My Name is Jim and I’m a Poet by Jim Murdoch

My Name is Jim and I’m a Poet by Jim Murdoch

In 1998 my daughter gifted me a framed copy of a
poem which sits, to this day, on my bedside cabinet.
It is the only poem of hers she ever let me read.

Some people want their kids to be doctors
or barristers or to play for
[ insert the name of your national team here ].

I should want my kid to write poetry and it
wouldn’t kill me if she did—
the world needs all the poetry it can get—

but to be totally honest I wouldn’t wish this
on my worst enemy;
let others call last orders and ring the knell.

I know she’s dabbled and I’m fine with that.
I tried to be supportive
without being encouraging but that’s hard.

Doctor’s take off their white coats at night
and barristers their wigs.
Poetry’s not a career. It’s an addiction and

no one in their right mind would ever, ever!
want that for their kid.
It’s in the genes though so I hold my breath

and wait, although it’s quite possible it might
skip a generation since
her mother was more of a reader than writer.

That said, poetry tends to make up the rules
as it goes. So, we’ll see.

Jim Murdoch has been writing poetry for fifty years and has graced the pages of many now-defunct magazines and a few, like Ink, Sweat and Tears and Poetry Scotland, that are still hanging on in there. For ten years he ran the literary blog The Truth About Lies but now lives quietly in Scotland with his wife and (increasingly) next door’s cat. He has published two books of poetry, a short story collection and four novels.