He Walks in Hottiness Like a Panther
Before I became a
writer, I taught English at a secondary school and sixth form college
for many years. I always loved reading with my classes, but found it
curious that students who would merrily leap around
the classroom reciting Shakespeare would then declare that they ‘hated
poetry’. Teenagers should love poetry! It’s a snapshot of intense
emotional feeling, a bit like many teens’ Instagram messages. As I write
this, I can’t stop my mind from planning
a lesson using lines of poetry, images and Instagram – once a teacher,
always a teacher – which is probably why I included some of my favourite
lines of poetry in Love Bomb.
Betty, Love Bomb’s
love-struck narrator, has a best friend, Bill, who owns a copy of ‘The
Greatest Love Poems of All Time’. As Betty has just fallen head over
heels in love with ‘hot vampire’ Toby she decides
this book will help her to become ‘an expert on love’. Bill cherry
picks lines of poetry for Betty and then explains them to her. Here’s
Betty and Bill getting to grips with Byron:
‘What does She walks in beauty like the night
mean?’
‘Read the next line.’
‘Of cloudless climes and starry skies.’
‘That’s by Byron-’
‘Correct.’
‘And he’s saying
that there are no clouds in the sky and there are a lot of stars. She’s
as beautiful as a perfect starry night.’
‘Has she got freckles?’
‘You have no soul, Betty.’
Writing these scenes
was a lot of fun. I had to choose quotations that were out of copyright
and that fitted neatly in with the plot; I spent many indulgent hours
flicking through my poetry books and searching
online. When Bill shares the lines with Betty, I had to make sure he
didn’t sound too much like a thirty eight-year-old English teacher and
it was important that each line of poetry could have a double meaning
for Betty.
One quotation from
Yeats is written on Betty’s arm: ‘I have spread my dreams under your
feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.’ Could any line of
poetry better sum up the deliciously terrifying experience
of declaring your love for the first time? As a writer, I particularly
enjoy this quotation because it also describes how it feels to share
your work with others. The first time I ever showed my writing to anyone
else was at the Winchester Writers’ Festival.
As I waited for my first one-to-one appointment with an editor,
clutching my opening chapters of Flirty Dancing, I was mentally
preparing myself for a good trampling.
On the 12th
March, Love Bomb will be published and once again I will be revealing
‘my dreams’ to readers. I hope they enjoy the poetry Bill chooses for
Betty and that the words whispered from the past
ring as true and clear for my readers as they do for me.
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