Thanks, Julia Darling

Thinking about Julia Darling this week - I've written a rare poem..! First in absolutely ages. Seeing on Facebook that it would have been her birthday this week is what brought it about. She was a Tyneside-based writer I knew a little and loved to bits. In 2001 she invited me and Stella Duffy to be guests of honour at her Festival of Queer Writing, and that's what the poem's about.

Thanks, Julia Darling

I’d never stayed in a hotel so posh before,

Pouring myself a Bloody Mary soon as I was through the door

Or had my workshop gang take me out and tell me:

You have to return to the North.

You have to come home to the North.

I’d never had tapas by the Tyne before,

I’d never been a Guest of Honour before,

I’d never seen twenty-four dykes strumming acoustic guitars singing

Marlene Dietrich on a stage

And I’d never been met at the station

By my Festival organizer before…

She was jumping up and down

By the barrier in tie-dye,

Telling me where she’d bought her daft hat

And how I had to check it out.

I’d never led a workshop where the person hiring me was first in the queue

To get through the door, beaming,

Excited as anything to get cutting up

And pasting words back together

And dashing out to fetch tape

Whizzing stuff under the copier’s hood

Piecing together our surreal masterpiece

Which she made us all, every one of us,

Stand up on stage that night and read out every last

Crazy word:

All the bodices and bonnets and ray guns

On the burning sands of Mars

To an entirely dumbfounded and delighted crowd.

I’d never been to a festival like it.

Right by the hectic Gay Village,

A crossways of tawdry pubs and fried food joints,

Busy as anything, hilarious with chatty noise

And screeching, nosy parker queens

I’d never met any Geordie queers before!

I’d had to leave home to find any queers at all.

Yet here they were,

By Tyne Bridge after midnight

Like pixies in vest tops

And goblins in hotpants

Cavorting and canoodling down the Enchanted wood

And all the gorgeous

Dockside dens of vice.

That bridge I’d rode over a million times as a kid on the bus

Coming into town to buy fanzines and bootleg cassettes

And under the massive green machinery

Dashing down desire paths to the river

All the queers of Tyneside with hearts set on chips

And hot saucy fun

And the view from the boggling height of the gallery

Was airy and fresh and a great place to watch

The brave nonchalance of everyone gadding about

And going everywhere they ever wanted in a rush.

I’d never been to a festival of writing queers before.

Thanks, Julia Darling. Back in 2001.

I’ll never forget it.