The Secret Stead is the pen name of a UK-based writer and
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To be a poet
1 - feel it from the nape right down
to the bone marrow in your tail bone.
Open up the diaphragm of your lungs.
Breathe in deeply. Let it go down.
2 - Let the action of your work function
like your body. Don't be singularly narrow
if you can help it; be multiple in meaning.
Don't say it before you mean to,
3 - or mistakenly believe every intent
of your words will begin in the head or heart.
They can start in the alchemy of the belly;
tumbling down to flutter onto the skin.
4 - Cut each work from the navel,
watermarked with a stamp of veins
that pushes the blood out
to flush the cubicle of the heart;
5 - where all thoughts are archived,
sorted and threaded, a spinal corkscrew
that roots you down, or elevates you.
6 - From the hairs on the head
to the end of the toe-nails,
a poet's body is never still.
It's constantly storing and hoarding.
7 - It's a tactile factory
for the mixing of materials;
a publishing house in continual motion,
seldom idle in its printing --
for this is the body
of the poet.
The Food of the Poet
To be a poet
1 - sow yourself out in the fields.
Lie down in rough rows like young-stalks
or bury yourself deep in winter bulbs.
Wait patiently for irrigation
by water or by vision;
2 - and then gather your harvest.
Pick your best words in ripeness
and rumination;
and always in season.
3 - Take them into your kitchen.
Follow some cookbook recipes
if you need to: learn the medicine
of the food; the workings of animal,
vegetable and mineral.
4 - For example, let the words take on
the human nature of an onion:
the more you reveal
the more layers you peel,
or the nature of herbs
that compliment the meat
of feelings thrown
into the stew;
5 - and then salt the words, pepper the letters,
or sugar the sentences to better sweeten
the taste. Stir them well
in a boiling pot of verse;
6 - there is no need for haste, let them simmer
at the correct temperature;
before placing them on the plate of the page.
7 - Let the aroma from your kitchen
make the guests you invite to dinner
hunger, as though they've waited
a thousand days for the food to appear,
8 - then offer up your dishes. Some will be
piping hot, some best served cold,
but always making sure
to save a place for you, for
you have to eat your own words, too --
for this is the food
of the poet.
The Path of the Poet
To be a poet,
1 - draw the reader to you
like a lover; or call over picket fences
to talk like two neighbours
breathing the shared influence
2 - of the same air; where
the touch of inspiration
brings out one to draw in the other.
3 - Let your words share
the same pathways with the heart;
where the future and past walk
the same road in preparation
for the present.
4 - Laugh at the irony
of being economical with words
only to say more.
5 - Allow definitions to perform
a diverse service; such as love,
which can define all or just be
a score of zero in tennis.
6 - Sneeze loudly when you need
to clear out the dust
in the sinuses of your heart's head;
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the doors to your secret stead.
We all have a secret place
even if we don't know it.
8 - Be prepared to stand at its door
and push on through,
before you invite a chosen few
to follow you.
9 - Clean out its rooms, though
don't tidy it unnecessarily; just
discard everything except the promise
to keep those items of real value in it --
for this is the way
of the poet.
Published 12 February, 2011
