National Poetry Day - "We are the Generation: X"

As it was National Poetry Day yesterday, here's a poem I started writing earlier this year. It's loosely based on a conversation I had with my schoolfriend Georgie, about the tendencies of people that align with the rough categorisation of 'Generation X'. It's been noted that people born in this cohort are statistically less likely to have children than the generations before and after them, are more likely to experience depression, are more likely to end their own lives, and so on. 

There is a working theory this is delayed trauma operating on a genetic level; a holdover from the tremendous stress of living through the Second World War, which was carried in the ova of women born immediately after the war, many of whom because the mothers of Generation X from the mid 60s onwards. I'm not sure how much I believe any of that. But it intrigues me. 

Another aspect of this is the memory of the pre-internet, Armageddon-anticipating era that I grew up in. I remember the books in the school library that went into detail about how much damage a nuclear bomb would cause, and, of course there was Where the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs. Most science fiction was dystopic and every future in 2000AD was post-apocalyptic. We replaced Dan Dare with Judge Dredd and everyone thought that was normal. 

And, if you weren't going to die in the nuclear apocalypse, you were going to die of AIDS. The 80s were a great decade to grow up in, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. 

Anyway, it's all grist to the poetic mill. Here's the poem:

We are the Generation: X

We are the Generation: X

Stolen love and poisoned sex

We are the Generation: X

We are the Generation: X

No guiding stars or sacred texts

Dystopic dreaming solo treks  

We are the Generation: X

We are the Generation: X

Dancing to our doombeat hex

Genetic trauma atom wrecks

Reflective flexes so complex

We are the Generation: X

We are the Generation: X

Cynics as we cash our checks

Embrace the boots upon our necks

Our vicissitudes are misdirects

From the dread of what comes next

We are the Generation

X

Read more of my poems and stories on this index page

The compelling mystery of ruins, and the things that lurk in them

If you've read The Lord of the Rings, what's your favourite part? My favourite of the three books is The Fellowship of the Ring. And my favourite part of The Fellowship of the Ring is when Gimli persuades the fellowship to enter the abandoned Dwarf realm of Moria. I have loved it ever since I was a child and my Mum read the book to me and my brother during long car journeys.

I'm not sure what it is about Moria, but I think that whole sequence is the best plotted and most compelling part of the entire book. It starts with Gandalf trying to work out how to get in. Then, just as he opens the doors, the fellowship are attacked by a hideous creature that lurks in the pool by the gate. After running into safety they hear the doors behind them being barricaded shut. From this point on, the only way out is forward. I guess that's part of the thing - everywhere else the characters have a choice. Here they have no choice. They have to keep going forward. Into the dark.

The gates of Moria

The film actually showed the journey through Moria quite well, although it was obvious immediately that there were no dwarves here. Just dusty, long-dead armoured skeletons. You don't learn that as quickly in the book. You have to wait until the fellowship find the annals of the dwarves who tried to retake Moria. As Gandalf reads the final, hurried entries, with the accounts of which dwarf heroes fell where, the sense of danger and impending doom is truly claustrophobic. Something evil has befallen in the ruins. And it is most likely still out there.

Discovery in the dark

That sense of evil lurking in the ruins is also present early on in The Magician's Nephew, which I think has been my favourite of the Narnia books since I was a kid. Written as a prequel to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, some time after that book, The Magician's Nephew tells the story of how Narnia came to be, as witnessed by two small children, Digory and Polly, who had been given the opportunity to move between different worlds. But here's the thing. Before they discovered the world that would become Narnia, the two children discovered Charn.

Exploring Charn

Charn was a nearly dead world, a ruinous, gigantic, deserted city under a blood-red, tired sun. Drawn by enchantment, the children enter a hall of kings and queens and wake the last Queen of Charn, a cruel and wicked tyrant called Jadis. She tells them about the grandeur of Charn; the magnificence of the world before it met its doom. And we learn that Jadis was the author of that doom, using a deep and terrible magic to win a civil war against her sister, by extinguishing all other life on the planet.

The mystery of Charn

It's a magnificent, evocative tale, which I always found more interesting than the birth of Narnia that follows. And while it provides an origin story, of sorts, for evil in the good and perfect world of Narnia, the emergence of Jadis in Charn is a much more interesting story. The series of royal statues grow harsher and crueler as the children walk along them, reaching the pinnacle of hatefulness in Jadis. The implication is that power corrupts and poisons people, leading to a situation where a wicked queen would rather eliminate every other living being than not rule over them.

I've often felt this was a commentary by C.S. Lewis on the existence of nuclear weapons and the folly of the idea of mutually assured destruction preventing someone from starting a nuclear war. What if you got someone so totally warped and wicked that they would rather turn the world into a burning atomic husk than allow their opponents to continue to exist?

I'm not sure why as a kid drawn to the idea of ruined civilisations. I think both Moria and Charn exuded a mystery that you didn't get in many imaginary worlds. There was a sense that something has happened here - something terrible. And you need to find out what it was. But finding out won't make it better. In fact, it might make it even more terrible.

But at least you will know.

Stuff I learned from Mark Thomas’ book

Every job in the defence industry is subsidized to the tune of £13,000 plus change

That money comes out of our taxes

Far from being the impartial, fearless newsgatherer it wants to portray itself as, the BBC bottled it when the opportunity came along to expose arms dealers who’ve given money to the government

If the Indian government ever drops a nuke on Pakistan, it’s likely to be from a British-made plane

Most cabinet ministers visiting foreign governments are corporate whores touting the wares of Bae Systems

It’s illegal to sell torture equipment in the UK, but people still do it, and you can buy it on the web

The Labour government cares more whether you pay your TV licence than whether you are selling arms to UN-blacklisted regimes

If you’re going to break into an arms fair and cause havoc, one of the best ways is to dress up as a ‘penis of peace’ and hide a battering ram inside your giant papier mache cock – plus make sure you’re naked and greased up with olive oil to make life even harder for the security goons trying to grab you

Still haven't bought your own copy? Get along to Amazon.