generally enjoyed myself!’
Keith has been a writer and musician for many years, and is a regular contributer to the “Your Writing” page, leaving feedback for other writers as well as submitting his own work. LWH interviewed Keith about his writing…
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LWH: How long have you been writing poetry, and what inspires you?
KD: I came to poetry fairly late. I was around thirty years old when I visited a friend. While he was getting ready I picked up a copy of Dylan Thomas’ Collected poems. I opened it at random and read a poem called “The Hunchback In The Park”. It made my hair stand on end, and I have been writing on and off ever since.
As for what inspires me, it could be any number of things from a snatch of overheard conversation to seeing something and a line coming into my head. For instance, I overheard a part of a conversation in a shop queue when someone said: ‘I’m tying up the loose ends’. The line stuck in my head and I wrote a song from it. Like wise, I recently wrote the line ‘The Canada geese are standing on the ice’ after walking along the canal near where I live. I like the shape, sound, and rhythm of this, and within it is everything.
LWH: Your winning poem “Passing Through” is an enigmatic and layered piece of writing. Can you tell me a bit about the processes you went through in writing the poem?
KD: The poem came about from the line ‘a white dance of seagulls tango in the sky’. As the poem says, I was standing on a corner watching seagulls when the line came into my mind. I wasn’t going anywhere, and had nothing to do. At the same time I bumped into someone who is now a friend. But there was a time when the meeting would have been emotional turmoil for me.
I wrote the first three lines in a notebook I usually carry. The rest came fairly quickly which is always a pleasure, as sometimes I have to drag the words out kicking and screaming!
LWH: In the poem you create a powerful sense of the narrator’s experience which works on a number of levels to show emotional trauma, and ultimately a sense of isolation. I particularly like your use of destabilised time, space, and the world in expressing the narrator’s experience, pulling this together through the longer verse into the impact on the narrator through the ‘deep stab / In my flesh, the last wraith to burn / In the dark’. I realise that trying to unpick why we use particular allusions in certain ways can be difficult, but is this relationship in the poem something you could discuss further, in terms of why you chose that as the apex of the poem?
KD: The poem is about unrequited love. An unsuccessful realtionship when one partner no longer loves the other, and any meeting between the two causes pain and anguish for one. There come a time however, when this situation no longer exists. Even so, there is a brief fear when the next meeting takes place, followed by immense relief when realisation dawns that the feeling has gone, and he is ‘over her’. ‘The last wraith to burn in the dark’, is the laying to rest the ghost of their doomed ralationship. Followed by relief.
LWH: In writing in free verse rather than rhyming and more formally structured poetry, what difference do you think this made to the processes of writing the poem, and to the finished piece?
KD: I am also a singer songwriter, so I write in rhyme as well. I have written poems in rhyme and turned them into songs. I think that all poets should write in rhyme as well as free verse. Writing in rhyme can stretch you, as it makes you work harder to find the right words to contain the piece within its structure. This helps when writing in free verse as writing in rhyme teaches dicipline, and without some form of discipline the poem can fall apart, although too much discipline can strangle. So although it doesn’t look like it, free verse should have some discipline and simplicity.
LWH: What other forms of writing do you engage in, and which do you prefer and why?
KD: As mentioned before I write songs. I also write prose, which are generall short humourus pieces. As to which I prefer, it depends what sort of day I’m having, and what mood I’m in.
LWH: Tell me a bit about what you are working on at the moment.
KD: At the moment I’ve one song on the go, and one poem. I am also on the third draft of a novel with an unwritten ending!
LWH: Thanks very much Keith, and congratulations on your win!
And so without further ado, LWH are pleased to give you “Passing Through” by Keith Dalton:
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Passing Through
On the corner, a white dance of seagulls
Tango in the sky. I wait for nothing,
Leaning against a wall with no truth to know.
A face in the street hits me
With a moment when there’s
No truth left in day and night.
One day becomes another merging
Smoothly together as the world slips,
Jars on its axis, and spins a deep stab
In my flesh, the last wraith to burn
In the dark. It fades, dies, and you
Were only passing through my mind.
You looked back, surprised at the meeting.
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congratulations on the win
just passing through, the verse prevoked memories