The exciting news around here is that a poem of mine is being adapted for a short film by some very talented filmmakers, notably my friend, director Nicholas Bradford-Ewart . They have shot the first scene and are looking for support to make the rest of it. Even more exciting is that they hope to make this film the first in a series of short films based on the work of emerging poets.
Check out the campaign, watch the first scene, read the poem, and toss in some $ if so inspired:
http://www.afterlydiathefilm.com
I am super honoured and excited about this as you can imagine, and will probably make the next few posts here related to the film in different ways. I thought I’d start with a little story that in some way, contributed to the origins of the poem.
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After Lydia’s Strange Origins
A friend and I were walking across a soccer field towards some kind of commotion by a clump of trees near the youth centre. It was dusk. Emerging out of the blurry shadows were growls and yells and some laughter. Getting closer, we saw a young man, an acquaintance, fiercely attacking a small tree. He was charging at it, tearing at the branches with his bare hands, ripping them apart. He had wide bloodshot eyes and was snarling. Some of his friends were trying to talk to him, coax some reason into him. Repeating his name, asking him to look them in the eye and calm down. Others were laughing, egging him on; “Fuck trees, man. You show that tree who’s boss.” In this quiet sheltered town, it was the kind of incident that makes a night. It was awful and sad, but one couldn’t help be entertained.
My friend watching beside me, remarked on how, despite being delirious with rage, he didn’t lay a finger on anyone who was coming up to him, trying to talk or get him to stop. It was all directed towards the tree. No one seemed to know what it was about. Maybe he was on drugs, maybe not. Maybe a psychotic episode, maybe not. Someone said his windshield had just been broken by someone, but it was hard to imagine that causing this reaction. Maybe it was about a girl, I thought. The way I was feeling most of the time around that time, heart-raw, kind of crazy, it seemed the most sensible explanation.
I had tried to write a poem very directly about the experience that it didn’t quite ring. But somehow the image of a despairing man attacking a tree fit as a simple opening line in ‘After Lydia’. I don’t remember actually writing the poem, but I remember thinking about some of my friends in my old town. One who, after being dumped, bought a ticket to Jamaica where he mostly stayed in his hotel room doing lines of coke. Another who hit the gym after his breakup; I saw him a few months later and he was huge. I thought about the small, immature and desperate ways I reacted, or wanted to react, after heartbreak.
It’s kind of a funny poem in a way, despite its subject matter. While Lydia might have been somewhat inspired by a girl or two that I had known back then, I was probably just as much thinking of the archetype of a beautiful dangerous woman. Girl as powerful storm that ravages a town. It was fun to see these young men, like little toy action figures, being tossed around in her wake.
We didn’t stick around to see what happened to the young man. He probably calmed down eventually, smoked a joint with a friend, wept maybe, or some tough guy equivalent. Maybe the next morning he wouldn’t remember anything. Whatever it was about, I hope the experience gave him some resolve. That squinting in the light of the new day, with cuts in his arms, leaves in his hair, he was ready to move on to his next chapter.
Raoul Fernandes 