Poetry

What Sort Of Bird Are You? by Tessa Foley
Old Bird
It's a very long time since I've properly read any poetry, so it would probably be unfair for me to try to assess this.

Fiction

The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part V: Christmas Adventures edited by David Marcum
The Ballad of the Carbuncle by Ashley D. Polasek

Oh dear.

Poetry

Wenceslas: A Christmas Poem by Carol Ann Duffy,
illustrated by Stuart Kolakovic

Not convinced about the poem, but Kolakovic's illustrations are beautiful.

(You can read the poem, sans illustrations, on the Guardian's website.)

TV

Dexter
4x04 Dex Takes a Holiday

The Making of King Arthur
Nothing to do with the recent(-ish) film, everything to do with how the Normans appropriated and developed the myth (and what happened to it over the next couple of centuries). Written and presented by Simon Armitage, who seems distinctly odd and a little self-centred. But then he is a poet.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Proms 2010
Prom 1 The First Night of the Proms: Symphony of a Thousand
Every year, I intend to watch or listen to more of the Proms. Last year I managed one (and a half); this year, so far, none. But this -- more properly known as Mahler's Symphony No.8 -- was about to disappear from my iPlayer downloads, so... (If anyone's interested, the full programme can be read here.)
I've also got Prom 2, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, but that also disappears tomorrow and it's five hours long. Not looking so good.

Would I Lie To You?
4x05 (20/8/10 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

Articles from the past few days that I'd forgotten to put up...

The 50 Worst Movies Ever by Helen O'Hara, Alastair Plumb & Phil de Semlyen
(from Empire)
Not necessarily the best list ever -- many are more disappointing than genuinely bad -- but lists are always fun. And number one is deserved.

Billy Connolly claims British comedy is 'too censored'
(from BBC News)
"If you swear in a book, you're some kind of clever guy, if you swear in a poem, oh how dangerous he is, you swear in a song - oh my God, what a groundbreaker! You swear as a comedian, and you're a vulgarian and foul mouthed. When did this happen? Who's doing the judging?"

Michael Landy: Perfecting the art of destruction
(from BBC News)
What an idiot.

Snoop Dogg wants Coronation St cameo by Sarah Rollo
(from Digital Spy)
Well... I... hm...

Stars lambast South Bank Show axe by Paul Millar
(from Digital Spy)

Billy Connolly told a journalist: "It really makes me awfully sad. Without arts programmes there's only reality TV and reality TV needs the arts to tell them what reality is."

Rob Brydon added jestfully: "Well done, ITV. I can't back Billy's leftist thoughts. Good riddance I say, let's get rid of our bastion of culture on ITV and let's just lie around in pig s**t."

What Joey from Friends did next by Neil Wilkes
(from Digital Spy)
Preview clip/trailer in which Matt LeBlanc plays Matt LeBlanc auditioning to play Matt LeBlanc in a show in which Matt LeBlanc is going to be in a sitcom. Confused? Don't worry, most of the gags are more familiar. Fingers crossed the actual series is good because it's a nice idea.

Poem of the Week: A Good Poem

by Roger McGough

You may have noticed (though, probably not) that the once-regular Poem of the Week has disappeared for the past couple of months. This is primarily due to my general disillusionment with poetry following a Creative Writing Masters degree -- whatever they might try to teach or tell you, it seems the 'poetry establishment' (if there is such a thing) is just as elitist and pretentious as it appears from the outside. I had no aspirations to 'break in' to poetry, but I was prepared to enjoy reading and writing it for my own entertainment. Both of these activities have been damaged, rather than encouraged, by my course.

As such, Poem of the Week is no more. But here's one final entry; one that captures some of my feelings about poetry, not only in its content but also with its light, readable style. There's a reason poets like McGough are well-known and well-loved beyond just the world of poetry itself, and perhaps some of the people stuck in that world would do well to remember it.

I like a good poem
one with lots of fighting
in it. Blood, and the
clanging of armour. Poems

against Scotland are good,
and poems that defeat
the French with crossbows.
I don't like poems that

aren't about anything.
Sonnets are wet and
a waste of time.
Also poems that don't

know how to rhyme.
If I was a poem
I'd play football and
get picked for England.

Cheerio.

TV

From the Earth to the Moon
Part Five Spider
Please look here for my thoughts on this episode.

The Last Volunteer
A tribute to Henry Allingham, one of the last survivors of the First World War, who died last month aged 113. Despite his age, he was clearly still young at heart with a twinkle in his eye, attending events and speaking in schools about his experiences in the War, now almost a century ago.

A Poem For Harry
Broadcast at the same time as the Allingham tribute, this documentary (filmed in early 2008) follows then-Poet Laureate Andrew Motion as he tried to write a poem about Harry Patch, the last man living to have fought in the trenches, who also died just one week after Allingham. The film interviews Patch and investigates his life along with Motion, as he gains insight and inspiration for his poem, meaning that when he reads it publicly for the first time (shown at the end of the programme) we know where all the various references and allusions originated. Perhaps it's the fault of the documentary making sure to explain every nuance of the poem, but it seemed a bit too on-the-nose for me.

Taking the Flak
1x02 Black Gold, Code Red
1x03 Cursed is the Country
Hastily catching up on this before it disappears from iPlayer on Wednesday.
[Watch both episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Poem of the Week: A Clubman's Ozymandias

by Kit Wright

Back when Watchmen hit cinemas I posted two vaguelly related poems about Ozymandias, the famous one by Percy Bysshe Shelley and a lesser-known one by his friend Horace Smith.

Well, next Monday sees Watchmen released on DVD and Blu-ray here in the UK (some lucky pre-ordering people will already have their copies), plus it was out earlier this week in the US, so here's an even-more-tenuously linked poem: Kit Wright's take on the Shelley poem.

So this chap tells this other chap
Some damned clap-trap
About how somewhere on the old map
He's seen these de-bagged legs, and to cap
It all, not a scrap
On top of them, bugger all on tap
But the desert sands and similar pap --
Just a bloody great gap --

This was first published in 1989 in Wright's collection Short Afternoons. It's currently available in Hoping It Might Be So: Poems 1974-2000, a collection of all Wright’s work for adults in that period, published by Faber Finds.

Poem of the Week: Starting from Scratch

by Ingrid Wendt

In honour of last week's Poem of the Week being put off by my move (as was the whole blog, of course), here's a poem about that very thing. (Moving home, I mean, not putting off blog updates.)

To begin with, none of your neighbors began here.
Everyone moved in years before you moved into
a pattern you found yourself part of
before you intended: flowers, fences,
attention to details your mother always took care of,
duller than film on dishes it was always your job to wipe.
Nobody spoke about courage.

Nobody said you could choose this life.
It happened, it didn't, the fact
you could choose to remain would become
what's yours to control: hours
of sleeping and waking, meals, the home
you need to go out in the world from.
Neighborhood customs you know you can count on.

Recipes, grapes exchanged for zucchini, the garden
someone will know when to plant.
The book you suggest. The pattern of limits
no one has asked for, told over coffee, lives
like yours you could have become
starting from scratch. Each day
the way you will live before what comes next.

Starting from Scratch is taken from Wendt's collection Moving the House, which features a number of poems on this subject. I'm uncertain of its copyright status, but the whole thing's available online for free here (with some copyright info that may or may not be relevant). There's also biographical detail and the like there if you're interested, and a list of years, one of which it will have been written in.

Poem of the Week: Thriller

by Rod Temperton

With the world caught up in a fairly understandable frenzy about the death of Michael Jackson, let's have a look at the lyrics of one of his most famous songs in a semi-poetic context.

It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking in the dark
Under the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart
You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it
You start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes
You're paralyzed

'Cause this is thriller, thriller night
And no one's gonna save you from the beast about strike
You know it's thriller, thriller night
You're fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight

You hear the door slam and realize there's nowhere left to run
You feel the cold hand and wonder if you'll ever see the sun
You close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination, girl!
But all the while you hear the creature creeping up behind
You're out of time

'Cause this is thriller, thriller night
There ain't no second chance against the thing with forty eyes, girl
Thriller, thriller night
You're fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight

Night creatures calling, the dead start to walk in their masquerade
There's no escaping the jaws of the alien this time
(They're open wide)
This is the end of your life

They're out to get you, there's demons closing in on every side
They will possess you unless you change that number on your dial
Now is the time for you and I to cuddle close together, yeah
All through the night I'll save you from the terror on the screen
I'll make you see

That this is thriller, thriller night
'Cause I can thrill you more than any ghost would ever dare try
Thriller, thriller night
So let me hold you tight and share a
Killer, diller, chiller, thriller here tonight

'Cause this is thriller, thriller night
Girl, I can thrill you more than any ghost would ever dare try
Thriller, thriller night
So let me hold you tight and share a killer, thriller, ow!

(I'm gonna thrill ya tonight)
Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y'alls neighborhood

I'm gonna thrill ya tonight, ooh baby
I'm gonna thrill ya tonight, oh darlin'
Thriller night, baby, ooh!

The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom

And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller.

Thriller was released in 1984, sung by Michael Jackson with a soliloquy read by Vincent Price. Despite the success of the album of the same title and other successful tracks from it, Thriller the song only reached number four on the US Billboard singles chart and number ten on the UK singles chart. It's probably most famous for its 14-minute short film-like music video.

The lyrics are as close as I could find them on the Internet. (Yes, this is a fairly silly idea for Poem of the Week.)

Poem of the Week: Sonnet 130

by William Shakespeare

I don't think I've included any Shakespeare in Poem of the Week before. Here's his debut then, as something of a break from all the modern comic poetry of recent weeks -- though the Bard's not necessarily at his most serious as he "mocks the conventions of the garish and flowery courtly sonnets in its realistic portrayal of his mistress."

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,—
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
      And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
      As any she belied with false compare.

For more information on this sonnet, try Wikipedia and its associated links.

Poem of the Week: Limerick

by Roger McGough

Apologies for missing Poem of the Week last week. We're back on track with this:

Back in April I featured a poem from McGough's latest collection, Slapstick, called Gateway to the Atlantic. Here's another from that collection, which in part provided the inspiration for a couple of poems in my recently-submitted-for-assessment collection. I may share those here when the marks come back.

Anyway, back to McGough:

A poet passing through Limerick
Determined to write a fine limerick
He worked day and night
But try as he might
He never got the hang of the limerick.

Clever, eh? Though some won't be impressed. Just wait 'til you see mine...

As mentioned above, Limerick is taken from Slapstick (aka Slapstick Poems), McGough's 2008 collection published by Puffin.

Poem of the Week: Just In Case

by Charlotte Mitchell

A third and final (for now) venture into the poems offered by . This one rang very true for me. I'm sure sensible people don't do it, but I'm also sure you must know someone who does.

I'm going to the see for the weekend,
in a couple of days I'll be back,
so I'll just take my little brown suit and a blouse
and a beret and carry my mac.

But what if the house is a cold one,
the house where I'm going to stay,
no fires after April, no hot drinks at night
and the windows wide open all day?
I'd better take one -- no, two cardys
and my long tartan scarf for my head,
and my chaste new pyjamas in case they decide
to bring me my breakfast in bed.
And what about church on the Sunday?
I could wear my beret and suit,
but if it were sunny, it would be a chance
to wear my straw hat with the fruit.
I can't wear my little brown suit, though,
not with the straw with the fruit,
so I'll just take a silk dress to go with the straw
and a silk scarf to go with the suit.
I'll just take my jeans and that jumper
in case we go out in a car,
and my Guernsey in case we go out in a boat
and d'you know where my swimming things are?

D'you think I should take that black velvet
in case they've booked seats for a play?
And is it still usual to take your own towel
when you go somewhere to stay?
I had thought of just taking slippers,
but they do look disgustingly old,
I'd better take best shoes and sandals and boots
for the church and the heat and the cold.

I daren't go without my umbrella
in case I'm dressed up and it rains;
I'm bound to need socks and my wellies
for walking down long muddy lanes.

I'd rather not take my old dressing gown,
it is such a business to pack,
but 'spose they have breakfast before they get dressed
I'd have to take mine in my mac.

I'm going to the see for the weekend,
in a couple of days I'll be back,
so I'll just take my little brown suit and a blouse,
     two cardys, my long tartan scarf,
     my chaste new pyjamas,
     my straw hat with the fruit,
     my silk dress, my silk scarf,
     my jeans, that jumper,
     my Guernsey, my swimming things,
     my black velvet, my towel, my
     slippers (no one need see them)
     my sandals, my boots, my
     umbrella, my socks, my wellies,
     my dressing-gown, no, not
     my dressing-gown, OK, my
     dressing gown
and a beret and carry my mac.

This was first published in Mitchell's volume Just in Case: Poems in My Pocket in 1991, a collection connected to her radio series (also title Just in Case). She's also an actress who was involved in The Goon Show donchaknow.

Poem of the Week: Casey at the Bat

by Ernest Lawrence Thayer

As promised last week, here's another selection from The Nation's Favourite Comic Verse. It's about baseball -- or, to us Brits, 'glorified rounders' -- though a lack of knowledge on that front is no barrier to enjoyment, as the basic theme of this could easily apply to most sports (and for much of it could be about most sports).

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;
The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play.
So when Cooney died at second, and Burrows did the same,
A pallor wreathed the features of the patrons of the game.
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, 'If only Casey could but get a whack at that --
We'd put up even money now with Casey at the bat.'
But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a lulu and the latter was a fake;
So upon that stricken multitude a deathlike silence sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey's getting to the bat.
But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despis-ed, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.
Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled in the mountaintops, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the hillside and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.
There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.
And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped --
'That ain't my style,' said Casey -- 'Strike one,' the Umpire said.
From the benches black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.
"Kill him! kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;
And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.
With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signalled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the Umpire said, "Strike two."
'Fraud!' cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered, 'Fraud!'
But one scornful look from Casey and the multitude was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.
The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville -- mighty Casey has struck out.

This was first published in a newspaper in 1888, a year which looks kinda nice written down. It's clearly Thayer's most famous poem and has its own Wikipedia page here with more info than you could ever need.

There's also a version of the poem at Wikisource which has many notable differences to the one I've published here, which is taken directly from The Nation's Favourite Comic Verse. It's not just a case of formatting or punctuation -- some lines are almost entirely different. Wikisource says their version is the original from the paper; I don't know where this (revised, presumably) version originates.

Poetry

Hoping It Might Be So: Poems 1974-2000 by Kit Wright
Bump-Starting the Hearse (1984) (pages 120-151)
That's the end of that 'chapter' (each chapter in this volume is a book in its own right, collected here). Now I must read some other poets, because I have an essay to write that should ideally refer to lots of them.

Poem of the Week: 'You cannot hope...'

by Humbert Wolfe

A brief one this week and Wolfe's most famous piece, as evidenced by its prominent inclusion on his Wikipedia entry. Though it was first published in 1930, it's decidedly truthful to this day.

You cannot hope
     to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
     British journalist.

But, seeing what
     the man will do
unbribed, there's
     no occasion to.

Discovered in The Nation's Favourite Comic Verse (as will be the next couple of Poem of the Week entries), but originally published in The Uncelestial City.

Poem of the Week: Photographs of the Notebook

by Luke Kennard

There are two common misconceptions about prose poetry:

One, that it's a bit of writing that fails to tell a story effectively or fails to sound good enough to be poetry, so is lumped somewhere in between. While I'm sure it can be this, good examples are not. Yes, they fall somewhere between the two stools of literature, but they land closer to poetry -- it is, for whatever reason, a poem in prose form.

Two, that it's very modern and avant-garde. Not so. There are examples of prose poems dating back thousands of years, especially in Japan, and even the modern 'popularity' can be dated to the mid 19th Century. Since then it's been adopted by more outside movements and steadily moved into the mainstream, but it's hardly a modern invention.

I'm no scholar on prose poetry -- in fact, I'm no scholar on poetry as a whole -- but having recently been introduced to a few examples, here's one I thought worth sharing. It exhibits many poetic qualities, but I think is also an entertaining read for anyone (especially if you're a writer). There's also an argument to be made that readers not versed in verse may find prose poetry more accessible, as it's closer to the more-widely read form.

I used to keep a notebook on my person at all times -- to write down ideas, observations, openings for stories. It took me almost a year to realise that the book was hexed, that as long as I had it in my pocket or rucksack I would be blank -- not only deaf and blind to the world around me, but mute as well: unable to express even this strange impotence in anything other than silence.

I ripped out all ninety-six pages of the notebook, one by one. I filled the empty leather cover with ninety-six photographs of the notebook and had it rebound. I gave this book of photographs to an artist I know in the city. She sealed it in an envelope and mailed it to herself -- so as to copyright the idea -- but it must have been lost in the post. She is no longer speaking to me, but that's because of something else.

I shredded the ninety-six ripped-out notebook pages and used them as stuffing in a writing cushion. I took the writing cushion to a shop where it was immediately bought by an old man with pince-nez who has since died in obscurity.

I used so many cameras and films when I was taking the ninety-six photographs of the notebook. Even now a set of photographs will come back to me from the developers and among the smiling friends and rivers and parties, there will be a perfect portrait of the notebook, just there, in between us like a reminder that we're all going to die.

Today I bought a new notebook, but so far this is the only thing I have written in it.

This piece is taken from Kennard's book The Harbour Beyond the Movie, published by Salt in 2007, which was shortlisted for the 2007 Forward Poetry Prize.

Poetry

The Nation's Favourite Comic Poems, edited by Griff Rhys Jones
Pages 127 - 165 [the end]

Poetry

The Nation's Favourite Comic Poems, edited by Griff Rhys Jones
Foreword
Pages 13 - 126
As ever in an anthology with such a title there's a mix of the well-known and the obscure, the hilariously funny and the rather damp.
Despite being originally published to tie-in with the BBC's hunt for the country's favourite poem (over a decade ago now!), it's currently available in a 2008 reprint from BBC Books. Although the RRP is £6.99, the ever-wonderful Book People have a collection of six Nation's Favourite Poem books for that price. Certainly worth a look.

Poem of the Week: Verse and Subversion Go Hand in Hand, but Whither?

by Kit Wright

A non-poetry-lover's poem. If you can get past its occasional deliberately-self-aware poetic style, that is. Kit Wright is one of the more enjoyable poets I've been experiencing recently so expect to see more of his work here in the future.

An automatic and unquestioned nostrum
Currently purveyed from page and stage and rostrum
Is that all true verse, diminutive or discursive
Is subversive.
Oh never ask subversive of what!
It is not only the Armani Anarchist who will then berate you as a sans-culotte;
Nor the Gucci Guerilla alone, nor soley the Alternative
Millionaire,
But everyone from everywhere.
On no account enquire how it subverts or with what degrees of success;
You will then be deemed a dinosaur and an undesirable denizen of Loch Ness.
Oh hear the binding law from which there is no severance:
About all things shalt thou be
Irreverent, except
Irreverence:
A paradoxical orthodoxy upon the air dispersive --
And I think I may have said something mildly subversive.

Taken from Hoping It Might Be So: Poems 1974-2000, a long collection that "brings together all of Kit Wright’s previous collections for adults as well as three dozen new poems". This is one of those new poems, first published in 2000. Hoping It Might Be So is currently in print from Faber Finds (a Faber & Faber imprint, of course).