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The Big Issue : Edition 532
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It struck me that morning. I was in Ireland, terrified in a tiny tent. Outside, a storm was gathering gale force and I was going out of my mind with the guilt. The drugs had made a monster out of my face. In my head I was listening to Chopin and I was reading Joyce and I was in love with them for being so human and for saying it all so well. I felt myself shrinking and desperate and worthless and I wondered if they ever felt like the most alone and despicable people in all of Poland, or Paris, or Dublin, or the World. I could see him, Chopin – thin and pale at his piano stool, sicker every day, watching his hands getting older. I could see Joyce, tearful behind his eyepatch – throwing himself into it in a room as dark as wet earth and I smiled to myself, and stopped trying to sleep. The wind was still making an orchestra out of the tent. But it wasn’t a requiem anymore. Three mornings later, I woke up and reached for one of the books by the bed. It was Bukowski. I opened him at random and read a poem I’d not read before – it was called How to Be a Great Writer and in it he said: remember the old dogs who fought so well: Hemingway, Celine, Dostoevsky, Hamsun. if you think they didn’t go crazy in tiny rooms just like you’re doing now without women without food without hope then you’re not ready And I laughed out loud. Because it’s always the way – when you’re alone and feeling like you could jump off the edge of the world, that’s when they find you and tell you they all went through the same thing. And it makes you feel special because you feel like of all the people in all the world, these yearsdead writers wrote whatever it was that made the blood run in your veins again, just for you. And you say their names out loud when you walk the city in the middle of the night, and you feel close to something timeless; you feel like someone just lay you down on your back and showed you the sky. » ‘The Old Dogs Who Fought So Well’ from Hold Your Own by Kate Tempest, published by Picador Books (Macmillan) © Kate Tempest. THE OLD DOGS WHO FOUGHT SO WELL IN HONOUR OF WORLD POETRY DAY, 21 MARCH, WE BRING YOU A PIECE FROM AWARD-WINNING UK POET KATE TEMPEST – WHO MANY WILL RECALL FROM HER EXPLOSIVE PERFORMANCE ON ABC’S Q&A LAST YEAR – FROM HER COLLECTION HOLD YOUR OWN. THE BIG ISSUE 10 – 23 MAR 2017 31 PHOTOGRAPHBYGETTYIMAGES
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