Emotion, but no 'tension'

I wrote my first poem in years this week, tears streaming down my face. I got up in the night, feeling miserable, and headed downstairs for a hot drink, the company of the cat by the dying embers of the fire, and to write. Then I did what I used to do in all those years when I wrote a diary: I just wrote, and out it all flowed. At first it was rational, in sentences, organised, coherent, and then gradually it was staccato lines, raw, with repetition and suddenly there it was. A thing, which could be a poem. It's pretty stark now, and it surprised me when it just appeared like that. Afterwards as I sat there looking at it (feeling much better, as it happens), I remembered back to the last time I wrote poetry at just such times.

I've never really shown anyone those poems from student days. My English teacher, Mr Thurlow, always said that good poetry needed "emotion and tension". I interpreted 'tension' as technique and never credited my ourpourings much. Now's my chance, though, to see them as drafts, as starting points and try to make them better.

Hey, it's exciting - maybe I'll even dare to post the raw new poem when I've worked on it a bit (or in the less open forum of the tutur group conference).

While my nerve is on the ascendent, I'm going to share one of the student days poems. I'm just dying to scrawl some self-deprecating justification but no, I'm just posting it.