Crap Poems

Welcome friends, to Crap Poems.

What’s the point of this? Why are you here looking at a page called ‘Crap Poems’? Why should you bother reading this?

Well, as part of the COPE Campaign crusade, I realised recently that I need to spread my own wings and prove how they work.

Obviously I am constantly working creatively already and, to be honest, until recently I thought that writing fiction, writing blog posts and drawing pictures was enough to prove my point. But it’s not.

I’m promoting CCS really heavily, trying to make it clear what having passions gives back to you. Finding a passtime you adore and having it prepped and ready for a stressful moment is an essential part of your own personalised CCS.

But I’ve had drawing and writing waiting for me for so long now that the enjoyment is starting to drain and sometimes even unwelcome. Don’t get me wrong, I can still lose myself in a forest full of trees or a candycane village, but because I’m drawing for this site, for other publications and for magazines, there is now a pressure to get the job done, and done well.

Pressure has NO PLACE whatsoever within your COPE plan. That’s not the point, and creative ventures that make you anxious won’t help you – they’ll just make you even more anxious, right?

So if I’m telling you to find your bliss in uncharted places, I need to do the same myself. Not only does it give me the opportunity to show you how this works, it’ll also give me my own distraction. Although I’m passionate to the core about this crusade, I have multiple mental illnesses myself so it’s neglectful to let it take over and forget about my own self care.

This page will therefore feature every post I create under the umbrella of my own CHOSEN CCS – Crap Poetry.

Yes, it’s a funny title. But I haven’t chosen it just to get attention, it also proves that your creativity doesn’t need to be perfect or polished in any way. My own Crap Poems are testament to colouring outside the lines, knitting with holes in the pattern, singing out of tune and dancing like an escaping penguin – it doesn’t matter what it looks like, sounds like, feels like or what others might think. What matters is SOLELY how it makes YOU FEEL.

If it’s good (and legal) and you’re happy then FUCK outside opinions. Prep it so it’s ready for stressful moments and deploy it when you need to. In the beginning at least, I recommend you keep it private while you get to grips with your new passion and get comfortable with the best way of utilising it.

If you NEVER show it to another soul that is ABSOLUTELY FINE.

I am only doing this publicly for your benefit. It’s not because I’m a poet – I’m not, it’s not because I think I’m accomplished or good – I don’t, it’s not because I want negativity or praise – it’s not necessary. It’s just to prove that even crap poems can help, a hobby that I didn’t know I’d enjoy until I was forced to study it as part of my degree.

Let me talk briefly about that. Poetry is an essential part of Creative Writing and as a result, I had multiple modules to grapple with during that part of my course. The poetry sections filled me with nothing but dread. I can’t think about a poem that doesn’t rhyme or end with a swear word. I remember limericks, rhyming poems from childrens books and a single poem entirely in French from year 8 of secondary school (100% true). Other than that my exposure to the craft was zero. I was worried about the form without rhymes, which I knew was coming. I was worried about getting across strong emotion and meaning, and using the structure of the poem in a clever way. I was even worried about my use of grammar, although that’s a constant anxiety of mine because I’m bloody terrible at it.

But when the time came to do the study and understand what I needed to create, I found myself actually enjoying the process. It started differently because my anxiety was huge and I couldn’t see past it, but with some guidance from my tutor and digesting the most important and relatable parts of poetry as I studied, out of nowhere I started to enjoy it.

And I didn’t fail it!

My point is that clearly your creative bliss can be lurking somewhere that you’ve never looked, maybe somewhere you’d never even consider looking, but that doesn’t mean you should rule it out.

Trying things is important, and giving yourself a chance to really learn if it works for you is important too. Most of all remember WHY you’re doing it, what it will give you in return and enjoy the process. It’s supposed to be fun.

If you find something and it doesn’t gel with you, bin it and move on.

More about how to create your own COPE Plan is on the COPE Campaign page of this site.

Enjoy (If you’re feeling brave!)!

Crap Poems

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