Poetry series:'between the lines'
Sandpaper
By Laura Dent
Your word uncorrected feels like sandpaper on my skin.
Snagging at my insecurities
whilst soothing your own
making brutal what is clear
or is clarity always brutal?
There are rocks in my stomach
Glass in my throat,
and glue on my tongue
black plastic winds around my lungs.
Unbreathable
Unreasonable
to make a presumption,
an instruction,
for the ways I should respond. Hot-headed, fuzzy-eyed and speechless All method vanished,
Gone.
My own work is self-labelled as documentary photography, out of a lack of a better title. By carrying a camera daily, I aim to embody the spirit of the Brownie in making the means to photography ready to me at every moment, without obstruction – by doing so, I can take a photograph of anything that captures my eye and interests me enough to preserve. Any of us can do this these days, with a camera readily available in our pockets around the clock – and many of us do so without even thinking about it. Next time you take your phone out to take a photograph, whether it is of your friends or of something that caught your eye, think about how you are participating in the act of documenting your life through photography. Make prints of your favourites, display them on your walls, share them with your friends and family. Follow the tradition of those who came before you and took their own snapshots documenting their lives. Everyone is a documentary photographer today, and this is a good thing.