Unashamed E-Book

Harry Baker

• Herausgeber: Burning Eye Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 89

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Unashamed follows the journey of World Poetry Slam Champion Harry Baker from graduating with a maths degree being unsure if this poetry thing was even possible, to becoming one of the nation's favourite poets and having his work viewed by millions all over the globe. A collection of poems taken from sold out shows combined with new work written at a time when that was no longer possible. From the joyful creativity of German compound words to having his prime number poetry shared on TED.com, it took Harry far too long to realise that maths has been as much a part of his work as the poetry. That both are about figuring out the world around us, finding wonder in your surroundings, and searching for connection wherever you can. From school bullying through climate change, via a healthy obsession with falafels and a 10,000th birthday, Harry's love of language and logic has got him through marathons, a cancer diagnosis and potentially ruined his wife's chances of getting a job in an ice cream shop. Unashamed is a book of heart, humour and hope. It shows what happens when you're truly able to celebrate all the parts of yourself.

Leseprobe

Contents

Praise for Harry Baker

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Intro

Some Days

When This Is Over

Part One

In Summer 2015

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon

The first step on my literary quest

Bond James Bond

Knees

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon ii

When I started studying maths at university

Falafellöffel

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon iii

Halfway through my year of studying in Germany

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon iv

One year later and I’m back in Bristol

49

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon v

The French poet Paul Valéry once said

49 (addendum)

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon vi

As well as getting to celebrate exciting number-based milestones

Ice Cream Character Reference

I am proud to announce that

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon vii

I haven’t always been this comfortable in my nerdiness

Maybe

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon viii

Interval

Silence

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon ix

Rescheduled

Part Two

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon x

On 16 March 2020

Impossible

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon xi

When the opportunity to perform live on stage disappeared overnight

Wild

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon xii

Toilet Seat

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon xiii

The rise of the online gig

Dust

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon xiv

My mum loves running.

There is a Mother

While Mum was off work

A Birthday Poem

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon xv

What I have come to appreciate that maths and poetry have in common

An A-Z of Time and Space

Outro

One of the joys of touring a show explicitly containing maths and poetry

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon xvi

There was a phrase that Dougie’s mum used to describe him

Unashamed

I think we can all agree that would be the perfect place to finish

Christmas Through the Ages

Acknowledgements

About Harry Baker

Copyright

Praise for Harry Baker

Harry Baker is an inspiring wonder-force who releases on the page what he unleashes on stage. Every few years a poet appears, seemingly out of the blue. They arrive fully dressed with all the requisite attributes of a poet, by their definition. Fire. They were born that way. “Hello” they say “I must tell you about….”. They will be memorable, that is to say unforgettable, they will be honest, that is to say they speak truth, they will be witty, deep, curious, unique, shallow, scared, protective, undeterred, confident, unframed, riotous and unashamed. They will have a physical presence which is the guardian of their written word. Harry Baker. The stage. The page. The brilliant poet. The luminous mind. I feel lucky to read your brilliant words. Dear reader, you are lucky too.

Lemn Sissay

Title Page

Unashamed

Harry Baker

Burning Eye

Dedication

For Grace.

Thank you for holding me in your light.

Epigraph

Why do something if you can’t be proud of it?

Kae Tempest

Intro

As I am writing this introduction I have just turned 11,000 days old. I am aware of this milestone because of a poem I wrote as a teenager called ‘Paper People’. While I was working on it my mum told me that my grandparents had been praying for me every single day since I was born. I thought this was so incredible that I used to count my age in days and include that exact number in the poem each time I performed it, as a reminder to myself of how often someone had been thinking of me in that way.

When I was 8,396 days old, my grandpa died. I paused the number in the poem as a reference to him, but my 10,000th birthday was already marked out in the calendar as something I didn’t want to miss.

My way of celebrating in style was taking a show all about poetry and maths entitled I am 10,000 up to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I was touring this show around the UK up until the point when we decided that crowding in basements wasn’t the best idea during a global pandemic, and many of its poems and ideas have become the book you hold in your hands today.1

The show was an excuse to revisit some of the maths I thought I had left behind forever, as well as themes that had always been present in the background of my work. It was enough to give me a renewed enthusiasm to approach maths and poetry together again, and as soon as I scratched the surface I was reminded they had never been that separate for me in the first place. These ideas have helped shape how I see the world, and whether you’re a lover or hater of maths and/or poetry, I hope you’ll join me in celebrating language, logic and life itself.

Some Days

Some days

there is a lightness.

When the brilliance

of everything around you

becomes heightened.

When there is

more to life

than indulging your

quarter-life crisis,

and you owe it to yourself

to try and put this down

in writing.

I promise

I will never stop trying.

Even when it’s hard to —

I find the prospect

far too exciting.

We forget

the bar we set

has the capacity for rising.

Where it is left

is just the version

we have given up revising.

So this is

HB 2.0.1 (and a half).

Current draft.

The water’s running warm,

so pass the bubble bath.

When the going gets tough,

it’s tough to get

a dialogue going

that stuff is hard,

but if we come together

there’s a chance

we might not come apart.

Whether or not it’s growing

on the other half,

the grass is always greener

when you love the grass.

Remind myself

when faced with tougher days

that there are some that aren’t;

it might not feel like much,

but then again it rarely does

when it is just the start.

I’ve never met a second step

as terrifying as the first one.

I’ve never met another person

there wasn’t a chance to learn from.

The more that we spend time with the uncertain,

the more we can apply

when we revise our current version.There is a point when unknown becomes home

and throws you unaware.

When you’ve been

near the table long enough

to now pull up a chair.

When the place

you knew as new

asks you if you

have cut your hair.

You feel the corners

of your mouth — and soul —

and notice something’s there.

Some days

there is a lightness.

When it becomes

all but impossible

to stop the world

from glowing.

There are still

shadows in between

as I wish some days

into most days,

but on those days

I will read myself

this poem.

When This Is Over

When this is over,

I will hold you

closer than you’ve ever known.

When you see me

you can squeeze me

till you feel my very bones.

How I long to let you know

that I won’t want to let you go.

There will be so much left to say,

yet still some things are better shown.

I will wrap my arms around you

for the seconds we have lost.

Our words will find a way to wait

as we locate the weight of us.

Though we are changed,

there stays a sense of same

about the way we touch.

Though it is strange,

we will embrace

how long it takes us to adjust.

The world of everything we knew

is somewhere we cannot return.

The world of everything that’s new

is one we’ll build from what we’ve learned.

We’d never known ashes could rise again

until we’d seen them burn,

and the next time I stand in front of you

will feel like it’s been earned.

When the start has given way,

it’s only then the end can enter.

When the heart is given space,

it will forever tend to tender.

These affections kept at bay

can once again descend to centre,

something we’ll have come to yearn

as hummingbirds connect to nectar.

For all those overwhelming moments

where I’ve felt like giving up,

there is no point that I was worried

we’d forgotten how to love.

When the future’s all we’ve got,

well, then that’s got to be enough.

All that I know is when I’m low

that I have wanted to be hugged.

And if you’d rather have a handshake,

that is absolutely fine.

Even a wave from me is saying,

I am glad that you’re alive.

Whichever form it takes,

when this has passed

and we’ve started again,

I will no longer take for granted

any chances to connect.

Part One

Part One

In Summer 2015

In summer 2015, having passed my final logic exam by one mark above a fail,2 I graduated with a maths degree from the University of Bristol, ready to not use that degree in any professional capacity whatsoever.My parents had met at university also studying maths, and, after a brief stint teacher training and analysing submarine rust for the Ministry of Defence respectively, they went on to job-share at a Christian youth work charity — so abandoning maths as soon as possible felt like a family tradition I was only too happy to continue. The part of the path that felt less well-trodden was that I was doing this in order to become a full-time poet.

I had spent four years sitting increasingly confused at the back of lecture theatres, spending more and more evenings and weekends gigging on any stage that would have me when I should have been studying. I was struggling to stay on top of the syllabus, but more pressingly I was often struggling to stay awake. By the end I was mostly dribbling and drooling scribbling and scrawling in the margins of my barely legible notes, certain of what I wanted to do but with no idea of how to go about it or if it would even be possible. I just knew that I had to try.

I reassured myself that, while others on my course had been doing internships and applying for graduate schemes at Deloitte and Barclays, my equivalent work experience had been getting pennies thrown at me by some teenagers in Swindon I’d mistakenly challenged to a rap battle whilst being brought in as a positive role model. At least if I ever needed a friend who worked in corporate tax loopholes for the inevitable millions I made off poetry, I knew where to look.

While I was in my final year, wrestling as much with the existential question of what to do next as I was with the actual maths questions in front of me, I signed up for the London Marathon — presumably because I felt I had to match this mental anguish with some kind of physical pain. As a poet and a mathematician (two occupations renowned for their athleticism), I did what I assume anyone would do in such a time of hardship and endurance: I tried to distract myself long enough to get through it.

A Mathematician’s Guide to Surviving Your First Marathon

Tell yourself the first five miles don’t really count.

By the time you get to six,