John Siddique - Poet in Residence
In 2008 we invited John Siddique to be Blackpool’s first Poet in Residence. The residency was managed by Blackpool Arts Service and Blackpool Libraries for the National Year of Reading and was funded by Blackpool Council.
John will present his ‘Poems for Blackpool’ at a special event to be held on National Poetry Day, Thursday October 8th 2009 at the Town Hall. If you or a representative of your community group would like to attend please contact Jane Brooks 01253 478091 or Lynne Pattinson 01253 478238 for more details.
A collection of John’s ‘Poems for Blackpool’ will be published in October for the launch and copies will be available to borrow at your local library after National Poetry Day 2009.
John Siddique
John is a poet with a difference. He says it as it is. He has appeal to both young and older. One of John’s childhood memories is of visiting Blackpool with his father and of enjoying his time here. One of the poems in the Blackpool collection poignantly revisits his memories of this visit. He was keen to return and work with the people of Blackpool and to create something that would last for future generations. John says of the Poet’s job ‘I wanted to show Blackpool’s own heart. Both the town and its people have something, the poet’s job is to report back his findings from these journeys into the interior.’
West
West has always symbolised progress,
the movement west,
The Irish sea, Ireland is west,
New York
America
California is west,
San Francisco is west,
Blackpool is west.
I come in and out with the tides of the wakes weeks,
to play in your arms. To recreate the boy, the worker.
Each northern town's tide, two weeks, two weeks
and the waves pull back out again.
Replaced by new waves, the same waves,
no different from the last. I came to you then,
I come to you now, at this time when the tide rolls faster
- a cheap day return of a tide since the railway came.
Renewal turns to pleasure, turns to indulgence,
turns to questions, who are you under the rolling tide?
Where do you begin and where are you going now?
Will it be more of the same? Or are you your own sea?
Daily lives happen every day, the tide takes no notice.
So we will tell our stories because. Because they are for the telling.
© John Siddique 2008
www.johnsiddique.co.uk
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