David Dykes

Gillingham’s David Dykes ‘always wanted to be involved with books and reading, but it took a long time to realise that a poet was something you can be’. For him ‘poetry is about the challenge of expression; the human experience is so complex and multi-layered; every emotion or occurrence has thousands of influences behind it. Language is our tool to try to express these and poetry is about finding new ways of using language.’

Among Dykes’ influences are Bernadette Meyer who he has ‘been obsessed with for the past few years’, and David Harsent, whose collection Salt ‘unlocked a new way of making poetry books’. For Dykes the real excitement of poetry comes when ‘reading a poem and for a moment the real world drops away and [he] is involved in the world of the poem,’ adding that ‘it’s a kind of ritualistic reverie’. And though he concedes he is yet to be told that his own poetry has provided a ritualistic reverie, he is content that ‘if it’s ever made [someone] pause life and reconsider or relook at their experience then that’s incredible’.

‘Poetry is always something of a failure because can two people really have the same experience and reaction? What I try to write and what someone reads and hears are not the same. But it means I’m always discovering something new and unintended that I can bring to my next poem.’

For eight years Dykes and his partner have run the poetry night Big Trouble in Medway, creating a space for the community in which ‘people feel empowered to experiment’. He sees A Poet in Every Port as ‘an amazing chance to share [his] greatest passion,’ and offer further opportunities for people with an interest in poetry to connect, share and discover more poetry. He adds, ‘I think there’s a growing hunger for poetry in a world where language often seems to be used to try to conceal or warp the truth: there’s a curiosity to cut through and speak for yourself, which I hope is something we can show the possibilities of’.