So, we’re still alive until the next Doomsday prediction. You know what that means – more reflections!
Only three to go. This one is from Broede Carmody, on his poem ‘Waterbed’.
Beau Hillier | Editor, page seventeen
***
For me, poetry is about wrestling with the inertia of words. It’s about blood-beat. Building up, stripping down, making layers. Falling through yourself and coming out the other side.
For this reason the first drafts of my poems are clumsy, like sleepwalking. I keep multiple notebooks and my poems often grow out of a single line that I’ve jotted down and forgotten about for a while.
‘Waterbed’ was no different. The poem stemmed from the line ‘Ocean spray vodka against your skin’. I often write about nature, particularly water and sky, so the sea seemed like a logical setting as this is where these two elements combine most vividly. Perhaps I write about the ocean so much because I lived so far away from it as a kid.
The last stanza is a reference to Steph Bowe’s Girl Saves Boy. I reread the book just before writing the poem and one of the protagonists, Sacha, steals garden gnomes. I love how everyone has their own little quirks and habits – and for some reason I felt it necessary to build this into the poem.
***
Broede Carmody is currently the poetry editor at Voiceworks magazine.