Philip Wells negotiated the sleeping policemen of Hampstead Heath whilst writing ‘The Rock-Me Timing Bang’ on the steering wheel of his ageing black Golf, though you will be pleased to hear he did stop the car to finish writing! Benjamin Zephaniah was stuck in a lift with a drag queen and a homophobic, claustrophobic weightlifter. Chase Twichell told us her most unusual place was in a secluded fifteenth century castle hotel in Kitzbuhel, Switzerland, where she wrote by candlelight for two days whilst the power was off! Glyn Maxwell composed ‘Either’ in his head whilst wandering the hills around Lumb Bank in the pouring rain.
What is yours?
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As I was pulling on a pair of wellies in a muddy field, a poem about my mother's high heels came to mind - I had to scribble it down in the back of my sister's car service book as that was all that was available.
ReplyDeleteI 'wrote' a couple of poems 'High Notes' and 'The Beanfield's Scent' while plodding along, (in different seasons) off-road, on a long-suffering pony.
ReplyDeleteThey had to be short, as after fifteen minutes the track ended; we swung round and a twenty-year old pony rediscovered her youthful turn of speed. The main worry (apart from falling off) is that I wouldn't be able to remember the poem at the end of the canter. Rhyme helped.. Here is one of the survivors.
High notes
Over the ridge, flooded tracks snarl with ice.
February shifts through its angles of wind,
North to the bare ash, east to the numbed hand.
Above the torn pasture, the buzzard’s voice.
The buzzard is many birds. Dropped to the road
It rips the soft rabbit with eagle’s hard glare.
As kite, it circles through ceilings of air.
It sleeps in the ash like a ruffled brown toad.
Its voices are many, a mewing prattle,
A languorous whistle over the wood.
Once, when the lambs tottered banks, it could
Draw from its throat a machine gun’s rattle.
Now its voice has changed, though the night is bringing
The sun’s red disc, the moon’s white eye.
Its call swoops and breaks. Its mate hovers by.
To frozen acres the buzzard is singing.
Alison Brackenbury
(from 'Singing in the Dark', Carcanet, 2008
McGough’s Seminar.
ReplyDeleteWest Cork Literary Festival 9:30am. Saturday July 11th,2009
Warning: Attending a poetry seminar with Roger McGough after a night out and very little sleep may lead to hallucinatory villanelles.
Roger’s eyes are sparkling bright.
I’m as still as the tide in May.
I only slept for two hours last night.
I stayed up drinking ‘til it was light.
No sleep for the wired they say.
Roger’s eyes are sparkling bright.
I figure I must look a fright.
The others are scribbling away.
I only slept for two hours last night.
His words are flying. High as a kite,
I watch them swoop over Bantry Bay.
Roger’s eyes are sparkling bright.
Words duck. Words dive. It’s a word dogfight!
"Twistedsteel" and "cane" are lost in the fray.
I only slept for two hours last night.
A villanelle, I vow to write,
To avenge their deaths this sadsadday.
Roger’s eyes are sparkling bright
I only slept for two hours last night.
Tina Pisco
Ahiohill, 7:00pm 11/07/09
benegez@eircom.net