The Making of Daisy Daisy

What is it about writing that makes you miss it when you can’t do it and chains you to it when you can? It’s a very hard taskmaster, but once you’ve tied yourself to the work you cannot let it go.

I find myself wondering first thing in the morning about when I’m going to get a chance to write. Obstacles begin to pile up in my way. Not the least of these is the essential need to connect with important people in my life, to spend time with them, to allow myself to relax and be at ease. Still the voice of writing calls; if midday comes and goes before I’ve put pen to paper, desperation – or even despair – sets in.

I need an hour, or even two, before I can commit to meeting people, or even having a decent conversation with them – and I can feel resentment or disappointment growing on their part. Understand me or not, I’m not here for you, I think, and I beat a hasty retreat to my attic writing-place.

Sitting down, soon I am creating other obstacles to my task. There are emails to be answered and social media comments to be replied to. Tasks come thick and fast to stall me on the road to writing.

During the Covid pandemic, I devoted myself entirely and enjoyably to writing forty-one video-poems. They were put together, incorporating original music and images, by collaborating with a photographer and musician, and recording the poems in my own voice. It was a mammoth task. Now they will be there for as long as YouTube continues. There was also the onerous job of informing people on social media about the poems, and getting recognition and outlets for them in the arts world. Again, all taking away from my chance to write.

My video-poems had been written, and I thought I could give myself a break from the rigorous demands of writing and coordinating the response for each poem, when along came my first story for DAISY, DAISY – and I was hooked on writing again. The story seemed to steal up on me in the night. As soon as I had written it, I sensed the shadowy existence of more to follow. So I sighed, raised my eyes heavenward, felt that secret pang of delight that meant I was thrilled to have a pathway that would one day materialise as a book, and started my task. DAISY, DAISY was well and truly born.

––––Carmen Cullen

DAISY, DAISY by Carmen Cullen will be launched at the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray on Thursday 26 September. The book is published by Ely’s Arch Books, an imprint of Liberties Press. Book your place at the launch here