Poetry & Prose.

It’s weird how things pan out in life. Having attended Carleton High School, Pontefract, my main passion was for Graphic Design, which I went on to study further at Wakefield College and Norton College in Sheffield. A year or so into studying a National Diploma at the latter, however, I began developing dreams of becoming a writer after I was introduced to Hip-Hop culture by an intelligent young friend of mine, named Leon, on my course. The music was my first love and I spent the days and nights of my late-teens blasting Nas, Tupac, Gang Starr, Ice-T, Dilated Peoples, Non Phixion, and just about anything I could get my hands on, which inspired me to rhyme. My passion for Graphics faded quickly and I soon left the course in Sheffield and began working in my local bar in the evenings to earn some spare cash, whilst I spent my days writing freestyles and poems at home.

After spending most of my nights after work drunk and in the company of random women, I decided to move to Leeds with my then-girlfriend in 2004 (probably as a statement of wanting to attain some form of order and maturity in my otherwise delinquent lifestyle). I enrolled in an Access course, studying English, English Literature, Sociology and Psychology, and started a full-time job in Leeds’ busiest bar. I remained passionate about writing, reading the classic English and American poets such as Melville, Tennyson, Shakespeare and others, whilst scribbling notes on scraps of paper during short journeys to and from work and college on public transport. I was also introduced to the likes of Freud and Marx by my tutors, which fascinated me.

After eight months living in Leeds I hit rock bottom. I left my job and accommodation after finding out my girlfriend was having sexual liaisons with my work colleagues, and I briefly returned home to live with my parents. Shortly after, my Mother had a serious stroke and was admitted in hospital. The doctors informed my family and I that she had developed cancer in her brain, which was untreatable, and had only three or four months to live. We cared for her at home until her condition became so severe that she had to be transferred to the Prince of Wales Hospice in Pontefract. During our daily visits, we began noticing that she was rapidly losing the ability to communicate with us verbally and even recognise who we were. She died in August 2005.

As deeply traumatic as losing my Mother was at that time, I felt encouraged at least to seriously do something with my life. I tapped into much of my repression, analysed the emotional turmoil that my other close family members were suffering, and began writing furiously in a bid of understand myself and inspire others. I felt lost, isolated, and while at times my Poetry was overly ambiguous and far from eloquent, it was the only medium that I felt allowed me to vent the ongoing experiences of the heart, mind and soul so freely. I wrote many poems in memory of my Mother at that time, but perhaps the best one of them all was selected for publication in a local collection of Poetry to raise money for the Prince of Wales Hospice.

I went on to study the craft of writing further at degree level, enrolling in a Creative Writing and English Literature later that year at The University of Aberystwyth, Wales. As well as the classic poets, I was introduced to many contemporary writers such as Tony Harrison, Vicky Feaver, Jeff Noon and Zadie Smith. I received exposure for some of my poems after submitting them to various websites and independent poetry magazines from publishers around the world. I felt a lot more confident in my abilities as a writer, and I graduated with a 2.1 in 2008.

Unfortunately, another disease invaded the Carrington family three months after my graduation. I began experiencing severe stomach pains, diarrhea and vomiting, and had to be rushed to hospital, where I received two operations of remove the badly-damaged parts of my bowels. Confused, depressed and feeling incredibly weak, I was told that my body had developed ‘Crohn’s Disease’, an inflammatory condition affecting any the gastrointestinal tract, which was so severe that I spent four months in intensive care, lost nearly three stone in weight, and infamously died for two minutes. I spent the majority of the year wearing an Ileostomy pouch and on benefits, too sick to work or do anything outside of the confinement of my own room and bathroom.

Determined not to waste my time feeling sorry for myself, I dedicated what time I could to developing my personal website. I wrote short stories, articles, reviews and essays on a number of subjects, including health, film, music and self-development. To my great relief, I put back on the weight I had lost during the time in hospital, and I had an Ileostomy-reversal operation in September 2009. I also ventured, gradually, back into the “real” working world and managed to self-publish my debut collection of poems entitled But, Mother Knows, which is now available for sale via andycarrington.co.uk and amazon.com.

There’s hardly any money in what I do, and at times I do think about what my life would’ve been like if I had of pursued a career in Graphic Design, but I’ll be damned if I say I would’ve been better off in myself having not wrote during the turbulent times in my life. I live for moments; my inspiration is constantly changing, along with my work; and particularly, I owe a great deal of respect to my Mother, Father and close friends, who have supported and inspired me to think for myself and follow my own ambitions. I hope that one day I will be able to pass the knowledge they’ve given me onto my own children, as well as the people that take the time from their similarly-hectic-lives to read my work.

A. Carrington, Shipley, 2010.