Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority

Words of wisdom come at you from the strangest of places.  Back in the days of yore when I was training to be a nurse (no I didn't complete it and I don't want to look at your rash) we were told that the source most people trusted for health advice was their friends and family.  If you have the aforementioned rash do you go straight to the GP or do you get someone else to look at it first?  Now admittedly these days Google has taken over as the 'go to' place for immediate advice but there's nothing quite like whipping it out for a friend and waiting for them to politely ask you to show them again when you get out of the supermarket.

As the naked emporer discovered, wisdom does not require age, experience or knowledge.  The title of today's blog suggests that wisdom requires time but this is not necessarily the case.  A child is just as likely to make a meaningful observation as an elder.  Perhaps more so as they lack the myriad of, sometimes meaningless, associations which can cloud an adult's perception.

On National Poetry Day, I joined Jamie Field at the Southbank Centre for readings by, among others, Roger McGough and Grace Nichols.  The majority of the audience consisted of teenagers in school uniforms who had come to cheer on their classmates.  Ira Lightman, along with several other brilliant poets, had spent time in schools working with these teens on poetry for the Peace Camp Project and some of them were brave enough to stand up in front of an audience of about 350 people and read their work.  They did so confidently and seriously.  The performances were punctuated by loud cheers from their colleagues.

Some of the poetry they wrote with Ira can be read here.  I am particularly fond of this one:

PEOPLE

I like you but
only when I feel like it,
love you
only sometimes.

The students went on to produce sculptural lockets for the poetry with artist Bethan Maddocks and theatre designer Verity Quinn. If you were looking for a wise way of spreading your words, this has to be worth a try.

You can find more poetry by high school students on the Poetry Zone website.  If you have a young poet in your life (or you fancy yourself as a young poet), send them across to the Young Poets' Network. It has writing challenges, poetry maps, games and a strong community of budding poets.

My meta-wisdom: if you want to be wise, stop thinking.  Throw away the years, make yourself small, forget what you think you know.  Listen.  Turn off the television, go for a walk.  Stand in a bus stop at 8.15 or 3.30pm.  Listen.  Sit on a bench in a skate park.  Listen. 

Teens are sharing wisdom all the time (or so my phone bill tells me) but we seldom give them a platform.  Perhaps that's why they shout.

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As I keep saying to Roger McGough.........

It’s 1969. Boswell Street, Liverpool 8. I live there in a house share with six other girls. What a place to be and at what a time. A cultural revolution is happening and I’m in the thick of it. The music, the literature, the art – all that makes life worthwhile is changing and growing and shouting from the top of the Liver Building and I’m in amongst it.

Naturally, I have a copy of The Mersey Sound, the landmark anthology of the poems of Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten in the Penguin Modern Poets series, hasn’t everybody at that time? These are the blokes you see strolling around the Liverpool streets and holding court in the pubs nearby. This is the book that made poetry accessible, relevant, democratic and bloody good fun for everybody, in amongst the profundities and serious messages it contained. This was in the days when a paperback cost three shillings and sixpence, so to buy three or four books a week was possible.

I’m not in the habit of defacing books nowadays, but was obviously less scrupulous then, as my copy contains numerous girlish jottings and underlinings on the text and, amongst other things, something of a shopping list or account of expenditure that reads, rather poignantly I think now:

 ‘ring               25 shillings

            sandals          £1

            cigs                 1/9

            book               3/6

           stockings       2/11

            busfare          9d

            total                 £2. 13s 11d’

Well, we knew how to live in those days. It must have been some ring at that price!

We had a party at the house one night (we had lots of parties, lots of nights!); open house for all-comers and one guest who came strolling through the house was Roger McGough. I dashed upstairs to get my copy of The Mersey Sound for him to sign, which he duly did, thus            

‘4 Sheilagh

♣

Roger McGough

July 69’

The book has stayed with me ever since, through thick and thin. I’ve dipped into it periodically, to enjoy the poetry, wallow in nostalgia, cheer myself up, as the mood takes me. It’s been in a plastic cover for years now, it is yellowing, disintegrating and absolutely precious to me.

The years went by, then three years ago I heard that there was to be an exhibition at the Victoria Gallery in Liverpool to mark the fortieth anniversary of the publication of The Mersey Sound. Naturally, I made the pilgrimage to the exhibition and was amazed by the collection that had been gathered together. The manuscript notes and jottings that grew into the poems, art produced by the writers at the time, flyers and posters for poetry readings and ’happenings’ that they were involved in, all manner of ephemera of that heady and magical era. And I still had my book, personalised for me by Roger McGough. It by now needed the last rites, but I took it along, just in case….. Unfortunately neither of the two surviving writers was there that day.

Fast forward to 2012…….Dave said he would like to see ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – the Radio Show’ at the Grand. Inwardly grimacing, I enthusiastically agreed – after all, I’ve dragged him along to no end of performances he didn’t particularly fancy, so a quid pro quo was the least I could do. I bought the tickets and forgot about it. Then a couple of weeks before the show I saw in the Gazette that the Narrator would be…….one Roger McGough. Now I really wanted to go!

My copy of The Mersey Sound by now needed embalming fluid, but out it came with me to the Grand Theatre. I’m not a ‘Hitchhiker’s’ fan (sorry, sorry, sorry if that offends anyone) but I enjoyed the performance well enough, especially the laconic tones of the Narrator! From the bar afterwards, I saw that a long queue of autograph hunters was forming outside the theatre. I wondered how to play this and, as I wondered, into the bar from the inside of the theatre strolled….Roger McGough (and others). Casting aside my inhibitions and horror of behaving like a starstruck teenager, I whipped out my book and burbled to the great man ‘You kindly signed this for me in 1969. I wonder if you could possibly…..’ He seemed pleased and laughed, was affable, charming and good humoured and signed it:

‘For Sheilagh

(again)

Roger McGough

June 2012’

Bet I’ve got the only copy in the world signed in 1969 and 2012!

I’ll finish with a poem from the anthology. It’s by the late, great Adrian Henri and is possibly the first poem ever to include fish and chips and Top of the Pops. It's a sweet poem of young love........aah, 1969!

Sheilagh

Love Is...

Love is feeling cold in the back of vans

Love is a fanclub with only two fans

Love is walking holding paintstained hands

Love is

Love is fish and chips on winter nights

Love is blankets full of strange delights

Love is when you don't put out the light

Love is

Love is the presents in Christmas shops

Love is when you're feeling Top of the Pops

Love is what happens when the music stops

Love is

Love is white panties lying all forlorn

Love is pink nightdresses still slightly warm

Love is when you have to leave at dawn

Love is

Love is you and love is me

Love is prison and love is free

Love's what's there when you are away from me

Love is...

Adrian Henri

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A Slice of Poetry Pie

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

  

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