These little words, what power...

I have a friend who thinks poetry is a complete waste of time. He even listens to music without lyrics as far as possible, because if it doesn't have some kind of message or "point" then he's not going to bother with it. As a complete word-phile, I disagree. I don't think it needs to have an explicit point for it to be useful or comforting or thought-provoking or beautiful. In fact, I am probably one of the very few people who is glad that we studied poetry for our English GCSEs. Without that anthology I probably would never have found Simon Armitage and bought his Book of Matches, and then I would never have found this on page 21.

æŋkɪˈlɘʊzɪŋ spɒndɪˈlaɪtɪs:
ankylosing meaning bond or join
and spondylitis meaning of the bone or spine.
That half explains the cracks and clicks,
the clockwork of my joints and discs,
the ratchet of my hips. I'm fossilizing -
every time I rest
I let the gristle knit, weave, mesh.

My dear, my skeleton will set like biscuit overnight,
like glass, like ice, and you can choose
to snap me back to life before first light,
or let me laze until
the shape I take becomes the shape I keep.

Don't leave me be. Don't let me sleep.       

©Simon Armitage 1993

It's not a poem with an obvious point, I guess, and I can see that it might look a little like self-pitying wallowing. It doesn't talk about the futility of capitalism or gender roles or voter apathy. But it is special to me. It reflects real worries and emotions, it tells you you're not alone when your imagination goes to town with Google image search, it speaks of the frightening uncertainty of the future. For me, the best bit, besides imagining what kind of biscuit I'd like my skeleton to be (mmmm, gingerbread, please) is the last line.

Don't leave me be. Don't let me sleep.

A desperate plea to his partner, I think, but also a reminder that for some people AS never goes away, and wakes you up in the dead of the night to leave you without sleep and in agony. (Ha! I knew there was a reason they gave me an A* for talking cowpat English Lit). The bottom line? Poetry is cool, man.



Simon Armitage says his AS is now in remission. Our GCSE class went to a Poetry Live! roadshow before we took our exams, where he explained that the visible signs of bone fusion had halted and he was no longer in pain*.

*Incidentally, taking a bunch of 16 year-olds to a poetry reading and letting them ask questions afterwards is a recipe for disaster. An example of an actual question to Carol Ann Duffy, a professor of poetry, 2009 Poet Laureate, acclaimed playwright etc etc, asked by my classmate: "Why is your voice so boring?"