A friend explains
why he’s drinking
so much tonight;
not because it’s fun,
although it is, but
because tomorrow’s
alcohol low
will carry him closer
to understanding
how I feel at my
all the time.
Ewen Glass
Ewen Glass (he/him) is a screenwriter and poet from Northern Ireland who lives with two dogs, a tortoise and a body of self-doubt; his poetry has appeared in the likes of Okay Donkey, Maudlin House, HAD, Poetry Scotland and One Art. Bluesky/IG: @ewenglass
Why this Knocked Taylor Out:
I am notoriously sober. Like so willfully ignorant about the world of alcohol so kinda surprised myself by how into this one I am. Okay sorry jokes aside.
In this poem, a pastime used for celebrations is allowed to step in and take the place of empathy. It made me think about mental illness and the way huge swaths of people can have the same diagnosis and completely different worlds of experiences. And how other people like partners and friends are attempting to bridge gaps to sit with each other in suffering.
The poem also contains a huge world in a tight space with really careful line breaks and this slice of life is also able to be about how we care for each other when we can't care for ourselves. I feel like this is situated really well within the Irish canon of poetry which is able to expand almost “slice-of-life” moments into big worlds and big energies. The line “will carry him closer” is such a wonderful moment in which the idea of being “closer” to anything is allowed to sit. Following this into “understanding” builds the empathy of the poem. Ending with “all the time.” is such a moment of finality beyond just being the last line that we truly get the immensity of the “all the time” and how hard it can be to move through the world as a neurodiverse person or as someone carrying immense grief!
Also, if you read Ewen’s interview a whole world of this poem that I didn’t even read into is opened. When you think about this poem within the context of making friends as an adult, there’s so much added texture there. (Read the interview!!).
Interview:
Why did you choose Team Taylor for this poem?
Taylor's into 'any poem that has the words "your body" or "the body" in it' and while this one doesn't explicitly, approximately 76% of my work does so I thought our thematic interests would align.
This is a tight poem, set in a very short amount of space and time. When you are writing, how do you think about the relationship between poem and line length, and the time lapsing inside the poem?
I come from a screenwriting background so I'm always trying to find that one little moment or action that means so much to a character, then building it out from there. I love the idea of these little moments suddenly meaning everything, when you actually think about them. I tried to keep short lines to echo the short time-frame and to present a dense little contained body of text (A body, Taylor!)
What is your writing process like? How did this poem evolve throughout time within that writing process or differently from the norm?
I made a group of good new friends last year. I feel that, for an adult that's no mean feat these days. I've been struck by what it means to make and have new male friends when you're not a young person any more, by how different - and supportive - that can feel. This poem came out of that, really, and came fast.