Why Do You Ask?

Do you have a bottled-up (or not) rant about ritual questions asked by people who don’t want to know, and the social tyranny which obliges phony answers even when they are the opposite of the truth? Then here’s a treat for you by the prolific, inimitable, illusionary (about which more later) British poet, Brian Bilston.

Brian Bilston New Year Office Chitchat How was your Christmas? he asks at the water cooler and, as the machine gurgles, she thinks about the bloodstained rug and the silent scraping of the spade in the garden at midnight and the wash wash washing of her hands, and the dreams, those endless dreams which haunt the night-time and smudge their thumbprints on the day to come, and she replies Super, thanks. Yours?

As posted by the author on Facebook, January 2, 2024. All rights his.

Brian Bilston is a rising star on the UK poetry scene, with his self-deprecatory, ironic, infinitely various, and frequently hilarious poems. I suspect they are also poetically correct, in the literary sense, though I am unqualified to judge that. After a couple of years of publishing poems daily to social media and accumulating hundreds of thousands of followers, including me, he started live readings a year or so ago. He has been touring tirelessly (or at least, continuously. I don’t know whether he’s tired) ever since.

Brian Bilston publicity photo. His face completely covered by the book he is reading (How to Write a Poem), while a cat sits in the foreground, gazing into the camera. And his middle finger supports the spine of the book in a protrusive way, but I'm sure that's an accident

Is this the publicity photo of an extrovert?

I was afraid his popularity would spoil him, but so far he’s navigated that interesting intersection between introversion and celebrity (about which I have previously written) as brilliantly as he navigates language.

But here’s the thing: His name isn’t really Brian Bilston. And he isn’t a perpetually lovelorn young single guy (or at least, he’s over 50 and married). I was taken aback when I first learned his writing identity was not a person but a persona. However, I soon began to appreciate the doubled creativity of inventing the author as well as the poems, and thereby insulating himself from self-exposure twice over, all the while writing nonstop about vulnerable emotional states. Pure introvert genius!

As for responses to “How are you” asked by people who don’t care and won’t listen if you actually tell them, I suppose replying “Why do you ask?” could be perceived as snarky by some, but considering that I really want to say “None of your business!,” those some should consider themselves getting off lightly. I don’t say that, of course. I do my best to balance authenticity with social convention, a perpetual challenge, which may explain why I AM tired.

Happy World Introvert Day!