Last Words
Afterword of 'With Love, Grief and Fury' & Tour Diary 2
Today I feel like sharing these words: these last pages of the poetry collection, the recording is taken from the audio book, the image is from the Norfolk coast…
Last Words
So many of the writers and artists we love create work in the trenches of war and brutality, hunger and heartache. Their love, grief and fury echo and resonate now more than ever. This trauma is timeless. Read the lyrics. Hear the notes. Feel the rhythm. Your old vinyl and books are rooted in the truth of the struggle, just think of the original blues and jazz rebels and the first hope punks. The artist you wear on your t-shirt was born of resistance. How they sang. How they marched for civil liberties and human rights, how they spoke out against war and for the health of our planet. For love and peace. For equality, emancipation and justice. See how they wove their love, grief and fury into the materials of the world. So much of the art we treasure is vibrating with protest. It is made out of the truth of us. It warns us that the future is now and that now is all we have.
As this book goes to print I leave you with a salute and solidarity, an offering of blank pages for you, the reader. I wish us to unite in this last words ritual and I hope that you write from your own heart, share your words of love and grief and fury. You might write a poem or prayer, a memory or dream of a person that came to your mind as you read these poems. As the years pass, if this book is borrowed or passed along, these names, your words and hopes, your love, grief and fury will live on. As you finish this book, pick up a pen, write the names of love, someone you celebrate, something you truly cherish. These pages are left blank for you to mark this grief, this timeless and universal mourning, our humanity and spirit, fire and fury. United we share in these last words and healing pages in acknowledgement of all we fear, all we love and are loving, for all we lost and are losing, and for all we fight for.
Your expressions of love, grief and fury are valuable. We need each other now more than ever. Hold the line. Share your courage. Rally against tides of apathy and despondency. Be witness. Be present. Write the tomorrow you wish to see. Picture it. Vocalise it. Visualise it. Write it. Sing it. As Nina Simone once said, I’ll tell you what freedom is to me: no fear. What is freedom to you? Can you look her in the eye and hold her gaze and show her how she is found?
Good morning , good mourning,
how is it is already May 30th?! During this month of May 2024, I managed to somehow publish two books and then run around sharing and reading and gigging and chatting with people about poems and memories and empathy and love and grief and fury. The books have been out for exactly four weeks today. BIGlove and thank you’s to every single person that has connected and engaged with this work, thank you to everyone that has been to these first batch of LIVE shows, thank you to everyone that has come and said hello and got a book signed, that has read or reviewed or posted about my work and these new books. Thank you to everyone that has organised a gig and helped to get me from show to show and thanks for every podcast and radio maker too. Thank you to Canongate and my amazing agent Crystal at OWN IT!
I am just back at my desk after some marvellous adventures: it has been a flurry of miles and roads and trains and words. I had a brilliant night at Jawdance with my Apples and Snakes mates at Rich Mix in Shoreditch. It was so gorgeous to hang out with legendary poets Rick Dove and Nafeesa Hamid after the show and have a good poetry catch up. I am onstage with Nafeesa next month on the LIVEwire tour, come see us together in Manchester.
I loved being reunited with my Out-Spoken friends at the Southbank Centre with The Verb. This show will be broadcast on BBC R4 later in the summer. It was such a beautiful gathering and uplifting event. I really enjoyed the feeling, the backstage and onstage energy of that night. The mighty Joelle Taylor and Ian McMillan were on tip top form. Plus there were beautiful readings from Rachael Allen and Imtiaz Darker and music by Karim Kamar, Nik Sheva and Kara Marni. My family were in the audience, my mother, my sister and cousins from Jamaica, which was so lovely and rare and added a little something extra, feeling that love in the room that night. Thank you.
This was followed by a warm and sunny time at Bath Festival where I met some lovely people. I felt comfortable and so I tried out some new poems, every gig, keep trying other new poems out, each time I’m learning something new. This is all new to me, new poems, new book, new era. Note to poets: beware wearing all red on stage. At the gig in Bath, the theatre curtains behind me were red and I wore a red suit exactly the same scarlet shade - I literally did a magic trick of a invisible woman and her floating talking head. Now you see me … now you don’t.
Then we took a road trip cross country through a crazy mix of spring rain and sun to the Norwich and Norfolk Festival and a gig with Toast and a delightful catch up with Ross Sutherland and John Osborne. Followed by a camping trip in the middle of the May bank holiday lush and green Norfolk countryside with my darling oh my darling Clementine. She is a vintage sprite caravan, pretty and orange, and almost the same age as me. We all get along very well. No WiFi. No news. Using a phone box to ring home? Maybe. Maybe not. Just me and my love and our Clementine, on my little poetry tour, some gentle hours, a full moon rise, sleeping in our tiny orange caravan, loving this time of year and season, loving seeing the peonies and the asparagus. Feeling calm and blessed. Listening to the rain on the caravan roof, the windows all a blur of green and raindrops, drinking tea, and reading stunning proof copies of new books by Evie Wyld, Monique Roffey and Jordan Stephens. If only we could stay there in that moment. If only this were all there was … but back to the city … back to life … back to reality …
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
Coming up:
May 31: Wanstead Tap, London
June 2: Bad Betty, Nottingham
June 13: LIVEwire, The Edge, Manchester
June 14: LIVEwire, Wrecking Ball, Hull
June 15: LIVEwire, Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds
June 20: LIVEwire, Weston-Super-Mare
July 4: Pages of Hackney, in conversation with Joelle Taylor, London
July 6: Idler Festival, Hampstead, London
July 13: ALSO Festival
Ah this is such a great uplifting session, loved chatting with you all and sharing my new poems. Thank you Mark, Charley and Keely. Need a new poetry listen, check out WE, THE POETS episode ONE out now!! Click: WE, THE POETS
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