Introducing Canterbury Poet John Siddique

The role of a Poet Laureate is to respond to a particular place and time – to inspire and inform through poetry. John has worked in Canterbury, with Wise Words since 2010 and has a strong connection with the city and our community. Between September 2015 and summer 2016 John will spend time in Canterbury running poetry and wellbeing workshops and retreats, giving performances and writing in response to his time here.

We asked John to write a little introduction about who he is and what inspires him…

I have always believed in life and love over reactivity and pain, but until recently I thought that the way to do this was to become someone other than myself. I tried to live good ways, that were, if I’m honest, attempts to add on to who I was, rather than an expression of my true self.

The manifesto that follows lives in the back of my notebook. It came into existence while I was on a writing trip to Paris. It was triggered by the commitment to art I saw on the streets there but was also perhaps the result of years of simply working at being a writer following the clues lain down by the great writers who came before.

Living Authentically

Our lives take us on so many paths, I could have been a physicist a gardener or a monk; each of these possibilities was real at one time. Instead poetry and literature chose me as their own, as if in reality it was always meant to be that my life would be intertwined completely with theirs. I could have happily following the typical role of the poet; writing, lecturing, and writing criticism of other poets in a mainly hermetic world, but the revolutionary act of bearing witness to the lives I come into contact with, through simply looking when I write, has shown me what a hard but beautiful world it is that we live in. The simple act of observing life with one’s true gaze is the greatest act of humanity and dignity there is. To find a way to do this every day, to continue doing this, to keep reporting back in poems, stories and photographs, is my own small fight for a better world.

There are times when I drown in the politics of the world, things I’ve seen in my own life, in the very town and country I live in, as well as on my travels in the edge-lands of Northern Ireland, The Americas, Europe and India. There are things that are much worse than death. It is not true that words can never hurt us, human dignity can be destroyed with a single word, neighbour can be turned against neighbour and war can shout its name in the guise of being for peace. In this whirling mess of emotion and division, the only thing that can restore us is the light within ourselves; this is where art is at its most valuable. Not in argument or sentimentality, but in truth, in dreams, expression and storytelling.

Just as words can destroy us as readily as a gun, so it us that a true line written down, can unlock a life that has not dared to breathe. It can bring empathy and dignity through the simple sharing of a story, through the medium of black ink on paper, or when spoken aloud in a room in another country. It can give life to those who have never had a chance at one, it can lift us, though we may not even know how much we need its medicine.

Authenticity, bearing witness and taking action are more important than ever. We are always riding at the front edge of time, and there will always be those who desire that these are the worst times. I for one will continue to transgress by travelling these roads with hope and love as best I can, erasing boarders that have been drawn on the map in order to divide us. For there are no boarders, and there is no war between ordinary people when we truly see for ourselves that there is no separation.

John Siddique, Canterbury’s Poet Laureate

www.johnsiddique.co.uk | www.authenticliving.life | @johnsiddique