1978
1978 was not a good year, for me
even though I hold it dear
Try as I might I could not find the key
to unlock my brain
work out its mystery
Lurching this way and that
never finding a hold
I fell so many times
but got ever more bold
Crashing right down
I broke back to the core
then inched my way through
to daylight once more
The clay in my hand
is the life that I’ve led
I’ve cried, ached and screamed
and wished I was dead
But I never gave up
and I never gave in
I just kept on going
and drank lots of gin
Joking aside –
though I do like a drop –
I feel like I’ve won
I’ve come out on top
For I have love in my life
a treasure most true
I’m here and I’m now
simply human, through and through
© Maggie ‘Glad the Poet’ Baker 2021
1978 was the year I graduated with a degree in Ceramics from Bristol Polytechnic.
I’d reached out to art in my teens as a way of asserting a direction, without knowing where that direction might take me. It was driven by some deep-rooted instinct; an instinct which for a long time I thought had failed me. But it hadn’t.
As it’s turned out, my life has taken many “twists and turns, and loops and leaps”, most of which have left me struggling to find a foothold. Finally, however, I feel I am on firm ground, and astonished to find myself turning back to working with clay, after a break of over 40 years.
What’s even more astonishing is that I’m not only loving working with the medium, I’ve got ideas coming into my head from goodness knows where. I’m not having to push myself just to produce something, anything, as I did when I was at college (although I was proud of what I did produce in the end; it was no easy feat, considering the complexity of mental health problems I was dealing with).
Art didn’t work as a therapy for me when I was younger; the damage went too deep and I had to find ways to dig it out – just like clay has to be dug out. What I’ve got now is malleable and mouldable in whatever way I choose. I can be creative in any way or ways that suit me; working with clay or words; working with my life.
I hope my pots can be poetic; and that my poetry will continue to be potty.
Glad About 