1968

Copernicus is giving Watermelon Sugar a go
under the shade of the pōhutukawa tree.

Simone de Beauvoir has her shades on
so no one knows what she is thinking.
She is in charge of the stereo and has
John Lennon finding words to rhyme with revolution
Grace Slick feeding her head with Alice and
Aretha Franklin singing ‘think think think’.

I was thirteen and saw no signs of barricades
flower power LSD Molotov cocktails or the like
and I’d never used capitalism and consumerism
in the same sentence or feminism and authority.

I did draw an anti-bomb sign whenever I got the chance
and mushrooms on the school walls,
and wear a string of love beads to match my flowing skirt.

Simone picks ‘All Along the Watchtower’ next
and I lie back under the pōhutukawa shade
and try to imagine finding myself
in a sloop of spinning colours.

Paula Green
from The Baker’s Thumbprint
Seraph Press, 2013

For all kinds of reasons I can’t cross the bridge to my own writing at the moment, to the numerous books I have on the go, and as you know, when you can’t cross the bridge to your own writing on the page, it is damn tough. At least I have things simmering in the rooms in my head. Yesterday I picked up an old poetry book of mine, The Baker’s Thumbprint, one of several published by dear Helen Rickerby, and fell into the glorious sloop of 1968, of being 13, of having doors and roads and windows to explore. I loved being in the same poem as Simone and Grace and Jimi and Aretha and Copernicus! I had wanted to rewrite my protest poem, ‘The Suffragette’, because today feels like a time to speak out but I’ll do that on Friday. Instead I’m relaunching my Playing Favourites series because poetry feels like an essential tool for us at the moment, whether as protest or balm. Go well dear poetry fans, go well.