Off by Heart

Reading Jay Griffith's passionate, poetic book, 'Kith the riddle of the Childscape'. Thinking about early childhood influences on my creativity and talking with my children about learning poetry off by heart... Understanding the power of words - that physical sense of them, their weight, their potency as energy, matter. Creative currency, muttered under your breath, your own magic spell. Chanted to keep out the dark and the fear. As a child it was Ted hughes, Blake, Kipling, but first and foremost Edward Lear and 'The Jumblies' setting off in a sieve to exotic lands and coming back changed after 20 years of impossible travels to the 'torrible zone' and 'the hills of the Chankly Bore'...

Now aged 40 and coming back with a sense of urgency to my creative work, I feel some pleasing resonance with them and their 20 year long trip and their homecoming...