Sat at the Crossroads

This year is the halfway point in my ten years to become an overnight success journey. I am not the person who set out in January 2022, posting their first poem on Instagram, and I am not living anything like the same life. Unlike a decision like going to University, I could never have expected that decision, which wasn’t much of a thing at the time, could possibly have gotten me to where I am today.

My poetry journey has become my life, and that’s mind-blowing when I stop to think about it. (And I do stop to think about it.) On this journey, I have been reluctant to set grand goals. My aim when I started was to be published. By published I had in mind what I had seen when I was in my 20s, just after university, when I saw a collection of poems by someone in my wider “acquaintance” circle in a book shop. I didn’t feel jealousy; I was impressed but also saddened that I hadn’t made friends with them. Sorry, I can’t remember their name.

I bought a copy of Generation X by Douglas Coupland (which I still have) and regrettably didn’t buy the collection. If reading Wilfred Owen and listening to Bob Dylan switched me on to poetry, then this incident is what catalysed into me eventually writing it. I remember thinking, “That is so cool”. I can’t remember which London Waterstone’s I was in, but twenty years and a cerebrovascular incident or two later, I still remember that feeling of “so cool”.

That was as far as my thinking went, probably until January 2022, and literally starting over, again, only this time with less than before and disabled. That feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago. When I set out with that first post, I had my goal and a knowledge that it was a process that I would have to learn to get there. Publishing was the goal, but it wasn’t “publishing” alone. My goal is really to be able to walk into Waterstones (or similar) and see my collection on the table display as you come in the door.

I don’t think they have become a “famous” poet, and not recalling their name 100%, I can’t really check if they have published or even look up that collection. I know who I thought it was, but checking them turned up nothing, so the likelihood is I am not remembering them correctly.

That is not the point. Pausing to remember where and why I started has been important more than ever because I feel like I lost at least a year when I forgot what this was about. It has never been about the metrics; it has always been about the becoming. Even if I had gotten picked up a week in and published by a name publisher, my journey would not have been over. That goal of publishing a collection can be achieved over and over again. The process of learning how to get work published and connect with an audience is never done. The journey only ends when I stop taking it, which is one allure of the endeavour.

At the outset, I knew that being published at all was not likely, not even probable. The most likely outcome was never being published at all. If I was, it was not going to be a big brand publisher like Penguin or Harper Collins. Later, I learned about Amazon self-publishing, indie publishers and zines. The dream of being on the bookshop table hasn’t ended, it has more life than ever

Somehow, 2026 feels like it’s important. I might be putting pressure on myself I don’t need; I may be translating opportunities into sticks to hit myself with, I am good at that. I do know that this is the year where I am focused on my commitment to follow through on good practices and processes. These are things I definitely let slip away when I got seduced by the vanity of metrics. Practices and processes are also the most difficult things to be consistent with; they aren’t necessarily glamorous, but they are how I consistently show up for my goals. So, I remind myself that consistently showing up and doing the work is how any overnight success is achieved.

Fight the sense of overwhelm and the zeitgeist of pointlessness, refuse to become numb and indifferent to the cruelty and injustice of the world because I can’t change it right now, and for one more week: keep on keeping on.

Poem: Nothing to Say

There is nothing,

No words or shapes,

Only foggy sorrow.

Or is it sadness?

Full of emptiness,

Overwhelming powerlessness,

I am, meaningless.

Barely a number, somewhere,

More of a semi-fictional digital footprint,

Than valuable for who I am.

Perhaps, when feeling worthless

You could say, that’s a good thing.

It’s not.