Scrappy do

Hello, how are you? Where was I?

Our holiday was lovely. Thanks to Kefalonia for being glorious, and for the loungers by the pool being very amenable to sitting on and allowing me to read. I worked my way through some of my TBR pile, as well as a number of cans of Greek lager. You’ll see the reading list in the usual place below. You might see the cans, cats and books on my Instagram feed. See the header for one of the excellent cats we met. We named him Baked Bean.

I’ve been making notes for posts since the last one, but in order to get caught up we will first have a bit of a link dump, then we can get to the poem.

Firstly, my review of Genevieve Carver’s Landsick was published the week we got back over at The Friday Poem. I’d started it before we went and finished it the day after we got back. Thanks to past-Mat for booking the day off. And thanks to Hilary for posting the review.

Speaking of the Frip, I enjoyed Helena Nelson’s article about ‘After’ poems. She articulates many things I’ve thought about, especially the part about ekphrastic poems and the need to have seen the work of art. Is the article tongue-in-cheek? Possibly partially, but also not. You decide.

While reading/catching up on Dave Bonta’s Via Negativa blog compendium, I came across this interesting post by Donna Vorreyer. They make some interesting points about giving up on submissions to certain journals (they will vary by poet). I sometimes feel like walking away from some submissions, but it’s also about knowing which journals, etc are not likely to be receptive in the first place. I suspect the list that are receptive to my sort of poems is shrinking, but I hope not.

It was also lovely to read this interview in the Guardian with the legend that is Vini Reilly this week. He talks about walking away from the life he’s built as a guitar player after 60 years, and I enjoyed what he said about seeing guitarists playing in pubs that he thinks are better than him, but they don’t get the chance to make records. Is the poetry world any different? Either way, give Vini’s music a go. Start anywhere…It’s all beautiful.

Did you see the article this week about previous poet laureates? If not, it’s here.

If you’re a fan of any of Glyn Maxwell’s work/or enjoyed his On Poetry book then it looks like a good idea to sign up here. He seems to be writing his next non-poetry book in stages and publishing as he goes. Worth a try. I’m waiting on the first post.

I’ve not listened to it yet, but harking back to a previous post, this episode of the Mouthful of Air podcast discusses the old venerable Bede and his swallow via Isobel Dixon’s poem.

That should get me up to date on all the links I want to share, or at least the ones I made notes to share.

Right, let’s have a poem then

It was Eleanor Livingstone who put me on to the Bede and the swallow story, see posts passim, and so it is Eleanor who I turn to for a poem now. I’ve been reading her books Even The Sea and The Last King of Fife. Both, sadly, are out of print at present, but there is a new and revised book coming out soon I believe, so I look forward to that.

I didn’t know her work at all before reading these books and I hope she won’t mind me sharing this bit of a recent correspondence between us. (I wrote this).

“I feel like I’ve learned so much about control and writing by reading it. The detonations behind it aren’t flashy at all, it’s not a firework display. It’s like watching Fred Dibnah bring down a chimney. Apologies for comparing it to a bloke, but everything that’s needed is in exactly in the right place and the end result is calculated to fall exactly as it should do.”

I hope that works for you, but if not have this .

July evening

you’re behind me in the room
busy with music
every window in the house 

open
             when a sudden gust
comes from nowhere

catches the trees
unaware, lifts branches
like a summer skirt

or an orchestra rising as one
for applause

while all my paperwork 
stirs a breath’s height off the desk,
the windows buck

and somewhere in the house
one slams shut
like a bolt

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Published with the permission of the author. Taken from Even the Sea by Eleanor Livingstone, Red Squirrel Press, 2010

You know how I like a coincidence, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out that it’s July, it’s currently the evening and this week has seen some wind rattling around the house (behave!!) disturbing papers. Oh yes, that it’s just lovely. The natural world doing what it has always done always will do by challenging any order we try to place on things, even if the impact of it is just “a breath’s height”. How high is a breath? I don’t know, but it also doesn’t matter; we can absolutely picture it.

Sometimes it’s not about the big moments, it’s the little ones, and this just works. Was it fortuitous timing? Who cares, that’s when poems land the best. Sometimes.

Go on, have another poem

When I was reading Eleanor’s pamphlet, The Last King of Fife, I came across the next poem. When poets bring poems from a pamphlet into a collection to see I’m always intrigued to see what gets left behind. The poem below is one that got left behind. I can’t see why, but that’s for the poet to decide.

Anyhoo, I chose this as one of the books I read (and am still bloody reading) while I was away is The English & their History by Robert Tombs. I’ve had the book for about 8 years now. It was a recommendation by an erstwhile work colleague (Hi, CP) and has been with me on two or three holidays now, and I’ve never managed to get on with it.

This time I had to do it. I just have to finish it (90 pages to go at time of writing), not least because it reduces the size of my TBR pile quite considerably —think about how many slim volumes I can pack into that space, but also because I am shamefully ignorant about our history. I’m never going to remember the names and dates, but the book has given me a better sense of things than I had before. I am sad to learn that Tombs is something of a Brexiteer…I think that contributed to my reluctance to start it, and I get the sense from the way the book is written that he’s a Tory, but no matter. The boo was still interesting and peppered with little facts/factoids like “George VI had eight boxing champions attending his coronation as pages”.

So when I came across the note at the back of The Last King…” In 1752 Britain joined the Gregorian calendar by cutting out 11 days that year, from 3rd to 13th September” I knew I wanted to include the poem here. There’s something that chimes with the pro-Brexit mentality in there, or more like the way we can explain it, in the last two sentences of the poem.

It also has me in mind of the infamous BBC incident when they reported no news. I read about it, but I wasn’t there, FFS. It was in 1930.

Catching up with time

For eleven days here
in 1752, no-one died
and not a single child
was born.  The records 
for those days are blank. 
No crimes were committed
nor avenged.  No shoes 
wore out, no cakes
were burnt.  No songs
lightened the hours; 
no poems called. 
Still, no-one died; no-one
was killed.  One night
the country went to bed
and woke up twelve days
later.  Give us back our lost
eleven days, they said
just one day older
and no wiser.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Published with the permission of the author. Taken from The Last King of Fife by Eleanor Livingstone, HappenStance Press, 2005

Oh go on, have another another poem

Something else I read earlier this week was this long read about the decline of the fish and chip shop. It’s a sad story about the impact of Brexit, rising costs and the cost of living for punters. The article mentions chippies in many locations but doesn’t mention Scarborough. My wife informs me that’s where the best fish and chips come from. Who knows, she may be right. The ones we had from Silks a few years ago were marvellous, but the fryer at Silks moved on and we don’t know where they have gone.

The idea of fryers moving between chip shops puts me in mind of football transfers, but the article and the reverie also have me in mind of one of my own poems. This was published in The Poet’s Republic a few years ago now. For a while, it was in contention for the pamphlet, but it’s not strong enough. I am fond of it as it covers the time I went to Scarborough with Rachael for the first time and had fish and chips with her in a place called Whackers. I may come back to the poem one day

Scraps

We keep stumbling over
the ends of each other’s sentences
but joke that the only house white on offer
is the batter clinging to ingots of fish
fingertip-dipped
into molten animal fat.

Buttered bread and radioactive milkshakes
pass by on a waitress’s tray.
Scraps and mushy peas are standard issue.

I arrange the sauce bottles
and salt and vinegar
into a constellation
that we name Condimentia Seven:
a smile breaks across both our faces.

I tuck-in at your side,
enjoy what’s on offer.
I want to leave here
as part of your nostalgia.

A Song that is in some vague way linked to something above

Julian Cope. Trampolene

THE LAST THREE WEEKS IN STATS

HEALTH STATS
65K running. inc 3 or 4 8ks and a 10K yesterday
2 days without cigarettes…
0 days since drinking. 

LIFE STATS – Holiday
Average of 4-5 beers per day while on holiday
Average of 5- cigarettes while on holiday
1 moussaka
1 sea bream
1 pork belly
1 chicken souvlaki
1 Kefalonian Meat pie
1 lamb chops
1 beef stew and orzo
1 Club sandwich
2 delayed flights


LIFE STATS
1 bedroom redecorated
1 work away day
1 takeaway curry
8 days of DIY
1 Sunday lunch with old friends
2 incidents with foxes

POET STATS
1 loose ideas/articles gathered (this allows me to kid myself I am writing all the time)
1 poem finished: Designated Driver
7 poems worked on: Busy week, Comedy, Designated Driver, Dance Lessons,Stick, The Gallery, Hellraisers
0 poems committed to the reject pile
0 submissions:
0 withdrawal: 
0 acceptances:
0 Longlisting:
0 readings: 
1 rejection: I forget now. Doesn’t matter
15 poems are currently out for submission. No simultaneous subs
83 Published poems

Reviews
0 review finished:
0 reviews started:
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
VA – Silberland Vol2- The Driving side of Kosmische music
Slowdive: Souvlaki, Just for a Day
The Big Moon: Here is Everything, Walking Like We Do, Love In The 4th Dimension
Tuesday
VA – Silberland Vol2- The Driving side of Kosmische Music
Belief; ST
Geese: 3D Country
Gracie Abrams: Good Riddance
Weds
The Archers
Dropsonde
Thursday
Dropsonde
Friday
Silberland
Sunday
The Go-Betweens. 16 Lovers Lane
Mon
Dropsonde
Warpaint: Exquisite Corpse
Tuesday
Slowdive: ST
Wednesday
Mojave 3: Puzzles Like You
Miles Davis: Miles Ahead, In A Silent Way
The Clientele: Minotaur
Thurs
Dropsonde playlist
Bleach Lab: Lost in a Rush of Emptiness
The B-52s: Wild Planet , Cosmic Thing
Saturday
Dropsonde playlist
The B-52s: ST, Mesopotamia
Jason Isbell: Weathervanes
The Watson Twins: Holler
Monday
Felt: Ignite The Seven Cannons
The Clash: ST, London Calling
LYR: The Ultraviolet Age
The Afghan Whigs: How Do You Burn
Tuesday
Karen Dalton- Green Rocky Road
Brigid Mae Power: Dream from the Deep Well
Warpaint: ST
Cory Hanson: Western Cum
VA – Silberland Vol1- The Psychedelic side of Kosmische Music
Cowboy Junkies: Such Ferocious Beauty
The Wooden Sky: Every Child an Daughter, Every Moon A Sun
Wednesday
Kieran Hebden & William Tyler: Darkness, Darkness
Wand: Spiders In The Rain, Laughing Matter
The Hold Steady: Heaven is Whenever 2021
The Archers (p)
Thurs
The Archers
Blur:13
Friday
Blur: Thank Tank, The Magic Whip, Modern Life is Rubbish
Black Spire: Only Ghost EP
Saturday
Dropsonde Playlist
Sunday
This Is The Kit: Careful of your Keepers
Dropsonde Playlist
Monday
Willy Mason: Carry On
Luke Howard: All That Is Not Solid
Luke Howard & Naadje Noordhuis: Ten Sails
Sheryl Crow: Threads
Thelonius Monk; Brilliant Corners
Thin White Rope: The Ruby Sea, Sack Full of Silver
Tuesday
The Archers (p)
Goat: The Gallows Pole OST
Dropsonde playlist
Planet Poetry: Richard Skinner (p)
The Verb: Fathers & Time (p)
Wednesday
Wet Leg: ST
VA: What It IS! Funky Soul and Rare Grooves 1697-1977
Waxahatchee: Saint Cloud
Thursday
The Waterboys: All Souls Hill, Dream Harder, Fisherman’s Blues
Walcot Cherry Vasconcelos: Condona
Vin Südenfed: Tromatic Reflexxions
Van Hunt: the Fun Rises, the Fun Sets
Ultimate Painting: Up
Tv On The Radio: Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty babes, Return to Cookie Mountain
Toy: Clear Shot
Friday:
Toy: Happy In The Hollow
Guided By Voices: Welshpool Frillies, Warp & Woof
The Durutti Column; Time Was Gigantic…When We Were Kids
Andy Shauf: Wild, The Party
Samia: Honey
The Lilac Time: Dance Till All The Stars Come Down
Blur: The Ballad of Darren
Sebastian Rochford; A Short Diary
Saturday
The Archers (p)
Dropsonde playlist
Verb : Fathers and Time (p)
Sunday
Matthew Halsall: Salute To The Sun Live
Slowdive: St
Guided By Voices: How Do You Spell Heaven
Luke Howard Trio: The Electric Night Descends

Read
Eleanor Livingstone: Even The Sea, King and Queen
Louis De Berniere ..Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (Going full Greek cliche)
Cavafy: Collecved Poems
Robert Tombs: The English and their History
Rebecca Goss: Latch
Zaffar Kunial: England’s Green
Paul Stephenson: Hard Drive
Emily Hasler: Local Interest
Robert Hamberger: The Blue Wallpaper
Geoff Hattersley: Back of Beyond; New and Selected Poems

Watched
Guilt
Love Island
A Spy Among Friends
The Traitors
The Thick of It

Ordered/Bought
Declan Ryan: Crisis Actor
Spelt Subscription

Arrived
Spelt Subscription
Declan Ryan: Crisis Actor
Poetry Wales

 

For years I shrunk weekends

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.

One for the Mandolorian fans there

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

Julian Cope. Trampolene

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