Of poetry and me - a poem by Jean Goulbourne

The Worlds of Possibility anthology Kickstarter has less than $1,000 to go to reach its funding goal! To celebrate, here is a poem by Jean Goulbourne! You can read the full text of the poem over at https://www.juliarios.com/of-poetry-and-me-a-poem-by-jean-goulbourne/

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to the OMG Julia Podcast,where we discuss creative lives and processes.
I'm your hosts Julia Rios, andtoday we are almost ninety percent of the
way to the funding goal for theWorld's a Possibility anthology Kickstarter. I'm super
excited about that, and to celebratebeing less than a thousand dollars away from

(00:24):
that funding goal, I am sharingwith you a poem that appeared in the
April twenty twenty three issue of World'sPossibility. It's also in the anthology,
and it will also be in thepoetry collection A New Day by Gene Goulborn.
This collection is going to be areward for every single backer of the

(00:46):
kickstarter who chose any reward level.If you back at any reward level at
all, you will get either anebook or both the ebook and print versions
of A New Day by Gene Guelborn. So this poem is called of Poetry
and Me. You can listen tome read it right now, and you

(01:07):
can also read the full text overon Julia Rios dot com. Of Poetry
and Me by Gene Goulborn. Itstarts slow, like a tiny stream,
etching its life out over rocks andsilt, like tardy water from reluctant rain,

(01:34):
like the easing of pain from adrought. There it begins flows,
gathering strength as it tumbles unceasing downa multitude of rocks. It filters fast
across the lines of earth, buildingriver banks on its way to the sea.

(01:56):
The outpouring of words from the depths, of galloping and singing, winding
and ringing, like bells on achurch steeple, like drums on a revival
night, like children on a playfield, like boys in a pond, like
a waterfall of rain. This blessing, these fingertips on the computer keyboard,

(02:20):
this movement from my bed of thorns, to hear the breeze that bellows,
To ride the hurricane with words,to dip and fall with dinky mini tunes,
to drink the sweet sap of poetrythat was, of poetry and me.

(02:40):
By Gene Goulburn. Gene Goulburn isa poet, short story writer,
novelist and educator from Cross Keys,Manchester, Jamaica. She worked as an
educator in secondary schools and colleges andwas part of the writing team for the
Butterfly series now known as The BlueMahoe, a series of books for Reluctant

(03:05):
adolescent readers. She is also theauthor of several other books for children,
published by a variety of Jamaican andBritish publishers. Her books for adults include
the short story collection The Parable ofthe Mangoes, available through Abang Press,
which, under the title Caged Birds, was runner up for the Una Mason

(03:29):
Prize in nineteen ninety five. Apoetry collection, Woman's Song, and a
novel Excavation are both available through PeaPaltry Press individually. Her stories and poems
have appeared in Savaku Bim, TheNew Voices, The Caribbean Writer, Nimrod,

(03:50):
New Poets of Jamaica, The LiteraryReview, Focus, Pathways, Dream
Rock, Facing the Sea, CaribbeanPoetry, Caribbean Poetry Now New World English
Bite in the Oxford Book of CaribbeanPoetry, The Daily News, The Jamaican

(04:12):
Record, The Jamaica Herald, TheSunday Gleaner, The Sunday Observer, Arts
Magazine, The Children's Own Scribbles,Metamorphosis, Caribbean Challenge, and other magazines
throughout the Caribbean. A New Dayis a poetry collection that, as I
said earlier, I am going togive to every single backer at every reward

(04:35):
level for the World's a Possibility AnthologyKickstarter, Everyone's going to a copy of
A New Day. When I heldmy last open submissions call in February of
this year, I was not expectingor prepared to consider a full poetry collection.
But then this poet sent me severalpoems that I thought were fantastic,

(04:59):
and I and hod over which onepoem I might accept, before finally deciding
to throw caution to the wind andgo all in on a whole poetry collection.
This is my first time publishing apoetry collection, and it's been a
delightful process so far. The bookitself will be printed in black and white,
and it's divided into five parts.For each of those parts, I've

(05:23):
assembled stock art into graphic designs togo with the theme of that section.
If you go over to the Kickstarterpage and look at update number six,
you can see some examples of theinside section images and a glimpse of how
the print book will look. Ispecifically posted the images for part one and

(05:43):
part two. Part one shows lineart of a coffee cup full of coffee
and steam rising from it, surroundedby line art hybiscus flowers, and Part
two shows a sort of arched windowframe with a sunburst around it and inside
it is a breaking chain. Iexplain over in the update about why I

(06:04):
chose those images and what was goingon with the thought process there, but
basically, again, it's been areally fun process. It's been really interesting
and a neat challenge to me totry to figure out how to convey moods
in images using stock art, tocombine things into one image that's the right

(06:25):
to feel for a certain thing.I can't wait to share this finished book
with the world, less than onethousand until I for sure get to do
that, So please, if youcan keep boosting the kickstarter campaign, share
this podcast, share the page withthe poem, and share the kickstarter itself.

(06:45):
It definitely helps. And if youcheck out that update you can also
see another very exciting stretch goal revealthat we can all have, but only
if we get more people to noticeand back the project. So yes,
let us make this happened. Okay, I'm keeping this one short and sweet,
but I hope that you loved thispoem as much as I did.

(07:09):
I really love Jean's facility with words. The language, the rhythm, the
way the poem itself starts slowly andthen speeds up, and the way at
the end, all of those imagesof what it feels like to write poetry
and how it spills out of her. I just love this. I love
the celebration of the act of creation. It is something that I feel like

(07:31):
it's at the heart of world's possibility. As a whole project, So very
excited and delighted to have this poemand the whole collection. Can't wait to
share it with all of you.All right, thank you so much for
listening. Keep sharing that Kickstarter andI will catch you next time.