As I write, it’s been 590 days since my last period. I know this because of the app on my phone. The same app tells me that so far this morning I have walked exactly 133 steps having sloped down to the kitchen to make a giant mug of coffee and then dandered back up to the bed-office to write this column.
The app tells me loads of other things about myself of which I mostly take no notice. Sometimes, I wonder if I should buy one of those watches that give more detailed updates regarding the state of my body, but then maybe less information is more. The adage “Know thyself” is taken to the wildest extremes these days.
Approaching 600 days since my last period and deep into the menopause, I nevertheless found myself a few weeks ago in a London branch of Boots starting at the, frankly, head-spinning array of period products. My friend Jan had just sent me a text asking could I bring her some “pantyliners”. “Okay!” I had texted back, keeping my feelings on “pantyliner” to myself. If there is a more cringe-making word than “pantyliner” I have yet to hear it. Firstly, I have never heard any woman or girl describe their underwear as a “panty” in real life. I’ve only read the word “panties” in bad novels. In real life people say “knickers”, in my experience. I could get behind “knickerliner” because it’s more truthful. Or “underwearliner”, which is not admittedly as catchy.
The phrase “pantyliner” was invented in the 1980s. The first known use, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was in the Washington Post. Makes sense that the Americans, who use “panties” much more widely, were to blame. It’s probably far too late to change the menstrual lingo now. We are stuck with it even though most English-speaking women on this side of the world would never be caught dead talking about their knickers as “panties”.
Róisín Ingle: It’s been 590 days since my last period
Róisín Ingle: I was mortified by how much Kate Middleton’s message affected me
I got a D in pass maths in the Leaving Cert but I addressed the Society of Actuaries in Ireland dinner
Róisín Ingle: Finally, perhaps inevitably, my bad habit had landed me in hospital
Jan Brierton: Everybody Is A Poem
In this episode, Brierton, a self-described ‘accidental’ poet, joins Róisín Ingle to talk about her book Everybody Is A Poem
Jan wanted an ultra-thin pantyliner from Boots. She even sent me a photo of the exact brand so that I wouldn’t purchase the wrong one. She was texting me from her dressingroom in THE LONDON PALLADIUM where she was about to go onstage reading her poetry to an audience of a couple of thousand. Neither of us could quite believe this turn of events, hence the gratuitous use of capital letters. She did not want the “pantyliner” for the usual reasons a woman needs a “pantyliner”. She wanted them to put under her arms, so she would not sweat into her outfit while on stage AT THE FECKIN LONDON PALLADIUM!!!!
Despite my antipathy to them, I was delighted to buy “pantyliners” for Jan or as she also known, the Dublin poet Jan Brierton. As some readers will know Jan, a stylist, mother, wife and all-round cool person, accidentally wrote a poem during the pandemic. The poem was called What Day Is It? Who Gives a F**k? I knew Jan from the school gates; our daughters were in the same primary school. One night in January 2021, after we’d all had our “meaningful” Christmas, she sent me the poem and I put it on social media, from where it went viral. After that Jan could not stop writing poems. She wrote so many poems she published two books of them: What Day Is It? and Everybody Is A Poem. She’s a regular now on Ireland AM and on Ray D’Arcy and after she supported rock star poet John Cooper Clarke at his gig in The Olympia last year, he asked her to join him on tour. Which is how she ended up in THE LONDON PALLADIUM.
[ ‘I think I wrote a poem,’ I told my husband. ‘Are you okay?’ he saidOpens in new window ]
I bought the pantyliners, ultra-thin, and headed to the storied theatre - my mother saw Judy Garland live at the London Palladium - where I met Jan at the stage door. She was wearing a black leather jumpsuit. “I’m in my Elvis era,” she said. Just then, a load of Jan’s friends, women who had travelled over to London from Clontarf, appeared to wish her luck. I went and took my seat in the theatre beside a man named Paul, a John Cooper Clarke fan who had, serendipitously, been listening to his audiobook when he got the text from a friend offering him the ticket. “My friend is going to be reading her poetry up there,” I told him proudly pointing to the stage. “She’ll be wearing the pantyliners I bought her, under her arms,” I said, a touch unnecessarily.
Jan walked on to that stage like she owned it. She charmed the LONDON PALLADIUM with her poetry of lipstick and love and midlife woes. People laughed their heads off at her take on things. They nodded. They cheered. The Clontarf mams and me and my new friend, Paul, cheered loudest of all.
Last Friday John Cooper Clarke became the first poet to headline an arena in the UK when he performed at the Co-op Live in Manchester. Jan performed that night too. I’m going to guess she’s the first Dublin poet to perform at an arena in the UK, playing to 4,000 appreciative poetry and spoken word fans. What’s next for the accidental poet Jan Brierton as she approaches her 50th birthday? Who knows. But I have a funny feeling she’s going to need bigger “pantyliners”.
