Over the years I have written hundreds of poems (most of which are extremely bad). I have had some published and am happy to share them all with you. Please remember that they were written at different periods in my life and some are the ramblings of what you might think are an unhinged mind.

Others are my attempts to be obtuse or clever and there are many that I cannot imagine what made me write them. There are also plenty that even I do not understand. So you have them here warts and all and I will be adding as soon as I have the time. They all come from a black folder and I would like to re-print here my opening pieces. Please remember that many of the ideas I put forward in this poetry I no longer subscribe to and some I find very embarrassing.

An introduction by way of an explanation

The following was written as an introduction to my first poems and was written on 6th January 1972

To anybody reading this book the poems inside may seem a mere hotchpotch of ideas. To me they are something else. Many represent my feelings towards different ideas and different people at different phases in my life.

The order roughly represents the order in which they were written although this is not followed too rigidly in places.

The first poems do represent my first serious writing attempts. They may not be brilliant pieces, they may not even be good but they are honestly written from the heart. Surely this is the only real way to write poetry, or at least it is the only way that I know.

Many of the people talked of are not known. They come from my own personal experiences. A few even figure in my imagination. Some of the places are fictitious but nowhere have any names been changed to protect the innocent.

Some of it was written quickly and for this I do not apologise because it was written to represent what was happening to me at the time. Other poems were written with thought. Others have been changed slightly but their meaning remains the same. After all isn't it the thought that counts initially?

The contents of this book represent many enjoyable hours, especially during 1971 when the idea came to me not just to sit on my backside and let the world pass by but to get inside that world and look at where I am.

I like to think that they represent a broad section of my world or the outside world as I know it. Whilst saying this I readily acknowledge that my knowledge is extremely narrow. I am always trying to improve this but I suppose nobody can know everything.

Well I hope that explains my intentions rather more clearly and if you still feel none the wiser after reading them I can only apologise.

I just hope they bring somebody as much pleasure as I have had writing them.

Some were mistakes, some quick thoughts but they are all my own effort and it is because of this that the collective group is entitled: Poems from Mistake or straight from the pen.

© Peter Steward 1972

A Second Introduction (18 months on)

This second introduction was written on 19th June, 1973

Sitting in the front room of digs at Lowestoft I felt the need on a slightly chilly and wet June night to write a second introduction to my poetic thought.

I thought it apt because of certain changes in both my mind and position and also my writing.

I feel the stay in Lowestoft from July 1972 to July 1973 (almost 13 months) helped to clarify and simplify my poetry.

With a year's journalistic experience behind me I no longer felt like writing poems so complex that even I could not understand them. I gave up trying to put the world right and started looking deeper at myself, trying to put myself in order.

Gradually I got out of the bad habit of sitting down in a deliberate manner with blank paper and forcing something out. Instead I let ideas whirl around inside my head until I felt I had to write them out. Often this meant there were weeks when nothing got recorded on paper but I became sure that when something was written down it had a meaning. In fact through it I feel I became a slightly better person.

On a much wider point I feel that my poetry shows three distinct periods. The first starts from the first recorded poems, which indeed today cause me acute embarrassment, and carry on until I begin the metaphysical "Light" poetry with "I Came Across A Pillar."

It is difficult to explain that at that time I suppose my poetry matured slightly and I felt a definite change in direction.

The second change was very much less marked but I feel it occurred about "The Future of Man" which coincided with the beginning of my period in Lowestoft.

Perhaps it is all in the nature of a progression. After all progression is something we must all go through. Perhaps in six months time I will look back on the poetry I am writing at the moment and it in turn will embarrass me.

© Peter Steward 1973

A year at Lowestoft over and a temporary stay in Norwich as I approach my 21st birthday. Suddenly a week when confidence grew and I stuck two fingers up at the world.

©Peter Steward 21st August 1973.

A move to Cromer and life is suddenly very much more complex. I longed for an intimate relationship and problems and now I have got them I am not sure I can handle the situation.

©:Peter Steward 10th March, 1974.

INDEX
Poems 1970-1973

Poems 1974 -