ON THE COUGHING EDGE OF TECHNOLOGY

 

Some poems have long difficult gestation periods. These can last years. I worry that the essence of the poem is not strong enough to make the transition from head to paper. I suppose this is why I tend to let the idea percolate in my head for a day or two now.

This post's poem was started many years ago and seemed straight forward. It is based on a true story. Back in 1975 ICI, a British chemical and pharmaceutical company [who I happened to work for at that time] were researching a synthetic alternative to tobacco. By a very circuitous route, that had nothing to do with my employment, I was asked my opinion of the product. That is the basis of the poem.

The whole project is infamous because of the use of animals, beagals, to test the synthetic tobacco. There was much controversy when a Sunday newspaper broke the story. 

At the time, a callous eighteen year old, I assumed that the use of animals was the price of progress. I have changed my opinion since. Perhaps this is the source of difficulties I have had attempting to get the idea onto paper?

Who’d have thought of it?

Synthetic smoking material.

Twenty machine rolled, filter tipped,

tobacco alternatives, housed in

an anonymous, flip-top, white rectangle,

styled on a Players No 6 packet

[a proletarian cigarette, popular at that time].

So much cheaper looking than their real cost,

all that money, time and effort.

Not to mention the lines of beagles,

smoking their laboratory days away,

whether they wanted to or not,

while they waited for The Sunday People

to expose the whole sordid project.

The scientist father of my girl friend

hands me the packet

eager for my opinion on this latest wonder.

I spark one up,

inhale progress.

There I was in the loop,

on the coughing edge of technology

I think it works, but am not sure it is finished. Watch this space.

Here is a rather surreal little video from Manel, a Catalan band. 

Until next time.

HIGH & WILD

 

A rewrite this post with many thanks to the Secret Poets for their help. I cannot stress enough the benefits of being part of a supportive collective of poets. I am lucky to have been a member of such a supportive group for many years.

What's changed in the poem is that the lines are tighter, more economical. More show, less tell, which as I harp on post after post is the secret of good poetry.

the steeling

it is a lazy narrative to gift water agency

the depths did not desire that thin gold band

the sea did not take the ring of my mother

let me offer this instead

that I had decided on one final dip

as October ran towards winter

in the intense cold

blood retreated

capillaries contracted

and the ring

always a loose fit

was gone before I knew it

so that when I searched

below the relentless waves 

the view was murk and weed

my numb fingers read the rocks

sieved the sand

hunted for that familiar

the autumn tide was high and wild

and if I could have ladled it all away

spoon by spoonful I would

I waited it out

returned each day

to search the empty beach

As you can see the poem even has a title! That is good work for me. Thank you Secrets.
Here is a short piece written by Lizzie Nunnery and performed by Elinor Randle. 

Until next time.

DRINKING FROM THE COLD TAP

 

Our old cat has taken to drinking from the cold tap in the bath. I have no idea how he stumbled upon the bath tap as a source of water. He has a new water fountain down stairs but once or twice a day he insists on standing in the bath and drinking from the tap. 

This prompted a poem.

bath time

our old cat has taken to drinking from the cold tap

just now I found him sitting in the bath crying

I turned the tap on and left him to scrutinise the stream of water

as if he had never seen the like before

I am summoned back by his cries

he looks as if he has forgotten what he went into the room for

I'm not sure if I have used this photograph before but I found it recently looking through an old file and was taken by it's energy. 

This next poem is, I suppose, a warning to all of us who live by the sea.

Case hardening is a technique to make the skin of a metal object even harder. 

Climate Change Refugee Camp 7

This was hardly the retirement he had planned

but in the camp you had to learn to rub along

with this ragtag of mismatched humanity

all the people, like him, who had moved to the coast,

before in its death throws the ocean had risen.

Now he just couldn’t tune out the noise of their grumbles

or adjust to the little disappointments each day brought.

He looked up, not a single cloud in the sky

and tomorrow threatened to be even hotter

promising to case harden the iron soil of the exercise ground.

Brooke Sharkey has a new single out. You can listen to it here and order it here.

Here's a cover.

Until next time.

ALWAYS A LOOSE FIT

 

I recently watched four people search Meadfoot Beach for something. They began in the water and as the tide went out continued on the shore line. I was sitting reading at the other end of the beach and I have no idea what they were looking for. Their actions did however, prompt this poem.

Incident

it is a lazy narrative to gift water agency

the depths did not desire that thin gold band

the sea did not take the ring of my mother

let me offer this instead

that I had decided on one final dip

as October ran towards winter

the intense cold triggered biological responses

blood retreated to maintain my core

capillaries contracted

and the ring always a loose fit

was gone before I knew it

so that when I searched

the view was murk and weed

my numb fingers read the rocks

sieved the sand

hunted for that familiar

the autumn tide was high and wild

and if I could have ladled it all away

spoon by spoonful I would

I waited it out

returned each day to search the empty beach

I still feel the loss

As I say I have no idea of the reason for their searching or if they were successful. I have even changed the season to suit my version. 

This was a poem that wrote itself in my head. Before I jotted it down on paper I had a good sense of its shape and although [so far] there have been six drafts, it has been mainly a case of making it flow.

I am not sure it is complete, but when am I ever?

Here's Pollyanna with a charming video [and a great song-the explosion of feathers- what a great line]. You can check out her albums here.

Until next time.

THE SUMMER BROKE

 

A poem about house concerts. I organised some about seven years ago. You can read about the last one here. I have been talking to a couple of musicians recently about the possibilities of running another series once the pandemic allows, so I suppose this is what sparked the poem.

House Concerts

the first required a bucket precisely placed to ensure the snow melt from the unexpected leak above the bay window did not drip onto the artist

and could have also done without the drama that followed the cat snaffling a pistachio and getting the shell stuck in his palette   this was to the detriment of the song being sung

the second was perfection in itself   no words can describe the beauty of the evening

which led to some being less than impressed by the third   as if a peak can look less impressive from the other side

the fourth and last was different quiet love songs that carried across the still night

as we loaded the amps into their car the summer broke  big raindrops instantly cooling the air   the moment had ended    I moved house

What attracted me to the poem was that essentially it is a list details. Also the lines are far longer than anything I would usually write. I think it works. It is another watch this space poem.

The last three words I had used as the ending to another poem, something I have not posted because it was not going anywhere. I find that occasionally I salvage a line from the wreck of a failed poem. 

The photographs are from a trip to Barcelona in 2012. Those were the days...

Brooke Sharkey has a new single out on the 15th July, on Babylegs Records. It's called MMM Ja. I can't wait.

To whet you appetite here's Brooke live in 2020.

Until next time.

CHARLOTTE GANN & THE UNDERSTORY

I recently participated in a workshop focusing on exploring the under story of a poem. The aim being to enable the poet to perceive the creative process from which the poem had sprung, the issues that had promoted the writing, the space where poems are created. The aim was to create a dialogue between the poets in that space and see where it led. It was fascinating stuff facilitated by the wonderful Charlotte Gann. 

A brief word of explanation about the layout of the interview. Since blogspot updated their platform I have been experiencing difficulties with spacing and because Charlotte's poems are so exquisite I have decided to use photographs of the poems rather than blunt their beauty with coarse spacing.

Charlotte is an accomplished poet, but rather than me bigging her up let's hear her talk .

Tell us about the new collection

Well, it’s not THAT new any more – but did come out in lockdown. The Girl Who Cried, my second book from HappenStance. The poems are title-less so sort of run into each other. Some of them are illustrated or accompanied by little line drawings. The book’s an exploration and admission, for me: every day of my life, I’ve lived with longing, arguably as a result of early attachment difficulties. ‘The Girl Who Cried’ of the title is a core part of me.

Lots of the poems are short: I thought of them as ‘woodcut’ poems as I wrote them.

Music, poetry or film? Which speaks the most to you?

Um.., you’ve just named my three favourite things. I called my first book Noir partly because people said how filmic the poems were. I love film, as a medium. The palette, the framing. Music has always been central for me (when I was young, as this picture may suggest, mainly Bowie). 

And then there's been poetry. Ah, poetry... From Keats to Stevie Smith to TS Eliot when I was young to…..ALL my touchstone poems today. (Right now I’m working my way through the Collected Poems of Raymond Carver.)

So probably a poetic film with music.

What do you want your poetry to do?/what do you want to evoke in the reader/listener?

I want them to sense the life in the poem. Recognise it – something palpable. I’m interested in that place where thought and feeling meet; my poems are my emotions distilled, framed. It’s been about trying to find language. I want a reader to notice if they have that feeling in themself. I’m curious about resonance, and often writing about the other side of that coin: loneliness. If a reader recognises the emotion maybe that leaves us both subtly less isolated. I know that’s the effect reading can have on me.

I’ve focused a lot of my poems on areas of my life that caused me distress over decades, however ‘irrationally’. All I can do is share my feelings truthfully. So that’s what I’ve done. I wanted to leave a record: a kind of refusal, eventually, to suffer in silence. I like that adage cited by Banksy(?): art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. Yes.

If you could become a character in fiction, or film who would you be and why?

One of those good, grounded policewomen. Catherine Cawood in Happy Valley. Marge Gunderson in Fargo. Most recently, Mare Sheehan in Mare of Easttown. In fiction, my favourite characters are ones I massively empathise with – George Harvey Bone in Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square, Frankie Addams in Carson McCullers’ The Member of the Wedding. I wouldn’t want to be them though. Too close to how I am already.

How far does real life creep into your work? 

It’s there at its core – as in, my work is totally truthful. Emotionally so.

But in another way, my poems topple ‘real life’ on its side: I’m interested in showing the underbelly, the stuff that’s normally hidden. Unobvious loneliness.

Since writing the books, I’ve started calling this my ‘Understory’.

What makes you angry? 

Abuse of power, in all its guises. Exploitation of vulnerability. Nothing makes me angrier than this. And it makes me angry on a daily basis.

Name something you love and why? 

Potatoes. And cats. They’ve both always comforted me.

What would be your dream project? 

My dream project? The question makes me happy. I’ve always pictured this imaginary set of rooms where people come and meet and talk. I’ve been there forever, and am somehow pivotal. Whatever the precise function it combines all my passions: writing, expression, group-work, therapeutic heartful communication practices… Maybe I’m trying to work towards this now, with my project The Understory Conversation.

How do you navigate the poetry world? I have some firm allies and circles. Friends. I talk to other poets; read books; review pamphlets for Sphinx; convene local readings with the other Needlewriters: so I’ve found modest, regular ways to contribute. I’m in a number of groups. I try not to worry too much about prize lists or noise or to overly focus on social media. I try to keep things in perspective. I have found my little corner.

Plus, increasingly, I picture this scene, like a cartoon or mantra (a friend drew my attention to it originally, and he is not a poet):

“The poet is to give a reading from his new book… the dutiful publisher carries a dozen copies of the poet’s new book to sell at the reading… Now it is over, and the publisher gathers up the unsold books, counting them glumly… he trudges home, weary and puzzled – How can thirteen copies be left over from a dozen?” ['DJ Enright, from his collection Under the Circumstances: Poems and Proses, Oxford Poets, 1999.'] i.e. poetry’s a very strange old business! A way of being safely i.e invisibly visible? Gotta love it.

(both poems from The Girl Who Cried, HappenStance, 2020)

Thanks Charlotte, I honestly cannot recommend The Girl Who Cried enough. Do yourself a favour and get it here.

Until next time.

THIS MOMENT OF BLISS

 

A number of little poems two of which are rewrites.

I got given a chair, a leather recliner

back in the day, my sister in law’s mother quit smoking to save the money buy it

my wife hates it, claims its the wrong chair for the room

but as the record spins, I recline again and the music flows from the speakers

I know I have many to thank for this moment of bliss

It is pretty straight forward reportage, though I can't remember what it was I was listening to.

This next one has had a couple of words changed, I think, for the better. You can read the first draft here.

unbeknown to you

this patch of grass

is spring loaded

and as you absently

place down your glass

the stalks conspire to tip it over

and feast on the spilled red wine

For the changes to this last last poem I have the Secret Poets to thank. It was suggested that I put a line break after the fifth line to add to the emotional impact. I think it does. You can read the other version here.

Industrial Action

Moses downed tools

and before the management capitulated

things turned very nasty

frogs fell from the sky alive

and children died.

Imagine that

children died.

Could you pray to a deity

that valued one child’s life over another?

Phew! much to read this post.

Anyway here is Hatful of Rain with The Exit Song.

Until next time.