Reading Poetry

We all start off, if we're lucky, with a dose of the oral tradition, being entranced by the dancing power of words way before we're capable of reading for ourselves. I used to love being read to, by parents and then by infant school teachers. It made me want to be able to do it for myself. I can still remember a time when I wasn't able to, when print on a page was indecipherable magic. (I must have been four going on five.) 

Some of us loved reading so much, when we discovered how it was done, that it's been central to our lives ever since. Some took it several steps further, studying literature at university, becoming teachers, or wordsmiths even, telling our truths in story or poetry.

On graduating with an English degree and a teaching qualification, I landed a job at a comprehensive school in north London. In my first year of teaching I had the pleasure of taking class 5C, good kids all but supposedly 'bottom stream'. I thought I'd gauge their abilities afresh by asking them to read in turn out loud - from a poetry compendium as it happens, 'Connexions' or some such. One girl, Yvette B, refused to do so. "She can't read, sir", I was told, and it was true, though you'd never have known that from talking to her. I was shocked. How could someone who had been born, raised and apparently schooled in London be allowed to reach age fifteen barely able to read or write? Within a couple of months we had a remedial reading unit in the school.

I was listening to Benjamin Zephaniah talking and reading poetry on Nihal Arthanayake's radio programme earlier this week. The good Doctor describes himself on his website as "poet, writer, lyricist, musician and naughty boy". His view that one needs to find one's authentic voice to be a truly compelling poet can't really be argued with.

no, that's not Benjamin Zephaniah, it's Jack Kerouac

Don't we all know if something we've heard, read, written, hits the mark or not? I think most of us do, with practise. Making it happen with any regularity as a writer is a different matter. I've been composing and posting these Saturday blogs for just over six years now. In that time I've probably written in excess of four hundred poems. Many of them have appeared on the Dead Good Blog and I've read the majority at open mic nights. I say read rather than performed because that's what I do. I don't memorise them and I have no claims to be a 'performance' poet. If just reading them was good enough for Jack Kerouac, it's good enough for me.

I mentioned two or three months ago that I was finally going to put a selection of those poems together for publication. Of the four hundred, I reckon that about one quarter hit the mark and of that long list of a hundred I've devised a short list of sixty to go into the book. It's quite exciting.

I had decided that the lead piece would be the one about Dominic Cummings in the rose garden, 'Ventriloquism For Dummies', as it's suitably contentious and contemporary. I designed what I thought was a neat parody of the 'For Dummies' series of books as a cover. I wrote a nice letter to Wiley Inc. who publish the 'For Dummies' imprint and asked their permission to use the affectionate spoof that you see here:

the 'banned' cover

After some chasing up, I eventually heard back and the Wiley word was no, they were very sorry but they couldn't give their permission (humourless bunch). So I've scrapped the concept  - just wanted to give it an airing before sending it to the recycle bin - and will come up with another cover design for what will now be called simply 'From The Imaginarium'. I'll keep you posted on progress towards publication and I hope you'll all be dying to buy a copy and re(read) some of my better poems. In light of the story of Yvette B. that I shared earlier, I've decided that 50% of the proceeds from the book will go to charity, specifically the National Literacy Trust. Everyone deserves a (second) chance to learn to read.

To finish with this week, here's an old poem that didn't even make the long list. It's pure coincidence that it's another dialogue piece. I first perfomed it (in different voices) at a Dead Good Poets open mic night several years ago, but it fits the theme, so here goes...

Whose Poem Is It Anyway?

Welcome everyone.
We're in for a splendid time tonight.

Sit tight and wait for the words to flow, baby!

Now I don't know about you

but I'm dead excited that Mike Knight

has dropped by just to listen in,

not to perform, apparently

though we might persuade him

to change his mind.

Mike Knight, everybody.

Would you care to open Mike?

No? Okay - but we're privileged, right?

That's cool. Give the man a big hand.

How I love his verse

and we could do worse

than get this evening under way

with one of his best, even if

it's not read by the legend himself.

I'll try and do it justice.

This is from Mike's latest groovy book

'The Juke Box Rocked'.

I hope you'll like it. It's called

'Elvis Presley, The Lame Years'.

No, sorry. Let me stop you there.

It's actually 'Elvis Presley, The Lamé Years'.

"Lar-may" as in gold lamé, 

showbiz glitz and all that jock.

Ah! Oh but Mike I think 'The Lame Years' 

is so much better, harder hitting if you get me,

'cos everyone knows how Elvis went soft

after he'd done his time in the army.

Look, if you're going to read the fucker

it's Lamé okay?

All righty Mike, whatever you say sir.

Perhaps I should do one of my own instead.

This is called 'Whose Poem Is It Anyway?'

 Thanks for reading! S ;-)