In the intro to Margaret Atwood’s Selected Poems (1965 to 1975) she states there is a “lot of burnt toast in the lives of poets” (our words to that effect. I think she’s getting at “our” natural tendency to think and get distracted. Well, I think there’s a lot of references to roasts in these posts (Hey, you want poetry…?), and that’s largely because these tend to get written in a Sunday. I write this from my kitchen table as I wait for spuds to parboil. I hope they don’t boil dry because I get so into this..
I note I’m making this from my kitchen table, and I read the North Sea Poets’ post about being 1 year old on Friday. I think they may have achieved a bit more from their kitchen table, but there are more of them. Maybe they make shit roasts, who knows, but I doubt it.
No poem for you this week because I forgot to ask permission, so normal service resumed ASAP.
Last weekend was a hectic one for readings.
I’d like to so say a huge thank you to Stephen Claughton and Mark Randles for having Matthew and me in St Albans to read at Ver Poets. if you look now, we are at the top of the news page. It was an early kick off (I think to avoid crowd trouble, and not to avoid me having a few liveness/straighteners beforehand – Thank you for that suggestion, Matthew Paul)…I think it was probably the earliest I’ve read, but very civilised. Lovely to read in a library, and to a warm crowd. We both had two slots, one at 20 mins and one of ten, which was a nice way to do things.
Matthew leant into his two collections, including some of the wine poems form Knives. I leant into CtD, including some that rarely get read like Tea Hut. I also tried out some newer poems…including a longer one (for me) that I think acts as a complement to Clearing Dad’s Shed (in a way). Not sure if it’s not too long for a reading, but we live and learn.
We also had an open mic, including a poem from Tim Love who’d made the journey up (Thanks Tim). I did take notes about the readers, but they seem to have got very wet in my bag on the way home, so alas they are illegible…Nay, more illegible given my handwriting. Sorry folks, but I enjoyed you all.
PHOTO BY STEPHEN CLOUGHTON
Matthew I sat in the Mad Squirrel Tap for a few jars after, and I note that venue is where Ver also hold nights…they have Ribin Houghton & Mark Fiddes coming up soon, and then Christopher Horton. Go, go to them all. Stephen and Mark put on an excellent event. We both sold some books*, and Ver Poerts pay us for it…amazing.
* I also swapped one with Stephen for his pamphlets. I think I got the better end of that deal, but I’ll take it.
The few jars with Matthew may not have been the most ideal prep ahead of an early start to head to Brighton the next day for what tend out to be a very wet and cold Half Marathon, but I did it. I think it must have been because I read my running poem, Stride Pattern, the day before…yeah, that, and not the training ahead of it that got me in under 2 hours. I would have settled for 1.59.59, but it was 1.57.49…so happy with that.
Then with tired legs, a tired mind and a tired soul (after a day in strategy session at work it was time to head to Poetry Central aka The Devereux for another Robert Dazzler of a Rogue Strands event with Jemma Borg, Katharine Towers, Christopher Reid and George Szirtes. What a grand night that was and what a line up. We were treated to new poems from almost everyone, everyone read like a dream. And I have to offer true thanks to both Katharine and Christopher for nobly and ably carrying on in the face of loud noise coming from downstairs as the pub quizmaster took the crown down there (and I think we had more people) through the music round. Adele and Michael Jackson were definitely two of the answers. Both poets have said they didn’t mind, but I recall looking across at Matthew and we both had our respective head in our respective hands at the noise drifting up.
NB the only photo of me that I’ve seen has my gut busting out as I stretched ahead of the intro..I’ll spare you that.
And then just like that my little burst of gigs is over..Nothing in the diary now for a few months, at least not me reading anyway. If anyone wants a poet for a reading let me know. Beyond that, the only poetry news is an acceptance came this week, but it’s for the issue after next so we’ll come back to that.
Happy International Women’s Day.
A song that seems appropriate
Explosions In The Sky, With Tired Eyes, Tired Legs….
Title Giveaway
X
THE LAST TWO WEEKS IN STATS
HEALTH STATS Runs: 10, 6.8, 21, 7.5, 7.9, 13 Workouts: 2 Walks: 1 Yoga: Days in a row without alcohol: 2 Days in a row without cigarettes: 1 Bouts of Insomnia: 0
LIFE STATS 1 x all day workshop 1x trip to the Tate for Tracy Emin exhibition 1 x Half Marathon 1 x start of Ultra Marathon training 1 x gig (The Hold Steady) 1 x drinks after that
POET STATS Notes for poems: 0 Worked on: The Lookover, Faith…. Finished/In the Drawer: Abandoned Submissions: 0 Total Poems Out: 19 Rejections: 0 Acceptances: 1 Withdrawn:0 Longlisted: 0 Books sold: 6 Readings: Attended: Read at: Ver Poets, Rogue Strands Workshops: Friends poems looked at: 1
Music/Listened to r= Radio, A = Audiobook, P=Podcast. The rest is music Craig Finn: Always Been, Clear Eyes Full Heart, Faith in The Future, I Need A New War, A Legacy of Rentals, Newmeyer’s Roof, We All Want the Same Things Explosions In the Sky: All of A Sudden I Miss Everyone, the Earth is Not A Cold Dead Place Steve’s Mixtapes: Various (p) That’s the Way I Remember It: Courtney Marie Andrews (P) The Archers (p)Armando thing Patti Smith: Peace & Noise The Hold Steady: The Price of Progress, Boys & Girls In America, Open Door Policy, Separation Sunday My Marathon Playlist Ultimate Painting: Green Lanes A House: Greatness & Ignorance Poems We Made… Michael Symmons Roberts Emma-Jean Thackray Podcast Arsecast (P) Eleventh Day Dream: Zeroes & Ones The Cure: Show of a Lost World Jane Weaver: The Fallen By Watchbird, Sunset Dreams, Flock, Love in Constant Spectacle, Modern Kosmology, Seven Day Smile, The Silver Globe Brighton VS Arsenal (R) Mansfield Town Vs Arsenal (R) Talk Talk : The Colour of Spring, Laughing Stock Tallies: Patina, ST Laura Stevenson: The Big Freeze
Read Mike Barlow: Another Place Aftershock 2 Dark Horse: Summer 25
Watched Evil Arsenal vs Chelsea
Ordered/Bought Rishi Dastidar: Cherry Blossom Andrew Neilson: Little Griefs Jemma Borg: Wilder Katharine Tower; Oak Charlotte Ansell: Deluge and Amittere Frogmore Papers
Do poets tend to have managers, or at least drivers? I think we should be issued with one for gigs and the like. It may stem from me not being the best driver in the world, but I drove back from a reading in Faversham last night and it absolutely horsed it down in stair rods all the way back. The was an hour and bit I wouldn’t care to repeat in a hurry…
I am always grateful for the gigs, but that’s the second gig now in a couple of weeks that involves travelling an hour or more in each direction.
Two weeks ago it was a trip to Chipping Norton to read at lovely gallery there called Art & Talking. I got to stay with friends the night before, although I was subjected to the Super Bowl the night before. Dear lord, what a dull experience that was, but each to their own. I thought the half time entertainment from Bad Bunny was visually incredible and powerful, even if I wasn’t that into the music (to be fair, I couldn’t hear it in the room due to drunk old men—myself included, gibbering on).
It’s a 150-mile round trip to Chippy and back for me… However, I got to read for the first time in a beautiful venue, I got to read with the wonderful Laura Theis and Robin Vaughn-Williams again. Robin puts on a great night….The open mic readers were also excellent. My friend’s teenage daughter told me I wasn’t as boring as she thought I would be, so I’m calling that all worthwhile. Laura’s work is well worth a look, as is Robin’s.
Some knobheadMichael, the gallery ownerRobin Vaughn-WilliamsThe CrowdLaura Theis
Apologies to those that have gone unnamed…I wrote the running order down on the back of my hand, forgetting that wouldn’t be the most permanent of records..
Yesterday, was an 80-mile round trip. I definitely lost money on it (but hey, no one gets wealthy on the poetries these days), but I’m calling it a win because of the readings I saw. It was lovely to be asked by Christopher Horton to read there again, and to read alongside Lesley Sharpe. Christopher read some new work and several poems from his latest pamphlet, Clutter Jar…(You’ve bought it already, yeah?). I didn’t really know Lesley’s work before this, but I very much hope that it goes on to find a home in a pamphlet or collection soon. Amongst others, she read her poem , Revolution, from Finished Creatures 8 – check it out.
We stayed on to see the day’s excellent compere, Rosie Johnston, sandwiched between Charlotte Ansell and Maria McCarthy. While it’s fair to say each set came with a content warning all three delivered sets of incredible power, all were deeply moving, and more importantly fine poetry…You don’t always get all three.
The day was then rounded out by a double act from Jean Atkin and Richard Skinner. Both read excellently and compellingly from their joint pamphlet, Crossing Paths. I wasn’t 100% sure it would be for me after a long day of poems already, but it was an engaging route into the meditative world of long distance walking and Richard’s story about his friend contemplating the Bob Graham Round reminded me that my own ultra challenge isn’t nearly anywhere near as bad as the BGR…It’s also worth noting that everyone that read that day stuck to time, read strongly and knew what they were doing. Bravo all.
Christopher HortonLesley SharpeRosie JohnstonCharlotte AnsellMaria McCarthyRichard Skinner and Jean AtkinSome Knobhead
NB training for the Ultra starts in earnest in two weeks time once I’ve got the Brighton Half out of the way next weekend…Pray for me, but only that it doesn’t rain next weekend.
Other endurance events next week include seeing Matthew Stewart twice in 3 days (only kidding, Matthew…obvs it will be a pleasure and a joy as ever) to read as part of Ver Poets next Saturday, and then our own Rogue Strands night on the Monday after. Come along to either or both, folks. It would be ace to see you there. More on that anon…
Right, enough what I did on me holidays…let’s have a poem.
NB since I started this post this morning (and it’s now 18.277 at time of typing) I’ve been to the tip (mainly cardboard), shopped for the veg for the roast, cooked a roast, eaten and then washed up after it.
Connection there is that last night while driving back from Faversham I realised I need to clean or replace the windscreen wipers on my car…That thought reoccured to me as I left the tip—not sure why, but not 10 seconds later I drove past a man out changing the windscreen wipers on his car (I assume it was his or belonged to someone he knows)…I also saw a car with a numberplate that ended in REM on the way home…
Anyhoo, a year ago I was in Faversham for the Lit Festival, and saw Bob Geldof when I was walking to the venue (I think it was him). While waiting for the gig to start I wandered into a second hand bookshop ( I was with Matthew Stewart) and bought a copy of Matthew Sweeney’s A Smell of Fish. It’s been on my TBR pile since then, but I picked it up this week to read and the first thing I notice was the book was signed…
“To Bob, I don’t like Mondays, either. Thank you for introducing us at the Almedia, Best wishes, Matthew Sweeney, 2nd April 2000.
So, by my reckoning, Sir Bob Geldof donated this to the local business…that’s the charitable take. Or was he really pissed off with the Mondays gag? Hmmm. perhaps he was indifferent to it. (NB The Great Song of Indifference came out 10 years before this, so that blows that theory out of the water…). NNB The Great Song of Indifference was one of my early vinyl purchases. I still have it in my loft.
You may have guessed that what now follows will be a poem by Matthew Sweeney. I think I’ve posted one from him before, probably told the story about seeing him and him talking about the temperature being colder than a “gravedigger’s ass”.. (quoting Tom Waits, I think), but it’s my gaff, my rules..
Sweeney
Even when I said my head was shrinking he didn’t believe me. Change doctors, I thought, but why bother? We’re all hypochondriacs, and those feathers pushing through my pores were psychosomatic. My wife was the same till I pecked her, trying to kiss her, one morning, scratching her feet with my claws, cawing good morning till she left the bed with a scream.
I moved out then, onto a branch of the oak behind the house. That way I could see her as she opened the car, on her way to work. Being a crow didn’t stop me fancying her, especially when she wore that short black number I’d bought her in Berlin. I don’t know if she noticed me. I never saw her look up. I did see boxes of my books going out.
The nest was a problem. My wife had cursed me for being useless at DIY, and it was no better now. I wasn’t a natural flier, either, so I sat in that tree, soaking, shivering, all day. Everytime I saw someone carrying a bottle of wine I cawed. A takeaway curry was worse. And the day I saw my wife come home with a man, I flew finally into our wall.
+++++++++Taken from Matthew Sweeney’s A Smell of Fish, Cape Poetry, 2000. Published without permission of the author or executors, so I will take this down if requested.
I’m not going to deconstruct this (as much as I ever manage that anyway). I just like it, just enjoy the shaggy dog story of it. I can see myself in the “being useless at DIY”. I like the reduction to the basic needs of books, wine, desire and curry aka life’s bare essentials
Now, I must do some self-promotion.
I have a run of gigs (it’s not a tour) coming up 28th Feb, St Albans I’ll be reading as par of poetry’s answer to Saint & Greavsie with Matthew Stewart at Ver Poets in St Albans.
2nd March, London Rogue Strands is back with a bang. We’ll be at the Devereux with Christopher Reid, George Szirtes, Jemma Borg, Katharine Towers and Matthew and me.
See you there.
Thanks to Matthew for sorting both of these. I’ve done very little on this wave of Rogue Strands, but I’ll be there like some full kit wanker on the 2nd to take the glory
A song that seems appropriate
Bob Geldof, The Great Song of Indifference
Title Giveaway
Mordor Hatchback Check in & Egg Situation
THE LAST TWO WEEKS IN STATS
HEALTH STATS Runs: 16, 10, 8, 18, 9,7.5, 10 Workouts: 2 Walks: 1 Yoga: Days in a row without alcohol: 0 Days in a row without cigarettes: 0 Bouts of Insomnia: 1
LIFE STATS 1 x drive to Heythrop 1 x drive back from Heythrop 1x long day 1 x walk in the woods with my friend Het 1 x conference for work 2 x bedrooms emptied. 45 trips shifting stuff down and then back up stairs Carpet fitted (not by me) Last painting done All rooms tidied after carpet fitting 2 x boiler fixed (not by me) 1 x drive to Faversham and back. Back in the pissing rain—I hate that drive
POET STATS Notes for poems: Hack, MS, Shrinking, Munch Worked on: The Lookover, Maybe Let the Monkeys….
Finished/In the Drawer: Acceptance Prayer, Abandoned Submissions: North, The Rialto, Alchemy Spoon, Pennine Platform Total Poems Out: 22 Rejections: Pomegranate, Banshee Acceptances: Withdrawn:0 Longlisted: 0 Books sold: 6 Readings: Attended: Charlotte Ansell with Rosie Johnston & Maria McCarthy, Liz Atkins & Richard Skinner Read at: Art & Talking, Chipping Norton with Laura Theis & 7 open micers, Faversham Lit Fest with Lesley Sharpe & Christopher Horton Workshops: Friends poems looked at: 1
Music/Listened to r= Radio, A = Audiobook, P=Podcast. The rest is music Blind Boy Podcast (p) Dropsonde Playlist The Orioles: Live At Stoller Hall Aaron & Bryce Dessner: Transpecos OST The Afghan Whigs; Gentlemen Lee Dorsey: the New Lee Dorsey The Verb(p) Steve’s Mixtapes: Ian Gelling, Chris Rand, Paul Howarth , Derek Peplau Eels: Hombre Lobo VA: Persian Underground Pele: A Scuttled Bender In A Watery Closet Neil Young: Silver & Gold Storey Littleton: At A Diner Anna Butterss: Mighty Vertebrate Sven Wunder: Daybreak These Animal Men: Taxi For These Animal Men Betty & The Werewolves: Tea Time Favourites Smashing Pumpkins: Teargarden By Kaleidyscope, Zeitgeist, Oceania, So Bright So Shiny Courtney Barnett: Things Take Time The Brian Jonestown Massacre: Third World Pyramid George Harrison: Thirty Three & 1/3 English Teacher: This Could Be Texas Drummers of the Societe Absolument Guinin; Vodou Drums In Haiti 2 Clementine March: Powder Keg HMHB: The Voltarol Years, All Asimov, Saucy Haulage Ballads Jon Brooks: Walberswick The Big Moon: Walking Like We Do Cowboy Junkies: Waltz Across America Hot Chip: In Our Heads The Cure: Pornography The Creation of Light: ST Playlist for a thing Rosenau & Sandborn: Bluebird EP Radiohead: The King of Limbs, A Moon Shaped Pool Roddy Woomble: Lo! Soul Causa Sui: Loppen 2021 The Clientele: Music For The Age of Miracles Black Belt Eagle Scout: Mother of My Children Unruly Disturbance: Frisson Damon & Naomi: True Beats and False Hearts Spurs vs Arsenal (R)
Read Antony Dunn: Pilots and Navigators Matthew Sweeney: The Asylum Dance A copy of Frogmore Papers from 2022 Rishi Dastidar: Stamp Fans stuff Poetry Salzburg from 2025 Daljit Nagra, Look We Are Coming To Dover Martha Sprackland: Milk Tooth
Watched Evil NFL Super Bowl (YAWN) Under Salt Marsh Curling, various skiing and snowboarding bits of the Winter Olympics
Ordered/Bought Nothing beyond some booze, some scotch eggs and a sandwich
I spent Monday in a strategy session for work working with a guy who’d been brought in. I went in being all cynical, but came out actually relatively enthused (by my standards). The chap that ran the session is ex-ITV and was responsible for a big change in ITV lore.
As I’m sure you aware there’s an industry event in the TV world called ‘The Upfronts’ each year – usually circa September in the UK. It’s a chance for a roadster to show advertisers and the like what they have going up. It’s a bit of a chance to tickle their fancies and add some of the old razzle dazzle to proceedings.
To cut a long story short, it’s almost always known as the upfronts, but Chris decided to add some pizzazz to things and came up with the name the ITV Palooza (the link here takes you to last year’s Palooza, and the chart in the background was made by may colleagues. It shows how ITV viewing dwarfs that of eg Netflix. I’m told it drew gasps in the room).
Anyway, a Palooza is “an exaggerated event…”or something associated with celebration. I won’t get too much into the branding side of thing, etc, but the use of this word now means ITV owns it – there’s a first mover advantage to it…There’s some standout to it…It’s not a word that gets used a lot, although I remember it being used in the 90s by Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction fame when he set up the Lollapalooza festival. I’m sure you went there straight way as well.
Anyhoo, why am I saying all of this.
On Tuesday evening I finally started reading my copy of Harry Man’s ‘Popular Song‘. It’s taken me a while to get to reading it, having bought it at the London Launch at the Torriano Meeting Rooms. Harry was a very entertaining reader that evening. I know he read with Matt Bryden, Tom Weir, Tiffany Ann Tondut and Michael Brown too…I’m sure I’ve written about it here before). Christ, it was nearly 2 years ago. Sorry Harry. However, we move…as the young folks don’t say anymore.
I was working my way through Harry’s book and got to his poem ‘I waterskied lonely as a clownfish’, and more importantly I got to Line 5 of the first stanza and knew I a) was reading a great poem and b) I had my blog post ready to go..
Let’s have the poem.
“I water-skied lonely as a clownfish“ N+20
I water-skied lonely as a clownfish That flusters on hijackings o’er vanishing creams and hindsight, When all at once I saxophoned to a crow’s nest, A hot air balloon of golden daisy chains; Beside the lollapalooza, beneath the tree of life, Flyfishing and dandruffing in the bric-a-brac.
Continuous as the stars that show-and-tell And two-step on the Milky Way, They were strewn in newly-wed lingua franca Along the marinated beachfront: Ten thousand I saxophoned at a glassworks, Tractor-beaming their headings in sprightly dandruff.
The waxed jackets beside them dandruffed; but they Outperformed the spawning waxed jackets in glissandos: A point-of-departure could be nothing but geeky In such a johnny-come-lately compatibility: I gelatinised -and-gelatinised but little thought-transference On what weather stations the shutdown to me had built-in:
For oft, when on my local councillor I lie When vacuuming or pensive moonwalking, They flight simulator upon that inward eyeshot Which is the blockbuster of soluble antibodies; And then my heat-exchanger with plesiosaurs fills, And dandruffs with the daisy chains.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Taken from Popular Song By Harry Man, Nine Arches Press, 2024. Published with permission of the poet.
You can see how I couldn’t resist the palooza link…You know me and a coincidence…Now, obviously, we’ll all recognise the source material, but I’m not normally one for the Oulipan approach, the whole N+x voyage of discovery that it yields (NB autocorrect nearly made that voltage of discovery, and I like that), but I recall Harry reading this on the night and having just sat back to enjoy the sheer sound of the poem. And I love reading it and hearing it in my head now.
NB listening to the football to hear that the Hull City vs Bristol game has been paused while a grey squirel is removed from the pitch.
Anyway, back to the task in hand. I love the way the repetitions at work in the original are amplified here (gelatinised, etc) and I am 100% here for the idea of some “pensive moonwalking”.
I’d recommend the rest of Popular Song too. I’d argue it as a collection contains better poems, poems that are more the work of the poet’s imagination that the work of a system (if that makes sense, and not to say the above doesn’t take solid work), but I would urge you to get a copy of this book and enjoy following Harry’s mind wherever it roams.
NB brief interlude to say I read Rosie Johnston‘s Safe Ground this week. I very much enjoyed it, and more thoughts on that coming, but she has a poem in there that updates Horace’s Ode 3.29 to read ‘Happy The Woman*’. I think I had that in mind when I gave this post a title.
Now, I must do some self-promotion.
I have a run of gigs (it’s not a tour) coming up
to tell you about. I’ll be setting off for Oxford tomorrow to stay with friends ahead of Monday’s gig. 9th Feb, Chipping Norton I’ll be reading with Laura Theis at Art & Talking
Thanks to Robin Vaughn-Williams for the invite
21st Feb, Faversham I’ll be reading as part of Faversham Literary Festival with Lesley Sharpe, and the lovely lad that is Christopher Horton. Thanks to Christopher for organising this.
28th Feb, St Albans I’ll be reading as par of poetry’s answer to Saint & Greavsie with Matthew Stewart at Ver Poets in St Albans.
2nd March, London Rogue Strands is back with a bang. We’ll be at the Devereux with Christopher Reid, George Szirtes, Jemma Borg, Katharine Towers and Matthew and me.
See you there.
Thanks to Matthew for sorting both of these. I’ve done very little on this wave of Rogue Strands, but I’ll be there like some full kit wanker on the 2nd to take the glory
A song that seems appropriate
The Cure, Happy The Man
Title Giveaway
My Exe’s Pencil Crisis Bringing Out The Big Gums Jazz Moshpit
THE LAST TWO WEEKS IN STATS
HEALTH STATS Runs: 7, 8, 3, 14, 9, 8.5 Workouts: 3 Walks: 1 Yoga: Days in a row without alcohol: 0 Days in a row without cigarettes: 0 Bouts of Insomnia: 1
LIFE STATS 1 x Podcast recorded for Grandbag’s Funeral 1 x night out with my mate Mike 1 x bathroom almost finished 1 x electrical called after attempting to change a light fitting… 1 x kitchen tap replaced 3 x trips to Screwfix 1 x gig: Sven Wunder @ The Jazz Cafe, Camden 1 x child home for a couple of days 1 x hectic week at work
POET STATS Notes for poems: Amber Worked on: The Lookover Finished/In the Drawer: Maybe Let the Monkeys…. Abandoned Submissions: Rialto, North Total Poems Out: 21 Rejections: Acceptances: Withdrawn:0 Longlisted: 0 Books sold: Readings: Attended: Read at: Workshops: Friends poems looked at: 1
Music/Listened to r= Radio, A = Audiobook, P=Podcast. The rest is music
The Archers Arsenal Vs Man U (r) Luscious Jackson: Electric Honey Aircooled: St Leonard’s The Electric Prunes: I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night Hefner: Breaking God’s Heart Jonathan Fire*eater: Tremble Under Boom Lights Jonathan Wilson: Gentle Spirit Dropsonde Playlist Roger O’Donnell: Projections Aircooled: Eat the Gold Pelican: Ascending Kingsbury Manx: Aztec Discipline Crybaby: ST Tracyanne & Danny: ST Twi The Humble Feather: Music for Spaceships & Airports, Red Palace The Twilight Singers: Powder Burns King Tubby & The Observer All Stars: Dubbing With the Observer Julian Cope: I Dream The Cosmos Atavistic Hot Snakes; Automatioc Midnight Leeds Vs Arsenal (R) Sven Wunder: Daybreak This is Lorelei: The Mall, the Country Jenny lewis: Acid Tongue Damon & Naomi: False Beats & True Hearts The Cure; Songs of a Lost World Lee Renaldo: Electric Trim The Rheingans Sisters: Close In Sierra Ferrell: Long Time Coming Singing Adams: Moves Siröm: In the Wind of Night…. The missing Cryptoqueen (p) Joan Shelley: The Spur, Real Warmth Courtney Marie Andrews: Valentine Magic Hour: No Excess Is Absurd Nice As Fuck: ST For Those I Love: ST, Carving The Stone Penelope Islands: Until the Tide Creeps In Little Feat: Dixie Chicken The Needy Sons: Vis A Vis Neil Halstead: Palindrome Hunches Polygon Window: Surfing On Sine Waves Shoestrings; Wishing On Planes The Hold Steady: Boys & Girls In America The As: Fruit The Verb Dirty Three: A Strange Holiday Boo Radleys: Keep On With Falling Sonna: Keep It Together Arsenal Vs Sunderland
Read Christopher James: The Ice Sonnets Harry Man: Popular Song Rosie Johnston: Safe Ground
Watched After the Flood All the President’s Men Last Embrace Liverpool Vs Quabag Ed Gein Under Salt Marsh Arsenal Vs Chelsea: Carabao Cup Semi The Night Manager Evil
Ordered/Bought 2 x Train tickets for poetry gigs Books by Laura Theis & Graham Richardson Renewed Poetry Scotland Sub 4 x pipe fixings The Aftershock 1 x bathroom light pull cord 6 x Underpants 1 x cardigan
Hello, HNY and all that jazz to you. Welcome to day 706. of January. I hope you had a good end otherwise 2025 and a good start to 2026. God, it feels impossible to type that when the world is on fire around us. I told someone last night that I’d been injury free for this morning while running…It could be ok, but with 6 weeks till a half marathon and then I get to start ultra-marathon training straight after, so it feels a bit shit. But it’s not really bad is it..It’s not…well, look-around-you-at-everything-else-bad. Stop being so trivial, Mat…
I’m just going to post a poem or two as proof of life, then despite it feeling crass there will be some mild self-promotion to follow. Pleas entree it’s just the poems today..no why I think they are great, but know that I do. The first poem is by Tom Sastry. It’s featured here with his permission (Get well soonest, sir) and is taken from his most recent collection, Life Expectancy Begins To Fall (Nine Arches Press, 2025).
NB I’ve gone with the album mix of this rather than the single edit from a recent issue of Under The Radar. Ironically, the single edit has the extra stanza.
Everyone loves the end of the world
We all hope to enjoy the apocalypse from a distance. A good storm spares the roof but rattles the glass. Children know: destruction is funny, sometimes beautiful.
A distant inferno would enchant your night if you saw it from the next coast. So much torment is shut away, you might even be comforted by a Hell with space for your friends.
We build great telescopes to watch stars die send divers to explore drowned cities, give prizes for pictures of flaming sinkhole s or bones bleaching by a dry lake.
An old man reads of a decade he won’t see lethal heat, scarcity of food. It aches softly, like a sunset. A new desert at the edge of town, some murders on the news.
The second poem is by John Burnside, I don’t have permission from anyone at Cape Poetry or within John’s circle. I hope no one minds a 25-year old poem going up online. i’ll take it down if needs be. It’s taken from John’s collection, The Asylum Dance (Cape Poetry, 2000)
ARCHAEOLOGY for Melanie and Kate
Imagine they knew already: a loved one singled out in permafrost, or sand; fingertips laying stitch-marks in the skin that might be read; each wedding-feast or name-day laying claim to birth-marks, dimples, curvatures of bone. Imagine they treasured scars for what they tell of summers, traces set into the flesh for August noons; or winter solstices remembered in a burn. Imagine it: not loving less, but more, for knowing time would quietly erase a lover’s voice, a grandchild’s hand; and how, unwittingly, they planned each afterlife, concealing seed and pollen in the hemline of a gown, or carving timberwork with hidden signs, seasons and gifts that someone else would find.
+++++++++++++++ I love both, both feel right at present. And that will do for me as a reason.
Now, I must do some self-promotion.
I have a run of gigs (it’s not a tour) coming up to tell you about.
9th Feb, Oxford I’ll be reading with Laura Theis at Art & Talking Thanks to Robin Vaughn-Williams for the invite
21st Feb, Faversham I’ll be reading as part of Faversham Literary Festival with Lesley Sharpe, and the lovely lad that is Christopher Horton. Thanks to Christopher for organising this.
28th Feb, St Albans I’ll be reading as par of poetry’s answer to Saint & Greavsie with Matthew Stewart at Ver Poets in St Albans.
2nd March, London Rogue Strands is back with a bang. We’ll be at the Devereux with Christopher Reid, George Szirtes, Jemma Borg, Katharine Towers and Matthew and me. See you there.
Thanks to Matthew your sorting both of these. I’ve done very little on this wave of Rogue Strands, but I’ll be there like some full kit wanker on the 2nd to take the glory
A song that seems appropriate
Magazine, Permafrost
Title Giveaway
Jung Beetle The Great Pandering Coccyx Avenger UNO Stubbs A Quarter of Qatar Dances with Woolworths DIYing on the Insider With Friends Like This Who Needs Anemones R2 Detour
THE LAST **Coughs** WEEKS IN STATS
HEALTH STATS Runs: 6,6,5, 5, 5, 16, 7, 11, 18, 8, 6, 18.5, 8.5, 7 (retired hurt) Workouts: 5 Walks: 6 Yoga: Days in a row without alcohol: 0 Days in a row without cigarettes: 0 Bouts of Insomnia: 2
LIFE STATS 1 x 1000 piece jigsaw 1x trip to Emirates Stadium 1 x late night after the Arsenal game 1 x trip to Turner and Constable exhibition 1x game of Hues and Cues 4 x games of UNO 1 game of Sherlock Holmes 1 x reading 1 x fox sighting 1 x bathroom undercoated 1 x bathroom painted and resealed 6 doors with new handles 1 x load of skirting boards rubbed down and prepped for painting 5 focus groups 1 x 60th birthday do (missed. Happy birthday, Andy) 1 x 20th Wedding Anniversary (Happy anniversary Meg & Euan)
POET STATS Notes for poems: Hack, MS, Shrinking, Munch Worked on: The Lookover, Maybe Let the Monkeys…. Finished/In the Drawer: Acceptance Prayer, Abandoned Submissions: Total Poems Out: 23 Rejections: Pomegranate Acceptances: Withdrawn:0 Longlisted: 0 Books sold: Readings: Finished Creatures Attended: Christopher James Read at: Workshops: Friends poems looked at: 1
Music/Listened to r= Radio, A = Audiobook, P=Podcast. The rest is music
The Archers various playlists In the Loop (p) Kikagaku Moro: Forest of Lost Children Cassandra Jenkins: My Light, My Massage Parlor Smashing Pumpkins: Zodeon At Crystal Hall Swell: Too Many Days Without Thinking Kalia Vandever: Another View Stephen Vitiello with Brendan Canty and Hahn Rowe: Second Bournemouth VS Arsenal (R) Yasmine Hamdan: I remember I forget The Wedding Present: Maxi Thee Headcoat Sect: Deerstalking Men Oren Ambarchi: Ghosted 3 Yorkston/Jaycock/Lagendorf: ST Alan Sparhawk: With Trampled by Turtles Bananagun: the True Story of Bananagun Joey Gregorash: North Country Funk Tapes N Tapes: Outside The Fall: Palace of Swords Reversed John Murry: The Stars Are God’s Bullet Holes The Cramps: Stay Sick Spacemen 3: Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever: Talk Tight Billy Bragg: Talking To The Taxman About Poetry Ganavya: Nilam, Daughter of a temple Little Feat; ST Tallies: ST, Patina Floating Points: Elaenia Elliot Galvin: The Ruin Sharp Pins: Balloon Balloon Balloon Wild Billy Childish: Step Out! Emma Swift; The Resurrection Game Joy Formidable; Aaarth Jenny on Holiday; Quicksand Heart Dry Cleaning: Secret Love Steve’s Mixtapes: Ethan Miller, Thurston Moore, Sally Hamilton (P) Clementine March: Powder Keg, Songs of Resilience Sir Richard Bishop: Hillbilly Ragas Blue Hour Radio That’s How I Remember It: David Balfe (p) Jim Noir: AM Emma Rawicz: Inkeyra Scary Monsters: The March of Hope SML: How You Been This Cultural Life: Maggie O’Farrell Chelsea Vs Arsenal Carabao Cup Semi final Madness: Absolutely Mary Lattimore & Julianna Barwick: Tragic Magic The Leaf Library: About Minerals They Might Be Giants: Flood Pearl Charles: Desert Queen Sea Power: Everything Was Forever Craig Finn: Always Been Godspeed You! Black Emperor: No Title As of 13 February 2024, 28,340 Dead REM: Monster, New Adventures, Document Pharoah Sanders & Floating Points: Promises Sunstack Jones; Luminous Hands David Zinman: Gorecki: Symphony No.3 The National: Rome Wilco: Kicking Television Lola Kirke: Trailblazer David Axelrod: Heavy Axe Howlin’ Rain: Magnificent Fiend VA: Gather in the Mushrooms: The British Acid Folk Underground 1968-1974 The Clientele; Bonfires on the Heath, I Am Not there Anymore Carl Broemel & Tyler Ramsey: Celestun A House; I Am the Greatest Fergus McCreadie: The Shieling The Dears: Life is Beautiful Yo La Tengo: They Shoot, We Score Massacre Massacre: Bunkaa 1 Dropsonde Playlist Illuminated: The Metaphor Consultant (p) Only After Dark: At the Docks (p) Lost In The Trees: All Alone In An Empty House Aoife O’Donovan: All My Friends Glok & Timothy Clerkin: Alliance Dry Cleaning: New Long Leg Tristeza: Dream Signals in Full Circles Racing Mount Pleasant: ST This Will Destroy You; New Others Part 1 Elbow: Leaders of the Free World Craig Finn: A Legal of Rentals Flyying Colours: Mindfullness Johann Johannsson: Fordlandia Neko Case: Neon Grey Midnight Green
Read Finished Creatures 9 Andrew Waterhouse: In The London Magazine Matt Bryden: The Glassblower’s House Peter Kenny: The Nightwork Tom Sastry: Life Expectancy Begins to Fall John Burnside: The Asylum Dance
Watched The Big Lebowski The Lowdown Bob Monkhouse: The Last Show Ishtar Early Doors The Morning Show 28 Days Later 28 Weeks Later Arsenal Vs Liverpool Prime Suspect The Wicker Man 28 Years Later Inter Vs Arsenal Lynley (fucking awful)
Ordered/Bought New running trainers Rialto Door spindles Paint, brushes & various sealants Acumen 114 Christopher James: England Underwater & The Manly Art of Knitting A belated Xmas present
I wasn’t going to do a chart for the end of the year…all a bit of a busman’s holiday and the like, but the arrival this week of the wonderful new issue of Finished Creatures containing a new poem by me made me reconsider…Thanks to Jan for taking a new new poem from me…A poem written and finished in 2025 as well which is good work; looking back at my notes I can see the first scribbled notes/draft was 30th January and the final draft was sorted on 4th August.
So, let’s see what that new arrival (the mag, not the poem) has done to the scores on the doors.
The collected data would suggest that 2025 has seen an overall increase in the number of poems sent out, and certainly an increase on recent years. I’ve crunched the numbers and the number of unique submissions has gone up YoY again – which is good, I think.
But it comes down to the success rate (or does it?)
Maybe it’s working (maybe it’s Maybelline, etc), but we’ve seen a 100% increase on 2024 in successes. It looks a little different if we present this as counts, but either way the numbers are up. And I thought this had been a crap year (for many reasons). **Spends ALCS money before it’s come in**
I can’t imagine I’ll get another post done this side of the new year, so thank you for reading. Thank you for everything. Thanks to all I’ve read with and/or seen read this year.
Have a wonderful New Years, I hope you had a wonderful Xmas. Don’t forget to buy some books. Go to readings. Tell the poets you read that you love them (they really like it) at readings, in emails, on the socials. Go to the library.
A song that seems appropriate
The Cure, Endsong
THE LAST **Coughs** WEEKS IN STATS
HEALTH STATS Runs: 6.5, 5.5, 15 Workouts: 1 Walks: 1 Yoga: 0 Days in a row without alcohol: 0 Days in a row without cigarettes: 3 Bouts of Insomnia: 1
LIFE STATS 2 x epic drives (7 hours + 9.5 hours) Many x snacks 4 x service stations on motorways
POET STATS Notes for poems: Nowt Worked on: Nowt Finished/In the Drawer: Submissions: XX Rejections: Snakeskin, The Shore Total Poems Out: 23 Acceptances: 1 Withdrawn:0 Longlisted: 0 Books sold: 0 Readings: Friends Poems Looked At: 1
Music/Listened to r= Radio, A = Audiobook, P=Podcast. The rest is music
SML: How You Been Fleet Foxes: live on Boston Harbour Jeff Tweedy: Twilight Override Big Thief: Double Infinity SG Goodman: Planting By the Signs The Archers The Verb: The Adverb Michael Kiwanuka; Small Changes This Is The Kit: Careful of your Keepers Keith Jarrett: Köln Concert My Morning Jacket: is Bill Janovitz: Days of Heaven Arsenal Vs Brighton (R)
Read Poetry Wales Winter 2025 Wendy Pratt: Blackbird Singing At Dusk John Glenday; Grain
Watched The Roses Various Kids TV things with my 5 year old great niece The Lowdown Die Hard Die Hard 2
Ordered/Bought The London Magazine Andrew Waterhouse: In Finished Creatures 9 Rishi Dastidar: A Report Clear…
Hello, hello…Hope we’re all well. Nothing says Christmas like Beef Rendang (Did someone mention I had a poem about that up at Ink Sweat and Tears recently??), so you catch me writing this in the middle of making that ahead an early Christmas evening. We’re off to see Family so Xmas Day is happening now, and this is the only way I can achieve my dream of a curry at Christmas.. one year it will happen on the day.
It seems a bit wrong to leap from that, but the first thing to acknowledge is the very sad loss recently of the wonderful poet that is Richard Meier. I’ve said elsewhere that I was late to his work, but I was very glad when I finally found it. Other people have been better than me at reviewing his work, so I will point you to this and this by John and Rishi, respectively, of his last collection. I know there’s another review on the way, so keep an eye out for that, but basically go any buy all of his work. You won’t regret it. My condolences, of course, to Richard’s family and friends. He seemed like a fine and kind man.
After my last post where I published a poem by Maura Dooley, it was a pleasant surprise to see a poem from here in Jonathan Davidson’s excellent November Out of Office email. Do sign up. I think it came in the day after my post. I’d say great minds, etc but that would be doing Jonathan a disservice, I suspect.
My thoughts are with Michael and team at London Grip for their recent technical disasters that mean the majority of the London Grip archive has gone. LG is a source of wonderful poems and reviews, and I feel for the folks there as the disaster was not of their making. Poets, if you’re published online make sure you take a PDF download after…
In lovely and unexpected news this week, I saw there was a new episode of Planet Poetry. That , in and of itself, is cause for celebration. And it was great to hear the interview with Niall Campbell that was the main focus off it. I mean, I say main focus, but arguably he was more of a support act to Robin reading one of my poems in the second half. I wasn’t expecting it at all, but what an honour.
Robin did an excellent job reading Riches (about 48 mins in) from Collecting the Data. It was very strange to hear someone else reading my work. It’s a new experience for me, and has made me look at the poem again in a new (and good) way. I hear the beats of the poem differently now, even if they haven’t changed. It’s know the advice is to read your poem aloud when writing, but you’re still yourself when you do it, so to hear someone else do it is really quite educational. And very moving. Thank you Robin and Peter. Listen to the ep for the poems and interview , the poem from Kay Syrad and the bloopers.
Now, two poems. I was going to spread this out, but I’m not sure I’ll manage another post this year..I can’t be faffed to chart the publications as per usual, largely as there haven’t been that many, but we’ll see. Regardless, these two poets are sort of linked in my head because I’ve read with both twice this year on the same occasions.
A poem please, Matthew
Earth For days spent at 1 Green Meadow
Every time we talked about selling my heart cracked: shattered glass the Snow Queen dispersed around the earth, the splinters that lodged in the eye. The hellebores spoke to me then, and the ferns. The montbretia held their thousand breaths and the poppies did what they did best: opened their hearts and sang. The stream ushered in a chorus, bardic to the bone, altering its rhythm over the stones: you can’t leave yet, we’re not yet done, the salmon haven’t yet come home.
+++++++++ Taken from I Sing to the Greenhearts by Maggie Harris, Seren Books, 2025. Published with the poet’s permission
I’ve chosen this poem because since the last post we’ve had to arrange a new Mortgage (Thanks R. for sorting it). While we were doing that we had a conversation with Flo that said something about thinking about our next move. Do we start thinking about selling up and moving out of London, etc? Where might we fog? Do we need to factor her into it anymore? That evening I picked up Maggie’s book to read, and flicking through it I alighted on this poem, and it just resonated .
The whole collection is one about place, about recall, about where you’re at and where you’re at. And sometimes you just see the thing that lands when you need it to. I’ve long wanted to get the story of Kai and the splinter in his eye from the Snow Queen into a poem…Basically since I read/heard it on a Storyteller tape as a nipper, but the poem just resonated…I want to leave London, but I don’t. It also resonated as I’m working on a poem about when my mum moved out of my childhood home.
That;s a bit too unwieldy at present, but Maggie has caught those feelings in such a small space. The location may be different, but the feelings aren’t. Factor in those last lines about the salmon coming home, the instinctive return to a place of importance, the poetry in the word “hellebores” and the beautiful image of the poppies doing what they do best and it’s easy to see why you’d never want to leave the poem, let alone the place it describes.
If we want another connection, there is also a wonderful poem (among many) in the collection call Tamarind. I’ve just added the Tamarind paste to my curry….
Now, normally I’d only put one poem up per post, but as mentioned above these two poets are both folks I’ve read with this year, both poets I love reading and in the spirit of giving I want to give more.
I’ve said before how much I enjoy Christopher’s work, his work to promote poetry and his kind words a bit my own work. I am always greatful to be invited to read with him, and to go for a pint with him too. It was especially pleasing then to see that we can focus on his own work for a while rather than the work he does.
I sat down this week to read his new pamphlet, Clutter Jar. I’ve been lucky enough to read to some of the poems in advance, but to have the complete thing in my hand was a joy. The collection is a finely judged look at humanity, masculinity, location, family, types of people, music, frustration, work, modern living, boiling over and/or not quite boiling over…and much more, often in the same poem. It’s very easy to read the I of the poem as being the I of the author, but I don’t think they all are “guilty” (for want of a better word) of that. They are finely wrought and worked character studies of place, time and people. And yes, I’m sure some of the author pokes through, but they are fine poems that land on the first go and then keep surprising you like a carousel.
It sometimes feels like cheating to choose a poem from early in the book (and I did say to him I could have chosen several), but this one just hit right this week.
EXPERTS We like to forget that in fact everything in our life is chance. – Sigmund Freud
There are those who calculate the prospective density of snow, the day it will come, where it will fall, how many people will, in all probability, stay off work because of it…
…and there are those who walk gingerly on the thick ice – with measuring devices and high-vis jackets – to gauge when the covered roads will reveal old markings through sludge and grit…
…and there are lives given over to predicting the median velocity of wind in Iowa years from now, and others dedicated to forecasting the quantity of frogs and fish that will drop from a specific league of sky.
But you and I have slipped the radar, bucked the trend, as we head out where traffic darts from every angle and, further on, the Thames does what it wants, laving and lapping against the quays.
Night might steal us away under its star-spun cloak. Even this is measured by astronomers. Best put a hand on your heart and feel how sometimes, just sometimes, it jumps or skips a beat.
+++++++++ Taken from Clutter Jar by Christopher Horton, Broken Sleep Press, 2025. Published with the poet’s permission
It may be because I’ve read a few times with him now, but I can absolutely hear him reading this (and as far as I can remember, I’ve not yet). I can hear his pause between the first two stanzas to the nano-second – this is a good thing.
I love this. It’s worth turning up just for the last three lines, but everything that precedes it is wonderful. The religious overtones of the frogs falling from the sky, the cold of the first two stanzas feeling apt for this time of year, the fourth stanza where a bit of natural chaos creeps into the data collecting, the way nature is given it’s due for just doing what it does.
I’m going back in later to think about the trust element in this poem too. The way we put faith in the science, the lack of trust in the thick ice, the night possibly stealing away from us, etc…but that’s for the next read through.
There’s something, perhaps, of an ars poetica here in the sense of all the information available, the science and data, the extrapolation of things from sheer magnificence of snow, ice, wind, weather cycles and regular heartbeats…the poetry comes in both that, our capacity to measure it and understand it, but also in the thinness of the ice, the danger in the collecting, and the heart skipping a beat. The beauty of where we are and who we are with when that happens. Actually, you bastard, Horton…this is too good.
Onwards and into Xmas.
I hope you’ve finished for the year, that you’ve got a lovely break ahead of you. Thank you for reading.
PS. Based on recent text messages, keep 2nd March free for an excellent Rogue Strands night.
A song that seems appropriate
The Chemical Brothers, Salmon Dance
THE LAST **Coughs** WEEKS IN STATS
HEALTH STATS Runs: 4, 5, 6, , 2, , 11, 5, , 5, , 4, , 12 Workouts: 2 Walks: 1 Yoga: 0 Days in a row without alcohol: 5 Days in a row without cigarettes: 3 Bouts of Insomnia: 2
LIFE STATS 1 x Poetry Office Xmas party 1 x child home for Xmas 2 x pub trips for Football 1 x trip to see Shack 1x stinking cold 1 x trip to see 808 State X trip to see The Wonder Stuff/Vent414 1 x trip into town to see my mate Geller and his family. 1 x pile of ironing 1 x OOO for work. Thank fuck
POET STATS Notes for poems: Nowt Worked on: Nowt Finished/In the Drawer: Submissions: XX Rejections: Snakeskin, The Shore Total Poems Out: 23 Acceptances: 1 Withdrawn:0 Longlisted: 0 Books sold: 0 Readings: Friends Poems Looked At: 1
Music r= Radio, A = Audiobook, P=Podcast. The rest is music
West Ham Vs Liverpool (r) Chelsea Vs Arsenal VA: Bláha, Kvěch, Teml, Vacek: Týden nové tvorby, 1981 Lawrence English: Trinity Bratmobile: Ladies, Women and Girls Hem: Rabbit Songs Yuya Wakai; Poem Nadia Reid: Enter Now Brightness, Listen to Formation, Out of my province, Preservation Fergus McCreadie: The Sheiling The Mountain Goats: Beautiful Rat Sunset Constant Smiles; Moonflowers Naima Bock: Below A Massive Dark Goat Girl: Below The Waste Richard Hawley: Coles Corner, They Call you Love…Further Shack: Waterpistol, On the Corner of Miles & Gill, Here’s Tom With the Weather The Shed; Richard Hawley (P), Angel Harding Chico Freeman: Spirit Sensitive Cameron Winter: Heavy Metal Geese; Getting Killed, Projector The Strands: Magical World of… Aston Villa Vs Arsenal Muluken Mellesse With the Dahlak Band: ST Collections of Colonies of Bees; Flocks The Bewitched Hands:Birds & Drums The Rosebuds: Birds Make Good Neighbours Goat: Headsoup Talking Heads: Naked Agnes Obel: Myopia (instrumentals) Lonnie Liston Smith: Flavors Vent 414: ST Unwed Sailor: Truth Or Consequence Mal Waldron: Mal 3 Blur: The Magic Whip Saxon Shore: Luck Will Not Save Us From a Jackpot of Nothing The Counts: Love Sign The Afghan Whigs; Big Top Halloween, How Do You Burn? VA: Love Peace & Poetry Vol 9 Turkish Psychedelic Music 808 State: EX:EL, 90 Jimi Hendrix: Are You Experienced? Aretha Franklin: Aretha Now Mogwai: The Bad Fire The Tallest man on Earth: Dark Bird Is Home The Wedding Present: Maxi David Kilgour & the Heavy Eights: End Time Undone Sonic Youth: Murray Street Sam Amidon; Salt River The Bevis Frond:Vavona Burr Poems we made: Isabelle Baafi (p) Steve’s mixtapes: Gavin Morgan, Andy Gillespie…(p) The Wonder Stuff: Better Being Lucky, Oh No, It’s the WS Eels: Oh What A Beautiful Morning Clem Snide: Oh Smokey Beezewax: Oh Tahoe Diane Cluck: Oh Vanille / Ova Nil Blood Everywhere: Oh Yeah My Morning Jacket: Live, At Dawn Cowboy Junkies:All This Ferocious Beauty The Jazz Butcher: The Highest in the Land
Read Southword Elizabeth Parker: In Her Shambles Maggie Smith: I Sing to the Greenhearts Christoper Horton; Clutter Jar Wendy Pratt: Blackbird Singing at Dusk Ragged Trouserered Philanthropist Michael Bartholomew Biggs: Unidentified Flying Objects
Watched Inspector Morse Arsenal Vs Brentford Man U vs West Ham Above Suspicion Empire Strikes Back Return of the Jedi Force Awakens The Last Jedi Rise of Skywalker (What, I was ill) Down Cemetery Road Shetland Noelle Brassic The Morning Show
Ordered/Bought Andrew Waterhouse: In Poetry Wales Xmas presents
I have two vague train-related things for you this week.
Firstly, the week before last it was my beloved wife’s birthday. The night before the big day I took her to see the excellent musician, Emma-Jean Thackray at Koko in Camden. For those of you that know the area you will know Koko is near Mornington Crescent station (Hurray – one for the I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue fans).
Both R and I worked at the building opposite Mornington Crescent for a while in the early 2000s—different times, but still a nice coincidence. R was working for an advertising agency, and I was working for Emap, providing audience research for four magazines: Pregancy & Birth, Mother & Baby, Top Santè and Yours. Birth to death and a way to stave it off was the way I saw that particular portfolio.
In other coincidence news I know now that two of my dear friends in Beckenham both worked at Emap in the same building at the same time as me. We may well have crossed paths many times. Even spookier is that one of them was in Liverpool at university at the same time as me, and now our respective daughters are both at Liverpool university too…
But I digress, in the same week of this gig going I’d taken delivery of issue 7 of Finished Creatures. It’s an old issue, but I realised I was missing that particular one to complete my collection. As the official first ever purchaser of FC I felt it important to keep the collection going. Jan does a wonderful job with each magazine, and it’s always a joy to get one of her envelopes with it’s string and handwritten address, etc.
I’ve been working through the issue to get back up to speed, and it was wonderful to stumble across a poem by Vanessa Lampert (and other people too, obvs, but give me my moment) called Budgie.
The poem is typically excellent, but makes reference to Top Santé magazine. Nice little coincidence there.
A couple of weeks ago there was an excellent radio programme on about dealing with Writer’s Block – I’m buggered if I can remember the name of it at the mo, but it will come to me. Anyhoo, it popped back into mind while reading some John Clare the other night. I’m slowly working my way through a Selected of his…And that book includes selected passages from a wider poem called To the Rural Muse
Here’s the second stanza (that they include)
Muse of the pasture brook, on they calm sea Of poesy I’ve sailed, and though the will To speed were greater than the prowess be, I’ve ventured with much fear of usage ill, Yet more of joy. Though timid be my skill, As not to dare the depths of mightier streams, Yet rocks abide in shallow ways and I Have much of fear its mingle with my dreams. Yes, lovely muse, I still believe thee by And think I see thee smile and so forget I sigh.
When the Words Leave…that was the name of the show; seems ironic somehow…Give the show a listen. I enjoyed it.
I think Mr C (not that one) is dealing with some writer’s block brought on by fear of being able to say the things he wants throughout this poem..among other things.
A poem please, Matthew
And now to the poem for this week. At our recent Rogue Strands night I was lucky enough to get to say hello to Maura Dooley. I’ve been working my way backwards through her work since reading Five Fifty Five last year. The most recent I’ve read is The Silvering, and the poem I’m offering you is taken from that. I emailed Maura to say thanks for coming and for having bought a copy of CtD. She’s passed my poem about the Arecibo telescope on to a friend of hers, and also sent me this wonderful article. Both are lovely things to do.
When I asked her for this poem I was about to go and collect Flo from the train station when’s he came home for reading week. Next week I get to collect Flo again as she’s coming back for Xmas (a week early, but all good)…so this poem feels doubly relevant today.
At Streatham Hill Station It is good to wander a little, lest one should dream all that the world was Streatham, of which one may venture to say, none but itself can be its parallel. Dr Johnson, Letter to Mrs Thrale
My daughter waits opposite on the Up platform. A going-nowhere train stops between us and in the time it takes to pause and shift she’s first hidden from me, then gone.
It’s true there have been too many partings this year, too much sorrow, but what her vanishing trick reveals is the empty platform, on which, not even dust has had time to settle.
+++++++++ Taken from The Silvering By Maura Dooley, Bloodaxe Books, 2016. Published with the poet’s permission
I mean..come on…I barely need to say why that’s so right, but what a poem, what a level of compact force that is. It weighs down on you the more you read it. I feel a little like I’ve stood too close to the edge of a platform as an intercity train rattles through..a smidge knocked off my feet by it.
The Dr Johnson quotation really adds something to it for both parties, in the sense of someone going off into the world to widen their experience beyond their local environment, so it feels relevant to Flo as much as to me though I’m less sure she’ll read it. Not poetry, dad…etc. It does add a little local flavour as we were a stone’s throw from St Reatham Hill station in West Norwood when she was born…especially when I’d take her to ballet lessons.
The daughter travels away, the parent is left behind on the platform to feel the effects off the “vanishing trick” – like all good tricks we want to see behind the curtain, but can’t. And she’s right, there have been “too many / partings this year, too much sorrow”. I’m sure it’s the same for many/most of us.
A message came from home recently that my old friend Trefor had passed away, and just last week we lost our 94 year old neighbour Pat. I’m ashamed to say I’d not popped into see Pat for a couple of months—it was always I must do that this weekend…and I didn’t, but that’s part of the last line…no sooner has the child gone away and then you’re on an empty platform and no time…
The platform is both the literal train station platform, and, I think, also a platform with which to build on, a basis for getting on. There’s no time to let the dust settle. We have busy lives, a parent isn’t just a parent, we have other responsibilities. We must permanently flit from one thing to another.
What a poem, what a set of emotions to come from something so economical. I have Maura’s collection Life Under Water on standby to read soon, and I can’t wait.
Finally, I was listening to something on the radio the over day..unsurprisingly, I forget what, but it mentioned the phrase Wolf notes which captured my imagination.
“A wolf tone, wolf note, or simply a “wolf”, is an undesirable phenomenon that occurs in some bowed-string musical instruments, most famously in the cello. It happens when the pitch, or more particularly the fundamental frequency, of the played note is close to a particularly strong natural resonant frequency of the vibration of the instrument’s body”
I have a pathological fear of the use of the word wolf in poetry..Not sure why, but I think I”m keen to overcome it in order to get a wolf note into a poem. Who know if I’ll ever get to it. I have got a week off ahead of me to write, so who knows. **Moves a comma all week and calls it a hard week**
Tonic At the Disco B Sides besides the Seaside As an Aside for A Sides on the Sideboard The Sideboard Hateful Dodger
A song that seems appropriate
The Cure: Going Nowhere
THE LAST **Coughs** WEEKS IN STATS
HEALTH STATS Runs: 25K Workouts: 0 Walks: 2 Yoga: 0 Days in a row without alcohol: 0 Days in a row without cigarettes: 0 Bouts of Insomnia: 5
LIFE STATS 1 x tip run with old fridge 1 x poetry reading (Attended) 1x weird cold 1x lovely and quick trip to the 3H 1x failed attempt at making bread 1x attempt at a GF cake 1x trip to Liverpool to see Flo 1 x wife’s birthday 1x gig with said wife 1 x Grayson Perry talk that was shit 1 x work Xmas do and leaving drinks 1 x night out with mates
POET STATS Notes for poems: The Lookover, Imaginary Brother Worked on: In the Freezer, Acceptance, Speech, Sand Haiku, The Lookover Finished/In the Drawer: In the Freezer Finished/In the Drawer: Submissions: Pomegranate, The Lonely Crowd, The London Magazine, The Shore Rejections: Bad Lillies Total Poems Out: 23 Acceptances: Withdrawn:0 Longlisted: 0 Books sold: 0 Readings: Friends Poems Looked At: 1
Music r= Radio, A = Audiobook, P=Podcast. The rest is music Caroline Bird: When The Words Leave (p) Elizabeth Alker: Unclassified REM: Reckoning, Monster, New Adventures Constant Smiles: Moonflowers SML; How You Been The Archers Poems we Made: Nick Mahoka, Sarah Howe (P) Wilco: AM Let’s Eat Grandma: the Bastard Son & the Devil, I, Gemini, I’m All Ears, Two Ribbons Buck Meek: Two Saviors Tatiana Shebanova: Chopin: Complete Solo Piano World of Twist: Quality Street Slowdive: Souvlaki Space Station Stone Club Podcast: Jeremy Deller The Cure: Songs of a Lost World Emma Jean-Thackray: Weirdo Cowboy Junkies: 200 More Miles Thee Headcotes: Beached Earls Sister Ray Davies: Holy Island The Mission: God’s Own Medicine, Aura Hop Along: Painted Shut Miracle legit: Glad Jake Xerxes Fussell & James Elkington:Rebuilding Horse Lords: Comradely Objects Television Personalities: The Painted Word Jesus & Mary Chain: Psychocandy North Americans: Long Cool World Ash Ra Tempel: Starring Rosi Elbow: Flying Dream 1 The Verb: Shaun Usher, Katrina Naomi, etc, Train Poems, Doors (Armitage, MacGowan, Taylor) (p) Samantha Harvey: Orbital (a) Unruly Distance: Melodic Drone Dropsonde Playlist Mal Waldron:The Quest Mark McGuire: Get Lost The Shed: Suzie Dent (P), Rita Chakrabati Beethoven 5th Symphony The Open Mind; ST Dick Gaugan: Handful of Dirt Ganger: Hammock Style Fuzz; St Frightened Rabbit: Pedestrian Verse Sg Goodman: Planting By The Signs, Teeth Marks Making trouble: Kate Stables(p) Adem: Love & Other Planets, Seconds Are Acorns Ride: Nowhere Poems We Met Along the Way; Vona Groake (P) Magazine: Secondhand Daylight Matthew Ryan: East Autumn Grin Thirteenth Floor Elevators: Easter Everywhere Alfie Bowman Mix Julia Jacklin: Don’t Let the Kids Win, Pre Pleasure Tortoise: TNT, Millions Now Living…. Travis: the Invisible Band A Winged Victory for the Sullen: Invisible Cities The Coral: Invisible Invasion KT Tunstall: Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon Lots of playlists Illuminated: Hearing Aids (p) Prefab Sprout: Steve McQueen The Durrutt Column: Return of The Durutti Column Daniel Barenboim: Beethoven Piano Sonatas
Read Acumen John Clare: Selected Poems Pennine Platform Christopher James: The Invention of Butterfly DA Prince. Continuous Present Ragged Trouserered Philanthropist
Watched TriggerPoint Monster: Ed Gein Story Inspector Morse Leonard & Hungry Paul Man Alive: The Office Party The Beast In Me Empire Shetland Come See Me In The Good Light Arsenal Vs Spurs Thick of It
Ordered/Bought Matthew Paul: The Lammas Lands Pomegranate 7 Christopher James: The Ice Sonnets RF Langley: Complete Poems Ragged Trouser Christopher Horton: Clutter Jar Xmas present for Flo
Christ on a Penny Farthing, it’s been a week. Yes, since the last post (perhaps the song choice of words on a day like today, but hey ho…), but it’s been a week. And I felt like that by Tuesday, like the Tin Tin meme had been brought to life (NB my autocorrect changed that to Gin Tip—I’m not sure whether I should be impressed or depressed). While I think I’m more Captain Haddock than Tin Tin in this I’m, t I think Snowy has the right idea…Cin Cin, Tin Tin for Snowy it’s Win Win…Or something.
Anyhoo, I could complain about a shit week at work, the expense of a new fridge and that then leading to a need to knock my kitchen about which leads to more expense, Arsenal conceding two in a match for the first time in a while, or I can focus on the good parts.
Flo has been back from uni this week – we’ve just packed her back off again. My beloved and I have been to see the Lee Miller exhibition at Tate Modern today (s’alright, I suppose*), I had a lovely impromptu evening with some friends on Thursday, and I’m in the middle of making a roast.
Oh yeah, and in the week that Collecting The Data turned two, there were signs of new life emerging as two new poems made their way into the world. It still feels surreal to have a pamphlet in the world, a publication with my name on it. I have 11 copies of CtD left (message if you want one), or visit the lovely folks at Red Squirrel to get a copy. Should I order more??
If I ever pull my finger out there might even be a full collection. I was saying to someone recently that I don’t think I’ve written much since the launch of CtD, but actually when I look at the box of new poems, there’s probably an average of 2 new poems per month since then, so they are accumulating. If I take a few from CtD, some that didn’t make it in due to space, and what I have now, I reckon there are 60 poems there. I need more because not all will make the cut, but there’s certainly a kernel of a collection there. There are also 6 in some state of getting ready staring at me as I type, and loose notes for about another 25 floating about, but let’s focus on the now rather than the future.
Ink Sweat & Tears published my poem called Beef Rendang. I’m very happy to see that one out in the world, and at a Norwich-based publisher.
My poem Tough Cookies was also published this week in Southword # 49. I was paid for this too. I am lucky enough that I can afford to reinvest, so I’ve ploughed the money from that back into a year’s subscription of Southward.
Check out the magazine as it looks ace, and don’t forget to look at my poem and its reference to Monte Carlo (the statistical modelling technique, not the place).
The remainder of the payment has been spent on two books by Sarah Doyle. I’d meant to buy her books, but this reminder from Rory Waterman about the recent issues Sarah has faced with plagiarism in light of Graeme Richardson‘s recent review of Len Pennie’s book in the Sunday Times gave me the kick up the arse to get on with buying them (Sarah’s, not Len Pennie’s).
A poem please, Matthew
I think I trailed this last week, but I’m including a poem by Andrew Neilson. It feels especially apt as I think Andrew was actually the second person to hear about CtD being accepted about a billion years ago. I think we were in a pub on Lamb’s Conduit Street (???) when the email came in and I let it slip then…
I’m sure you all know Andrew for his role as chair of Trustees for the Poetry Society, his TV appearances with his and work on behalf of the Howard League, his essay writing in Dark Horse, etc, for being half of Bad Lillies alongside his lovely wife, Kathryn Gray, and you’ll probably know he also writes poems. So you’ll know all of the above, but it’s there in case you don’t.
You’ll know, if you read last week’s post, that I recently went to see him launch his debut pamphlet.
Andrew Neilson launching Summers Are Other
It feels odd/wrong/strange/right (delete as applicable) that this is only his debut, but here we are. Some that can be chalked up to a long time away from writing, but some will just be spend crafting. And Summers Are Other, the pamphlet, has been worth the wait.
As the blurb states, “the poems are drawn from a sustained meditation on transience and the ties that bind us”. Those are the sort of poems you write in your 20s…You might start them, but you won’t finish them.
I was erring between two poems, but given my move towards acceptance above, and the note about transience, I’m going with this poem.
Winding River After Du Fu
Spring fades with each blossom flying in the wind . Ten thousand points now float, grief and beauty limned.
Passing is the petal, fallen are my eyes. Only wine, a skinful, will see my gaze rise.
The gall by the river, a kingfisher’s nest, the hall which is a tomb where unicorns rest.
Joy is the only law worthy of study. What use immortal fame to mortal body?
+++++ Published with permission of the poet. Taken from Summers Are Other, Rack Press, 2025.
I’m sure we all know Du Fu was an incredibly prolific Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty, so we won’t recap all of that, but a poem After Du Fu very much places us in that long term development place, it’s built on the shoulder of experience and it’s attendant learning has not come lightly. I think, in many ways, you should all go and read Summers Are Others first and then come back to me to discuss, because the placement of the poem at the end of the pamphlet is a masterstroke.
Many of the poems that lead to this one are about grief, loss, mistakes and it’s quite the heavy ride (a great one, and there are smiles to be had on the way—the opening poem’s first two lines raise a smile from me. There are others), but this poem initially feels like a gentle coda to all of that. It’s talk of impermanence and blossoms, but we/I start to get suspicious at the use of “limned” in the 4th line of the first stanza.
To suffuse or highlight with light or colour; illuminate: “There was just enough juice left in Merrill’s flashlight to limn the outlines: A round lobe here. Another lobe over there”(Hampton Sides).
To describe or portray in words.
I think this transitive verb (yes, I looked it up) shows us exactly what he’s up to here. I think he’s managed to employ all three meanings here. The first three lines painting us a pretty picture in our minds, via words (it is poetry, Mat, FFS)…
But it’s that second meaning that really lands the punch. The highlight with light or colour, this poem highlights all that has gone before with context for the grief, the crises, the loss, etc.
The 2nd and third stanzas highlight this, we must take our pleasures in the good stuff. I don’t believe the skinful here is the modern idea of getting absolutely rat-arsed, it’s a reference to the container of the time…That said, a consuming a skinful may lead to the modern interpretation.
Joy is the thing we can take from the world, but we can’t take it with us…
There are many poems in SAO that make excellent use of rhyme (and we don’t see that much these days, or in confirmation bias news, I don’t…), so it’s a joy to see it done so deftly, and to see it in this poem…The assonance of the closing rhyme of the last stanza versus the full rhymes of the preceding stanzas just make it hit that much harder.
I came out this poem calmer, more aware of our/my place in the world, less interested in mortal pursuits like promotions or clean sheets (for Arsenal), etc…And I thank Andrew for that. I thank Du Fu for the lineage of the poem…
And then…and then…my beloved wife shouted up the stairs that she thinks the dishwasher is fucked..And so I’m off for a skinful.
* Lee Miller exhibition was very good.
Title Giveaway
Pop Peacock Partying is such sweet sorrow Aprons on Equines, or Pinnys on Donkey
A song that seems appropriate
Jonsí: Cherry Blossom
THE LAST **Coughs** WEEKS IN STATS
HEALTH STATS Runs: 15.5k Workouts: 0 Walks: 1 Yoga: 0 Days in a row without alcohol: 0 Days in a row without cigarettes: 1 Bouts of Insomnia: 1
LIFE STATS 1 x visiting child 1 x visiting child returned to the train 1 x shit week 1 x new fridge 1 x battering kitchen about 1 x trip to Tate Britain for Lee Miller exhibition 1 x night out with mates on Thursday 1 x house clean
POET STATS Notes for poems: Worked on: In the Freezer Finished/In the Drawer: Submissions: Rejections: Manchester Review Total Poems Out: 14 Acceptances: Withdrawn:0 Longlisted: 0 Books sold: 2 Readings: Friends Poems Looked At: 1
Music r= Radio, A = Audiobook, P=Podcast. The rest is music Mono: Forever Home Florence + The Machine; Everybody Scream, High As Hope, , How Bright Roger O’Donnell: Projections Poems We Made Along the Way: Clare Pollard (P) The Archers (P) David Lance Callahan: English Primitive 1 Poetry Bath: Rosie Johnson 1 and 2 (p) The Shed: Frank Skinner (p) B-52s: Bouncing off the Satellites Adrianne Lenker: Bright Future Katheryn Calder: Bright & Vivid Unwed Sailor: Heavy Age Moby Grape: ST Akira Kosemura: One Day Matthew Halsall: Oneness Sea of Bees: Orangefarben House of Love: Babe Rainbow
Read Acumen John Clare: Selected Poems
Watched Triggerpoint Down Cemetery Road Frankenstein (New version – visually great, but bollocks otherwise)
Ordered/Bought Finished Creatures 7 Southward 49 A jumper Sarah Doyle: (m)othersongs + 1 Brackets for shelves
I think I’ve mentioned that I’ve been reading The Lost Folk by Lally MacBeth recently. I’ll let you look it up to see more about it, but I recommend it to you all…I found it endlessly fascinating.
I finished it on Thursday evening just gone, but I’d taken a break from it last week to read some poetry. I’d picked up a copy of Ian Duhig’s Nominies (I think I bought it in a seconds hand shop in Faversham during the Lit festival there at the start of the year..I’d read with Matthew, Chris Horton and seen Maggie Smith and Rosie Johnston). Anyhoo, I started flicking through Nominies, and while you might otherwise believe me, the first poem I opened to was called The Folklorist.
Now, I’m not going to look that kind of gift horse in the mouth and not come away with something good. As an aside, I’m now thinking of setting up a school for gifted horses…
Here’s the poem.
The Folklorist (for Katherine Grant)
She ripped the fur up to the rabbit’s ears and the red tore left by her snare,
saying some resurrection man once fell hauling kin of hers up church wall:
he pitched forward while the corpse tumbled back and the slipknot rose to his neck
they hung like justice by the yew thicket and would I like a lucky foot?
+++++++ Published with permission of the poet. Taken from Nominies by Ian Duhig, Bloodaxe Books 1998. I think it’s out of print. It’s not on the Bloodaxe site, but do try to find it if you can. It’s a fine collection from a fine poet.
I’d explain why I like the poem as per normal, but one this occasion it’s mainly driven by the timing and synchronicity of the discovery. That said, the economy of travel in 8 lines, 4 short couplets is astonishing. The brutality of the opening images is matched by the horror of the tale told in stanzas 2 and 3. We could spend a lifetime looking at the line “they hung like justice”..Is it sweet justice for the hauling – we never find out why the kin was being dragged up the wall, or just the strong image of the scales of justice, the balance of it? Or both…I like to think both.
I like the final line and the way it tallies with folk world as described by Lally Macbeth (read the book to see what I mean), and the way the poem travels across time. I can’t be sure it brings us into the 20th century because we don’t when the lucky rabbit’s foot is being offered, but we do know it’s crossed a few of generations at least to allow for the practice of people being hung. I’ve not even mentioned the end rhymes…Ok, now I have.
Not bad for what is one sentence…NB I think the Katherine Grant of the dedication is this lady. She sounds amazing and definitely worthy of further reading..
Now the last couple of weeks have been what can only described a relentless gigging out in the meatspace for me..Ok, ok..3 readings…It’s hardly Bob Dylan’s Never-ending Tour…
First up, we had another Rogue Strand Night. There were excellent readings by myself, Fiona Larkin, Jonathan Davidson, Philip Hancock, Hannah Copley, and his nibs. NB not being snobby, this was the reading order. We had at last 30 people there – it was wonderful to read with everyone. Despite a last minute technical hitch when I discovered the mic wasn’t working due to a broken cable, it felt like a top night was had by all. It was lovely to see some friends from various works there – non-poetry pals, work pals and poetry pals…and I met some new folks too. Bravo us. And, I think in a RS first we fail managed a full team photo at the end of the night.
Also, thank you to Jonathan for including Unlimited Texts from CtD in this Out of Office messages- do sign up if you’ve not already. I’m chuffed to have been included. I want to actually keep an email forever (I’ll file it with the one I got from the lovely Sheila about being published by Red Squirrel).
Then a few days later I was reading at The Torriano Meeting rooms with Louise Walker and Neil Elder. I’ve read with both before so i knew it would good. I’ve long wanted to read at this venue, so that’s a poetry bucket list venue ticked off. A damp night and the Forwards being on means I think we could have had more folks there, but we didn’t do badly. The place wasn’t empty by any chalk of any length. The 3 open mic readers did us proud, and new poems were given a run out by all involved.
After that whirlwind, I had to go home from tour to do my washing, etc back to work for a few days, but last week was broken up by a visit to a place that has been added to my reading bucket list, The Music Rooms at Great Ormond Street. It was the 30th Anniversary do for the excellent Rack Press, and the launch of books by Mari Ellis Dunning, Nicholas Murray and Andrew Neilson.
Sadly Mari couldn’t make it, but someone stood in for her (I didn’t catch her name) and read the title poem, Crocodile, excellently. Nicholas started us off with some fine poems from his pamphlet, The Culture Man and then Andrew took us to school with his readings from his debut pamphlet, Summers Are Other. I won’t dwell on that for too long because I’ve asked for and received permission from Andrew to put a poem from there up here*, but that’s for next time.
Lastly, I was back on the road yesterday to read in Canterbury as part of the Canterbury Festival. It was great to be invited back again by Christopher Horton. He puts on a. good event. The big was great – Again, I was first (after 4 excellent open mic readers – inc Jess Mookherjee), then Jessica Taggart Rose, Connor Sansby, Poppy Cockburn, more open mics, Rosie Johnston, Katy Evans-Bush, Barry Fentiman-Hall and Maggie Smith.
It’s fair to say the event overran a bit, but I think it went well, everyone certainly got plenty of poetry for their £7. Poets got paid (and that’s rare), books were sold and/or swapped. I got to meet some new folks (Hello, Kevin) and then spend the evening catching up with my old mate, Paul (write the fucking book, Paul)…Some lovely wine was drunk…Ah yes, I did nearly brain myself leaving the venue after the reading when a door jumped out at me and attacked my forehead.
After my two weeks of readings, now we must prepare for the return of our beloved child tomorrow for her reading week. The fatted calf is backing away from me.
* Second reference to Up Here of late. I mentioned the album by that name by Bill Janovitz to someone on BlueSky recently…
Title Giveaway
Picnic at Weather Rock AI is a load of old shite Speed-Time-Distance Calculator Hot Butter Photo Booths Songs the seem appropriate
A song that seems appropriate
The Cure: Icing Sugar. Not at all relevant, but it came on today and quite frankly just because of that…
We’d better have a folklore song..Not TayTay…Here’s Planetary Folklore by Caverns of Anti-Matter
THE LAST **Coughs** WEEKS IN STATS
HEALTH STATS Runs: 30k Workouts: 0 Walks: 1 Yoga: 0 Days without alcohol: 0 Days without cigarettes: 0 Bouts of Insomnia: 1
LIFE STATS 3 x readings + 1 for someone else 1 x soaked to skin walking home 1 x paid for a poem in a mag 1 x paid for gig 2 x train rides this weekend 1 x night out with mates on Friday 1 x house clean
POET STATS Notes for poems: Doc & Marty Worked on: Slinky, In the Freezer Finished/In the Drawer: Slinky Submissions: Banshee Rejections: Dust Total Poems Out: 14 Acceptances: Withdrawn:0 Longlisted: 0 Books sold: 0 Readings: 3 + 1 attended Friends Poems Looked At: 2
Music r= Radio, A = Audiobook, P=Podcast. The rest is music Seefeel: Pure, Impure Carla J Easton: Impossible Stuff Śirom: In the Wind of Night The Besnard Lakes: Are the Ghost Nation Bobby Darin: Commitment Geese: Getting Killed Ivan The Tolerable: Linthorpe Crepuscule Vol 1 Paul McCartney: Flaming Pie Nick Drake: Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter, Pink Moon The Weather Station: Humanhood, Loyalty, Ignorance Holler, Wild Rose: Our Little Hymnal Julien Baker & Torres; Send A Prayer My Way Rural Tapes: Oneric Akira Kosemura: One Day, Polaroid Piano, True Mothers, For Chartreuse; Bless You & Be Well Cagoules Des Décalomanies: ST My Morning Jacket: Chocolate & iceE Ep, Circuitial The Cure: Songs of a Lost World Jeff Parker: The Wayne Out of Easy Arsenal Vs Crystal Palace This is the Kit: Live at Miniack Theatre Bill Janovitz: Up Here Mudhoney: Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, Five Dollar Bob’s Mock Cooter Stew, The Lucky Ones The Archers (P) Radiohead: The Bends, Hail To the Thief, In Rainbows Michael Jones & David Darling: Amber Jack DeJohnette: Pictures John Abercrombie, Dave Holland & Jack DeJohnette: Gateway Horsegirl: Phonetics ON And On House of Love: St Poems We Made Along The Way: George Szirtes Lift To Experience: The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads Archie Shepp: Stream David Darling; Cycles Dan Deacon: Task OST Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Palle Danielsson, Jon Christensen: Sleeper Buffalo Tom; Sleepy Eyed Hüsker Du: Everything Falls Apart, Flip Your Wig The Charlatans: We Are Love R Seliog: Dispatch All Gods Snocaps: ST Mono: Forever Home
Read Lally MacBeth: The Lost Folk Ian Duhig: Nominies
Watched Slow Horses The Handmaid’s Tale The Morning Show Invasion Celebrity Traitors Leonard & Hungry Paul Inspector Morse Ed Gein Arsenal Vs Athletico Madrid Ian Parks’ book launch Task
Ordered/Bought Mic cable 1 x Rilo Kiley ticket for 2026 Jonathan Davidson:A Commmonplace Jumper via Vinted Brighton Half Marathon Place Race To the King Ultra marathon place (I’m going to be unbearable next year…even more so) Southword Subscription Pennine Platform & Some book buying/swaps in Canterbury
It’s a funny old world, innit? On Friday morning I was idly musing on the idea of writing a poem about playing air guitar. I mean, I’d probably turn it into something miserable about being a creative failure or make some cheap gag about it being permanently out of tune (**Makes notes**) , etc, but the point here is I was thinking of the idea in the morning, and then in the afternoon I saw a link to this article about the air guitar champion of the world . Weird, eh?
Now, we won’t dwell on the loss of a few poets recently; plenty has been written abut them all by far better people than me, but I will say I was especially gutted about Brian Patten going. He was one of the gateways into poetry for me..(some say we should blame him..some would be right). And I’ve read his now well known poem, How Many Lengths of Time at at least two funerals, including my dad’s…
I regret not trying to see Brian live again in recent years, but I have fond memories of being probably one of about 3 people to have ever taken out his third collection, The Irrelevant Song, from North Walsham library (and I had it on near constant loan for a year or so). I was lucky enough to see him read and say hello, and to get his autograph on a couple of books a couple of times. I’m pretty sure there was a Patten/Henri doubleheader at Norwich Arts centre a million years ago now. I can’t recall if Roger McGough was there.
After I heard about his death, I went to dig out a letter I had from him from many, many years ago. I can’t have been more than 18 or 19 when it was sent…I’m not sure how to date it, but…hang on, it has a telephone number he gives me for someone on Norwich with the area code as 0603…not 01603. That must narrow things down to pre 1995. which would make me 18 or 19. Crikey. Anyhoo, I could’t find the letter, despite it being a prized possession.
I’ve not taken Brian’s books off the shelf for a while, and while I was hoping for another book from him, it’s fair to say I thought his last book, The Book of Forgetting, wasn’t his finest work by a long stretch, so it took an email from another poet (Hi, Roy) that mentioned a poem by Patten I didn’t know to send me back to my book shelf to check if I had this poem…and would you Adam and Eve it, the letter was there tucked inside my copy of Little Johnny’s Confession. Thanks again, Roy
I won’t repeat all of the letter here, but having solicited advice from him on what I will freely confess were some dreadful juvenilia that I sincerely meant at the time, he was kind enough tosa y he like a couple of them and then said
“There’s not much I can say about poems that come from the heart; as yours do. I think you will find which work and which have clumsy parts that stop them working if you give readings yourself”
**HANDBRAKE TURN**
Readings you say…well I have two this week. I won’t be reading the two poems Brian mentioned (they were called Anniversary and On Such Occasions, for the deep heads), but I will be reading some from CtD and some newer stuff.
NB I’ve borrowed a sack barrow from a neighbour to help me transport the PA (NB It’s hardly the back line at Donnington Monsters of Rock or a Dinosaur Jr gig, but it’s a heavy box and it’s a pain in the ‘arris to transport, so after 6 or seven of these things I’ve finally decided to make life easy for myself.
I am tempted to take photo of myself looking like Hannibal Lecter on it…More news there as I get it
Rogue Strands @ The Devereux…
On the 26th October, I’m reading with Louise Walker and Neil Elder at the Torriano Meeting House. It will be an honour to read with both, and to read at a bucket list poetry venue. Kick off is 7.30, so see you there. NB we are competing with the Forward Prizes that night, but hopefully you can make it.
His was a name I knew of, but I only recall reading Richard Meier*’s poems for the first time when I read Muscle Memory on The Friday Poem in 2022. It was enough to make me think I must follow this up, and not just because it mentions Norfolk. I am ashamed to say that it’s only in the last couple of weeks that I’ve done any serious reading of Richard’s work. I was prompted by the news he had a new collection coming out via HappenStance, After The Miracle…
I bought Richard’s two previous Picador collections, and have raced through them. I’ve gone back slowly too, but I inhaled his work…
My Richard Meier Books
The circumstances behind his latest work are, as the blurb says on the sales page ,“difficult”, but I don’t want to cover that here. I’m going to ficus on something else the blurb says, and that’s “Richard Meier’s style has always been to make much from little and to find beauty in plain speaking. He even dares to write from the heart.”
I should really be using this to sell the new book to you, and I commend it to you in the strongest terms—it’s reviewed here at London Grip, but you know me and a connection. So I’m going with something from his second book, Search Party.
An east coast resident stays put
Crazy place to live, in a field, on a cliff that every year or twenty unstitches along one edge … Yet see it how I see it:
evening after evening, considering the waves, the field a good way up your window. Then one morning wake to find the grass
sits lower in the frame, one fewer row of caravans between the sea and yours. To know how things will go. In what precise order.
+++++++Taken from Search Party, By Richard Meier. Picador Poetry, 2019. Shared with the permission of the poet+++++++
I’ve chosen this poem for a few reasons. Firstly, because it’s wonderful. Secondly, it seems to me to be about Norfolk. It made me think of Happisburgh when I first saw it Thirdly, I saw this article about coastal erosion in Norfolk this week.
I love the short lines; they feel cut back like the coast itself. It would be too much too say they jut in places like the coast, but I won’t not say it. I love the 4th line of the first stanza, the way the break before it gives is emphasis. Again, it might be too much to say the “unstitches” is deliberately untethered from the previous line, but, again, I’m not not saying it. I could spend hours enjoying the way the stanza break between stanza 2 and 3 quite literally has the first line of stanza three lower in the frame of the page (**Pretentious wanker alarm goes off**)
But what I love the most is that for all the natural disaster elements in the poem, there’s something really quite Norfolk and belligerent about this, and a seizing of the unknown from it. To have that kind of view right up until you don’t and to stay there despite knowing what’s coming.
I could also read this as a warning poem, a sense that the world is collapsing (**R.E.M.’s Radio Song starts playing), we can see it falling away in front of us and we stand still doing nothing. Especially given the lack of knowledge of eactls when this might happen (“a year or twenty”). In a week (or so) where articles came out about the coral reefs now reaching the point of no return, this reading of the poem perhaps feels more compelling than the first one.
I think I could use this poem as a yardstick for whether I’m in half-empty or half-full glass situation each morning..Like some sort of poem version of a weather rock** (albeit one that’s actually useful). think I could just choose to live in the view the poem paints in stanza 2 for as long as I can manage.
I’d like to also include Richard’s poem, The achievement of naturalism in Greek sculpture, because like the poem above it’s excellent, but also because i think it feel immediately applicable to the world of AI, creativity and the conversations being had there. It feels relevant in week of dealing with shite tech at work. I won’t quote all of the poem (go, buy the book, see for yourself), but the last line is “What in earth had they begun?”.
It reminds me a little of the Simon Armitage line about not inventing an acid that will eat through anything without giving some though to the container (Or words to that effect). **Subs to check which poem it comes from**^. I used to use that line in presentations about the impact of Video on Demand on the TV industry…this was back before Netflix moved to digital away from DVDs (yes, I was around then). I was a harbinger of doom then, especially when the competitions commission killed off Project Kangaroo.
I’m not sure how I ended up here, or how I get out, so **THROWS SMOKE BOMB AND DISAPPEARS IN THE CONFUSION**
* make sure you look up the correct one as there appears to be two poets…Do we need Poetry equivalents of Equity card? **Hmmm, makes a note to think bout a poem using this idea ^ Ha, the idea I have a sub editor for this..Have you seen the types that get through each time?
Title Giveaway
Picnic at Weather Rock AI is a load of old shite Speed-Time-Distance Calculator Hot Butter Photo Booths Songs the seem appropriate
A song that seems appropriate
Aphex Twin: Cliffs
THE LAST **Coughs** WEEKS IN STATS
HEALTH STATS Runs: 56k (been bit busy) Workouts: 0 Walks: 2 Yoga: 0 Days without alcohol: 0 Days without cigarettes: 1 Bouts of Insomnia: 6 (I think)
LIFE STATS 1 x door handles replaced 1 x tidy of back garden Garden furniture put away for winter 1 x Shakshuka 1 x Beef Rendang of the season 1st woodburner of the season lit 1x poorly child (Fresher’s Flu kicked in late) 9 x focus groups 1 x work away day 1 x conference 1 x work 70th party 1 x 60th birthday party 1x Picasso exhibition at Tate Modern 1 x night out in Soho 1x trip to the bar I met my wife in (Bradleys Spanish Wine Bar) 1 x offer of a tarot reading (declined ) 1 x prize won from Seren books = 10 books and a notebook) 2x lovely dinners with some ace mates. 1 x room repairs for Flo
POET STATS Notes for poems: Milky Bars, Weather Rocks Worked on: Slinky, Motivation, In the Freezer, Voice Mail Finished/In the Drawer: Caravaggio Submissions: Rejections: Perverse, Poetry Ireland Review Total Poems Out: 19 Acceptances: IS&T, Finished Creatures Withdrawn:0 Longlisted: 0 Books sold: 0 Readings: 0 Friends Poems Looked At: 6
Music r= Radio, A = Audiobook, P=Podcast. The rest is music Kurt Vile: Believe I’m Goin’ (Deep) Down Suede: The Blue Hour Adverb in Bradford (p) Field Ramble: Lally MacBeth (p) Poems We Made Along the way: Steve Ely, Erica Hesketh (p) Arsenal vs Manchester City Sammi Smith: Something Old, etc Black Lips: Season Of the Peach Stealing Sheep: GLO Arseblog Podcast Extra 659 The Archers Boo Boos: Young Love The Clientele: The Violet Hour, I Am Not There Anymore, It’s Art, Dad, Tim Buckley: Dream Letter Darrell Banks: Darrell Banks is Here Sonny Rollins: Sax Eternal The Beta Band: 3 Eps Pearl Jam: Riot Act Poems We Made: Rishi Dastidar (p) That’s the Way I Remember It: Matt Berninger (p) Dropsonde Playlist SG Goodman: Planting By The Signs, Teethmarks Cate Le Bon: Michaelangelo Dying Bitchin Bajas: Inland See Dr John: Such A Night Emma-Jean Thackeray; Weirdo, Yellow Ryley Walker: Golden Sings, Terror of the Lowlands Explosions In The Sky: End, Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place, Those Who Will Tell The Truth, Take care x 3, All of A Sudden ,Live, How Strange, Innocence, Big Bend, American Primeval My Morning Jacket: Z Niculin Janett Quartet: Toxicology Report Arsenal Vs West Ham Jeff Tweedy: Twilight Override Supergrass: Road to Rouen Danny Thompson: Whatever Buffalo Tom, Let Me Come over, Quiet & Peace, Skins Cerys Hafana: Angel Hold Steady Live In London 2024 Joy Zipper: American whip Jess Kerber: Any Other Way Sarah Jarosz; Blue Heron Suite Eric Dolphy; Outward Bound Vic Mars: The Land & the Garden Kathryn Williams:Mystery Park Maria Somerville: All My people The Lemonheads: Lovey Patti Smith: Horses, Wave The Hold Steady: Price of Progress, Teeth Dreams, Boys & Girls In America Charles Lloyd; Figure In Blue Dorris Henderson & John Renbourn: Watch the Stars Laura Veirs: Live With the Choir Who Couldn’t Say Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan: Public Works & Utilities, Appendix 1 Rozi Plain: Prize Comsat Angels: Sleep No More Sugar: Beaster, Copper Blue Orcutt Shelley Miller: ST Jessica Pratt: Quiet Signs Mary Lattimore; Collected Works. Goodbye Hotel Arkady, Hundreds of Days Bill Fox: Resonance The National: Rome, Trouble Will Find Me, Alligator Matt Berninger: Get Sunk Wednesday: Bleeds Fulham Vs Arsenal Michael Kiawanuka: Kiawanuka Four Tet: New Energy McCoy Tyner: The Real McCoy Pearl Jam: Dark Matter Andrea Laszlo De Simeone: Imensità Hank Mobley: The Flip
Read The Frogmore Papers Suzanna Fitzpatrick: Crippled Siegfried Babar; Twice-Turned Earth Lally MacBeth: The Lost Folk Ian Duhig: Nominies Richard Meier: Misdemeanour, Search Party, After the Miracle
Watched The Wire Suspicion (Hitchcock) Slow Horses The Handmaid’s Tale Match of the Day The Morning Show Invasion Celebrity Traitors The Thirty Nine Steps Meg 2 Inspector Morse Frauds The Diplomat
Ordered/Bought USB adapter for Flo Helena Nelson: The Unread Squirrel Alan Buckley: The Long Haul Richard Meier: After The Miracle Acumen 112 Gig tickets Lally Macbeth; The Lost Folk 15 x bags of logs Jessica Goodheart: Earthquake Season Marianne Moore: Complete Poems Tony Parker: The People of Providence Robin Houghton: YoYo 12 x books from Seren (Competition Win) Poetry Scotland Pre-ordered Christopher Horton’s Clutter Jar – you should too
Wear The Fox Hat 
