Do Not Mistake This Smile

Poem & Tour Diaries...

Good morning, good mourning,

How are you? It has been a while since I wrote you a blog post.

I can feel all the changes happening and it hurts a bit. Between gigs I’ve been feeling introverted and reclusive. But I think I am not alone and we all are collectively processing changes. Globally. Hurting. Shifting.

There are so many big, bad and scary things happening in the world at the same time. We all feel it, there is a vibration of unrest and global grief. We are witnessing multiple genocides, daily disasters, murders, drama, crisis, famine... Climate is changed. We are changed. The world has changed. May you live in interesting times is now more like, hey, please may we live is slightly less interesting times so we can collectively catch our breath and have a hug?

So I guess the theme of this new post will be about change. Making changes. Being a positive part of the changes. Accepting change, accepting that you can maybe change your mind, maybe change how you react or maybe change how you listen and change how you process good and bad information.

Let’s celebrate the times we openly say to ourselves 'I don't agree with myself anymore' I think it is ok to think 'I used to think this about things, but then I did some reading and learning and living, and I think I feel different things about things' Surely the beauty of being alive and getting older is to feel differently about being alive the longer you are alive to have thoughts about being alive. It is liberating that you don't have to agree with yesterday you, anymore than your tomorrow you, who you have not had the chance to catch up with and meet yet as the world seems to spin faster and faster.

Just be today you, just be you, one day at a time.

Breathe.

I recently stumbled on this black and white portrait by photographer Steve Pyke. It was taken in New York when I was doing some poetry shows there back in the day. I can remember the photo shoot, how it was snowing outside and we sipped whiskey. When this shot was taken I was hectic, skint, hurt and lost. I was making songs, writing poems, gigging a lot and fighting to make a life as a writer, dreaming of being published, struggling to survive.

But I want to stop romanticising that pain and scarcity. I want to change my rose-tinted narratives of the hungry years, and instead I want to romanticise this age and era. This world of experience, this time of being a woman and a poet in the nowadays. I acknowledge that to even make it to here to tell the tale is miraculous and I share this with gratitude.

I write some of these thoughts on a train and post it on my instagram. As I do I wonder how many readings I have done since this black and white shot was taken? How many sips of whiskey? How many miles of train tracks? How much courage and chutzpah did I need to get from that one snowy afternoon in NYC to sit here? I took myself around the world and to other worlds with poetry, with books, with my words. Lucky. I do what I want to do with my short time on earth. I am lucky. It is tough. I love gigs and poets and books. All of this is true. All of this world is forever changing. I feel the shift. I daydream and watch the country blurring past the window and write this.

I used to find this portrait ugly — but I now think it's wonderful. It reminds me of old New York, dirty snow, whiskey and reading my poetry in places that aren’t even there anymore like CBGB’s on Bowery. This is a portrait of a once upon a hurricane girl. Bless the weather that brought her to me. I love the intensity of this young poet in a black and white image from another decade.

Funny how I still feel like I am at the beginning of my adventures, and how I still have got so much I want to learn. How recently I remember to stop and laugh and say to myself ‘hang on, I don’t agree with myself anymore’ — Got to keep reading, listening, growing and wondering. Keep nourishing the feeling and all the making and doing and being. Got to keep feeding the brain experience with art and music and poetry and books and beautiful conversations. Got to savour life, save life, love life, protect life, treasure your one life. Seriously you only have one go at it, so you may as well give it a good go. Now take a deep breath. Thank you. I dedicate this post to all past and present hurricanes, you got us here, you take us there.

I have been tweeting about one of my heroes Octavia Butler: July 20 2024 is Octavia Butler day — It is the date that her novel ‘Parable of The Sower’ begins. I love Octavia’s writing. I urge you to read, re-read or seek out the audio book of this prophetic and brilliant work. It opens with these lines “all that you touch, you change, all that you change, changes you, the only lasting truth is change…”

Read it!

For more of my book recommendations have a look at my lists for Roaring 20’s Radio Show. Amah-Rose and Matt and I host and produce our show monthly for Soho Radio that are also podcasts. I have topped up the book list, it is a labour of love, however I must tell you that 2024 has been amazing for books so far!

Here’s a link: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/salenagodden

Talking of podcasts and recommendations: I’m talking about the amazing poetry of

Nikita Gill

on the latest episode of Arji’s Pickle Jar - I love the format of this show and I am so very happy to be asked to pick a poem, Arji is brilliant and Nikita is a phenomenal writer, I enjoyed this so much.

Before I go, I want to take a moment to say a huge thank you to everyone that came out to see us on the LIVEwire tour last month. We enjoyed beautiful poetry gigs at The Edge in Manchester with Nafeesa Hamid and Molly Naylor, then Wrecking Ball in Hull with Vicky Foster and Matt Abbott, Hyde Park Book Club and Leeds Lit Fest with Simone Yasmin, Faye Marshall and Spencer Wood hosted by Maria Ferguson, and Front Room in Weston-Super-Mare with Johnny Fluffypunk and Matt Abbott. We'll have some films and clips to share from this awesome set of shows soon, so watch this space...  

I also need to say thank you for everyone that came to Pages of Hackney bookshop on election night too. I loved chatting with and reading alongside my poetry sister Joelle Taylor (pictured). Check out her debut novel The Night Alphabet, it's so bloody brilliant and out now in hardback and audiobook. BIGlove and thanks to everyone at the fabulous Idler Festival in Hampstead and the fantastic ALSO Festival family too. Thank you.

Wanna come to see me do a show? Coming up I’m doing a headline solo performance at Green Gathering in Chepstow, Wales, August 3rd. Then I’m up in Scotland to do shows at Edinburgh International Book Festival, August 10th, 11th and 12th. And then I head south and home to the seaside for a gig with Hastings Book Festival where I will be in conversation with my beautiful friend Anita Rani in September.

I’ll see you here and there,

Keep on keeping on my lovelies

BIGlove, sgxx

Poetry and books and tour dates:

Out now: With Love, Grief and Fury

Out now: Springfield Road 

Out now: Pessimism is for Lightweights 

Out now: Mrs Death Misses Death

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/salenagodden

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