Hi everyone, from London UK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Hi everyone from London UK,

No poem today but I’m working on one in between the usual chores and hope to publish it here fairly soon. Nothing new here at all, really, but whenever anyone emails me, it is nearly always along much the same lines as this prose post at attempts to cover. The stress caused by the pandemic appears to have raised a whole gamut of conflicting feelings in many if not most of us.

A reader asks why I am revising many poems in the blog archives whole not leaving the originals for readers to compare. Comparisons can always be made with earlier versions that appear in my collections; to date, only a limited number were ever published, but I hope to eventually make them all available online. At the moment, I am struggling to put all unpublished poems (including any revisions) on a memory stick just in case I get ill and cannot press ahead with new collections, in which event my best friend, Graham, has said that he will see to it that they are published; in the meantime, anyone interested can always access any poem here or on my gay-interest poetry blog.

Another reader asks how on earth I manage to write poetry at my age (75) and living alone with a pandemic raging. Well, as I have said before, it is as much a form of creative therapy to take my mind off the coronavirus threat as wanting to communicate my ideas and feelings to anyone who may be interested.

I was a closet gay man for some years, before coming out to all and sundry in my 30’s so the motivation for a gay blog had always been there. Even in the western hemisphere there is still a lot of antipathy towards gay people, especially gay men, worse still if they are raised in any of the world religions. Religion, in the light of my own experience and experiences shared with LGBT folks around the world, from all manner of socio-cultural-religious backgrounds, has proven itself to be our worst enemy. Trying to rise above that and find our way in life can be really tough, especially where family and friends feel, for whatever reason, they cannot be supportive.#

Closets have to be among the loneliest places on the planet and those trapped in them need to know that they are not alone and there is nothing wrong or sinful about a sexual orientation that does not conform to so-called social, moral or religious conventions. We are born as we are. Asked if I would have chosen not to be gay, I would probably answer ‘yes' - not because I am ashamed of my sexuality, but because life would have been so much less complicated; dealing with our own feelings can be hard enough (for anyone) but having to deal with other people’s prejudices and misperceptions can prove a waking nightmare.

Poetry, of course, attempts to reach out to everyone; as the poet climbs his or her own learning curve so the reader is invited to follow their train of thought, not in any didactic sense but with a view to inviting an understanding of viewpoints with which they many not be familiar and/ or have been raised to believe are ‘unnatural.’ As I point out on the blogs so often, we are each and every one of us, part of a common humanity; our differences do not make us different, only human. Of course, there is good and bad in most people and both deserve to be treated accordingly, but no one deserves to be judged according to such common stereotypes as many people are drawn to like magnets. I was raised a Christian, but the suggestion in the Holy Bible - essentially common to any religious way of thinking – how we should be aware that none of us are perfect, and before we judge and condemn others may do well do to take a long, honest look at our inner selves; giving way to temptation, may well deserve punishment, but being able to resist temptation doesn’t necessarily make us a ‘better’ person, just stronger.  

Tragically, many people continue to suffer in silence, afraid of seeking support for fear of being judged, but I would recommend self-help groups to anyone; the boost to self-esteem can be amazing, just for being with people who share a common problem, and feel able to share those feelings, freely and without embarrassment, on a common learning curve that makes the problem so much easier to live with if not overcome completely. Yes, you’ will have heard it all before, and I’m not anything new, so why are there still so many closets in the world and so many people feeling trapped in them, for whatever reason?  Religion has no more a monopoly on a sense of spirituality than some LGBT folks have a monopoly on closets. Choice lies, not in what kind of closet we feel closing in on us, but how we find a way out of it. Never easy, but always worth the effort…

Many thanks for dropping by,

Take care, and continue to nurture a positive-thinking mindset, any slings and arrows of everyday life notwithstanding,

Hugs,

Roger

[Note: this post appears on both poetry blogs today. Oh, and to those readers who have dipped into my fiction blog and asked for more, I can only apologise for having no further fiction projects in mind. Glad you found something to enjoy there.] RNT