Sheilagh Dyson: a retrospective

The third in this series of Sunday retrospectives celebrates the poetry of Sheilagh Dyson. She was the regular Tuesday blogger in the early days of the Dead Good Blog (2012-2015) and a stalwart of our open mic nights. She was a lovely warm and sociable lady and we miss her. Though her blogs tended to feature poems on theme by other poets than herself, I've selected three of her own to share with you today. Enjoy. 

Sheilagh Dyson in full GB Olympics mode, 2012

Balanced Baking (a triolet)

Weigh the eggs, butter, sugar and flour
For a perfect Victoria sponge.
All must weigh the same, same power.
Weigh the eggs, butter, sugar and flour
Whisk and fold and blend and now you
Mix with love to a sloppy gunge.
Weigh the eggs, butter, sugar and flour
For a perfect Victoria sponge.


One Thousand (a found poem)

Something to a few,
a woman whose life was a mess
before the bitterness
do I starve this year?

Come hold me now
come see the sun
come stand with me
lay down the tracks

From a wild sky painted furious
crumpled metal objects
the brass blasts of the Salvation band
hear the horses coming closer, see the gallons of blood
twisting grey
tunnels, stale urine light and a voice
like dandelion seeds
that warns of gaps

This is the light to live in

Thinking
I could bring him to life with nothing more than hope
and the power of my own mind
religion and fecking psychics
they weren’t my first choice
not my intention

You will be left wearing pants
being trodden underfoot

Rabbit holes lead to burrows
and gardens aren’t a secret

The place we lay when no more days to give
it won’t be sad.


A Blackpool Fantasy

Winter.
Wind whistling, litter rat-tat-tat-ing,
no-one around, just me,
no-one looking, just me.
I climb into the zip-wire harness
on the roof of the Winter Gardens
and start the slow descent across St. John’s Square.
The softly glittering jewels of light through the church windows
rise up to meet me
and I glide effortlessly to greet the silent stone tiles.

You can link to all Sheilagh's Dead Good Blogs here: Sheilagh Dyson

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I wish I could have a pint with Patrick Hamilton

Patrick Hamilton

It started with Enid Blyton, my long love affair with books. I went through the card, read the lot, then moved on. Louisa May Alcott followed, then Susan Coolidge. One by one I picked off all the children's classics, rampaging through that series of red-bound books you could buy in Woolworths in the 1950s.  At the age of 11 I graduated to the occult books of Dennis Wheatley. (Goodness knows what a good Catholic girl was doing, messing about with them.) And it’s carried on ever since, down the decades. If I like a writer’s work, if I really like it, I have a compulsion to read all their books.

How do I choose what to read? At the moment my reading material is prescribed for me by the College and will be for the next two years – the only downside to an otherwise glorious experience. (A degree in English does not permit any frivolous reading for the pleasure of it!)  Ordinarily, I may hear an unfamiliar name mentioned on The Book Programme and decide to investigate; or I might read an enthusiastic review in the Guardian; maybe a friend recommends something that has appealed to them; or I can be browsing in a bookshop and choose something unknown on a whim. 

There is nothing quite as enjoyable as ‘discovering’ a writer hitherto unknown to me. An example is Patrick Hamilton, whose ‘The Slaves of Solitude’ was recommended in the Guardian a few years back. Patrick Hamilton was a successful writer in his lifetime and a fairly prolific novelist and playwright  from the 1920s until his death in 1962. His work was largely consigned to oblivion after his death, as the London, or near London, that he wrote about – its dingy boarding houses, rationing, the dirty streets, the grey monotony of working class life – gradually improved and the cheery pub life that he described so evocatively, with its ‘characters’, spivs, prostitutes all battling against life and fighting for survival was no longer recognised by the newly upwardly mobile. Several decades later, his worth and stature as a writer is at last being rehabilitated and his books are being republished.

‘London, the crouching monster, like every other monster has to breathe, and breathe it does in its own obscure, malignant way. Its vital oxygen is composed of suburban working men and women of all kinds, who every morning are sucked up through an infinitely complicated respiratory apparatus of trains and termini into the almighty congested lungs, held there for a number of hours, and then, in the evening, exhaled violently through the same channels.’ Thus begins ‘The Slaves of Solitude’ and I was hooked.

Patrick Hamilton’s novels are extraordinarily satisfying, larger than life, brimming with pathos, packed with low-key unrequited love for unsuitable, unreliable, unattainable objects of affection, teeming with indestructible stoicism and forbearance. He was also a writer decades ahead of his time in some respects. There is something in his style of writing that is fresh and contemporary; it could be written today.

When I really, really like a writer’s work, I have to know all about them, which leads me on to their biography, of course. Through the excellent Through a Glass Darkly by Nigel Jones, I learned of Hamilton’s hopeless alcoholism, his failed marriages, his socialism, his bonhomie, his generosity, his torment, his love of pubs. I’d love to have a pint with Patrick. In the words of the Saw Doctors ‘I never even met him, but I know we’d be a pair. We’d have sat in any pub in town and had a good time there.’ Cheers, Patrick.

BS Johnson

Jonathan Coe is one of my favourite contemporary writers, for his sane, matter of factness, his beautifully understated style and his social perspective. I buy all his books on publication and have never been disappointed. We went to one of his book readings in Manchester and he was asked which of his books most reflected himself. He said that he had put the most of himself and seven years of his life into Like a Fiery Elephant, his biography of BS Johnson, an ‘experimental’ novelist, poet, stage writer, broadcaster, journalist and football reporter in the 1960s and 1970s. Who? My mystified question exactly.

Coe’s biography is probably the best single book I have ever read to date. It is an object lesson in meticulous research, deep humanity, epic empathy, warmth and humour. It’s worth reading for Bryan’s replies to publishers’ rejection letters alone! He was a gregarious, affable, larger than life character, with all the insecurities of someone who writes for a living. Having lived Bryan’s life with him I could hardly bear to read the ending, veering as it did to the inevitable suicide.

Naturally, I had to investigate Johnson’s work after reading such a tour de force. Courtesy of eBay, I acquired a prized copy of The Unfortunates, his ‘novel in a box’, which is in 27 different parts, almost like pamphlets, to be read in any order preferred by the reader, apart from the first and last chapters. It covers a semi-autobiographical account of Johnson’s trip to Nottingham to cover a football match. Crowding into his mind as he walks through Nottingham are the poignant memories of his friendship with someone who has died of cancer, his illness, other relationships, football. The format of the book lends itself to this sort of rambling reminiscence and I loved it. Which led on of course to the acquisition of various other Johnson novels and poetry books, all stashed away for the glorious day when I can again read freely once ! I’d like a pint with him too – cheers, Bryan.

The walls of our house are closing in on us, as the books threaten to engulf us and there’s no place to go with more bookshelves. I can’t really answer a question as to who is my favourite writer. The answer is, it depends. Depends on when you ask, how I’m feeling, what’s on my mind at the time, my age at the time of asking. And I don’t want to answer it either, as to do so would imply that I’ve read enough, don’t need to carry on discovering new writers, am comfortable with what I’ve already read. Never!

Sheilagh Dyson

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Three Lions on a Shirt........Shivers Down my Spine

by Sheilagh Dyson

Call me a sentimental, idealistic, over-optimistic, unrealistic fool, but there’s a song that sends shivers down my spine. It did at the time and it still does now. Three Lions, the magnificent opus created by the Lightning Seeds, Baddiel and Skinner in anticipation of Euro ’96, when football was coming home to England. It fades in, rising to a crescendo – ‘It’s coming home, it’s coming home, it’s coming, …..football’s coming home.’ This time was going to be different. Thirty years of hurt never stopped me dreaming. All the bitter disappointments, the ignominy of non-qualification, the Hand of God – all would be swept away this time in a glorious climax at Wembley, when England would at last reclaim the mantle of champions, the three lions passant would again tower imperiously over the football world. Football was coming home to our country, where it all began. Nothing could stop us this time. (Germany, on penalties, in the semi-final, actually. They could.)

            It is in the nature of a football supporter to be a blinkered, romantic who has an unshakeable conviction that it will be better next time – a triumph of hope over experience, if ever there was one. This is applicable to all levels of football, but most of all to England, whose long suffering supporters face each tournament with renewed certainty that this time……Meanwhile, the over-hyped, overpaid, mercenary primadonnas who carry all our hopes and dreams once more flatter to deceive, let us down and another two years of national navel-gazing, anger and resentment beckon – but only till next time, when the hopelessly misplaced optimism ramps up again.

‘All that I know surely about morality and the obligations of man, I owe to football.’ Albert Camus said. What would he have made of today’s game, with its gangster chairmen, culture of celebrity, grotesque unaffordable wages, the diving, the cynicism and the bloated agents calling all the shots? It’s still a beautiful game though, for all that, but sadly one that is now far removed from its grass roots. For anyone interested, please try Gary Imlach’s excellent book ‘My Father and Other Working-Class Football Heroes’ which tells the story of his father’s experiences as a professional footballer in the 1950s and early 1960s, when footballers received the wages of a worker and lived in the same streets as their supporters. Compare and contrast!

I will finish with two poems. The first is a haiku I wrote in anger about Blackpool FC’s relegation from the Premier League. The second is a commentary on the game today and is by Ivan Donn Carswell.

Lament for Blackpool FC

The tangerine dream-

Smashed by a dark juggernaut

The Premier League

To win a game

by Ivan Donn Carswell

How do you win a football game? Not by skill alone or clever plays,
in modern days the game has changed and subterfuge and actors
ways will pave the path to glory. Fitness pays a fair reward to keep
a fleetness in the feet, a clearness in the head, and special food
and clever drinks recharge the cells when batteries are low or dead.
But referees are certain keys to all the famous victories.
Linguistic tricks of lunatics in soccer strip are even matched by
hieroglyphs from coaches dressed in two piece suits, with
hearts on sleeves, grieving for the chances missed, pleading
with the referee for plays he did or didn’t see, for ploys that failed
to turn his head, for verdicts made and judgements dread.
And referees are equal keys to infamy or certain fame.
Then there’s the crowd, a seething throng of attitude and energy,
baying for their chosen team, living in a plastic dream of cinematic
death or glory; dressed in kind and cheering on, drinking, singing,
chanting long and loud the songs expressing hopes and fears of masses
pressed in servitude, praying for a famous win, praying to the soccer rood.
But referees are willing keys to all the prayers and eulogies.
How do you win? Why do you care? Theatrics grimace everywhere,
a game so crafted for the stage with pathos, bathos, great despair,
actors playing parts and reading scripts with human traits, protagonists,
antagonists, depicting gallant characters with artful flair,
it’s all encompassed there, entwined in referee maturity, so grin
and bear it friend, you see, it looks so good on home TV.

© I.D. Carswell

     

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Where do I begin....when do I begin?

by Sheilagh Dyson

I am hardly the best qualified to be writing on this week’s theme of ‘preparing for a poetry event’. My glib answer is that I put on lipstick, check I have enough money for my tea at the excellently hospitable Number 5 café, find a seat in same and prepare to be entertained – by others.

To date, the triumphant tally of poetry readings to which I have contributed in a vocal way is precisely nil. This is not through any reluctance to perform in public, nor some maidenly reticence on my part to plying my wares in an open forum. On the contrary, down the years I’ve been no slouch at speaking up and speaking out, loud and long, about issues that concern me. But this is a new world to me, one in which I still have to find my feet, take a few risks and have the confidence to put myself on the line, as my colleagues in the Dead Good Poets do so impressively and, seemingly, effortlessly each time we get together.

To this end, I’ve been reading up on the myriad advice available (as ever) on the internet to those shrinking poetry violets like myself who are yet to make their reading debut. I’m particularly taken with ‘One Night Stanzas’ which advises:

1)    Say yes, put your name down, make yourself do it. Make a commitment you can’t get out of. Do it when you’re half-confident. Don’t wait until you’re fully confident, that happy moment will never arrive.

2)    Be prepared. Know exactly which poems you’re intending to read and stick to them.

3)    Put yourself on first, when nobody’s tired, bored, drunk or desperate for a cigarette.

4)    Enjoy yourself. Make eye contact with the audience. Smile!

5)     Enjoy the audience. They’re on your side. They appreciate how hard it is to write a poem, never mind get up and read it in public.

6)    Look forward. Remember that this is the last time you will feel so nervous. Next time will be a piece of cake.

Less conventional advice found included:

1)    Drink beer. (It’s a thought!) But not too much.

So, will I be taking my own advice? Soon, but not yet. Not next Friday. Maybe the time after. But I know someone who might take the plunge. I turn to my husband, Dave. Look Dave, it’s easy. Just put your name down, then you’re committed. Choose your poems, get yourself on first, you’ll enjoy it, they’ll be on your side, it will never be as hard again. Drink beer!

I will finish, not with a poem this time, but a quotation. Irish poet Eavan Boland, asked what she has learned from writing poetry, had this to say:

‘That reading and writing and sharing poetry has power in it. Poetry is often misunderstood by those who’ve never really dealt with it — people think it’s archaic and serves no purpose. This isn’t true. Poetry is what language was made for. Get struggling students to write poems and their literacy scores will sky-rocket, as will their social skills. Get a poet to write your advertising copy and see what happens (a lot of companies have begun to do this – look how many TV ads are written in verse these days.) Poetry is not old-fashioned, doesn’t have to be self-aggrandising or dull. I’ve learned that none of the rumours are true. Poetry is seriously hip, and what’s more, it’s a long way from being dead.’

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Feel the fear ....and write it anyway

by Sheilagh Dyson

‘Just write. Whatever comes into your head. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar, sentence construction. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make any sense. Just write and keep writing for three minutes. Don’t think too much about what you’re writing, just keep writing.’ Thus began my writing ‘career’ last September. I would never have started writing without the prompt of this writing exercise in my first Creative Writing class at college.

I confess that, of the three elements of the course I’m studying, only Creative Writing held any terrors for me. Language? Well, I can read, write and spell, so what could possibly be a problem? (How wrong can you be?) Literature? I’ve read loads of books, so should be all right at that! (Wrong again!)  Creative Writing? Uncharted territory - didn’t know where to begin. So the exercise above was where it began for me and it was the most liberating thing because, on that day, I found that I could write and be pleased with what I had written, even as I look back on it now.

Like many people, I’m a terrible prevaricator. There’s nothing I will do today, if I can put it off until tomorrow or next week or, preferably, three weeks on Tuesday. I’m also dogged by the internal and entirely self-inflicted pressure of being a perfectionist. I daren’t start anything until I’m convinced that it will be perfect – an attitude obviously doomed to failure. The combination of these states of mind militate and conspire against starting anything, particularly writing. Both provide excuses for not writing. So for someone like me, writing exercises are extremely beneficial, indeed essential, in giving me the kick start that I so sorely need.

Emboldened by this experience, my next foray was a trip to Queen Street library, shortly after the course began, to join a Diversions writing workshop I saw publicised in the Gazette. Believe me, I forced myself to go to that one, as I didn’t know what to expect at all. I found myself in the company of experienced writers, members of a writing circle, students studying for the MA in creative writing – people who knew what they were doing! I did consider running off, but decided to save face and have a go. The theme was Blackpool and we were given numerous old photographs, programmes, brochures from the past. We were then asked to choose one that inspired us and write a short piece. Once again, given the bare bones of an idea, I found I could write and moreover, read out what I had written to total strangers. Progress was being made.

Several months later and after numerous writing and poetry exercises in the intervening period I now find myself writing obsessively, editing, re-working, agonising – and all of this, I have learned,  is because I forced myself  to write something in the first place, to despoil that blank sheet of paper. Not with a perfect finished piece all in one go, but with something to work on (and anything is better than nothing), something to enjoy changing and playing with, as new ideas occur and better words leap out of the memory. Nothing goes to waste – all jottings, scribbles, unfinished poems, germs of ideas that haven’t yet been realised – all are kept for future development or for putting together with other, seemingly incongruous snippets, that together can grow into something worthwhile.

After shaky beginnings, I’m starting to sound like a writing zealot, a crusader for the written word, an evangelical wordsmith. I’m not, but I am someone who has been a late developer in this area and am keen to make up for lost time!

I’ll finish with a poem that emerged from a poetry exercise, facilitated by Colette Bryce for the Guardian. The suggested theme was ‘Names’ and this is Maria Taylor’s offering, which made me smile.

Felling a Maiden by Maria Taylor (Maria Dimitri Orthodoxou, as was)

And what did I bring to the altar?
A dowry sack of vowels, a grinding toothache
of consonants. In a few inky moments
I would no longer be foreign or hard to spell.

She was not from round here, she was torn
from fig and oleander, eucalyptus and sea,
though she didn't speak with a faraway voice,
or make lace with her grandmother's needle.

She refused the double-barreled shot
at a new life (the initials would be MOT);
So I was cruel and I was kind
and found an attic for her to slip away.

Becoming a Taylor of the everyday sort,
climbing up the stairwell, saying 'goodnight.'

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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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First day at the blog-face

Let me introduce myself….I’m Sheilagh Dyson, your new Tuesday blogger. I was asked last week if I would cover for Lara whilst she completes her MA work. Having forced myself to say yes (why do I put myself through these things?) I now have to do it! First of all, good luck to Lara in her studies and thanks a lot for leaving me with such big shoes to fill!

My favourite blogging moment, my only blogging moment to date, is, er…..this one, as I haven’t written a blog before. As you don’t know much about me, it occurs that I can be anybody I want to be in this new role. I could craft a whole new persona for myself, be whoever I choose to be, pass myself off as somebody different every week, to keep you on your toes as you follow my machinations. Maybe a card-carrying tory, ϋber member of the establishment, defender of capitalism and its ‘freedom’. (I endeavour to be a creative writer, but I’m not that good.) A Preston supporter? (ditto) A member of some obscure fundamentalist religious sect? (quite tempting, just to enjoy the reaction) A bigoted racist with Neanderthal views on the role of women? (probably a step too far)  A proper writer? (never get away with that).

The truth is rather less controversial. I’ve just completed the first year of a degree in English Language, Literature and Writing at Blackpool and the Fylde College. A momentous year, in which I’ve returned to study after a 45 year gap and have written poetry, prose and for performance for the first time in my adult life. I’m a socialist (with no party to go to), a football enthusiast (Come On You ‘Pool), a real ale quaffer, a devoted Gran to Amelie, Eve and Harris, a fan of live performance (music, theatre, poetry) and a lifelong lover of reading and books.

Shortly after I started college in September I came along to Dead Good Poets for the first time, seeking to broaden my knowledge, and was immediately hooked by the creativity, humour, pathos, intelligence and camaraderie of what goes on there. I must confess that the aspect of creative writing that held the most terrors for me is poetry. I soon realised that poetry has been low down on my reading priorities and have taken the very good advice that, in order to write poetry, you need to read lots of it. When I scour second-hand book shops now, as I love doing, I head for the poetry shelves first and have discovered some gems to treasure.

The writing process I find tortuous, but ultimately rewarding and satisfying. (I already have a degree – in displacement activity, an impressive-sounding euphemism for doing something, anything else to avoid doing what you’re supposed to be doing!)  And writing to a deadline, as for college assignments, tends to bring out the worst prevarication, procrastination and sheer bloody-minded head-burying from my impressive tactical repertoire.

I’m going to finish with the wise and profound words of an eleven year old boy, faced with a poetry writing assignment and resentful of the pressure on him of writing to order.

INSPIRATION

A poem comes naturally,
Not forced, not assigned, not sought for.
A poem should be inspired,
Not under pressure, surely not, for,
A poem is spontaneous, creative. How?
It is the nature of the poem to slip out.
That’s what you must allow.
So sit back and relax
For you must be patient,
And of course, do not rush.
A poem comes naturally,
Here it comes,
Hush.

© Nathanael Chawkin
September 24, 1991

And so say all of us. There – that’s my favourite blogging moment at an end. It’s downhill all the way now!

Sheilagh

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