Category Archives: Rambling About Poetry

Mar 9 2013

Choose Life. Choose A Job. Choose A Career……….But Forget Trainspotting! Choose Spotting Poems On Underground Instead!

Having survived Trainspotting, Ewan McGregor quickly regretted his decision to take the job as Scotland's new football manager

Having survived Trainspotting, Ewan McGregor soon regretted his decision to take the job as Scotland’s new football manager

………..First up I admit the title of my post is little more than a shameless attempt to cash in on Irvine Welsh’s “Trainspotting” to improve my stats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m assuming it’s OK to ‘cash in‘ on Irvine so to speak – after all he’s built a bloody writing career by cashing in on being a Scotsman! Sauce for the goose and all that!

Second up an honest assessment of London Underground – for all the stick it gets I think the Tube is pretty good (though I would prefer none of the credit for that to go to that muppet Mayor Boris!). It’s not “pretty good” in the sense that I wake up and immediately think “Oh good, The Central Line again today!”. But it’s “pretty good” in the sense that it runs on time (mostly) and it gets me from A to B (give or take the odd detour via C or D to avoid broken down trains or passengers being ill on the trains ahead!). One of the very best bits of commuting on the underground is that words are everywhere – some of the ads on the trains and the  stations are blooming clever, there’s an abundance of books, newspapers and Kindles, and if you’re experienced in using your elbows effectively you can, like me, always create just enough space to get a book open in front of you (I see the crowded tubes trains I get on at Oxford Circus as a challenge rather than an impediment to a good book!). However one of the best  things about commuting in London is poem spotting on trains!!!

(At this stage I would guess anybody reading this post, who actually came looking for something about “Trainspotting” or Irvine Welsh, or Begbie,  is beginning to think ‘What the………………………………………………………………………………………….’.If that IS you – you’re right – there’s nothing for you here – so as Begbie would no doubt utter, and probably to your delight, “Fuck Off Then!”

Oooooooooooooooooh  – swearing in writing just let me feel all “Irvine Welsh” for a second there, it really did!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, back to poem spotting on trains.

There have been “Poems on the Underground” since 1968. They must be one of the longest running public art projects in the UK as a

One Poem - Useful! One Handy Wee Tube Line Map! Very Useful! One Air Vent - Bloody Useless!

One Poem – Useful! One Handy Wee Tube Line Map! Very Useful! One Air Vent – Bloody Useless!

result – and their popularity shows no sign of abating. The poems are chosen jointly between London Underground and The Poetry Society. They are then displayed on trains or in Underground stations. There’s generally a theme for the poems chosen – the set for the start of 2013 are all about London as seen through the eyes of Londoners or through the eyes of visitors to London. The six poems in the most recent collection are: a description of London by Wordsworth; an extract from WB Yeats poem Vacillation, written when he was in London during the war, a poem about the stations of the Northern Line by Connie Bensley; a poem by Jo Shapcott about the beautiful and iconic new architectural landmark in London, the Shard ( I was admiring it the week before last on a sunny but very cold morning while standing freezing my you-know-whats-off waiting for a train at Blackfriars station – which in itself has GOT to be the most spectacular view from a railway station platform in the world!); a poem by a young Ghanaian poet Nii Parkes about an early immigrant experience of coming to London; and a poem by Lorna Goodison about the dreams of a Jamaican teacher working in London as a char-woman.

Been There! Seen It! Done This Poem! Bought The T-Shirt! (Well that's a lie - not bought the t-shirt yet!)

Been There! Seen It! Done It! Bought The T-Shirt! (Well that’s a lie – not bought the t-shirt yet!)

So far on my travels, I saw the WB Yeats excerpt first on a Central Line train and then not long after saw the Wordsworth poem, which is accompanied by illustrations by David Gentleman, on a Hammersmith and City line train. So only two out of the 6 so far! If anybody from London Underground reads this – any hints about which trains or stations the others are on? And one more thing if you’re reading this and you are from London Underground – when you are sitting on the Central Line trains, the hand rail actually blocks the first two lines of the poem from view! The HandC line is fine!

So if you are either a fellow-commuter, or coming on a visit to London, look out for the poems on the Underground – if you like words, reading, poetry, they’ll just add that little bit to your day!

And since I’ve seen the WB Yeats, and since Yeats is my personal favourite poet, here to finish is a little reading from his aforementioned poem “Vacillation”

Feb 23 2013

The Ex-Bride (and Groom) Stripped Bare…………..What I Thought of ‘Stag’s Leap’ by Sharon Olds

Bryan Ferry getting out sharpish, leaving the snake to take the rap!

Bryan Ferry looking shifty, gets out sharpish, leaving the snake to take the rap!

……….In 1978 I bought Bryan Ferry’s album “The Bride Stripped Bare” . At the time there was much talk of its references to his ex-girlfriend Jerry hall, who’d left him for Mick Jagger the year before. Here would be a great songwriter laying out his heart for me – and others, to see, and to admire. It’ll be heartbreaking I thought! It’ll be furious I imagined! It’ll be raw I surmised! Actually it was a bit of a damp squib to say the least. The lyrics were pretty banal and some of the songs were not that great either! And with several of the songs having been written by others, it was hardly the ‘stripping bare’ of Bryan and Jerry that the album title, and all the publicity at the time, implied!!!!

Fast forward almost 35 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In 2012 I read a list of ‘Guardian Books Of The Year’. It included a recommendation for the American poet Sharon Olds’ latest anthology ‘Stag’s Leap’  – it mentioned, almost in passing, that she had laid bare thestags leap break up of her marriage.  I noted it as a ‘possible to buy’ on my iPhone. I bought it and read it, several times in January and February this year. That title, ‘Stag’s Leap’ did the opposite of Ferry’s – it gave no hint of what was inside and set up no false expectations – but inside this is the the break-up of Sharon Olds marriage stripped bare, and it’s a stunning, compelling anthology.

The end of a marriage is I guess an all too ordinary occurrence in many respects – but there’s nothing ordinary for those at the centre of events and this is an extraordinary telling of that all too ordinary occurrence. Olds’ husband left her for a colleague at work after years together, and the book takes you on a journey with her through her discovery, feelings, memories and reactions. They were written at the time of her marriage break up across the first 18 months or so – however she’d promised her children she’d wait for at least ten years before they would ever see the light of day. She thought her kids had enough to contend with.In the end she waited fifteen years before publishing them – but they are no less powerful, no less poignant and no less dramatic for the passage of time.

What struck me time and again in this collection is the intimacy of the work – you really do live every word that she dredges up from her being. Everything is so brilliantly crafted that I’m certain it must have taken every ounce of her creativity and talent at a time when she perhaps might not have had the energy to spare – yet it reads as if it has been effortlessly put together. From the first poem in the collection though, ‘While He Told Me’, she takes a remarkable approach to the work – there’s nothing sentimental about any of the poems and yet they are warm, even when the feelings they describe are so cold.

While he told me, I looked from small thing

to small thing, in our room, the face

of the bedside clock, the sepia postcard

of a woman bending down to a lily.

She has a generosity to her ex-husband that’s kept up throughout – with only the odd falter she even extends that generosity of spirit to his new lover – and when she does let her guard drop a little on that you’re more than ready to forgive her. There’s not a raging anger here – it’s more of a search for understanding and that illogical desire to hold on to hope or to memory. In ‘Last Look’ she describes the very moment of his departure for a new life with someone else

In the last minute of our marriage, I looked into

his eyes. All that day until then, I had been

comforting him, for the shock he was in

at his pain – the act of leaving me

took him back, to his own

early losses. But now it was time to go beyond

comfort, to part. And his eyes seemed to me,

still, like the first ocean, wherein

the blue-green algae came into their early

language, his sea-wide iris still

essential, for me, with the depths in which

our firstborn, and then our second, had turned,

on the sides of their tongues the taste buds for the moon-bland

nectar of our milk – our milk……………

That unassuming title, “Stag’s Leap” refers to the label of their favourite wine – but it perhaps does tell you everything you need to know about what you’ll find in the pages of this book. These are poems of exceptional courage for they describe that leap into the unknown of pain and reflection and coming to terms. They are told with grace and poise but they are never less than real – as you read of her standing at the abyss of the loss of her husband you just know, even though she never goes there, that she must have done so with her heart hammering in her chest and the blood pounding in her ears. It’s gut-wrenching to read some of these poems at times and it’s heartbreaking at others. But, the midst of the loss and heartbreak, these are the work of a poet who seems to me to be  above all so gallant and so courageous! That is what makes these wonderfully crafted poems into something utterly extraordinary. You really should read this – even if you don’t normally read poetry, even if you read no other poetry this year – you really should read this!

Jan 26 2013

Till A’ The Seas Gang Dry…………Why I Love Robert’s Day – and Robert!

Burns 4………….I would expect that for those of us who love books, we’ll all have writers who are favourites, who we tend to favour, and who we tend to laud over others. But for me, and I think for most Scottish people, we’ll have something in common in the writer we celebrate more than any other, and it is of course Robert Burns. (I know the standard way to refer to him is ‘Burns’ but for me this isn’t right – to me he’s ‘Robert’!)
First and foremost, in my view, Robert was a great writer. For that alone he deserves to be fondly remembered and much loved! But Robert was so much more than that in so many ways! He is every inch the iconic man of literature, perhaps bettered in the UK and across the globe, only by Shakespeare (though not in my eyes!)  There are so many things about Robert’s life that go towards this iconic status. He was the archetypal working class man rising miles beyond his social status to become during his lifetime the star of the Scottish literary scene. Since then his reputation has grown , to such an extent of course that to this day thousands celebrate on January 25th, the day of Robert’s birth. He was a seriously handsome bloke, and serially addicted to women! There won’t be many men, even today, who fell in love as often as Robert did as a young man. He liked pubs, loved drinking with his mates, lived life very much to the full and died tragically young. In essence Robert was for me the first to lead that rock star life, rise like a shooting star, dazzling all before him, before going too soon, leaving the world to wonder what else he might have done, how much more he might have achieved!!!!
I could fill paragraph upon paragraph with favourite poems, favourite songs. But instead there’s one story that I think captures what’s Burns 8so special about Robert. His love of women is well documented – and they worshiped him in return. As his fame spread he attracted the attention of a young women, Agnes McLehose, who lived in Edinburgh. She was young, pretty, vivacious, but had married the wrong man, who treated her appallingly and ditched her for a dodgy life in the Indies. Agnes went to see Robert perform in Edinburgh and fell instantly in love. The feeling was mutual. Robert pursued her and they conducted an exchange of letters, using the pseudonyms of Clarinda and Lysander for fear of being discovered. The conventions of the day prevented Agnes from transferring that affair from the written page – she was a married woman, dependent on her family having been all but abandoned! She was deeply conscious of social conventions of the day – Robert tended not to give a damn about these things!! All the evidence to date suggests she resisted Roberts advances but so clearly loved him. Robert being Robert, couldn’t maintain any semblance of faithfulness to Agnes, despite his protestations. By this time he already had Jean Armour pregnant again and was conducting an affair in Edinburgh with another woman – that would have been bad enough, but her name was Jenny Clow – and she was Agnes’ maid! Realising the hopelessness of their position Agnes broke off with Robert in early December 1791. Only a couple of years later Robert died in Dumfries, a young man of 37.
But Agnes never forgot him. She lived on in Edinburgh, well into her eighties.  After she died her family found the diaries she’d been keeping throughout her life. For the 6th December 1791 she wrote “Today was the last time I saw Robert”. And year after year, on the same date in December, or on so many other dates that marked the anniversary of anything connected to Robert she wrote them down and headed them “Things I can never forget!”. She outlived Robert by 45 years – but clearly never forgot him.
That’s what was special about Robert. For all the trappings that go with Burns Night tonight, and I’m not knocking them ( I love haggis. I love Whisky!) I hope people don’t ever lose sight of the most important thing – its about Robert, a great poet, a great Scotsman, and for all his flaws, a great man!
Slainte Robert!
Jan 2 2013

“I Don’t Deserve This Award – But Then I Have Arthritis And I Don’t Deserve That Either!”………..My Book Of The Year Awards!……….

……….Jack Benny I hope you noticed the nice mix in the titles for this post – the classic false modesty from the comedian Jack Benny followed by my own unlimited arrogance and vanity in announcing “my book of the year awards!!!!”

In a way though starting this post with Jack Benny is rather appropriate – his first words on Ed Sullivan’s radio show in the US in the early thirties was supposed to have been “This is Jack Benny talking. There will now be a short pause while you sit at home thinking -  ‘who cares?!”.

It just fits perfectly for:-

“This is my Book Of The Year Awards” post and there will now be a gap of at least two lines…

……….while you have a chance to think  – who the hell cares!!!!!

But if you reached this line you must be intrigued, so stick with it till the end  – you won’t be disappointed!

Well…..actually….. you might be disappointed at the end, but I’ll leave a couple more empty lines so I can think “So you’re disappointed! What the hell do I care?!”

And so my awards! I’ve read a lot of good books this year, heard some great music, seen some great gigs – and eaten some lovely pies! So here are my awards for 2012!

1. TV Programme Location of the Year

Waterloo Road

Memories – like the Corridors of My Mind!

The award goes to BBC’s “Waterloo Road” which is now filmed at “Greenock Academy”, my old school in Scotland. It allows me to indulge in spotting familiar walls, corridors and pupil toilets – which instead of impressing my daughter actually bores her rigid!

If you can get over the fact that they moved the school from England to Scotland and took all the kids with them into a sort of cult-cum-boarding unit, then the best of all is that while the BBC have tarted the building up for the fictional school, the quality of the teaching in the fictional school looks just as shite as I remember it being in the real school!!!

2. Book Week Of The Year

Much as I enjoyed the Muriel Spark Reading Week, the award for me goes to the Beryl Bainbridge Reading Week, which Annabel’s House of Books hosted back in June of this year. I’d not read any of Beryl Bainbridge’s stuff before-hand – I loved it – quirky and sharp and just wonderful. It turned me from a Beryl-virgin to a Beryl-lover almost overnight!

3. The ‘Well Bugger Me I Didn’t Know That!’ Award for 2012

Birdie BowersThanks to book blogs I read quite a bit about the centenary of Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole in 1912. And through that I discovered that Birdie Bowers, who accompanied Captain Scott and was one of those who died alongside him at the end, originally came from my home town of Greenock in Scotland. We seem to make little of the connection which is odd to say the least as Greenock isn’t exactly bustling with well known explorers, actors, sportsmen, politicians or well known anythings! Anyway it led me to read a bit about his life – truly amazing man!

4. Best Bit Of Poetry Learned Off By Heart This Year Award

I’ve loved several new collections this year but my favourite was Seamus Heaney’s “Human Chain!”. And from the poem ‘Route 101′ I loved learning the following lines (and love boring people to death reciting them!)

“In a stained front-buttoned shopcoat / Sere brown piped with crimson / Out of the Classics bay into an aisle /  Smelling of dry rot and disinfectant / She emerges, absorbed in her coin count / Eyes front, right hand at work / In the slack marsupial vent / Of her change – pocket, thinking what to charge / For a used copy of Aeneid VI. / Dustbreath bestirred in the cubicle mouth / I inhaled as she slid my purchase / Into a deckle edged brown paper bag”

5. The “Terrific” Award (for books that aren’t my book of the year but came bloody close and so deserve again the accolade of my favourite word!)

Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller and The Museum Of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk were both

Terrific 1

A Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry were both

Terrific 2

Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro and 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (Books One, Two and Three) were all

Terrific 3

HHhH by Laurent Binet and If This Is A Man by Primo Levi were both

Terrific 4

Heartburn by Norah Ephron and The Art Of Fielding by Chad Harbach were both

Terrific 5

6. The “I’m Really Sorry But I Thought This Was Bloody Awful” Book Of The Year Award

Jennifer Egan’s “A Visit From The Goon Squad”. I just didn’t get it! I guess I’m not clever enough. Sorry Jen!

7. The ‘I Love Guy Garvey Of Elbow More Than Anyone Else Does’ Award

Guy GarveyWith apologies to my mate Steve Smith in Thailand, who fancies himself as a big Elbow fan but can’t be taken seriously as he chose to desert Guy and go live the life of Riley on the beaches of Thailand teaching people to dive (get a proper job you old fart!) and with my apologies to Guy Garvey’s girlfriend, the writer Emma Unsworth,  the award for the person who loves Guy Garvey more than anyone else does, goes to – ME!

8. The Album Of The Year

Dead easy – the beautiful, wonderful, gorgeous “Mid Air” by Paul Buchanan – have a quick listen!

9. Gig Of The Year

This is harder – I’ve seen Elbow a couple of times this year but I have to say we were absolutely awe-struck by the magnificent Bruce Springsteen at the Isle of Wight festival – we watched it knee deep in mud and didn’t give a shit! Truly wonderful!

Capture

10. Dive Of The Year

Suarez1This is a special category for my partner, my daughter and her family who are all Liverpool fans. The award goes to the Suarez2Olympic medal-winning last gasp effort from Tom Daley!

But for the runner-up you can choose any of half a dozen or more spectacular dives from that muppet Luiz Suarez!

11. Pie Of The Year

MandS pieThere’s nothing to beat Marks and Spencers! They have the gorgeous Twiggy in their ads, the fabulous sound of Dervla Kirwen doing the voiceover for the food commercials and their pies are great. This year my favourite was the individual Steak and Cornish IPA Ale pies – so fantastic if you gave me a choice between Twiggy, Dervla or the pie, it would be the pie every time!!!!!!!!!!!!!

12. Shite Gig But Chilli Con Carne Of The Year Award

We were unfortunate enough to see Coldplay at the Emirates earlier in the year – bloody awful! I should have known. I saw Coldplay when they were starting out, just after the Yellow album was released – they were at a lovely intimate venue at Brixton Academy – and yet they were bloody awful then as well! However we left the gig early and discovered the Chilli of The Year, washed down with Guinness, at a lovely little pub in Finsbury Park!

13. Comeback Of The Year

Roy 1This is a close run thing between two of my favourite men of books – the mercurial genius that is Roy Race, scourge of every team on the planet in his role as Roy Of The Rovers – and the mercurial genius that is Detective Inspector John Rebus, scourge of every criminal and low-life in Edinburgh and it’s environs in Iain Rankin’s novels- and as a Glaswegian it’s my job to say disparaging things about the good folk of Edinburgh! But since I thought Iain Rankin’s ‘Standing In Another Man’s Grave’ was brilliant, the winner for me is John Rebus! Plus as he has won it allows me to have a couple of pints and a couple of whiskies to honour his achievement! If Roy Of The Rovers had won I’d have been forced to go down the park, beat all the kids at “3 and you’re in!” and then do at least 100 on keepie-uppie – and I’m much more of a five beers than a five-a-side man these days!

14. And finally, my Book Of The Year

I’ve read so many that have been terrific but one just noses ahead – not by much, but by enough to be the read of the year for me – the beautiful story of Jack and Mabel in The Snow Girl by Eowyn Ivey.

The Snow Child

Now I’d said earlier in the year that I would choose a book of the year – and in my own version of the Costa Prize, that I’d buy the winning author a coffee. And I’d like to be true to my word – so if Eowyn Ivey ever reads this and fancies collecting this illustrious prize, I’ll meet her any week day by the Cafe Nero coffee stall in Victoria Station – I’m in the queue most mornings around half past seven – the lattes are on me Eowyn!

And having started with the acerbic wit of Jack Benny on awards, I’d like to end with the acerbic wit of my partner. On the day that the New Year Honours were announced she initially amazed me by saying she’d love to be nominated for an award – and when I expressed astonishment as this didn’t fit with her strong principles and said “Really???????????????????” she replied – “Yeah! So I could then tell them to stick their award up their arse!!!!!!” – That’s my girl!

So if Eowyn Ivey tells me where to put my offer of a free latte as my Book Of The Year, I’ll understand completely!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jun 9 2012

What I Thought Of……….The Bees By Carol Ann Duffy……….

……….I’ve read many poetry books and anthologies in my time but I have never actually reviewed one before.

I think there are a couple of reasons – firstly I never feel I ever finish a book of poetry. They don’t have a last page for me and I expect to go back it to it time and again. And I find that in reading them at different times and periods in my life, my feelings about them can change, sometimes quite considerably. What might be a poem that confuses me or escapes me on first reading may be one that I am subsequently moved by when I visit the book for the second, third, fourth time and so on. So in that sense my brain is a little bit uncomfortable writing a review of a poetry collection because I don’t feel I’ve finished it.

The other reason that I have for avoiding reviewing a book of poetry in my blog up to this stage is I wonder if the actual experience of reading poetry lends itself to subsequently writing about it. Somehow, there’s a part of me that feels like it might be a bit too personal and too individual to write about how I react to a poem or what moves me. I’m very conscious that what I like or what I think touches me in some way might have little or no significance or value for anyone else. Nevertheless, when I started my blog back in February this year, I’d always intended to include writing about poetry because that’s a big part of my reading “habit”. Therefore I think I need to attempt to review the poetry I read’ alongside the great novels and non-fiction books I enjoy at the same time.

And so to “The Bees” itself.

I found this collection a bit of a bumpy ride if I’m honest. References to “bees” are not surprisingly dispersed through the book and there is a poem “The Bees” which opens the collection – and in a way that poem summed up my overall impression of the whole collection.

There are moments here that I thought were absolutely magnificent. I’ve little to no technical understanding, but it seems to me that when she is on her game, Carol Ann Duffy is an absolute master of her craft. The poem “The Bees” felt like a short introduction to the buzzing words to come and to the way the words had almost been drawn nectar-like from somewhere within the poet’s soul to be transported to the page. And there’s a real feel of the hither and thither about those first two verses – they crackle with energy and vitality. What I loved about them was the way they appeared almost like random-buzz-words and phrases on first read but on subsequent reads they feel like there’s a purpose and structure and destination to all their movement and twists and activity. It was a great start but the third and final verse somehow meandered and ran out of steam a bit and that feeling pervaded throughout the collection for me. The last line of the poem “The Bees” in particular just left me feeling a bit flat and let down. It ends with the line “and honey is art.” It just didn’t live up to the court and spark of what had gone before – all that noise and shape petering out in what felt to me like a bit of a cliché.

However, having said that it’s a bumpy ride, it’s also a ride with some colossal highs. There are a several poems that I loved, particularly those where where Carol Ann Duffy is sort of unravelling time and perspective and telling something backwards. The brilliant “The Last Post” takes a couple of Wilfred Owen lines and then explicitly tries to unravel the tragedy of war. It’s absolutely gut-wrenching to read because it sort of draws out the hope and promise that there might have been and yet we know wasn’t to be for so many millions. She does the same sort of retrospective unravelling for a poem “New Vows” which essentially undoes the marriage vow and it does it superbly.

There are also poems where there is a real anger and ferocity to some of her words and politics is often at the end of the sharpest parts of her tongue. But she does these sorts of poems really well for me. They are never slogans but brilliantly, sometimes beautifully, crafted. I read this collection while the controversial Leveson enquiry was bubbling to the surface and it seemed so apt. These are the opening lines from her poem Big Ask, which throws the spotlight on that thing all our politicians and the chattering political classes seem to do so well, give answers which only fleeting relate to the questions!

What was it Sisyphus pushed up the hill?

I wouldn’t call it a rock.

Will you solemnly swear on the Bible?

I couldn’t swear on a book.

With which piece did you capture the castle?

I shouldn’t hazard a rook.

When did the President give you the date?

Nothing to do with Barack!

Were 1200 targets marked on a chart?

Nothing was circled in black.

On what was the prisoner stripped and searched?

Nothing resembling a rack.

And no prizes for guessing where this poem ends up if I tell you that the “ack” rhyme continues to the end !

Beyond the politics and commentary on what’s around her there are a couple of clever poems which really show off her talent. One is a fabulous pub-crawl and pub name check from John Barleycorn. She essentially uses pub names to craft the poem – it’s really clever and it works wonderfully.  I’m also seriously impressed by how many different pub names she fits in – I can’t help wondering if she knows them all as drinking places – if she does then she is clearly a lover of pubs!

But the best poem in the collection for me is “Water”. It’s a whispered and somehow haunting description linked to the death bed request for water from someone dying in a hospice (having read a bit since it is in fact about the death of her own mother). It’s sad and beautiful and yet somehow it celebrates the love of a parent and a child by noting the simple resonance between that dying request at the end of her mothers life to earlier times when her mother would have been answering that self same request from Carol Ann Duffy as a child. It was one of those poems that I know will stay with me and it’s destined to be one of those I learn off by heart I think.

There are many more poems in the collection that I really liked and enjoyed reading. And while overall I found it a bit of a mixed bag, I’d still recommend it to anyone considering reading it. While “Water” is the poem I liked best, perhaps the most stunning lines are in “Cold”, another poem about the death of her mother. It ends with the most heart-bursting three lines – I wept on reading them. They are beautiful, but there’s almost a brutality to their beauty. They rip your chest open and wrap a fist round your heart and then squeeze. Powerful, wonderful stuff and for that reason and many others, this collection is well worth reading.

May 25 2012

The Social Difficulties Of Glaswegians Reading Poetry In Anything Other Than Splendid Isolation……….

……….I was listening to Today on Radio 4 yesterday, and there was a story about the Royal Academy’s Diamond Jubilee which took place last night. At the end of the piece James Naughtie was interviewing Dame Judi Dench and she was talking about Shakespeare and how her feelings towards acting in Shakespeare’s plays had changed over the years. She described a shift from getting goosebumps in delivering the lines to increasingly becoming emotional and even tearful as she got older. She ended by saying that she tries to read a Sonnet every day! It made me think of a few lines of Wordsworth:

“Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,

Mindless of its just honours;with this key

Shake-speare unlocked his heart”

If I had a hundredth of the talent and voice for Shakespeare that Judi Dench has,I guess I might read a Sonnet everyday myself – but whether with a gloriously intoned and hushed Shakespearean accent like Dame Judi Dench, or with the sharp, harsh, glottal-stopping Glaswegian accent I carry around with me, I’d still have one quandary in my head which I’ve had for many years – how should you read a play script or more commonly for me anyway, poetry. How would Shakespeare have wanted me, a Glaswegian, to read his heart unlocked?!

You see I love poetry, but when I read it I need to enunciate the words and hear their sound and flow – so I have to read it out loud. I’m one of those people who struggles to get into a poem unless I read it out loud. At the moment I’m reading the Carol Ann Duffy edited anthology “Jubilee Lines” (it’s very good, by the way!) and I usually dip into one of the Nicholas Albery, Stephanie Weinrich edited anthologies “Poem For The Day” several times each week. And I always read them out loud.

Or rather I do eventually read them out loud! First I scan them, then I read them to myself in my head and usually there’s very little change in my voice tone or stress. And when I’ve thought about that, THEN I read them out loud. The “voice” I use becomes deeper than normal and I like to linger over some words and phrases or leap suddenly on a different word. It all comes out like I’m a really bad ham-actor (If I ever act, I will assuredly be that really bad ham-actor!)  - the voice is a kind of Billy Connelly-Mark McManus aka Taggart-Rab C Nesbitt-all-together-reading-the-news type of thing!!!!

It must sound awful – it does sound awful – and hence the social dilemma. I need to read poetry out loud to get it – but with the hybrid-voice of the Glaswegian Holy Trinity I just mentioned – it just isn’t possible to do that in public – at least not without a paper bag over my head!

So my poetry can only be enjoyed in isolation – and that kind of complete isolation is not that easy to find. At the moment I’m guiltily snatching time to read poetry in the early hours after dawn when only the dog and the birds are awake – and even then the dog looks at me a bit funny and the birds seem to chatter ever-louder as if trying to drown me out!

I wonder how other people read poetry. Is everyone like me? Is there a knack or technique to mastering reading it in your head which I might learn? Can I learn some clever trick to ditch the dulcid tones of Billy-Taggart-Rab and sound like Judi Dench instead? I’d love to know whether or not others read poetry, and if you do, how do you read it?

And to close, here’s one I made earlier – it’s yesterday’s ‘Poem For The Day’ (I’m not keen on today’s!!!!) – I’ll leave you to read it in whatever way and in whatever voice you like! Me, I’ve already stretched my Billy-Taggart-Rab tonsils all over it and despite the racket – I enjoyed it!

This is from ‘Poem For The Day Two’, edited by Retta Bowen, Nick Temple, Stephanie Weinrich and Nicholas Albery, published by Chatto and Windus. This is by Michael Donaghy and is the poem for yesterday, May 24th, 2012.

The Present

For the present there is just one moon

though every level pond gives back another.

But the bright disc shining in the black lagoon,

perceived by astrophysicist and lover,

is milliseconds old. And even that light’s 

seven minutes older than its source.

And the stars we think we see on moonless nights

are long extinguished. And, of course,

this very moment, as you read this line,

is literally gone before you know it.

Forget the here-and-now. We have no time

but this device of wantonness and wit.

Make me this present then: your hand in mine,

And we’ll live out our lives in it.

Michael Donaghy

May 8 2012

‘Buying Books Would Be A Good Thing If One Could Also Buy The Time To Read Them In!’………

………..These words of Alfred Schopenhauer certainly rang true for me over the weekend as I unpacked several packages of books which were delivered or collected at the end of last week! I had that gloriously familiar yet scary feeling of excitement at the thought of reading to come, mixed in with getting my fix from the smell, and shape and feel of books to which I think I’m addicted, and topped off with a slight panic at the thought of “when the hell will I find the time to read all these!?”

The first bundle of joy brought the books I need for The Readers Summer Book Club. I had three of the eight titles already but now I have them all, I’m really looking forward to both reading each of them and to reading what other people think of each of them. By definition reading is a pretty solitary past time and so something like the Summer Book Club gives me the sense of being connected through the book I read to others, doing the same solitary thing, at broadly the same time, and for exactly the same purpose, that I am. It all kicks off with Glen Duncan’s ‘The Last Werewolf’ on May 28th.

The second delivery was a few books that I’d got on the basis of recommendations from elsewhere. Dodie Smith’s ‘I Capture The Castle’ had been reviewed so positively on several of the blogs I read, that I almost felt I’d be missing out if I didn’t read it! Similarly I’ve read positive reviews on other blogs of Jeffrey Eugenides ‘The Marriage Plot’, and Anne Enwright’s ‘The Forgotten Waltz’ which was also shortlisted for the Orange Prize. One night driving home I flicked through radio stations and found Simon Mayo on Radio 2 waxing lyrical about Chad Harbach’s ‘The Art Of Fielding’. At that point it was the first time I’d heard of it, but of course since then I couldn’t fail to spot that it’s everywhere. I think it was advertised in virtually every tube station I was in over the weekend! The package was a bit of a mix for it also included John Lawton’s ‘A Lily Of The Field’. He’s new to me as a writer but it was recommended by a friend who’s read all of the Inspector Troy series (I think the one I’ve just collected is about the seventh or eighth!) so I’m both looking forward to it and also hoping I’ll have found a new detective so that I can then go back and read through all the other Troy books!

On Friday I picked up my copy of HhhH by Laurent Binet, which I’d first heard of being recommended on CathyReadsBooks (though I can’t remember if it was in her actual blog or through her Twitter feed). It tells the story of the mission to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich in Czechoslovakia in 1942. Since that initial but overwhelmingly positive recommendation, I’ve read of several others who essentially all said, in metaphorical twenty-foot high capital letters BUY IT AND READ IT! I generally love fiction set around WW2 and that along with the many enthusiastic reviews was more than enough to convince me so I did buy it and I’m about to start it later today!

Lastly I picked up the last of a set of books about or by my national poet, the genius that was Robert Burns. My parents had kindly given me money to buy whatever books about him I could find for my 50th birthday and having spent some time looking I finally ordered them recently, some new to me and others replacing second-hand dog-eared copies of books I’ve had for donkeys years!. So, probably over the summer itself, I’m looking forward to spending time with Robert, his Merry Muses of Caledonia and his Poems Chiefly In The Scottish Dialect, with side orders of biographies and studies of the Scottish Bard by Robert Crawford, Donald Smith and Patrick Scott Hogg!

And as I read all things Robert, I’ll be listening to Eddie Reader sing the “Songs of Robert Burns Live” in the background! And when it gets to the song ‘Willie Stewart’ I’ll stop reading and sing along at the top of my voice!!! (partly because it’s a wonderful bawdy celebration of male friendship and partly because Willie Stewart is my Dad’s name!)

And I might wash down all that patriotism with another wallow in watching ‘Braveheart’! (though at this point my family may well leave me for this is where common sense departs and rabid Scottish mutterings about the “Daughters of Longshanks” begin!)

Apr 28 2012

Take It Away Frank! A 1-2-3-4 “Nice And Easy (With Tea) Does It Every Time……….

……….To be honest, this is a bit of a “What An Old Fart I’ve Become!” post!

So if that isn’t your thing, isn’t in your sphere of understanding (i.e. you’re young!) or is a bit too close to your sphere of understanding (i.e. “you are ages with myself” – I love that phrase as it saves me uttering the word “fifty”!), then look away now as they say when they give you that two nano-second pause to get out of the room before they read the football results on BBC News just before Match Of The Day starts (I reckon only Dash from The Incredibles ever watches The News and then Match Of The Day without knowing all the scores!)

When I woke up this morning, on my first walk of the day (in pouring rain again!) with the dog, I flicked through Twitter and read the stuff from other insomniacs I follow and the stuff that was tweeted late last night. It included a series of tweets from Ian Rankin who was finishing his birthday with three whiskies and three great songs to ease him gently into the night.

He chose

1. A Macallan Gran Reserva to accompany The Sensational Alex Harvey Band’s “Faith Healer”. (At this stage therefore I’d say Mr Rankin isn’t going THAT gently into the night!)

2. A Springbank Cask 315 to accompany The Blue Nile’s “Walk Across The Rooftops”. (Now that’s more like it for Mr Rankin’s gentle sway into the night. One of the most beautiful albums ever – and that’s not an opinion – THAT’S A FACT!)

 

3. A Highland Park Rebus 20 to accompany Hawkwind’s “Silver Machine” ( Oh dear – by this stage it’s clear Mr Rankin is too pissed to go gently anywhere! – if he doesn’t have a hangover this morning from the booze he’ll have one from Hawkwind anyway!)

 

It got me thinking about my gentle ease into the weekend, which started this morning.

One of the things I’ve got into recently are herbal and fruit teas – yes I know it’s dull and not as rock n’ roll as Mr Rankin and his malt whiskies, but then he’s not facing the arrival later today of three friends of my 9 year-old daughter for a 4-girl sleepover she’s having (God help me!!!! – It may not be whisky to start today but I feel I’m going to need one or seven by the end of it – if I survive till then!)

In addition to tea, I eased myself into today with three lovely beautiful albums and some poetry. So, I chose

1. A cup of Strawberry and Mango to get me started with a bit of colour ( a deep, full, luscious red, like the rims of my eyes!) and this accompanied Hats by The Blue Nile. (THIS is the work of a genius!)

2. A cup of Lemon and Ginger to rouse my senses (and it clears the tubes for an old man like me) and this accompanied Songs From Northern Britain by Teenage Fanclub

3. A cup of Nettle and Peppermint (as haven’t done daily ablutions like brushing teeth yet!) and this accompanied For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver.

Accompanying all of the above was:-

Scanning The Century. The Penguin Book Of The Twentieth Century In Poetry.

There is inevitably so much that’s good in an anthology on this scale, but today I particularly enjoyed Edwin Muir’s “The Horses” (again!) and Douglas Dunn’s “The Clothes Pit” (for the first time)

Lovely! I feel relaxed and at ease and wide awake. Now to venture forth into the abyss known around here as “The Garage” and see if I can find those sleeping bags (……….and maybe a mallet?!!!!!!!!!)

Apr 2 2012

Alas Not A Surprise Harbinger In Sight!

There are several book and literature blogs that I’ve started to get into, really enjoy, and frequently be inspired by in the weeks since I “discovered” blogging!

On one of the blog sites that I read most often, Dove Grey Reader Scribbles, I read a really interesting post early on Sunday morning about how a walk on a country lane, led to photographing a fox and that in turn led to recalling the wonderful Ted Hughes poem “The Thought Fox”. The blog post included some beautiful photographs of the Devon countryside as well as a ‘shadow’ photo showing, among other things, just how beautiful the weather is at the moment in the UK. In response to that post, I’d commented that I’d look out for the fox/foxes that I often see in one particular spot while walking our dog, Beau, in the Essex countryside where I live.

Alas when Beau and I reached that part of our walk the foxes chose not to make any appearance. As you can see, Beau was as puzzled and disappointed by this as I was!

However we did see one of those gigantic shadows that Dove Grey Reader mentioned in her post as well  - so while we didn’t have the fox we did have the sun!

In the absence of the foxes appearing, I didn’t get the chance to reflect further in this post on Ted Hughes. However the “giant shadows” of such a beautiful morning reminded me of one of my favourite poems as a child – My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson. To this day I credit this poem, along with T.S. Eliot’s MacAvity The Mystery Cat, for instilling in me a love of poetry which has been with me all my life!

My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow–
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes goes so little that there’s none of him at all.

He hasn’t got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close behind me, he’s a coward you can see;
I’d think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

As well as reminding me of this poem, Sunday’s lovely warm sunshine was also a reminder of the vagaries of the British weather these days – the ‘Indian Summer’ type weather of the last couple of weeks is now to be replaced by snow over the next couple of days!!!! Only in Britain could we get lovely warm sunshine and snow within a week! There’s probably a poem in there somewhere!!!