Fabulous -straight to the point!
Best wishes, Steve
Comment is about Zzzz!! (blog)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
Thanks for looking in on red wine. Not my best work but and maybe too personal but I'll just say 'cheers'anyway, Steve
Comment is about Fragment (blog)
Original item by Laura Taylor
Enjoyed this Ian. Particularly liked 'raging zeitgeist troubadour'.
Comment is about Thirty Plus Years In An Open Necked Shirt (blog)
Original item by Ian Whiteley
Wholeheartedly agree with Greg. The way that the Tories have cynically and hard-heartedly worked with the right-wing press to make 'benefits' a 'bad word' is sickening. We should be proud that this country does so much to look after those with needs - that we act like a proper community. Of course there are abuses and the system needs monitoring and administering. But it is still a wonderful thing. But we're now in a state in which politicians can hardly dare stand up and say what great things benefits are - and they ARE!!. Just ask anyone in a poorer country or look at our own history. Well done, Laura.
Comment is about Assembly (blog)
Original item by Laura Taylor
Tories may sneer and mock, but I don't mind admitting, Laura, that I welled up reading this. What a moving, inspiring poem! Great that you mentioned Shelley, too. Don't know if it's true but I read somewhere that it was the greatest congregation of protesters in Manchester since Peterloo. Very fine piece of work. I will try and find this poem now and again, every time I feel I need to cheer myself up.
Comment is about Assembly (blog)
Original item by Laura Taylor
Great idea for a poem! And when you perform it you're gonna HAVE to do it in a Salford drawl ;D
I've nowt against him doing that ad btw, it's up to bloody him innit?
Anyway, thought the repetition of Johnny Clarke very effective, and you didn't do the predictable thing of incorporating loads of his lines in your own poem.
Nice tribute.
Bloody hell Ray!! Did ya?! Woooo!!! You can still be working class and like nice wine and cake you know. Ahem.
Comment is about Thirty Plus Years In An Open Necked Shirt (blog)
Original item by Ian Whiteley
Howdy Cynth!
Many thanks for your lovely note on 'Fragment'. Can't begin to tell you how strong and euphoric the feeling was. The hypnagogic state is very similar to an opiated one, and I think that led to the feelings. I've tried in the past to teeter within the hypnagogic state as I find it so immensely pleasurable, but it's a contrary beast and will not be controlled easily ha :D
Yes - I would agree completely with you about the different layers of poetry and its reception. Sometimes I think a piece isn't 'good enough' to blog, and then I think 'well, this was such a strong thing within me, and it's not as 'good' as X or Y or Z, in a certain way, but that's because it is a DIFFERENT animal altogether'. So I blog it, and be damned haha ;D
Anyway, thanks again :)
Comment is about Cynthia Buell Thomas (poet profile)
Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas
thanks ray - amended for accuracy following your knowledgeable comment :-)
Comment is about Thirty Plus Years In An Open Necked Shirt (blog)
Original item by Ian Whiteley
<Deleted User> (11485)
Tue 1st Oct 2013 17:32
<Deleted User> (11485)
Tue 1st Oct 2013 13:42
I love this poem, and the way it unconsciously ( perhaps) reflects modern physics.
Comment is about Geraldine Monk (poet profile)
Original item by Geraldine Monk
I believe you. I applaud you! I envy you. Never lose that dream. Even the poem above, just 'scribbled' in haste, carries much power.
Most poems that I consider 'great' are very simple ones, easily structured, easily stored in memory, and not necessarily supported or propped up by educated dictums.
To be honest, I'm not sure 'great poems' are even possible anymore. As in: 'great to whom'? The scope, and sheer numbers, of writers and readers has broadened so much, that perhaps there will now be only 'great poems in certain circles'. We have such distinct strata now, each reaching a particular audience, that cross-over may be severely limited. I sincerely believe that one 'type' cannot claim to be better than another. Such dialogue will be entirely within a particular layer.
So keep writing, shafting your great talent straight out to the world in your own inimitable way.
Comment is about Fragment (blog)
Original item by Laura Taylor
<Deleted User> (11485)
Tue 1st Oct 2013 13:08
"Song to the Sea" is stirring and deeply touching. The fourth stanza knocked me off my feet- to my eyes, a single poem.
Comment is about Fay Roberts (poet profile)
Original item by Fay Roberts
I totally agree that the word was taken out of context within 'social banter'. It wasn't smart. but it wasn't dreadful either, in the circumstances. The women in the group probably laughed. You'll notice the actual clip appeared very fast and only once, that I saw. In the correct meaning of the word 'slut', most of us girls (and guys) qualify at some time or other. I do have a problem with whether or not Bloom knew the difference between 'slut' and 'whore'. Maybe that's really where the UKIP gang had the inner knowledge, and needed to cut their ties asap.
Comment is about FADING BLOOM (blog)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
I do like work that seems to be 'unlinked' or 'linked wherever the reader chooses to connect'. This is not an easy poem, but it does have a certain dynamism. 'square' and 'cask' certainly got my attention, as they seem utterly the opposite. And the ending is quite profound.
Comment is about Interest Only (blog)
Original item by Paul Sands
<Deleted User> (11459)
Tue 1st Oct 2013 11:33
Hi
My neighbours cat disappeared and was found much later curled in a ball under the stairs dead. I think they find a quiet place when they are ill. Fortunately, the field mouse was a figment of my imagination.
Comment is about Steve Higgins (poet profile)
Original item by Steve Higgins
Tue 1st Oct 2013 10:20
I celebrated International Translation Day yesterday by trying a Spanish version of Fran’s poem! My Spanish isn't really up to the task of rhyming - but I had a go. I managed it OK a coupla times (usually by sacrificing the metre, ha) but the rest of the time I settled for a sort of vague assonance :-)
Things I noticed:
Line 3 – translated word-for-word, it woulda been really long; so I found a way to shorten it that I think works OK (Literally, “I came home; his empty wardrobe left me stunned”)
Line 8 – I coulda used the more normal verb “amancebarse” (to live together), but I think “vivir en concubinato” has the same florid, slightly tongue-in-cheek flavour of “live in sin”.
The “he picks his nose” line – I so liked the snappy internal rhyme of “nose/clothes” that I had to try and get a rhyme in - so I had to change the meaning.“Marear la perdiz”– literally “to make the partridge dizzy”– is a funny idiom that means a combination of mucking others around, stalling/time-wasting when you should be doing something important, and not getting to the point or getting on with stuff. It's a bit of a stretch but hey, I tried :-)
Last line – I completely ignored the “bloody”, cos swearing in another language is the quickest way to sound silly (well OK maybe not the quickest, but…) I'd love to know what someone with decent Spanish would say for this.
vik x
Comment is about link
The Mail has always been Britain's nastiest newspaper, ever since it backed Oswald Mosley in the 1930s. Why they've now decided to smear Ed Miliband's dad, God only knows. Shame on Waitrose for giving it away at the checkout (Apologies to the checkout staff for my reaction when they've offered it to me!)
Comment is about Daily Mail (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Hey Starfish,
The cat poem is a true story. Came home from work one day and was making a cuppa, looking out through the kitchen window onto the street. Our neighbours cat had a stretch, had a good look around and went to sleep under their tree. Later on various screams and tears were heard and I asked next door what was going on and they said the lady opposite came home and found her cat dead curled up under the tree. I prefer to think, romantically perhaps, that the cat knew the end was nigh and took his leave of life in a calm feline way. Not a bad way to go. Much better than the poor old field mouse . . .
Steve
Comment is about Starfish (poet profile)
Original item by Starfish
Among my collection of vinyl LPs, I have a boxed set called "Poetry For Pleasure" (Concert
Hall Record Club) which contains an incomparable version of "Dover Beach" read by
Stephen Murray - and "Adlestrop" read by Dame
Flora Robson. Other front rank readers include Michael Redgrave, Marius Goring, Jill
Balcon and John Neville.
Anyone knowing the quality they represent will
know how well they do their job with material that ranges from Thomas Wyatt to W.B.Yeats. Wonderful stuff from nearly fifty years ago that is as fresh and fine today as it ever was. Only Richard Burton is anywhere near when
it comes to reading great poetry.
Finally - I have emailed Tim Dee about the poems
featured and the programme in general. I was
minded to include the question:
Where will future requests for today's poetry come
from if poets are omitted by fashion and passing
fad that leaves little that is truly MEMORABLE?
Comment is about Robert Frost tops the list on BBC's Poetry Please request show (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Every worthwhile writer borrows. It is amazing how inspiration can be encouraged by the most(I nearly tapped in "moist"!) unlikely places. I found myself undergoing an MRI scan earlier during which I was placed in something resembling a torpedo tube for 40 minutes and occupied the time making up songs to the sounds of the various weird noises the machine emitted. Don't see a hit in any of them, though!! :-)
Cheers - and thanks, as always, for the lift your work provides. Such a pleasant change to be positive and mean it when knowing of the fractious precious types on WOL who trot out insults like "troll" at the drop of a hat when the comments are not the 100% approbation they seek. Your latest piece on the Daily Mail was interesting, but that newspaper is a byword for emotive stuff that plays to those who think the country has gone to the dogs since WW2. The BBC can't let a week go by without featuring the title in one of its programmes...and not appreciatively! Check "Mock The Week" and "Have I Got News For You", as well as some dramas of late. What fun!!!
Comment is about John Coopey (poet profile)
Original item by John Coopey
Sorry Ray,
It was just my thickness and the superb sexiness of that first stanza.
I just couldn`t believe that any woman who had tilted her `weight` into the warming cup of those `stilling` palms and had four thousand trips to Paradise would ever dream of going anywhere else. :)
Comment is about The Mousetrap (blog)
Awww... I like this. I like the way it is written, the message and I like cats!
Comment is about The Cat that lived Across the Road (blog)
Original item by Steve Higgins
Hello John
Re: Cottage Sleaze, I was referring to an earlier comment. Certainly, a beautifully written piece, though. Starfish.
Comment is about John Coopey (poet profile)
Original item by John Coopey
<Deleted User> (11485)
Mon 30th Sep 2013 23:26
Brilliant, angry, plain; it travels perfectly across the sea.
Comment is about 50,000 (blog)
Original item by Gray Nicholls
<Deleted User> (11485)
Mon 30th Sep 2013 23:21
Deeply beautiful impressionism
Comment is about Carla Tombacco (poet profile)
Original item by Carla Tombacco
Hello Starfish,
When I wrote "Cottage Sleaze" the word "beautiful" didn't seem the most apt description! You will gather that not all the lines are my own. (And, No, I did not do a lot of research for this).
Comment is about Starfish (poet profile)
Original item by Starfish
Hello Steve,
Many thanks for your kind thoughts on "Cottage Sleaze".
Comment is about Steve Higgins (poet profile)
Original item by Steve Higgins
Hello MC,
Glad you enjoyed "Cottage Sleaze". I have to confess that some of the lines were not entirely my own!
Comment is about M.C. Newberry (poet profile)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
Thanks for commenting on "Cottage Sleaze", Simon. I'm rather proud that it evokes a certain odour!
Comment is about Marksy (poet profile)
Original item by Marksy
Hello Laura,
Glad you enjoyed "Cottage Sleaze". As I said in one of my comments, cottages hold a special place in my memory. I was fondled in one when I was a youngster while the bloke wanked off into the next cubicle. As I said, it was rather thrilling and he gave me a 10/- note for it. Happy days.
Comment is about Laura Taylor (poet profile)
Original item by Laura Taylor
Hello Greg,
Honours shared at the weekend.
Glad you enjoyed "Cottage Sleaze" and weren't too put off by the racist stuff. It would be a rare cottage indeed which contained politically correct graffiti.
Comment is about Greg Freeman (poet profile)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Hello Ian,
Glad you enjoyed "Cottage Sleaze". I rather liked the idea of ramming something so sleazy into the joyous and bouncy form.
Comment is about Ian Whiteley (poet profile)
Original item by Ian Whiteley
Oh, I'm definitely with you on this one, good stuff!
Comment is about 50,000 (blog)
Original item by Gray Nicholls
Philipos
Mon 30th Sep 2013 18:52
Hello Harry, obliged for your comments on 'The Magnificent Seven'. Woking really is an eternal Topsy-Turvy Town, always awash with builder's rubble etc. CHEERS.
Comment is about Harry O`N eill (poet profile)
Original item by Harry O`N eill
Philipos
Mon 30th Sep 2013 18:45
Nice one David - bestest Philipos.
Comment is about Dave Bradley receives his 52 Hertz prize (photo)
Thanks, Charles! Am I right in thinking that poetry day in the US - and indeed in the rest of the world - is held on a different day?
Comment is about Let's make a big splash on National Poetry Day (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
<Deleted User> (11485)
Mon 30th Sep 2013 16:02
All best from the U.S.
Comment is about Let's make a big splash on National Poetry Day (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
<Deleted User> (11485)
Mon 30th Sep 2013 15:51
Enjoyed "Date" very much.
Comment is about Julia Deakin (poet profile)
Original item by Julia Deakin
<Deleted User> (11197)
Mon 30th Sep 2013 12:02
Hey Ged
Thank you for your beautiful comment on my write 'Thoughts'.
Best wishes
Ankita
Comment is about Ged Thompson (poet profile)
Original item by Ged Thompson
<Deleted User> (11197)
Mon 30th Sep 2013 11:11
I really like the way you paint your words with your beautiful thoughts Ged. :) Each line in itself is so nice and meaningful. Thank you for sharing.
Comment is about True life's an art (blog)
Original item by Ged Thompson
<Deleted User> (11459)
Mon 30th Sep 2013 11:07
I loved that line too as Nigel stated it really stood out. Great poem X
Comment is about Winter looms, memories lost. (blog)
Original item by Naomi Hefter
Very dark,very discriptive, very good
Comment is about The Armed Man (blog)
Original item by Anna Grinter
Poetry Please favourites/Edward Thomas...etc.
I consider differences of opinion a healthy
sign in any worthwhile society. But the
curmudgeon in me has no difficulty in jousting
with the self-righteous, self-serving and self-pitying who use poetry as their vehicle. BUT
you will never find me resorting to abuse
towards those who take ME to task, either for
my poems or a POV...unlike some who it is clear
are quick to delete views they cannot handle and trot out words like "troll" in response, like petulant children.
Carry on disagreeing. You could always be right...
or perhaps not.
Ego argues...wisdom discusses.
Regards
MC
Comment is about Greg Freeman (poet profile)
Original item by Greg Freeman
M.C. Newberry
Wed 2nd Oct 2013 17:23
Thanks for the comments, one and all.
Ray - I was tempted to use "determined" in the last line but the alliteration of 'seem' & 'set'
appealed more and I was content to double up on
"to".
If you "sing" the first two lines - the word
'even' keeps the rhythm - IMHO.
Comment is about Zzzz!! (blog)
Original item by M.C. Newberry