My second poem to get the treatment for ‘Poem of the week’ comes from everybody’s favourite punk/goth/speaker of amazing words Geneviève L. Walsh.
Gen is the host of the amazing “Spoken Weird” night in Halifax but I first came across her at the Chorlton Book Festival in 2017 where she was headlining an event at the library. I was blown away by her flawless confidence on stage, the seamless links to musical references within her poetry and the way that despite her style being invariably dark, there was a real lightness of mood about the place as she shared the words.
I was absolute chuffed to bits when she became our very first headliner at our own spoken word evening ‘Waffle’ in January of this year. It was the perfect way to kick off our new event in Ramsbottom.
On top of all that, she’s a cracking host and a bringer together of people - her newest ventures - an LGBTQ+ night to sit alongside her established Open Mic evening - ‘Spoken Queered’ - has been going from strength to strength and she’s currently touring her new show “A Place in the Shade” to packed out crowds.
This poem “From the ashes of a poet” is from her debut book ‘The Dance of a Thousand Losers’ and is a brilliant example of why I enjoy her work. We all want our final resting place to be somewhere special, almost sacred - yet what will be our legacy? How will the trees grow from the nutrition we provide?
For more information on Geneviéve’s work you can head out to www.genevievelwalsh.com
From the Ashes of a Poet
By Geneviève L. Walsh
Don’t go down to that tree lads,
it’s grown from the ashes of a poet.
The bark smells like hyperbole and resentment,
it’s covered in a half-blood-half-rum sap
and they say if you stand beneath it
and blare out your favourite tune,
the wind
will whisper
‘What
is
that crap you’re listening to?’
It isn’t haunted, nothing so passé,
but they say it creaks if you use its shade
to throw around clichés.
The leaves, in the right light, turn
from mondegreens
to Purple Haze,
but try to take a picture
and it’s gone.
When Black Friday comes, they say
you can hear it groaning as you pass,
that its moaning, bending branches
cast a menace over this place.
They say
there are lyrics chipped into the bark
that you can only see
when you’re off your face
Try and take a picture
and it’s gone.
No matter how tired you grow
of the ache
of the midday sun,
don’t go and stand in that shadow.
You’ll come back battered,
wistful, shattered
and gleefully bleak.
Don’t go down to that tree, lads,
it sprung from the ashes of a freak.
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