the cycle diaries

Introduction

‘It’s just a ride.’ ~ Bill Hicks

May 2019, I returned to my native Dartmoor. In-between jobs, skint, depressed, questioning the wisdom behind certain life choices, sick of the ubiquitous banality of a pathologically ecocidal consumer culture: I had lost interest in being part of this world and was struggling to see a way beyond the ominous feeling it precipitated – like an inner candle was fading into darkness with no desire to burn anymore.

Spending time around nature helped alleviate a sense of despair, which I found rather curious. I began exploring various woodland trails, first by foot and then by mountain bike. This evolved into the idea of writing an existential poem aiming to capture an impression of authentic being unearthed via an experience of unbridled joy in the midst of Dartmoor’s mysterious landscape.

Each canto represents a ride written on location and verses are determined by breaks within each ride, hence the overall rhythm is shaped by temporal experience. Asides from making minor amendments when typing up, I have kept the finished manuscript true to how it was originally written in my notepad – the principle aim being to strike a balance between creating something that is readable while preserving the ‘nowness’ of the whole experience. I was often writing spur-of-the-moment, be it in-between climbing hills or shortly after riding down a trail and I deliberately kept the full stops and commas thrown in while writing. I think this helps to retain the feel of an unorthodox rhythm born out of a state of exhilaration, attempting to keep pace with the immediate and the reflective – sometimes in the pouring rain, frequently when a muddy, sweat-soaked mess!

I liken the method and presentation of The Cycle Diaries to Jack Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues, though I consider the overall aim to be quite different. I would cite poets Rumi, Blake, William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens, alongside Heidegger’s Being and Time, as significant literary influences. I can also relate to various contemporaries, notably in the music world and the genres of dub techno (artists such as Echospace) as well as shoegaze and dream pop with bands like Ride, Slowdive and Echo Ladies where beats and vocals become infused into complex layers of sound (often referred to as ‘music for the introvert’). Immersed in nature’s interconnected solitude, I see a distinct affinity with what I was attempting to achieve with The Cycle Diaries.

Click here to read the first canto.