The Tiger Poet vs. 2014

And so we've come to the end of another year. It seems like only last week that I started writing this blog, but considering that I started in June this isn't such a dramatic opening to a post. With New Year's Eve upon us and the inevitable revelries about to start, I've decided to take some time out and reflect upon the year just gone. To try and sum it up in full is a task for someone better qualified than me, so I'll give my own perspective on what has made 2014 a truly eventful year.

The first big event this year was this blog being created. Anyone who's read my first post will know that I decided to start a blog due to being on a creative writing course at university, and that it seemed quite appropriate. You may also know that I was originally called something else, but that I had to change my name when I discovered that somebody else had taken it. I chose my current name due to a lot of my poetry having a recurring theme involving tigers. I know I haven't discussed this theme in detail this year, so expect more tiger poetry in the New Year, as well as more stuff to start arriving on the YouTube channel.

Two other big events I saw this year as the Tiger Poet were the centenary of Dylan Thomas and my trip to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Seeing a poet as famous as Dylan Thomas being celebrated for his poetry gave me an extra boost to get my own work out there. Despite the fact that the only thing I have in common with Thomas is being Welsh, the discussion of his poetry inspired me to increase my own output and to further my understanding of poetry.

Then there was the Edinburgh Fringe, where I was astounded by the sheer volume of creativity on display, and where I first saw performance poetry somewhere other than university. Aside from the music and theatre I also saw, it was Kevin P. Gilday is the Man Who Loved Beer which gave me first-hand experience of how spoken word is performed in a live setting. I have always noted how performance poets always seem to perform their work at the same pitch and with the same tone. In Gilday's case however, his delivery was entirely suitable to the subject matter, and now I realise that this point can be modified if the poet has a strong individual voice. Gilday certainly had that and I look forward to seeing some more spoken word in the future.

The big event in Wales this year was of course the NATO summit held at the Celtic Manor in Newport. It was perhaps the single biggest event to be held in Newport in living memory, and the arrival of Barack Obama caused more than a stir in South Wales. The first US president to visit Wales left the Welsh people somewhat star-struck, and he brought a three thousand strong entourage with him. The most important outcome of the summit was the ceasefire in Ukraine, which was announced by President Poroshenko on the Celtic Manor's lawn. However my main memory of the summit will be the Osprey V22 which flew over my house. Never before had Frynwys seen anything like it, and I doubt we'll be seeing much like it again.

For me personally, starting my third and final year at university has been a defining event of 2014. Soon my studies will be at an end, and I face the daunting prospect of graduating and going off into the big wide world of work. Quite what I intend to do beyond that is a mystery to me at the moment, but I intend to carry on with this blog and to bring you content on a regular basis. This year my output has been on and off at the best of times, but going forward I will make it my New Year's resolution to bring you new posts at least every week. In the last few months I've tried to keep a consistent schedule, but with the new year will come more new and exciting things.

So, that's it. The year is done and dusted. All I can say now is goodbye to 2014. It's been a fun year, but all eyes are now turning towards the clock for the countdown to the New Year. Hope you all enjoy the fireworks and I'll see you all in 2015.

Happy New Year everyone!

The Tiger Poet vs. Dylan Thomas

In several posts on this blog I've often mentioned that my home village is so small that nothing much happens in it. However, if you're Welsh I doubt you've been able to escape from the centenary of this country's most famous poet.

The celebrations surrounding the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dylan Thomas have been nothing if not plentiful. Tributes to the famously exuberant and colourful storyteller have included Benjamin Zephaniah's mission to modernise Under Milk Wood with a cast made up of the residents of Town Hill, a bronze statue of the poet being erected near his house in Swansea, and a drama film shown on BBC One Wales about Thomas's untimely death. To many, Thomas is a defining figure of Welsh poetry and a symbol of Welsh culture, who was just as much renowned for his private life as for his verse.

When it comes to discussing Dylan Thomas, there is always mention of how distinctly Welsh his poetry is. I experienced this first hand during one of my creative writing seminars at university. In a poetry seminar we looked at Thomas's 'Do not go gentle into that good night' as an example of a perfect villanelle. When we were asked to write our own villanelle, I felt it my absolute duty as a Welshman to live up to Thomas's legacy and produce a poem that was just as powerful. I won't put the result up on this blog unless there's a demand for it, but I'll say that id didn't work as well as I hoped, and here's my question. How does my poetry compare to Thomas's?

I'm aware that comparing myself to Dylan Thomas is like comparing a house cat to a lion. In trying to determine common threads between our writing, I'm struck by how I don't measure up to Thomas's energetic poetic voice. Thomas writes about things that are characteristic of Welsh society, such as the tight-knit communities where everybody knows each other and the eccentricities of ordinary people. I write about tigers mostly, but I also write about India, animals in unusual situations, and all kinds of abstract things which poets as far back as the Augustan Age were talking about. In practice, although we share the same Welsh heritage, Thomas's poetry and my poetry couldn't be more different.

There are occasions when I've written about Wales or written in my native voice. Recently, on the advice of a poetry lecturer, I've been writing poems about domestic situations and events from my own childhood. I haven't tried this in a conscious effort to emulate Thomas, but a meagre similarity can be drawn in my new poems' fixation on the Welsh landscape and his own work. In one such poem, 'Wimberries', I attempted to recreate a childhood tale set in the landscape surrounding Blaenavon, in a similar vein to Thomas's depiction of his own childhood in A Child's Christmas in Wales, but really the similarities are not many.

Thomas was writing in a very different era to the one I'm writing in now. He was subject to the hardships of trying to raise a family, sustain both them and himself, and finding time to write poetry in the midst of these pressures, as well as contending with his ever-famous alcoholism. I haven't experienced any of those things, and I wonder sometimes if I had been born back then, would I have been subjected to any of Thomas's rigours?

Of course, I'm speculating way too much and punching far above my feeble weight, but in comparing my poetic efforts to those of arguably the greatest Welsh poet, I hope I can shed some light on how my own work has room to develop. As a fledgling writer, I can't hope of matching the likes of Dylan Thomas, but by seeing what worked for him, I might find something that will work for me.

Anyways, Happy Centenary Dylan Thomas!