![]() And it’s the same root as ‘sentimental,’ but this is a really really unsentimental poem, isn’t it? And you talk about being honest and admitting to these feelings. And it’s from the Latin ‘to feel,’ ‘sentire’. And I was thinking about that… because, obviously, you’ve highlighted the word by making it the title, and I couldn’t resist looking at the etymology. And I was thinking, ‘I lose myself in the making,’ made me think of poetry because I’m much more likely to lose myself in making poetry than a meal. So, that bit, I lose myself in the making, in the first line. But I like the, you know, if you take ‘i’ away, that you get ‘sentence.’ And also the sentence of writing a sentence as well. I was very conscious of that, the other connotation of the word ‘sentience,’ which is the capacity to experience feelings and sensations. So, like the title of the poem, ‘Sentience,’ if you take away the ‘i’ it’s like, ‘Sentence.’ Yeah, it kind of feels like a sentence. I think that’s what they had in common, that they were abandoned, you know.Īnd I think for a child that has parents like that, I think you take on the burden of their unhappiness, in a way. He was a manic-depressive.Īnd then my mom, who was Irish, she never knew her mother, she died when she was about three. And I think that’s because probably… well, one of the reasons could be is both my parents didn’t have any parents of their own or their parents… my dad didn’t know his father, and then his mom put him in a children’s home at a young age because she couldn’t control him. And I think it’s because some people, you can spend a whole life, while they’re alive, grieving for them, and I think that’s probably why I didn’t grieve when they died. And I guess there was a bit of a perplexion there about why I felt like that. And when my mom died later, to be honest, I felt relief.Īnd, you feel like it’s not something you should admit to. And I think that is because, if I’m honest, I felt very little when my father died. Because I kind of reached the age where a lot of my friends’ parents are dying of old age, and I sometimes find myself kind of envying their grief. I think, in writing a poem, you’re kind of digging away until you find out what you’re trying to say, I think that’s how I write most of the time.īut having said that, I think that thought about coming to love my parents after their death is something actually that I’d been thinking about for years, in a way, and the whole thing about grief. Maggie: Yes, kind of like an epiphany that you’d hoped to find in a poem. And suddenly, that really amazing surprising line, ‘I’ve learned to love my parents,’ after all the other things. And again, this is a little bit contrary to the myth of poetry, isn’t it, that you’re kind of wandering lonely as a cloud and then the inspiration wafts to you over the hills and you take it down and that’s the sacred text that never gets altered, that there’s something precious about the first draft.īut what I get from that is, very often it’s not the first thought, it’s the tenth thought, it’s the thought that almost slips in when you’re into the rhythm. I think we rarely get to see the germ of a poem, or maybe the conception of a poem, like this. ![]() ![]() And thank you, like, this is so fascinating. And I have learned to love cooking.’ So, you can see there that the germ of the poem has sprouted, I guess. And I’ve learned to love addicts and people who have nothing. I’ve even loved to learn my insomnia.’ And then it goes on, ‘I’ve learned to love my parents because they are no longer here. I’ve learned to love country and Western music, a touch sentimental. I’ve learned to love walking on my own, lying on a beach with no one there, sleeping alone. I’ve learned to love the taste of avocado and olives. Maggie: So, it’s… yeah, ‘I have learned to love the taste of wine. ![]() I can read you some of the notes that I made straight away. So, that was quite interesting to look back on sometimes. So, when I was thinking about where this poem came from, I actually looked back and found the notebook from the exercise. And I think the prompt was, as I remember, it was to write about acquired tastes, and then what followed was just a piece of flow writing. Maggie: I think the idea came when I attended poetry masterclass with the poet John McCullough about five years ago. ![]() Mark: Maggie, where did this poem come from? ![]()
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