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MEET LIVERPOOL FC'S NEW CLUB POET
I've always loved writing and I love the city of Liverpool so to be able to combine the two in my new role as the club's resident poet is nothing short of a dream come true.
In my opinion, this is the greatest job in the world and I'm going to give it everything I've got to make it work. Liverpool has never had a club poet before and I feel privileged to be the first. Hopefully it will now be a role which will become part of the rich tradition at Anfield.
So how did I come to arrive in this enviable job? I'm doing a degree in Imaginative Writing at Liverpool John Moores University and a year ago I was aware that I had a work based learning module coming up. I had read an article about Tottenham Hotspur having a resident poet in London and I thought that was a great idea. It stuck in the back of my mind. I was doing my degree and I had fallen in love with the city, I was enjoying my work and aware Liverpool was going to be the capital of culture in 2008. I put it all together and suddenly wondered if Liverpool would like the idea of having a poet on their staff.
I then approached a football agent with my idea and he went to the relevant people at the club with my idea. Rick Parry's office were good enough contact me to arrange a meeting. I couldn't believe it!
The day of my appointment with Rick was the best day of my life. I gave a 12 minute presentation in the boardroom at Anfield which included a reading of a sonnett I'd written about Liverpool called Big Fish. I explained to Rick that, in my view, it was the right time for the club to do this. I really am a product of the Kop. It's the supporters who have created me - their passion, their own inventive style of poetry! Without them I wouldn't exist as the writer I am today. I will always be indebted to them.
The first thing Rick asked me was whether I was a fan of the club. I simply replied: 'I am now'. I told him I was a fan of the city, that I loved this city and that I'd been working on my presentation for the best part of a year.
He said Liverpool had a reputation for bringing new blood in and he then asked me when I'd like to start. I was both gobsmacked and thrilled at the same time.
My first thoughts were quite overwhelming. I felt a huge weight of responsibility and a great sense of pressure. I really feel I owe the club now for giving me this unbelievable chance.
Rick has told me that the job is what I make of it, he has also given me complete editiorial control over what I write. I insisted it was unpaid because I believe it should be a great honour to get the chance to write for Liverpool FC. When he asked me what I wanted I said, I'm a writer, I want to be published. That's it. That's my end game. I now see myself as an ambassador for my University and for the club. Liverpool John Moores University have given me total backing with this idea and are delighted for me with the way it's turned out so far.
Cheyelle on working for the Reds
Rather than sitting in my ivory tower writing poem after poem, I want to become part of the club and that is going to be a long-term process. I don't want to just sit and watch games in the stands because there are many other ways to become inspired. I want to work with the gatemen, in the ticket office, in the museum, with the cleaners after a game. The atmosphere inside an empty stadium after a game must be amazing and a great source of inspiration.
I have until the end of the season to prove myself. The temptation therefore is to do something big and brilliant, but I know I have to think in the long term. Also I am totally committed to the poems of the fans their voice is just as important and valid as mine.
Rather than sitting in my ivory tower writing poem after poem, I want to become part of the club and that is going to be a long-term process. I don't want to just sit and watch games in the stands because there are many other ways to become inspired. I want to work with the gatemen, in the ticket office, in the museum, with the cleaners after a game. The atmosphere inside an empty stadium after a game must be amazing and a great source of inspiration.
For me it's all about finding different angles to write my poetry from. I am very instinctive as a person and I don't want to patronise the supporters. I will write as I'm inspired and when I'm inspired. I want quality and not quantity.
I could have written a poem after the recent 7-0 win over Birmingham, but I'm not going to just churn work out for the sake of it. Although it was brilliant result!
I have almost finished my first submission which is a poem for the Hillsborough anniversary. I don't feel I can complete it until I actually go to Hillsborough and until I meet with the family support group. It's been forwarded to Phil Hammond now and I'm waiting to hear his opinion before taking it any further. I want to give this Hillsborough poem my one hundred per cent attention before focusing on something else.
I've been writing poetry since I was ten. I probably started writing because I am a Dr Banardos's child and so I spent so much time alone in care during my teenage years. Poetry was my way of connecting.
A lot of people feel pressured to like poetry and understand its forms and meaning. To be honest a lot of poetry scares the hell out of me! For me it's about making a connection with people. I look at it like this, you can love a pop song without having to understand what a middle eight or a bridge is. The same could be said for poems. I don't expect people to like all of my poems, but if they say 'I like that one' then that's a result. That's what I'm aiming for.
I also want to be an inspiration to other people. It's not all about me. I want people to look at what I do and then go away and start writing their own poetry. Everyone has a special and unique voice. It's not just about academia. If me writing for the club serves as a motivation for others to start writing then I'll be thrilled. I picked a competition winner for the club magazine recently and the standard of the work submitted by everybody was outstanding.
This city is special and these supporters are special. I was educated in Cardiff but I moved to London before coming to Liverpool. When I arrived in Liverpool it really felt like I was coming home. Liverpool is renown for being the city of poets, after all.
The people of Liverpool are out of this world and very different in an amazing way. For example, I never knew you could go out clubbing in the middle of February without a coat until I got here! I wrote a sonnet called, Big Fish, inspired by seeing girls by the Liverpool docks at night. They looked like mermaids because they were all coatless! I've not bought a coat since!
I remember the first day I came to Liverpool and walked down Hardman Street and saw the bombed out church. I wondered where else in the world could you go to see something which had been hit by disaster and then left to evolve into something which is celebrated.
People do communicate in Liverpool. They are very clever and analytical too. Everyone in Liverpool is a big fish and that was the subject of my reading to Rick Parry. The lady cleaning the steps will be Ringo Starr's grandmother. It's that sort of city.
I've also learned very quickly that this club is special as well. It's like one big family. I did fear it would be very disparate, with different groups working for their own means and being extremely competitive, but it's not like that at all.
Liverpool FC is about being the best and I am keen to play my part in helping it achieve its ambitions. They have invested a lot in me and my future and I won't let them down. |
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