My writing process: the first poem 'x marks the spot'
August 5, 2011
I sat down to write the first poem obsessing about absence and presence within the theatre and as a concept. I knew that I wanted to evoke a devotional tone in a poem with a wide sweep that swells to some sort of crescendo. But apart from that I had no idea where to start? My writing buddy Karen McCarthy Woolf had set me a writing task – to write a religious, devotional, spiritual poem or a hymn addressing an inanimate object and I wondered if this could be my starting point.
I began to re-read some of the poems by my favourite poets that I had copied into my notebook. One day I came across a poem by Gabriel Mistral called footprint (reading other people's poems when I am working on a project and am quite stuck is always inspirational for me in some way). It acted like a spark; suddenly I began to think about footprints/ footsteps. The marks that we make in life, how do we leave traces of ourselves?
This led me to think about the floorboards along the corridor that leads to the café. They were bare, untreated, old and raw and had been described as an eyesore by one of the people that I had interviewed. I must admit that it looked rather out of place outside such a magnificent theatre. Then I found out that the floor was comprised entirely from the boards of the old theatre stage and I began to walk along the corridor differently, aware that I was walking on history, knowing that some of the world's most famous actors had walked on these same floor boards before me.
I remembered that I had filmed the floorboards and decided to look at the footage. As I watched my boots walking along the floor I began to notice that there were a lot of 'X's etched into the floor. The more I looked at the floorboards the more 'X's appeared in black marker, green faded pen, scratched into the wood, or the remnants of old tape. There were 'X's everywhere.
The phrase 'x marks the spot' jumped into my head and somehow I had an idea or a first line or a title for the first poem. I began to make lists of things that I could write about. Slowly a rough draft was born.
X marks the spot (rough)
It starts with sticky tape paste to a bare wooden floor,
two pieces crossed like lovers to mark the actors spot.
It starts with the x on the wooden floor where Judy Dench first stood
a young sapling quivering in the wings.
It's that first kiss Romero stole from Juliet
that ravaged a civil war
It's the gift – a ticket purchased by the friend who stood in the cold for hours, the line a snake in deep cold snow
It is a white swan swimming gracefully – a spectacle, hidden are her paddling feet the directors machinations.
It is a shrine to the master of sonnets. Whose name forever holds the kiss of the last two couplets.
It is the man coming here since 1959, who always says to his wife just before they step into the hushed theatre. Says to her in Russian, 'Ne MagU zHiT' bes teby A' - I can't live without you.
It is the wife who wonders is he talking about; me, these plays, this theatre, or this place.
It is the kiss of the actor's feet on stage in the packed silent theatre. The bang and drum of their frenzied footsteps It is the gift of so famous a bard in Stratford's river, the Avon's blood.
It is the kiss, the x, the simple kiss of lips on lips.
I thought that I was on to something here. I liked the tone so I began to play around with the poem. I began to look up myths, symbols and definitions for x. I began to think about the poem in couplets and made a list of everything I thought would be relevant from had the interview recordings, post-it notes, and letters.
I also decided to break the raw lines that I had into couplets to see what this would yield. So another version emerged...
X marks the spot
It starts with sticky tape paste to a bare wooden floor,
two pieces crossed like lovers to mark the actors spot,
It starts with x on the naked floor
where a young Judy Dench first quivered on stage
It's the gift – a ticket purchased by the friend who queued long hours in deep snow clutching a flask of tea.
It is the shrine to the master of sonnets, whose name forever holds the kiss of the last two couplets.
It is the man who always says to his wife in Russian just before they step
into the hushed theatre, 'Ne MagU zHit'bes teby A' - I can't live without you.
It is the wife who has wondered since 1959, is he talking about me these plays, this
theatre or the place, and never dared to ask.
It is the kiss of the actor's feet on the stage in the packed hush
the bang and drum of their frenzied feet its own theatre.
It is the kiss, the x, the simple kiss of lips on lips.
My struggle began here. The poem began to indicate its own form. It said I am a lyric poem. It said I reject narrative. I want to be symbolic, logical, and precise. I want to be couplets. I want each couplet to hold a separate unit/ idea that could be read on its own as well as a part of the entire poem. As a poet whose strength lies in writing narrative poems, I knew that this would be a difficult struggle. I spent months working on the poem, researching the lyric poem, and reading up about the Ghazal – a poetic form that has its roots in 17th century Arabia and is used to this day in the Middle East and the Indian continent. This poetic form interested me because it is made up of couplets and each couplet is 'structurally, thematically and emotionally autonomous from the other couplets' poetry.org (see http://tinyurl.com/czcodd for more information about Ghazal). I needed to use some of the ingredients of this structure to write my poem, but I was not writing a Ghazal.
I had to throw away all aspects of narrative in the drafts and it killed me to have to get rid of my Russian man and his wife, as this had been one of my favourite lines. Then I began to look at all of the pictures that I had taken of the RSC to find physical evidence of 'X's. I found: the knight in the stained glass window (in the swan part of the theatre), the parquet floor in the swan room, I began to remember watching the video of the rebuilding and seeing two mechanical cranes face each other with their extensions making the sign of the cross. I was definitely on to something now.
There were some scenes that I knew I wanted in the poem so I had to work hard to verify their 'X' worthiness in order for them to be included. I wanted Hamlet in there; everyone had spoken about David Warner playing Hamlet in the sixties and how iconic this was. They all spoke about the impact of hamlet wearing a red scarf and I wanted him in this poem but most importantly I wanted to talk about the scarf. Warner and that scarf had had left quite a mark on the role of Hamlet and as such needed to be in my poem. But I had to find an x or he would be out. I danced around the room when I noticed that his red scarf was crossed on both shoulders forming two 'X's.
There had been a considerable amount of anecdotes about a play where bicycle pumps were used as swords in a duel. People were delighted at the sounds of a sword being drawn coming from a bicycle pump and the clash of the pump against pump in a duel. It seemed to be one of those exciting magical moments that lived on in the imagination of everyone that I had interviewed and I wanted it in. That was very challenging as I could only use two lines to describe this. I am sure that I got grey hair trying to achieve this task.
A lady told me about her father who was a theatre critic and the way that he would sit in the theatre writing his review during the performance with a lit pen and afterwards he would race outside to the red telephone box to dictate it to his editor so that it could make the morning paper. I loved the way that she described standing in the phone box hugging his knee whilst he talked on the phone and tried in vain to include this into the poem but it would not work. After several drafts I realized that the beauty of the image was simply the lit pen scribing in the theatre over crossed knees as opposed to the daughter in the phone booth.
I had asked for stories about romance at the RSC and a lady came in and told me that her husband had proposed to her during the interval of Coriolanus. How he had jumped onto the stage and proposed as soon as the house lights came on and she laughed saying it had been such a bloody baptism into marriage, as well as the most unromantic setting or environment for a proposal. I was keen to have that in this poem. I felt that this was a mark if ever there was one. Yet it was one of the most difficult images to portray in a couplet.
There were some personal disappointments. I really wanted to get the clothes installation on the ceiling near the cloakroom into the poem. It looked like a possibility when I noticed the 'X' on the doors at the back of the space, but I soon realised that this was a cross not an 'X' and sadly we had to lose that image.
But I was pleased to be able to include the Swan Reading Room. It was delightful to notice that the parquet floor was full of 'X's. I was pleased, as the Swan Reading Room had been my office during the residency. It had been the place where I sat to gather my stories, the place where people left their stories for me on post-it notes and whiteboard paper, where people sat and talked to me, where I taped my interviews. This was the room where I had made my own mark so I was delighted to have it represented in this first poem.
The most interesting part of writing this poem was creating each couplet on its own as if each was its own poem, then once they were all individually crafted, having to assemble them as a complete poem placing couplet against couplet for emphasis.
The poem was very hard to write, but I am very proud of it. It allowed me to broaden my repertoire as a poet and is a very clever and evocative lyric poem that I feel captures the mood and tone of the RSC. It may not be as devotional as I wanted it to be. But every poet knows that there is a stage in the creation process where the poem takes control and begins to chart its own path. The poet can only follow and use his or her own knowledge to enable the poem to be itself in the best way possible. Here's the final poem...
X marks the spot
One stained glass knight leans on a golden lance,
his red tabard slashed with a thick white X.
Two cycle pumps transform into crossed swords,
that clink and clash, steel unleashed on steel.
Hamlet lopes into sixties angst: all sulks
and scruff, rebel red scarf wrapped round his neck.
The writer sits cross-legged, notebook on knee,
his pen shines a small light as he scribes.
An extended family of parquet stretches out,
arms touching feet along the Swan Room floor.
Two tall cranes face each other, then genuflect
their necks twisting into the perfect x.
A man makes his mark in the interval: half way
through bloody Coriolanus, he decides to propose!
Where young Judy Dench first took to the stage.
It's the kiss, the simple x of lips on lips.
by Malika Booker
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