I was at work drinks on Thursday and two things were said that inspired this poem. Firstly, a colleague I’ve known for six months referred to me as ‘geezery’. That was the initial inspiration when I sat down to write this poem last night. About how when I’ve had a couple of drinks the ‘lad’ within me sometimes wins out.
But then it became a poem about where I spent the first twelve years of my life.
Another work colleague, who I had only met that day, expressed the feeling that Canning Town was a ‘lovely area’, and it actually hurt me to think that of how my homestead is perceived now. The Canning Town I loved was a de facto ‘shit hole’, and I wouldn’t have changed it for the world. It was multi-cultural and it was working class, and it had way more of a sense of community than any of these ‘nice towns’ that exist. So this poem is, like so much in my life, a rail against the white middle classes. Not all of them, just the ones that move to London from the home counties and have Daddy’s money to help pay the rent, whilst they bringing up the prices and the heights of the buildings.
I never intended for this poem to rhyme, in fact I had the opposite intention, but an AA, BB pattern emerged anyway, apart from one line that stands out on its on. This is very much a first draft, I wrote it on a small piece of paper in about five minutes, and then walked away, and now I’m putting it on here.
Canning Town (Working Title)
There’s an inner lad within me, who’s crying to get out
A few drinks, she calls me ‘geezery’, and I reply with a shout
‘I’m from Canning Town, when it was still Canning Town’
Before the luxury apartments, and the white middle classes
Before Daddy’s money, and these home counties bastards
We were from all over the world, full of working class laughter
Now they’re all from Surrey, Sussex & Berkshire
It was multi-cultural, it felt like the east end should
Now it smells like coffee shops, it would all be coffee shops if they could
Written 20/06/2025
All My Worst Work 