‘I didn’t want to view my sight loss as a disability’

Julia Thorley talks to poet Carl Peach about how he’s rising to the challenges of staying creative

Despite having studied journalism, Carl Peach only started creative writing in earnest after he split from his wife in 2009. It was poetry that helped get him back on track. His first collection, Man Up, is very personal and introspective, and tackles many of life’s major themes. Carl says this was a deliberate approach.

“I find it difficult to write about anything I don’t have personal experience of. It doesn’t inspire me. I have tried to write about fluffy bunnies and positive stuff, but I end up reverting to type. It’s a process of catharsis, because I’ve committed it to paper. There always seems to be some little coda that suggests ‘That’s over. Now I can move on.’”

Carl is well known on the spoken word circuit in Northamptonshire and beyond, but confesses his first time behind the mic was quite an ordeal.

“I turned up at Run Your Tongue at the Three Cocks in Kettering, run by Rob Reeves. I was incredibly nervous – I just looked down at my book and didn’t catch anybody’s eye. It must have been awful! But that’s a theme in my poetry: that you can grow from suffering. You do something that you find really challenging and the next time you do it better. It’s like lifting weights in the gym. I sometimes wonder whether I enjoy this or if it’s more that I enjoy the release I get from the chemicals and seeing myself get stronger.”

Carl has been a member of his local gym in Kettering for over 20 years, though admits that at first he didn’t do much exercise. He’d walk on the treadmill for a little while, but spend most of his time in the steam room and Jacuzzi. That’s changed now, though, as he faces one of the biggest physical and mental challenges of his life. In May 2023, he lost his eyesight due to Leber’s Hereditary Optical Neuropathy (LHON), a rare degenerative disease of the optic nerve. 

“LHON comes on quickly and normally happens to men in their 30s, so I was quite old to start developing symptoms. I don’t feel lucky, but I try to reframe it to acknowledge that I had all those extra bonus years when I could still see, and that helps me get through.

“I can see shapes and colours, and bigger obstacles. I can see a pothole, for example, because I see the change in colour in the ground. Smaller obstacles I can feel with my cane. I can’t see faces, so I can’t see people’s reactions if I tell them a joke or read them a poem, which is hard. I have to listen for nuances in voices. When someone comes towards me I start to look at their height, their gait and whether they’re wearing clothes I recognise, then marry this to their voice so I can address them by name. It’s a new skill set, because I have to use my other senses more intelligently.”

Despite this, Carl is still writing, although when he says ‘writing’ he is in fact remembering.

“I think I’ve only written three pieces in the last 12 months and I’m having to redefine my writing style. I like the ‘spilled ink’ approach and a lot of my older poetry doesn’t rhyme. Now though I’m writing in iambic pentameter, because it’s easier for me to construct and remember.

“I write and memorise one line at a time, and the second line has to rhyme with the first. I go over and over it in my head until I’m happy with it, perhaps repeating the first line 20, 30 or 40 times before I move on to line two. Before I would have had a big notebook with pages filled with arrows and crossings-out. A key part of memory process is visualising what the words represent. As well as that, if I have a germ of an idea I’ll send myself a WhatsApp message and then my phone will read it out to me.”

He has also had to develop strategies for performing his older poetry.

“I have a lot of help and support, so someone will read the poem for me into my phone, and I’ll listen to it over and over again. With help, I’ve constructed my own voice in AI, which aids the memory process. I have 120 different pieces of work I need to memorise.”

Carl walking a route with pals.

At the moment, Carl is in the middle of a fundraising challenge for Northamptonshire Association for the Blind (NAB). He’s set himself the target of walking 10 million steps in a year; that’s about 4,000 miles. Walking can be a very solitary pursuit when you do it for over five hours every day, as Carl is doing, so he is inviting people to join him for an hour or so at a time. So far he’s had about 90 different people join him at one of his eight regular destinations around the county.

“I went to the launch of the NAB’s new HQ in Moulton, where I gave a speech and blurted out that I was going to do a 10 million steps challenge – and then I sat down and thought, ‘Why did I say that?’”

Some of the walks in November will take place in the Caribbean, as Carl’s being treated by a friend to a  cruise around the Dutch Antilles. He’s planning to encourage other passengers to walk with him on the ship, which should raise his profile and promote the charity. During his trip he should reach the five million steps mark.

When he comes back he’s planning to ramp up his walking efforts for the last four months with some corporate sponsorship and events. One event is a Treadmill Challenge at Balance Health Club in Kettering on November 30, where he will be walking for 11 hours, aiming to clock up about 24 miles. He is inviting people to come and walk on a treadmill for half an hour at their own pace.

“My next goal is to become a motivational public speaker. I have enough poems for a second book that I’d like to do in print and Braille, which I’m learning at the moment. There are also plans for a YouTube channel and a podcast.

“I didn’t want to view my sight loss as a disability or to have a ‘woe is me’ approach. Instead, I wanted to do something that would be inspirational and help other people in the same situation.”

To find out about Carl’s challenge, to book a walk with him or register for the Treadmill Challenge, visit his website.