I'm Printing

Let's call it a happy accident that this week's blog theme is imprinting. With some judicious editorial licence, I've chosen to reinterpret it as I'm printing, in recognition of my second poetry collection getting published. Of course I'm excited. I hope that's excuse enough to devote today's blog to 'Tangerine '.

Those of you who were at the book launch on a sweltering night in Preston on Wednesday will have heard me explain that tangerine is the colour of happiness. In the foreword to the collection I was a bit more expansive: "It's the colour of happiness and a symbol of good fortune. The world needs a lot of both, right now."  

'Tangerine ' has been two years in the making. It runs to 120 pages and brings together the best poems I've written in the last few years. Naturally, as many and more again didn't get a look in, because I like to think I'm quite strict on quality control.

now in print: my second poetry collection 'Tangerine '

Lots of the poems appeared in their original form on the Dead Good Blog, the majority have been road-tested at open mic nights or stanza evenings, and all of them have changed (for the better, I trust) as a result of being out in the world for a while. I hope this collection presents and preserves them as their best selves.

I'm primarily a 'page' poet, rather than a 'spoken word' performer, which is why I'm so pleased to have these 90 poems in print for people to enjoy. There's something aesthetically pleasing about a physical book. That said, I do perform my poems, obviously. They are short, mostly one page, sometimes two.

I recall going to one open mic night and asking what the form was only to be told "everybody gets to do one poem." Because I was a newcomer, I was given the honour of opening. My 30 line poem took less than a minute. I was followed by a succession of spoken word declaimers, ranters and rappers, none of whose poems clocked it at under seven minutes. All fine, just a different aesthetic. I didn't go back.

I also believe my poems are well-enough fashioned as to repay being read and re-read, to tease out meanings and moods, and are not just words to be heard once (perhaps imperfectly) and then they're gone. 

If I have a 'style', it's what I term contemporary lyricism, meaning the poems have a flowing rhythm built on lots of assonance and internal rhymes, but not so many end rhymes. I've only ever written one poem in rhyming couplets - though it's in this book (and it's about Ken Dodd's Dad's Dog).

There are poems of love enjoyed, lost, regretted, social satire, ecological concern, political commentary, humour, pathos, wild imaginative leaps (plenty of them), madness, murder, music and much more. And yes, there is a poem about tangerines, which has given the collection it title.

cover art and design by myself

'Tangerine ' is published by the imprint  of Three Piers Publishing. It only comes in physical book form (because I don't much like e-books) and is not available on Amazon, because Jeff Bezos is quite wealthy enough. 

So until I can get it into bookshops (if ever I manage that), it's only available from me, priced £10 - plus packaging and postage of £2.99 within the UK, if you're not local to Blackpool. And what's £10 these days? It's a pint-and-a-half of beer.

Of course, I hope you'd like to purchase a copy (autographed at no extra cost). I accept payment by online bank transfer or PayPal. Email me at: steveg.rowland@btinternet.com and we'll work something out. One day I might even be able to afford a rug for the floor of my garret. 😉

And if you run a poetry night (in person or online) I'd be happy to get a promotional spot if possible.

There's no fresh poem from me this week, as I don't want to detract from the new publication.

Thanks as ever for reading, and thanks for your continued support S ;-)

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Fruit Tree

It has to be Tangerine. Apples are awesome, bananas are brilliant, cherries are cute (fabulous blossom too), damsons are delicious, entawaks are exotic (look them up), figs are flavoursome, greengages are groovy... I could go on through the alphabet... but tangerines are the tops.

Let's get the etymology out of the way first. It ought to come as no surprise that tangerine was originally an adjective meaning 'of Tangier', the Moroccan seaport from which the fruit was first shipped, given that it grows in that region of the north African country. It was in fact once known scientifically as 'Citrus nobilis var. tangeriana', though its modern binomial is simply Citrus tangerina. The OED cites the first usage of tangerine from an edition of The Tatler in 1710. Morocco to this day is still the fourth largest producer of tangerines behind China (the world's biggest grower, though their variety is more commonly known as mandarin), Spain and Türkiye.

Tangerines

As for the fruit itself, tangerines are smaller and less spherical than oranges. A ripe tangerine has a slightly pitted, soft thin skin, is usually easy to peel, and the flesh inside tastes stronger and sweeter than an orange. Tangerines are great thirst-quenchers, being 85% water, 13% carbohydrate (fructose and glucose) and 2% fibre and protein. They are rich in vitamins A and C. One small tangerine provides about a third of the recommended daily vitamin C intake. Eat three a day and you'll never be a scurvy knave. They are also virtually fat-free. 

Tangerines are easier to grow than many other citrus fruits. They can even be grown in containers indoors. They require these key components:

- a mineral rich soil that does not decompose, and contains live microbials

- organic fertiliser without synthetic salts

- regular watering to keep soil moist but never waterlogged

- a minimum 6 to 8 hours of sunshine during the growing period (May to September in our hemisphere)

- a temperature than never drops below freezing

Tangerine trees take four years to reach maturity and start fruiting. They can eventually grow up to 15 feet tall, but can be kept more compact (6 to 8 feet) in a container or if pruned regularly. A healthy tangerine tree can produce up to 100 lbs or 45 kilos of fruit each season and will continue to fruit for up to fifty years if well maintained.

well maintained tangerine trees

Who recalls as a child finding a tangerine at the bottom of one's Christmas stocking? Apparently it's a tradition that goes right back to the 13th-century when French nuns would leave stockings full of fruit, nuts and tangerines at the houses of the poor at Christmas. It's certainly the case that the giving of tangerines as gifts to family and friends at the tail end of the year is an honoured tradition in China and Japan, the fruit and the colour being symbols of good luck and happiness.

 

The colour tangerine (as separate from orange) didn't appear in print until 1899. As an historical back note, even the word orange was a latecomer to the official spectrum of recognised colours. Until the arrival of oranges in 13th century Europe (brought to Spain from Persia by Arabs), and the naming of the colour after the fruit (nārang in Persian which became naranja in Spanish, with "have a naranja" eventually morphing into "have an orange" in English), objects of a shade between red and yellow were always described by the compound word reddish-yellow or yellowish-red (geoluhread in Old English).

Nowadays, tangerine, also known as 'vibrant orange', has a hex designation #f28500 in computer graphics and a Pantone number 15-1247 in the painting and printing trades. And we in the jewel of the north are very proud that our local football team plays in tangerine (not orange) and white, a tradition which actually began in 1923, before which time Blackpool played in a variety of fairly ordinary red or blue kits. It is not unusual to hear or read us being referred to as the Tangerines, as well as the Seasiders.

And so to my latest poem, which also lends its name to the title of my upcoming second collection due some time in the spring. More on that later. For now, I give you...

Tangerine

Sitting in the shade of this tangerine tree

a quiet hour devouring you page by page
my false bride, your Christmas stockings
eyes of night dimpled smile lips as bright

as morning sunlight striking citrus.  Folies

fade in memory. Your hex code printed on

emotions soft and slow to ripen till waxen

peel yields up its mist of essential oil, zest

as promise of cool flesh in segments fresh

and full which pressed to bursting squirt a
sweetness on my tongue. The tang itself of
life, of love, reveals in complex favours by

degrees, a liquid fire to quench such lusting
as is chaptered within. End of my questing,
just rind and spit pips attesting you’ve won
an unintentioned heart. Love you tangerine.

I couldn't write on the subject of fruit trees without leaving a small musical bonus in the form of Nick Drake's beautiful song: Fruit Tree from the LP 'Five Leaves Left'. It might have been inspired by his visit to Morocco in 1967.Just click on the song title to activate the YouTube link. Enjoy.

 

Thanks for reading. Up the mighty Pool. S ;-)

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Colour

 

How dull life looked in monochrome. My old photographs are all black and white, including my christening. I expect my family heirloom gown was white, but I’ve no idea what colours my relatives were dressed in and there’s no one left who would remember. I can understand why my grandchildren might believe there was once a world without colour. My dad, a keen photographer, though he often forgot his camera, preferred colour slides and I have his collection from the late 1950s until he passed away in the mid 1980s. I love the early ones. Memories of my childhood in a vibrant, colourful Lancaster. Through these, I will always know that my favourite dress, on holiday in Jersey c1961, was pale turquoise.

Television was black and white. Ours was rented, probably from Rediffusion, or similar. I think most people rented their television in those days. The first time I saw colour television was at the home of family friends around Christmas in 1969. I thought it was rubbish until told it wasn’t working properly and was being returned. We were watching a chat show, long before Michael Parkinson, but that sort of thing. Wide, horizontal stripes of separate primary colours slowly climbed the screen over and over again. I thought that was it, Colour TV, what a swizz. We got one the following year, rented, I expect. Lots of programmes were still broadcast in monochrome and those that weren’t were advertised ‘In Colour’, it was such a major thing. I remember being impressed seeing my favourite cartoon, The Flintstones, in colour for the first time. It was amazing and I was at least fifteen years old.

I don’t think I have an absolute favourite colour. It depends on the mood I’m in and if I’m choosing clothes or home décor. Our new bathroom, well, two years old but still new, is beautiful, high-gloss white with tangerine towels and mats. Perfect.

Colours are important. School uniforms, sports teams, businesses and retail outlets are all instantly recognisable by their colours and logos. When I went to high school, I wanted to wear the distinctive Air Force Blue uniform of Collegiate Girls Grammar, but I’d failed my 11+ so that was that. Navy blue for a disappointed me.

I found this amusing, colourful poem with no known author,

Five little crayons coloured a scene.
Yellow, blue, orange, red and green.
“Look,” said Yellow, “My sun is bright!”
Blue said, “Great! My river’s just right”
Orange said, “Flowers! I’ll draw something new”
Red said, “Great, I’ll add some too!”
“Sigh,” said Green, “I’m tired of trees,
And grass and bushes and tiny leaves.
I think I’ll draw a big green cloud!”
“A big green cloud should be allowed!”
The crayons all smiled and didn’t think twice.
A big green cloud sounded rather nice!

                                                                      Anonymous

 Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Moon In June Too

What a happy few days in the jewel of the north, at least for those of a tangerine persuasion! Passion combined with principle wins out in the end.

I refer, of course, to the announcement from the Receiver on Thursday that Simon Sadler (a Blackpool-born multi-millionaire and confirmed Seasider) has acquired a 96.2% stake in Blackpool FC (the other 3.8% being held, historically, by a raft of over a hundred small investors). When a wealthy lifelong Blackpool fan buys your club and says it's a privilege to become not just its owner but its custodian, then all the signs are that we can look forward to better days at Bloomfield Road.

With the arrival of Mr Sadler, the spectre of any Oyston involvement is banished for good after 30 years of hurt - and now the rebuilding process can move on apace. I am confident that our new owner will prove to be that ethical custodian of the club we have been hoping for. All I would add is that it would be fitting if Valeri Belokon could be offered some titular position - honorary Club President for instance - in recognition of his original investment and drive to promote the club and his principled action in pursuing the Oystons through the courts to achieve by civil means what the football authorities should have accomplished years ago if their duty to ensure proper governance in English football had been discharged effectively.

There was another (less momentous) announcement from the club on the same day, revealing that I, your Saturday blogger, have been appointed as the first dedicated Supporters' Liaison Officer at Blackpool FC. As unpaid dream jobs go, I couldn't have asked for better than this daunting but incredibly exciting position at the football club I love. It's a good thing I'm retired! This isn't the place to go into details (I don't want to bore the pants off my readers) but I think the SLO plays a vital role (regardless of who does it) in any well-run football club and I will give it my very best endeavours. Wish me luck.

Tangerine Moon - 13th June

I wasn't quite sure how I would approach the week's  Moon In June  theme, but I suppose the intent was to get our band of Dead Good Bloggers reflecting on the role of rhyme in poetry. You will have gathered from reading the poems I've posted here over the years, or have maybe heard me read aloud (if you frequent poetry gigs), that I'm not a big fan of regular metre or very prescribed poetic structures. There are exceptions. I quite like the sonnet form in particular and the villanelle (and have written quite a few in each mode). There is an element of technical challenge involved that, for me, elevates them above the rhyming couplet and even terza rima.

I hope that doesn't sound dismissive of regular verse, the iambic pentameter et al; it is just personal preference. There are patently many excellent poets and poems employing regular metre, poetry which touches the reader by force of the language used and the emotions or ideas expressed.

Conversely, I don't necessarily embrace everything set out in free-form. I have been giving it a bit of serious thought with the current theme in mind... how for instance would I classify a typical poem of my own (excluding those ballads, odes, pantoums, sonnets et cetera)? If I had to pick a label, I would probably go for contemporary lyricism, by which I mean a flowing structure which doesn't have a fixed rhyme scheme or meter but is free verse albeit with a rhythmic flow, employing a combination of mutating meter (line length and stress) and occasional rhymes (internal and end) plus a lot of assonance to achieve an organic effect. (Heck, time out in Pseuds' Corner beckons!)

As a bit of light relief, I've fettled up a deliberately humorous poem today, poking gentle fun at all the rhyming Simons and Ursulas of verse. I love you really.  As a concept, it reflects the age-old timbre of street campaigns, seen recently in everything from Brexit through Global Warming to the dreaded Trumpkin; in content it delivers in full on today's topic.  Let's call it a timely protest by the Rhymesters' Union ;-) I hope you like it...

Ursula of Verse :-)

Rhymesters' Union Rant!

Protesting rhymesters
Raise the chant:

What do we want?
The moon in June!

Rhyming protestors
Rant in cant:

And when do we want it?
Any time soon!

What do we want? The moon in June!
And when do we want it? Any time soon!

The moon in June, the moon in June.
Any time soon, yes any time soon.

The timing, protesters,
Could not have been cuter,
But as for the rhyming -
The less said the better!

Thanks for reading, y'all. S ;-)

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Roses - Memories

An afternoon in August. I wanted to sit outside in the shaded side of the garden with something good on my Kindle, a nice cup of tea and complain half-heartedly about the heat wave sapping my energy. Alas, it’s not that sort of an afternoon. Today feels more like October. I stood in the kitchen admiring the flowers on the window sill then looking outside, watching the rain bouncing in the puddles and weighing down the foliage in the overgrown garden. Drenched buddleia heads bending to the ground, the bees and butterflies I was watching earlier have flown for cover. Peeping out from behind a sapling which is a gift from nature, as we didn’t plant it, I can see one orange rose bud on the bush which is usually abundant at this time of year. Well, it would be if it wasn’t light-starved by a massive, dark berberis that has taken over the entire border and is so fierce with long, stabby prickles that we can’t trim it. It’s time to rethink the garden and make it child-friendly and easy maintenance.  And allow more sunlight to the rose bush, which isn’t orange but tangerine when the flowers open.

The rose bush was a gift from a close friend and former colleague when I changed jobs and she’d chosen it for the colour as we both follow Blackpool Football Club. When the conditions are good, it thrives perfectly with many beautiful flowers and has done for the best part of ten years, until this berberis went berserk and overshadowed it. The berberis has to go.

When I was a child, I remember my mother had a pressed rose in the pages of a fat encyclopaedia.  It was too heavy for me so she would hold it and turn the pages and let me look at the rose. It had been red, but now it was brown and dark pink, squashed flat with the papery petal edges breaking away. The thorns had dropped off the stalk, which was more brown than green and the two leaves had stuck together. My father had given it to her, long before they were married and I kept it for many years after she passed away.

Red roses are so romantic. Before we were married, my husband took me out to dinner and had arranged for a bouquet of red roses to be placed on the table for me. Twelve perfect dark red roses, so beautiful. I felt like a princess. I saved one and pressed it in one of my historical art books. I might still have it, if it hasn’t turned to dust after all these years. And if it has gone, I have the wonderful memory as I do for my mother’s rose.

 

 

When the rose is faded,
Memory may still dwell on
Her beauty shadowed,
And the sweet smell gone.

That vanishing loveliness,
That burdening breath,
No bond of life hath then,
Nor grief of death.

'Tis the immortal thought
Whose passion still
Makes the changing
The unchangeable.

Oh, thus thy beauty,
Loveliest on earth to me,
Dark with no sorrow, shines
And burns, with thee.

              Walter de la Mare

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

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Clouds Over Mill Farm

Admiring the view of the countryside from the top row of the stand, I looked at the grey sky. Clouds were gathered in all directions, some dark, possibly bringing a shower. The weather forecast had given a mixed morning with a brighter afternoon.  It was edging into mid-afternoon now and I hoped for the brighter bit to arrive, or at least stay dry. I folded my raincoat over my seat, hoping I wouldn’t need it and relaxed into the welcome atmosphere of togetherness that I was experiencing.  I sipped steaming tea from a disposable cup, enjoying the full, strong flavour and glanced around, taking in my unfamiliar surroundings. Mill Farm, home of AFC Fylde, it was a pleasure to be at this football ground.  Everyone, like me, was wearing Blackpool FC team colours. They arrived in groups, in pairs or alone, waving and calling to others they knew. I watched the stands turn into a mass of tangerine and white as people took their places. Greetings, handshakes, embraces, everyone happy, like me. Excited, like me. This was no ordinary football match. No league table, no pressure, no looming metaphorical dark cloud. It was going to be fun, it was special, to give thanks to a legend of the modern game, this was the Brett Ormerod Testimonial.

Clouds were slowly drifting. The grey one overhead looked threatening and I silently begged it not to rain. Not today, please, not today.

The teams ran onto the pitch to a standing ovation and formed a guard of honour for Brett. There was an individual cheer for each player and I was caught up in the emotion as Brett came on to rapturous applause and chants of Super-Brett.

During the match, the clouds dispersed until a few wispy white ones floated high in the blue sky of a warm and sunny afternoon.

Goals, penalties, unlimited substitutions with lots of singing and laughter from a cheerful crowd supporting both teams, Tangerine All-Stars v Dave Challinor’s AFC Fylde Select.  The result was 5-5, perfectly fitting for the occasion.

This day had been a long time coming but was well worth waiting for. At the end, as Brett first applauded then addressed the crowd from a pitch bathed in sunshine, there was nowhere I’d rather be.

Clouds Over Mill Farm

Clouds have gathered over Mill Farm,

Oh please don’t rain until tonight.

Please keep the weather warm and calm

While we’re all tangerine and white.

We’d like this special match for Brett

On a day that’s sunny and bright

And love and joy we aim to get

When we’re all tangerine and white.

PMW 2016

And because I mentioned Brett,

Sea Sea Seasiders 2010

Everything tangerine and white

Fans all meet in great assembly,

Blackpool FC in the top flight,

They’ve beaten Cardiff at Wembley.

Open top bus in ’53,

Everything tangerine and white,

The FA Cup for all to see,

Bill Perry’s goal, the town’s delight.

Open top bus like ’53,

Everything tangerine and white,

The play-off cup for all to see,

Ormerod’s goal, the town’s delight.

Ollie’s team have got the power,

Premier League, a dizzy height.

Blackpool flag atop the tower,

Everything tangerine and white.

PMW 2010

Thanks for reading, Pam.

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Tangerine - Follow Your Dream

I was born and grew up in West Africa, 3,000 miles  - two continents, one desert and an ocean - away from my nearest English League team. That would probably have been Portsmouth, which was where my Mum came from. Her family were big Pompey supporters. Her Dad had been sacked for taking the Saturday off work to go and watch Pompey in the 1939 Cup-Final. He and his mates had asked for the day off and were refused. His mates threw a 'sicky', lied to their boss, went to Wembley and kept their jobs. My granddad refused to lie about going up for the Final and lost his. Pompey wasn't going to be my team, however.

My Dad came from a small town in Derbyshire, was a rugby enthusiast, played it through school and university and never had very much time for football. Regardless, rugby wasn't going to be my game. (More on that later.)

I was born in 1953, just a few months before Blackpool won the FA Cup. From the moment I was old enough to take an interest in football and understand anything about it - probably aged 5 - I was a hooked. It was a Boys' Own thing, the romance of those 1953 cup exploits by Harry Johnston, Stanley Matthews, Stan Mortensen, Jackie Mudie, Ernie Taylor and the men in tangerine. Blackpool's famous football team was the one for me. I was going to play for them one day! (Of course, as it turned out I was never talented enough to make it as a professional footballer.)

Back in England from West Africa, we lived in Peterborough for several years and then Cambridge for several more, both of them a long way from Blackpool! The first league game I ever went to was Peterborough v Swindon at London Road. My best mate's Dad took us. (I told you my father had no time for football.) The Posh won 3-2 and it was magical to go home and listen to the result on the radio - some compensation for hearing that Blackpool had lost 4-0 at home to Villa that same afternoon.

Later, in Cambridge I went to a rugby-playing secondary school, no football allowed except in our break-time. That didn't stop my schoolmates and I from forming a football team and playing in the local Sunday League - though the Headmaster would never recognise our existence and refused to read our results out with all the rugby results at Monday assembly. I lived quite near to the ground of Cambridge City, so we used to go and watch the Lillywhites even though they were a non-league team, in preference to Cambridge United who got admitted to the football league. It was all about community. When I wasn't playing or watching football I was playing Subbuteo - Blackpool, naturally - and following the fluctuating fortunes of my tangerine dream team from afar.

The first opportunity to watch the mighty 'pool live came in 1970 at Oxford, last game of the season. We lost 2-0! I'd been hoping for more of the rampaging stuff that (so I read in the paper) saw the team secure promotion to Division One the previous Monday when they'd trounced PNE 3-0 at Deepdale no less; (Fred Pickering's famous hat-trick night). But at least I did see Pickering, Suddick and Hutchinson in action, plus Jimmy Armfield in his penultimate season for the club.

For three years I was at Warwick University and living in Coventry, by which time Tommy Hutchinson had been sold to Coventry City. So I used to watch Tommy and the Sky Blues at their old Highfield Road ground playing Division One football while Blackpool under Stokoe and Potts struggled in vain to get back up out of Division Two. (It was to take nearly forty years.)

After university I lived and worked in London and saw Blackpool when I could, mostly at Brentford, Fulham, Millwall (scary place) and Orient, though there were at least a couple of visits to Stamford Bridge in there somewhere. Came the '80s and marriage and children and the dream team faded to the background somewhat as my adopted second club, Coventry City, enjoyed some heady times.

But fortunes fall and rise and this side of the millennium my beloved Blackpool has been on the up again, so with time and disposable income on my side I started watching them regularly. They took me to Wembley three times and up and down the M1/M6/M55 'exile run' every other Saturday (and some Tuesday nights) for years after I'd become a season-ticket holder at Bloomfield Road. Driving into Blackpool used to feel like  coming home - although I'd never lived here - and watching the Seasiders play in the top flight of English football again was something of a dream come true.

I worked for over thirty years for Kodak but the photographic industry has shrunk to almost nothing with the rise of digital technology so when I turned 60 I took a voluntary redundancy package and early retirement. That allowed me to buy a little house in Blackpool just a stone's throw from the football stadium. It was going to be a week-end base to ease the pressure of that 450-mile round-trip but after a period of domestic turpitude it became my permanent home.

Blackpool FC's problems of the last few seasons have been well-chronicled elsewhere. Suffice to say that five years ago we were riding high in the Premier League and now we're in the relegation zone of the third division. The owners of the club have not proved ideal custodians of the social enterprise that is Blackpool FC and a legacy has been squandered. Blackpool supporters are living the nightmare at the moment. I was going to spend my retirement years living by the sea, writing novels and enjoying watching my team play. There hasn't been much to enjoy recently. So I joined Blackpool Supporters' Trust  upon its formation last summer, prompted by an ever-growing dissatisfaction with the way the club, our club, was being run. For the last year I've been putting my energies into the Trust, first as press officer and then as chairman, trying to help turn the nightmare back into a tangerine dream again. It's going to be a long haul, but the supporters are the heart and soul of Blackpool Football Club and we will reclaim it for this and future generations of fans.

I've not yet written my definitive football poem (though I did write one about Stanley Matthews for an Imperial Hotel poetry project last year), so I'll sign off my 50th Saturday Blog with Tangerine, featuring Led Zeppelin in one of their more reflective moments. You can also listen to it via the YouTube link below.

Tangerine
Measuring a summer's day,
I only find it slips away to grey.
The hours they bring me pain.
Tangerine, Tangerine,
Living reflection from a dream.
I was her love,
She was my queen,
And now a thousand years between.

Thinking how it used to be,
Does she still remember times like these,
To think of us again?
And I do.
Tangerine, Tangerine,
Living reflection from a dream.
I was her love,
She was my queen,
And now a thousand years between.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XdDq_E34Cc

Thanks very much for reading #50. Have a good week, S ;-)

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