The Blissful Nomad

I'm a Writer, Poet, Spoken word artist. These empty spaces are my playground. There are words, sounds, pictures and colours to share, I hope I can share them with you.

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On Perpetual Motion

Photo by Himmat Iqbal. Taken during Kiota Bristol Event ft Aisha Ali Blog Audio January is no longer the new kid in class. We are three weeks in and have had plenty of opportunities to learn more about it. Whether it was in your professional environment, personal life or the spontaneous moments the year has brought to your table.   Getting to know someone or something is a gamble even at the…

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Out of the Fog

Out of the Fog

Image by Dan Martin https://danmartinartist.co.uk/ Blog read by Saili Katebe Thanks to Yasmina Nuny for inspiring the inclusion of audio to the blog – https://yasminanuny.blogspot.com/ Welcome to the home of the Nomad. If you are reading this, congratulations on surviving 2020. It was one hell of a year, a lot happened in a short space of time, and now we have a fresh 365 to look forward to…

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Review: A Room Full of People present Nothing

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Journey Through the Years: Snake

Journey Through the Years: Snake

Whenever I find myself in front this screen there are a thousand thoughts and questions I have to contend with.

“Are they even reading this stuff?”

“Who are ‘THEY’ anyway?”

“Why are you writing again?”

“Where are you going with this?”

There is no shortage of inner dialogue to both confuse and make things interesting for me.

Tapping away at this project, after months away from it, brings a lot…

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Sunrise

My early call to rise rings out at the same time ever morning, 5 am. Every morning, at 5 am, I rock myself out of a shallow sleep, gather the scattered pieces of my focus and brace myself, ready to face the budding day at its root. I loathed dawn for so long, returning to it only through necessity.

I recently found hidden value and beauty in those early hours. It wasn’t the way in which the…

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Writing 101, Day One: Unlock Your Mind

Writing 101, Day One: Unlock Your Mind

Daily post have kindly brought back Writing 101. As usual, I’m a day behind, None the less I will be tucking into the delicious feast of prompts on offer for the blogging U. Day one was a task in free writing. We had to let words fall on to paper for 20 minutes and post whatever came out. Dangerous concept, but a beautiful freeing writing practice. Here is what my mind had to say when I let it…

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Writing 101, Day 2: A Room With a View

Writing 101, Day 2: A Room With a View

  The prompt for the day was to write a descriptive piece. I had to think of one place I would love to journey to, I’d have to go there, I’d have to share it with you, paint you a picture of this important place. I turned to nostalgia for my answer, and I wrote, what I’m hoping to be an effective portrayal, of one of my favourite weekend outings as a boy. Enjoy! 

  It was a weekend, It was always…

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Writing 101, Day 3: Top 3 Selected, 2.

Writing 101, Day 3: Top 3 Selected, 2.

Daily post have presented a nice challenging task for writing 101. Select 3 important songs to you, they say. Little did they know about the panic and intense pondering they had plunged me into. For me, selecting only 3 important songs to talk about, is like gathering my close friends and family into one room and telling them that only 3 of them are important, and only 3 of them will be joining…

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Writing 101, Day 4: Seriously lost 

  We slip through this river of time together, I remember your faces. It’s a crowded place sometimes, at times its deadly silent, I don’t know where this current takes us, but I’m certain our journey’s end. We are never in the same place twice, that is the nature of this river, it is the beauty of time.

We start off with nothing, we leave with nothing, somehow somewhere in the middle we feel as…

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Writing 101, Day 5: Brevity

Writing 101, Day 5: Brevity

Less is more!! I’m used to spinning yarns at the mercy of my forever chattering conscience. Today my tale had to be short and sweet! Here is the scenario people, I’m walking along a path, road or street, and I stumble upon a letter right there in my path. The letter moves me, something written on that page affects me in some way, and it inspires some kind of action, or new train of thought. A…

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Writing 101, Day 6: Character Building

Writing 101, Day 6: Character Building

Pardon me as I brush aside the cob webs of my blog space once more. My contribution to day 6 of this blogging challenge is finally up. I was asked to write about the most interesting person I’ve met recently. This was a hard one, this was an interesting one, this stretch my writing voice gave me a good old kick in the backside. After a lot of thinking, and a little bit of writing, I think I have…

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Writing 101, Day 7: Knight and Day

Writing 101, Day 7: Knight and Day

  Hello one and all, we meets again as writing 101 powers on. This piece here was an interesting one to work on. I was asked to write a piece in the form of a dialogue, that was a challenge in itself, but the assignment had a twist, the two voices in the piece had to be representatives of two opposing stand points, light and dark, cold and cold, high and low, the possibilities began to seem…

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Why I enjoy writing erotica more so than reading it.

Slightly NSFW.

CW: discussion of erotica, deviant proclivities, opinions etc etc… All further puns are definitely intended.

If we sift through the sands of time of my blogging escapades, the eroded fingertips of an ancient, hubristic colossus emerge seemingly curled into a wanking motion. Before this writhing monstrosity of a word dump existed, there stood my semi-erected attempt at a sex blog…

This will hardly surprise anyone who has known me longer than ten minutes because I enjoy talking about sex. A lot. I do so due to how I cope with my pure-O OCD queueing it constantly as the background tick of my thoughts, whether I wish it or not. My mind will reset to the nearest sex topic it can reach for in sticky situations, regardless of the origin of stickiness. 

When I realised my OCD centred on shame, I decided to immerse myself in educational parts of sex and it became one of my special interests. I try to reign it in most of the time, because I know one day I will be forty and mentioning off-handedly how much I admire the engineering behind Fun Factory’s deep rumbling motors in their newest line will no longer be a quirky aside. In fact, it is hard to play it off as such now…

I do find sex fascinating outside of my obsessive thoughts, however. One of my dashed dreams was of becoming a sex education teacher. But I somewhat fear children and hate teaching, so this never came to fruition. Instead, I ran a blog about sex and disability. A blog I accidentally deleted two years ago and thereby lies in the dust, waiting to be aroused from its dormant state.

Sex is still one of my great loves. It’s a great icebreaker in the right circumstance and endlessly interesting. It’s a difficult subject for my body to broach these days, however, as anxiety and joint pain don’t make it easy, but sex is a practice, not an art. There’s no way to go wrong in consensual legal sex. Well, I mean, there are plenty of ways to disappoint Jesus and the kink community at large, but as long as no one is getting hurt unintentionally and people keep an open mind to the wider consequences of their attitudes, it’s no more filthy than the other abhorrent things humans engage in.

And so is erotica. The genre is one of those crafts I love to participate in more than enjoy firsthand. Because erotica is something I use to take a break from sexuality, I use it therapeutically to distance myself from my intrusive thoughts on sex. The video below explains sexual intrusive thoughts well. Thankfully, my pure-O OCD never went against the grain of my morals but it is exhausting constantly questioning myself about desires and feelings.

Writing porn, however, gives me something very rare when I engage in any aspect of sex: a degree of separation. I often freak out when confronted with my own desires, be it in real life or media. With writing, I don’t have to. I am creating the situation and thereby in complete control. I can take my own time with my writing, I can pause, stop or remove myself completely.

I find sex to often be nerve-wracking in any sphere due to the fact it demands your attention and continual enjoyment. In fact, it is dependant on it by its very nature, it will cease if you stop enjoying yourself. Which is somewhat scary. In erotica, I don’t have to enjoy myself. Which sounds paradoxical, why would I do something I wouldn’t enjoy one hundred percent of the time? But if you have ever written fiction you’ll understand that writing isn’t a constant thrill-ride of whimsy; it takes patience, you will spend time chewing pens and staring at a screen. Ironing out plots and mapping out a scene isn’t exciting. It is boring, it makes sex boring. Which, for me, is a breakthrough.

I can also write about murkier aspects of sex, experiences I haven’t enjoyed in the past, regrets I have and complicated feelings. Of course, I don’t just write one-to-one accounts of my life, but I do explore details of my past. Believe it or not, erotica doesn’t always have to be titillating, there are parts of sex which can be complex and difficult to sort out in terms of emotion, through writing I can work through these ideas on my own terms. As with all writing we take parts of our life and process them, erotica is just another genre in this sense.

There’s also the fact that in writing we are safe physically. Having been hurt in the immediate sense, both physically and mentally, by my myriad experiences in sex, kink, relationships and otherwise, it’s freeing to be provided with a playground in which I can express myself. Sex is not often a place to express ourselves in the culture we have created around it, and even if I have kind, understanding partners, I still feel at odds with the point of the activity if I don’t commit 100% to what they desire.

I believe to create an atmosphere where sex is joyful, creative, expressive and care-free, we have to start in our cultural headspaces around sex itself. And porn dominates and translates that mindset. I don’t think you have to have OCD and anxiety to experience what I have in the past, I think we could all benefit from stepping back and viewing porn, not as something not as a something to use on incognito mode and squirrel under our beds, but to engage with and shape as we choose. As both consumers and creators, the conversations we hold over porn are vital if we want a healthier societal mindset, and that starts by admitting we like porn.

I hear all the time in media that porn is damaging, it destroys our expectations and injects anxieties about ourselves into our sex lives. And it can and does have an effect on us. Politicians propose censorship, mothers decry the effect on our teens and children, the public mumbles about moral degeneracy. But no one wants to deal with porn because no one wants to admit to being part of the problem. 

If we want porn to be anything other than the ugly, mouldy downstairs bathroom of our society, then we better do some fucking re-decorating.  If we don’t want harmful, misogynistic, heteronormative, cisnormative, white-as-fuck, male-focused, fat-shaming, PIV-only, fifty-shades-of-grey style fantasies in our porn, then we need to encourage brighter, more positive and inclusive porn. And we can only do that by getting hands-on. 

So, to anyone and everyone, I would recommend writing some porn. It is a truly magical act which can heal, express, elaborate and embellish our desires, emotions and fantasies, as well as being a bold act of change and courage if you choose to publish. I recommend thoroughly in every way, shape and form, regardless of who you are. Do it as an experiment, as a hobby, or as a laugh. Especially as a laugh. 

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Trying to bring these back. They kept me sharp last year, things got busy and I had to out them to one side. Pardon the rust. #001 of many #weeklywednesdaychallenge #weekly16 #hiphopheadsonly #hiphophead #rappersofinstagram #poetsofinstagram #lyricist #lyricistslounge #hiphopheadsofinstagram #nomadsnotes #freestyle #instrumentals

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Poets who don’t like poetry.

This is is Stefan Gambrel, aka. Neanderthal Bard:

He is a beautiful poet, he is a very good cook, he tells dirty jokes and is a sweetheart. He also doesn’t like poetry and he will remind you of this if you bring poetry up. Which happens often, because he is a poet.

Now and then, on the night Stefan made me and a bunch mates a roast dinner, and we were all sitting around with our drinks he would say to us “I don’t really like poetry.” He briefly explained his reasons, they revolve around pretension and tedium. It was as if he was making excuses for the fact, which is out of character for him overall as a man who will happily tell you to fuck off if you accidentally sit in his spot on the sofa he laid claim to. But he isn’t the first or the last.

My friend, Rhys, also isn’t really into poetry, he is a performer. 

He plays guitar, has a voice like a particularly studly Welsh angel and adores stand up. His presence on stage is always that of someone in control, yet easy-going enough to allow for playfulness in his work. It is enjoyable to watch him perform and host as it always puts a crowd at ease with his sheer wealth of experience on the stage.

Poetry is one of the many things he takes part in because he can get feedback and pleasure in performing. The writing? Not so much. Rhys is a wonderful writer, but unlike myself and other poets I know, he doesn’t get the familiar burst of creative release during the process. The writing, waiting and listening parts of poetry aren’t why he comes to open mic nights. He comes to perform.  

I know a handful of people who feel this way, and they aren’t divas impatiently waiting their turn and leaving as soon as their set is done. They are usually refreshing to watch; their sets usually deviate from what you expect from performance poetry, varying in tone and content as well as delivery. I am not surprised if a slough of poets felt this way. In fact, I am glad at least a few of us aren’t caught up in the collective hype or feel like what we do is saving the world in a small artistic way when we gather in pubs on a Thursday night and tell each other we’re important. 

The other day I was chatting with a friend about an upcoming presentation they had to do. I am lucky in that I was born with no innate fear of public speaking, I might be shy with strangers, but I have no issue in forcing a small audience to listen to my nonsense (thus I have my blog to reign in this habit.)

I told them something I always keep in mind; most people in the audience won’t remember your piece because they are waiting their turn, we are all narcissistic animals who want our time in the sun.

This is perfectly natural. There’s nothing quite like being in a row of knocked-out poets sitting at a slam final and hearing them all hiss yessssssssss as one of their favourites comes up on stage to do a particularly great poem they all know and love. Those are the throbbing supportive veins of a community on show. But in the moments running up to your slot, when your poetic bollocks are on the block, we all glaze over a bit. We rehearse, we juggle the reactions and feelings to see what would be the best thing to perform and stand out, we stare into the middle-distance and pray to Brigid. It happens.

I think this is healthy, why else would we have slams? Who else but poets could make poetry into a thrilling head to head? Who else could envision poetry as something you have to be on your toes about if you want to get credit for it? Poetry is recovery, self-expression, learning to love your own voice, it is indulgent in and of itself. I don’t think this means that we’re all totally self-involved and out for ourselves, though these poets definitely exist. If we as poets didn’t care about poetry, we wouldn’t have poems on poetry nights like this:

Or slam finals like this:

Or even something like this, which I still can’t believe happened in front of two hundred thousand-ish people on the Pyramid Stage:

And this is just in the UK! And I know poets care about poets. I know headliners who go out of their way to have a hearty conversation with everyone who wishes to speak to them even if this means taking the last train home, I’ve been with seriously talented poets who reassure you and offer to get drinks before a slam, poets who will eek out bits of their limited time to workshop your poem or help you learn your poem off by heart by sitting and listening to it over and over. 

Stefan literally shoved a tenner into my hand as I went to get a lemonade from the bar the other night, which I had to shove back at him. Rhys features local, young poets who deserve a 20-minute chance to shine at TBF. Poets are lovely, they are also egotistical. These things do not have to conflict.

I don’t think people should have to make excuses if they don’t like poetry. Stefan did like one or two pieces, he introduced me to Kate Tempest, so maybe he doesn’t hate poetry he just hates most poetry. Or poetry which is called poetry rather than less poetic-poetry. Even Rhys has a poet or two close to his heart, it is the time spent at poetry nights which feel tedious every so often. 

I think this says something about the accessibility of poetry, and that we might have to make more room for people who don’t necessarily fit the standard. Yet I think the fact that poets-who-don’t-like-poetry are on the rise or at least can be picked out from most crowds speaks to the fact that we are expanding, and maybe poetry isn’t always poetry-poetry.

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The many shades of poets.

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