| by Winter Lawrence |
I love to read, which definitely shouldn’t come as a surprise, but I’ve found that the more I write, the less time I have to indulge in my favorite pastime. It makes me sad, but thankfully there are a multitude of audiobooks available for me to peruse. And while listening to literature will never truly replace the act of physically holding a book in my hands (at least to me anyway), I still enjoy partaking in the occasional audiobook.
Recently, though, I discovered that there are authors who publish their story stories and poems on YouTube (LOL, I know, it sounds impossible, but this old gal sometimes takes a bit to catch up with technology!). I have to say that the shorter stories really work better for my hectic lifestyle, and I’ve found some real gems out there! People are so talented! In fact, my guest this month, Mr. David R. Morgan, is an author and poet whose stories I recently stumbled upon and fell in love with! I won’t admit how many times I’ve watched “Blooming Cats,” but it’s a pretty staggering number because it’s that cute! I highly, highly recommend watching it (right after you’re done reading this interview, in fact!).
Of course, while I was on David’s channel, I had to watch all of his other stories and poems, and what I found was a plethora of amazing and emotionally impactful works. So I reached out to see if he’d be willing to stop by to answer a few questions, and lucky for us, he agreed! Here’s what David had to say…
(Q) David! Thanks for joining our monthly Author Spotlight segment. We’re excited to learn all about your amazing work! When I last checked, you had a whopping 86 videos on your YouTube channel! Before we dive into the nitty-gritty of the specifics of producing those though, can you tell us how you came about the idea of posting your stories as videos?
(A) It all came about around four years ago when my son Toby was at Lincoln University, studying Graphic Design. He was working on his first album of his own original music and I wrote some lyrics for it. The track didn’t make it on to the album, but became our first joint track on YouTube: “St Andrews.” It was also put on SoundCloud and taken by Spotify.
From that point, we have continued to collaborate and have now completed three albums worth of material: “Soundings,” “Songs for Swinging Surrealists,” and “That Difficult 3rd Album.” These are all on David R Morgan YouTube, Spotify, and SoundCloud.
I write all the words/lyrics and read/perform the text. Toby creates original music, which he plays for the tracks and produces them all and the graphics. We work on the videos together.
(Q) Okay, let’s talk about “Wish (for mum),” because as a mother, I felt especially drawn to this piece. Can you share with us some of the background information that inspired you to write this and some of your other poems? And did your poem for mum help inspire your poem, Tal-y-bont, for dad (which feels, at least in the beginning, a little more upbeat than the one for mum)?
(A) I wrote the poem “Wish” during the week in May 1999 after my mum had just died. It happened exactly as the poem relates and is heartfelt and cathartic. Mum gave life to me and I was trying to give life to her even after she had gone.
The poem was published in “Tears in the Fence” in 2002. There it stayed, but when we started our collaboration, I told Toby that I really wanted to read it and so Toby played his original music live as I read. It was pretty emotional and it seems to have touched a lot of people, which is deeply gratifying. In the singularity of death, we see the Big Bang’s first light.
Wish
(for mum)
I wish you alive in my arms,
knowing you lifted once the lid of a lovely box
as dreams leapt out.
At night I swam to sleep in River Hall.
My happiness was the anchor of your love;
Dad dredged out of bed at 3 am
to be certain his many coloured chrysanthemums
had not floated free from his greenhouse.
I wish you alive in my arms.
I am alone,
knowing you lifted once the lid of a lovely box
as dreams leapt out
and some time later one dark thing
that bided its time in broken wishes.
You and dad so one with your garden
showed me a spider’s web trapping a wasp;
Its buzz was almost happy.
No detail is insignificant –
growth between flowing beds of fantasies,
smiles and safety and homework done.
I wish you alive in my arms.
I am alone, Saturday 3 pm
knowing you lifted once the lid of a lovely box
as dreams leapt out
and some time later one dark thing
that came calling at last,
when carefully you combed white hair waiting so much
for your son, your grandchildren.
It’s all there hanging on to happen –
Dad’s paintings walls’ memory;
trees in Autumn, trees in Winter, melancholy;
yet not your tree transfigured in old age
with life’s late unexpected leaves,
letting boughs lighten with love.
I wish you alive in my arms.
I am alone, Saturday 3pm
knowing that in ten minutes time
one paramedic’s monitor will flatline,
one paramedic shall shake her head
and one dark thing, that steals worlds,
will become once more a wish waiting to be broken.
I wish you alive in my arms.
So much wishing, wishing there must be more,
but wishing will not make it so, wishing will not make it so.
(Q) I’m the least tech-savvy person I know, so watching all of your videos is both awe-inspiring and impressive! For folks who may be interested in trying out their hand in sharing their stories this way, can you share how you go about compiling all your wonderful videos? Do you draw all of the illustrations? What other processes are involved to prepare for filming beyond the writing, and do you have any help?
(A) OK. So I write all the poems/lyrics and then record them on my IPhone. This I then save and send as a digital file to Toby, who adds his music and effects.
Once that is in place, he produces and I record any additional material required. We discuss the video together and create material to go with our idea. Any drawings/animation Toby does. We send the sound files to RouteNote/Spotify for a rigorous moderation process and, if passed, the track then goes on to their site (David R Morgan Spotify). The video we upload to YouTube and SoundCloud.
The whole process is my idea of a (slightly curious?) autobiography. Who knows who we are; let alone what we may become?
(Q) Tell us a little bit about the ten-year-old version of yourself. When you were younger, did you love to write? Or did you ever fancy becoming a singer or entertainer? I only ask because it feels as though you’ve taken some steps to prepare for the deeper vocals and baritones you use in your poems, like in “Solid Geometry.”
(A) When I was ten years old I didn’t read that much. I’m dyslexic and was considered dumb and a class clown; a role I gladly played up to. Consigned to class prison (DON’T BREATH!) I only ever wanted to thrive to become Green Lantern. Loved the ring and (non-digital!) costume.
However, around the age of fourteen, I started to read loads and attempted some creative writing. Although in bottom sets right up to GCEs I gained 13 O’Levels and 3 A’Levels and went on to get an English and History Degree at Leicester University and then did a Postgraduate in Journalism.
I worked freelance for magazines and the music press (NME/Sounds) in the twilight of the later 70s.
In the 1980s, I worked for the Arts Council going into schools, prisons, and a psychiatric hospital conducting readings, festivals, and creative writing classes.
However, in 1991, I re-trained as a teacher and got married. I still loved music and wrote (mainly children’s books) and performed in some drama and stand up. Always separating fragments from the whole and re-assembling in my own way. Why doesn’t grass go oink?
(Q) When I reached out to ask if you’d like to participate in our interview, you were vacationing in France (so envious, by the way!), and you love to travel! I’m sure that traveling is a passion all its own, but do you travel to incorporate your journeys into your work, or do you travel for fun and then try to work those experiences into your stories?
(A) I teach full time and actually wrote a lot of this during a school trip to the Opal Coast in France with fifty thirteen and fourteen-year-olds! Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI1VsEB86rE&list=UUmSMyxoSbzMeR1leR8bC7-w&index=14
And I do travel, a great deal to Crete: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8pLlVLXcbE&list=UUmSMyxoSbzMeR1leR8bC7-w&index=43
David, I literally teared up upon reading your response to the inspiration for your poem “Mum.” I can’t imagine how painful that experience was for you, but I’m glad that you’ve shared it with the world and that it’s brought so many people comfort. It is, by far, one of my favorites (along with Bake Off!), and I’m glad I had the opportunity to read it and all of your other poems.
Folks, to catch up with all of David’s amazing poems and works, be sure to visit his YouTube channel at David R. Morgan. At present, he’s working on new tracks with his son Toby (Tobias Morgan) for their fourth album. Here’s a sneak peek…
Lives tick out of walls; lives tocked before us.
The bricks won’t hold them anymore.
So many ghosts flickering and fluttering free, words sound in my mind.
As morning sucks twilight from grass; why aren’t pigs green?
David, thanks again for stopping by for a visit. It was a pleasure having you and hopefully, from here on in, every time a reader glances at the ground, they’ll wonder if the grass goes oink! I know I will!
Cheers!
Winter
* * *
David has written many amazing things! Please subscribe to his YouTube Channel or listen to his stuff on Spotify to see what he is and what he’s doing.
David writes to try and make sense of things. He often wonders what Dark Matter is; why the galaxies are speeding faster and faster away from each other;
why we live and why we die. Why pigs aren’t green and grass doesn’t go oink?
Readers, to keep up with all of David’s adventures, be sure to visit him online! And be sure to stick around afterward for a couple more of David’s very cool tales.
📷 YouTube
📷 Spotify
📷 Tapestry
📷 Foil hats, featuring David Morgan.
* * *
The ventriloquist does not move grieving for all he has lost: mother, father, wife, child; vanished in this age of technological miracles, acquiescing to the insatiable will of a rationalised god. Still the community of the dead survives suffused within us all, to be hugged in our minds counting such cost, grief and gratitude. What’s lost is always found; what is found will be lost forever. The ventriloquist does not move. Everyone everywhere has an appointment to keep with the dead, our conscience and our history- can we ever say goodbye, begin to forget? And yet, why cemeteries when we have digital replay? We breathe the same air as all those who have gone before, waltzing silhouettes splashed on smiling walls, coughing up ghosts. The ventriloquist does not move; the dummy drops its jaw. The countless cherubs of departed children stand behind the sun and cast a shadow, dreaming meaning, as the angels of deceased adults swamp the night, eclipsing the moon. The more we wake, the more we disappear. Human masks hang from Wi-Fi masts; souls soon sucked forth, rippling from infinity, to complete Life’s sentences. The ventriloquist does not move; the dummy drops its jaw, rolls its eyes. In the cloud, sourced code, forever ever after re-born - a virtual, curated Dead Space exists where the lifeless can never get rid of the living. Configured, crowding in, their future immortality will be ceaseless HD virtuality. The ventriloquist does not move; the dummy drops its jaw, rolls its eyes and bangs the seat with its heals, waiting for the download to complete.
–David R Morgan
Start the day early; always
worry only after the time comes – be content,
concentrate on the moment,
the hour will look after itself.
Pause…between temptations, be fruitful
and disregard those who disregard.
Be pleased with who you are;
find pleasure in a peach or a pineapple;
the clarity of water in crystal glass;
a sky of shape-shifting clouds
and beneath the blue, brush someone’s hair
or stroke a bald one’s skin.
Forgive on the spot – any spot;
stand an inch straighter.
Pray for the right words or grow your own.
Massage your eyebrows,
frown lightly, relax your jaw;
enjoy the serotonins in the brain.
Get more oxygen, employ a soft voice.
Explore your subterranean subconscious,
write it down, quick, then leave town.
Leave town, you have ten second left;
take all the time in the world
and turn the lights off…now!
–David R Morgan