When It Suddenly Occurred to Me

I love hearing about an epiphany: when people remember the moment they snapped, the precise second they decided enough was enough.

Here’s a beauty from the poet Michael Shann:

September 1989, Liverpool. I was 22 and had just begun an accountancy course that would guarantee a secure career in NHS finance for the next 40 years. It all felt wrong. I should have been in a lecture but was walking up Ranelagh Street towards the Adelphi Hotel when it suddenly occurred to me. I’m a poet.

It’s perfect. He remembers the place, the idea, the feeling:

It struck me with such a blow of truth and clarity that I walked straight down Lime Street to the Central Library, found a place at one of the big reading tables and wrote my first poem.

Did you spot the truly unusual part? It’s the part where he did something about it.

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New Escapologist Issue 18 is now available to order for prompt shipping in November.