the great and the good

The blog is a beast needs feeding.  The other day I found an anthology, Firebox, in a second hand book shop, treasure hunter, and picked it up this evening with half an hour to kill. I was immediately inspired by Heaney.  Gradually I understand what these poets achieve, and daresay I may slowly gain on them, a little.  We all respond to competition, here though,  it wasn't even a case of No hurry worry, since good poetry at the very least encourages. Meanwhile:

I was reading Heaney and Muldoon
though I’m not so keen on Muldoon,
really, but these boys fly:
they fly with thought on words, where I,
I am again the parapenter
too heavy for his rig sometimes taking
giant leaps, great, ungainly bounding steps
on Brecon's boulders;  strange, wild bird,
a goony chick, let all description founder.

Heroes

I see Bowie @ his execution
archly poised, a pointed gun,

his gentleness in isolation
exuberant and fine;

hadn’t heard from him in years,
a loved one, standing  by the wall

The speaker was an angel,
he coughed and shook his crumpled wings

            moved his lips: 
It’s time we should be going.

His song: I’d not be done with Heroes
for all I’ve tried and written,

sadly now when Bowie plays the shadow
turning on a screen, he's gone

I know.  I hear it on the radio,
I feel it in my soul.

 

Sound

… I condsider’d a Monotonous Cadence like that used by Milton & Shakeseperare & all writers of English Blank Verse, derived from the modern bondage of Rhyming, to be a necessary and indispensable part of Verse. But I soon found that in the mouth of a true Orator such monotony was not only awkward, but as much a bondage as rhyme itself. I therefore have produced a variety in every line, both of cadence & number of syllables.  Every word and every letter is studied and put into its fit place; the terrific numbers are reserved for the terrific parts, the mild & gentle, for the mild & gentle parts, and the prosiac, for inferior parts; all are necessary to each other.  Poetry Fetter’d, Fetters the Human Race.  Nations are Destroy’d, or Flourish, in proportion as Their Poetry, Painting and Music, are Destroy’d, or Flourish ! The Primeval State of Man was Wisdom, Art, and Science.

From the introduction to Jerusalem, William Blake. June Singer’s Jungian study of the Marriage of Heaven and Hell gives excellent insight into the eidetic perception and spiritual recountings of William Blake – revered and feared for so long, and rightly so!

Sound is uppermost in my thoughts on writing at the moment. David Cooke kindly straightened out a poem I sent him recently, and cited: sound first. The result, below, much improved verse, so durable I cannot prise a knife back into it:

From “Wednesday’s Child”   Originally: Isolation is a bag of tricks//since Tallulah came along. Since then/ my time is hers, and we are slower/ on the uptake while in our minds/ true love unwinds in increments,/ 
Becomes: Isolation is a bag of tricks/now Tallulah’s come, since when/my time is hers, and love /unwinds in increments.

Online at SLQ


Wisdom ,Art, and Science. okay then.

Stroud Out Loud!

 

Friday 27 November,
Subscription Rooms,
7 to 7.30 Start,
admission free. 

Last Friday of the month: among the varied and uncouth this November Anthony Nanson and Kirsty Hartsiotis will promote their Gloucestershire Ghost Tales, just out. With luck, Fiona Eadie will bring another trick of the tale with First Man and First Woman, and we hope many more story-tellers, singers and poets within reach will turn up to stretch this always diverse and happy night into the popular regular event it nearly is.

Open Mic runs at up to 10 minute allowance for those reciting, or 3 minutes if reading from the page. Keeps it fun. Click on right image for further information of book event taking centre stage this month.


 

       

Cheltenham Literature Festival

When I walked out into the rain today with head bowed down and collar turned against the wind set lightly at my door, an Autumn wind, I saw you standing, waiting on your platform without end, waiting for a north bound train.


Nice to roll in to Cheltenham with the Gloucestershire Writers Network.  Another spur, aye.

Radio Corinium October 2015

Radio, 2pm Mon 5th, repeated Wed 7th,

Sun 11th Oct. A few poems in between

other readers, a first for me. Maybe good.

http://tunein.com/radio/Corinium-Radio-s233388/

 

ooooooh.  Helen of course should be pronounced Helen, not Hellin.

County Class Poet

Closing the show at Cheltenham Literature Festival on 11 October - perhaps that is putting too high - 18 or so Gloucester writers reciting their work at the Town Hall, 8 to 10pm.  Tickets available.  I am looking forward to seeing local poets: I have still to make an evening at The Brewery, In Cirencester, and there are many unfamiliar names.  Come to Cheltenham if you can, I'll be there with my motley crew.  Picture below from the Seed Festival. Look at him, chatting away!