As I wrap up the month and close the book slowly on my time in Edinburgh, Scotland, I look back and reflect on the poetic growth and inspiration I have gotten from the poetry community here and I realized a couple of amazing and auspicious things about this place and the people in it. I wrote in stanzas for some reason, we’ll call it habit: Here
I am aloud to be a poet. Period. There is no such thing as a poet who is not yet a poet. Just poets trying to be the best poet they can be. That is the beauty of poetry. I came here and identified as a poet and was not compared to a BNV champion, I was not degraded to a hobbyist, and I wasn’t told that I wasn’t good enough to take the title and claim the name. This, is what it looks like when poetry has equality. There is no room for hierarchy, for the adoration of poets that make more money than they do change more headlines than they do thoughts. Are there poets with more experience you may ask? Of course! But these are the same poets who will invite you to a pub after the event and engage in poetic discourse. They will ask you to challenge, ask, and debate with confidence that you are being heard as a poet, nothing more, nothing less. These poets are the same poets that will book you for gigs and encourage you to do better, be better, and perform more. These are the same poets that will ask what works for you after the workshop– These are the same poets that will actually HOST WORKSHOPS!! This is called accessible inspiration. Along with the many other amazing performers in the area I hit the jackpot in Edinburgh, Scotland. So there I sat in a pub, with a bunch of amazing artists discussing Poetry as she was happening in Edinburgh. As if she was living, breathing and wasn’t picky in inhabiting everybody. You felt the movement and Poetry opened her palm to you because you were especially invited. It was refreshing to talk about the poetry I was living; there was no obsessing over poets we will never get to talk to or work with Because they are too famous to spend time with us without a substantial fee. All the poets here are poets by their own decree. Here, a poet is active in adding to the canon submitting theories to poetic action. No application is needed. A poet is a poet. Period. Only 5 months in this city/town I can’t say I know every corner. But I do know now that I will hold proud my title as a Poet Performance poet Spoken word artist Extender of word Tamer of thought Sharer of heart. We don’t need slam championships and publishers to open our lips. And as I see the American horizon I know there are poets who are dying to speak but they think they need the money and need to be famous for people to give them a listen. I will tell them what I learned from Edinburgh What I learned from Loud Poets What I learned from Glasgow What I learned from Scotland If you are a poet. You are poet. Period.
2 Comments
Carly Brown
5/9/2014 08:44:37 am
So grateful to have met you Tayllor! Best of luck with all your endeavors back in the States. xx
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Tayllor JohnsonThis is my reality as I see it in stanzas as I study Psychology, English, and French in Scotland. Archives
May 2014
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