If Up's the word, my journey into poetry

My journey into poetry could be the same as a million other English speaking school boys growing up in the sixties in South Africa. Except, I was transplanted at the tender age of 9 some what as a refugee of one white colonizing country into another. My parents had taken the agonizing decision to leave the land they had chosen and head south to Johannesburg, to relative safety. Compared to refugees of today, ours was a sedate, planned and civilized affair. Although the up sticks at that impressionable age was somewhat traumatic, it forever defined me, it formed me and the person I was to become, in a positive, glass-half-full find of way... 

 afrikaans 

Afrikaans was to be learned in a special class for the "immigrants", I think there were three of us. We had the use of a tiny room that was closer to a broom closet, and for at least one lesson per day, use English only speakers, slowly became bilingual. A patient teacher, that i cannot recall, somehow instilled the basics of the rough sounding tongue into our heads with vocabulary and sentence structure in painstaking increments. An early achievement was translating the 'Three Little Pigs' into Afrikaans. It may as well have been Pig Latin, it was so bad. But it was a stepping stone. I think I came across the actual work in my collection of "things that shalt not be discarded" some 50 years old now. Now in later life I really do appreciate the benefits of a second language. A new language at age 9 was easy. As a teenager, I got interested in German (and Germany, through stamp collecting), and learnt the basics from one of those cassette tapes you sent off for. Never very good at finishing things, I might have got half way through the 40 tapes. But it was enough. 

German was a cinch, but only because I had Afrikaans. My parents must have despaired at the started never finished projects... 

 latin

My dad, being of the old school, got his way when it came to Latin vs French at high school. The artistic kids all chose French. The practical ones got their grounding firmly embedded for life by two years of Latin. And my dad was right. He usually was.

 poetry

No, i don't have any such fluency in this sometimes strange "language". And yet, poems speak to me like nothing else can. Not all, but some. With the luxury that is the online world, stumbling over the gems is a privilege those early inventors of the web could not have foreseen. Brian Bilston being one of those gems. Bruce Bristow, in my own town too, brings his gruff talent into my life. I even purchased his latest publication, to gift to a school friend who, thanks to me and the socials, had discovered him, halfway across the world! 

 wedding

My good wife, ever the Achiever, and driving force, if we're honest, was brave enough to include prose into our marriage celebration. The wedding was DIY affair at the farm, in the best possible way that only farm weddings can be. Friends and family from across the country, put up for the night on neighbouring farms, perfectly warm weather, and a tame religious fellow bribed to make it all legal, ensued. (Am I waxing lyrical yet?). Tin cans tied to the car bumper completed the long day. But, also in that collection mentioned above, the wedding sheet of the days proceedings, included EE Cummings "If up's the word". That small gesture, that choice of poem, forever etched in my life could only have been accomplished with prose. (No tuneless guitar-toting hippies sang us into wedded bliss, thank goodness).

 kids

Much later, poetry would return when silly, catchy rhyme was the staple of bed time stories. The genius of Richard Scarry, or the hungry caterpillar, mixed well with Mr grumpy, or Lynley Dodd's wonderful cat-hates-dog world (we were firmly a cat family). 

 poetable

But all too easily, poetry is passed by. And yet the world loves a good Word game played on a little screen at 2pm. Or, heaven forbid, 2AM!

 Hopefully, poetable is one way back in to some poetry for some people.