Travesty

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a definition of Travesty is: something that fails to represent the values and qualities that it is intended to represent, in a way that is shocking or offensive.

Well, that covers a multitude of sins. Where do you start? Voting systems, conspiracy theories, railway timetables (excluding Northern Rail as it's on another planet where train crews don't exist), manifestos, VAR, bank balances, Preston North End switching an agreed end for penalties in the Championship play-off against Birmingham City on the 17th May 2001.

All of the above, but as this is a poetry-based blog, let's stick to one thing which really does qualify as a travesty. It first came to my notice about ten years ago when I came across a CD of T. S. Eliot's The Four Quartets read by Ralph Fiennes. My delightful LP of Eliot reading his own work was scratched and worn so I purchased this update with some enthusiasm. I managed about two minutes of it when I got home.

T S Eliot reading

Then in 2012 I tuned into the BBC for a reading of The Wasteland by Jeremy Irons and Eileen Atkins. I seem to remember recoiling in a mixture of horror and laughter. I'm not sure about Atkins, but Jeremy wasn't reading but performing.

That was when I started to notice that there is a difference between poets reading poetry and actors reading poetry. Someone else has noticed this as well because I came across a phrase that sums up that difference. This person (and I can't find their name, damn it) said "Actors read vowels and poets read consonants." Another way of looking at it is that vowels are the emotion and consonants are the intellect. Consonants can only be spoken in one way and so make speech hard and crisp but vowels can be pronounced in many ways. Thus with consonants there is a concentration on the words being spoken but with vowels their open-ended nature gives rise to you listening to the pronunciation, the rise and fall of the voice, and away from the meaning of the poem.

Listen to the radio or recordings of poetry and you'll find that most of them are read by actors. They are being paid. I am a member of the Poetry Society which exists...to create a central position for poetry in the arts and continue to build new avenues to promote poets and poetry in Britain today. I know it is not a Trades Union, but I don't see any actions that would create opportunities for poets to earn a living by doing what they would do best: Read Poetry.

I'll finish on a positive note. If you want to hear a poem read well then I'd point you at Alice Oswald reading her own work Dart. It's available on CD and here is an excerpt:

Who's this moving alive over the moor?

An old man seeking and finding a difficulty.

Has he remembered his compass his spare socks
does he fully intend going in over his knees off the military track from Okehampton?

keeping his course through the swamp spaces
and pulling the distance around his shoulders

and if it rains, if it thunders suddenly
where will he shelter looking round
and all that lies to hand is his own bones?

                                                             (from Dart by Alice Oswald, 2010)

Terry Quinn

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The Naming of Dogs - NSFW

 by Ashley Lister

 This week's theme is questions. One of the questions people often ask me is, "What are you doing in my garden?" One of the other questions they often ask is, "How did you name your dogs?"

Because T S Eliot has already explained about the naming of cats, I thought I could appropriate his original verse to explain the process behind the naming of dogs.

THE NAMING OF DOGS

The naming of dogs is no difficult matter,
Whatever you call them, they’ll drive you insane;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter 
When I tell you, a dog must have three different names.

First of all, there’s the name that the family use often, 
Such as STOP IT, BE QUIET, or IT SMELLS LIKE BLOCKED DRAINS, 
Such as SHUT UP, DON’T CHEW THAT, IT STINKS SOMETHING ROTTEN—
All of them daily-use everyday names.

There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the male dogs, some for the dames: 
Such as ARSE BISCUIT, FUCK NUGGET, YOU-LITTLE-TIT-YOU-ARE—
But all of them sensible everyday names. 

But I tell you, a dog needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he eat up his own steaming sick that’s there?
Or lick his own anus, starting inside?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as DIMWIT, CLUNGE SNIFFER, or DRINK FROM THE BOG,
Such as CRAP-EATING-CANINE, or FOUL-FURRY-MORON —
Names that are often for more than one dog.

But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you probably can guess;
Most of us call him FIDO or ROVER —
But the dog just ignores that plain form of address.

When you notice a dog in profound meditation,
Just licking its balls with no sense of shame:
his mind is engaged in inept contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of his unheeded name:
His ignored and unnoticed,
Effing neglectable
Heard but unheeded, singular name.

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Thoughts for Christmas

Here is the second post from David Riley as he covers for the Tuesday Blog

Is poetry always religious?

Is religion always influenced by the politics of the day? 

Therefore, is Christmas poetry always political? 

Do you need to understand religion before you can understand most poetry, from Beowulf to the Canterbury Tales to Eliot? 

Do you need to know the nativity story to understand Coleridge, Rossetti and Wordsworth?

How much Christmas themed poetry have you seen in the shops recently? 

Are poets making Christmas commercial?

Is there extra exposure for poetry at this time of year? 

Does it help poetry?

Are Christmas carols poetry?

Are some more Catholic than Protestant (and vice versa)?

Do they all have the same message?

Is Christmas relevant any more? Is Christmas poetry important?

Is it as saccharine as Christmas card verses?

Are these big questions? 

Happy Christmas.

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The Ning Nang No?

This week's theme is loosely related to a question I've been considering lately.  I've entered a couple of poetry competitions this year.  Two of them were competitions which would result in having a collection published. 

When gathering up my scribblings I realised that my poems fall into two camps: those which I've written to entertain and those which I've written to explore the art form.  The former tend to be a hit with the majority of my audience (people who claim not to like poetry enjoy hearing or reading them) and the latter have received praise from poets whose work and opinions I respect.

In order to succeed in competitions, I always assume that the judges (respected/acclaimed poets) are looking for something which pushes the art form while recognising the tradition.  They want something smart and beautiful which has a tendency to resonate for a long time after it has been read, e.g. Olds' Stag's Leap or McCarthy's The Clothes that escaped the Great War.  These poems are mostly for the poets.  I suspect that the majority of consumers of the 'high art' poetry are poets themselves.

On the other hand, the enduring poems which win the 'nation's favourite' polls, i.e. the popular poetry, are often easier to understand, have basic metrical schemes and simple end rhymes.  They tend to express novel or virtuous philosophical ideas in simple terms, e.g. Kipling's If, Joseph's When I am Old, Eliot's Practical Cats. 

It's the popular poetry which works better for performance.  Long, wordy poems with elaborate metaphors require multiple readings whereas snappy, humorous verse is immediately pleasing.  This accounts, I think, for the success of Kate Tempest and the surge in the popularity of live poetry events. 

Poetry competitions tend to want poems for print rather than performance.  Often, competitions are run with the intention of publishing a collection or an anthology.  These books rarely sell well, which is why literary agents are allergic to poets. 

Much as I despise the term, I do think this comes down to branding.  Take Tim Key.  He made his name on programmes such as Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, when he would read short, topical poems which were loosely related to the week's news.  His poems are funny and easily understood and yet I bought a copy of his first collection on the back of his performances.  I enjoyed reading it and shared it with my partner.  We both gained pleasure from the reading.  I don't expect I'll go back to the poems to re-read them. 

There are other books of poems which I keep because I do like to read their contents repeatedly (or at least I think that I would like to re-read them but tend not to as I'm busy reading new stuff instead).  I don't see why there shouldn't also be many books of poems which are published as entertainment rather than important tomes, weighty with words of gravity and cleverness.  Just as there is a time for jazz, the blues or classical music, so there is a time for fun, bubbly pop.  And just as there is a time for important collections of poetry, so there is also a time for the Spike Milligan, the Roald Dahl, the Dorothy Parker and the Tim Key. 

As for the poetry competitions, they tend to judge on artistic integrity over entertainment value.  So I suppose I know which poems to enter.  Or perhaps I should start my own competition?

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