Controlled Creativity
Mark Adams
Life as a volunteer in a New Deal for Communities area. Expressing personal feelings about the regeneration of Barton Hill through poetry and songwriting.
Transcript
I took up writing verses after my computer monitor bit the dust. I wouldn't call myself a creative person, having an electronics background, but it was a cheap way to fill my days.
Writing verses soon became a voyage of self-discovery; a better insight in how I felt about life and situations.
“The sun lays low and my eyes glimmer its glow
The sun has raised many scars upon my face
Those times now faint, our shadows fade [????]
All I have owned is, in my mind, spent alone
The dreams I've chased are my moments I've laid waste
The guilt I've known is weighing upon my soul.
My clock's last chime; will this tell me I am blind?
The sun lays low, too feeble to raise my soul.
The sun still shines, as a trick played in my mind.
The minute hand ticked away my final day
Am I in grace, or are my beliefs misplaced?
The sun still shines in slivers frozen in time.
The sun lays cold, as the sun has gone below.
Living in Barton Hill, the area comes under the government regeneration scheme, New Deal for Communities. I'd read some of their leaflets and, like most people, I didn't want anything to do with it.
Then one day they pushed a leaflet advertising art courses through my letter box. One of the courses was a song lyric workshop. I thought “Well at least it'll get me out of my flat for a few hours a week. The workshop was quite intense but I did manage to have three sets of lyrics put to music.
[guitar and singing]
The confidence this experience gave me the confidence to become more involved in the area, both creatively and as a concerned resident.
By attending the formal meetings I discovered a darker side of this regeneration programme: replacing our green spaces with in-fill housing. One meeting I attended on the subject of in-fill housing, my objections were met with being told to shut up. My answer to them was to write a poem.
Fortunately I found like-minded people, both creatively and in expressing their concerns about the in-fill housing, living in the same tower block as me. We joined forces and campaigned against the in-fill housing, both within the system and outside the system. The most effective was putting notices on over a hundred trees.
The trouble of being an active resident within the area is I know have less and less time to write a poem and now it seems to me the only time I have to be creative is by volunteering in one of their creative activities. I just wonder, is that being really creative or is it being controlled?
“Do not hold me up to the light, I'm not sure if I want to stay pure and white.
All I know is, this moth is too long and tough to change his cloth.
Maybe I should learn to fly?
The question is, should I?
[Guitar music and singing: “When the wind blows cold, you can't grow sweet potatoes. When will this great land support the little man?”]
