You had a fairly eclectic life. How does poetry emerge from all of your adventures?
I was always able to compartmentalise my life. That was how I was able to do all sorts of different things and effectively have them exist almost independently from each other.
There was certain things I liked about the advertising industry lifestyle and so I had a part of my life enmeshed in that. I didn’t entirely love that industry but there were elements of playing with culture which interested me.
I kept up my sport, Judo and Rugby, and so I had a part of my life enmeshed in that world. I always loved sport and I was very committed to it.
And I was working away at poetry and I never told anyone about that. Somehow I met with the fellow who owned Compton Press and my girlfriend at that time told him I wrote poetry and he asked me to send him some of my poems and I did and they ended up being published.
Medals to flowers
Old soldiers wear their medals like wounds.
The ones earned in the clear blood of youth
spilled and unspilled.
But my medals lie sleeping not worn.
Un-aired on even the most ceremonial
of days.
The string that I once had – worn stapled
to my chest – lie wrapped in a cotton
and consigned to dirt in Wales.
I folded that record of my life
eight years squared away
like a good Marine.
Hacked away at the tendrils
that bound them to me.
Drowned the sentimentality.
And then I shrank to a mere man
who tipped away memories
like grass cuttings.
But those same cuttings
grew into briars – a tangled
impenetrable thicket.
In such a wood only
the wildest survive
slaking their solitude.
Here winter does not know
summer and the hopeless seasons
die lonely.
One day though
the first flowers appeared
reaching bravely up.
And I was profoundly
grateful to find that
they were not poppies.
JB – April 2017
Why poetry?
Poetry was a way of processing all the anger I had within me. It was profoundly cathartic for me. My initial work was based on my experiences in The Falkland Islands, the Falklands War, as a very young officer.
There were all sorts of things that I had within me about that experience; the sounds of the war, the smell of the area after an action, the sounds of people, moaning, crying, dying, and I wanted to write about that. Looking back at the work, I think some of the work was quite self-indulgent, probably, as I suggested, quite cathartic for me, but not necessarily of much value to the reader. However, I kept working on the craft.
I also looked into ways of dealing with trauma. I studied Psychology and the impact of trauma. I looked into hypnosis, I investigated the liminal realms. I looked into mythology; the myths of Ireland, Scotland and Wales. I spent time with Native Americans in Montana.
I did a lot of other things to help me look at life differently. And those experiences have allowed me to write poetry using different elements, different characters and different voices.
At some point I realised that writing poetry was very good for me, that it allowed me to have a sense of meaning in my life.
