A Dead Good Blog

Fromage by any other name would smell as feet

2012-02-23T00:12:00.004Z

That's right, I'm reaching for the food analogy. It has absolutely nothing to do with my stomach. Nor is it related to the fact that there is a piece of Stilton waming up in the kitchen as I type. Surely my train of thought is not so transparent? I'll side-step the lovely image of a transparent train as well as the observation that last week in a supermarket, walking behind a woman with a limp, I uttered the words: "Ooh, that reminds me, I found a really cool walking stick on Ebay..." Damn. Not so much a train of thought as a wild horse. Now. Where did I put the track. Oh yes...

Literary fiction is Stinking Bishop. It is Roquefort. It is Saint Agur. It is a little bit scary and is a taste which is to be acquired. Aptly, my approaches to blue cheese and literary fiction are rather similar. When I first discovered Danish Blue, while waiting tables at at hotel at the innocent age of 14, I found that just the smell of it would turn my stomach. If it was out of the fridge my nose knew it before my eyes. For some, this experience would have deterred them from the veined, festering dairy product. Not me. Instead I was obsessed by the stuff. I would force myself to smell the cheese whenever I thought I could get away with it and maintain my dignity. I knew there must be something good about that cheese. Only a spectacular taste would compel others to pass it under their noses and into their mouths. So, eventually I tasted the cheese. It was disgusting. I tried it again. It was still disgusting. I tried it again. And I began to find it less disgusting and found the tingling sensation, as my tongue became slightly swollen, rather intriguing.

These days it's hard to come by a blue cheese that will cause my mouth to itch in horror but I keep looking. And literary fiction moves in the same mysterious way. It's a little bit scary at first. Approaching it is greatly helped by word of mouth and the support of a reading group or education, so - like blue cheese - it is best enjoyed in company when the ripeness of the language can be properly shared and mulled over. Literary fiction, like blue cheese, works best when supported by the right accompaniment; Wikipedia works well, as do numerous forums on which you can explore the finer details of a character's flaws to your heart's content.

Commercial fiction, on the other hand, is a good, reliable cheddar. You can toast it, slice it and grate it safe in the knowledge that it won't do funny things to your poo. You can chuck it into most dishes and it'll add cheesy, fatty goodness without destroying the underlying flavours. Obviously, as with commercial fiction, not all cheddars are alike. Some are blocks of tasteless rubber which fester at the back of the fridge (bookshelf) until they finally make their way, fluffy and grey, to the bin (charity shop). But there are some damned fine cheddars out there. When I'm down and I need comfort I reach for the cheddar because I know it will fill a hole pleasantly. It will cheer me up and transport me to a world of cheesy freedom where nobody challenges my assumptions and I don't have to look up long words. A warm summer's afternoon in the garden with a good piece of cheddar, a sliced Cox's apple and a copy of I Shall Wear Midnight is as close to content as I get.

In summary. Cheddar is popular, fictional escapism. Because humans like comfort. Blue cheese is challenging literary endeavours. Because sometimes we need earthquakes too.

Size Matters

2012-02-22T07:34:00.003Z

7.50am and the Number Nine’s hydraulic doors open with a plosive swish, revealing that too familiar portal to my morning torture: 40 minutes in the middle of hundreds of beady young student eyes.

They know who I am, I can feel them staring. I’ve never really understood what’s so fascinating about seeing a member of staff outside of college but I’ve found that burying your head in a book tends to avoid that awkward sense of being watched and guards against that ultimate fear of one of them wanting to talk to you.

And so I read.

I find a seat, preferably by the window where I can settle down a bit, flip open my briefcase and reveal… ‘THE TOME’

OH, THE MIGHTY, MIGHTY TOME! TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT! AN 840 PAGE, 350,000 WORD, 3 INCH THICK BRICK OF A BOOK! VOLUME THIRTEEN OF THE WHEEL OF TIME! ONE STORY SPREAD OVER THOUSANDS OF PAGES AND DECADES OF NARRATIVE! ONE DAY THEY WILL BUILD HOUSES WITH THESE BOOKS! TEMPLES, I TELL YOU! LOOK UPON ITS COLOSSAL AWSOMENESS OH YE ILLITERATE AND TREMBLE!

SEE YOU THE HARDBACK COVER? SEE YOU THE SHINY SNAKE AND WHEEL MOTIF? SEE YOU THE GOLD-EMBOSSED AUTHOR’S NAME? UNDERSTAND YE THE WEIGHT OF THIS LITERARY FEAT? UNDERSTAND YE ITS POTENTIAL AS A BLUDGEON? BOW DOWN YE MORTALS! BOW DOWN BEFORE ITS EPIC EPICNESS AND GASP IN AWE AT THIS READER’S SHEER AUDACITY AT TACKLING SUCH A BEAST. SURELY HE SHALL BE KNIGHTED FOR HIS LITERARY EXPLORATIONS. SURELY WE SHOULD NAME HIM OUR KING?

I am a bloke and, as a bloke, I'm obsessed with size. I enjoy whipping out my monster (book) in public and noting the reaction. However, I’m also aware that in literary circles fantasy as a genre is not given the amount of respect that I give it in my personal life.

This is why it’s kind of embarrassing that, WHEN I AM CAUGHT UP IN MY EPIC FEATS OF LITERARY AWSOMENESS, that’s the time when a slender figure sits down next to me and says, ‘Hi Steve, what are you reading?’

‘Oh! Hi, Antony!’ I blush, closing ‘Towers of Midnight’, ensuring it’s placed firmly, cover-down, on my lap. ‘It’s just fantasy. How are you?’

Sometimes I share a bus to work with my old Lit Theory teacher. It’s at moments like these that I devoutly wish my weighty tome were a tiny 95 page existential exploration of the morality of Nazi war doctors or a dystopian expose of the patriarchal discourse of Christianity.

I like and respect Antony. A lot. He was my favourite teacher. And when you like and respect someone like him you tend to want to appear intelligent and creative and thoughtful when you meet them. Unfortunately for me, Antony seems to catch me when I’m reading 'commercial fiction' and the embarrassment I feel when he does so speaks volumes about how it’s generally viewed by the literary community.

Now ‘The Wheel of Time’ is probably the most important story in my life: pure escapism, it’s got me through some troubled times and is my ‘go to’ book(s) when I need to relax and just leave reality behind. And let’s face it, when you’re feeling ground down by your job and need some ‘me’ time, we don’t all want to dive into ‘Crime and Punishment’ do we?

I shouldn’t feel shame in that and yet, when Antony sits down next to me when I’m reading fantasy I feel like I’ve been caught wanking by my mum.

I guess that’s my price to pay for the hubris I feel by reading EPICS in public, measuring value by size rather than content.

One day I’ll expand on this as I think fantasy has a lot to offer (how many of ye heretics against the genre are enjoying ‘Game of Thrones’ at the mo eh? eh?) All I’ll say now is have a look at the picture above. I’m hugging ‘The Wheel of Time’. How much effort must have gone into the writing of that series? (still one book left to be released by the way) Now look to the left. That’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Antony Burgess, also one of my favourite books.

Now I know that I value each of these stories, but I know an entire life of effort has gone into ‘The Wheel of Time’. It's a series that has millions of people like me waiting for the next instalment and logging into blogs like Theoryland to discuss the metaphysical implications of cyclical vs linear time in the series' plot.

But which story is valued more in literary circles? And why?

Creative use of language. Master Narrative. Social Commentary. These are valued by educational establishments and cultural critics. And yet what about scope of ideas? Plot? Characterisation? Sheer imagination? A life dedicated to a single story?

Going back a couple of weeks to the ‘desert island’ theme. Give me one story to take with me and I will answer you in one second.

Screw the Lit Crits, I'd take ‘The Wheel of Time’

Thanks for reading, sorry for the length ;)

How I Feel About the "Novels" of Katie Price...

2012-02-21T08:03:00.000Z

Jordan and her ghostwriter Rebecca Farnworth

Thisweek’s theme, ‘literary fiction vs commercial fiction’, has the potential to bedangerous. It has the potential to evoke great mists of anger. And, containedwithin these mists are small glass orbs of sulphuric acid, suspended by nothingmore than strings of self-restraint...

Oneword is capable of making me run for the scissors. One name makes me want tocut the strings, cause the fragile orbs to fall and allow the acid to burnmassive holes through titles such as Angel, Crystal and Sapphire. These are not the writings of a spiritual hippie on apath of enlightenment – if they were, I would probably hate them a little less –but rather they are (just a few of) the “novels” “by” Katie (aka Jordan) Price.

*Thepresence of scare quotes around both ‘novels’ and ‘by’ is deliberate andcompletely justified. I refuse to state, acknowledge or use the literal meaningof these two words when placed in the same context as said page three model forthe following reasons:

1)A ‘novel’ is generally thought to mean: an invented prose narrative that isusually long and complex – and I don’t believe for one minute that Jordan iscapable of writing anything longer or more complex than a shopping list.(Please make sure that all hate mail uses correct grammar and punctuation.Thank you.)

2)The preposition ‘by’ can be employed to indentify the agent performing theaction, e.g. a novel [written] by Tolstoy. Therefore, giventhat Jordan has a ghostwriter, I would argue that it is not correct to write: a novel written by Katie Price, giventhat she hasn’t actually engaged in the act of writing (her ghostwriter has).

However, despite this fact, I will continue toallow her to be the object of my disdain...

...Becauseit’s difficult to make voodoo dolls of the unknown, spectre –like, RebeccaFarnworth.

...Becausepublishers accept a name before they accept a manuscript.

...Becauseour celebrity obsessed society insists on buying a name rather than a novel.

...Becausewe value fame over talent.

...Becausebookshops merely roll over and indulge immature palates.

...BecauseI walked into Tesco in 2009*, and saw Sapphire“by” Katie Price placed at number one in the book charts – and despaired.

*Itwas also on this same night, in Tesco, that I decided to rewrite the charts.Removing all of Jordan’s “books” and replacing them with Ian McEwan’s On Chisel Beach (which was number fifteenin the charts).

Forme, the literary verse commercial fiction battle will only ever result in onewinner. Literary fiction is literaturethat has the ability to last – to be read, enjoyed and sought years, decades, evencenturies after the author has died. I very much doubt that the “novels” ofJordan will survive the test of time, and if they do then maybe society reallyis doomed.

But for now, the “novels” “by” Katie Price will remain as a pet hate; they arethat one thing that I really wish I could throw into the Room 101.

Thank you for reading,
Lar

UK best sellers. We're all doomed.

2012-02-20T05:00:00.000Z

If I was going to put a new book out, I might considerfinding a celebrity endorsement for it, a snappy picture or a cluster of keywords to bring it to the attention of google. I might make the cover yellow, Imight make it something gritty, something an audience can relate to- a tale ofchildhood and abuse (true to life, obviously), neglect or perhaps evenabduction.

I won’t be doing any of these things.

I doubt I will ever be a best-selling author. If I wrote somethingand decided to publish it, I would hope it would be done on merit and not onthe sheer need to sell someone some drivel with a ‘look at me, I was beaten’slant to it. Sadly, I think this pretty much counts me out of the bestsellingbook market. I’ll point out here that if Blackpool’s branch of Waterstonesclosed, the residents of this town would be left to choose their booksprimarily from the shelves of ASDA and TESCO- the future doesn’t look great, Imust admit.

The blog theme this week is a slightly contentious one, I’mafraid- we’re going with “Literary vs Commercial Fiction”. I have an opinion onthis, as do all of you readers I am sure. Is it my place to tell someone whatto read? Is it my place to tell someone to put the bloody ‘based on true events’book down and read something valuable? Is it even my place to rant on about thelack of appealing fiction on the shelves and my sense of despair in passing an oversized‘Biography/Autobiography/Celebrity Fiction/’Based on a true story’ section. Readers of this stuff- you have your opinions.I’ll agree to hate you for them.

In terms of poetry, I am not quite sure where this themepoints me. For a long time I’ve been harping on about what is probably deemed ‘commercial’as opposed to ‘literary’ stuff. Performance poets are snappy, direct anddeliver passion that is hard to deny but, on the page, it often doesn’t work.Go the other way and have a look at more ‘page’ poets and perhaps they are heldback by a lack of performability. It is hard to attract an audience with thesepoems and yet, they are often the poets we cling on to the most. As with the fiction,I think being current helps. There are trends to follow and whilst right nowbooks about being beaten and battered in foster homes romances ending withdisease are great, I suspect lots of them will fall by the wayside when youlook back over the years, do we want our poems doing this.

I will finish here by just giving you readers a point to consider. Last year35% of books that graced the fiction chart were published before 2010, meaningwe are actually re-reading the older stuff, the stuff that has been hangingaround, loved and recommended. Movie books, celebrity chefs and tales from thepens of cultural ‘icons’ will keep regenerating, of course, but with the likesof Dickens and Jane Austen proving ever more popular amongst readers, maybe thetrick is to buy the books that can stand the test of time, not just shout for aweek or two. I caught a reading by Lynton Kwesi Johnson earlier this year- apoet I have admired since studying his work some years ago- and afterwards wasleft thinking something was missing. There was no delivery, no punch to it and,after years of Black rights not being a massive issue in the UK media, I feltthe poems were almost left behind with the time. These are good poems that relyheavily on delivery and if I have learnt anything for my own writing from theexperience, it is that I never want to be a performance poet past his peak,much rather a page poet trying to find his feet. I hope to have a new poem up for next week, until then, keep writing.

Thanks for reading, S.

Romance

2012-02-19T13:43:00.004Z

by Martin Chapman

I started writing poetry about 2 years ago when I found out I had heart failure and had to take things easy. I have written many different poems about my life and things that have happened around me, and some completely separate.

Romance

Romance comes from the heart,
Romance is a tale of two people,
Romance is doing things for the one you love,
Romance is filled with flowers,
Romance is a joining of hands,
The bonding of two people,
Romance is sweet & kind,
Romance is a tale of many nice things to come.

I Love Yous

2012-02-18T07:22:00.002Z

By Ashley Lister

I was looking through my opus recently and I realised a lot of my poetry could be described as love poems.

Admittedly, these aren’t conventional love poems. There’s a poem about a man who loves a blow-up doll. There’s a poem about a man who loves a woman whom he denigrates for being overweight. And the other week there was that poem about the couple who fall in love on Jeremy Kyle’s show. There are others too and they follow a similar theme of lampooning the dysfunctional often through the narrative of a subverted traditional romance.

None of these ‘love poems’ discuss love in a conventional fashion. But a good number of them are led by a persona driven solely by a motive of love.

If I was sufficiently self-obsessed I could discuss the author’s reluctance to tackle the subject of love with any measure of seriousness. I could perhaps suggest there is some sort of cognitive dissonance apparent within this writer’s need to write about love yet to avoid dealing with its serious connotations.

But I believe I used my ‘bore-the-piss-out-of-the-reader’ ticket last week. And I dearly hope that such tickets are seldom going to stretch to more than a single use for each blogger on here.

So below is my attempt at a serious love poem. Fingers crossed that I can do it properly this time.

I Love Yous

I love yous in the open air

I love yous in the grass

I love yous without a care

I love yous - yous has class.

I love the way yous teaches me things

I love yous more than yous can guess

And I love the way the wise folk say

I should spell YOUS: EE – DOUBLE YOU – EE – ESS.

Ashley Lister

The smell of nappies overwhelms the scent of roses

2012-02-17T20:45:00.000Z

May I begin with apologising for my late posting. Thechildren are on half term holidays from school, and we took them out for theday to an animal park. Yes jokes were made about leaving them there, theirresemblance to the primates, and how they smelled like them. But we had a greattime, and they thanked us profusely which was refreshing. But romance, what canI say about romance? I have three children. Which makes romance difficult. It’s difficult to get close with a toddler inthe bed. It’s difficult to watch a movie without someone having a nightmare or needinga drink, wetting the bed or finding a spider. Being a parent can be like beinga referee. A calm ambience can be broken in a split second by a wail or anargument breaking out. Toddlers in myhousehold will drink nail polish remover, so because I cannot fit shelves 6feet from the floor and they master the art of escape at around 18 months theyneed watching, constantly. A 2 minutelapse of concentration has had him wearing make-up, another had him rubbingexpensive foundation in his hair which took a lot of scrubbing to remove. Once he joined the chickens in their chickenhouse as the back door was left unlocked. The front door has to be kept locked or he’dbe off to nursery himself. This constant state of agitation is not romantic.Stair-gates only go up to a certain height, and like a little chimp he takesthem in his stride, they all did.

So, romance tends to be little gestures of kindness whichmakes each of our lives easier. A lie in at the weekend for each other, we taketurns. That’s romance for me. A night’s unbroken sleep when he gets up with thewakened child is the kindest and most loving thing he can do for me, and hedoes sometimes. I appreciate it. I needmy sleep. He watches them when I go out to the Dead Good Poetry nights, andcarries off the kids to wrangle at home. He’s not particularly well either, he has alot of pain, he can be quite ill at times but he still helps me when I am aboutto throw the computer out of the window, and fixes it for me. He pops to theshop when I want something stupid. He tolerates my constant changing ofhobbies, and me buying all the associated paraphernalia until I get bored. He supports me studying, and most important ofall, he takes my dreams seriously and believes that I can do it, even if I don’t. He thinks I can make it, he thinks I’mgood at what I do. In a world where people compete and put each other down andignore each others’ efforts, he is proud of me and wants me to succeed. For methat’s better than romance, it’s pretty priceless.

Plus when the kids are older we can bond over regaling their girlfriends/boyfriends with these tales of their embarrassing escapades. And photos. what's not to like?

Turbulence, Truces and Truth

2012-02-16T00:19:00.005Z

Photography by Linzi Cason

1

An ocean at their unprepared feet
Milky foam like galaxies tossed
Across a latte misnomer
Intention that tires too soon
Dissipates on concrete steps
A million miniature water nymphs flee
Shear stress: pretty dance

She is lost in the detail, as usual,
He drifts out
Tries to spot the pattern in the chaos
Make sense of the waves:
Whales beyond
Great, dark, hulking mammals
Rush at the shore

Kamikaze trajectory

2

The sea pushes:
Intuitive occupation
The land withstands:
Reasonable resistance

Lovers across a bed

Erosion
Buildings to jetsam
Pollution
Seas to poison

3

Bridges
Boats
Piers
Canals

Rivers
Lakes
Streams
Puddles

Fountain

My Drunken Valentine

2012-02-15T09:17:00.006Z

NB Since I wrote this post a couple of events have happened that mean I'd like to add a couple of bullet points here at the start (they'll make sense later)

• Gets pissed and won’t let me get a good night’s sleep, meaning I spend Valentine’s Day on the sofa
• Drunkenly puts things in the oven and forgets they’re there
• Takes up the bedroom in the morning with a huge hangover, making me late for work and unable to blog

Anyway, back to the original post, (written yesterday afternoon)... I’ve just commented on Lara’s blog with a jokey little response stanza to her poem about love and toast:

‘When she makes me toast,
She burns it to charcoal,
Just to make sure,
I never ask her again.’

Now, I’ve already got wasted and scrawled my love for Sarah all over Facebook this week so I don’t particularly feel the need to do so here now I’m sober. But I thought Lara hit on a good point about how it’s the ‘faults’ that you love in people as much as the other things.

So, considering it’s Valentines Day as I’m writing this, I thought I’d start off with a few of them:

• I swear she makes coffee in the morning by standing the other side of the kitchen and flicking the spoon at the mug like kids flick peas at each other’s faces. (it makes a mess)
• She uses the linen bin as a bin for used toilet rolls and empty chewing gum wrappers.
• She washes our clothes, still mixed with the full contents of the linen bin, puts them in the tumble dryer and then, when dry, throws them straight back on the floor.
• She steals my socks, not in pairs, but in odd couples, leaving me no option but to wear odd socks to work.
• She uses said socks to wipe her make-up off at the end of the day.
• She continues to do this after I buy her her own bloody socks.
• She watches Jeremy Kyle, America’s Next Top Model and Two and a Half Men.
• She has no interest in poetry or creative writing.

Now, for a guy who, when tidying his flat, used to make sure everything was placed just so at right-angles and organized his CD collection by order of current preference, moving down by collaborations between bands, I tend to find myself constantly vexed by this extraordinary behaviour.

And yet, we’re getting married; probably for those very reasons. Try as I might I can’t stop her from trashing the kitchen, stealing my socks, watching trash TV or taking the piss out of my ‘gay’ poetry. And yet I’ve realized that these are the very things that make me smile when I think about her.

But in contrast, she loves the fact that I write. She’s proud of it. And if you guys think it’s bad that you’ve heard ‘Bin Bag’ about 4 times now (for those of you that haven’t, it’s over 4.5 minutes long and 869 words), imagine Sarah patiently hearing draft after draft, stanza after stanza, tweak after tweak as I write it, then enduring me performing it to her, time after time until I have it memorized (same goes for ‘Prototypes’ which is even longer). By the time I perform a poem at DGPS, she’s already heard it in full at least 30 times.

Now if that’s not love I don’t know what is.

I think that’s what works between us. She’s my litmus test for writing, more than happy to tell me when I’m disappearing up my own arse but still willing to listen to what I’m writing (I just read her the first part of this blog by the way and she’s begged me not to put-in the ‘socks as make-up remover’ comment – It’s staying regardless, Happy Valentines’ Day, love)

Anyway, she’s the person who changed me enough that I’m now writing a love story for the first time in my life, ‘Silkwyrm’ (even if it is one between a demoness child-killer and a pupating post-consciousness) while at the same time, she’s the person who taught me the word ‘Nesh’ (apparently it means ‘Stephen Stroud’).

Talk about weird dichotomies. She’s a person who doesn’t really read but whom I couldn’t write without. Guess I’m a lucky bugger.

Happy Valentines Day

Love, Toast and the Little Things

2012-02-14T07:44:00.002Z

I used to hate Valentine’s day. I think shy geeky girls withglasses and braces, who spend break times in the library, usually do. Becauseit is one of those days that, rather than affirming that someone loves you,actually confirms that you are in fact unpopular, uncool and definitely notsweet enough to warrant an overpriced card complete with a crappy hallmarkpoem.

But that was Upper school and that, thankfully, is like adistant planet; still orbiting my memory but no longer a place I inhabit. Things change . You realise that life isn’tgoing to pan out like an animated Disney picture, and that love is about morethan chocolate and expensive gifts. When you’re younger, being loved onValentine’s day seems like the most important thing in the world, but when youget older you learn that being loved day after day is far more essential andspecial. For me, it’s not the big and grand gestures that say a lot, but ratherthe little and everyday ones.

When he brings me coffee in bed and we start the day with aproper conversation. When he holds my hand. When he sends me a thoughtful textmessage or tweet. When he leaves me a note. When he writes me a poem on thefridge. When he makes me toast, just as I like it. When he wipes my tears andsays he still believes in me. When we read poetry to each other. When hesurprises me with flowers.

These aren’t Valentine’s day gestures, they are just everydaymoments that make me feel special and loved. They are moments that make merealise just how lucky I am.

I’ve found that person that you just ‘click with’. Who lovesyour bad bits just as much as your good bits. Who inspires you, gives youreason to smile and generally just makes you a better person.

Shaun probably doesn’t realise that he inspires me, makes me a better personand a better poet – because I’ve never taken the time to tell him. Because Iget caught up in the mundane things – being annoyed about the mess he’s made,the pile of unwashed dishes, the mountain of laundry – and I sometimes forgetto thank him, to acknowledge the things he has done. He really has helped tomake me a better poet; my world was small, closed off and a little dark beforeI met Shaun, and as a consequence my poetry reflected my environment. But Shaunchanged my world, turned it upside-down, added a few torches and flares andknocked down a couple of walls. He reminded me how to have fun, and mostimportantly taught me how to love again.

And suddenly there was so much more to write about...

I’m going to finish today’s post with a poem, a love poemthat I wrote a few months ago, and which was inspired by my very wonderfulShaun.

Love

When hemakes me toast
he turns the toaster down
from his ‘5’ to my ‘3’

Leavesit to cool
before spreading with butter
(scraping the excess back onto theknife)

Cuts itinto four irregular triangles –

just asmy mother did when I was small.

Thankyou for reading,
Lar.

Love poems for Valentine’s Day

2012-02-13T05:17:00.000Z

For anyone that hasn’t visited a shop this month, for anyonewho happens to have a penis and for anyone who just hasn’t got around toanything yet- consider this my gentle nudge- tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.
Fittingly, the blog theme this week will be romance. Romance and poetry gotogether like, well, any emotion and poetry. They fit.

It seems only yesterdaythat I was drafting and redrafting one of the best poems I have ever written-and romance ticked it all over. Summer 2010 and I was perched outside a coffeeshop practically goose-stepping with my pen. Look at me, I’m being a poet was agreat look for me at the time and something worked because that very same poemthat I gave to Lara continues to be an important part of my life. I’m notposting it. I don’t even have a copy myself. I have drafts and scraps but Ithink the only copy of it is tucked away with her somewhere and, as sentimentgoes, I think that is a pretty nice one. The poem was probably crap. It waspresented nicely though. It had been drafted and worked at. The message and thepitch had been tightened up from a fairly shabby starting point and, after adecent few afternoons of scratching away, we can fast forward to now- stilltogether as we approach Valentine’s Day.

If you think you might have one of those women in your life that wouldappreciate a poem for Feb 14^th, why not give it a go. There areplenty of sites to help you along the way and if you have a look through thearchives, plenty of ‘How to write’ (for want of a better phrase) posts on here.She will appreciate the thought but perhaps don’t shirk out of present buyingduties on my part (unless you’ve already done the no-gift deal, as I have,magnificently). Just a heads up really.

As regular readers may note, I keep promising poems. I keep writing them andnot having them to fit, I’m not just being lazy. I have had a few on my mindthough and, as I may or may not be writing something for tomorrow, there isn’tgoing to be a new one today either I’m afraid. What I have put together is alist of some lovely romantic poems that you lazy buggers can copy, paste andprint out for your other half- should you be getting all soppy…

Should you be wallowing home alone tomorrow, Braga v Besiktas is on ESPN and Ihave no doubts in saying that Bridget Jones is on offer somewhere near you (asis pizza and ice cream I’ll bet). Have a read of some of these- they might evencheer you up.

Shakespeare-Sonnet 18 Betjeman- A Subaltern's Love Song CarolAnn Duffy - Love

BillyCollins - Sonnet PeterDale- Vigil PamAyres - Yes, I'll Marry You, My Dear

JennyJoseph- The sun has burst the sky John Masefield-Beauty Coleridge- Desire

FelixDennis- We Knew Immediately HelenDunmore- Wild Strawberries

Thanks for reading, S.

Knocking Down the Walls

2012-02-12T10:16:00.004Z

by Jessica Bell

Today I’m supposed to be discussing the difference between narrative and lyric poetry. You know, I could do that. I could tell you that “lyric” comes from the ancient Greek instrument, the lyre, and that the Greeks used to always sing their poetry to its accompaniment. I could also tell you that lyric poems resemble songs in three distinct ways: they are shorter than epic (narrative) poetry, they usually express the thoughts of the poet, and they often give you the feeling they can be sung.

On that note, I’d also mention that epic (narrative) poetry stems from Greek too. From the word “epos,” which means to speak or to tell a tale. Homer’s Iliad is and example of an epic poem. So is the Odyssey. Epic poems are supposed to enhance the reader’s sense of good and evil, by focusing on the heroism of a certain individual that is a symbol of strength, virtue, courage … really I could go on and on telling you what these forms of poetry are and bore the crikeyness out of you. So let me tell you a little something about myself …

I hate rules. I love to learn them, however, and I love to know that I know them. But rarely do I utilize them, and rarely do I label poetry as this, that, and the other. Poetry, to me, is art. There are no limits to art. You can’t pigeon hole it. This is another reason why I don’t much like ‘genres’ in fiction. But that’s a completely different discussion.

The ‘type’ or style of poem, ultimately has no significant meaning. They’re there for scholars to refer to in their lectures and print in their theses, so … Narrative or Lyric? Who cares! Does your poem evoke emotion? Yes? Then you’re good to go in my book. Does your poem keep me engaged? Does it make me want to read more of it? Does it use vocabulary creatively, avoid cliché, kick me in the gut and make me want to write like you? Does it make me email all my friends and tell them to check out this new and upcoming genius? Does it make me read the same poem over and over and over and find new meaning in it with every reading? Yes? Brilliant. Then keep doing what you’re doing.

And if you’ve mixed and matched various forms of poetry to create your own, then you deserve a standing ovation. Because seriously, rules can suck the life out of art … they can also enhance it, but again, that’s another discussion, and maybe Vicky can invite me back one day to tell you what I think about that. So I’ll just leave you with this:

Don’t ever listen to people who begin a sentence with, “You can’t do that because … .”

You can do that. Do it. And show everybody how it’s done.

Jessica Bell Online:

Website
String Bridge (a novel)
Retreat & workshop
Blog
Vine Leaves Journal
Facebook
Twitter

Narrative or Lyric

2012-02-11T07:12:00.002Z

By Ashley Lister

No. It can’t be narrative OR lyric – both elements are equally important. It has to be narrative AND lyric. They support each other.

Without the contextualisation of narrative structure, the poignancy of lyricism can be greatly diminished or lost. The finality of a setting sun might be beautiful in lyrical terms but without the context of some narrative cohesion it will only be as poignant as a Polaroid. However, if a setting sun is the closing scene at the end of a bildungsroman, its beauty is combined with the metaphorical relationship between the day’s end and the conclusion of a life/life cycle/dramatic period within the narrative.

I do think the lyrical quality is essential to help create a resonance of physicality between the reader and the text. Without a vivid lyrical quality the text can be perceived as hollow and the narrative structure can come across as contrived (or so unappealing it fails to grip the reader).

Therefore, for me, it needs to be a combination of narrative and lyric. Neither is superior to the other as each plays an equal measure for the entertainment of the reader and an equal measure in the writer’s intention of expressing himself or herself with the utmost appropriate clarity.

I’ve read that back five times now and – whilst it says exactly what I want it to say – it still reads like the most boring entry I’ve ever posted to this blog. If you’re still with me this far down the page, thank you for your persistence.

I think you and I should sneak away quietly now so as not to wake the others.

You wanna fight?

2012-02-10T10:30:00.002Z

Narrative or Lyric. It’s a controversial subject. Canon orNikon? PC or Mac? Spit or swallow? Each of these will have vehement preachersof the worth of each. One is called functional and the other pretentiousand shallow. It causes arguments at dinner parties, between friends andenemies alike. It can turn best friends against each other. Each of them feel that they are right, and enduces an attitude of smuggery (Yes I made that up).

Narrative: it’s the spine of the writing. It has to be thereotherwise what’s the point of reading it? Anything else is a case of theemperor’s new clothes. The writing has to carry the story along, not navel gazethroughout. I’d rather read a story where something HAPPENS, not the thought’sof a narcissistic self absorbed author who tries to be clever and justalienates people. Half of the people who claim to prefer literary fiction don’thave a clue anyway and are just pretentious sheep.

Lyric: It’s the abstract within the text. Why does therehave to be a plot? People and situations can be artful and fascinating. Weshouldn’t have to follow a formula in writing. Beautiful metaphor and use oflanguage is as skilful as plot building, if not more. A vivid image can staywith you far longer than a plot which has been done over and over. They do sayafter all that there are only 7 different plots in writing.

Like each of these arguments, the answer is they are as goodas each other. It depends on what you want out of your writing or what youread. Both have qualities the other doesn’t. You choose what you want out of itand choose what’s better for you. Or what the purpose of your writing is. The bonus of being a writer is that we don't have to invest huge amounts of cash and then justify our use of one or the other. We can play around with both, and use what we feel is right for our current work. We can pick up a piece of literary fiction or lyrical poem and if we have the inclination read that, or go for something which has a great story.

I personally prefer Canon, PC and Narrative. I like a bit oflyric too, when it’s vivid and appropriate, the perfect book for me is a balance between skilful imagery and writing and great plotting. Crap writing is just annoying no matter how great the story is and gives me rage. Likewise 400 pages of the thoughts of a man enduring a mid life crisis would have to have something to keep me reading other than how he 'finds' himself spiritually.

I'm not giving the answer to the other one.

Lyra's Shadows

2012-02-09T00:00:00.009Z

I'm going to come right out and say it... I'm a narrative girl and I'll tell you for why. It's the same reason I'm not a huge fan of landscape poetry. I want humanity in my art. That's my raisin. It's the same with paintings or sculpture. Abstract form has its place and I like to wrangle with something conceptual as much as the next mentalist but if there's a glimpse of a person and a story in there then I'm more likely to connect with it.

I'd like to compare lyric and narrative poetry to two pieces of art. Tracy Emin's 'My Bed' is comparable to lyric poetry. It portrays emotions in an abstract way. There is no character present but we get a fair idea of some aspects of a character from the traces they leave behind. I like to wonder about the bed, compare it to my own.

Now, take Paula Rego's Pillow man. There is character and story. This is a narrative piece. I'm not just wondering what the characters are like, I can see them and I know what they are doing. I can wonder why they are smiling or frowning or sleeping. I can wonder where they have been. But I have a lot more to work with.

Lyric poems are glimpses, narrative poems are the full picture. Perhaps I am being greedy but whilst a look through a keyhole is tempting as it implies that I am being given a glimpse of something secret or hidden, 9 times out of 10 I'd much rather see what's behind the door. I crave the action that narrative poetry entails. And with that, why not mosey on over to Robert Frost's Out, Out and see what I mean.

Drunken thoughts from a permanently plastered pissed up bastard.

2012-02-08T07:38:00.005Z

Oh Christ. It’s late, I'm drunk and I’ve just remembered I need to blog after bumping into some mates in the pub and getting home hours after I usually do.

I’m pretty pissed about this as, for a change, I actually had quite a bit to say about this week’s theme (Narrative and Lyric by the way) but now I have to rush it.

Right, this whole 'I'm not a poet' thing I've got. Well, there's a reason to that. Yes, I write poetry but poetry, for me, is a quick fix of gratification from a sketch of ideas; a bit like a band performing a song rather than a concept album.

I’m stating this in a purely personal sense by the way. I have a huge respect for 'proper' poets like the DGPS and similar groups: those for whom the poem is their natural form of expression.

But poetry for me is quite an alien form, something that I blagged my way into through a need to write lyrics for my band as a teenager. Where my heart truly lies is in narrative and stories. I have plans for stories that I really believe are worth dedicating a life to writing, narratives that make me want to chuck in my job and go back on the dole to give me some space to concentrate on them. But they’re impossible to share, even on sites like this, as even the synopsis would go over the word count. And for an insecure, narcissistic personality like mine, in constant need of affirmation from social peers, that’s a hard task to achieve.

My hope is that I find the time to write these stories as they are an intrinsic part of me that I hope to have the discipline to see through to the end.

But writing them is an experience based in intentional isolation and my personality seems to recoil from being isolated. I’ll never get to perform a book anytime soon in front of my peers and so I write poems instead and let them get in the way of writing stories, which is where I feel my true calling lies.

I think this comes across in my poetry. The ones like ‘Bin Bag’ and ‘Prototypes’ that I get excited about are based on a narrative thread that I strive to maintain whilst playing with lyric, rhythm and rhyme. The excitement for me is in keeping that narrative throughout the poem, stretching metaphors like I would do across chapters in a novel whilst retaining the structure and momentum of a coherent poem.

This tends to make my poems 5 minute-plus long tangential rambles through god knows whatever goes through my head. I try to work into a poem what I’d normally take a 3 hour conversation to explain and go off on stream of consciousness bullshit which means I’ll never be able to compete in slams and competitions with their 3 min rules and be a proper poet, but does mean I can take part in sharing thoughts with people I consider friends; which does make a difference.

And there you go. Drunken thoughts from a permanently plastered pissed up bastard. Did that make sense? I hope so. Like I said: drunk.

Night night (or good morning I suppose) Thanks for reading

Happy Birthday Mr. Dickens

2012-02-07T08:46:00.000Z

Firstly, I'd like to apologise for the lack of a blog post yesterday, and the measly attempt at a post today. Shaun and I have both been unwell; this is a house of sniffles, sneezes, snot, coughs, temperatures and shivers.

Secondly, I'd like to apologise for not sticking to this week's theme: Narrative or Lyric. My mind is a mushy pulp and even just trying to form a sentence feels like quantum physics.

But, I would like to mention that today would have been Charles Dickens' 200th birthday and - on a blog that is all about poetry, prose and writing - to not mention it would seem rude. Everyone loves a little bit of Dickens: be it a novel, a BBC adaptation, or the Muppets dashing through A Christmas Carol.

In the Guardian yesterday, the 'poem of the week' was specifically chosen for its Dickensian theme - and I definitely think it is worth the read: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/06/poem-of-the-week-charles-dickens?newsfeed=true

So I hope you enjoy, and hopefully I'll be back with a slightly better and more-on-topic post next week.

Thank you for reading,
Lar.

The Fish has a Gun

2012-02-05T08:38:00.004Z

by Raven Finn

So.
I've been told to do a post about a desert island.
I find this pretty much impossible.
But desert islands are next to water.
And water has fish.
Fish are cute aren't they?
They just go '...o...o..o'
Well obviously slightly different to that but thats the shape their mouths make.
Turtles are cute too.
Awkward turtles aren't as cute though, more awkward then cute.
But some have eyes like Nicki Minaj in her new song.
That's just terrifying.
Imagine scuba diving and suddenly 'WOAH WHAT'S NICKI MINAJ DOING HERE WEARING NEXT TO NOTHING LIKE USUA- oh it's a fish.'
That would probably make the news.
Although most things make the news these days.
I saw a story on the news about a kitten with 10 toes on one paw.
Not exactly 9/11 is it?
Fish can't live on sand can they?
It would be strange if you just landed on a desert island inhabited by goldfish like 'Oh hi there, we ownz dis town, innit.'
I don't know why it's a gangsta it just seems appropriate.
Imagine if they had guns.
Well I'm never buying a fish now.

4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42

2012-02-04T07:34:00.001Z

By Ashley Lister

SPOILER ALERT. DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVE ANY INTENTION OF WATCHING THE TV SERIES LOST. I GIVE MY INTERPRETATION OF THE ENDING HERE AND I DON’T WANT TO SPOIL IT FOR ANYONE. SPOILING THE SERIES WAS THE JOB OF THE WRITERS.

I could do it. I could do the desert island thing. And I wouldn’t need those eight records that everyone else wants to take to a desert island. I would just need the following:

1) Broadband. How the hell am I expected to blog each week without a broadband connection? I don’t mind if I have to lose my mobile. If I’ve got my mobile logic dictates I’d feel obligated to phone the emergency services and say, ‘Help, I’m stranded on a desert island.’ But, if I have a PC with a broadband connection and an active email address I don’t think I’d feel that need to call for assistance.

2) Microsoft Word. I’m a writer. This is one of the essential things a writer needs.

3) Alcohol. I’m a writer. This is one of the essential things a writer needs.

4) Chocolate. I’m a writer. This is one of the essential things a writer needs.

5) The companionship of the writers of the TV series Lost – so I could maybe eat them when the food ran out.

I mention the writers of the TV series Lost because that was one piece of fiction that I thought was brilliant – right up to the crushing disappointment of the final episode.

The episodes were beautifully written and well-acted and the scenery was to die for. The lovely Barbara Thomas (a previous guest blogger here) introduced me to Lost. She and her husband Jim discussed the myriad possibilities of the Lost-universe and encouraged me to venture my own theory as to what was happening.

I said I thought it was a metaphor for purgatory. The characters were waiting to move onto heaven or hell, depending on where they belonged.

I was assured by several knowledgeable people that variations on my theory had been suggested on many online forums, where it had been dismissed as being too clichéd. Particle Physics was more heavily favoured. Multiverse theories were bandied around and strongly supported. Adam McCance (another previous guest blogger here) said it was all Hurley’s dream.

Guess what happened in the final episode. Can you guess? I’ll give you a clue: I was right. I’d been right since the first f***ing episode.

So, because I was lured into watching six seasons of this series to suffer the disappointment of an unsatisfactory ending, I’d want to take the writers of Lost with me. However, in retrospect, I might not eat them. I’d be worried it would leave a nasty taste in my mouth.

Desert Islands? Really? Who came up with that one?

2012-02-03T13:47:00.000Z

I sometimes wouldquite like to live on a desert island actually. Think about it, no morepolitics, no more facebook. No more worrying about the bills. No more listen topeople MOAN. No more irritating arseholes with judgemental opinions. No morenightmare family members. No more adverts for ‘Go Compare’. No more Jedward. Nomore Arsing on Ice. No more people wanting to talk to me about what happened toa character in a fecking soap opera I don’t watch. No more religion. NoCbeebies.

Of course there would be things I’d miss, like hiding Clive’swalking stick, and the NHS. My kids when they aren’t using toys as an arsenal. Tea.Having food. But I think it would bewell worth it. I’d get a fair bit of quiet for a change.

OR I could just send all those things I hate to a desertisland instead, and bomb it. Yes, I think that would be the best option allround. Now where’s that stick?

Dessert Island

2012-02-02T00:21:00.003Z

¿Donde está La Isla Dulce?

Pastry limpets predict the future from silvery concave faces,
every spoon a remembrance in flour and fat.
Scratched cutlery sculpting tomorrow from yesterday’s waste:
predictions of mild disillusionment, disgust,

diarrhoea. Covertly, I return to the sticky back counter.
Rummage in the trough. Fat digits wriggle like eager
piglets between cool metal shafts but every face is scarred,

pasted. Bamboo-like, in a haze
of Zen do I bend; acquiesce to the inevitability of

stubborn
pastry.

Followed back to our table by the promise of pudding.
Metal garden chair squeaks on sticky linoleum as I sit.
Complicit in the shabby shite façade, the chipped
bowl’s just one letter away from the brown

brick road to the entrails city. As Lolita sashays into grime
we swap fish faces. Gawp at an ocean of lukewarm jaundice.
Thinking that the crumble was wasted on spoornamentation,
That only custard

remains. But you, courageous explorer, will not
settle for this explanation. Cook’s inquisitive, sea-faring spirit
thrusts a stained stainless scoop into the depths, on a mission to
crumb. How you do move me, Earth Shaker, when you raise
La Isla Dulce from an ocean of disappointment.

fortes fortuna adiuva

Desert Island Dicks

2012-02-01T05:09:00.001Z

Writers are w++kers. * Poets are pr++ks. * Creatives are c++ts * (and alliteration’s for a++eholes)

‘Way to go and alienate your readership, Ste’ says a little voice in my head. But please don’t take the above as an insult. I fall into all of those categories myself (yes, even poet – as long as it’s prefixed with ‘Dubstep’!) and am therefore outing myself, here and now, as a massive knob.

Once upon a time, John Donne, a colossal phallus of the poetic form if ever there was one, wrote,

‘No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;’

Fair enough Mr Donne, sir. I tip my pretentious trilby to thy memory. I am not, indeed, an island. However, I (and many poets, I suspect) could be described as tiny little peninsulas, clinging on to the mainland of social acceptability for dear life. (Think Cornwall)

In the main, us poets, writers and creative types are lovely people; social, humorous, warm and friendly. That’s something I’ve always liked about nights such as Dead Good Poets and now Wordsoup: the respect and attention given to those performing by others who understand the effort that goes into getting up there. We’re a good lot, we are.

And yet, there’s something inherently misanthropic about being a writer. In our social lives we’re all smiles, hugs and frivolity but then, when it’s time to write, out comes the snarling beast.

He hides in my bedroom, hunched over the PC, pulling his hair, scribbling on notebooks, screaming at the screen, rocking back and forth and shouting ‘DON’T TALK TO ME!’ at anyone brave (or stupid) enough to interrupt his train of thought.

He also demands instant and rapt attention whenever he’s written anything, interrupting Eastenders to ask questions like, ‘Can I get away with calling poets pricks on a poetry blog?’

But that's the thing isn't it? Writing requires making yourself into an island. We shut ourselves off and divorce ourselves, however temporarily, from the rest of the world. We prepare an oasis of peace, quiet and concentration (and dictionaries, and thesauruses, and Wikipedia) and refuse to wave at the passing ships until we're damn good and ready to be saved.

For those who don't write, sailing along on the good ship Social, pointing out the mad wanking hermit on the beach, this does come across as a bit pretentious, annoying and, well, dickish. I guess it's one of those things you just have to do if you want to be a real writer; don't be afraid to be a wanker, embrace the inner prick and be a complete and utter C...reative.

My name's Ste and, as everyone keeps telling me, I'm a poet.

*Apart from you, obviously, you’re lovely

On Friendship

2012-01-30T23:52:00.003Z

by Jo Bell

Reader, I have a fondness for fondness. So when Word Soup’s lovely organiser Jane Brunning asked me to choose a theme for the January event I chose friendship. In the dark winter days, I thought, we should revel in the slow-burning, deeply warming relationships that furnish our lives. Not the sexual ones that provide the fireworks; not the family ties that come with their own incendiary baggage; but the friends who share nights at the local, food around your table, those who make the bright moments especially bright and the really crap moments slightly better.

I was delighted to hear the Dead Good Poets wrangling with the theme in their own readings on the night, and to share the mic with friends like Sarah-Clare Conlon, Fat Roland, Kim Moore and Martin Malone. My poems – like English Walkers or Break in and Leave Me Flowers – often start from small gestures that make me particularly glad of my mates. I read both of these at Word Soup, but I didn’t squeeze in the poem below, written after a delicious, easy late night/ early morning in Warwickshire some years ago.

The space we share with friends becomes invisible

Was that the time we visited Seville?

The night we all lay stoned in dunes at Druridge Bay,

me swearing I could see the Northern Lights?

Or were we on the boat, each bumping round to find a bunk,

excited by the smell of salt?

Perhaps we walked the fields behind my house

to see the hilltop obelisk at dawn,

and soaked our ankles with the dew.

We did that, once.

I cannot say. For every night we’ve spent

is present now in every night we spend.

As like as not, we drank too much.

At any rate, we talked and laughed and spent the time

like hoarded coins: amazed, as usual,

to find each piece increase in value

simply by the keeping.

Nights like Word Soup are the life-blood of the spoken word scene, and it was brilliant to see the DGPs tackling the whole event with such professionalism and energy. I arrived horribly late thanks to a disastrous traffic jam on the M60. So I missed one or two of the Dead Good Poets whose own friendly, chatterbox blog I had been following in recent days. But the welcome was warm, the feedback extremely generous and it was a real pleasure to join you all on stage at the New Continental. There was a real feeling of companionship. Thanks to all of you and I’ll be back as soon as I can!

Desert Islands.

2012-01-30T05:47:00.000Z

Good morning readers and welcome to what I feel could be an excellent week on the DGPS blog. With the BBC's Desert Island Discs celebrating 70 years on the airwaves this week, what better theme to start us off on our musings than Desert Islands themselves.

The thought of an island excites me. It scares me. It brings with it all sorts of adventures, perils and, as a vegan, I suppose some difficult choices. That said, it could also be quite relaxed should I drop amongst a coconut plantation- which is a little like I felt on Thursday night.

I want to add my name to the list of people singing praises. I thought the whole event was great (well done again to all at WordSoup- always guaranteed a good night) and actually getting to be on a poster excited some demonic part of me, I must say. I was worried though- I was on the island, waking Lost-style from the crash. First up from us had me a bit jittery but there, just past the light was a table full of coconuts. There has been some good stuff coming out of the group lately and to be amongst the tenders of such a fruitful plantation was a comfort at the least.

This moves me on to what I actually thought I should write about this week. The Island idea appeals to me as a boy scout (and after an afternoon thinking, I suspect The Scouting Book for Boys may be of more use to me than a poetry anthology) and one thing I found during my years there was how to be amongst friends- look out for one another and that is something that I like to think has stayed with me.#

I've been the unwitting receiver of various strange and unexpected news recently. There has been all kinds of madness and I wonder, as a writer, what is appropriate to take forward into new work. There is a clear line in my head but in the same way so many useful things are passed on and stay with you forever (how to hold a spade etc), surely they will stick around- perhaps surface somewhere in a muddled metaphor or character. This must be an issue for many writers and it is certainly something that I find needs to be considered with regards to more personal poetry. A line can find itself in the wrong mouth, stuttering with rage and completely out of context. A bit like the suggestions somebody might be pregnant following a poem I performed recently- and that was bloody me reading it!

Going back to the birthday mention, a quick search tells me I would automatically get a copy of the Bible (or alternative) so some soul searching could probably go on. I might pick a different book, learn a new culture completely on my own... I'd probably do what many of us would do- think about home, the past, the things in life we have and do hold dear. I wouldn't need 8 records. I would take them. A collection of festival/occasional/thoughtful songs that could be any 8 from a hundred. I would spend a lot of time listening to the things inside my head though- the voices I have carried with me. Advice, friends laughing, brothers, mothers, teachers, fathers, grandfathers... the voices in my head that are pushing for a poem and are better left to Caliban in Shakespeare's The Tempest (III 2.133-134)
"The isle is full of noises,
sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not."

Thanks for reading,
S.

Thursday Knight

2012-01-28T08:03:00.005Z

By Ashley Lister

For me Thursday night this week started back in October 2011, when Jane Brunning asked if the Dead Good Poets would be interested in attending a Word Soup event. For those who think it’s unreal to think of a night in January 2012 starting three months earlier I have to point out that this is winter in the north and the nights are getting longer.

My response to Jane Brunning was, ‘Sure. I’ll try anything once.’

I have a mindset to try anything once: except voting Tory or eating snails. There are some things where you only have to look at the ugly slimy little buggers to know that they’ll leave a nasty taste in your mouth.

And I also feel this way about snails.

So in October I confirmed with my fellow bloggers that we were all free to step out of our respective comfort zones and venture, as Shaun so eloquently described Preston at the start of this week, behind enemy lines.

There were further exchanges of emails. There was talk of us trying to combine our styles into one single performance piece. Lara had the genius idea of us each describing ourselves by the day of the week on which we blog. It was a shame that the idea didn’t pan out. Vicky, who is a constant explosion of ingenuity, was coming up with a rush of ideas that could have made our collective appearance seem more cohesive. Lindsay – who writes the most entertaining children’s fiction I’ve ever read – did her usual trick of containing her fears so that no one would have even guessed she was ‘bricking it.’

There were email discussions where we got snarled up in the complexities of who’d sent which message first and who’d responded privately rather than to the group and who was sticking to the theme and who was giving who a lift.

There were email discussions where the less informed amongst us discovered we were on the same bill as Jo Bell and panicked at the idea of working alongside someone so revered and respected in the world of poetry. As is turned out, the reverence for Jo Bell is deserved – she is absolutely sensational.

It’s known amongst this group that Ste Stroud does not believe in God. But surely he must believe in miracles because he was standing onstage with the rest of us on Thursday night. Given our fears and our collective organisational skills, it’s a miracle that any one of us was there.

As a side note I should say here that I’ve been immersed in writing my latest novel this last couple of months. It’s all sword and sorcery and dungeons and dragons and damsels in distress.

And alliteration.

If I’m not writing that novel I’m either researching medieval minutiae or I’m reading Game of Thrones. Occasionally I take some time away from the writing to practice wielding a broadsword. Right now I’m using the broadsword as a method for training the dogs. For anyone who is concerned about this, I can say that most of the dogs still have heads.

And I mention this connection with glamorised medieval depictions of knights because that was how I felt on Thursday night. I had ridden into Preston with my fellow knights. I was confident in the knowledge that each and every one of my colleagues was worthy to bear the arms of being a Dead Good Poet because I know each and every one of them is damned good and armed with strengths that complement the weaknesses burdening the rest of us.

And I’m now looking forward to the next time we can set out as a banner of knights ready to conquer another audience.

Keep sick bucket at hand, may be slightly gushing but I had a rare good night so STFU.

2012-01-27T10:03:00.001Z

Last night the Dead Good Poet Bloggers performed with WordSoup at The Continental in Preston. Dead Good Poets came to support us, andhelped make the evening a superb one. The venue is amazing. It has a cosy intimateatmosphere with the audience and beautiful architecture, with a high ceiling,stage and candlelit tables. It was the perfect backdrop for some beautiful poetry.Headlining the evening was Jo Bell, who was one of the most passionate andamazing poets I have ever seen, her presence and delivery concentrated everysyllable of her beautiful words. I’d never seen her work before, but I will definitelybe looking for more of her work. Vicky commented that she had a seductivequality, and I don’t think any of us could take our eyes from her during herperformance. I was originally due to perform just after Jo Bell, and I’m bloodyglad I didn’t have to, thankfully she chose to go last and rounded up theevening perfectly. If you haven’t seen her yet, you need to, she is amazing.

Shaun went up first, and did a selection of poems onfriendship and family, some of which he has posted on the blog before. His poetry iswonderful in text form, but his delivery for me is the best way to enjoy hiswork. He started us off to an incredibly high standard. I could hear positive murmursthrough the audience as he performed, and knew the Dead Good Poets were off toa flying start.

Next up was our poet in residenceLara, with some incredible poetry which also initiated positive gasps andhumming from the audience. If you’ve heard Lara’s poetry you’ll know why andalthough nervous of performance Lara is mesmerising, her words conveyingincredible imagery and emotion woven together into breath taking poetry.

Steve went up next, and began hisown inimitable style of poetry which is hypnotising in its rhythm, language andconciseness. How he manages to memorise his poems I really don’t know but itcomplements his delivery and style. Steve commented later that someone said tohim that it was great to finally hear some dubstep poetry, which I have neverheard of but fits Steve perfectly. He owns the stage when he’s on it, andalthough doesn’t describe himself as a poet he most definitely is, and a greatone.

As always Vicky challenged theboundaries of poetry and her performance piece was fantastic, she dished outchocolate to volunteers to stand on the stage as Danielle wrapped them in wool.Vicky performed a poem based on their situation, their emotions about theirpredicament and it worked well. She seemed to come alive while on the stage, and find it so very natural.

I was up next, and I was proud ofthe fact I actually read something. I don’t perform really at all. I took oneof my children’s stories and although it was not ideal for the audience I’mglad I actually performed something I was comfortable with, and challenged oneof my biggest fears. I’m hoping I’ll be able to go upwards from here.

Ashley had the house roaring withlaughter with his comedic poetry. He performed one of his older poems I recallfrom one of the very first Dead Good Poet meetings and the latest poem whichhas featured on here last Saturday, I <3 Jeremy Kyle. It went down a storm,and even though we’ve heard them before, they never get old. Ashley ended the Dead Good Poets set with a memorable one.

We then were succeeded by JoBell, who is just amazing. I can’t think of any more superlatives which don’tsound cheesy when I’ve been so happy with a poetry evening so I’ll just saylook her up, and see her if you can. It’s well worth it.

Last night I was very proud tocall myself a Dead Good Poet, the fellow DGP’s who came to support us helpedmake the evening. Can’t wait for the next DGPS night, I might even performsomething. J

What's New Pussycat?

2012-01-26T01:35:00.004Z

Raven's back again with my post for this week. I'm such a great mum I'm not even going to edit this - because she's got to learn.

I'd like to point out that:
a) This probably links ino the Key Stage 4 curriculum
b) As she states, if I hadn't intervened she would have wasted her night
c) Raven did not want to play skittles with the cat. She was referring to the confectionary
d) I think this post accurately represents how I have been planning for Thursday's event - by working on unrelated assignment which is due in tomorrow and which I only started yesterday. Wish me luck!

So - here's Raven on what is a fairly standard evening:

Right,
Well quite frankly i am miffed.
I am supposed to be reblogging useless images on tumblr right now, wasting my night.
I am instead being forced into writing my mothers blog, as she is to busy doing other work and cannot pause for
five minuted to write.
So she makes the thirteen year old do it.
what a joke.
Well lets see.
I am currently sat in my pajamas, in my bed.
I am listening to sex bomb by Tom Jones, thinking about how much easier tumblr
is to use on the currently occupied PC and im fairly hungry.
I could do with a cat right now, but they decide to stay downstairs near the computer, the better of the electronic equipment.
I have school tomorrow, I should be sleeping right now.
But i am being made to stay up later just to write something that my own mother couldn't be bothered to do.
I am so loved.
I am off to fetch some skittles and a cat.
Adios.

Prototypes

2012-01-25T07:41:00.003Z

Friendship has been a very consuming theme for me recently. Not only is it the theme for Wordsoup, but also something I really wanted to write about following my friends’ death. A couple of weeks ago I posted quite a sad poem entitled ‘Sapling’ that was pretty much about getting a bit of sadness out. But the thought had occurred to me that I’d like to write something that celebrated life. Not just Johnny’s but all of my friends’. Wordsoup’s looming deadline gave me the impetus to knuckle down and do it and, having just now completed my final draft, I can say it’s the first thing I’m happy to have written since ‘Bin Bag’ nearly a year ago.

I’m not sure if the friends I’ve written it as a tribute to will ever hear it. I think they see my poetry writing as a bit of a quirk. Probably proof I might be a friend of Dorothy (I proposed to a GIRL goddam it, leave it alone!) but, interested in my poetry or not, these people mean so much to me, even when my job commitments and aging liver mean I don’t get to see them these days as much as I’d like.

So I’ve written a poem called ‘Prototypes’. The title’s a quote from ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’, where Raoul Duke says of Dr Gonzo,

‘There he goes, one of God’s own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, too rare to die.’

That quote’s pretty much our calling card and instantly recognisable to a small group of people I care about a lot (Sean’s still got plans to have it tattooed). So I’ve written a kind of ode/anthem to my friends, especially Johnny, around it, mixing it with a Kerouac quote that I like,

‘The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’’

The poem contains a central stanza that’s an amalgamation of those two quotes:

‘And there they were, God’s own prototypes
Too weird to live and too rare to die,
Desirous of everything at the same time
Yellow Roman Candles exploding like spiders across the sky’

I state it here to point out in this case it’s not plagiarism, it’s intentional intertextuality! (And before I perform it I will read out the two quotes above)
The first quote will provide recognition and meaning for those friends of mine and the second is a quote that holds a lot of meaning for me in the way that I see them.

Anyway I guess I should post some of it. I’m not going to copy and paste the whole thing here for two reasons. 1) Like ‘Bin Bag’, it is meant to be performed, not read. 2) it’s clocked in at just over 1050 words. So below are a couple of stanzas that I particularly like that follow the stanza above.

PS ‘Underbar’ is a venue on Bank Hey Street

‘And now I navigate through Friday nights by the soul-light within dilated eyes
Where neon’s aurora pollutes the night sky, all along the tarnished Golden Mile
We scrawl our mythology on whitewashed walls, tagging, ‘I AM’ in myriad ways with mutant grace
Claiming alias as true self to make alien to ourselves the dictated, hegemonic ‘me’
Spelling out our hopes and dreams to simply be and in that being to Think Free

And while the black tarmac beneath our feet holds a mirror to the darkness above
Our foetal forms lie outlined in chalk amongst the chewing gum constellations.
I join the dots and see us born on this concrete hemisphere I revere:
The Lovers, the Player, the Skater, the Sprayer, the Debater, the Stoner, the Punk,
The Thinker, the Fighter, the DJ, the Dancer, the Dealer, the User, the Drunk,
Living Legends, I love you all and claim my hallowed place beside you,
Sitting on shop-front steps amid offered keys and a drifting sea breeze that carries the sweet scent of weed, rekindling my appetite and feeding my need for a higher sense of being,

That’s where I feel again the oscillation, a resonance of sheer elation,
A thrumming hum of sweet sensation, a pure moment of true connection,
A pure moment of true connection

And I now know where the vibration was begun:
It was begun the first time someone banged a drum and someone hummed and someone hummed
And strings were strummed or plucked with thumbs and songs were sung to keep our spirits young
And harmony was created.

And this harmony resides in we who meet beneath Kentucky fried streets and sticky stars
To start the dance in the underworld of an Underbar
We worship in soundsystem temples, highstepping to slow tempos, mixing beats to crescendos, using
bass as a weapon to kill the gods of repression, riding a slow pulsation all the way to gatecrash heaven.
And with our undulation the oscillation bleeds into territories unperceived and rides a sawtooth
frequency to stick a middle finger up to the notion of mortality’

Rest to follow at Wordsoup, thanks for reading.
Ste

What I Remember About Friendship...

2012-01-24T06:59:00.000Z

Ithought I’d use this post as an opportunity to just write everything that cameto mind when I thought about ‘Friendship’; a kind of word association game thatstarts in childhood and stretches back into the present. I like writing littlepieces of writing like this. I like the unexpected that you find within yourown mind. I like the possibilities that can sometimes be found; even apotential poem can be lurking within one of your forgotten memories. So I guessthat today’s post is more exercise than writing (but hopefully there is a poem just waiting to be written into existence in the near future).

Iremember the paddling pool in your garden. An August afternoon of giggles andfreedom. The perfect blonde curls that I wished were mine. I remember cuttingmy foot, and your mum mending it with a plaster. The strawberry patch, buzzingwith sweetness.

I rememberthe peanut fight that broke out on my 8^th birthday between twofriends. Crying when the cake was cut. Crying when I had to share it.

Iremember leaving my friends behind.

Iremember having to make new ones – in a new school, in a new town.

Iremember friendship bracelets. Falling out, taking sides. I remember sleepovers.Back garden camping. Cow pat cakes. I remember locking you in the shed. Barking like awild dog. Apologising. Laughing. I remember starting upper school. Being scaredtogether.

Iremember climbing trees. Making dens. I remember trying to fit in. Copying.Matching. Growing up.

Iremember liking the same boy, creating code names. Secrets. Cross my heart ‘tilI die. I remember promises, daisy chains and cans of Lilt. Penny sweets. Blissmagazine. Problem pages. I remember dreaming. Believing. Taking differentpaths.

Iremember saying goodbye. Hurting. Writing. Departure boards. Visiting hours. Iremember the fold-in-half feeling of guilt and your look of shock.

Iremember being lonely. Trusting you. Lying. Forgiving. I remember Saturdays,Sainsbury’s and Girl, Interrupted. Onionrings. Pasta. Pesto. Tears. I remember Christmas ’04 and my 18^thbirthday card. I remember smoking. Being sick. Being dizzy. Roller coasters.The face on the Pringle’s can. Ouija boards. Earthquakes and cockroaches. I rememberart galleries, love and long conversations. Paulo Coelho, Cindy Sherman and CamdenTown

Iremember ducks drowning. Broken wings. Police. Your purse. An abandoned hamster.Newspapers. I remember giving up, curling up, wishing. The brightest star.Escaping, walking, The Peak District. Bats and torches. I remember my trainers beingleft outside the tent. Writing. Waiting Learning.

Iremember English, ghosts, mountains and fear. Welsh dragons and Starbucks.Musicals, asylums and perfection. I remember looking in a mirror. Jumpingforward 15 years. Poetry. Barista. I remember picnics, vegan cheesecake,tartlets and running water. I remember falling in love.

Thankyou for reading,

Lar

Friendship needed for behind enemy lines...

2012-01-23T17:34:00.000Z

Evening all.

I trust that here, amongst internet friends, I don't have to apologise too much for again posting up late. I know, it is becoming a joke but I'm a busy guy...

Anyway, the theme this week is friendship which, at first, seems an easy one. We all have friends, we all know what that means and we all know pretty much what an actual friend is. Pushing it further than that though (no, not friends with benefits) and it starts to go either a little soppy or a little bit 'do you remember the time...'.
I think I'm probably of the soppy variety lately- and am more than feeling guilty about still not visiting my BEST friend's near six month old baby as yet. Life being life though, a bit of space and that has become nearly a boundary now so this week I'll be sorting something with him. Here comes the soppy bit- I actually welled up in the car a couple of weeks ago as I was near his house. I got to thinking just as Elbow came onto the radio- cue Guy Garvey's lyric.

"gentle shoulder charge,
love you man"

I don't know if it was how northern it came across, how simple it was or how we maybe just don't say it enough but it darn near got me. I played the track on repeat, just to try and set the frame of mind and forgot completely what it was I had initially wanted to say.

I've been trying to write something on this for a while now. Thursday night sees the bloggers shipping out to Preston for WordSoup (with Jo Bell) and behind enemy lines (which is anywhere with a PR postcode for me) I want something decent written. Is it being 'too close' to the poem? Is it trying 'too hard' for the poem? Is it just not having enough direction figured out for the poem? Preston calls and I don't like doing repeats, not at all so I'm going to try and write on a different subject for a day, see if it triggers something whilst I'm not concentrating.

Once again, apologies for the short, late post- work and the old block... I'll at least have a poem for you guys next week, promise. If it is just happens to be on this week's theme- well, friendship is a great theme for writing, isn't it. ;)

Thanks for reading, S.

The Willow Song

2012-01-22T06:40:00.003Z

by R Paul Sardanas

Tragedy comes in forms ancient and contemporary, and the two are often heartbreakingly alike.

In 2011, I sponsored and acted in an audio play of one of literature’s greatest tragedies, Shakespeare’s Othello. I rewrote the play as thirty “drama-poems”, each designed to fit together to re-create the scenes of the classic play. The performance benefitted an organization called CASA, which offers safe havens to women and children who have suffered domestic abuse. The play-in-poems used the emotions and events of Othello to illustrate many of the ways abuse happens, and its tragic repercussions in lives.

In this poem from near the end of the story, Desdemona (portrayed online by the gifted Jaeda DeWalt) has been banished to her bedchamber by her angry husband, and she is completely at a loss to understand the change that has come over him. But in fact, nothing has changed except the externalizing of demons of anger, fear of betrayal, and self-doubt that had always been present in him. The same is true in real life relationships that grow violent. The seeds of the violence are present in the abuser long before they are apparent on the surface. Desdemona still has hope in this scene, but a deepening despair also grips her -- she remembers a sad song a maid of her mother's had once sung, about a love gone wrong...and about the insanity and death that resulted. The singing of the "Willow Song" is a poignant moment in the play. It epitomized what I felt was a crucial turning point in the tragedy: the moment in an abused person's life when they succumb to feelings that what happens to them is unavoidable. That surrender of the spirit is to me the saddest of all; the wounding of hope that eclipses even what pain may come to the body.

How foolish are our minds?

Othello, my love so appraises him

that even his stubbornness,

his checks, his frowns,

have grace and favor in them.

The sun sets;

he has not come,

but I will wait for him in bed.

There is a sound of birds

outside our window.

What secrets lie in their song?

Living and dying, loving and losing.

My mother had a maid called Barbary;

She was in love,

and he she loved proved mad

and did forsake her.

She had a song of willow;

an old thing it was,

but it expressed her fortune,

and she died singing it.

That song tonight

will not go from my mind.

It is all I can do

to keep from hanging my head

all at one side

and sing it like poor Barbary.

“The poor soul sat sighing

by a sycamore tree,

sing all a green willow;

her hand on her bosom,

her head on her knee.

Sing willow, willow, willow.

The fresh stream ran by her,

and murmured her moans;

Sing willow, willow, willow.

Her salt tears fell from her

and softened the stones.

Sing willow.

Sing all a green willow

must be my garland,

let nobody blame him,

his scorn I approve.

I called my love false love

but what said he then?

Sing willow, willow, willow.

If I court more women,

you’ll couch with more men.”

Oh, why won’t Othello come to me

so that we may speak?

Whatever I have unknowing done,

he must have certainty

that I would not wound him

for all the world.

God me such uses send,

not to pick bad from bad,

but by bad mend.

I’m so tired.

I’ll sleep,

and set only my soul on watch,

for surely he will come soon.

R Paul Sardanas

***

R. PAUL SARDANAS is the author of twenty books of poetry and prose, including the five volume poetic cycle The Empyrean, illustrated with his own oil paintings. He is a nine-time nominee for the Rhysling Award, which recognizes the best speculative poetry of the year. His historical works include the books Mythology and Dark of the Sun, which explore Greek and Roman society, myth and culture. His erotic writings include the Siobhan Bishop Erotic Underworld series of novels for Passion in Print Press, and the novel Torera, co-written with Tisha Garcia. His poem Succubus was displayed alongside the work of award-winning photographer Lochai at the Miami World Erotic Museum’s 2008 exhibition. In 2010 a collection of his erotic poems, Touch in the Bed of Light, was released by Gromagon Press. He is the organizer, author and lead actor for Shakespeare Online Against Abuse, which benefits women and children seeking safe haven from environments of domestic violence. To explore more of his creations, please visit his website atwww.rpaulsardanas.com and his benefit work atwww.rpaulsardanas.com/shakespeareonlineagainstabuse.html.

I ♥ Jeremy Kyle

2012-01-21T06:36:00.003Z

by Ashley Lister

Tragic or comic? This is the poem I read at the Dead Good Poets’ event last night. I like to think it contains elements of tragedy and comedy. It is not based on true life and, whilst it doesn’t contain any truly offensive language, I’d have to say it’s not safe for young readers and the easily offended might do well to steer clear.

It’s probably best also if Jeremy Kyle gives the poem a miss.

I ♥ Jeremy Kyle

We met on the set of Jeremy Kyle,

you flashed all three teeth with your black and green smile,

You winked one lazy eye and you waved your webbed fingers

and you looked least inbred out of all that show’s mingers.

Your bum looked so yum, in your pink tracky bottoms.

I said to my chum: “She’s not scum: she’s a hot ’un.”

And I vowed I would ask for a date if I could.

I hoped your lie-detector results turned out good.

Your segment was on first – it was very exciting.

I’ve been bonking twin brothers – and now they are fighting.

Judgemental Jez Kyle claimed your libido the cause

and announced both the brothers you’d been bonking were yours.

We shagged in the green room. You said I was the best.

We then shagged whilst you took your STI test.

We had a quick bunk up in the studio lavs.

And I then met your family – all Jeremy Kyle CHAVS.

Now I like Jez Kyle and I’m happy to chat

and argue with all those who say he’s a smug twat

but some of his guests are just perfectly mental

and most have got problems well beyond orthodontal.

And your family, love, well I’m sorry to say

had a season’s worth of problems for Jezzer that day.

It was obvious there would be lots of fighting

with their Burberry gear and their six carat bling.

Your family’s so interbred that your son’s his own dad

a twelve-fingered three-thumbed giant of a lad.

He’s as ugly as sin – he could scare a scarecrow

and he looked right at home there on Jeremy’s show.

Your mother’s a slapper. She’s been in more beds than bed lice

She tried shagging Jez Kyle – she tried shagging me twice.

And your sister’s the same – any bloke can lay her.

She’s handled more balls than a snooker player.

And they found your three dads each one there as a guest.

And Jezzer’d arranged for three DNA tests.

All were excited – including my mate.

It was like they’d remade Mamma Mia on a council estate

Your cousin complained his love life was amiss

Your cousin looked sad as he stood and said this:

“Most women would love, on their birthday morn

To be woken with chocolates, by a guy with the horn

To get champagne and gifts and some sexy birthday fun

But that’s just most women – that’s not my mum.”

But romance occurred on that Jeremy Kyle show.

You stole my heart – and you got an ASBO.

You promised to forsake all those other bad geezers

as you and I both shared our social diseases.

So we both got together doing Jeremy Kyle.

He sent flowers to our wedding. That guy’s clearly got style.

We’ve named three of our kids after Jez – that’s a fact.

There’s Jeremy. There’s Kyle. And there’s Smug Little Twat.

Ashley Lister

It's not funny. No. Stop laughing.

2012-01-20T09:54:00.000Z

I seem to attract tragic. My dad died in a car crash theweek before my wedding, the funeral ended up being the day before. My husbandhas a gene for cancer which his brother has died from. He got cancer himselfbut was treated quickly but he’s not too well these days. He had a breakdown ontop of that while I was pregnant. You cope with these things not through beingstrong, but by having no choice, and by having a good sense of humour. When mydad died the funeral director came round to ask for stories of his life, andall we could think of was the funny stuff, and his eulogy was made up of thefunny antics of his life. Like the time he fell off a cliff and landed on aledge rather than fall all the way to the bottom. He apparently sat upgratefully, and then rolled off down the rest of the cliff breaking his leg. Thetime he fell through the hatch in a pet shop, but was thankfully unhurt, unlikethe guy he landed on who had a broken arm. It was the only funeral I have beento where the people attending all laughed. And it was good to laugh, it was ok.He would have loved that. He also had the same sense of humour.

The past fewyears’ bad luck I’ve managed to laugh about too, the ridiculousness of havingthe sheer amount of shitty luck would only happen to us. Whatever doesn’t killyou makes you stronger? Try filling in a DLA form without contemplating murder.Try having it knocked back yet having enough medical evidence to sink the titanic.I have to laugh or I’m liable to do a Michael Douglas in Falling Down in theDWP office. Nothing is more infuriating yet is impossible to direct that anger atthan a massive bureaucratic institution. So I laugh at it, the ridiculousnessof it all. For me tragedy and comedy are intricately connected. I like sickjokes, not because I’m sick, but because it provides a break in the tension ofgrief. It allows the pain to still be there, but doesn’t let it consumetotally. I feel a bit evil, but it’s not malicious, it’s just away to cope. Ihave to see the funny side of my misfortunes, because it seems to be bloodyfunny sometimes. Only my dad would manage to die on Friday the 13^th.As if I wasn’t superstitious enough on that day? Selfish bastard.

Ivor's Stuff (I stole it)

2012-01-19T00:38:00.005Z

Three things which are stolen are my offerings in this week of tragi-comedic observation. First, a quote from Tolkien (Lord of the Schwing) on the juxtaposition of the tragic and the optimistic:

“The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending… the sudden joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially “escapist,” nor “fugitive.” … It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies… universal final defeat…”

Tolkien J R R, (1986) The Tolkien Reader

So, did you get that? 'Joyous turns' do not negate the existence of the tragic, in fact happy endings rely on tension and tragedy for impact.

Next up...It's Christopher Booker again and his doorstop tome The Seven Basic Plots: why we tell stories (2004):

"The one thing of which we can be certain in a Comedy is that the happy ending cannot be reached until everyone has emerged into the full light of day, all disguises are thrown off and the characters no longer seem to be anything other than what they are."

Now, bearing this in mind, which character in all our human history is the most elusive? Who is most prone to disguises and ambiguity? I'm going to save you the trouble of taxing your walnut and fill the gap. God (god, goddesses, minor deities and immortal mythological beings) is pretty darned elusive. In fact, that's sort of the point of his/her/its/their character. And so, for my third item purloined from another's brilliance I present the comedic genius of my daughter. When asked to write a letter to this elusive character at school, this was her response:

Dear God,

We have been requested to write you a letter saying what our world is like. Well, since YOU decided to kill off the unicorns it's gone to the dogs. For starters, why on earth would you 'create' David Cameron? He has done nothing but destroy everything our country has built. On the other hand, it makes funny news.

Secondly, why did you have to make me tiny? I mean really, 5' 2" is not a good height. But it does mean I fit smaller clothes.

Lastly, why did you have to dump Justin Bieber on us? What did we do to deserve her?

All in all, you're not helping us much, and we could probably do better on our own.

Yours,

Raven

I could comment on her excellent use of the 'power of three', or her reflection of the ambiguous gender of God in the pronoun used to describe 'The Bieber'. I could observe that she ends her letter by asserting the fact that God possesses her and ponder the psychological implications of such. Instead I will point out that she manages to reveal the essentially tragic nature of existence (Tories) while simultaneously revealing a little about the flawed nature of an ambiguous character and summarising optimistically that humanity is, in fact, quite capable of determining its own fate...

And that's how you write a comedy :)

wyrd bið ful aræd?

Happy Memories, Sad Times

2012-01-18T14:09:00.003Z

I’m keeping it short today as I’ve had a disaster where all my notes for WordSoup have been destroyed (smashed iphone) and I’ve some serious rescue work to do before next week. The moral of this story is put not your faith in new technology when good old pen and paper will do.

Anyway, to Comedy/Tragedy. This Monday was ‘Blue Monday’, apparently the most depressing day of the year. It was certainly a sad day for me as it was my friend’s funeral (you may recall I posted two weeks ago on news of his death)

To be honest I was dreading the funeral but on this occasion was pleasantly surprised. There were so many people there that they spilled-out through the entrance foyer, right into the car park. It was great to see how many people Johnny meant something to.

His death was undoubtedly a tragedy and yet, when the vicar asked us to take a silent moment to think of him, I was overcome by a desire to smile and laugh. Every mental picture or memory I had of him made me want to chuckle, not the best response in the middle of a funeral when others are crying.

I held it in out of respect, but talking to a lot of people afterwards they had the same feeling. It has to be said, his family were wonderful. They chose reggae over hymns and were so dignified and free with sharing their memories. I told his mum about my urge to laugh during the service and she completely understood. I finished the day chatting to his younger brother (who looks so much like him) and sharing stories.

I think only Johnny could have had a reggae-infused funeral and a wake where people felt free to smile, laugh and share in the middle of tragedy.

Anyway, it’s kind of dominated my early week so I’ve not really had time to think about something creative for the blog this week. Please accept my apologies, I shall return to form next week with a fully formed poem on friendship for Wordsoup (this time using pen and ink).

Thanks for reading

On its way

2012-01-18T08:33:00.001Z

Apologies, it's been a crazy week. Blog not yet written. Will post something tonight...

Our Hunger for Tragedy

2012-01-17T05:00:00.000Z

Thisweek’s theme is ‘Tragic or Comedic’(note the choice of conjunction), which I’mtaking to mean (given the lack of an ‘and’) that I’m allowed to write somethingthat is either tragic or comedic – and that I most definitely don’t need towrite something that is both. So, as the dark and depressing seems to flow morenaturally from my fingertips than anything with humorous value, I’ve decided toopt for the tragic...

Peoplelove disaster, if it does not touch them too nearly – as we run to see aburning house or a motor crash – and also it gives occasion for passionate speech;it is a vehicle for the poetry. ¹

TheFour Stages of a Modern Tragedy

Onehalf of the motorway is closed,

theother half has been brought to a crawl –

byour need to see past the smoke; swirling blue lights;

crumpledmetal objects, like the devoured carcass of a wildebeest.

Theywatch, stretching their necks through turned down windows,

droppingtheir mouths in awe and disbelief: primal instinct taking hold

asphones are sent out into the night

torecord the scene and preserve it in pixels.

Withinminutes, the videos are uploaded to YouTube.

Facebooknewsfeeds full of links tempt us, wave tragedy

beneathour noses like sweet, freshly-spun candyfloss – and we bite,

lickour lips and wipe the guilt from our mouths.

Millionsof hits from a single crash, and somehow we forget –

loseourselves in the blurred blue smoke.

Unableto count on our fingers: to add, calculate –

weforget that tragedy involves subtraction.

Thank you forreading,
Lar

¹Jeffers, “Poetry, Gongorism and aThousand Years” from Twentieth-CenturyAmerican Poetics: Poets on the Art of Poetry, ed. Gioia, Mason, Schoerke(New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004), p.88

Tragedy or Comedy

2012-01-16T12:50:00.000Z

If the newspapers are to be believed, today is officially 'Blue Monday', a term coined somewhere deep in the corridors of a Welsh University that seems to have stuck. If the post-Christmas blues are still affecting you and the winter blues are leaving you down, perhaps that is a fair point. My blogger dashboard has stepped in with a bit of hope though- this just happens to be our 200th post. Happy birthday to us then and, despite half of this week's theme being Tragedy, maybe we can all do a little to lift spirits as we look ahead.

There are always plenty of things going on in the world all around us. Plenty of moments just crying out for a poem to be written and so, as has become my way of late (principally out of laziness and lack of prior blog research), the post this week is yet another new poem.

On any given day of the year, there is something about Blackpool- if you look hard enough. A diversity, a very stubborn resolve to carry on and the miles of coastline on offer can get you thinking and this poem came as a direct result of that. Well, a rather selfish mixture of these factors anyway.

The sticking point was this: don't have any real tragedies in my life. My first thought has not been on estranged family members, global disasters or, as is the case for one blogger- dead chickens (my condolences, Lindsay). The most worrying thing in my life tends to be something me related and so the worry, as I imagine with most relationships, is argument related.

With Lara quitting smoking and me being as nit-picky as I am, there have been flashpoints but I'll take this opportunity to say just how proud I am of her 16 days and counting.

So where do you go to get away and think? I tend to find myself on the seafront somewhere- the loudest, quietest, angriest and most tranquil place in the town, in various measures. Oh, and I was picking up Simon Armitage's latest offering (Death of King Arthur) at the apostrophe-free Waterstones and caught the sunset last night- that in itself was reason enough to eek out a poem.

Hope you enjoy and as always, thanks for reading.
S.

Idyll.
Blackpool Sunset, Jan 2012

Through my eyes I see just what I want you to see,
the coming together of the heavy gang,
a dust cloud, blown up over silver sand.

This is the light to live in, my dear
the shimmering water and the blossoming sunset
all a part of the twilight- the familiar dusk.

See there, the gentle promenading couple
Casting shadows together as long as their back story
twice both their growth, to be precise.

And in this evening, with the sun set just where it is
I find the breeze soothing red cheeks, the cloud of starlings
have dispersed and oh, the beauty of it all

wish you were here with me, for this.

if winter comes can spring be far behind?

2012-01-14T06:27:00.005Z

By Ashley Lister

If Winter comes can Spring be far behind?

This is the final line from ‘Ode to the West Wind’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley. I came across these words the week before last as I was researching poetic forms for one of my creative writing classes.

I was surprised by this line for two reasons.

Primarily, I was surprised because I’ve heard the phrase quoted before, but I’d never previously seen the whole poem. It was a pleasure to put the phrase in context – almost like mentally completing a jigsaw.

But I was surprised by the poem for another reason.

Over the past few years I’ve taught a wide variety of poetic forms and I sometimes worry that I’ve worked with every established form of poetry that’s been recorded. I’ve worked with poetic forms from abecedaries through to Zéjels and many more in between. But it seems there are an infinite variety of poetic forms. And, whilst I was looking through records of what I’ve taught and what’s still out there waiting to be taught, I came across Shelley’s ‘Ode to the West Wind.’

Obviously, I’ve taught the concept of odes before. Technically, the ode is not a poetic form. Length, meter, rhyme scheme and structure can all vary in the ode dependent on the needs of the writer and the way the subject matter needs to be presented. But ‘Ode to the West Wind’ is written in the form of a Terza Rima and that’s a form I hadn’t previously covered in my classes.

The Terza Rima is originally an Italian form that’s been used by Milton, Shelley, Byron, Frost and Dante Alighieri. It’s written in tercets (three lined stanzas) with a rhyme scheme of aba bcb cdc (and so on) until the final stanza. The final stanza can either be a single line, relating back to the middle rhyme of the penultimate stanza, (yzy z) or it can be a concluding couplet (xyx zz).

The structure suits iambic pentameter or iambic tetrameter and the interlocking rhyme scheme presents a neat little form that is a challenge to write and a pleasure to read. This is the opening from the aforementioned poem by Shelley. The rest of it can be found through this link: (http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15693)

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!

And, if anyone here is up to the Saturday challenge of building a poem, let’s see if we can each contribute a tercet in the comments box below.

Which moron here chose the dragon topic

For this winter’s dead good poet’s event?

The theme’s making me feel misanthropic…

Shiver me bits off.

2012-01-13T11:25:00.000Z

I can’t say I’m a fan of winter. Of course I can see how beautiful it can be, but for me it’s best observed from through a window with the fire on. I am a summer baby, and need the sun. The sun makes me happy in a way I can’t describe. I love long days of daylight. It’s a shame I live in Blackpool, as we’re unlikely to have a summer ever again judging by the torrents of rain in past seven years or so. For me, the best bit about winter is the transition to spring, where everything is fresh and bright and we get more sun. It’s a time when I can start to take my children outside without swaddling them in fourteen layers of clothing. I can stop wondering whether I should be knitting my chickens some cardigans.Maybe I suffer a little from seasonal effective disorder, but I come alive in spring. I shake off the drowsiness of the winter months and my energy levels soar.

I’m hibernating at the moment, both mentally and physically, until the spring sends me a signal that it’s ok to come out again. I’ll go out plant loads of flowers and vegetables that die in my sea-salt ridden garden, and I know they will die, but I still do it with fervour. The optimism that spring brings replacing the ‘what’s the point’ winter. I shall find a thousand new hobbies to try, and I shall take the kids out on our random ‘adventures’. I’ll find a new challenge to beat. But it’s too early yet, I’m still drowsy and comfortable. So I shall snuggle back down now, and wait. The winter sunshine outside right now gives me a little shiver of delight and anticipation that spring is going to be here soon. Then I’ll surface.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

2012-01-12T00:13:00.003Z

No it ain't. It's pretty freakily warm actually. If you visit the rose garden at Stanley Park you will see beautiful roses which smell like July. Very strange. Which reminds me of a line from one of my songs which wasn't going to be a part of this post but it's here now so it might as well say hi:

Those Brushes

Enormously satisfied, soaked in a shaken spray
Wilder than that dear
Stars flown in your vortex
I'm pushing my daisies in places again
You lick a small insect
I guess at unknowable
Knowns

Enormously terrified, fingertips scrambling
String, crumbs and pennies
Dried daisies and grasses
Grey slate mirrors stillness
And you mirror everything
All that was seen in a glimpse
From the cradle

Enormously gratified, fat bubbles languishing
Puppetry took a dark turn
Towards Grizedale
I have left a damp spot in your roses -
Again
You've silver and gold dear but the paper eludes you -
Still

The breeze is alluring, she'll never commit
There's shelter for you if she's fond of those brushes
I am dusty and rubbing the grit from my portals
I've scratches that scarred but no cure
For you

So it would appear that you're going to get double the fun this week because what I actually came on here to post was a poem. Because it's colder in my mind than it is outside right now:

Black to Blue

Wild thoughts spark off a snow-crust kerb
Matchstick moments burst like urgent kisses before
Fizzling for want of a heart(h)

Indigo lips pressed
Throat wrapped tight
Blue eyes sheltered from that
Cold, colder, freezing cold.

Little Match Girl, sentenced to life on the street
Little flame shrinking in isolation
Little hands clutching at frail threads
Little charity for the dirty girl.

Issues lurk behind frosted windows
Structures and fractures and blood on the rug
History lures like flies to a corpse

Matchstick girl dies again
Not for want of fire but
From surfeit of cold.

The image is from: http://weezz1337.deviantart.com/art/The-Little-Match-Girl-192329387

Beyond The Lamppost

2012-01-11T07:06:00.003Z

I grew up in Narnia so winter has always held particularly romantic connotations for me.

When I say ‘Narnia’ I really mean Great Malvern. CS Lewis is quoted as having got the idea for the Lamppost in ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ from the gas lampposts that bedeck the Malvern Hills.

Having walked the length of them many a time it’s a no-brainer for me. There’s one lamppost in particular that is five paces away from a road, and yet walk another five paces past it and you’re in another world. That world is unmistakably Narnia. The hills in winter are magical. I remember walking them after a blizzard and being eight inches deep in virgin snow (steady Vicky, no innuendo here please, we’re talking CS Lewis!) that covered everything in a blinding white carpet. I’ve walked through centuries-old woodland where trees were tangled in ivy and red-berried holly bushes stood sentinel-like along the footpaths. I’ve watched twin green woodpeckers making nests in twisted hawthorns and watched hawks hovering motionless on the wind, evenly spaced along the slopes in perfectly parallel hunting territories. I’ve sat in the stillness of 3am and experienced absolute darkness and absolute silence (again, magical but also scary, especially when an owl hoots from the trees or a fox rustles out of the undergrowth)

Those hills are where I began writing and where I went for much needed solace. When I moved to Blackpool one of the first things I had to learn was how to find headspace without disappearing into Narnia for a 5 hour thinking session (I still find walking is the best way to get ideas going). They are beautiful at this time of year and I can’t imagine letting a year pass without visiting them at least once.

So, ‘Narnia’ being such a big part of who I am, and being engaged, I have been trying for years to get Sarah to agree to walk them with me. After two years where both of us had flu when we visited, this year I finally got my way.

It didn’t go as expected. Let’s put it this way: You can take the girl out of Manchester but you can’t take Manchester out of the girl.

The snow had fallen… and melted a bit. Melted snow is water. Paths are made of dirt. Dirt + Water = MUD! Sarah walked the hills in her Converse and tip-toed the entire walk fretting about getting mud on her shoes or slipping and falling down the ‘mountain’.

They say opposites attract and it’s never been so obviously portrayed as how we see a winter walk on the hills: I see Narnia, she sees the Somme. But bless her muddied little cotton socks, she did it for me and swears to do it again if we get her some wellies.

So I thought I’d do a short couple of stanzas to apologise.

Beyond the lamppost I promised you
Another world,
Crystalline,
A frozen fiction,
Another time,
The snowflake pattern of my mind,
Unmelting.

The wardrobe gave us winter coats
Yet concealed an ancient truth:
One cannot visit Narnia without one’s Wellie Boots

A Coventry Snow Storm

2012-01-10T14:32:00.000Z

I haven't written a poem since I quit smoking 10 days ago. I have lost the ability to concentrate. I have felt restless rather than inspired. However, I decided to challenge myself to write a poem for this week's post. I decided it was time to force my mind to focus. I decided to prove to myself that I can write - and that I can write without the aid of cigarettes... It was a challenge, hence the lateness of this post.

Coventry Blizzard, 1990

Duringthe night it fell at steady rate. Large flakes racing down

throughstreet light shine, through the searching full-beam lights

ofa lone motorist travelling home on white tarmac roads;

histyres pressing a snow leopard print along the length of the street,

creatingtwo shaky lines of imperfection

whichnature quickly filled and smoothed.

Bymorning, cars had been transformed into cotton wool hills,

phonelines draped down wooden poles and slithered across the ground.

Communicationsevered; a city left to wait and thaw in silence.

Wemissed school; built a snowman in the front garden,

gavehim two stone eyes and twiggy arms. Finger-carved a smile on his face,

placed one of dad’s silk ties around his neck.

Forthe rest of the day I sat in the bay window, watching. Thinking

Icould bring him to life with nothing more than hope

andthe power of my own mind.

Atlunchtime I ate jam sandwiches, drank warm blackcurrant squash.

Keptmy gaze fixed on the snowman’s stone stare,

waitingto see a blink, anything to prove him real.

ButI saw nothing, nothing except two little girls in t-shirts and jeans.

Likea modern Dickensian scene they struggled

witha pushchair through the snow;

asack of potatoes where a baby would normally sit.

Thechildren’s lips were the colour of winter’s first frost, their skin

ghostlylike an early morning December mist,

andas I sat in the window, the snowman slowly shrunk.

Thinking.Hoping. Wishing for something else.

Thank you for reading,
Lar

Winter.

2012-01-09T18:47:00.002Z

Evening all,

First of all, and this is becoming a regular Monday occurance, the blog is late and I'm sorry for that. I could spin you a yarn about wintery conditions meaning I had to de-ice the car this morning and was running late for work as it was and, for the most part at least it would be true, it would at least drag me somewhere onto this week's theme- Winter.
I found this a difficult place to start a poetry blog. Pressed for time and faced with thoughts of bleak days and leafless trees, I figured that a poem would be the only way forwards. A first draft, under time constraints but, I guess it sure beats a drawn out ramble from me about blank pages and snowy scenes. Anyway, here it is. Special mention should go to my younger brother, Craig, for his enthusiasm for something I never could get into really, but it seems his birdwatching (and my taking him before he could drive himself) has produced at least something for me to work with.
Enjoy.

Over Wintering

Like a knock on the door they come, familiar
with necks craned against the blacked out forest sunset
their feathers beating with the strength of a grown man.

The paddling orange air-brakes do their bit
as a man called Dave and his wife acknowledge the arrival
note with precision the time they ski across the runway.

They come here every winter he says,
September twentieth last year. Him, her and a clutch of cygs
they fly half the world to have Christmas with the kids.

It never really clicked for me. No real interest,
except maybe an inquisitive flicker- when avian flu came round
I trusted nothing from Russia, nothing that could fly.

That guy Dave though, he knew. Made his own predictions,
took tests and got the hell out of there by spring.
Nothing to see, he flew off, made for warmer climes.

I trust he'll be back now. Sat, binoculars twitching over darvics
waiting, pen in hand, for the flight in from Iceland,
net at the ready for the morning customs check.

Thanks for reading, catch you all next week.
Shaun.

Why I Write Books

2012-01-07T00:02:00.001Z

By Ashley Lister

The theme this week is children so it’s only right I should start by mentioning my son.

My son bought me a book for Christmas: Mother Tongue, by Bill Bryson. It’s the paperback edition and when you hold the pages close to your nose, and flick your way through them, it smells of printer’s ink, processed pulp paper, and pure bibliophile excitement.

There’s no sweeter smell in the world.

There’s a part in Stephen King’s Christine where the main villains says there’s no smell in the world finer than the smell of a new car. That’s a character who has obviously never gotten drunk on the smell of new books.
I picked up a hardback graphic novel yesterday. It was in the newsagent, the first in a Hachette Part Work series based on Marvel superhero fiction. I grew up reading Spiderman so the book appealed to my inner child. And it was cheap. Ever the optimist, I figured I’d have time to enjoy a little nostalgic reading material over the holiday break.

As it is, I’ve only had time to sniff the pages.

But, what a smell!

The book is filled with colour illustrations. With the central pages open and my nose buried deep into the spine, I’ve come away from the experience dizzied by the bouquet.

These rich fragrances, the scent of deliciously sweet paper and chemical printing, are the smells that I associate with my childhood. These are the smells that shaped the adult I’ve become. I wanted to grow up to become someone who produced the wonderful collections of pages with the heady print that fills yours nostrils and tastes of words and leaves a flavour that sticks at the back of your throat whilst you’re exploring new worlds.

At some point I managed that goal.

The olfactory system provides us with one of the strongest and most undervalued links to memory. In fiction, the description of a scent can help immerse a reader in the physicality of the world being described – and yet it remains one of the most underused senses in written description. In the real world these aromas can help focalise goals or transport us back to experiences we went through as children.

In other words, the sense of smell is not to be sniffed at.

Grannies and Plugholes

2012-01-05T23:40:00.005Z

Children. I have three of them and they provide me with stress and
laughter in equal measure. I write this with a 2 year old draped across me,
snoring and farting. They provide me
with endless entertainment. Children have a wicked sense of humour. I love telling them stories, reading to them
and singing daft rhymes. I sing to them a song my mum sang to me.

My baby has gone down the plug-hole
My baby has gone to the sea
My baby has gone down the plug-hole
Oh bring back my baby to me

They love that one, especially when I take the plug out of
the bath. They also like (and I do too)

Oh ye cannae shove yer grannae off a bus
No ye cannae shove yer grannie off a bus
No ye cannae shove yer grannie
Cos she’s yer mammie’s mammie
No ye cannae shove yer grannie off a bus.

I’ll leave out the next verse where it’s ok to shove yer dad’s
mammie off the bus. It might upset folk. But it’s ok, she doesn’t use the bus
so there’s no chance of my kids flinging pensioners from buses any time soon.
My mum sang these songs
to me, and they were sung to her as a child. We both sing them to my children
now, and they love them. The meaning has not faded; they are timeless. These
songs have passed through at least 3 generations of children now, purely
through memory. I’m fascinated by folk tales and rhymes in all their forms. I
love off the cuff tales and songs. I love the informal; the anecdote that
someone tells their friends over a few drinks, even though we know it’s hammed
up for effect. The ghost stories round a
camp fire. They are an experience, an interactive one we feel a part of. We
pass our family legends, our stories and our rhymes to our children, and they
in turn, take these onwards to their own children. Folk stories and songs are a
communication with no need for technology, paper, or text. I suppose it may be dying out as kids and
adults find other ways of entertainment and bonding. But a story, song, rhyme
or poem can bind generations. Unlike the pictures I plan to bring out for their
girlfriends. I have lots of those. Bwahaaahaaahaaa.

Why Aphrodite doesn't get invited to parties

2012-01-05T00:01:00.005Z

Cronus loitered at the end of North Pier. He loitered in the company of a pair of scratty pigeons. One of them had a gammy leg. It limped around the sodden wooden boards and eyed the god with suspicion. Cronus chucked the last bit of a fresh doughnut onto the grey bench beside him and watched the birds flutter up to fight over it. They took in turns to throw the morsel into the air, breaking little pieces off each time until it was gone. The birds looked back up to the god then but he wasn’t watching them anymore. He’d turned back to the foamy sea.

The north-westerly was whipping up the Irish Sea into a codswallop stew. It frothed and belched between the barnacled legs of the antique pier. Cronus could sense his father in the maelstrom. In the male storm. He could see Uranus’ semen whipped up in the tips of each raging wave. His testicles rolling back and forth in the currents like a pair of gruesome beach balls.

When the sea beat against the land and the salt peppered every surface, Cronus walked on the pier. The pier was closed to all but a god and a handful of reckless pigeons but Cronus enjoyed the solitary ennui. He gulped down the gritty remains of his over-priced coffee and cast the paper cup into the sea. The god walked around the Victorian sun lounge, between plastic chairs and cast iron rails. The pigeons watched him from a sheltered spot beneath the dirty glass roof.

On a table beside the vacant stage a pint glass contained an amber substance, most likely lager. It was half empty.

Paranoia.
That little voice.
The niggle.

Cronus looked back over his shoulder towards the raging sea, his collar beating up against his cheek. The wind screamed through cracks around the windows and under the eaves. Cronus put a hand to his abdomen and felt the small, hard lump between his rib cage and his right hip. Nothing to worry about. Something undigested. A nothing. He pulled this sickle from his pocket and ran his finger down the keen blade but again found the will lacking. To castrate your father is a natural task but to plunge a blade into your own flesh? That took a specific perversion of mind which he couldn’t achieve.

Cronus sheathed the blade and wrapped his coat tight around his body. He plunged his hands into his pockets and began to walk away from the salty memories. Cronus, son of Uranus, strode down the sodden boards toward a grey and careless town. In his belly his children sobbed, forgotten in the darkness. The safest place for them, for children can come to no harm once consumed. Children can do no harm once eaten. Rhea, their mother, would see his logic in the end.

Cronus frowned at the pain from his abdomen as he mounted the locked gate and jumped down on the other side. Six children sired, six children consumed. One father castrated and Cronus free to enjoy the wind at his whim. Cronus walked purposefully towards the bus stop. He was feeling peckish again. Peckish with a pinch of the horn. Today seemed as good a day as any to drop in on his sister/wife and see if she fancied making any more of the little sods.

Sapling

2012-01-04T06:37:00.006Z

If I’m being honest, blogging was a bit of a struggle today. Just before new year, I had the horrible news that a very good friend of mine had died and I’ve not really been in a mood for doing anything constructive since.

But outside the wind is battering my window and it recalled to me a piece of writing called ‘Silhouettes’ that I wrote about childhood a few years ago. It’s still one of my favourite things I’ve written and is based around memories of the hurricane of 1987.

Today, feeling like this, I would really love to be back how I was then: a child, excited by the destruction, caught-up in playing among the fallen oaks and immune to the reality of how much damage had been done. I thought about the conceit of how the wind was carrying my memories back there and decided to try and write something.

A note:

Johnny’s personality was immense: a giant oak of a spirit that all his friends could climb in or shelter under. He was one of the most caring people I have ever had the privilege to meet and had the air of someone whose roots went deep, someone you could count on and, most especially, someone you could share your thoughts with completely without any fear of judgment.

But even oak trees can be uprooted by storms. The wind moves on leaving chaos in its wake and life carries on regardless. People still go to work, eat their meals and pay their bills as their children play in the debris. Is it unrealistic to think that those whose homes were destroyed may resent the children their play?

Homes will be rebuilt, saplings will grow from acorns and more oaks will rise to replace those that went before. But does that provide any comfort? I don’t think so.

Sapling

May this wind carry me home
To where muddied faces framed unguarded smiles
As torn clothing framed grazes
Gained digging,
With sapling fingers,
In roots of ancient oaks
Exposed by the storm,
To claw at the sky
In indignation.
Centuries of strength
And pride,
A playground for a child.

This wind isn’t as strong as it was back then
But neither am I.

A Slice of Poetry Pie

2012-01-03T07:02:00.000Z

Evie the Cow from Poetry Pie

There is a single word that causes me to grimace. It is capable of creating a similar reaction to the one that results when Shaun opens a bottle of beer with his teeth.

Closed eyes. Tense and shrugged shoulders. A sharp inhale of breath.

My two-year-old nephew hunts for the TV remote while chanting, "Beebies, Lala. Beebies, Lala. Beebies, Lala." I feel myself wanting to curl into foetal position at the mere mention of the children's TV channel, and on the rare occasion when I've given into Josh's demands, I've decided that colliding with a brick wall would probably cause less pain.

However, a few weeks ago the insanity-inducing channel redeemed itself (slightly)... And surprisingly, CBeebies' saving grace was poetry.

Yes, initially I was worried, concerned, fearful and panicky. But then I noted a name that soothed like a Radox bubble bath, Roger McGough.

"Poetry Pie vividly brings to life the incredible poems of well-known contemporary poets specially written for CBeebies, with an animated cast of creatures who act, dance and sing the words of the poems." (Source, BBC.)

Each episode of poetry pie is kept short (about 3 minutes) which allows young children to remain focused and entertained. The bright colours, music and fun characters work well with the nonsensical verses. But, quite importantly, it doesn't make me want to rip out my hair or prise my fingernails off with a pair of pliers. However, the best thing about Poetry Pie is that it shows that language can be fun. It introduces children to English in an exciting and creative way, and confidently says, "Poetry is not outdated".

Poetry Pie, Episode 01 - WATCH

Thank you for reading,
Lar

Children

2012-01-02T05:00:00.000Z

I'd like to start by wishing all you lovely readers out there a fantastic new year. I've enjoyed being a part of this blog over the past months and noticed as I was writing this that we have passed 11,000 hits. Thank you to the regular bloggers, thank you to the guest bloggers and thank you to you guys (and gals) out there for reading.

On with the blog then and, I feel I should apologise. Last week I completely forgot about writing a post until late evening, Christmas day. If you were wondering why David Riley's post was up for two days, it was firstly because he made the effort to blog in time for Christmas and mostly down to me being on a bus, drinking.

Our first theme for 2012 is Children. As this is a poetry blog, I was immediately drawn towards looking back over the children's poetry that inspired me to love writing. The Spike Milligan stuff we've covered here before. My first poetry book, again covered here before and so, I became increasingly frustrated and decided I needed a new angle.

What we have here then is a bit of an insight. A look toward the future, from the past. Nobody is pregnant. Nobody is planning on being. I just thought it made an interesting concept for a poem. Oh, and though it is only a first (okay, third-ish) draft, it does mean 2012 has already been more productive than December 2011, one and a bit days in!

Children

Sitting back, swallowed up in a tin box of smoke we saw stars
between the stickered mementos, stuck up on a chipped windscreen
and I remember you said, never. You never want children.

So soon in, with each first date still marring the framed sky
you were quite clear. Under the past we looked up to you said you knew
for sure, just exactly what we were in this for.

So in the park, I wasn't sure I heard at first
the hyphenated name that passed your lips and mailed to me,
a half perhaps that came and went like dandelion seeds.

Those same seeds that grew like weeds on every bitter path
we went to pave. Between the cracks, old poet's names peeped through
with my eyes (not my first choice) and your cheeks.

And over time those seeds of doubt have manifested
into conversations had. Grown oversized to cloak the rockery
still half undug but long forgotten- those arguments can pass.

We talk of names now. On the strict proviso that not yet-
the time not right and sure, I love the sound of that
for once you know, I guess you know. I will gladly know.

Thanks for reading folks, have a great 2012.
S.

New Resolve. Yeah?

2012-01-01T00:39:00.004Z

by Mark Mace Smith, aka Thud Dub

I resolve to never purposefully die or injure myself this year. I resolve to never repeat myself. I resolve to be nice to small children even if they stink of poo. I resolve to get to know my neighbours better so that I can learn their habitual movements and thus can play really loud music when I know that they are out or, if they are utter wankers, really loud music when I know that they are definitely in. I resolve to write more. I resolve to get every swear word that I enjoy employing in writing recognised by the spell checker on my computer so that it never again underlines another well justified, appropriately utilised profanity. I resolve to tell women whom I find attractive that I find them attractive instead of just going around pulling their hair, giggling like a school boy and then masturbating to computer porn. I resolve to enjoy masturbating without pseudo-psycho-catholic guilt. I resolve to always masturbate in private. I resolve to be happy, I resolve to trust myself. I resolve to enjoy the NOW. I resolve to believe in myself even when others doubt me. I resolve to believe in myself even when I am doing something quite unbelievable. I resolve to believe in myself even when I‘m tripping off mi fackin tits. I resolve to stop baiting religious types by attempting to undermine their ridiculous, illogical, war-mongering, idiotic religious beliefs… next year. I resolve to cry when I feel tearful. I resolve to be strong when I feel fearful. I resolve to stop when I’ve had a bellyful. I resolve to laugh more and more often even if it is at other people’s misfortune, however, with the knowledge that Karma will ‘beat-me-around-the-face-and-neck-a-bit’ in her own sweet time and, should Karma mash-me-up-bad, laughter is the best medicine. I resolve to make more art and show it. I resolve to be an Artist and know it. I resolve to keep-on-keeping-on being the poet. I resolve to accept every proffered offer of hospitality that isn’t a blatantly obvious attempt to kidnap, imprison and/or rape me. I resolve to pause occasionally to look at the rainbows. I resolve to pause occasionally before saying “fuck it” and diving straight in. I resolve to pause occasionally before coming... I resolve to play some sports, of some kind, at some point, in some place, with someone, most probably a girl. I resolve to tell people to “Fuck Right Off!” when I want those people to “Fuck Right Off!” even if I’m playing sports and I’m talking to the referee. I resolve to be a good sport as long as I’m winning. I resolve to… probably not to… bother to… play sports at all… I think it’s best. I resolve to know my limits by finding out my limits and trying to remember what those limits actually are before attempting to push those limits again. I resolve to push my limits. I resolve to never repeat myself... again.

I’ve got a little list

2011-12-31T06:23:00.008Z

By Ashley Lister

To my understanding, resolutions fall mainly into two categories: stopping the bad stuff and starting the good stuff.

On New Year’s Day many people will resolve to stop smoking or stop eating chocolate or stop drinking alcohol. On New Year’s Day many others will resolve to start exercising, or start maintaining a healthier lifestyle or start doing things to benefit themselves, society or the world in general.

Personally, my resolutions for 2012 are going to be different from the stopping and starting lists. My resolutions are going to be a promise to carry on doing stuff that I enjoy.

1) I’m going to carry on being brilliant.

2) I’m going to carry on being talented.

3) I’m going to carry on being modest about these traits.

4) I’m going to carry on writing.

5) I’m going to carry on blogging.

The regular contributors to the dead good blog started the pages you’re currently reading back in July of 2011. Shaun posted our inaugural entry on July 4^th. Since then we’ve been posting for twenty-six uninterrupted weeks, touching on subjects as diverse as dragons and dogs and as broad as catharsis and Christmas.

There’s been poetry, prose, pathos, poignancy and plenty of other things beginning with the letter p. 2012 will be even more exciting.

Which is why I’ve made two additional resolutions for 2012:

6) I’m going to write more poetry.

7) I’m going to encourage other people to write more poetry.

How am I going to do the seventh item on my list? Simple. I have four dead good notebooks to give away.

If you want one of these notebooks you only need to do two things:

1) Become a new follower of this blog.

2) Leave a comment below.

If you don’t want to say too much in the comment box, simply wish us (or our readers) a happy New Year. If you want to share your personal goals or resolutions or a piece of poetry you’ve written, I’d urge you to go for it. The team on this blog are nothing if not supportive.

All commentors and new followers will be entered into the draw to stand a chance of being selected to receive one of these notebooks. These dead good notebooks are ideal for storing ideas for poetry and prose and perfect for putting down the beginnings of your next scintillating stanza. The draw will be open until January 15^th 2012, so you have plenty of time to leave a comment.

And, whether you comment or not, on behalf of all the regular bloggers here at the Dead Good Blog, I’d like to wish you a happy and prosperous and poetry-filled New Year.

resolutions

2011-12-30T10:05:00.003Z

I make them, then life comes along and the self sabotage elf
ruins it all. If I consciously decide to change something at New Year, you can
be sure it won’t last until Easter. From what I can gather it’s quite a common
thing. But most major life changes I have experienced have never come from New Year’s
resolutions. So, I won’t be making any resolutions this year. That’s not to say
I won’t try and change myself for the better, but I don’t see any point in
putting undue pressure on myself because of the date. They say it takes two
weeks to develop a habit, good or bad. So, in 2012 I may acquire some good
habits instead. Maybe.

in medias res

2011-12-29T00:08:00.004Z

I couldn't manage the entire theme this week. I took the first three letters (res) and reservoir became my theme instead. In medias res. Flung into the middle of something which is broken. I can't show you what was here before or what will be here after - only what exists in this moment: a reservoir.

Reservoir

Shopping mall floor sparkles. Almost an ice rink.
Flashes of forced cheer – remnants of the other world
Creep around the edges of one-way windows:
Holly, snow, mistletoe tokens
But even these small reminders are belittled by the vulgarity of the four letter word
SALE

No aroma survives the sterilisation of the consumer habitat
(so many bodies, so little kissing)
Pheromones extracted for expediency
All lust to be directed towards the inanimate

Unseen in the throng, in the flock, is a wolf
Or maybe she is a bear
No – look closer into her eyes
She is a reservoir, a man-made pool

Remarkable, this semblance of a woman.
See how she moves across the would-be rink;
Weaves among the congregation
Like a mother buying education with false morality
She doesn’t belong.

Winter Wonderland’s echo smothers her burbling
Anyone could touch her, dip into the pool,
But they maintain a state of organised distraction

This is an irrelevance. The abyss is unavoidable.
The reservoir reveals herself on the tiles.
Frozen water like a diamond in her throat.
Fingertips damp and restless at her chest.
Reaching towards that point in her centre which contains the source.
Heretical eyes erode the mask

The reservoir reaches into her heart and dislodges the fragment, loosens the façade.
Trembling, this unhappy cascade holds her form for a moment in the air
Human fountain, filling a jumble of saturated woollens
– empty and bursting – a sodden paradox.
She is slipping. Slipping beneath. Slipping away.
A puddle on the sparkling floor.
She is lost.

Shopping mall floor sparkles. Almost an ice rink.
A yellow sign marks the spot of her descent –
CAUTION: Slippery when wet

A Renewed Resolution

2011-12-28T09:26:00.012Z

This past year has been something of a constant resolution for me. I realised a while ago that I needed to address my negative, self-destructive mindset, try my best to stay positive and in doing so believe that I am a good person, a valid writer and not just a blagger clinging desperately to the identity of a writer because otherwise he's just a bar-prop.

So I made a few resolutions. I decided to cut out the constant partying, get more involved with the Dead Good Poets and to start writing again. The first thing I wrote turned out to be a poem called 'Bin Bag' which is basically an outlining of my resolution and a manifesto of who I am and what I believe.

This is me performing the poem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrGN289ftek&feature=youtu.be

And that led me to be asked to be a part of this blog. So here I am a year later writing and posting at least once a week. Score!

As I've previously posted on here, I've also started writing a story called Silkworm that I hope will mix storytelling with poetic passages and metafiction with fairytale. Below is a short couple of paragraphs from the frame narrative:

Here, where white berries bloom black on burned branches and songbirds sing silence to mourn the Blackhole’s rise. Here where nevergreen leaves and deciduous souls fall eternal and tumble, autumnal, to float slow on the river’s flow. Here in the Wouldland where the abscised flight of crepuscular wings litter the forest floor, the detritus of being decays into unlife to nurture the ending of all.

Here where selves silt the streams and floods flush the fields with delusion’s deluge is where I weave. Where identity is wound round a wheel of the will and the warp and the weft are a wish and a word. Here where the water clouds memories that rise to soak the sky with the same insane rain that saturates the streams; where dreams drift in steams and the bare bones of ego dissolve in the absence of meaning.

My resolution this year is to keep going with this piece of writing and to produce something complete. It was my resolution a few months ago as well, nothing's changed there. I hope that posting it here will provide an extra emphasis though as I tend to let work get in the way of my writing. The DGPS is great as a spur to keep you going as it provides you with a deadline to come up with something to perform but my prose writing is a bit tricky in this sense as it doesn't always transfer well to open mike nights and therefore I let things drop as I don't have that deadline to hit. If there's one thing I hate though it's being seen to be a failure so I state here and now, I SHALL WRITE 'SILKWORM' THIS YEAR.

There, I said it. A renewed resolution restated for the new year. Fellow bloggers feel free to badger me about how I'm getting on - it keeps me on my toes.

Happy new year to you all
Ste :)

Smoke, Stanzas & the Approaching New Year

2011-12-27T07:34:00.000Z

This week's theme is Resolutions. I don't usually make resolutions, but this year I'm thinking I might...

For me, 2012 will represent 10 years of being a smoker and I'm starting to think that it is time to quit, but I'm a little worried. I'm worried that a lack of nicotine will affect my writing, that by doing away with bad habit I will also do away with poetry... When I write, I also smoke (a lot). When I struggle to find the next line, I roll another roll-up. When I can't think of the right word, I roll another roll-up. When I reach the end of a stanza, I roll another roll-up... As the paper and tobacco begin to burn, as my lungs gradually fill with smoke, my mind starts to wander in a manner that is freer and less pressured. And, usually, I discover that missing line, that elusive word, that next stanza.

(I've reached a point in this post where I don't know what to write next so, in typical bad habit style, I have rolled a roll-up.)

Therefore, I'd like to quit smoking without quitting poetry - whether this will happen remains to be seen!

Thank you for reading and wishing you all a happy New Year,

Lar

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T06:43:00.002Z

from David Riley

Christmas is full of rituals - whatever they may be. The Christian churches, not surprisingly, have several. For many ritual is close to tradition and Christmas is full of those too. The seemingly "time out of mind" might be surprisingly new, often created, for us here in Blighty in Victorian Britain. Christmas trees, cards and the inescapably close association between Dickens and Christmas are
just some. I'd like to look at one of these traditions a little bit. Gift giving.

There's a whole set of unspoken rules about gift giving. If you give money does that mean you haven't really thought about something for that person? What do you give friends rather than relatives? How much should you spend on X or Y? There's the question about the gift from Ann Summers for your significant other. Who is it really for? You or them? Then there's the old standby that looks like someone might have made an effort, the Smelly Perfumy concoctions with titles born on a rainy February in Paris and bottles contorted into somthing ressembliing a glass blower's nightmare. You have some of these. They end their lives at the back of cupboards, unopened from one Christmas to another, which if you listen to the night murmurs in the bathroom, you'll hear them discuss with the discarded bath salts what might have been.

Sometimes the gifts suddenly mean something real. Have you ever given poetry to someone just because they love it? Just because it catches an attitude of mind you might share, opens a door into their heads where you wondered what they thought of you? Not me. Not yet.

I have given a present once that said something. I gave my mother a porcelain figurine of a woman teaching her child to read. When I did, I knew she had given me that gift, years before. Reading. We both knew how precious reading was, without words spoken. Indeed I don't think we could have said them. I just knew, eventually, I wanted to thank her for it while I could.

I have it now, the figurine, now that she's died and I still think about it and the worlds gifts opened up, even if I didn't realise it for a while.

Thanks.

Happy Christmas.

Twas the night before Christmas

2011-12-24T05:42:00.004Z

By Ashley Lister

It must be the linguist in me because I’ve just spent the last ten minutes researching the word ‘twas’. At first I wasn’t sure if twas is a word. Turns out twas. The definition, that it’s an old-fashioned poetic contraction of it + was makes so much sense I’ve convinced myself that I knew this before I bothered to look it up.

But if you’re reading this on December 24th then twis the night before Christmas, and this is probably the most convenient way for me to extend Season’s Greetings to everyone.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Now, I’m aware that most people will be doing things other than reading poetry blogs on this Christmas Eve, so I’m going to keep this short.

The theme for the last poetry event was Yuletide. It was a spectacular event that included some outstanding poetry, some wonderful humour and even some carol singing.

At the event, the wonderful Colin Davies rightly pointed out that there was an element of cynicism in our collective approaches to Christmas. And, keeping in mind that cynicism is not really appropriate for a time of year that is meant to be magical for children, I’d like to know what you like best about this time of year.

Admittedly, there’s a lot to dislike. There’s cold weather, there’s the nuisance of having to smile at family members, and there’s an emphasis on commercialism.

But there are also many good things at this time of year and sharing them is one of the benefits to Christmas. There are smiling children. There are carols. There are Christmas crackers and turkey leftovers.

So, in the comments box below please, tell us what makes Christmas special for you. Bonus points for anyone who can write them into a Christmas haiku.

Wearing paper hats.

Clementines and satsumas
Between huge meals.

Rudolph took my muse

2011-12-23T11:21:00.004Z

My turn to have writer's block this week I'm afraid. I've been a little overwhelmed with all I have to do in 2 days for my 3 little monkeys and Uni and something's had to give.

So I'll leave you with this, why the hell is Rudolf's nose bright red and bulbous? Do reindeer even have cute little button noses which can change colour? How did he manage do make his red, Vodka? Did he trap it in a door? Does Santa clamp it in a vice every year for the sole purpose of lighting his sleigh? Hmmmmm. It's just not right.

In The Bleak

2011-12-22T00:00:00.006Z

After Lara’s inspirational collage of poetry some months ago, I decided to use this week’s post to treat myself. So, this isn’t inspired by Christmas but rather the Winter Equinox. The office diary at work told me it was on the 22nd December this year. It seems rather presumptuous of Banner to change the date of a celebration which is thousands of years old but who am I to argue with the gods of stationery?

I’m looking backwards today. Looking back to the darkness. Midwinter brings a hush. It brings stillness. Night-time gains prominence and voices are hushed against a backdrop of stark contrast and inactivity. As someone who loves to walk at night this season is a treat. Footsteps echo on the street and curtains divide the two worlds: one gaudy and manufactured, the other infinite and haloed.

Celebrate the darkness in yourself. Take a walk in Winter’s quiet streets and know that sleep and death is as much a part of you as Summer’s heady surfeit of life. If you don’t want to walk try taking a glass of whisky and a warm coat and sitting in your garden. If you have a cigar, even better. Inhale the smoke, sip the spirit and know Midwinter in all her intoxicating beauty.

Here is the poem. It is composed of fragments of songs. I followed a YouTube path starting with Kryie Eleison. I followed my nose. But perhaps your nose is frozen by the frost…

Midwinter

The wind blows hard against this mountain side
Across the sea into my soul
You can have my isolation
You can have the hate that it brings
You could have it all
My empire of dirt

Running back through the fire
When there's nothing left to say

I've been sleeping a thousand years it seems

So you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skies from pain.

But never is a promise and you can't afford to lie

I wake up scared
I wake up strange

Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?

Contributions embezzled from:
Mr Mister – Kyrie Eleison
Nine Inch Nails – Closer and Hurt
Barenaked Ladies – What a Good Boy
James Morrison and Nelly Furtado – Broken Strings
Evanescence – Bring Me to Life
Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
Fiona Apple – Never is a Promise

The Last Christmas

2011-12-21T09:51:00.003Z

It was ten to midnight on Christmas Eve and Sarah was wide awake, waiting for a visitor. This would be her final Christmas, she was certain, and before she unwrapped that final gift of death she had a bone to pick with a certain Saint Nick.

The nurses had allowed her to stay up far beyond her usual bedtime, humouring an old lady in her dementia as they thought. But Sarah had a secret that no one else knew, Santa Claus was real… and he was an absolute fucking bastard.

She’d met him first as a small girl, just after the First World War had ended. With the inquisitiveness that only youth can provide she’d stayed-up until the early hours staking-out the fireplace, demanding proof that her parents weren’t telling her porkies.

And it happened; just like in the books. She was beginning to doze-off when all of a sudden, a jingle of bells, footfalls on the roof, a shower of soot falling down the chimney and then there he was, all dressed in green with a big brown sack of presents, brushing ash from a bushy beard as orange as a fresh carrot.

He didn’t say anything, just nodded to her and reached into his sack to pull out a porcelain doll which he laid beneath the tree. Stopping only to drink the glass of sherry she’d insisted her parents leave out and pocketing a carrot for the reindeer, he ducked back into the fireplace, turned to make a ‘shush’ gesture, then tapped his finger against his nose and disappeared back up the chimney!

That was the first of many encounters she had with him and she had to say, she did not like the way he was changing. First had come the red suit and the Coke adverts, the rampant merchandising and the personal appearances at Harrods. She supposed she could forgive him those as he did have a whole world to cater for and the standard of the gifts had definitely improved. She just didn’t like the effect it was having on the children: sky-high expectations and a, ‘gimme-gimme’ attitude to gifts that she certainly never had.

In those days he arrived all in a rush, stomping over the roof and practically falling down the chimney in his haste. On arrival he’d head straight for the bottle of sherry and neck a few glasses before even thinking about reaching for her present. But what presents they were! Technology was moving on so fast: there was ipods and ipads and iphones and sat-navs and anything you could ever dream of. One year he even gave her a 3DTV!

However it was around this time that Sarah noticed something suspicious. The presents were itemised on her bank account. Santa was claiming back expenses! Santa was an embezzler!

She decided right then and there that now, on her last Christmas, she was going to pay him back for all the money he had taken from her and all the other adults of the world. How dare he! Here we were in a recession and he went round happily giving expensive gifts like nobody’s business and claiming back from the very parents who were struggling to make ends-meet! What a fucking liberty!

She stayed-up as long as her ageing bones would bare, staring straight at the blue-screen on the TV (Santa’s new form of travel – chimneys had become defunct a long time ago) She wondered when it was that he’d turned to the dark-side. She guessed it must have been around about the time of the Coke contract. It would make sense.

Then it happened. The screen started to change, to fuzz, to bulge and then a figure emerged: A figure with close-cropped designer-stubble, wearing a hand-made tailored suit with red pin-stripes and a hint of fur lining peaking out at collar and cuffs. The night-cap was gone, replaced by a bowler-hat with white trim and the old brown sack had metamorphosed into a suitcase. The athletic, fake-tanned figure turned to her, seemingly knowing what she was thinking and placed its suitcase on the table, flipping open the catch and reaching inside for her last present.

Sarah pulled off the wrapping paper in a rush, revealing what she had expected (she had emailed to request it, after all): a loaded gun. With her heart bursting in her chest, she pointed the barrel at the figure who had once been a saint and pulled the trigger.

Saving Christmas Spirit

2011-12-20T06:52:00.000Z

Last year Blackpool's Dead Good Poets held an event themed 'Propaganda'. The event took place in December, so life was starting to get festive, and I'd been reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas to my little nephew. As is usually the case with poetry - what you read influences what you write - I found myself rewriting Dr. Seuss' popular Christmas poem. Deciding to place the BNP leader Nick Griffin as the Grinch and attempting to write something that was both political and satirical (two things that I rarely write about in poetry). The poem was a challenge - I'm not a rhyming poet - but it was fun, therefore, I thought I would share the resulting poem with you. I hope you enjoy it.

How The Griffin Nicked Christmas

Every kid

down in England

liked Santa a lot...

Butthe man,

snarlingEnglish from England,

didNOT!

The man hated Santa and not caring who knew

he told Paxman, Blue Peter; his message soon grew.

He screamed, “I am Griffin and this is my plan:

“We’ll hold an election, get rid of that man.”

The vote it was simple, pick Griffin or Claus

and soon all the Santas were gone from the stores.

But not everyone fell for the Griff’s evil lies,

the children had sackfuls of questioning whys.

“Why’s Santa so bad?” they asked with a cheer.

“Does Griff not like Santa’s elves and reindeer?”

The Griffin pondered their questions, then gave his reply,

a ten minute advert that would make them comply.

“Santa’s not British,” the Griffin roared with disgust.

“We’ll get him, gift wrap him, send him back to the Dutch.”

Now, maybe the Griff’s heart was too cold to hold joy,

or perhaps he was dropped on his head as a boy.

But the truest, most plausible, reason of all

was that Griffin’s brain was six sizes too small.

On the first of December a newsman said,

“The poll has Griff losing and Santa ahead.”

By the second the Griff stood cocky and tall,

he’d won was the verdict, the final call.

It was clear he had cheated, brought many a vote,

but he wore a white beard and stole Santa’s coat.

“There’s a new Santa in town,” he said with a grin.

“It would seem that we English know how to win.”

His BNP members soon gathered and sung,

We’ll rewrite the rules in ourpure mother tongue.

The ‘Naughty’ and ‘Nice’ were swept quickly away

as he hatched his new plan with little delay.

The Griffin’s two lists now read Blackand White,

he checked birth records into the night.

When done, he admired, looked his lists up and down,

chuckled and danced to see white not near brown.

“This is the way that Christmas should work,”

said sinful Nick with a big yellow smirk.

As Christmas Eve came he got ready to leave –

with British-made toys, as a way to deceive,

all prettily packaged and filling his sleigh –

it was time for Griffin to hunt out his prey.

With a ho! and a yo! he took to the skies,

eager to deliver his unmerry goodbyes.

The Griffin descended upon every house

and crept around like an overweight mouse.

He tore pages from books so the history was English,

painted the Wise Men ‘til their skin was more pinkish.

He took all the Sony: the Playstation; the telly,

and posted each item to a landfill in Delhi.

The worst treatment of all was saved for one list;

the houses with people he despised and dismissed,

but he braved the chimneys and entered his hell,

leaving gifts that rang with a countdown bell.

He left lumps of coal with plane tickets attached,

and graffitied their walls with Timeto Dispatch!

Yes,

the Griffin was bad, the meanest you’ll meet,

and no poet or poem can make him all sweet.

But justice was served on that starry night...

Somethingbig and red came into sight,

itfell from the sleigh and plummeted down,

headingtowards a small coastal town.

Andas it tumbled closer, hit the street with a bang

“TheGriffin. Nick Griffin is dead,” children sang.

Thank you for reading and wishing you all a wonderful Christmas,

Lar.

Holidays are coming...

2011-12-19T12:51:00.000Z

Hasn't it gone quickly again. As I write this blog there is less than a week until Christmas. Am I ready? No. Am I worried? A little. I have six days to finish present buying, wrapping, sorting and I'm a little unsure as to whether or not Santa will have time to pick up presents for my cousins and so on before the big day. I figure he'll only come to collect them if they are really good kids, so I don't think I need to buy them really.
I think at this time of the year there is so much going on that everyone gets a little pressed for time. I'm booked up for the tail end of the week now- family gatherings and suchlike have crept in and so any hope of a quiet Christmas has fallen away. With this in mind I have been a little annoyed at the overwhelming commercialism that goes on. I found out this morning that Kim Jong-il has died. Heart attack apparently, which is a shame because I always wanted Team America to sort him. Alas, I missed the news breaking because I was playing Christmas songs on a loop. I bought into it..
This brings me, rather tediously onto my post for this week. DGPS on Friday was themed "Yule", the blog this week is themed "Christmas" and so a little duplication is acceptable I think. Also, I am hacked off with X Factor ruining perfectly good singles. I urge you all to buy the Military Wives CD this week. If you're buying Little Tits, you have to get an extra copy of the Military Wives CD, these are the rules. On that note then, a poem.

I Wish I Could be Christmas Number One

Every year there is a migration
Scores of young girls all bouncing in line
As they snake their way down to a studio
Each with a number, uniquely assigned.

Al the odds have the face for the big time
All the evens are weird but filmed too
In the line where the freaks tell sob stories
and the producers decide who goes through.

The balance is always a fine one
Young Mariah was filmed quite a bit
She hoped to be deemed a contestant
Not just there to be laughed at, but win it.

When Mariah stepped up to the microphone
With the audience readily primed
She put in a seamless performance
No one seemed to care that she'd mimed.

So Mariah came through the auditions
With a fresh face and recorded notes
By the time she left the judges houses
She had gathered a strong public vote

Mariah became bookies favourite
Ambitious and gunning to win
Though backstage the producers were nervous
For without auto-tune, she couldn't sing

But Mariah still swept home to victory
Splashed the kind of cash she'd never seen
Had a hot tub installed in the garden
and gold plated her marble latrine.

The phone rang one day to change everything
her manager, bearing bad news
the newspaper headline expose
left her dropped with a case of the blues.

Mariah slumped into her futon
From the vodka she took a good glug
Circling labels in an old Yellow Pages
She could call with her record to plug.

For a while she toured round the country
Was MARIAH, as seen on TV
But the Christmas lights switch on in Dagenham
wasn't all she had hoped it would be

By December her schedule was empty
Her bank account had long since drained
It was good being a star whilst it lasted
But she knew, time was up in this game

So Mariah sold up and went quiet
On the high street no one knew her name
And she sat alone, crying at Christmas
Wondering why all the songs were the same.

Cheers for reading folks. Have a great Christmas. Shaun

Grandad Tom and The Dragon

2011-12-18T12:06:00.003Z

by Rachel McGladdery

My childhood was difficult. I spent large tracts of it with my grandparents at times of trauma (which were frequent), not that I’m complaining. When I stayed with my grandparents, I was bathed, warm, fed and always had clean clothes to wear, this was due to the wonderful mothering I received from my grandma - granddad did the other stuff every child needs, he filled my head with rubbish... other dimensions, fairies, elves (told with such astonishing flair that I actually saw them, digging for coal in the cellar) in addition, each evening that he wasn’t ‘on nights’, granddad would tell me stories at bedtime. He would hitch up his trousers and sit with a sigh on the little chair by my bed and begin.

Each story had me as the eponymous heroine, whether fighting for Earth’s survival against aliens in ‘Rachel and the Spaceship’ or hunting for rainbow cloth in ‘Rachel and the Fairies’. But my favourite was ‘Rachel and the Dragon’. This would see me questing for gold and magic rings, looking to slay an ancient dragon and steal its hoard, but eventually panned out to a battle of wits in which me and the dragon would become firm friends and I would get a fair share of the treasure, leaving the dragon enough to see it through till old age. I swear that the man had magic. No doubt the tales were forged from a mixture of Ursula Le Guin and Tolkein with a smattering of C.S. Lewis thrown in for good measure, but the detail and the clarity not to mention the affection which he wove into them, made them as real as could be. He read a lot, complained as he was getting older that there were ‘no new stories.’

Granddad died 7 years ago, and I miss him, I mourn more for the fatherly comforting presence that my younger children are denied, I do tell the children stories in which they emerge as the heroes, I base them loosely on Enid Blyton but they aren’t a patch on granddad’s. He began telling stories to his brothers when he was a lad, carried on telling them in order to survive school and openly admitted that he made them as bloodthirsty and erotic as he could as he moved into his teens, then a hiatus for the war, before more stories with his own children and eventually his grandchildren. The last time I saw him before he took to his deathbed, he sat with my two boys then aged 7 and 8 and I went out to the backyard to watch the tableau through the window. My view was made swimmy with old glass and tears, but he leant forward, spittle on his lips, in the certain knowledge that this was his last chance, vehemently telling them tales of his childhood and the war, teaching them, through stories, how to be men.

Granddad once said when I was very young, ‘You’ll be a writer when you grow up, because you’ve had a bad childhood’. Granddad, some of it was terribly bad, but I survived, thanks to you and Grandma, and I am a writer, not because my childhood was bad, but because you made it enviable.

http://writeoutloud.net/profiles/rachelmcgladdery

Dragons' Den

2011-12-17T06:01:00.005Z

by Ashley Lister

This week’s theme is dragons which allows me to say that I get very annoyed with the TV show Dragons’ Den.

Stay with me a moment here. This does relate to writing and poetry. But it’ll be a circuitous route getting there.

Dragons’ Den doesn’t just annoy me because it promotes an ethos of capitalist greed. Admittedly, I don’t like capitalism. The idea of cultivating a Thatcherite ideal of ‘avarice over altruism’ makes me nauseous.

But that’s not the reason why the show annoys me.

I admit that I don’t care for the interrogation style format, or the fact that so many members of the regular panel on the show seem to think that it’s acceptable to call people liars, stupid, foolish or deluded. This name-calling is indicative of a mentality that suggests each panellist considers themselves to be the Simon Cowell of entrepreneurship – a distressingly bleak mindset in and of itself.
But, again, that is not the real reason why the show annoys me.

Dragons’ Den annoys me because the narrator consistently describes the obscenely rich businessmen on the programme as ‘dragons.’

Honestly - they’re not.

They’re not dragons in a mythological sense, a figurative sense or a literal sense.
Dragons are mythological creatures. Dragons are notorious for being dangerous and brilliant and exciting and wonderful. The whole concept of the dragon is a metaphor for a darkly attractive force that is powerful, splendid and almost unconquerable.
Does that really sound like an appropriate description for a handful of narcissistic business owners who are motivated solely by the goal of personal profit?

I say ‘narcissistic’ because they’re all sitting in front of TV cameras, looking freshly groomed and brimming with expressions of smug self-satisfaction. They stroke their fingers over compensating piles of money and could not look more self-satisfied if they were smoking post-coital cigarettes.

And I say ‘business owners’ because the adjectival phrase ‘greedy twunts’ is potentially libellous.

I don’t have a problem with all of the title. The word DEN fits because of its other connotations. You can have a den of iniquity or a den of thieves or a dirty den. With those connotations I can see the word DEN being appropriate for all the regular ‘business owners’ who appear on the programme.

But the word ‘dragon’ just doesn’t seem to fit

As writers, each time we select a word, we have to be specific in our choice. We pick the word that’s most appropriate for the circumstances – the word that will convey our exact meaning to a reader or audience.

I’m about to start writing a story that contains a dragon and you can rest assured, the creature will be dangerous and brilliant and exciting and wonderful. The dragon will be a metaphor for a darkly attractive force that is powerful, splendid and almost unconquerable.

It won’t be some smug ‘business owner’ greedily protecting its own wealth.

That sort of dragon would just be annoying.

Raaaaaaaaar.

2011-12-16T11:27:00.004Z

As an image based individual, I am fascinated by how people imagine and interpret how dragons are supposed to look. They seem to have certain rules; they need to be reptilian, with claws with dinosaur-like teeth. But how dragons look changes according to where you live in the world. There is the Chinese dragon, still reptilian but with more a more serpentine look. The other type, the European dragon, likes to breathe a little fire, perhaps has wings. Considering it’s a mythical creature, it certainly does have a definitive identity.

Which makes me wonder, why did we create these imaginary creatures and why have they endured so well? There are plenty of mythological creatures to choose from, what makes the dragon such a romantic figure? There is more than one hypothesis. One is that the discovery of dinosaur bones made these creatures real to the people who first found them. Another is that we have an innate repulsion of reptilian creatures by instinct (a little like the fear of spiders) which has encouraged us to create these images. But why haven’t we created a giant fire breathing spider that flies? We have even gone as far to surmise how they reproduce; we all know that dragons lay eggs don’t we?

As fierce as they seem to be in stories and illustrations, they are still incredibly beautiful. I love to see how people illustrate dragons in such differing styles. I have always seen them as noble creatures, not vicious and bloodthirsty. There has to be more than just seeing bones and guessing, there has to be more than primeval fear. Something is at work. Here there be the creative impulse. As Vicky said yesterday, dragons are us without the chains. Dragons are us, they are part of us which we create in a reptilian form. We transfer ourselves from the mammal to the reptilian and all our faults and virtues travel with them.

Image from kerembeyit on Devianart.

Here there be half-rhymes

2011-12-15T00:08:00.006Z

You know the jumps you make in your head? The leaps between memories which help build up your own visual/mental image of something. Well here are the 5 places my mind goes to when I try to come to terms with the concept of a dragon:

1) The Napoleonic Era. Have you read Temeraire? It's naval battles on the high seas but with added dragony goodness. Temeraire is a sweet dragon. He likes pretty jewellery and Chinese food. The kind of dragon you can imagine keeping in a kennel.

2) The poem I wrote in primary school which first put the idea of becoming a poet into my head. (see last week's post) I don't have the poem. I don't remember any of it. I can only assume it was astounding.

3) The mini-series Merlin with Sam Neill in which he saves Nimue (Isabella Rossillini) from a dragon which you never see. This is a scary dragon - a meat eater. Specifically a lady eater. It burns Nimue's face and makes her very sad. The dragon is pretty much responsible for the tragic element of the story. Bad dragon.

4) Puff the Magic Dragon. It's one of those tunes that will never sit easily in my mind. I don't know why. That song from The Sound of Music sits alongside it, the one about brains dropping from noses and cluster bombs on kittens. I think that's how it goes. Anyway, poor old Puff is a sweet reminder to children that they will get old and 'put away childish things.' Puff is abandoned by his 'lifelong friend' and stops growling, loses his scales and retreats to his cave. How delightful. Can we hear the song about the puppy that fell off the cliff next please? It's my favourite.

5) Finally, dragons remind me of how my writing has improved over the last 6 years. In August 2005 I wrote these lines:

Here there be rainbows
Here there be oceans
Here there be light
Here there be potions
Here there be kisses
Here wild things wander
Here there be thunder
And here there be dragons

That's right, I rhymed oceans with potions. This, believe it or not, is the chorus to a song I wrote when I fell in love with my partner. Falling in love is all about the darkness. It's about liminality and being a stranger to the rest of the world. Digging right into the heart of one person while simultaneously digging around in your own heart and tipping the contents onto a platter for them to consume at their leisure. And this otherness, the feeling of being on the fringes, of being exposed and more than a little insane, does actually relate to dragons. Because that is ultimately what dragons represent for me. They are linked to that strange landscape, that unknown place within where magic is a possibility and 'the force' might be within me. They mean retaining childish things, believing in fantastical creatures and escaping from the everyday into a state of being which is raw and susceptible to the gales of emotion.

To simplify: Dragons are us without the chains.

Dragon's Lair

2011-12-13T20:12:00.007Z

The lair of the Dragon is littered with bodies,
Exhaling its breath through emulsified lips,
Strewn round the bed-sit on carpets and cushions,
Slowly succumbing to poison within.

Their shields lay discarded,
Their armour is rusted,
Their chivalry's cannibalised its own kin
And the Dragon lies feasting on all that they give him,
Even down to the bones of the souls they'd once been.

At the start of this quest they were searching for concepts:
Sanctuary, answers; a place to belong,
Chasing the Dragon's tail into Uptopia,
Blind to Dystopia lurking in swamps
Of the songs they were sung about Love, about Peace,
About God about Magic, the Myths and the Stars,
Where the Dragon was waiting to offer them Silence
If only they'd take just one taste of its charms.

Now it coils on the couch with its scales of burned tinfoil,
Hoarding its treasure of guilt, lust and shame,
Teeth: hypodermic and dripping with promises,
A life of hypnosis, respite from the blame
From the others, the sober ones, those with the names
It must tarnish, corrode and drag into its lair...

Where one Knight awakens in a moment of clarity,
Swings the sword of his reason
And gets the fuck out of there.

Sorry for posting early but I've managed to wipe Microsoft Word off my computer and lost the disc to reinstall - didn't fancy typing this out at 6am

Nightmares Before Christmas

2011-12-13T05:27:00.007Z

My creative brain is currently dormant; like a sleeping dragon it is producing no sparks or fire. It is stressed, overworked, exhausted and stuck in practical mode.

I have to-do lists in my notebook instead of poems:

Make an 80th birthday cake for my Nan's birthday on Saturday
Clean flats for visiting family members
Organise a buffet
Buy Christmas presents
Buy, write & send Christmas cards
Put up Christmas tree (ideally before Christmas Day)
Write something for poetry event on Friday
Get my car radio decoded

And, as is always the case when you have a lot to do, things continue to go wrong.

My car radio was meant to be ready for me to collect yesterday lunchtime, but apparently it is "proving difficult to decode". So, I now have a gaping hole instead of a radio and still no music. And if this doesn't seem like a big enough nightmare, I have a section of our basement flat covered in towels because of all the rain. I can safely say, if the rain continues, I'll be living in a swimming pool...

I will stop listing, moaning and depressing readers of this blog, and move onto my actual post.

An Amazon Dragon

Knights like to fight giant lizards and dragons

so give them the opportunity

.

The above is a 'found poem' that I found on Amazon (click here)

Thank you for reading,
Lar

I believe.

2011-12-12T06:00:00.000Z

Are you ever tempted just to believe in something, go along with it and see where the moment takes you. I am. I was almost stopped dead in the shop the other day after a mother revealed what she called 'the truth about Christmas' to her son. Well, actually, she told her version of the truth, probably told to her by an ill spirited relative on her eighth birthday. The still devastated child didn't seem to appreciate the re-telling of this "I told him", moment and they both left- one delighting in the new found Scrooge appeal (that parents buy gifts and money doesn't grow on trees), the other a little teary.

My Nana, as she always does, pitched right in with a "What do you mean?". Complete with her strong Yorkshire spirit (with which she knocked on my girlfriend's Dad's door yesterday and asked to use the car park- they've never even met before- I wasn't in) and determined to sprinkle festive fairy dust she appeased the lad somewhat. Over egged the pudding on the Santa front a little maybe. I can't help wondering if, either way, the kid will ever be the same again.

When thinking about the theme for this week I completely ignored the 'On this Day' fact. The Order of the Dragon was conjoured up by the seemingly blood thirsty King of Hungary. From a quick Wiki check he seemed a bit of a dragon himself- the kind of endeering rogue that for all his faults, got a fair bit done. But, as I said, I've ignored that titbit from 1408 and think really, as it is becoming increasingly festive around here, it is time to start thinking Santa. Well, believing in things at least.

We've had some new bookshelves in the flat and as such, I can now see a load of books. Flicking through this collection I came across the eponymous poem Dragons. Matthew Francis takes his reader on a journey through the imagination of his narrator in this poem. He dissects each dragony detail and builds a great picture, if nothing else, of childhood and belief. The poem goes much further and deeper than that, as you may expect from an opening poem but I'll leave you to discover that on your own. It comes recommended.

Believing though, is a very big thing at this time of the year. Imaginations are captured and in many ways it is the only time of the year when you can reasonably be as excited as a child. We suspend normality, find our television sets peppered by wand waving schoolkids, longboats and mythical creatures- legends retold and retold and retold. We lap it up. We will all eagerly await the showing of Miracle on 34th Street and all tire of it by the New Year but, as with all popular Christmas stories, you just have to go with the flow sometimes.

I like the thought that something magical could happen. I like the idea that someone could do something for someone else just once and, on top of that, I quite like all the smiling that goes on. Of course, there are those that don't believe in Christmas, there are those that get swept under by the throbbing high street and there are those that just can't cope. But, with so many things coming to mind just by thinking about Dragons, it really is the season to believe- at least in your own ideas. There is plenty of inspiration about- I suggest we all make a little time in our lives to get some thoughts on paper.

Keep on writing, S

A Very Noisy Blog

2011-12-11T07:56:00.003Z

by Colin Davies

When I offered to write a blog for the Blakpool Dead Good Poets Society, they said ‘yes please’. Cool, I thought. Then they said, ‘can you write one about poetry and sound?’

I, of course, agreed. Then I got to thinking about it. You see, I used to work with sound, I was a hi-fi salesman. Esoteric equipment with values beyond most peoples means with the soul purpose of delivering the ultimate sound to the audiences ear.

So suddenly I wasn’t thinking about the onomatopoeia values of words to add a sense of drama or sound scape to an action of literally painted vista. I was thinking about sound itself, the essence of noise and rhythm, muisc.

I found myself considering such songs as Joe le Taxi, Vanessa Chantal Paradis 1987 hit. I don’t speak French, I also don’t understand it being spoken to me, yet the sound of the words, the tone of her voice, with the rhythm made it a pleasant experience to hear.

This lead me to look at other words where the sound was more important than the meaning. Disney has a couple of very good example with ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ and ‘Hakuna Matata’

Just the sound of these words is enough to convey an idea. You don’t need a meaning, just a pleasing sound.

I decided to type in the words ‘Sound Poem’ into Google and found this entry in Wikipedia.

“Sound poetry is an artistic form bridging between literary and musical composition, in which the phonetic aspects of human speech are foregrounded instead of more conventional semantic and syntactic values; "verse without words". By definition, sound poetry is intended primarily for performance.”

This got me thinking again. I can see that there is much discussion over this form, this discipline, this school of writing and yet I find the idea so simple, liberating and fun.

Spike Milligan would touch on this style is some of his writing. ‘In the land of the Bumbly Boo’ and the ‘Ying Tang Song’ have wonderful sounds that aren’t describing anything as such, just being noises.

So to me a Sound Poem is one that just allows the audio aspects of the words to be the focus. It could be a language you don’t understand, or some invented words that are put together for the Phonetic flow that they deliver to the listener. Which ever way you look at it, writing in pure sound may look easy but it requires a certain focus to find the most important element of such a piece of work, the rhythm.

If you set about writing such a verse, and you negate the rhythm, the outcome can be nothing more that a random set of letters, characters thrown on a page. By placing a structure over the top and sticking strictly to the time signature, you can create something that can touch people on a level beyond mere words, and influence then on a higher plane than any music.

These hypnotic lines entrance and entertain. They completely and utterly allow the audience to superimpose their own meaning, attach their own emotional bond, it becomes theirs and theirs alone.

So, by taking all this on aboard, I present to you a sound poem from my heart, to yours.

What’s out there?

Chicka chicka chook
Lokra nonti sood
Blimble lushby kethtra ong
woota, homthga, jaykma, tong

Colin presents the Listen Me Alice show on Impact Radio every Sunday night from 10pm.

Hearing with the Eyes

2011-12-10T06:33:00.002Z

I believe, as the oldest blogger on this team, I’m probably closest to losing my hearing.

The symptoms are already showing – or I’m associating with some consistent mumblers. Either way, I find myself often asking, “Could you please say that again?” or, “Can you speak up?” or admitting, “I didn’t catch that.”

More and more frequently I’m asking people to repeat things three times. And on the third occasion, when I still haven’t heard, I just nod and say either yes or no, depending on the response the mumbler appears to need.

(In fact, a tip for any mumblers who may be reading this: if you often find someone is asking you to repeat what you’ve said, repeat the words with more volume and improved articulation. Just saying the same thing in the same whisper and with the same lack of concern for whether or not it can be understood was part of the problem in the first damned place).

Am I worried about my disappearing hearing? Yes and no. On the negative side, it means I won’t be able to hear many of the young singers who are currently releasing singles after appearing on The X Factor. But, on the positive side, it means I won’t be able to hear many of the young singers who are currently releasing singles after appearing on The X Factor.

(I could have gone on a five page rant here about the lack of articulation evinced by modern singers – and the superior enunciation found in the recordings of artists such as Frank Sinatra and Barry Manilow. But, as soon as I typed the words ‘modern singers’ I realised I was sounding like Grandpa Simpson. And I know, if I go down that route, someone is likely to tell me that I haven’t heard such-and-such an artist, who is renowned for his lyrics and his superb articulation.

And I don’t want to go down that route).

What I want to say instead is, rather than fret about my impending loss of hearing, I’m already taking steps to address the situation when it does arrive. I can understand and communicate with a limited amount of BSL (British Sign Language). I’m trying to learn more. I’m also trying to organise for a sign language interpreter to join us regularly at the Dead Good Poets so we can extend our open mic performances to an audience ordinarily excluded because of the aural nature of spoken word performances.

Obviously this is not going to be easy.

As with any translation of poetry from one language to another, sign language interpretation is not simply a matter of changing a literally defined word from language A to its equivalent in language B.

Sign language has its own grammar, its regional dialects and its own homonyms. In short, sign language interpretation (like any translation) takes phenomenal skill and a considerable amount of sage judgement.

Having discussed the issues with an interpreter I know that poets interested in having their work interpreted at an event would need to get a printed copy of the work with the interpreter at least a day before, so that she has time to gain some understanding of what is being said and so she can best present that information to an audience. Which, to some extent, limits the chances of spontaneity in the performance of a piece.

And, even then, our deaf audience will only be looking at one person’s interpretation of a poem.

However, the road to inclusivity is not a straight path. And I do think it’s exciting that the Dead Good Poets could be one day extending their work to an audience that has previously been excluded from open mic performances.

And, finally, for anyone who’s never seen the synchronicity of spoken word with physical interpretation, there’s a video below that shows ASL, music and lyrics in perfect unity.

Sound of silence

2011-12-09T09:54:00.003Z

As an introvert, certain sounds overwhelm me completely. The sound of thrash metal makes me want to curl up into a ball and rock gently until it stops. Now I don’t mind loud music, as long as it’s not too ‘busy’. Unpleasant noises make me physically uncomfortable. (Polystyrene, chalk-board scratching etc) and it makes me wonder if I have some sort of bizarre syndrome. I hate large crowds of people. I get irrationally angry in libraries. I’ve been known to look at someone as if they’ve just kidnapped my firstborn for speaking above a whisper when I’m studying. I avoid my Uni library for fear of my own sanity, times have changed, there’s no concept of quiet in there.

From children's parties I emerge, shell shocked, pale and broken for days. I can cope with small groups, but it large crowds I mute. I get sensory overload, both visual and aural but it helps if I can focus on an individual element of something. This is why I enjoy the Blackpool Dead Good Poets. I can focus on the speaker on the microphone, the soothing rhythm of their words which carries the sounds and meaning along. It’s soothing. I think rhythm, not necessarily rhyme, but definitely rhythms, can help the oral performance of poetry.

It’s not that I dislike sound, I enjoy music intensely, and therein I think is the problem. Noise, a cacophony of noise particularly, is disorderly and I can’t cope with it. I don’t think many would find it enjoyable either, but there is always someone. Extroverts tend to need external stimulation so I suppose it wouldn’t bother them a great deal. But when it is constructed properly, well patterned and rhythmic, it becomes beautiful. Poetry, song, constructed sound, takes skill, a good ear and talent. Anything else is just noise.

The Sound of Lyric

2011-12-08T00:12:00.006Z

Being an autobiographical account of my journey into poetry and sound.

1985. I was 8 years old. I'd been wearing glasses for a year and was not best chuffed about it. One evening my mum shushed us all so she could listen to Nana Mouskouri who was singing on a chat show. I remember being struck by the sensuality of her performance. And she was wearing glasses too! The possibility that I might be sexy in the future despite my eyewear entered my tiny mind. The possibility that I might be able to sing like that, to express passion and sentiment through my voice, crept in too and decided to stay.

Many small events shaped my desire to be musical: my dad's funny little rhyming songs that he would sing around the house, learning to play the piano (I wanted to play the harp but for some reason piano teachers were easier to find in Blackpool in the early eighties), singing in the church choir and feeling a sort of ecstasy among all the voices. Mostly though, it was the urge of a shy, introspective child to be heard. Not just heard, seen. I figured I could use my voice to make up for the deficiencies in my appearance.

Once, when I was about 9 years old, I told my mum that I had a secret voice that I was saving for the future and that it was better than my normal singing voice but for now it had to wait. Quite what I was waiting for I can't say. Whether the secret voice existed as more than a wish I don't remember.

Alongside the desire to sing, the urge to write took hold. One of my strongest memories of primary school is reading a poem I had written, called 'The Dragon', to the class. At the end the room burst into applause and a boy shouted that I would be a poet when I grew up. I had a crush on the prophetic youth from that moment on. His statement had a profound effect on my ambitions.

In my teens I wrote songs for my music GCSE and then forgot about the music. I switched to writing poetry instead. It was the stuff wrought from strangling, dark, frenzied hormones and although I knew almost nothing of form, at least it did rhyme and the rhythm was tight. One of the few poems from that time which I can bear to read is this (we didn't cover the difference between simple past and past perfect tense when I was a lass):

Good Reason?

We’ve woven webs so thick we cannot see,
We threw ourselves from cliffs into the sea.
We danced through fire, drank poison from a glass,
Made love all night with barely time to gasp.
And though we took when it was time to give,
Now take my hand, for this is how we live.

When I was raped in 1996 I found that poetry was one of the only ways I could express what had happened to me. It didn't make for good poetry and it's not something I revisit but in terms of catharsis it was invaluable. I sang along to the songs of Tori Amos, and learned that the darkest moments could be captured through words and sounds, wrapped up and passed on. My urge to write strong, feminist, sexual poetry was probably born at this time.

Writing and music took a back seat after my daughter was born. I found I no longer needed to express myself in that way. Singing her to sleep, making up silly rhymes to make her giggle and teaching her to read for herself gave me joy. Motherhood gave me confidence and a voice. Creative expression took a back seat for several years.

Eventually I began writing again. I turned my hand to prose and found that I wasn't terribly good at it. Then the fan got brown and sticky and the music crept back in. As the emotions raged I found that although I wanted to write, the urge needed music to emphasise the rawness and hopelessness that I was experiencing. I bought a guitar. I taught myself to play (terribly). I recorded some of the songs and the delightful Ann Wilson found me and offered me a gig in Lancaster. The stress of knowing I had to perform, however, was a pressure I found extremely difficult to deal with. I played a few gigs and returned to playing to myself. I had achieved my intention by expressing pain and love through the songs. The guitar gathered dust.

2009. The Dead Good Poets happened to me. I found that I could write poetry for a reason other than emotional expression. The group welcomed and supported me. Through observing dedicated and talented poets I learned how to craft poetry to make a point, to illuminate an inkling, to express an intellectual conundrum or a political outrage. I also learned the difference between a poem which is written to be read and one which should be performed. Perhaps it was the music bleeding into my poetry but I found my words leaning towards metre over meaning, soft vowels over imagery. I've been known to change the direction of a poem around the pivot of a single word because it felt just right on my lips.

When I listen to a poetry performance, I am listening to a song. It's a capella. It's about the voice, the sound, the rhythm. It's in the sway of their body behind the microphone. It's the pauses between stanzas. It's the soft song of a beautiful image or the sharp driving riff of a humorous verse. But it's all music to me. The two are indivisible. Music and poetry. Poetry and sound.

Sound

2011-12-07T07:34:00.002Z

The word ‘Sound’, for me will only ever mean one thing: Music.

As far back as I can remember, music has been central to my life. On this blog, a few weeks ago now, I wrote a piece about my earliest memories under the theme ‘Favourite Poems’, focusing on my mum’s bed-time poetry readings. Fact is though that I left out half the story: my Dad.

Back when I used to fall asleep to my mum’s voice, Dad used to play me and my sister to sleep by playing his acoustic and singing us songs. I’ve just Googled some lyrics that I vaguely remember and found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdqU_bYQNuw

Dad playing me to sleep with that song is probably my earliest memory.

Last month dad joined us for the DGPS meet, which was fantastic for me as it was the first time he was ‘Steve’s dad’ at an open mike event and I wasn’t , ‘Ray’s son’.
Music, for dad, is more than just a hobby: it’s… (I’m trying to think of a word that means, ‘slightly less than all-consuming’, maybe, ‘penencompassing’?)

Anyways, the point I’m laboriously trying to make is that my introduction to creativity was through my dad and music. I was encouraged to learn an instrument early and only started ‘writing’ in my teens because my band needed some lyrics; even my first-year degree writing portfolio was a collection of my songs.

However, once I did start writing lyrics as a kid, I started interacting with words and the reason behind writing. I started listening to the meaning and feeling behind songs and got drawn much more towards the semantic side of songwriting rather than the structural. This is where my dad and I now have a difference in opinion:

Dad will openly admit that lyrics are a secondary concern for him: some annoying thought processes he has to interact with, in order to perform those new chord changes he’s been getting excited about.

I beg to differ: What’s the point in a song if it doesn’t have meaning, if the words are an afterthought? Where’s the connectivity? I look for poetry in a song before musical complexity. Dad (muso to the end) looks for the sound and most times doesn’t even listen to the lyrics (though he works hard on his own and I think does a better than average job)

I’ve said before that I don’t really listen-to or read ‘poetry’ (apart from interaction with you lot) but I still search it out through my favourite lyricists, such as Thom Yorke, Maynard James Keenan, Elliot Smith, Bjork, Jeff Buckley, Trent Reznor, Michael Stipe, Florence Welch and their like. I listen to their music for the reason and meaning and poetry they put into it. These guys need to write: you can hear it in their words and feel it in their delivery. The notes played are there to provide a thrust behind the cutting-edge of an emotion. The sound rises and falls to the dynamic of the words, which are the raison d’être behind the song’s existence, they don’t play second-fiddle to an over-eager guitarist who wants a fret-wank. (NB: Now I’m editing, I’d like to point out this comment is NOT directed at my dad!)

However, when the juxtaposition of sound, thought, emotion, creativity and dynamics come together in the pure form of a song with a reason to it, I don’t think there’s a more powerful art form known to anyone.
Thanks for reading x

Free Poetry Book Giveaway

2011-12-06T16:27:00.006Z

This is a Dead Good Blog first, but it won't be the last. Over the next couple of months, a few of the regular bloggers will be offering one lucky follower the chance of winning a free book.

I'm starting the giveaway with Jo Shapcott's Of Mutability. The poetry collection was a Costa Book Award winner at the beginning of 2011, and has been a firm favourite of mine since it was published in 2010.

How to enter:

In order to be in with a chance of winning a free copy of Of Mutability, you must be a follower of A Dead Good Blog; if you aren't already a follower, then click the little follow button.

You then need to leave a comment on the bottom of this post saying: what you like about our blog / what you would like to see on the blog.
Then finally, an email address / twitter name that will allow us to contact you if you win.

A few need-to-know points:

* Please remember to state the name you follow under.

* The giveaway is open to everyone (with the exception of regular bloggers) that is a follower.

*The giveaway will close on Tuesday 13th December at 6pm, and the winner will be selected at random.

Good Luck - and tell your friends.
Lar

A Recipe for Sound

2011-12-06T05:00:00.000Z

I would describe myself as a page poet. By this, I mean that my poems work better on the page than they do at a microphone. I am not a performance poet and, more importantly, I don’t aspire to be one. I’m instinctively shy and just convincing myself to stand in front of a room full of people is challenging, then asking me to read poetry is even more difficult. But I do it. I stand at the microphone and read my page poems. I do it because it’s always good to do something that frightens you – throws you outside of your comfort zone – and when you survive, it makes you realise that you can be stronger than your greatest fears.

I’m a page poet that likes sound. That cares as much about how my poetry sounds as the way it looks on the page. I don’t just look, but I listen as well. I read aloud as I’m writing, feeling the lines rolling off my tongue and changing anything that doesn’t ‘sound right’. However, regardless of how much I like sound, it needs to work in conjunction with the overall meaning. It can add strength and emphasis to a poem. But on its own it will never add the depth and the multitude of layers that I love within poetry.

I can use sound to give a poem a specific feeling. I can manipulate assonance or alliteration, not only to accentuate a line but, also, to impart harshness or softness. If I consider syllables – stressed and unstressed – and place them in a given order, then I can create rhythm. If I use a string of monosyllabic lexemes in short lines, then I can create the illusion of speed, haste, panic. Therefore, I would argue that sound is as important to poetry as a line break – although probably not as important as the connotative meaning of individual words.

Recently, my mind (usually in the early hours of the morning) has been thinking about a new analogy for poetry. Like a simile it can allow you to think about things in a different way, and this can often enable you discover something new, something that you hadn’t considered before...

Poetry is like cookery. You start off by following recipes, weighing everything out and following each step. Then once you’ve mastered the basics you begin to experiment: taking what you’ve learnt from the recipes and applying it to something new. You learn the rules before you start to break them.

Cookery is about balancing ingredients, while poetry is about balancing words – with all their meaning, sound and power. If you get the balance wrong, it creates something that is inedible. For instance, it doesn’t matter how much you love spices, with all their autumnal colours and vibrant scents, if they’re used without a degree of skill then you’ll create something that fails to function as a meal. The very same philosophy is applicable to sound. It doesn’t matter how much you love sound, if you don’t achieve the right balance with poetry’s other ingredients then ultimately the poem will fail to fulfil its full potential.

Poets should be aware of sound, should employ sound techniques, and should care about the overall sound of their poem. But, equally, sound should be used like a spice: with care and caution.

Thank you for reading,
Lar

Sounding Off.

2011-12-05T05:22:00.003Z

When somebody tells me that poetry is boring, I can be a little dismissive.

I can also bite heads off. For me, that is like saying music is dull. All music. Ever. Dull.

Now, there are plenty of older people who can roll off some schoolday Wordsworth. I know a fair few dramatic types that love to do a bit of Shakespeare from time to time. I probably also know a few dozen teenagers that could quote, word for word, the entire album of a rapper.

Do these people get on? Probably not. They probably don't realise just how much they have in common.

Several people have told me lately (after noticing the blog) that they can't be doing with poetry and, in a quest to get to the bottom of this, I have been thinking about the way Sound (this week's theme) makes almost all things poetic more accessible.

As writers we pump poems full of imagery, cram it in, elaborate our points but, if by the end of the poem nobody is actually listening, was there really any point in tying up that metaphor in the final stanza? Trailing off is a nightmare. Standing at a microphone and losing the plot is something of a disaster and so, I like to think that over the past few years I've developed a few techniques in my writing to try and hold the attention.

I've tried writing in beats, using rhetoric, hard and soft endings, rhymes, stressed and unstressed syllables, alliteration, assonance, and even a little sibilance. None of these techniques are nessecarily the answer but, we chuck them in all the same to help move the poem along. We hope that they'll make someone hear.

From the many poetry readings I've found myself attending over the years, I can't say there is an answer. Poets pick and choose. Each individual just has to feel the poem and, with practise, just know almost.

I could go on here to produce a top five, top ten or greatest hits kind of post but we all have our own tastes - you know what sounds work for you. I will instead encourage all of you to attend a poetry reading. I keep coming across the line about the couple who attend events together; the old 'I don't like it, she does' situation. Carol Ann, our poet laureate, reckons there are always surprised faces and comments like 'I didn't think I liked poetry'. So go on, get yourself out there and have a listen. It could be the way someone uses the words, it could be the noises they are making with ideas, it could just be that you liked the concept but if you never look for things you like, you might always be that sad, closed minded fool that bands all poetry in together as boring.

It has been an interesting week. We've had general strikes and ludicrous comments from TV celebrities. I also heard yesterday that Meryl Streep is to play Margaret Thatcher in a film. So, for our cock-sure Prime Minister, for the Iron Whore and for Jeremy Clarkson- I'm dedicating you all this John Cooper Clarke classic.

Sound.

Thanks for reading, Shaun.

A Way of Gaining Control.

2011-12-04T05:20:00.007Z

By Heather Peterson

Superstition
BY MARIN SORESCU TRANSLATED BY MICHAEL HAMBURGER

My cat washes
with her left paw,
there will be another war.

For I have observed
that whenever she washes
with her left paw
international tension grows
considerably.

How can she possibly keep her eye
on all the five continents?
Could it be
that in her pupils
that Pythia now resides
who has the power
to predict
the whole of history
without a full-stop or comma?

It’s enough to make me howl
when I think that I
and the Heaven with its souls I have
shouldered
in the last resort
depend
on the whims of a cat.

Go and catch mice,
don’t unleash
more world wars,
damned
lazybones!

This poem by Marin Sorescu, a Romanian poet, explores superstition as a need to feel control in a life ruled by chaos and forces far out our hands. Superstition comes from a need to feel that we control our destiny. If we wear our hat tipped at this angle, our team will win. If we wear black socks, our plane won’t crash. Chaos is the only thing encompassing everything, and it is the thing we fight most. Through trivia and habit we try to convince ourselves that we have agency – that our fates are in our hands. Sacrifices to the gods, songs, and prayer: all are efforts to harness the wind, call the rain, weaken our enemies and strengthen our armies.

Superstition comes from a thirst for agency in a world bigger than we are. Notice, though, that while the narrator of this poem begins by saying that the cat can predict war, he comes to blame the cat for her predictions, as if she is causing the war with every lick of her paw. This cat’s “whims” come to decide the fate of all five continents; in this way, the cat becomes like God, on whose caprice all of our destinies are said to rest.

At the end, Sorescu begs the cat to go catch mice, calling her a “damned lazybones”. In a way, superstition is laziness. Rather than making active attempts to change our futures, we imbue minutiae with the power to decide our destinies. Sorescu sits and watches his cat lick her paw rather than doing something.

The word “hubris” comes from arrogance in the face of the gods. Oedipus’ parents, in attempting to manipulate their fate, actually sealed it; had they not left Oedipus in the woods, he would have known them as his mother and father, and Freud would have had to come up with something else to blame for all of our problems. In a way, superstition is a form of arrogance. We believe that some small effort on our parts can have some kind of cosmic effect on the world. We think that dancing with a stick will bring the weather we need, that kissing our finger and tapping the roof of the car will get us safely through the yellow light. But we are just tiny human beings on a giant piece of rock hurtling through space, and wearing our lucky underwear won’t change that.

Religion comes from the need to feel in control, as does art. The early humans painted horses and bison on the walls of barely reachable caves. They didn’t do this for decoration – they did it because they felt that capturing the likeness of something helped give them power over it. Knowing a horse well enough to replicate it on a wall meant knowing it well enough to catch it.

In a similar way, writing is about control. When we can describe something perfectly, so that someone else can read it and know exactly what we mean, we have a certain power over it. By exploring the mysteries of life through words, by capturing the world in all its complexities on the page, we feel we are somehow shrinking it to a manageable size. In Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner compares life to a horse. We might have the illusion of control as we ride atop it, feeling the reins in our hands, but in the end the horse is stronger than we are: if it decides to throw us off, there is nothing we can do. In the meantime, though, we just sit tight in the saddle and tell ourselves everything will be all right.

Today’s guest post was written by HEATHER PETERSON. Heather recently received an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University, and is currently studying for an MFA in Fiction from the University of Florida.

The Lion Virgin

2011-12-03T06:16:00.001Z

According to my horoscope, because my date of birth falls on the cusp between two star signs, I’m half lion and half virgin. It’s difficult to assimilate this information into something useful. Does it mean I should hang around Knowsley Safari Park and not fuck anything? Does it mean I could audition for two separate roles in an amateur dramatic production of The Wizard Oz? Or does it just mean I’m buying into the extended metaphor of astrology?

As I’ve mentioned in the comments boxes this week, I buy into many superstitions and rituals. I feel uneasy in the presence of a single magpie and I go into OCD mode when I see a tiding of the damned things. I don’t walk under ladders. I despise Friday 13^th (the day of the week that is – I absolutely adore the Friday 13^th films except for Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday which marks a black day in the cinematic history of slasher films). I have no idea what to do when I’m around black cats except be aware that I’m in the presence of something that deserves my superstitious respect. And I do the usual rituals with salt, ladders, knocking wood and not whistling backstage at theatres.

But I only ever maintain a writer’s interest in astrology.

I’ve used horoscopes in creative writing classes.

Taking the specific traits (positive and negative) attributed to various signs from the zodiac is a good way of generating new characters for fiction. An alternative exercise here is to use animals from the Chinese zodiac, which allows a greater element of anthropomorphism into the equation as all the symbols of this zodiac are represented by animals and they include such exciting creatures as snakes and dragons.

But my interest doesn’t extend as far as a genuine belief in astrology. I don’t think our fates can be preordained by a prescribed positioning of the planets. To me that sounds a little too far-fetched. If I subscribe to a belief in astrology that means I dismiss the concept of free will, because there can be no scope for free will in a universe where all actions are governed by such arbitrary influences as planetary alignments.

Then again, they do say this attitude is typical for the mentality of a Leo/Virgo combination. And my horoscope this morning did say I would be in an argumentative mood today, so I suppose it must be true.

Just as an interesting guessing game for this weekend, if anyone is thinking of commenting, I’d love for you to end the comment with two traits that are supposed to typically define your astrological sign. I’m curious to know if the attributes associated with astrological signs are traits that others primarily associate with you and your personality.

Ash

creative & enthusiastic

Superstition and embarrassing throwbacks.

2011-12-02T09:52:00.006Z

Superstition; it’s a little bit like an appendix. When we used to roam the land in prehistoric times, and the weight of what we didn’t know about the world around us threatened to overwhelm us, we created explanations; rituals and routines to stave off this fear. But nowadays, it’s no longer needed. It’s a little like that fear people have for spiders. They aren’t going to hurt us but our brain is wired for that shape of creature to be a threat, because there was a time when it was. That little element of the brain and psyche which makes people throw salt over their shoulder and create a mess is anachronistic now; we do understand the world better.

Communication, technology and science have allowed the doubt to fade, but that little pillock superstition continues to make fools of us all. Yes I avoid ladders. I can’t help myself. Yes I hate the number 13. But it’s my brain playing games with me, I know it is. Religions are both a result of this and exploitative of it. Superstitions, like any social construct, have changed over hundreds of years. People used to think in the 19th century that if they dropped a cloth it meant someone would visit, or if they saw a new moon over their left shoulder that bad luck would befall them. Logically we know this is nonsense, but something draws us into our own bizarre little rituals.

There are some folk with a heightened presence of this little pillock, and it causes them to go up and down the stairs again if they missed counting a step (yes I’ve done this). It causes them to wash their hands too frequently because of a fear of germs. It causes them to touch their furniture in a certain order before leaving the house and if they miss it, it means the world is going to end. We think these people have an illness, OCD. But it’s seemingly ok to touch a piece of wood whenever we believe we have been presumptuous or expecting a lot. So, superstition. I know it’s there, and I keep doing odd stuff in its name. But I know that it is just a bit of my brain which was useful once, when the world was too big for a human to comprehend properly, and is a relic. Not to be taken too seriously. That’s easier said than done though. When’s the next Friday the 13th?

Peculiar invocations

2011-12-01T00:12:00.004Z

“If a stem of bracken that has grown to its full height is cut crosswise close to its foot, certain marks will be seen upon it which resemble the Greek letter Chi, the first letter in the Greek form of Christ’s name (Χριστός). By some these marks have been construed as I.H.S, or as J.C., initials which also belong to Our Lord. Because of this, witches and evil spirits were formerly thought to detest bracken, and to avoid those who carried it.”

From the Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, E & M A Radford, (1961) Pg 63

Somebody ought to warn the witches.

I love superstitions. The mostly irrational belief in the power of objects or activities to protect. To bring luck, love, revenge. To predict the future. To affect the weather. Steve is right, it does stray into spiritual belief – because faith and superstition are based on the same anecdotal, story-based traditions. They feed that part of our nature which needs to schematise the world. Forgetting the scientific method for a long as possible, don’t you think superstitions are a fascinating insight into the nature of humanity?

We use superstitions to invoke a power that is beyond what we can observe. They tend to be based on personal, experiential knowledge which is intimately our own. We wrap ourselves in superstitions and impose a sense of magic on the world around us. And this, in the West at least, despite a strong cultural emphasis on reason and observable evidence.

William Blake said “I see every thing I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. To the eyes of a miser a guinea is more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes.” We impose our own schemes and stories on what we see. We carry our past in our pocket. Expose it to the present and catapult both into the future by imagining a significance which lifts us out of the mundane into a moment of unlimited potential.

Feathers

She said
If I see three feathers I’ll know
And
Pigeons became peacocks

She said
If I touch my nose I’m safe
And
Muck marked the spot

She said
If I don’t look he won’t see me
And
She lives in your imagination