Externalising the internal - by Peter Devonald our poet in residence
Latest News January 2025
Awards
· 2024 Delighted to be in the top four in the New2theScene Poetry Competition.
Huge thanks to Richard Howitt and everyone involved in the competition.
2024 The Other Side of the Sky shortlisted Hammond House International Literary Prize
· 2024 Mesmerising Biophony winner Best Poem Loft Books Issue VI. Huge thanks to Claire E Cronin – the excellent editor – and all at Loft Books. https://loftbooks.square.site/
· 2024 Eulogy For A Dream Honourable Mention Dark Poets Prize
Externalising The Internal by Peter Devonald
I was always taken by William Wordsworth’s view of poetry as the "Spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings", that poetry is a natural and instinctive way to express deep emotions. As such – surely it is essential to externalise the internal through poetry?
Viewing the incredible artwork in this months issue, I wonder if art is the truest form now to show our deepest darkest thoughts. Even if there are words written on the canvas, it somehow feels more socially acceptable than using poetry?
While swearing in poetry is generally considered inappropriate, some poets do use it – but it is exceptionally rare, I can’t remember ever seeing an award-winning poem with swearing. So how can we achieve true raw emotion? The delight of art is that it can be searingly honest, vital, and powerful.
Striking examples of swearing in poetry include Philip Larkin’s hugely popular ‘This Be The Verse’.
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
The swearing is seen in the context of literary poetry – it’s vital, raw, but also contained. It fits Mark Twain’s quote; “Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.”
But when there is more profound anger, more searing honesty, often the audience/ poetic establishment winces and looks away. Tony Harrison’s V in 1985 caused an incredible stir: the vitriol is scorching but it is still recognised as one of the greatest post-war English poems. It is intensely direct and unflinching, showing up the divisions in British society created by class, wealth, and education.
Harrison wrote the poem after discovering his parents’ gravestone in Leeds Cemetery had been vandalised by football hooligans. His poem deals with complex feelings as the child of working-class parents who’d been lucky enough to get a classical education at a grammar school, then Leeds University. Influenced by classical models (he’s translated a lot of work from Greek and Latin), it descends (ascends) into everyday Leeds speech and graffiti.
John Cooper Clarke often uses swearing too, Evidently, Chickentown includes 85 F words! Does this improve the poem or restrict it? Does it normalise swearing or just use it as a rhythmical beat?
Of course, there is nothing new to the course in poetry, Catullus wrote this in 80BC!
Peter Devonald
Inscriptions
Trauma twists our bodies inside out,
lymphatic system stalls, stresses, weakens,
then goes into overdrive.
Tragedy embraces immune-mediated diseases,
overactive autoimmune fight or flight;
we suffer illness from stress.
Stress is violence of mind,
the mind and body inextricably linked
the sins of the father / mother / ourselves;
cruelty of the mind, means suffering of the body,
anxiety, post-traumatic stress, the body implodes
drinking slow acting poison, attacks itself.
We have no answers but toxic medication –
cures cause more symptoms, more illness,
bodies out of balance, ordeals break equilibrium –
shatters continuity, scars our future,
causes complex sickness,
we slip and fall, our body weakens.
Bodies inscribed with complex hieroglyphics,
every abuse, trauma, ghosts and ghosting,
every flaw and dirty hand marks with slippery fingers,
every tragedy poisons the contours of our skin,
every hatred and denial, all blemish the history of us,
written on the body, scarred in memory.
COMING SOON
· 2024 Nostalgia Songs published in Buzzin Bards 2024 Poetry Anthology book ed. Maddie McGivney
https://www.localgemspoetrypress.com/buzzin-bards-poetry-anthology.html
· 2024 Unknown Poems published in Poietics of error. Huge thanks to Marie Molins.
· 2024 Ella (Mary Beth Ella Gertrude) - 20th February 2025
Living Fairy Tales - 27th February 2025
Tomorrow I Cease to be Human - 6th March 2025
Huge thanks to the editor Beth O’Brien – amazing site:
https://www.disabledtales.co.uk/poetry
· 2024 Blue Water Serenade publication Tiny Seed Literary Journal’s Water issue. 4/11/2025
2024 in numbers
10 placements:
Winner Best Poem Loft Books Issue VI
Second Prize Shelley Memorial Project Poetry competition
Top Four N2tS Poetry Competition
Finalist in the Tickled Pink ekphrastic contest
Honourable Mention Dark Poets Prize
Highly commended Hippocrates Prize
Shortlisted Hammond House International Literary Prize
Shortlisted The Passionfruit Review competition - In Conversation
Shortlisted Shelley Memorial Project Poetry
Shortlisted Oxford Canal Festival Poetry competition.
14 book anthologies including SkySurfing, Lost at 27: Musicians, Artists, Mortals, Reels: Cinematic Poetry Anthology, Last Light: Apocalypse Anthology, Buzzin Bards 2024, Shelley Memorial Project Poetry anthology, Passionfruit Review, Hippocrates Awards, Morecambe Festival Anthology, Dragon Dreams, Molecules Unlimited Anthology, Ecopoetry, UCD Special Collections.
8 publications including Lapidus magazine, Ranger Magazine, Dreich 100D, Viper’s Tongue Spring Issue, York Literary Review, Door Is A Jar Literary Magazine, The Shallot: Journal of Mental Health, Viper’s Tongue Winter Issue.
25 online zines including Culture Matters, Loft Books, The Bluebird Word, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Cold Moon Journal, Cosmic Daffodil Journal x2, Hearth & Coffin V4, Poietics of error, Outside The Box Poetry, Forget Me Not Press x2, Ephemeras. Mary Evans Picture Library Poems and Pictures, Coffee and Conversations, Starbeck Orion, Poetry Breakfast, Stray Words, Persephone's Fruit, Dirigible Balloon x2, Voidspace.
12 Post newspapers Poetry Corner, 3 Culture Supplements including haiku, interviews and articles. Future: Tiny Seed and Disabled Tales. 12 issues of haus-a-rest as part of my residency
Thank you to all the wonderful editors, publishers, and readers, your support, help, and guidance mean everything. And huge thanks to Jenna and Nichola for this wonderful adventure with haus-a-rest
Anthologies / Publications
· 2024 Tiny Butterfly Effect – SkySurfing, a children’s poetry anthology. Huge thanks to the wonderful Editor Jonathan Humble – who has created the amazing children’s poetry space at Dirigible Balloon – December release in bookshops. Profits go to Juvenile Arthritis Research if you purchase directly at this address (instead of Amazon): https://dirigibleballoon.org/
· 2024 Manic Street Preacher 4Ever Cicada Song Press edited by the excellent Mona Mehas. https://www.cicadasongpress.com/lost-at-27
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1966275013?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
· 2024 Unfinished - Reels: Cinematic Poetry Anthology Broken Spine.
Massive thanks to the wonderful editor, Alan Parry.
· 2024 Red Earth Returning - Last Light: Apocalypse Poetry Anthology from The Broken Spine. Massive thanks to the wonderful editor, Alan Parry. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DMSPRGF7?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
· 2024 Music is Moonlight and Winter Solstice Lapidus magazine Issue Five. Huge thanks to the editors. Alison Cable & Kate Poll https://lapidus.org.uk/news/
· 2024 Mesmerising Biophony Loft Books Issue VI. https://loftbooks.square.site/
· 2024 some other life & we wonder: Tanka chosen for Cold Moon Journal November
Fantastic site, amazing haiku, highly recommended. Huge thanks to Roberta Beach Jacobson
https://coldmoonjournal.blogspot.com/
· 2024 Parasite Hearth & Coffin V4 “Gossip Horror” https://www.hearthandcoffincom/
Direct link to my poem: https://www.hearthandcoffin.com/post/parasite
· 2024 Monthly Poetry Corner and Culture Supplement - Manchester Post and Stockport Post.
Interview with Linda Mosley Cosgriff, article about SkySurfing and Haiku published
https://communitynewsgm.co.uk/stockport-post-newspapers/