I'd be tempted to change the 'you' to 'us' in the penultimate line.
Children are a kind of cement. I imagine it must be hard when they've all flown to still find that momentum - most of us don't get that far :) I like the subtle undertones in this.
Comment is about Wigwam (blog)
:O I'm hoping this isn't autobiographical - my thoughts are with you...
Comment is about Mr Gabardine Man (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Apologies for the delay Cynthia I've been having some bad headaches from some meds. Don't worry about the crit, you're right, it was a rush of blood and passion upon reading the one you did for Fatima. I would like to send you a copy of The Dreaded Boy anyway so please email me an address to send it to you at caducus2004@yahoo.com
Enjoy the w/e
Ant
x
Comment is about Cynthia Buell Thomas (poet profile)
Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas
Your parodies are obviously not a 'flash'in the pan. You've done it again!! great fun teehee.XX
Comment is about Mr Gabardine Man (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Oo er - I've come over all patriotic - I've a mind to go and buy myself a union Jack mini dress, a la Gerry Halliwell... or maybe I've had to much to drink :) A good antidote to all the knockers, MC. All the kids, in all the schools have a had a really lovely day today. There isn't much that unites us nowadays - it's nice to celebrate something that does!
Comment is about JUBILEE JOY - welcoming our guests (blog)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
Hi MC, thx for the comments. I'm afraid I am too young to remember Frank "Typhoon" Tyson but the Hampshire burr of John Arlott is timeles and thankfully lives on in the TMS link I posted in the blog comments. Have a listen and you will hear the lines of the found poem spoken by the master. Oh and do see if you can post up your Compton/Richie Benaud piece. Win
Comment is about M.C. Newberry (poet profile)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
And all who sail in her.
Comment is about JUBILEE JOY - welcoming our guests (blog)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
Hi Larisa, I like this poem, and so glad that you are recovering, and hope you continue to do so. xx
Comment is about On The Photo In The Newspaper (blog)
Original item by Larisa Rzhepishevska
Good tribute, MC, well done.
Comment is about JUBILEE JOY - welcoming our guests (blog)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
Rhythm is such a valuable constituent of good poetry, even blank or free verse, in my view. I sometimes find myself listening to open-mic poets reading their own work who don't bring out the rhythm that I can hear in their work. It's as if they don't hear it. Rhythm helps the listener to hear and anticipate. Vital in oral poetry, as most folks' aural memory is not strong, so listeners are always a few syllables behind the reader/performer. I have no idea why, but I am convinced that rhythm helps. I do think that rap and similar stuff works with youngsters for that reason.
Comment is about The Write Out Loud interview: Kenneth Steven (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
@Harry: I like to play with words, I bend them, I twist them, I play with them as a child would play with a fly in a glass jar - pulling off a wing or two.
PURPOSE is used ironically and is meant as a consequence of the existence of the thing itself (there is no purpose)
KINK is the emergence of humanity, that as of yet is a solitary event. This event is the 'kink' in the time-line.
I agree with you on BILLION TRILLION as awkward, I thought so even as I wrote it, but used it to remind me of the need for a replacement.
@Graham: Thanks- I think therefore I thank.
@Yvonne: Thanks, but I'm not complaining. :o)
Comment is about Yvonne Brunton (poet profile)
Original item by Yvonne Brunton
@Harry: I like to play with words, I bend them, I twist them, I play with them as a child would play with a fly in a glass jar - pulling off a wing or two.
PURPOSE is used ironically and is meant as a consequence of the existence of the thing itself (there is no purpose)
KINK is the emergence of humanity, that as of yet is a solitary event. This event is the 'kink' in the time-line.
I agree with you on BILLION TRILLION as awkward, I thought so even as I wrote it, but used it to remind me of the need for a replacement.
@Graham: Thanks- I think therefore I thank.
@Yvonne: Thanks, but I'm not complaining. :o)
Comment is about extract of thought (blog)
Original item by Tommy Carroll
Dentistry...now there's a thought. Welcome to W O L Karen. Tommy
PS I have been told today that my Dentist's practice is to close at end of June- any advice?
PPS I have only one filling.
Comment is about Karen Robinson (poet profile)
Original item by Karen Robinson
Hi Larisa
Very pictorial.
You set yourself a high goal in writing in a foreign language. Keep writing - You are far more successful at writing in english than we would ever be trying to write in Ukrainian.
Good luck to your country in the forthcoming Euro Football Championships and I hope you continue to recover.
Comment is about On The Photo In The Newspaper (blog)
Original item by Larisa Rzhepishevska
An antidote to the sneering.
The knighthood's in the post.
Comment is about JUBILEE JOY - welcoming our guests (blog)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
Tommy,
Agree that it`s a fine first stanza.
`Purpose` takes for granted an end game and therefore a direction (and a director?) And a `kink` - even in a continuum - is a discrete event.
The awe inspiring `across eternity` `billion trillion` and `nano second` is out of kilter
with the intentionality of `purpose`.
And Yvonne,
Don`t be so humble! Google is harvesting millions of presences all over the world, (together with their sales potential) and that technology has only just started. Rest assured that `creation` won`t have any registration problems.
Comment is about extract of thought (blog)
Original item by Tommy Carroll
Hi John.
yes, my knickers know what you mean about elastic.
Comment is about John Coopey (poet profile)
Original item by John Coopey
When I was a boy in the 50s I was the proud owner of the Picture Post (remember it?) photobook of the tests in Australia when Frank "Typhoon" Tyson struck fear into their batsmen. These lines remind me of those halcyon days of this essentially English sport when the Hampshire burr of John Arlott told us all was well with the world. Happy days. I have a few lines I wrote in praise of Denis Compton/Richie Benaud. I must post them some day.
Comment is about A Garland of White Roses (blog)
Original item by Winston Plowes
Hey - was this timed to coincide with Bob Dylan getting his Presidential Medal of Freedom? He could have sung your version to Obama and proved to his fans that he was still the anti-establishment icon he used to be as Obama snatched the medal back! :-) Another inspired piece from a master mickey-taker.
Comment is about Mr Gabardine Man (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Hello Yvonne. Glad you liked my twangy thing. Unfortunately the ageing process seem to have perished the elastic these days.
Comment is about Yvonne Brunton (poet profile)
Original item by Yvonne Brunton
Hello MC. Thankyou for your comments on The Three Hulats and The Cart Belongs to Paddy.
A hulat is, rather disappointingly, a young owl; but I prefer the menace of interpretation of not knowing!
Comment is about M.C. Newberry (poet profile)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
Thanks for your comment on The Three Hulats, Martin. A hulat, rather disappointingly, is a young owl.
Comment is about Richie Muster (poet profile)
Original item by Richie Muster
Thank you all.
Great point Harry. It's not all about rhyme - perhaps rythm is the thing I talk about when I speak of flow? Certain combinations of words flow, whether or not they rhyme. Others clunk click like a Jimmy Saville seatbelt advert. I think, in all honesty, that the future does belong to free verse. The hard thing is finding the formula for good free verse - so much of it is by feel.
Comment is about The Write Out Loud interview: Kenneth Steven (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Great first verse Tommy. A thinker!
Regards, Graham
Comment is about extract of thought (blog)
Original item by Tommy Carroll
Thanks for the feedback Greg. A bit disturbing to write too. Graham
Comment is about Greg Freeman (poet profile)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Yvonne, many thanks for your kind feedback on my last couple of poems. It is very much appreciated.
Regards,
Graham
Comment is about Yvonne Brunton (poet profile)
Original item by Yvonne Brunton
Isobel, there it had to be you, making me do something that I hardly ever do.
I have qualified the last line as you have suggested (but don't tell anyone, I don't want to be asked to do this too often).
Seriously, thank you very much for the very generous words. It was a very worrying piece to write.
Best regards,
Graham
Comment is about Isobel (poet profile)
Original item by Isobel
You've done it again Mr Coopey. Absolutely stunning. I think you should send it to Bob. Don't let's talk about footie eh? Cruel world.
Good to see the work again.
Regards,
Graham
Comment is about Mr Gabardine Man (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Good interview Isobel,
To take from it the points about teaching kids the `classical` poets when they are immersed in the modern plethora of sound and visual images:
I sometimes wonder if it might be possible to explain the rhythm and drum constituents of some of the modern popular tunes and relate them to the underlying sounds of some of the old poems. I think in this way the kids might better get the `feel` of what a poems about.
For me the problem seems to be not so much the `chopped up prose` as the lack of rhythm in a lot of it (not rhyme). This seem a shame, as so often what I call the `story` of the poem is undermined.
We have reached the end of a long `shaking up`
process in poetry and - for the sake of general communicability - we should be looking for some more popularly understandable forms of verse.
Comment is about The Write Out Loud interview: Kenneth Steven (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
A really interesting read Isobel, and one I can very much relate to after having taught poetry in schools for many years regardless of national curriculum. I covered all forms of poetry from ballads to Shakespeare, and being Performing Arts trained, often used it as stimulus for drama, dance and music, and the children loved it!
I would say at the end of the day it all comes down to the teacher. If he/she has a love of language in all its forms, and a commitment to pass this love on... then it will happen. If not, then the poor little mites may only come across it as a perfunctory sop to the system, or when a guest speaker of quality such as Kenneth comes into the school.
I can honestly say some of my best memories are the ones of tough Skelmersdale children coming into my classroom punching the air saying " Oh yes! It`s poetry today!"
Cate xx
Comment is about The Write Out Loud interview: Kenneth Steven (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Thank you so much my dear friends for your comments, for your advice and for your help. Much appreciated.
With warmest wishes, Larisa
Comment is about On The Photo In The Newspaper (blog)
Original item by Larisa Rzhepishevska
yes you are right. Of what importance are we in the great scheme of things? How can creation even register our presence within its own timescale?
Comment is about extract of thought (blog)
Original item by Tommy Carroll
I've just read your comment in the Discussion thread. Wow, that was some sentence. I thought I could rattle on a bit without dipping into my full stop tin but that was pretty good. I am, however, dismayed by the thought of a technical god causing you some erectile distress although this is tempered by the somewhat cheering image of you racing, full throttle, into an unknown landscape in an open-top roadster, scarf rippling in a macho Dick Dastardly meets Isadora Duncan sort of way (not that I am envisaging it getting caught in the wheel)that signals a devil-may-care insouciance about what may lie over the horizon. XX
Comment is about Tommy Carroll (poet profile)
Original item by Tommy Carroll
Hi Shirley, thanks for your information about the newnfresh.com site I actually think your 'Mime Rhyme' is the best one but the site is not much cop overall is it? One of the little rhyming poems they have put up does not even rhyme!!
Comment is about Shirley Smothers (poet profile)
Original item by Shirley Smothers
Photos and names make the 'anonymous' soldiers seem far more real and suddenly the idea of war and the sadness it brings are brought home to you.
I agree with Isabel about using free verse and think this poem would work well in that genre as some of the rhymes here are a little strained which detracts from the overall impact of the poem.
The lines 'you have ever seen' do not fit grammatically into their verses. Did you mean
'the friends were the truest
you have ever seen' ?
I realise that would not fit the rhyme scheme but you could put it as:-
'The friends were true,
The truest you have ever seen'.
Comment is about On The Photo In The Newspaper (blog)
Original item by Larisa Rzhepishevska
Hi Matt, good to see you on these pages again, and to see your words of course. Win
Comment is about A.W. of Accrington (blog)
Original item by Matt Tilke
Hey Isobel, top drawer interview this, well put together with a professional approach in adding those links.
Not sure I like the sound of chopped-up 'pro's' though.
Thank you.
Comment is about The Write Out Loud interview: Kenneth Steven (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Hi Laura – glad you enjoyed and thanks for feedback. The questions about chopped up prose weren’t inspired by personas on WOL – more by news articles and discussion threads I’ve read and been part of; check this one out, which I omitted from the list – it takes a while to hunt them out…
http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=28581
Not long after, Harry O’Neill posted his discussion thread on the same theme, which I very inadvertently forgot to add to the list.
http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/newsgroupview.php?NewsThreadsID=1379
I’ve only ever entered one comp. When I did so, I tried my darndest to write in ‘chopped up prose’ cos I knew that rhyme wasn’t flavour of the day – I sometimes find it hard to write free verse though. If you want to wear the ‘chopped up prose’ hat, I’ll wear the ‘dire unpublished rhyming poet’ one :)
Comment is about The Write Out Loud interview: Kenneth Steven (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Nice interview Isobel :)
Hehe - I recognise that 'chopped up prose' phrase though, naughty ;D
Comment is about The Write Out Loud interview: Kenneth Steven (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Tommy - I love the experimental form of this!! Fab!
(gonna keep checking your counter now hehe)
Comment is about 7000th comment wins (blog)
Original item by Tommy Carroll
Ha Yvonne - I came here to say it reminded me of Joyce Grenfell (loved her monologues).
Harry - if you read this you have to do it in a simpering falsetto, okay? ;D
Comment is about School time (blog)
Big billy comedown - it'll do that to you, make you want to leave, that's why I left it alone after 3 fast and increasingly psychotic years :(
I like the sparseness of this - the feeling of emptiness, futility.
Do you think it might benefit from an ellipsis rather than a full stop after 'my'? Or would that make it too obvious?
Comment is about Six Days (blog)
Original item by Kealan Coady
Ooo! You're back! And with added photo! Marvellous :)
Derb as in a 'smoke' kinda way? Makes sense if so.
Comment is about Derb. (blog)
Hey, cheers fellas
I have no idea what you mean by "its internal logic maintains its integrity", Richie, but I like it ;D
Steve - yeh, one of the first lines I thought of that - no idea where THAT came from ha :D (think I was channelling Victoria Wood or sommat!)
Comment is about No Pansies (for Charlotte) (blog)
Original item by Laura Taylor
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about your granddad, A.W. Nicely put.
Comment is about A.W. of Accrington (blog)
Original item by Matt Tilke
thanx Stella and Yvonne just came to me when i was using insect bite cream lol:)
Comment is about EXILE (blog)
Original item by NICK ARMBRISTER
Dominic and friends bring BANG SAID THE GUN to Manchester!!
“Down in that there London town BANG SAID THE GUN is nothing short of a performance poetry institution. Dominic Berry and four of his poetry chums (Keiren King, Rod Tame, Dave Viney and Benny-jo Zahl) are proud to be hosting its first northern sibling, BANG SAID THE GUN: MANCHESTER!
Check out our BANG! facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/bangsaidthegunmanchester
We are on EVERY THURSDAY for just £5/ £3 at The Old Nag’s Head pub, Jacksons Row (off Deansgate), M2 5WD http://www.manchesterbars.com/oldnagshead.htm
Every week we’ll be hosting a night of top notch poetic entertainment with such talent as:
JUNE 7th – MARK Mr T THOMPSON http://www.myspace.com/culturalchameleonpress
JUNE 14th – SHIRLEY MAY http://www.shirleymay.net/
JUNE 21st – KARMIE KARMZ http://twitter.com/#!/karmie27
JUNE 28th – MARK GWYNNE JONES http://www.psychicbread.com/
JULY 5th – MARK NIEL http://www.akickinthearts.co.uk/
JULY 12th – ROSIE GARLAND aka ROSIE LUGOSI http://www.rosielugosi.com/wp/
JULY 19th – BYRON VINCENT http://www.nastylittlepress.org/people/byron-vincent-2/
JULY 26th – ASH DICKINSON http://www.ashdickinson.com/
PLUS!!!!! EVERY WEEK we’ll be offering audience members the chance to compete…… for the coveted **Golden Gun prize** in the Top Banana Open Mic!!!
Each week’s Golden Gun prize winner is offered a guest set at a future Bang Said The Gun: Manchester!
First come, first on open mic so get down early if you wanna be on. Or, just come join the crowd to listen and cheer. Either way, a top notch poetic night out!”
Review is about BANG SAID THE GUN: MANCHESTER on 31 May 2012 (event)
Thanks for you comment on 'Nuclear Cradle Song' There is an audio link at the top of it ( I hope) XX
Comment is about Richie Muster (poet profile)
Original item by Richie Muster
Julian (Admin)
Sat 2nd Jun 2012 09:37
Self-revelatory villain 'ell? It will never stand up in court. It's not only hard rain that's gonna fall. I wrote about this subject for one of the Sunday papers: Exhibitionism, the pull-out supplement.
Comment is about Mr Gabardine Man (blog)
Original item by John Coopey