#friendblogfriday - Katie Nicholas
Today, #FriendBlogFriday welcomes local singer and songwriting extraordinaire, Katie Nicholas, whom I have had the pleasure to know for many years, following her career through the ages, marvelling at her artistry and ability to put her hand to anything including art, poetry, and video editing. She’s got a face like an angel too, it’s not fair. Is there nothing this girl can’t do?
We hear from Katie about her inspirations for writing, and the solace found in poetry, along with some beautiful examples of her work.
Enjoy xx
The quieter and more competitive musings of Liverpool based songwriter Katie Nicholas.
Poetry has become a daily practice for me, an introspective therapy to decode my most subconscious feelings and my perception of life. I often feel I struggle articulate or display every facet of myself in the public arena as a performer, so I depend on poetry to ground me, explore the light and shade of my nature and to stay honest and unafraid.
I started writing in 2016 during a long phase of depression and stagnation in my life. I felt like a square peg in a round hole working in London at a job I didn’t love, and where I didn’t fit in. I hadn’t played music due to crippling doubts and anxieties, so I moved from writing lyrics to pouring out my emotions on the daily commute to work. It became such a relief - a safe space only for me.
I enjoy the quiet of a poem - it’s like the night. Where during the day, the sun spotlights a jovial performer, laughing and entertaining… while in contrast, there’s a girl alone with her thoughts, reflecting with the moon. As a whole, I feel more balanced in who I am because of poetry.
OSCILLATION
(Life as vibration - each a song of infinite expressions)
Life, most Obviously a Waveform. each, a small sonder of music. where left to right moving a timeline along, bound by beginning to end. but all the while, Up and down ~ There’s depth and harmonic discourse. Poly-layers of life, the rit. and rall. fff Crashing cymbals of force! > if time is the container, { then a heart’s song is only content. } the story that floats on fortissimo tides, swims in woe for only so Long...
BE IN MY BONNET
(The sensation of joy)
My chest swarmed Like fluffy hysteric bees - Bouncing giddy from high octane fumes; Their sharp little tails Piercing the cocoon of my lungs, Like two rose raw balloons.
Swelling up, stretching round, Over my heart - I pressed my glove; Aghast! I could taste the fizzy nectar Of what I could only define, as love.
More from Katie…
‘I always have a conversation with my partner who’s a writer (John Witherspoon) who swears by routine, to set out with the intention to write… but for me it’s the opposite. I feel it’s more of an instinctive and fleeting thing. Usually I just wait for the “feeling”. I could be anywhere in the world, at any time of day, and something small sparks an idea.
Usually it’s either myself or the world under a magnifying glass, with the urge to break it all down and put it back together again. I love to create poems that pull on other senses through sounds and create colour with imagery. I always seem to indulge in heightened emotions, embellish and exaggerate every thought, and over time I have become comfortable with more cynical perspectives.
I can go through phases of writing most days for a month to radio silence. Sometimes many poems in one day (if I’m in that headspace) but it can be mentally exhausting and leads to insomnia. Usually I feel when I go quiet, it’s because my focus is elsewhere or I’m not feeling in touch with myself! I believe there is always something to write about if you tap back in, so I don’t fret too much when the canvas is blank.’
QUANTUM SHIFT (This was a stream of unedited one insomniac morning!)
it was Love
that transcended me
to an incomprehensible platform;
catapulting me up from the mundane frivolity
of my subtle nonchalant existence.
Persistent, and enduring,
was a stream of energetic synergy -
met between the connecting
of two waves they call ‘we’.
Beyond the bleeding parallel lines,
we ricochetted in altruistic motions;
all the hunches of a non-linear life
rattled with its retching convulsions.
Along with the restrictions, conflictions,
and distorted points of view...
the meeting of another soul for me
was a pivotal others could misconstrue.
But that same binding energy -
(the underpinning of all we perceive) -
was quickly downgraded,
the moment the mind struggled to leave.
My take on existence now altered,
and unfathomable to many;
my outlook on time and structure
has now become a steady
Breakage - of the imaginable
ineligible, scrawled out-dated scripts;
that we still scramble to siphon
while the human perception shifts.
As it lifts and transports us
to higher conscious levels...
where the mind first constricts
before it breaks free and bevels.
WE are on the cusp of a new Golden Age.
And I know my chromatic musings
won’t make much sense at this stage.
But the symphony of the Universe
trebles, quakes - trembles and wavers.
While we skip past green spaces,
weaving syncopated quavers.
Recklessly waltzing out of time
On our darling dying Earth,
Our morality endangered;
Our priorities - impaired.
Our escapism of destruction
depends upon an alternate dimension...
Surely I’ve lost you now -
with zero gravitas to my perception...
But give it time; and you will soon be
the tingling within the vibrations
of everything we see.
There’ll be more ripples to my reflections,
as we dive deeper to the well of collective tissue.
It’s a connective conspiracy, which I boldly will issue!
But I won’t preach on the street corner,
While the realist looks on and laughs.
Handing flyers by the garbage
Stood upon the same dystopian path.
NO SUSHI, MASTER
(A poem about overthinking, burn out, self-analysis, in need of balance. Themes based on astrology - my star sign Pisces (the two fish).
My cranium
Is a tin can
Jaws, < open wide;
32° degree
Steamed sardines
My motor-organ, fried.
Little yin + yangs
Swimming in peace,
The search for balance
The Great Barrier, grief.
Born of Month 3 -
2 Piscean to be true,
I’m 1 steel ribbed piranha
1 bag of emotion, boohoo.
0h, Skull! 0verflow_
ing, 0verfishing, again?
You keep striking zeros
Looking for Zen
UNTRACEABLE
(Written upon my work-trips back and forth to London whilst suffering depression and noticing the invisible people sleeping on the doorsteps of the most affluent areas)
Maybe, it excites me to know that no one knows where I’ve trodden. Even the Aristocrat’s limestone griddles I drip between Can’t catch me winding round their alleys, As they sweat with the insurgence of poverty, The homeless laying open-mouthed in the acid rain.
And even they didn’t spot me, Between the blending of their bones to the ivory. These desaturates slow-bake in tort light - so sore on the modest eye. Red-handed claps, won’t beat for the X-Rayed puppet-show of shadows. And what a shame everyone missed it. But, more... that they don’t.
Dust. We all burn to a cinder here, In some way. Even the pocket-heavy suffer this form of decay. I do too... but I think I like it. Because no one knows which slab my toe has licked As I marvel at the artisan and the beggar’s beige sick.
I’m invincibly invisible here - Only one watching is CCTV. And even that’s got no intention of catching me. As I have no voice, face or presence. Each time I return, I retreat to depression But that’s freedom too - as I am nothing here. Nothing to you. Nothing and no where. And, neither are you.
PRINCESS
(A poem about feeling conflicted by the mask I choose to show to the world, and wishing to bring forth more authenticity into all areas of my life - not just in my poetry, but in my interaction and content as a musician.)
should it be a struggle to adorn authenticity like the jewellery hanging over your every lobe? dripping down, running rogue clasping only over some lavish robe Superficialities that never mattered much to you but somehow you’re whining that the flash life dims then rusts your new Superficialities are you ever speaking from your soul? or are you floating around in ballgowns creeping towards some imaginary throne
DAWN’S DANCE
(One morning I caught the sunrise, with a small bird on the branch)
The starlings sank then shot at the sky A canon ball of golden wings As the sun began its high. Weaving like Victorian ribbon, Sashes and swathes of little birds danced. Singing and chattering in their native tongue, I look on blindly in my romance. Nearby the top of the tree, The littlest riddled aloud. Chirping on a twig with no leaves, He escaped the usual crowd. And I watched on - my heart was pink As the sky set out his stage. Here the little star gave a wink His audience, engaged. And there he glowed in yellow silk, The sun poured it's beating accolades. An opera of colour and twittering admirers, He flaunted sweet and exotic shades.
Earlier, I was jealous of the south-facing view. Often the sun showcases for only a select few. But at dawn, I spotted what most wouldn’t see. How lucky am I? It was a sight for only for me!