My name is James and this personal website, it’s an attempt to archive my writing which predominately is (under a loose banner) poetry.

I started writing things down around 1992 at the age of seventeen, initially with no other idea or plan than to keeping record of my thoughts and feelings. Given my growing up experiences it felt like the perfect way to apply some self help therapy and reflection.

Gradually over time I developed a kind of confidence and i began to show them to other people and and they suggested that actually, some of this ‘stuff’ I had been writing down wasn’t too bad. So it gave me the idea that maybe I should continue to write things down, which I have continued to do throughout my life.

By 1995 I had was regularly recording my ‘life’ and I started using writing pads from W.H Smith, as piece of superstition i continue use only writing pads bought in W.H Smith. This is one from 1995,

I am not a professional writer although I have written for a local newspapers about local history, VW magazines about VW Campers and vans and once upon a time i did write a very short story that was published in a magazine and somewhere, back in my 20’s i did write a book but the less said about that the better.

This is my collection of writings and thoughts, hopefully capturing my life from very early, awkward teenage years through to where i am now, slightly less awkward middle age years.

I have always tried to capture not only my life but also the times i have lived through and although i would never claim to be the most technical writer I like to think that overall I capture something, perhaps for me it’s the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.

There will be (sort of monthly) updates which are reflective and discuss some of the poems, aspects around writing and my thoughts on poetry and some of my work as well as the creative process.

You will find them here,

https://theboybehindtheglasses.com/category/updates-things-and-stuff/

This site exists so that i can archive my work, having written since 1992 and generally in quite a prolific fashion i have many many writing pads and as time goes on, they need to kept and stored and I also want to create a record of my writing. To this end, this probably won’t be like your traditional blog, I will be working to add poetry on a daily basis and I will be working from different pads and years. In this respect, if you follow my blog, you may feel that there is an overload but it is important that i start archiving my work.

If you go onto the main site here,

https://theboybehindtheglasses.com/

So for example my earliest surviving writing is here,

https://theboybehindtheglasses.com/category/poems-1992/

And my recent writing is here,

https://theboybehindtheglasses.com/category/poems-and-writing-2020/

You will see the main site, to the left, you will see my work split into years and then months. This means I take a jigsaw puzzle approach of collating work from my life to create a poetic timeline from 1992 through to now.

You can also see on the left, poems people are currently reading as well as my twitter feed, if you wish to follow me on twitter i am here,

Tweets by The__JFG

Each poem that is typed in has a scanned image of the original written piece from the writing pad. This will highlight my poor handwriting and spelling but I wanted to strip back the creative process and reveal the layers. I think the originals, with all their mistakes, correction and sometimes even edits, give a great insight into that creative process.

A typical example is this poems from 2001 called, Just One More

I have dated the majority of my work and in the writing up process I will add the date to the title and my age. I think this makes the reader think more about what they are reading. I almost want you, as the reader, to be forced into some opinions about a piece of writing and the age i was when i wrote it.

I feel fortunate to have this record of my life and although, i sometimes read poems and think, who was that about or what was that in relation to, it is me, this is who i am and the quality may not always sparkle but i think i have reflected the many different versions of me, both past and present but also illustrated some core beliefs and values.

Finally, as already mentioned I am not the best or most technical writer, i write to capture moments and over time, i think the phrase, the whole is greater than the sum of the its parts is completely applicable to my work. That’s not just a lazy excuse to justify some suspect writing, i really think that as diverse as the poems can be and as distant as they can be in terms of age and time, they are me and they are all go to reflecting who are i am.

Please comment and feel free to engage.

Thank you,

James