Solitude

John Gohorry, after an oil
painting by Alex Smith

The finished work of a writer is a kind of dialogue with the reader. For the writer this means the creative process is a dialogue with himself, a point neatly made in this poem by John Gohorry. 












SOLITUDE

Together, they wrote a book.

Its title was Solitude, or
Every Man his own Hermit.

They wrote alternate chapters
in a small room with one chair and a desk
hardly bigger than A4.

Bip wrote on Saturdays, Mondays
and Wednesdays, Bop on the other days.
On Sundays, neither wrote.

On Sundays, they went together
to search for the stuff of fiction.
They travelled, gambled, dug gardens,

dated deep women, whose talk
they would agonise over on weekdays
at that desk, working out meanings.

~John Gohorry