Latest / The Rooted Soul Podcast / TRS Ep11 The Art of Conversation: Poetry, Podcasts & Mystery Dinners

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TRS Ep11 The Art of Conversation: Poetry, Podcasts & Mystery Dinners · The Rooted Soul Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello again, this is Alan MacDonald, The Rooted Soul Podcast.
• 0:04
  As always, the website is theroodedsoulbooks.com, where there's plenty of content
• 0:08
  and there's a link to the book, $9.99 UK and Eurozone, $4.99 for the e-book.
• 0:14
  And again, looking at the prices elsewhere to bring them down a little bit too
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  before the second collection.
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  Alan at theroodedsoulbooks.com is the
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  best place to contact me and at alanmcdonald.ire is my Instagram handle.
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  So first off guys i wanted to shout out around the podcast,
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  a few people have contacted me to do poetry that would like me to kind of read
• 0:37
  out their poems i'd already put a shout out to that,
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  there's a couple of things i would like people to contact me either dm me on
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  instagram facebook or through the email alan at the rooted soulbooks.com,
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  send me a poem if you want me to read it out if you want me to if you want to
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  send an explainer or you want me to interpret that that will be fine,
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  but also for the poetry community out there guys particularly the one that I've
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  kind of been very invested in recently which has been amazingly supportive Instagram in particular,
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  if you'd like to join a podcast I'd like to get three or four if possible to
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  record an audio podcast on here.
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  I'm very interested in how people came to poetry. Most people come there through struggles.
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  Some people it is just genuinely a love of the spoken word and the written word.
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  And as I've said before, I think poetry brings something very unique.
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  You can tell an entire lifetime story within a few verses.
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  And then, of course, the gaps in between for me are where you bring your own
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  experience to it and what it means to you.
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  So if anyone's interested in that, let me know. I've got a few.
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  I did one with my friend harry i've done one with danny where you know we sat
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  down and had a fun podcast and i like doing these on my own as well with depending
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  on what topics i want to talk about and,
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  today is not really going to be about reading poems,
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  it's just a few things that i wanted to to chat about,
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  but yeah so in terms of recording i like i like the idea of getting people onto
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  the podcast to talk about their lived experience why they write what,
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  what it means for them and also there's a lot of people from a lot of different
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  countries doing this that I've met which is wonderful,
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  what are the poets and writers from your country what are the pieces of writing
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  that resonate most with you you know and again I say this a lot but I was thinking
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  about this over the weekend where.
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  It's not just poetry, but I'm learning a lot from expanding my horizons in terms of writing.
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  So I spoke about Shelby Foote, who is a great American novelist from the deep
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  south, and ended up writing his only nonfiction, actually, which became the
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  thing he was most famous for, which was the Civil War trilogy,
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  which I've just started to delve into.
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  And it's over a million, between a million and a million and a half words.
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  And I spoke about it on the Scotch in the Balcony reunion podcast.
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  But I'm finding that the interviews with him and his style of writing and his
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  way of doing things is actually really influencing me.
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  I love the fact that even though he's an historian or that was an historian
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  for those books, he lets the story unfold.
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  So he won't tell you, well, this is Alan McDonald and he comes from Dublin and
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  he's married to such and such and has excellent kids and this is what happened.
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  You meet them in a certain scenario and as the story unfolds, which is a real story,
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  the story of that person unfolds as,
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  normal relationships and friendships happen over time and I think it's fascinating
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  I mean I always love it when I've known someone a long time and all of a sudden
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  find out something I never knew about them you know it's a it's a wonderful uh,
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  they're wonderful little surprises that we have with people we care about and love throughout life,
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  and I was you know I've started to think with that lens because I look with
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  that lens Jesus, how can you think with a lens?
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  Because I write more character-driven story arcs now. So a lot of the poetry
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  that I put out now on social media, there are still poems that were written some time back.
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  And what I do now is I'm trying to create some story arcs. And,
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  you know, I think about what Shelby said in terms of, he was like,
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  I wish more historians would worry less about the facts, you know,
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  and more about the truth.
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  And that's where the poem yesterday had come from, very interestingly,
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  where I'd written some time back for a situation in my life and found that he
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  shared that view as Maya Angelou did.
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  It's not a new discovery that, you know, facts and truth, you know,
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  they share the same family, but they're not immediate family,
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  you know, they're cousins.
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  And you have to kind of, I always try, though I'm sure people will tell me I
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  fail, to look beyond the facts to the truth. What was the motivation, right?
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  And motivation and history past etc experiences,
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  can be the truth that fleshes out the facts and i was i find it very interesting
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  and you know as i said i was writing i am writing a kind of a gothic horror,
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  i'm struggling a little bit but there's a collection of poems that i really
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  want to put into the second book and but i think maybe they work better with
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  the gothic horror as i said before it's kind of not quite romantic but it's
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  a bitter and a sweet two stories that would then,
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  kind of mirror each other at the end,
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  which is a nice idea but I so want to get the next collection out there that
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  I want the best foot forward so,
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  I'll have to have a think about that over the next while but I did,
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  it gave me pause because.
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  It's amazing in life how we can learn about one emotion and one feeling by experiencing the opposite,
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  Like I think of gothic horror in particular, but horror novels.
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  And they're scary, and there's hatred, and there's revenge.
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  And yet, what permeates through most of them is love.
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  And real, deep, true love. Dracula, of course.
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  Frankenstein. There's many others where there is a feeling of love that runs through them romance.
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  You know you can learn about loneliness from companionship and relationships.
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  You're around you know i experienced it recently where i didn't realize just
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  how alone i felt at times what i was going through by reconnecting and being
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  around the people i care about and love you know and,
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  i learned early on in my life about forgiveness from people around my parents
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  who were very unforgiving people not necessarily to my parents but very unforgiving
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  people and from a young age I thought oh.
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  I don't I don't I don't I didn't understand it but I don't want to be you know
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  and you're hearing a conversation of well I'll never talk to that person again
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  it might be family for them or friends or and I always thought like my parents
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  weren't like that they were very forgiving people,
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  and that's that's what I wanted to be and I think I spoke about this recently maybe not on here,
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  It's very easy in life with experiences that we have that are negative and lay
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  us low to become hardened and bitter, you know, and difficult and unforgiving.
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  And I don't want to be that person. I wrote a poem about it where it's about
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  that kind of thing of, if you go through difficult times, there's two types of people.
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  It was hard for me, so it should be hard for you.
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  Other times you go, you know, it was hard for me, so I'm going to have all the
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  empathy and sympathy that I can muster for you to make it easier for you because it wasn't for me.
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  And I think those people, I'm not going to say there's a few of them,
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  there's many of them, but they're the people I gravitate towards.
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  And it's very interesting to me, you know, even with the podcasts and the interviews,
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  you know, what I did with Danny and with Harry, it's a wonderful art of conversation.
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  You know, I would have felt a bit skittish at times about talking about things
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  that really opened me up, you know.
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  And there's myself and Harry sitting across from each other.
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  We've known each other since we were teenagers.
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  And as we have in previous podcasts, we used to do Scotch in the balcony,
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  which is available on Podbean because they're very erratic, very sporadic.
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  But we would go deep on conversations, and privately. He was one of those people
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  where he was going through a very difficult time when I was.
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  There were differences to them. But ultimately, you know, we would delve very
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  deep on how we felt about things and life and love and everything else.
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  And coming out of the other side of all of that, the art of conversation is so important to me.
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  You know, I think about what I would like to do in terms of moving forward with
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  the podcast part of this.
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  And obviously as I said before my friend Brian is one of my oldest friends and
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  closest friends we'll be doing he'll be interviewing me about the book the first
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  book about what happened,
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  and I scanned over some of the questions and I stopped and I said to him it
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  layout looks amazing there's nothing you can't ask me but I said I don't want
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  to prepare for this I want it to be from the heart and completely open and,
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  we probably won't get to do that for I'd say middle of september when i'm back in ireland again.
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  But i think that will be very interesting i'll put it out there for everyone
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  to listen to mainly because again what i went through if i can help anyone get
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  through it quicker get through it easier,
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  that's my job done also you know if that person goes out and takes a credit
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  union loan out for 10 000 bucks i'd appreciate that as well but,
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  but even if it just helps that's what matters really to me at the moment and,
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  i think once the second collection comes out i want i wanted to mark the end
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  of those conversations because,
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  you know i am in a great place it is sometimes day by day with headspace with
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  sleep that kind of thing but,
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  you know i want to i want to be i want my poetry to be this was cathartic and
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  help people i'd like it to be more uplifting too uplifting is not a word on,
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  but talking about the art of conversation it was something harry talked about
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  this off the podcast i think the other night.
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  And I always loved the great interviewers over the years in terms of talk shows.
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  So in the early 90s in Ireland, you know, you had cable link with satellite TV.
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  And I think it was Super Channel used to do the Tonight Show.
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  So it was the end of the Johnny Carson era.
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  So I caught maybe the last year or two of that. I used to be fascinated by the
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  guests, you know, and the way he would interview them. And then it went to Jay Leno.
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  And then David Letterman, who was the rival.
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  And he had a late night show that was on Sky in One, I think, at the time.
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  And I used to love the format of, like, it was good comedy.
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  Conan O'Brien started out when I was about 13 years of age, and he would come
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  on after Jay Leno. So it would be last night's show in the US that would be
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  on the Super Channel, I think it was, and whatever came after that. But God, it was great.
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  Conan had a very, I think he's wonderful. He wrote some of the greatest episodes
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  of The Simpsons, and he was only there for a year or two.
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  The Monorail, Homer goes to Clown Cottage. Oh, I could talk all day about the
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  early years of The Simpsons.
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  And Conan brought something different again because he had a very sideways,
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  comedic glance on the world.
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  And then had a great way of interviewing guests as well. They all had different styles, you know.
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  Johnny made his guests feel comfortable and relaxed. Dave Letterman liked to
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  poke them a little bit with his stick to get the humor from there.
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  I actually really liked Jay Leno. I thought he was good and funny without being fake.
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  And like some of the more modern ones could come across a little fake at times,
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  but the greatest one was craig ferguson and i would implore you all to check
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  out the youtube there's plenty of them where he took over the late show.
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  In 2005 2005 i think he was in his 40s,
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  scottish guy stand-up comedian i think he'd been a drummer he acted all that
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  kind of stuff and he was brilliant and actually we did talk about this a little bit in the podcast,
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  He used to do very funny monologues because obviously in a stand-up comedy you've
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  got the monologue to start the show and then the guests would come out and stuff.
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  And one night he did a... It was around the time Britney Spears had shaved her
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  head and she was having a breakdown and there was all kinds of rumours and stuff going out there.
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  And he's a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, I think.
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  But he stood up and did about a 10-minute monologue which is the best I've ever seen.
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  And because of who he is and he's very irreverent and he can turn from serious to funny,
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  the audience were laughing at the start of some of it and they kept saying to
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  know that this is serious.
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  It reminded me of that opening scene in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip which
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  if you've never watched that there's only one season of it but it closes off
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  nicely and it's a brilliantly funny show and a brilliantly just brilliantly written.
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  It's an Aaron Sorkin Matthew Perry is in it and Bradley Whitford and it's really
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  Amanda Peet as well really good.
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  He was saying, oh, I'm being serious here.
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  And eventually, obviously, he got it. But it was an incredible monologue of
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  empathy and sympathy for somebody who grew up in the spotlight,
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  who was kind of chewed up and spat out by the system.
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  And he talked about his own situation very honestly and openly.
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  It was the first time I'd heard him talk about it.
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  But his interviews, he used to love, he had great flirtation with the actresses that would come on.
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  And it was great fun back and forth. It was all very piss-taking,
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  which I always think about flirtation.
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  If flirtation isn't a little bit knowingly cheesy, to me it's just creepy.
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  He used to do that line very well. He also had a great, I mean.
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  Michael Caine was on a number of times, fantastic interviews.
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  Desmond Tutu, a good range of guests, obviously.
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  James Spader did some fantastic interviews as well. so it was,
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  yeah it was it's an incredible show it's that art of conversation that i love,
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  so i'm doing in a few weeks it's a kind of a mystery guest dinner in chelsea
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  here in london so i have one seat at the table of six and you don't know who the other five are,
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  i'm doing it to meet new people but also i like the idea of challenging myself to see if i can,
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  can i hold a good conversation around the table of people i don't know i'm going
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  to start to feel insecure,
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  like i used to or can i just hold that conversation up and along with the other
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  people around the table but also i'm hoping it's going to inspire me to write
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  something right i mean i've written about dinner parties i'm in the middle of
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  writing one about a dinner party,
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  of famous women so why not a the mystery guests dinner party,
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  at least i've got something interesting to say right it's like um yeah i write poetry.
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  Don't worry i'm not going to try and sell them a book.
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  But all of that I'd be thinking about conversation and how it's so important.
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  Not small talk either. Small talk has its place.
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  But to be able to sit with somebody or a group of people and just open up you
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  know, you know we can all be sarcastic and take the piss but to be able to weave
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  a bit of humor into serious conversation.
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  You know I like debate about politics without it becoming ideological.
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  Without us having to carve out a side.
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  And I, you know, I used to love conversations around football but passion for
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  that has dimmed greatly a because of the way the game has gone but b,
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  that tends to just go into you you go back to your tribal element of when you
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  were eight you know i i remember i've been out with two friends of mine,
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  and we were 40 at the time i'm 47 now and it was when it started to wane for me,
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  and there was a genuine argument between three 40 year old men about who the
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  greatest football manager of all time was and finger pointing and shouting and
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  i stopped at one point and I thought,
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  I've been having these arguments since I was eight years of age I'm done,
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  so now I watch sport and I stand apart from it except when my country plays
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  when Ireland plays I have great passion for them,
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  but even then because I stand apart from it I don't have the in-depth knowledge
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  I used to have you know I couldn't name most first 11 lineups in the Premier
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  League for example and I'm a Liverpool supporter Christ I'd struggle to name
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  Liverpool's I might get eight or nine but it's gonna be one or two I'll forget about.
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  I like conversations on all sorts. So I like being on the move now.
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  Conversations where there's a good friend of mine that I meet in Deptford Markets
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  and sometimes a weekend.
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  And Deptford is a wonderful, eclectic, old school market.
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  You know, you'll have, there was one stand that was selling gorgeous chicken and rice with chili.
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  And then beside it, they're selling mattresses, you know.
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  And then the next one's got clothes and there's vinyl records and there's old
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  CDs and DVDs. And then there's, you know, designer stuff, which I don't know where they came from.
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  I didn't ask, but they were a good price.
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  And there's a wonderful mix of people around there on a Saturday morning.
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  And I live not far from Deptford.
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  It took me a while to kind of fall in love with the place, but I realized you
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  have to be there and experience it morning and then afternoon and evening and a night.
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  And I've done all of that over the last year and absolutely fallen in love with
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  it because it has a soul. So it is partially redeveloped as partially the old
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  kind of working class side of Deptford. And though I hate the class system,
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  it's the only way to describe it.
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  And there's a wonderful mix there. I mean, you've got a little bit of everything. So, yeah.
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  So those conversations strike up because you're looking at things,
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  you're going into this little gallery there that was really nice.
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  I believe it's closed recently.
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  So I kind of, you know, for me, conversation is so important and good conversation
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  and serious conversation at times, you know, where it quite often you find it.
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  If I always say with talking is where you start, you know, I've been in positions
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  with people where they've been struggling and they've not really wanted to talk about it.
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  And without prying, you tease out the conversation and then all of a sudden maybe tears will come.
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  And that's when the barriers come down and the conversation is really high.
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  And that's what I want for this podcast guys people to join and not to burst into tears and talk,
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  deeply personal but to feel like you can talk about anything like around me
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  there is no there is nothing stupid to be said around me if something makes
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  you feel a certain way or you thought this way that's fine I want to hear it
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  I want to hear everything about it so again,
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  this is just a quick hop on,
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  if you want to join the podcast if you want to send me some writing or some
• 18:38
  poems either with an explainer or not because a few people have expressed interest
• 18:42
  in me collaborating and reading their poems which which i'm very flattered by,
• 18:46
  so if you want to do that it is alan at the rooted soul books.com,
• 18:51
  the website is the rooted soul books.com and alan mcdonald is the instagram
• 18:55
  handle so there's plenty of places to find me and please reach out and let me know.
• 19:01
  And as always, guys, better living within.