Hello, how are you?
Well that was a week and a half, again. It got to Tuesday and I had a moment of disbelief that it wasn’t going to be Friday the next day. I’m still not entirely happy it’s going to be Monday tomorrow, but I’m reliably informed that this is the way of things.
Last week seemed to be a week of farewells.
There was the sad death of John Foggin, I didn’t know John, but his work was excellent and his website, The Cobweb, was an absolute trove and gift to beginners and old lags a like. His last full post from 2022 is just such a trove. Go, go read it. I’ll wait.
This week saw the final OPOI reviews from Sphinx. We knew it was coming, and it’s very much case of don’t be sad it’s over, just be glad you were there at the time. It will live on as an archive and as a way of approaching things.
And I might be late to this, but Matthew Hollis is leaving his position at Faber as Poetry Editor to spend more time with his own writing and his family (not in order of importance) . I note there has been some discussion online about potential names to replace him. I might even throw my hat in the ring, but the reluctance of F&F to put a salary against the role is a smidge off-putting. It seems like the other side of the old adage that if you have to ask how much something is you can’t afford it.
Finally, I’m sure you saw Tim Relf’s article in the news this week about the struggles of various poetry mags. The article doesn’t offer any answers to the issue, but the answer is basically buy more mags, people and also to sort of the worldwide inequality, solve the financial crises and offer more funding. Easy really. I’m glad to see the article points to several newish mags that are managing to keep going, including a few I’ve had the honour of being in/involved with: The Friday Poem**, Finished Creatures, Fenland Poetry Journal and Bad Lilies**.
I note Bad Lilies have put out their new issue this week. I’ve only read the first couple of poems by Rachel Piercy so far, but they are both excellent. I also note that me old mucker, Mr Stewart is in there with his poem, Calor. Given the heat today, it seems very apt. He tells me it’s more like 42 degrees in Spain, so I guess I shouldn’t really grumble.
Right, let’s have a poem then
And so to the poem for this week, it’s another from what I’ve been reading. It’s by Ruth Beddow. I think I first found her work via Wild Court, but it could easily be anywhere else…(Another reason for buying or reading mags, journals, etc…). I was pleased to see she had a pamphlet out (see review here). It took me a while to get round to ordering a copy, and even longer to reading it.
But the poem below leapt out at me after I’d heard a conversation between two characters in the TV show Guilt. I’m slowly catching up on series 2 and 3 having loved series 1. In the last episode of series 2 two characters are discussing how one of them had moved to New York and after 2 years already thought of it as home.
Despite having lived in London for over 20 years now— and it’s not quite longer than my time in Norfolk, but it’s the longest in one place—I still think of Norfolk as home. It’s confusing as I know my home is where I live with my beloved wife and child (even if they are in Amsterdam at present) and my two cats (and something of a hangover—potentially related to R and F being in Amsterdam), but my mind still goes to Norfolk, and specifically Worstead when the word home comes up. I’m not Paul Young it would seem (You never see us in the same room, etc).
Home is a place for boiling water
I
It has stairs to show us ourselves and rooms
for waiting in. Outside there are roses hung
in a state of not quite growing, and beside the door
a last glance mirror sends us up, down.
Nine times out of ten it’s easier to stay inside
where peace is a layered flower with a thorny stem.
II
When I belonged there but did not want to
I thought nothing worse than woodchip.
Dandelions trespassed like nosey neighbours
on our driveway and the neighbours, they posed
the same, recycled questions in the same drawl
of middle-england. Everyone was so invested
in a future I wasn’t sure I wanted.
III
Every time, before crossing, my mother used to say
there are trolls under that bridge. And every time
I’d be surprised that something so terrible
could live down there, in the unsuspecting stream
flanking swarms of fearless bluebells
so discreetly.
IV
For years I shrunk weekends
reeled in the washing line
from me to there
the years spent mining
restlessly at unhealed skin
the smell of laundry
too long in the drum
as life went on
I couldn’t see beyond
the wheezing chimney
thick November nights
as the smoke bellowed
until our faces
were indistinguishable
across the living room
V
I don’t recall the details of the faces in 2008
filing out of the car factory, the chocolate factory;
how every kid got free school meals so stale
we could have thrown them like breeze blocks
through the windscreen of a burning car.
VI
Now that I do not belong there
or speak with the same lilt;
now that I can’t say for sure
which kebab shops are old or new;
couldn’t tell you who is married, or convicted,
or dead, I want to belong there
more than ever.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Published with the permission of the author. Taken from The Thought Sits With Me by Ruth Beddow, Nine Pens Press, 2022
I think each stanza could be about a new home, a moving around, but I can also see how I could be talking shite, so I will wrap up by saying that I love this whole poem. However, the final stanza lands in a way that is hard to explain. I recognise that feeling. If a poem can do that it’s on to a winner, I reckon.
Final note/tenuous connection of the week.
Having mentioned Syd Barrett last week, I watched the mighty Slowdive on the BBC’s Glastonbury coverage earlier and they ended their set with a beautiful cover of Syd’s ‘Golden Hair‘
Go on, have another poem
I was going to stop here, but I’ve just heard some kids bouncing on a trampoline in a nearby garden, and it’s reminded me of a poem of mine. It’s not one that will make the pamphlet, and it’s one I like, but could and would do probably slightly differently now. But capture the moments, etc
Selling The Trampoline V8, 17/05/20
You belong to someone else now, the hassle
of assembling frames and jumping mats
has just driven away, pin money
folded into my back pocket.
We spent almost five summers watching
you make Florence happy, killing off
our lawn like a magnifying glass
on bare skin. You were a giant sundial
that clocked the shifts in her bravery levels
and displays of derring-do. We observed
performances of forward rolls
and nearly-flips, heard the dry springs
in dance routines. Always on the cusp
of getting out the WD40,
we used the noise as a sign she was safe
while we got on with dinner or work.
It took us at least three drinks to deign
to be tagged in and rattle around
like roulette balls, only stopping
when we bounced against the protective cage.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Shared with the author’s permission, previously published in The High Window
A Song that is in some vague way linked to something above
THE LAST WEEK IN STATS
HEALTH STATS
15K running. Bromley 10k (Sub 56 mins…not my best, but longest run of the year)
0 days without cigarettes…
0 days since drinking.
LIFE STATS
1 fuck of a week
1 BBQ at mine
1 late night as a result
POET STATS
1 loose ideas/articles gathered (this allows me to kid myself I am writing all the time)
0 poems finished:
2 poems worked on: Comedy, Busy Week
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
Balmorhea: Pendant World
Gemma Hayes: Let It Break
Dropsonde Playlist
Tuesday
Dropsonde Playlist
The Smile: A Light For Attracting Attention
Artic Monkeys: Whatever They Say I Am, Favourite Worst nightmare, Humbug, AM, Suck It And See
Wednesday
Artic Monkeys: Tranquility Base Hotel, Who the Fuck….?, The Car
Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound: Ekranoplan, Manzanita, When Sweet Sleep Returned
Dropsonde Playlist
Thursday
The Bangles: Sweetheart of the Sun
Garcia Peoples: Cosmic Cash
Endless Boogie; Vibe Killer
Fleet Foxes: Shore, Sun Giant, A Very Lonely Solstice
Friday
Fleet Foxes: Crack Up, First Collection. ST, Helplessness Blues
Arctic Monkeys: The Car
And Also The Trees: Born Into the Waves
Saturday
Various songs from mates at BBQ at mine
Dropsonde Playlist
Sunday
Slowdive: ST, Souvlaki
Read
Ruth Beddow: The Thought Sits With Me
Luke Samuel Yates: Dynamo
Eleanor Livingstone: Even the Sea
Watched
Kevin Can Fuck Himself
Guilt
Love Island
Bits of Glastonbury
Ordered/Bought
Nowt
Arrived
Nowt
Wear The Fox Hat 
Pingback: You’re an accent waiting to happen… | Wear The Fox Hat