Genre: Opinion/Argumentation

reating a website as a resource for black writers Martin Glynn , poet & playright I feel personally I had a very emotional traumatic journey doing my stuff , in a real sense ; I 'll explain why in a minute . I was very resistant - when I was first asked to look at this I did n't want to get involved . I 'm a storyteller , I 've been in the African oral tradition for 20 years , I 've worked in about 2000 schools , I 've worked extensively in prison . Basically I 've worked with a lot of people that society has forgotten , that 's who I work with . I 've been performing poetry for 20-odd years , I 've travelled around the world with it ... So poetry for me is a way of life . It 's not something I do ; it 's a way of life . My work has been translated for Radio 4 , so I 've worked in radio and I 've used sound as a medium to promote poetry . I also write film & TV scripts ; when you 're writing dialogue for a TV show , you 're writing pure poetry in many respects . So , fortunately for me , I 've engaged with the visual medium . But I have to say that when I came into contact with the possibility of doing something on-line I had a lot of scepticism . On my journal - it took me 5 weeks to actually do anything on-line . If you read my journal ( link ) I was really depressed ; after the first two weeks I wanted to give up . Could n't do it . After an initial period of trepidation frustration and insecurity , I managed to navigate the terrain of the internet . When I uploaded my first piece , I 'm telling you , it was like constipation . The euphoric feeling of actually doing something was amazing . I have to say when I came to this , it took me ages . For me it was traumatic because I got very frustrated , I wanted to give up ; the thing that I want to say is that Sue and Leonie have the one ingredient that has n't been talked about this morning , and that is patience . When I wanted to just throw in the towel I forgot that my status in the Black community is quite high and therefore a lot of people depend on me , and I was willing to walk away from it which meant that - because I work with people that you lot do n't see : I work with guys serving life , I work with kids who sell crack , I work with so many Black people , and all of these people are very creative because they 're all good storytellers . And I suddenly realised if I walked away from it what chance do some of these people have at all . I work with a lot of people who are dyslexic - people who are dyslexic commit crimes because they 're told they 're stupid , so when you say let 's talk about the internet ... When we started to get into the kind of big issues , I started to talk to members of the Black community , to surf around and I started to see what was my community doing on the internet , because somebody said to me everybody can get access to the internet and I thought well no that 's not true because if you ca n't afford it you ca n't get access : if you 're on social security and you have n't got a telephone you ca n't get access . What my problem was is I come from the oral tradition , and also from the Black community . And the biggest issue for me was the fact that as a community we are what I call silent voices : we do n't figure in the world of publishing , we do not figure in television , we do not figure in the media . Basically , we do n't figure . We put up lots of information - history , politics - but in terms of the creative use of this medium that 's what I started to get panicky about , because I could n't get any reference points . People were saying the internet is not culturally-specific , anyone can do it and I 'm saying that 's not true . With films you can do it because you 've seen someone , but as I said the first time I had a chat room conversation with Leonie I had a problem because I could n't see Leonie , I could n't touch Leonie , so I said how honest is Leonie with me on-line ? Nothing to do with her , but I 'm used to interaction , work-shopping , touching people , and that was my first big problem because I 'm thinking if I 'm going to talk to Leonie every week , in an on-line dialogue , I 'm going to have to trust her . I understand sub-text , so when you 're writing a line of dialogue you ask what is the sub-text in this dialogue , so when we 're having a conversation on-line , I 'm trying to gauge what the sub-text is ; see my point ? So suddenly I started thinking I ca n't handle this , I have to phone her up , because I need to hear her voice . It was easier for me to talk to her than to type , because I was concerned that as a performer I can use my hands , I can use my voice , I can use my body to engage ; now I 'm faced with this situation of the ultimate dying discipline of sitting on my ass in front of a keyboard typing . And I was resistant . I realise that for me , it 's not that I was scared of the internet , it 's just that I was resistant to change . I did n't want to do something different . I did n't want to sit there and engage in a different way , which showed me I was conservative , and I had to get beyond that point . So I bought Microsoft Frontpage . You know , when I go into Waterstone's , I 'm the person that buys ' The Idiot's Guide ' - that 's me ( and even that 's too sophisticated sometimes for me , so I 'll probably have to write the version , you know , ' Idiot's Guide to the Idiot's Guide ' ) . But nevertheless in terms of the process of collaboration that myself and Leonie went on , it was n't just about Leonie and me , it was about my partner . Because when I came off totally frustrated she had to put her arm around my shoulder when I was really in tears because the program crashed and I could n't do it . It was my kids , who when I 'd bite at them and shout at them because I was upset , would realise dad 's upset because he ca n't do stuff on the computer and wait until I settled down . I realised that what made it worthwhile is my friends who 'd come in , who ca n't read and write , who would look at the visualisation of what I had done and would actually get some enjoyment out of it without being made to feel inadequate . [ link to poem ] ' Covise ' is an anagram of voices , because I have a lot of voices in my head and I 'm not schizophrenic , but in the black community you 're six times more likely to get diagnosed as schizophrenic because there 's no culture diagnosis for schizophrenia . Sometimes I 'm a father , sometimes I 'm a grandfather , sometimes I 'm a stepfather , sometimes I do n't even know who I am . So all these voices , does n't make me schizophrenic but it will affect my behavior . So I came up with a piece that would reflect that , and Covise is it . If you jumble up ' voices ' you get ' covise ' and I came up with a new meaning , so if you 're in a state of ' covise ' you 're in a state where you 've got all these personalities but you 're not schizophrenic . So what I wanted to do , this is like a jazz poem because I 'm very much into jazz improvisation , so what I tried to do is some visual stuff with the language , so everytime you click on the screen ( and somebody said you do n't want lots of text , well I like lots of text , because people do n't read enough as far as I 'm concerned ) . You know , I work in film where the first thing the producer says is give me a strat line , so you 've got 6 lines to sell the script . So for me , I wanted to do something that was long . Because , my kids - they do n't read anything longer than 3 minutes , so I wanted someone to spend a good half an hour on this . Really , I look at it from a slightly different point of view in that the people I 'm aiming at , I want them to actually soak it in , on top of a visual experience . I wanted someone who would read it to speak it out . So the bigger the letters , the louder you read it out .