“14.6” New Video!
Click here to watch a video of “14.6”, the final poem from my set at Speak Up!, the Loud Poets international women’s day event last month.
Be sure to check out the other videos from the evening that are going up on the Loud Poets YouTube channel. So far there are: Alice Tarbuck’s “Satanic Transformations”, RJ Hunter’s “The Grievance”, Georgia Bartlett-McNeil’s “When the Person You Love is a Gun”, Annie Rutherford’s “In which I am intimidated by a group of girls on a night out” and Jj Fadaka’s “The Other Mother”. I’m so looking forward to seeing which poem they choose to highlight from JL Williams’s set, which was a highlight in a night of highlights. There will also be a video of the whole reading at some point.
A wee bit of background on “14.6”
The title “14.6” comes from the date I was given my first HRT prescription, which marked the beginning in earnest of my medical transition. As I was quietly celebrating the first anniversary of that significant day and reflecting on the year that had passed, it occurred to me that there was a numerical conjunction with John 14.6, the verse in the Gospel where Jesus says:
I am the way, the truth and the life.
That seemed like an absolute gift of a coincidence, an invitation to reflect on the way that living out the truth of my transness had affected, and led to, life. An invitation to reflect on being trans and a person of faith. Those three concepts—way, truth, life—therefore became the presiding images of the poem and are woven throughout it directly and obliquely.
“14.6” is in Scots, apart from the final line, which is in Gaelic and means:
In whisky [is] the truth. This is the way.
The Gaelic for “whisky”—“uisge-beatha”—literally means “the water of life”, so that last line nods to all three of the presiding images.
The poem is the longest piece I’ve written in Scots yet, so it feels like an achievement on more than one level. I’m fair chuffed with this reading of it, too, even if I did for some reason pronounce “sleep” a wee bit oddly. Be sure to switch on the close captions if you want to follow the text.
Speak Loudly!
I’m excited to be reading this Thursday at Speak Up! the Loud Poets event for international women’s day alongside RJ Hunter, Alice Tarbuck, Georgia Bartlett-McNeil, JL Williams and Jj Fadaka. The event is raising funds for Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre and is explicitly trans and non-binary inclusive, which fits well with the IWD theme of “A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. A world that’s diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated.”
Tickets are available here. Hope to see you there!
Silver!
Just a really quick update on the Marcella Althaus-Reid Spoken Word Theology Competition to say that I came second! The judges — playwright Jo Clifford, musician, theologian and URC minister Alex Clare-Young and poet Jay Hulme — chose Naomi Orrell’s “Antiphon for the Trans Body” as the winner and I have to say it was a totally deserved win. Naomi wrote the text (in Latin) and the plainchant melody and she gave a moving and thoughtful introduction to the piece before singing it. Even though I heard her singing only through my laptop speakers (she was at the conference in person and I was online), it sent shivers down my spine. I can only imagine the atmosphere that she created in the venue. It felt like a truly holy moment even from my kitchen.
Naomi works at the York St John University’s chaplaincy and is a project worker for the Student Christian Movement. I see she has a blog on the SCM site. I certainly hope we hear more of her music in the future.
I intend to blog in more detail on the event soon, but I had to go through to Edinburgh tonight to pick up a bed frame and I’m moving house in a week’s time, so I’m rather tired and have rather a lot to do! But I didn’t want the night to pass without updating you, dear readers, and congratulating the worthy winner.
A Shortlist!
What’s this? Two posts in two days?! You might be forgiven for wondering whether there is good reason for this lack of parsimony, dear readers. And there is. For I was informed on Monday evening that my work has been shortlisted for the inaugural Marcella Althaus-Reid Spoken Word Theology Competition.
The competition, an element of the 2023 Trans Theology Conference at York St John’s University, is named for an influential queer theologian who, although cisgender herself, had a huge influence on transgender theology. I confess I’m not really that familiar with her work but I have read a little bit about her impact on trans theology. If the brief summary of her work in this blog post is anything to go by, hers is a voice that the church still urgently needs to engage with.
My work has been shortlisted for the compeition alongside that of two other people. I don’t yet know who they are or what kind of work they produce. As you’ll see if you click on the competition link above, the call for entries invited stories, songs, poetry and spoken word. All will be revealed tomorrow (Thursday 7th Sept) when we present our work at the conference, which I’ll be doing via Zoom as I am moving house next week and can’t get down to York at this point. I guess we’ll also all find out tomorrow which of us has placed first, which second and which third.
I entered a 13-section sequence that I completed only days before the competition deadline, entitled “In(di)visible”. It consists of seven 13-line poems each with a seven-line stanza followed by a six-line stanza and each of which begins “The invisible woman [verb]”. Interspersed between them are six single-paragraph prose poems. The whole sequence is my most sustained attempt to reflect on my gender questions throughout my life and, inevitably with me, it engages with faith and the ways that it has rubbed up against my gender identity, not only the negatives (which you might expect to see) but the positives. Whereas the “invisible woman” poems flit around in time, the prose poems move chronoligically from primary school up to the point only a few years ago at which I began to properly accept myself as in some way transgender. The aim, however, was for these two strands to act very much in harmony with one another and read as a single piece.
I’m really excited about “In(di)visible”. It certainly feels like it pushes my own practice as a poet into fresh territory. I don’t mean to make any grand claims for it in relation to the entire body of poetry in English; simply that it represents significant growth for me as a poet both technically and in subject matter. Indeed, it’s significant emotionally and spiritually for me too: I cried writing a couple a sections of the sequence.
Two things really excite me about the shortlisting: the recognition from my own community, which is precious; and the recognition that this is, or can be seen as, a work of theology. I’ve been used to thinking of my poetry as often being theological but I realise that I’ve hesitated to think of it as theology. The distinction is perhaps subtle, but it’s nonetheless significant because it indicates a reluctance to lay claim to a label perhaps too solidly associated with academia. Indeed, although I know of other theology competitions—the Church Times theology slam comes to mind—I can’t think off hand of any other competition that identifies creative works as works of theology. In doing just that, the competition is breaking down barriers that, for the benefit of us all, should at least be made a lot more porous. And that in itself feels like it’s in keeping with Althaus-Reid’s legacy.
I leave you with this portrait of Althaus-Reid, paited for New College by my friend and previous collaborator, David Martin:
Out, Onwards and Upwards
<taps mic slightly nervously>
Well, erm, hello. It’s been a while. Yes, I know pretty much every post on this blog has begun with some sort of variation on that theme for the past several years, but this one is a bit different. Trust me. Though, heaven knows, I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t. That’s if anyone out there is still looking at this blog. Or blogs in general, even, if you haven’t all just wandered off to TikTok and long-form videos on YouTube.
It’s a little bit hard to know where to begin with this post because what it’s going to say feels rather like old news and anyone who knows me in real life, is a friend on Facebook or has followed me on TAFKAT (the app formerly known as Twitter) or Instagram will already know it. But I haven’t announced it on here nor made the changes it requires me to make to this site so, if you don’t fall into any of those categories, you can be forgiven for not knowing what I’m talking about.
About two and a half years ago, after a lifetime of questioning my gender identity, I finally accepted that I am transgender. That obviously had huge ramifications for my life and my family, which I’m not going to detail on this forum. A few months later, I started living as my authentic self. I began by quietly coming out to close family, individual close friends and immediate colleagues then gradually widened the circle and changed my legal name to Amy Joanna. So now I’m Amy Jo and have been for more than two years.
There’s obviously a huge amount I could say here but I’m not going to regail you with it all. That would make turn this from a blog post into a full-blown memoir, really, and I don’t want to strain your eyes or your patience. It’s been a rather haphazard pattern of coming out but, as I’m out in the poetry world (having already done two readings and published one poem1 under my chosen name), it’s high time I made it clear on here what’s happened.
Life has been challenging over the past couple of years to say the least. But for all that it has involved much pain and grief and struggle and frustration (oh, so much frustration on so many fronts), it has also been full of joys that I never dared dream would be mine.
As with blogging, there had been a significant hiatus in writing, but that all changed earlier this year and I’ve been more productive than I have been in a long time — perhaps a decade. I’m excited about the new work I’ve been producing. Naturally, most of it deals with my transition in one shape or another. I’ve already read a good chunk of it in public and I hope that it will start to find its way out into the wider world in some form over the next wee while.
So, watch this space. Things are happening and, hopefully, there will be stuff to tell you in the nearish future. And there will, of course, gradually be changes in the site.
Thanks for reading. And thank you for staying with me.
Amy Jo
- Page 14 of Issue 2 of Eemis Stane ↩︎
A Wronger Type
Here I come, striding through the virtual tumbleweed of this website to bring you intimation of an event. I will be reading alongside Peter Daniels and Kirsten Irving at Typewronger Books in Edinburgh on Sunday 8 September at 7 pm. More details when they emerge.
[Exit, vanishing into dust storm and tumbleweed. Or digital static.]
An Abnominal for Aidan (#saytheirname)
Aidan Michael Philip
Today, as readers of Wednesday’s post and anyone who pays exceptionally close attention to the dedication in The Ambulance Box will know, is Aidan’s 10th birthday. Although I posted “The Condition” on Wednesday, I could not let the day itself go by unmarked here, so I give you this abnominal for Aidan, which was first published in the “Memory” issue of Irish Pages. With the #saytheirname hashtag current on Twitter, it seemed this was the most approriate poem for today, as it is constructed only out of the letters of Aidan’s full name.
Mid Achin’, a Hill, a Pipe
An abnominal for Aidan Michael Philip
Ma ainlie laddie, male meme
in ma clan; alpha in child line;
name hidden in mine. Handed
a damned deal: nae medic lanced
an ill in him. Nae pill, nae needle,
nae chalice healed
a dampened DNA chain.
Daddied, I claimed him hail.
I held him, palm in palm.
I named him. Mama called him
and he apened limpid een.
Mama hand and mine cleaned
him. He ailed me. Pain and pride
meld in ma manchild
happed deep, laid in land alane.
Ach — I parade a candid ache.
Maimed, I acclaim him
acme mac, ee-aipple, dim
peace candle. Hidden laddie
hained, clenched, clad in me.
Scots glossary:
ma my; ainlie only; laddie boy; nae no; hail whole; apened opened; een eyes; happed clothed; alane alone; ee-aipple eye-apple; hained enclosed, protected, preserved
The Condition
The Condition
is identified by ultrasound at 38 weeks —
less than an echo where
there should have been loud celebration.
The condition would have you
weep aloud in the streets and will
cause some people to dash
across the road when you approach
but has left no breath to cry with.
The condition can be recognised by its family features,
primarily the nose. There is more
than one name for it, but only one outcome.
The condition surprises by not
being incompatible with a glorious day.
The condition is not compatible with life.
This Friday is the 10th birthday of my son, Aidan Michael Philip, and the 10th anniversary of his death. That’s when I was going to post this new poem — the last line of which is the precise form of words with which the consultant sonographer told us that Aidan would not survive — but it struck me that today it’s 10 years since we heard those words, and it seemed like today was the right time.
There is so much that I could say about the past 10 years and being 10 years on from those searingly painful days in September 2005. I might or might not have the energy and space to do so over the next while. For now, it is enough to say that his name is Aidan and he is and always will be part of our family.
The Other Tongues/Friday at the Fruitmarket
Yikes! It’s so long since I’ve posted here it almost feels like I’ve forgotten what to do. Anyway, here I am back again to let you know about what I’m up to this Edinburgh Festival.
On Thursday (14 August), I’ll be at Summerhall for the launch of the Irish Pages anthology, The Other Tongues: An Introduction to Writing in Irish, Scots Gaelic and Scots in Ulster and Scotland. I helped with the Scots for the book and provided an introduction on Scots writing in Scotland (as opposed to Ulster Scots). The event will be introduced by Alasdair Allan MSP, Minister for Learning, Science and Scotland’s Languages, and Robert McDowell, with further remarks by Murdo MacDonald, Chris Agee and me, followed by a brief reading from the book by Aonghas MacNeacail. The book is an extremely handsome volume and it should be a really good evening.
On Friday (15 August), I’ll be back at The Fruitmarket Gallery for another Six Poets reading. It is always an excellent evening’s poetry and, this year, I’ll be appearing alongside Chrissy Williams, AB Jackson and Simon Barraclough along with the other Fruitmarket stallwarts Isobel Dixon and Rob A Mackenzie. Isobel has taken on the mantle of blog promotion this year and the links take you to poems from the readers on her site. Click on the flyer to the left for more info.
A Hiding to Something
I’m just back through the door from a practice with Stewart Veitch and Frank Glynn — a.k.a. Holm — for Tuesday’s Hidden Door performance. It’s the first time we have tried out what we are planning to do for the gig and we are all really excited about how well the music and poetry are working together — in fine balance and each at the service of the other. We can’t wait to present this new venture on Tuesday. Catch us at around 8:15 PM. Book your tickets here!
Website and blog of the Scottish poet Andrew Philip 