Poetry Monthly's magazine to close but internet site gets a boost

In only five issues time, with issue 150, editor and publisher Martin Holroyd will finally cease printing his popular poetry journal Poetry Monthly. Increased postal charges and advances in computer and internet technology have forced the issue to this crunch point. Many disappointed readers have already written letters expressing their profound disappointment. But as Martin Holroyd is quick to explain there is nothing to stop them printing-off copies of Poetry Monthly (now know as poetrymonthly.com) at their local library or internet cafe´. As as an extra service that would obviously be advantageous to those who live in remote areas, perhaps where no libraries or internet cafes exist, copies of the paper version of the magazine may still be ordered from Nottingham on a month by month basis.
The current issue of poetrymonthly.com (May 2008) features poetry from Michael Newman (a P-i-R featured poet), R. D. Coleman, Wendy Webb, Patrick B Osada and others, as well as a lengthy and detailed article from Radcliff Gregory titled Polyverse: The DIY Poetry Festival (Friday 24th-Sunday 26th July 2009).
New publications on offer from Poetry Monthly Press include 'Away with Words' an anthology featuring Aeronwy Thomas, Frances White, Annie Taylor and Beryl Myers.
P-i-R featured poet Geoff Stevens's collection 'Absinth on Your Icecream' is also available from this publisher.
Poet-in-Residence's own collection is currently at the last nail-biting stage before publication. The duo Saitenwind (Eva Stangler / block flute and Barbara Sambor / classical guitar) have offered to lend musical support for the Vienna launch.

Remembering John Betjeman

On David Pike's deliciously crammed with allsorts Pulsar Poetry website (see P-i-R's handy link in sidebar) there is amongst all the paraphernalia a photograph of John Betjeman's gravestone. We may look at this today and pay our respects, for it's exactly 24 years since the son of a Dutch-descended manufacturer of household objects (as Nicholas Albery described him) kicked the proverbial bucket.
William Plomer summed-up JB this way: "His lifelong affair with Edwardian England included old churches, old railways, old gaslit streets, old country-towns, old dons, and old invalids...[gave] him a distaste for much of what is supposed to represent progress."
Poet-in-Residence considers there is no better way to mark the day than to turn once again to Betjeman's famous and oft quoted poem:

Slough

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs, and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk,
tinned beans
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town -
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half-a-crown
For twenty years,

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washed his repulsive skin
in women's tears,

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sports and makes of cars
In various bogus Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.


John Betjeman (1906-1984)

The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce's sardonic preface to the 'Devil's Dictionary' of 1911 bemoans the fact that he had not the power to prevent the original 1906 edition from being titled 'The Cynic's Word Book'. The more reverent title was forced upon him by the religious scruples of a newspaper in which a part of the work had appeared. In those days there were so many books and pamphlets titled The Cynic's...this, that and the other, that the very word cynic was in bad repute. 'The Cynic's Word Book' joined the list. The change of title in 1911 possibly saved it from obscurity.
As well as word definitions 'The Devil's Dictionary' contains much humorous verse including the following -

Goose

A critic who all day had railed
Against a poem which had failed
To please him, as the sun went down
Stopped cursing and forgot to frown.
A goose, which, sitting near, had heard
In silence each censorious word,
Now solemnly exclaimed: 'My friend
I've heard you calmly to the end,
Unwilling to disturb you, though
I smarted at each bitter blow.'
'Pray what have my remarks to do'
The critic cried, 'with such as you?'
'With me, indeed! That serves to show
How little critics care to know
About the object of their curses;
I grew the pen which wrote the verses!'


Clergyman

The clergyman to Tom, one day,
Said: 'Work is worthy of its pay;
You to your body did attend,
But I your soul did ever mend.'
Said Tom: 'I recognize the debt,
And pay it thus.' A coin he set
Before the parson's eyes awhile,
Then pocketed it with a smile,
Remarking: 'Since the thing you mend
Is unsubstantial, pious friend,
It clearly seems the fitting way
In unsubstantial coin to pay:'


Ambrose Bierce (1842-1913?)*

*In 1913 Bierce set off for the Mexican Revolution and was never seen again.
His life was a tissue of facts embroidered with legend.

New editorial team at iota

After six hard but happy years in the saddle, the editorial team of Bob Mee (sports journalist and author) and Janet Murch are handing over the reins at iota poetry magazine. Iota is an established quarterly journal, now approaching 82 issues, in which Poet-in-Residence has been delighted to have his poetry appear from time to time.
The new editorial team will judge submissions anonymously and up to 6 poems may be submitted by e-mail. Details of all this and more may be found via Poet-in-Residence's handy link to iota in the left margin.
Bob Mee and Janet Murch will doutbless continue with their poetry publishing enterprise Ragged Raven Press and their afternoon poetry courses down on the farm in Stratford Upon Avon. Poet-in-Residence wishes them much luck and good fortune.

P-i-R's (imaginary!) South Sea Cruise

South Sea Cruise

somewhere the shelf breaks and tumbles
like a scoop of croutons
tossed into a bowl of borsch
the women suck on strawberries
in slowest motion
reluctant to separate
at first
the great blue blocks
stir and slip away
and sip their gins and tonics
blue gold drifts apart
to wander free
to melt
dissolve
in salty soup of sea
tip the friendly waiter
pepper clouds have clumped
and it begins to rain
and blow
on shore beyond the harbour
flush and wash their hands
where husbands play a round
of golf
glare at the sky
and shrug
and frown,-
and back on board
the band smooths on...

c)-2008 Gwilym Williams

A kind of poetry ambassador...but what's that?

Poet-in-Residence has recently been informed by the world's no.1 poetry website, a website boasting a membership of 6,000,000 poets, that he has been elevated to the status or rank of 'poetry ambassador'. This follows hard on the heels of the recent ILP bronze medal award. What duties, if any, this impressive bardic position will hold for P-i-R is less than clear.
As usual with these things, P-i-R declines to part with any of his hard, yes hard, earned lucre and awaits further communications from vanity poetry hq. Watch this space as the Martian said to the UFOlogist.

NEWSFLASH - Poet-in-Residence has taken his impressive new title of poetry ambassador at face value and duly opened an haiku blogspot titled THE POETRY AMBASSADOR - simply click on 'THE POETRY AMBASSADOR' in P-i-R's left sidebar!

How NOT to win a Strokestown poetry contest...at any price!

At the outset Poet-in-Residence must say that he holds the poet George Szirtes in high regard. He must also admit to having won (and also not having won) a poetry contest and having been (and not having been) a final-stage judge in a poetry contest. He can therefore consider the 'how NOT to win a Strokestown poetry contest...' scenario from all sides.
But this item is not really about what it claims to be about. It's rather about the unfair cost of entries in the recently judged Strokestown 2008 Poetry Competition.
What drew P-i-R's attention to the Strokestown competition leaflet, made it stand out from the others, when it arrived at the P-i-R residence was the fact that George Szirtes was highlighted as the main judge. Now, George Szirtes is nothing if he is not scrupulously honest. In this respect he is the dream candidate for the position of chief judge in a major international poetry contest such as the Strokestown. This fact, and this fact alone, persuaded P-i-R to read the whole of the entry leaflet.
What struck P-i-R as curious were the entry-fee details. A UK entrant had to fork out 4 pounds (equal to almost $8) whilst a USA poet had to pay only $5(equal to 2.50p) per poem. In other words the UK entrant had to pay nearly twice as much as his USA rival to get a poem onto the judging table. Or to put it another way, the USA entrant could submit twice as many poems for the same price!
But that wasn't all. The Eurozone entrant (including George Szirtes' fellow citizens in Hungary) had to pay €5 per entry - also significantly much higher than the USA entrant. And bear in mind that wages in Hungary are significantly lower than in the USA and the UK.
Poet-in-Residence decided to bring all this blatant unfairness to the attention of the judges and any other interested parties by means of a spoof poem. The poem would highlight not only the absurdity of the Strokestown entry fee structure but also allude, with a sprinkling of German words, to the subjugated Hungarian spirit kept down by the Austro-Hungarian Empire and almost destroyed by the Third Reich but ending with, hopefully a wry smile on the honest face of George Szirtes when he reads that Austrians and Germans now flock to Hungary on free buses to have their teeth done. And reads that the author is facing a Hungarian dentist armed with a drill.
The following sycophantic spoof poem was duly written and entered in the contest. It goes without saying that it didn't make it to the short list. To read the poems that did make it, visit the handy Strokestown link in the Poet-in-Residence sidebar at left.

Dentistry in Mosonmagyarova

You'll not be getting many Strokestown poems
from Ungarn*
not this year George
not with the price of free bus dentistry
being tied to the €urozone
in orts* like Mosonmagyarova
just think of all those bad teeth George
and the price of a couplet in the Strokestown
sent prioritaire* from the €ast €uropean €urozone
you know exactly what it takes George
a man of your calibre
a man with your canon
what it takes to make a measly $ollar or measly €uro
in a place like Buda
the exchange rate George
know what I mean pal, buddy, mate, amigo,
chum
now if my Ungarn* crony Tibor* was a spangle-heeled Yank
or just an average sort of oil sheik
wheeling and dealing in barrels of oil $ollars
things would be a lot different
a mere klax
he'd offer you ten at cut price
he tells me
poems that is
not teeth George
to oil the wheels of the canon
know what I mean George
or maybe it has recently escaped your notice
that they're out on the streets again these days
blocking up the chain bridge*
smashing up the parliament
it's the rate of exchange for the old landsleute* George
it's that business with Strokestown sticking its financial oar in
you know what I mean George
all that Strokestown financial clout
all those nest eggs in brown paper bags
all those common cormorants and shags
all that bad maths
all that reckoning up
and reckoning down

so how do you reckon it George pal, buddy, mate, amigo
chum
reckon 5 greenbacks in DC
gets you 5 measley €uro in Pest

and while you're chewing on that one George
I'm facing the guy with the drill.

c)- 2008

*Ungarn - German for Hungary
*orts - German for places, generally villages or small towns
*Tibor - Tibor Fischer, Hungarian author of 'Under the Frog' (humorous novel about survival in the face of oppression - contains wonderful dialogue such as 'I'm just going to shake the snake' - one which you might like to try at your next cocktail party!)
*prioritaire - 1st class post or air mail
*chain bridge - a Budapest landmark where students and workers recently demonstrated
against the government which they claim won the election by telling lies
*landsleute - German for fellow-citizens or people having a common nationality

Poet-in-Residence's Poem of the Month (May 2008)

In his introduction to 'W.B.Yeats The Poems' Daniel Albright quotes a bit of blarney from Ezra Pound:

Neath Ben Bulben's buttoks lies
Bill Yeats, a poet twoice the soize
of William Shakespear, as they say
Down Ballykillywuchlin way.

Any poet reckond to be twice the size of the Bard of Avon must certainly be worthy of inclusion in Poet-in-Residence's Poem of the Month Series. From 'The Winding Stair and Other Poems' comes the following, dated 1928:

Mohini Chatterjee

I asked if I should pray,
But the Brahmin said,
'Pray for nothing, say
Every night in bed,
"I have been a king,
I have been a slave,
Nor is there anything,
Fool, rascal, knave,
That I have not been,
And yet upon my breast
A myriad heads have lain."'

That he might set at rest
A boy's turbulent days
Mohini Chatterjee
Spoke these words, or word like these.
I add in commentary,
'Old lovers yet may have
All that time denied -
Grave is heaped upon grave
That they be satisfied -
Over the blackened earth
The old troops parade,
Birth is heaped upon birth
That such cannonade
May thunder time away,
Birth-hour and death-hour meet,
Or, as great sages say,
Men dance on deathless feet.

Poet-in-Residence's Book of the Month (May 2008)

In 2000 the University of Wales Press and The Western Mail (Pocket Guide Series) got together with James A. Davies, senior lecturer in English at the University of Wales, to produce a guide to Dylan Thomas and the three places that were most important to him . Poet-in-Residence's copy of Dylan Thomas's Swansea, Gower and Laugharne was obtained recently at no less a location than the Boat House in Laugharne (see below).
The handy (it really is pocket size!) 132 page book contains a dozen colour plates, a collection of black and white snapshots and a street map or two which together with the fact-filled text give a real snooper's eye view of the life of Swansea's favourite son. It's an ideal introduction to the life and work of the great poet.
Mentioned in the front of the book, presumably for anyone wishing to glean further information about this and other books in the Pocket Guide Series, is the following website:- www.wales.ac.uk/press

A process in the weather of the heart

A process in the weather of the heart
Turns damp to dry; the golden shot
Storms in the freezing tomb.
A weather in the quarter of the veins
Turns night to day; blood in their suns
Lights up the living worm.

A process in the eye forwarns
The bones of blindness; and the womb
Drives in a death as life leaks out.

A darkness in the weather of the eye
Is half its light; the fathomed sea
Breaks on unangled* land.
The seed that makes a forest of the loin
Forks half its fruit; and half drops down.
Slow in a sleeping wind.

A weather in the flesh and bone
Is damp and dry; the quick and dead
Move like two ghosts before the eye.

A process in the weather of the world
Turns ghost to ghost; each mothered child
Sits in their double shade.
A process blows the moon into the sun,
Pools down the shabby curtains of the skin;
And the heart gives up its dead.

From 18 Poems by Dylan Thomas


*unfished

In search of Dylan Thomas

The first time that Poet-in-Residence visited the Boat House home of the late Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet, was the time, many years ago, when Dylan's Irish wife Caitlin, then married to an Italian nobleman, passed away in distant Italy. Her last will & testament left instructions, surprising to the family of the noble Italian (but not to the poetic Welsh) that she be united with her poet-husband in the gentle sloping graveyard on the hillside at Laugharne in Wales. A small wooden cross marks the grave; his name on one side and her name on the other; together like two kippers in a box.
During P-i-R's first visit to the Boat House a curious poltergeist incident took place; a high rail holding up a tapestry suddenly flung itself to the ground, batting the wall as it went down. There were 8 or so witnesses to this incident. It happened during the TV showing of a video about the life of Dylan Thomas in an upstairs room.
P-i-R's recent 3rd visit found watercolour paintings 'for sale' on the walls of that upstairs room. No sign of the ghostly pole or tapestry! So did P-i-R, as he hoped to do, once again detect the spirit of Dylan Thomas?
The answer is probably in the affirmative. Strolling up the hill on a May morning from the graveside, through the sapling trees, onto the farmland overlooking the estuary in a singsong of birds, each reciting its own poem, P-i-R felt that Dylan Thomas was somehow there, somehow alive and singing. The sun shone brightly , the birds sang like heroes and the herons stood like statues. There in that place, on that small hill, this researcher found and was certainly touched by something; possibly the force that drives the green fuse or in other words that something that inspired the poetry of Dylan Thomas...the poet for whom death shall have no dominion.

from Poem on his Birthday

In the mustardseed sun,
By full tilt river and switchback sea
Where the cormorants scud,
In his house on stilts high among beaks
And palavers of birds
This sandgrain day in the bent bay's grave
He celebrates and spurns
His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age;
herons spire and spear.

Under and round him go
Flounders, gulls, on their cold, dying trails,
Doing what they are told,
Curlews aloud in the congered waves
Work at their ways to death,
And the rhymer in the long tongued room,
Who tolls his birthday bell,
Toils towards the ambush of his wounds;
Herons, steeple stemmed, bless.

. . .

I hear the bouncing hills
Grow larked and greener at berry brown
Fall and the dew larks sing
Taller this thunderclap spring, and how
More spanned with angels ride
The mansouled fiery islands! oh,
Holier then their eyes,
And my shining men no more alone
As I sail out to die.

Haikuing around with Jack Kerouac (200 posts and time for a metaphorical cigarette - ps: don't smoke, it's bad for you)

The beat poet Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), best known for his novel 'On the Road' is, believe it or not, the poet mostly responsible for reinventing or more correctly redesigning the haiku, in the USA at any rate. He certainly invested the form with some much needed energy; his haiku won't be sending many to sleep!
In a lengthy introduction to Jack Kerouac's 'Book of Haikus' (sic)(pub. 2003 Penguin Books) the widely published researcher Regina Weinreich speaks of 1,000 haiku found in notebooks, blocks of prose, jottings, scribbles and recycled in other ways. The pocket size haiku book resulting from Weinreich's editorialship contains about half this number and gives more than a broad overview of Kerouac's 'range and styles'.
Poet-in-Residence is not one to engage in 'electronic piracy' of copyrighted materials and therefore publishes the following 'short quotations' in the spirit of the copyright laws as defined and applied by UNESCO (see World Book & Copyright article immediately below).
Kerouac's style and 'new rules' are that more or less anything goes, within the 3-line limit, provided the resulting haiku makes a little picture, is airy and graceful and free from poetic trickery. The first haiku is for the creator of the wonderful cool green space known as the zenspeug haiku site. The rest, the once youthful Poet-in-Residence can these days vaguely seem to recall! Perhaps he was even there? It certainly sometimes feels like it.

Barley soup in Scotland
in November -
misery everywhere

Birds flying north -
where are the squirrels? -
There goes a plane to Boston

Dawn - the tomcat
- hurrying home
with his tail down

Peeking at the moon
in January, Bodhisattva
takes a secret piss

The cow, taking a big
dreamy crap, turning
to look at me

Drunken deterioration -
- ho-hum,
shooting star

Well here I am
2pm -
What day is it?

UNESCO World Book & Copyright Day

To mark UNESCO's World Book & Copyright Day Poet-in-Residence will visit the special exhibition held in the centre of town near the Vienna University. His reading choice for today is one of his favourite poetry books 'the horizon is far away' by the Czech poet living in Canada, Ivan Schneedorfer. The 'copyright' notice in the front of the poet's book, published in 2005 by Shoreline, allows for 'brief quotations embedded in articles and reviews'.

The book takes its title from the poem beginning -

the horizon
is far away

it is quite
inaccessible

In Poet-in-Residence's opinion the 1937 born poet whose work has been published in Czech, French and English is one of the most intelligent and articulate poets writing today. His spare words, always in touch with nature, are full of sense and wisdom. A particularly wise poem is the one beginning -

the grass
is green and
indifferent

deep
and blue
is the ocean

. . . (and going on to end...)

the shell on the beach
parts her lips

as if she has
something
to say

Enjoy the world of books on this special day, also the day Cervantes and Shakespeare died. Find your own favourite book. It's that special one on your shelf you always meant to read again. Enjoy it and spread the word...

Poetry evening in sight...

Poet-in-Residence is planning to go to a poetry & music evening. The last time he went to this annual event he won a water-colour painting in a raffle. It's all done in aid of a worthwhile charity and so its a good thing for P-i-R to support. The poet in attendance may be, it's not clear yet, a particular favourite of Poet-in-Residence's; and although he doesn't pretend to understand a word that she recites he is very much taken with her strong and confident delivery. The first poem below is about this particular poet. The second poem is about the English, Welsh and Irish poets Tennyson, Wordsworth, Thomas and Brown. The third poem imagines the relaxing atmosphere of New Orleans before the flood.

Attending a Poetry Reading

Nobody understood it really
understood what it was
really all about
although some of us had heard it
once or twice before
and one of us
had even read it several times
but still
nobody understood it

and when I pressed her
about it
pinned her
to the bar
with a kind of pathetic poetic gaze
she held forth

that it was all a stream
of consciousness
and that I should have known
that

what went unsaid
was meant
and was indeed
more
than implied -

since
you're something of a poet
too

or so I've heard

she said


Walking with the poets

When Tennyson tramped
by Freshwater Bay
and the wind off the Channel
soaked him with spray
he mentally noted the lines
in his mind
and wrote them up later
after he' dined.

Likewise Will Wordsworth
our fell-walking friend
wandering and wondering
and rhyming no end
over the hills
and the craggy outcrops
down in the valleys
and up on the tops.

So it goes on; Dylan Thomas
you've read
how he rambled in Wales
around Laugharne
and Worm's Head;
a gill in the Crown
and a pint in the Brown's
a dart in the bar
and a card in the lounge.

Up on the moors
in his scarf and his bonnet
gritty Ted Hughes
was nowt but was honest,
and though they confess
he went on a bit
those true Yorkshire folk
thought Ted was a hit.

But the best walk of all
is in fair Dublin town
to the fine broken rhythm
of dear Christy Brown
who grunted and strained
on the lavatory pot*
and used the adjective
lugubrious a lot.


Old Times

the sultry southern air
is filled with lazy jazz
soft swing and reverie
old souls enjoying
an evening's chat
an anecdotal clink of ice

they face the chapel bell
muse on Sunday's hymns
and serious clothes

dogfish soup
is burbling on the hob


c)- Gwilym Williams

*Christy Brown wrote an amusing poem
about being disturbed by a curious farmer
whilst engaged upon a scatological matter -
the farmer disturbed by Christy's plight
(see Daniel Day Lewis film 'My Left Foot'
or read biography of same title)offered
to lend a hand!

William Wordsworth and the old Cumberland beggar

This is the concluding part of Poet-in-Residence's trawl through the poems of the famous Grasmere bard, William Wordsworth. The poetic journey began with the poet's 238th birthday celebration and now ends with his description of his encounter with an old Cumberland beggar. Cumberland was part of the 'English Lake District' which comprised the counties of 'Cumberland & Westmorland' and a small chunk of Lancashire. In bygone childhood days it felt rather exotic and special to enter the romantic and mountainous lands of 'Cumberland & Westmorland'. Nowadays the whole area is simply another English county and is known plainly as Cumbria.
Wordsworth's poem carries an introduction: The class of beggars to which the old man...belongs, will...soon be extinct. It consisted of poor, and, mostly, old and infirm persons, who confined themsleves to a stated round in their neighbourhood, and had certain fixed days, on which, at different houses they...received...money, but mostly...provisions.
The poem is a little too long to feature here in its entirety; but the following extract serves to give a sense of things and a glimpse of bygone times. Doubtless, the well-heeled Wordsworth, never without a guinea in his pocket, would always part with a small coin or two: ... please put a penny in the old man's hat, if you haven't got a penny a ha'penny will do, if you haven't got a ha'penny God bless you!

from The Old Cumberland Beggar

I saw an aged Beggar in my walk,
And he was seated by the highway side
On a low structure of loose masonry
Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they
Who lead their horses down the steep rough road
May thence remount at ease. The aged man
Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone
That overlays the pile, and from a bag
All white with flour the dole of village dames,
He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one,
And scanned them with a fixed and serious look
Of idle computation. In the sun,
Upon the second step of that small pile,
Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills,
He sate, and eat his food in solitude;
And ever, scattered from his palsied hand,
That still attempting to prevent the waste,
Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers
Fell on the ground, and the small mountain birds,
Not venturing yet to peck their destined meal,
Approached within the length of half his staff.

Him from my childhood have I known, and then
He was so old, he seems not older now,
He travels on, a solitary man,
So helpless in appearance, that for him
The sauntering horseman-traveller does not throw
With careless hands his alms upon the ground,
But stops, that he may safely lodge the coin
Within the old Man's hat; nor quits him so,
But still when he has given his horse the rein
Towards the aged Beggar turns a look,
Sidelong and half-reverted. She who tends
The toll-gate, when in summer at her door
She turns her wheel, if on the road she sees
The aged Beggar coming, quits her work,
And lifts the latch for him that he may pass.
The Post-boy when his rattling wheels o'ertake
The aged Beggar, in the woody lane,
Shouts to him from behind, and, if perchance
The old Man does not change his course, the Boy
Turns with less noisy wheels to the road-side,
And passes gently by, without a curse
Upon his lips, or anger at his heart.
He travels on, a solitary Man,
His age has no companion. On the ground
His eyes are turned, and, as he moves along,
They move along the ground; and evermore,
Instead of common and habitual sight
Of fields with rural works, of hill and dale,
And the blue sky, one little span of earth
Is all his prospect. Thus, from day to day,
Bowbent, his eyes forever on the ground,
He plies his weary journey, seeing still,
And never knowing what he sees, some straw,
Some scattered leaf, or marks which, in one track,
The nails of cart or chariot wheel have left
Impressed ...

. . .

Few are his pleasures; if his eyes, which now
Have been so long familiar with the earth,
No more behold the horizontal sun
Rising or setting, let the light at least
Find a free entrance to their languid orbs.
And let him, where and when he will, sit down
Beneath the trees, or by the grassy bank
Of high-way side, and with the little birds
Share his chance-gathered meal, and, finally,
As in the eye of Nature he has lived
So in the eye of Nature let him die.

Free haiku and mini-poem competition

Poet-in-Residence, with his current link to the Spring2008 haiku site, is pleased to count many haikuists among his readership. For their information and other mini-poetry and mini-prose writers comes news of an interesting free competition with 3 x two hundred and fifty pounds in prizes. The competition, sponsored by the Arts Council of England and Charnwood Arts, is open to electronic entries from anywhere in the world. Work stored in open access online archives and community sites is acceptable so long as it is previously unpublished in a commercial or previous competition context. The place to go for full details, an entry form and the full rules is http://miniwords2008.sharedspace.org/faqs.php

Genteel Messages - a sneak-preview

Poet-in-Residence's forthcoming publication 'Genteel Messages' has been assigned an ISBN number and has undergone a final scrutiny by the poet. It is now on its way to Martin Holroyd at Poetry Monthly Press, Nottingham, England, for some finishing touches and eventual publication. To mark this landmark step along the way Poet-in-Residence (Gwilym Williams) is pleased to publish here, for the world and his dog to read, the introductory poem.

Genteel Messages

The ostentatious
and their highborn canines
with old teeth in slack jaws
and loose mouths with oodles of flapping tongue
and twinkling diamante collars
around thin throats
seem suitably dressed
in un-chic coats and plastic bootees.

With ribbons
and gaudy accessories
in powdered curls, shampooed
and blue-pink rinsed,
they like to promenade and point
the way with sniffy noses;
toe-tipping over the common,
leaving here and there those
genteel messages that children
bring home
imprinted on their soles.

c-2008,
Gwilym Williams

Robert Burns and the pet sheep Mailie

Robert Burns' poems concerning animals are charming constructions and full of poetic wisdom. Poet-in-Residence may not be able to appreciate the wonderful words on the zen speug (see P-i-R link to zen speug) level but he does his level best to do so. Poems like 'The Twa Dogs, A Tale', 'The Auld Farmer's New-Year-Morning Salutation to his auld Mare, Maggie, on giving her the accustomed Ripp of Corn to hansel in the New Year', 'To a Mouse - On turning her up in her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785', 'To a Louse - On seeing one on a Lady's Bonnet at Church' are a delight to the ear. The last mentioned poem contains those memorable lines: O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us / To see oursels as others see us! (O would some power the small gift give us / to see ourselves as others see us!). P-i-R has taken the liberty of 'translating' some parts of the following poem into a rough sort of English. He hopes that Robert Burns (1759-1796), the pet sheep Mailie and zen speug will forgive him this presumption.

Poor Mailie's Elegy

Lament in rhyme, lament in prose,
With salt tears trickling down your nose;
Our poet's fate is at a close,
Past remedy!
The last, sad coping-stone of his woes;
Poor Mailie's dead!

It's not the loss of worldly property,
That could so bitter draw the tear,
Or make our poet, sadly wear
The mourning weeds:
He's lost a friend and neighbour dear,
In Mailie dead.

Through all the town she trotted by him;
A long half-mile she could descry him;
With kindly bleat, when she did spy him,
She ran with speed:
A friend more faithful never came near him,
Than Mailie dead.

I know she was a sheep of sense,
And could behave herself discreetly:
I'll say it, she never broke a fence,
Through thievish greed.
Our poet, lonely, keeps indoors,
Since Mailie's dead.

Or, if he wanders up the valley,
Her living image in her ewe,
Comes bleating to him, as you'd know,
For bits of bread; it's all too much
And down the briny pearls roll
For Mailie dead.

She was no offspring of moorland rams
With matted fleece, and hairy hips;
For her forbears were brought in ships,
From beyond the Tweed*:
And finer fleece never crossed the shears
Than Mailie's dead.

Woe to that man who first did shape,
That vile, unlucky thing - a rope!
It makes good fellows twist and rage,
With choking dread;
And Robin's bonnet wave with crape
For Mailie dead.

Oh, all you poets on bonny Doon*!
And what on Aire* your chanters tune!
Come, join the melancholy croon
Of Robin's reed!
His heart will never get above!
His Mailie's dead!


*Tweed, Doon, Aire - names of rivers

William Wordsworth poet, part 4

In 1798 the poet William Wordsworth combined with his friend and fellow-poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge to produce a booklet titled 'Lyrical Ballads'. The publication features four contributions from Coleridge including his epic tale of disaster at sea 'The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere' (one of P-i-R's favourite poems it must be admitted). The remaining nineteen poems are from Wordsworth. In the introduction the poets write: It is the honourable characteristic of Poetry that its materials are to be found in every subject which can interest the human mind. The evidence of this fact is to be sought, not in the writings of Critics, but in those of Poets themselves. This thought is something well worth keeping hold of. It will stand the reader and poet both in good stead. The book's title 'Lyrical Ballads' is something of a misnomer for 'The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere' is the only ballad therein. This was the experimental poetry of the day! Here's an extract from one of Wordsworth's more interesting contributions. It describes an 'incident in which he was concerned'. Simon Lee, the old huntsman with one eye, is eighty years of age and lives with his wife, the stouter of the two, near a waterfall in Cardigan, Wales. They have no children to help them out. It's a case of scrape a living or die.

from Simon Lee, the Old Huntsman

Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,
Not twenty paces from the door,
A scrap of land they have, but they
Are poorest of the poor.
This scrap of land he had from the heath
Enclosed when he was stronger;
But what avails the land to them,
Which they can till no longer?

Few months of life has he in store,
As he to you will tell,
For still, the more he works, the more
His poor old ankles swell.
My gentle reader, I perceive
How patiently you've waited,
And I'm afraid that you expect
Some tale will be related.

O reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle reader! you would find
A tale in every thing.
What more I have to say is short,
I hope you'll kindly take it;
It is no tale; but should you think,
Perhaps a tale you'll make it.

On summer-day I chanced to see
This old man doing all he could
About the root of an old tree,
A stump of rotten wood.
The mattock totter'd in his hand;
So vain was his endeavour
That at the root of the old tree
He might have worked forever.

'You're overtasked, good Simon Lee,
Give me your tool' to him I said;
And at the word right gladly he
Received my proffer'd aid.
I struck, and with a single blow
The tangled root I sever'd,
At which the poor old man so long
And vainly had endeavour'd.

The tears into his eyes were brought,
And thanks and praises seemed to run
So fast out of his heart, I thought
They never would have done.
- I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning.
Alas! the gratitude of men
Has oftner left me mourning.

P-i-R's April poem of the month

Thomas Gray is best known for his very famous poem 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard', a classical meditation on th' inevitable hour and the graveyard of the rude forefathers of Stoke Poges in the County of Buckinghamshire, England. Gray, the only survivor of twelve children, died in 1771 at the age of fifty-four. He was himself buried at Stoke Poges. Poet-in-Residence's poem of the month for April concerns the fate of a favourite cat. A salutary lesson for the reader, but unfortunately not for the cat.

Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes

'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers, that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purred applause.

Still had she gazed; but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The genii of the stream:
Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view
Betrayed a golden gleam.

The hapless nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretched in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat's averse to fish?

Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
Again she stretched, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by and smiled)
The slipp'ry verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.

Eight times emerging from the flood
She mewed to every watery god,
Some speedy aid to send.
No dolphin came, no Nereid* stirred:
Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard.
A fav'rite has no friend!

From hence, ye beauties, undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne'er retrieved,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters gold.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771)

*Nereid - (from Greek myth.)
the 50 sea nymphs who attend Poseidon.

P-i-R's April book of the month

The 'New Penguin Book of English Verse' edited by Paul Keegan is Poet-in-Residence's choice for the April book of the month. The anthology contains more than 1,000 pages of English poems, arranged in chronolgical order, from the year 1300 to 1994. It's a poetic pirates' chest of jewels, trinkets and golden guineas. Poet-in-Residence need do little more than agree with the remarks of the Observer's Helen Dunmore [the book] demonstrates that we have the good fortune to live in the English language, perhaps the richest, most supple, promising, sharp-tongued and rule-breaking playground for poetry. It's amazing to think that this 1140 page book published fairly recently, in fact in the year 2000, is priced at 9.99p (UK) or $18.00 (USA). That's roughly the same as you'd have to pay for the latest slimline Heaney collection 'District and Circle'. But Poet-in-Residence is guilty of digression. Here then, without any more ado, are a few gems and pearls scooped from an overflowing casket.

On a Cock at Rochester

Thou cursed Cock, with thy perpetual Noise,
May'st thou be Capon made, and lose thy Voice,
Or on a Dunghil may'st thou spend thy Blood,
And Vermin prey upon thy craven Brood;
May Rivals tread thy Hens before thy Face,
Then with redoubled Courage give thee chase;
May'st thou be punish'd for St. Peter's Crime,
And on Shrove-tuesday, perish in thy Prime;
May thy bruis'd Carcass be some Beggar's Feast,
Thou first and worst Disturber of Man's Rest.

Sir Charles Sedley (1692)


A Crocodile

Hard by the lilied Nile I saw
A duskish river-dragon stretched along,
The brown habergeon of his limbs enamelled
With sanguine almandines and rainy pearl:
And on his back there lay a young one sleeping,
No bigger than a mouse; with eyes like beads,
And a small fragment of its speckled egg
Remaining on its harmless, pulpy snout;
A thing to laugh at, as it gaped to catch
The baulking, merry flies. In the iron jaws
Of the great devil-beast, like a pale soul
Fluttering in rocky hell, lightsomely flew
A snowy troculus, with roseate beak
Tearing the hairy leeches from his throat.

Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1851)


Magna est Veritas

Here, in this little Bay,
Full of tumultuous life and great repose,
Where, twice a day,
The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes,
Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town,
I sit me down.
For want of me the world's course will not fail:
When all its work is done, the lie shall rot;
The truth is great, and shall prevail,
When none cares whether it prevail or not.

Coventry Patmore (1877)


A Northern Suburb

Nature selects the longest way,
And winds about in tortuous grooves;
A thousand years the oaks decay;
The wrinkled glacier hardly moves.

But here the whetted fangs of change
Daily devour the old demesne -
The busy farm, the quiet grange,
The wayside inn, the village green.

In gaudy yellow brick and red,
With rooting pipes, like creepers rank,
The shoddy terraces o'erspread
Meadow, and garth, and daisied bank.

With shelves for rooms the houses crowd,
Like draughty cupboards in a row -
Ice-chests when wintry winds are loud,
Ovens when summer breezes blow.

Roused by the fee'd policeman's knock,
And sad that day should come again,
Under the stars the workmen flock
In haste to reach the workmen's train.

For here dwell those who must fulfil
Dull tasks in uncongenial spheres,
Who toil through dread of coming ill,
And not with hope of happier years -

The lowly folk who scarcely dare
Conceive themselves perhaps misplaced,
Whose prize for unremitting care
Is only not to be disgraced.

John Davidson (1896)


The Explosion

On the day of the explosion
Shadows pointed towards the pithead:
In the sun the slagheap slept.

Down the lane came men in pitboots
Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke,
Shouldering off the freshened silence.

One chased after rabbits; lost them;
Came back with a nest of lark's eggs;
Showed them; lodged them in the grasses.

So they passed in beards and moleskins,
Fathers, brothers, nicknames, laughter,
Through the tall gates standing open.

At noon there came a tremor; cows
Stopped chewing for a second; sun,
Scarfed as in a heat-haze, dimmed.

The dead go on before us, they
Are sitting in God's house in comfort,
We shall see them face to face -

Plain as lettering in the chapels
It was said, and for a second
Wives saw men of the explosion

Larger than in life they managed -
Gold as on a coin, or walking
Somehow from the sun towards them,

One showing the eggs unbroken.

Philip Larkin (1974)