A poem, that'll show 'em

So, I was reading the new "Poetry Bus" Magazine yesterday (see last post) and I read the piece near the back written by Dave Lordan on rhyme. I really enjoyed it. He writes about rhyme in its widest, biggest sense and I liked the range, the open-endedness, of the piece (I urge you to read it... get the mag here... quickly now). The article reminded me how much I love rhyme... of all kinds really... but I know that, personally, I have a special fondness for the simpler stuff. There was a point in my life when I could have become an intellectual perhaps but when it came to it I just turned the other way*. I like simple things, simple pleasures, simple sounds. I guess it means some people think I'm an eejit but mostly I can live with that! And I know the argument goes that lots of people do end-rhymes badly... but then lots of people do everything badly and that doesn't stop us trying to do all those things... like sing... or cook... or have sex... or whatever!

And so... blame Dave Lordan, a little, for the poem below. I don't write much poetry just now so it feels good to work the old muscles now and again. To begin with the 'New' and 'Old" were 'New Poet' and 'Old Poet' but then I realised the subject was really wider than that and not just about poetry writing. Like so many poems this one is about all kinds of things... and there's more than a hint of Dr Seuss to it too, I think.

Everyone is the best ever


New and Old sitting by a tree,
Talking, talking, endlessly,
New barks out “How can this be?
Why is everybody ignoring me?”

Old takes a moment to serve reply,
Surveys the scene, the tree, the sky,
Finally proffers without a sigh,
“What are you saying, to whom and why?”

New is irate and loses cool,
“That should be obvious to a fool,
I'm what you need, a brand new school
Just listen to me, as a general rule.”

Old is sleepy, thirsty too,
Tired of talking, needs the loo,
Happy just to see the view,
The tree is green, the sky is blue.

But “Listen, listen, I can rhyme!
I can talk in double time!
I’m not afraid to social climb,
Everyone should hear my chime!”

New continues, into stride,
Puffed and pumped with precious pride,
“Hear the magic, I'm the guide,
Life’s exciting, what a ride!”

Old is fading, quite a sight,
Doesn’t really like to fight,
Shields the eyes to block the light,
Lies right down and breathes “goodnight”.

New is angry, loudly so,
Wails at Old “Not yet, don’t go!
Who will watch me, see me grow?
Who will tell me what you know?”

No word from Old, the soul is free,
The stories gone, so suddenly.
Too late, too late, we see the tree,
Too late, we want it endlessly.


RF 2013




*One of my other favourite bits of the new Bus mag is the Robert Frost 'roads' reference on page 6 ("fuck it, I'll take the bus/And that has made all the difference").

Poetry Bus love

 

Has a poetry magazine ever had better covers than Peadar O'Donoghue's marvellous "Poetry Bus"? I don't think so. Issue number 4 is out now, beautifully bound this time and available over here (at the same link you can read a full list of the contents). The magazine comes with a CD as ever (always my favourite part I have to say). I just like to listen to poems more than read them and I think, as my eyes get more and more tired and unreliable, that that is getting to be more and more the case. There is some music on the CD too (and that's all good especially Stuart Wilde's "Hot Damn!", for me).

Obviously I am a little biased as I've been involved, in some way or other, with the Poetry Bus since its first trip (the online Bus back in September 2009!) and I have a poem in this new magazine too but even with that taken into account I still think a trip on the Poetry Bus is always to be recommended. There is no poetry vehicle quite like it.

Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow...

This shuffle is getting very slow... hardly here at all these days! Anyway, just a few updates:

The event at Hospitalfield in Arbroath last weekend was loads of fun. I'd started to wonder whether I could still get up and do a poetry "set" as such (because it's been a while and I've been busy with very different activities) but in the end I really enjoyed it, did a mix of poems I'd never done before and got some great feedback. Some closest to me said it was "best I'd ever done" which felt good... and interestingly it didn't make me desperate to go out and do it again (and again, and again). I'm not so good at repetition... I like things to be different every time... and I think that's what makes it exciting for me (I am learning that, in some things at least, I do like excitement... and difference... the unexpected). So that, a few glasses of wine, a responsibility-free night out and the music of Onion Club's Pauline and Stephen and other poetry from Kevin Reid and it was a good experience all round.

Just as well really as I'm off next Sunday (10th March) to do another event in Dundee this time (ADDED LATER - THIS EVENT HAS JUST BEEN CANCELLED).

Gone a bit quiet over on the new blog... any one else got something on hopes and dreams for me?

Celebrating...

 

Much to feel good about this week... well, in my little world... and it isn't always so (I don't always tell you the bad stuff!).

Firstly, I survived another birthday. Had a lovely time, thank-you very much (and had a lot more cake than just the above but I like the picture... thanks to the Anchor in Johnshaven for a lovely lunch, with added, unexpected cake).

Also the new blog is working out wonderfully. So far I have posted four contributions (two from Scotland, two from New Zealand) and I have more in the inbox ready to go so please, please spread the word about this project. I think the more people post to it, quite simply, the more interesting it will get (all ages, all interests, all perspectives...). I've been wondering to myself why it felt like the right thing to do right now and I don't have one answer but I think some of it is to do with wanting to really explore the idea of what hopes and dreams are and how they help or hinder us in our daily lives. I get very tired of the reality show "it's like a dream come true"/"it's always been my dream" clichés* and the more I hear lines like that the more I wonder about what it is we really, really want (no Spice Girls reunions for a start... sorry ladies) and about what it is we really, really get too. And remember... even though most of the contributors so far have been writers this is absolutely open to all and everyone (and contributions can be in any form I can post!). Contributions can be under an alias/anonymous too... so think on. No rush either as I'm hoping this will be a long-term friend, somewhere to visit and know you'll always find something interesting to read/look at/listen to (and all previous contributions there in the archive too of course... no-one goes out of fashion in my book...).

Finally I have a poetry moment coming up in February that looks really exciting. Remember the Onion Club music cabaret event I reviewed here back in November? Well, they have another event in Arbroath on 23rd February at Hospitalfield House and myself and another poet Kevin Reid will be part of the evening too (doors 7.30, start 8pm). It's been a while since I did poetry business at an event where I know anything is allowed (indeed encouraged... this is cabaret in the true sense of the word...). So, Philip Larkin and the nipple rings... this could be the chance to dig you out and shake you all about (that poem's about to appear elsewhere too... so I believe...)! Oh, I do love those Onions... 

Anyway, there is more to tell... but that will do for one blog post.






*And we only really watch one such show... what must it be like for people who watch lots of them? Maybe they enjoy clichés... we do all like different things...

all our hopes and dreams

Montrose beach, 16th January 2013. I've been seeing the sunrise more than usual recently - it's so much easier to catch it in the winter!

For more reasons than I can tell you I have been doing a lot of thinking about hopes and dreams of late (don't cringe, cynics, just stay with me... there is no life-coaching on the cards, I promise!). It's possible that I'm always thinking about hopes and dreams in some way or other... certainly I wrote a hopey-dreamy poem a few years back and put it in a prime position in my first poetry collection ("A dream is a song of hope"... you can read it here). That wasn't any kind of sensible poem to write then and nothing has changed in that regard. I mean, it rhymes... and that title... and I have publicly admitted (more than once...) that I wrote it after watching a Celebrity Big Brother final in 2006... well, none of this is "take your ticket for the T.S.Eliot prize" material. And it's not even that I live in some rainbows'n'unicorns kingdom either... despite the recent outbreak of sunrise photos on this blog. No, I have been quite cynical about the inspirational business too (see here)... but still, I think about hopes and futures a lot... I just can't help it (and not in relation to my own life particularly... or at any rate, less and less so). I think, for example, that every time I meet someone these days I am at least partly wondering (a) what their hopes and dreams were when they were younger, (b) how that has all worked out for them and (c) what they hope for and dream about now. I'm interested in lots of aspects of this subject... what has changed and what has not (in terms of general expectations and ideals, in terms of what is achievable), how things will continue to change, how much our hopes affect us. It's all linked in with mental health too (and that's always been a topic close to my heart...). Plus my Mum was always fascinated by other people and I suppose, now she is gone, that interest has passed to me more and more. I'm not saying I like all those other people all of course... some things are beyond idealism!

So what of it? I don't know really... I suppose I just wonder if you'd like to think about it with me... and to this end I have opened up another blog (oh no! oh yes! oh yes!) and it is to be a collaborative/contributor-led/no-one makes any money but it might be interesting kind of a thing... and I would like it to focus on hopes and dreams. Maybe you'd like to contribute?  If so all you have to do is email me a contribution (in any form... poem, prose, photo, song, story, notes...) to admin@crowd-pleasers.net

Contributions will be added each one in their own post... and here are some guidelines:

You can use your own name (full or shortened) or any kind of alias you like.

Contributions can be as personal or as impersonal as you like, as fictional or as non-fictional, as run-of-the-mill or as abstract as feels right to you. 

I will edit basic spelling errors (unless you really don't want me to). My punctuation's pretty... personal to me so I'll probably leave you yours too unless it just seems confusing. Like that sentence!

I will link to your blogs or sites if requested.

I reserve the right to not publish/post pieces that seem to me hateful or potentially harmful (there is quite enough hate online already...).

Remember that whilst specifics and details are interesting (yes, please to those) just going on and on for ages because it's the internet and space is unlimited can make for very dull reading (so no, thank-you to that).

I would really like this to be something lots of different people join in with too (not just those of us who think of ourselves as writers) so please, forward this blog/post to friends, family, workmates, anybody and everybody — the more contributions the more interesting the whole project will be.

All ages welcome... but if you are under 18 remember not to give too much of yourself away online! Once out you can't take it back...

If I get lots of contributions I will never post more than one person's set per day — it's best to take at least some time to consider them all carefully, don't you think?

I think this will be an interesting exercise in considering our lives and what they have been and will be and I hope you agree and join in. I hope you get others to join in too.  

If you have any trouble getting prompted here are some questions to set you off thinking...

1. What were your hopes and dreams when you were a child?

2. Did any of them come true in any sense?

3. What are your hopes and dreams now?

4. Do you really think any of them are possible?

See you, I hope, over there. There's no rush (no rush at all!) but at the same time... don't leave me on my own too long now will you? If there's no interest at all I'll just delete the blog... easily done.

ADDED LATER - first contribution is now up over there. First of many I hope.

x

IPYIASM

 

Made it! Away from home but managed to get a poem in a shop for IPYPIASM! See here for more poems in shops. This poem is an old one...

Happy new hope

Years have to start with hope, this is essential
We have to feel that good things are to come
A lack of hope can be most detrimental
It can stop New Year’s Eve from being fun.
No, seeing smiles ahead is fairly vital
We should see triumphs and tranquillity
We listen (hark) for fanfares by the skyful
Between them sighs contented, full and free.
We need to feel our hearts are in it with us
That hope has made it, somehow, through and through
Life’s switches may be always out to dim us
But we can think of ways to glow anew.
This New Year’s hopes might be the ones to make it
The outstretched hand - we see it, match it, take it

RF... years ago!

A different type of tree

 

Novar bounday beech #1 

Charcoal on Canson C à Grain paper

72 x 53cm

by Tansy Lee Moir

So, the eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that the above is not a Xmas tree.  Not at all. And that's quite a relief by this point perhaps (and Xmas still a week away... or more!). Neither is it anything to do with all the sad, sad news stories with us currently (suicides, mass murders of children...). It comes to something when watching "The Killing" is light relief from real life... heavy sigh.

No, the above is the work of Tansy Lee Moir (cue quote from her website) "an Edinburgh based artist with a passion for trees". I saw her work (two examples of it, in fact) in the huge Xmas exhibition that our county's main gallery, the Meffan in Forfar, holds every year around this time. There is always a competition element to the exhibition but, as happens with these things, I rarely agree with judges. My favourite pieces this year (and this is perhaps unwise as I know lots of artists around here and I'm not mentioning any of them today...) were a fabulous ceramic sculpture by Linda Masson (can't find her online at all... hence no link) and a mixed media kind of a picture by Gwen Black. And then there were Moir's charcoals... 

It was my friend who drew my attention to Moir's work first... and after close inspection we agreed that the pictures were a bit disturbing (I could see a pig snout breast in there somewhere) but also really good, quite compulsive-viewing and certainly memorable. "I bet they're the ones we'll remember", I said... and indeed that's certainly turning out to be the case. Interesting too that it was National Tree Week recently (I wouldn't have known but there were lots of radio programmes about trees etc.) and because of one of these programmes I ended up posting my tree poem/postcard to someone last week too (that poem's been online here and, for 2009's IPYPIASM*, here). And yes, I will get to this year's IPYPIASM but it might well be the end of the month (others are busy, busy, busy over here).

*International Put Your Poem In A Shop Month, of course!