Just wanted to share a little tit-bit of some cut content I was planning to use for the Brit Lit creative assignment and some of my reasoning for not having included it in my final works. For the creative assignment, I wanted to really hammer in on my home town and experiences with displacement and disconnect from identity throughout my own life. I wrote this poem in a poetry workshop and thought the subject matter of British politics would be a nice inclusion to the compilation I was starting to make.

As my Brit Lit poems began to take shape, I returned to this drafting (annotated by Ellis) in order to see if elements could be salvaged. After speaking with Lisa on other work, I realised I had too many different elements going on in this piece. Politics, God, machina, gentry, gore, fantasy story telling … not particularly working harmoniously with each other. A hidden line: My role is dreamer, not mathematician – your highness. An attempt to tie in critique on the proposed changes to the education system to phase out creative subjects. I felt I was trying to tackle this all encompassing feeling of dread at the government and my place in the world as AFAB person, given the current climate. This overwhelm of feeling turned into erratic writing. All these stanzas are interesting and could all be work-shopped again to create separate interesting poems – they unfortunately just weren’t meant to be.

Despite its potential and attempts at social realism, this poem unfortunately didn’t hit the mark. I wanted to share this as a reminder that it’s okay if something you’ve got attached to with your writing just isn’t working. It doesn’t make your efforts for naught. Simply document, and return to it when you need a hook for something else. Re-use, recycle, make it fit somewhere else. It might just be that missing puzzle piece months down the line.