Back to the subject in hand, the blog title. The line 'a metre of white ribbon' comes from a poem called Nudeness I wrote nearly a decade ago. In 2003 I was seventeen, most waking moments were spent deep in poetic thought about the future and what I wanted to do after I finished school, despite that being two years away at the time. I would happily dream many lessons away thinking of lines to add to new poems and plots for short stories. I even wrote a short novel, how I would kill to have time to enjoy like that now. Originally Nudeness was written in English with a literal French translation mirroring it on the other side of the page. It was different and sparked a new train of thought within my poetry, I experimented more with language and avoiding the logical. I was deeply in love with anything with a double or hidden meaning, my imagination was captured by a certain individual who very much shared my interests and was encouraged by my interest in interesting things as it later transpired. I started a poetry diary back at the start of 2004 and the entry on Tuesday, 3rd February was Nudeness. I wrote it in a German history lesson, looking back now I have virtually no memory of writing it but it wasn't unusual for me to sit in my lessons and scribble poems in my notebooks after dreaming them up. My lack of attention in class lead me to entering Nudeness in a writing competition up at the local university where I was a runner-up. At a lunch for the winners I was asked if all my poetry was 'erotically charged' and I remember not knowing quite what to say, especially in front of my parents. When I left home in September 2005 to study history in Aberystwyth I set about decorating my sea view room with lots of beautiful and quirky pictures and some of my poems. I can't remember how I came up with the idea but I decided it would be interesting to print the words out to Nudeness and stick them on an actual metre of white ribbon and put it on my door for everyone to see. It just worked and I loved it. I still have that piece of ribbon although the words have long since been removed. It's somehow symbolic to the way I've felt in a creative sense over the past few years, the thoughts have still been there but have been locked away in a corner of my imagination that isn't as free as it once was. Perhaps over time it will open up again, we will see but for now, here is Nudeness.
Nudeness
Get
on the floor,
Undress.
I’m
vulgar,
Crude
like
you.
What
do we do?
I
bind your hands together
with
a metre
of
white ribbon.
Your
lip splits
I
savour your blood,
The
taste of sweet bitter blood
forever
lingers
on
my palette.
From
the floor
I
see you rise up,
Out
of the ashes,
dress
and
firmly shut the door
against
me.
© Phillippa Rayner 2004
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