Lots to get through this week, so let’s not hang about.
Firstly, it’s happened. My beloved child has finished her GSCEs, and apart from a leaver’s assembly, and the all important trip in to collect her results, that’s it, she’s done with secondary school. Crikey. It was only yesterday that we were waving off this shy year 7 who was all overawed by the idea of big school. Now she’s afraid of nothing and awe-inspiring. Happy summer and well done my child. Well done to all the Year 11 and year 13s that have finished their exams.
Secondly, Thanks to The Friday Poem for publishing my review of Ella Sadie Guthrie’s ‘Poems for Pete Davidson‘ on Friday. I’m still not 100% sure I know enough about Pete Davidson, I’m also 100% sure I don’t think it will make my life any better or worse, so onwards and sideways there.
Thirdly, thank you to Eleanor Livingstone for reminding me to listen to The Ballad of Syd & Morgan on the iPlayer. I had seen it mentioned late last week and made a note to listen, but forgot. I’m glad Eleanor gave me the nudge as I think the play has now come off the iPlayer. If you can’t catch it, it’s about an imaginary meeting between Syd Barrett (of Pink Floyd fame) and EM Forster (of EM Forster fame) and is more a meditation on creativity and the price of art. I thought it wore its research a little too heavily, but it was an enjoyable and interesting hour none the less. I was particularly interested in the discussion between them where Forster talks about creativity involving dropping a bucket into a well and seeing what comes up. Sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it’s nothing at all.
Later on, he also talks about the parable of the Venerable Bede and the sparrow. While this is mainly a warning about the brevity of life, I thought of the visit of the sparrow as another visit of creativity, and that we should enjoy the visits we have had more than worrying about when and if the next one might come.Bonus poem on the subject by Isobel Dixon (NB Buy her new book, A Whistling of Birds. It’s out this week. I loved Bearings)
I’ve never really got into Pink Floyd, and have violent reactions to most of it (especially anything touched by the absolute knobhead that is Roger Waters), but I will allow the Syd-era stuff occasionally, and I am a fan of Syd Barrett’s own stuff. I think it was REM’s cover of Syd’s Dark Globe that got me interested, and that was back in the Automatic For The People days, so he’s been around in my memory for a long time. However, I don’t know much about Forster (and must remedy that, perhaps when I’m on holiday…Not long, Mat, not long…Hang on in there), but
I am also grateful to Eleanor for her sending me copies of her early books. I am looking forward to diving into them soon. However, I am even more grateful to her because our initial email exchange about the books led to the radio recommendation which led to somehow me being visited by a sparrow/dropping my bucket in a well to write a draft/note for a draft of a poem about comedy (except it isn’t, obviously). I mean, I don’t know what it’s about yet as I haven’t finished a first full draft yet, and it’s finding it’s way into the light, but I am happy to have got this far.
At the moment, it’s just called Comedy, and so it was timely to read this article in this weeks TFP about titles. . I have toyed with the idea of “He won’t sell many ice creams at that speed”, but perhaps that was just because Morcambe and Wise were on my mind after seeing the classic clip with them and the recently departed Glenda Jackson this week
Fourthly, there’s a new intake over at IAMB. Get on it here.
Right, let’s have a poem then
In fact, let’s have two..and while we’re at it, let’s have two tenuous links to justify them being here (Not that I need to justify it…my gaff, my rules, etc). Let’s go ladies first because chivalry and all that, yeah?
At the start of the week Rach and I finished watching The Last Of Us . I’m not a player of computer games, so I can’t speak to that, but we enjoyed the show. If you’re not aware, the premise behind is that the world is twenty years into a pandemic caused by a mass fungal infection, which causes its hosts to transform into zombie-like creatures and collapses society. The show covers a lot of ground, literally and emotionally, and talks about parental relationships, the way we treat the world, mankind’s ignorance, dictatorships, resistance and a lot more. We really enjoyed it, and without giving the game away, I’d seen a lot of plaudits for episode 3. They were totally right. Beautiful stuff.
Anyhoo, for all it’s focusing on fungus and the like as the way nature starts to claim back the world, I was intrigued to read this poem by Angela France this week on my commute (Wednesday, I think).
Rooting Out
Tangles of roots baffle my fork’s tines
as I push down into invaded earth,
each root twisting through clumps
of anchoring soil to clenching depth.
They snake to depths beyond my reach,
every knot pulled and shaken loose
leaves strands and fragments
of rhizomes to wait for space and rain,
sprout in neglected corners.
Mycelium nets under the grass,
through the woods, fibres feeding
on what has fallen, growing strong
in the rotting dark. There is no end,
no beginning, no centre to dig out,
only the evidence of bulbous clusters
swelling overnight in shady places.
It is too easy to rest, leave
a calm surface undisturbed, forget
what cells and spores lie beneath,
nursing malice as they spread.
Too easy to turn away from dark edges
and hard labour, ignore its silent seething,
until it shoots in all the overlooked quarters,
strong beyond all hope of rooting out
unless we can re-make the earth.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Shared with the author’s permission, taken from Terminarchy, Nine Arches Press, 2021
I love the way the poems in Terminarchy build on the work in Angela’s previous collection, The Hill. And the (not-so) gentle reminder at the end of this poem that it’s likely to be the funguses of the world and other plant matters that will inherit/repossess our planet if we don’t buck our ideas up. There are plenty of other poems in Terminarchy that act as such a reminder. Can a poem make us buck our ideas up? Possibly not on its own, but it was timely to see this article about whether art can change attitudes towards climate change. I think if we can present the issues in contexts such as France has done then we can look again. That seems to be the gist of the article—he says having skim read it so far.
I’m guilty of having slept on my copy of The Hill, and it’s been a while since reading Hide, so I’ll get them back into rotation ASAP. Oh yes and find the work that came before them.
Go on, have another poem
The second poems for this week (and there could have been a third if I’d got my act together sooner, but at least I’m sorted, in theory, for next week) is by Erik Kennedy. He’s also available on Twitter
I came across it reading the latest issue of Strix. I’m glad to see Strix back after their sabbatical. It remains on my wishlist of mags I’d like to place a poem in…one day, perhaps.
I knew of Erik, but didn’t really know his work. I’m sure I’ve seen some about, but in mags. I’ll track them down eventually, and will be getting copies of his two collections, ‘Another Beautiful Day Indoors & ‘There’s No Place Like the Internet in Springtime‘ ASAP. I fell instantly in love with the three poems he has in Strix, and would cheerfully have posted either or all of them.
I nearly went with a poem called ‘Can’t get a moment’s peace’ for it’s use of the phrase “vaporised by the anti-word death rays / I have positioned in my head’, but I’ve gone with the poem below because of the tenuous connection to the coffee grinder and coffee beans I bought my mum this week for her birthday.
Reviewing the fleet
A thing I like about
nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines
is that you can run
as many espresso makers as you want,
because
nuclear reactor = pretty much unlimited energy.
A thing I don’t like about
nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines
is that if you fire the missiles
housed in a few of these subs,
you can destroy the world.
A lot of situations are like this,
with good and bad aspects.
Sometimes it seems like it’s impossible
to tell
whether the good ultimately
outweighs the bad,
and I’m here to tell you:
no, it really isn’t.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Shared with the author’s permission, taken from Strix #9. Apologies to the folks at Strix if this shouldn’t be up. I’ll take it down if you want, but I urge you all to go and buy a copy of Strix.
When I asked Erik for his permission to publish this he mentioned an almost secret, joke in the title that alludes to the old tradition of the Spithead fleet review. I don’t really know much about that, and it’s probably a joke more for the writer than the reader, but it helps to know these little things keep writers happy.
I enjoyed this poem immensely (Not least for reminding me of one of my own), and the dualities that are set up and then wiped out at the end. It also feels to me like Angela and Erik’s poems have something in common as well, and I hadn’t picked up on that until just now.
I was going to spend a bit of time talking about the news Jeremy Corby is launching a poetry anthology, and as much as I think there is much to admire about old JC (and as much to be annoyed about too), the idea of a poetry book filled with non-poets has annoyed me a bit. I may have missed the point, but perhaps that’s one for another day; I’ve gibbered on here enough.
A Song that is in some vague way linked to something above
THE LAST WEEK IN STATS
HEALTH STATS
8K running. A 3k for the Dino Dash in Crystal Palace. Good, and no exploding head this time, but it was hot. And a gentle 5K on Saturday.
2 days without cigarettes…
1 days since drinking.
LIFE STATS
1 daughter finished GCSEs
1 drunk daughter
1 cupboard made
1 cocktail evening
1 Dino Dash
POET STATS
1 loose ideas/articles gathered (this allows me to kid myself I am writing all the time)
0 poems finished:
1 poems worked on: Comedy
0 poems committed to the reject pile
0 submissions:
0 withdrawal:
0 acceptances:
0 Longlisting:
0 readings:
0 rejections:
18 poems are currently out for submission. No simultaneous subs
83 Published poems
Reviews
0 review finished:
1 reviews started: Genevieve Carter
0 review submitted:
1 reviews to write: Luke Samuel Yates
READ/SEEN/HEARD/ETC
Music
r= Radio, A = Audiobook, P=Podcast. The rest is music
Monday
This is the Kit: Careful of your Keepers
Gabor Szabo: The Szabo Equation
Jenny Lewis: Joy’All
Squid: O Monolith
Keaton Henson: House Party
Yusef Lateef: Eastern Sounds…And Other Sounds
The Wedding Present; 24 Songs
The Boo Radleys: Eight
Tuesday
The Archers (P)
LRB Podcast: Brenda Shaughnessey & Amy Key (P)
Radio 4: The Ballad of Syd and Morgan (P)
Weds
The Archers (P)
The Cure: Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me
Dropsonde Playlist
Thursday
This is the Kit: Careful of your Keepers
Yusef Lateef: Eastern Sounds…And Other Sounds
The Groundhogs: Who Will Save The World?
The Pastels: illumination
Ligeti: Complete Piano Music Vol.1
The Kingsbury Manx: Bronze Age
Friday
Stanley Turrentine: New Tine Shuffle
The Mighty Lemon Drops: Laughter, Sound
Marta Salongi: Music for Open Spaces
Saturday
Dropsonde Playlist
The Archers (P)
Sunday
Weather Station: All of it was Mine
Daughter of Swords: Dawnbreaker
Bad Lieutenant: Never Cry Another Tear
Pink Floyd: Piper At the Gates of Dawn
The Mighty Lemon Drops: World Without End
Read
Rialto 100
Strix 9
Angela France: Terminarchy
Nikki Heinen: There May Not Be A Reason Why
Watched
Love Island
The Last of Us
Colin From Accounts
Ordered/Bought
Jo Farragher: Good Works, Great Technology
Arrived
Jo Farragher: Good Works, Great Technology
Simon Armitage: LX
Eleanor Livingstone: Even the Sea, The Last King of Fife, A Sampler
Wear The Fox Hat 