poetry is dead. long live poetry
Poems written on a course at the Poetry School in Lambeth. Why do people think poetry is boring? Was the question on everybody’s lips. Through a series of writing experiments we came up with some poems that aren’t even a little bit boring.
Poems by Rebecca Perry John Canfield John Grant Debbie Potts & Joseph Turrent
Cracker Joke poems (get cracker, pull cracker, write poem based on joke/toy/both)
The cracker joke about the lost penguin
I don’t know who ever thought bowling was a good idea for a first date. Nothing else could so concisely reveal to yout the abnormal fatness of my fingers, the heaviness of my hand, my general distaste for being watched expectantly by individuals or crowds, and the strange shape of my feet. Right there, in those awful moments between the ball smacking down on the perfectly polished floor and the ball making contact with the pins, I feel like a penguin in the Sahara, waddling around in pointless circles, popping its wings in and out and expecting any moment to see snow in the distance, or an astronaut hanging in space like a bubble, trying to think of some memorable words for the radio.
RP
Jack Frost after a Christmas cracker
Jack gets to work on his icicle
his furious peddle sends a swirl of boreal pearls spinning out in the aurora night
his performance stops traffic
tiny shards crust and foam the fields paint their narcotic frieze on windows oil the roads with an ominous grey veil
a lament for the bicycle
DP
written in answer to the Christmas cracker riddle: what do you get if you cross a chicken with a cement mixer?
Cluck Cluck Cross road to building site Half built house Is open to the sky. We need you cries a working man Climb up here, get inside. I’ll turn it on Enjoy the ride.
And now the two of you are mixed Our glaring shortage can be fixed I really could not be much gayer You can be our new bricklayer
JG
Cracker Joke
Who invented fractions? Henry the 1/8th. Who invented factions? Henry the Eighth. Who had no contractions? Henry the Eighth's wives. Who had contradictions? Henry the Eighth. Who had perfect diction? 'Enry the 'ayf. Who's a work of fiction? Henry the Twenty-Eighth. Who bought the election? Henry the Water-geight. Who can take no action? Me. Pass, Henry the Eighth.
JC
NEEDLESSLY COMPLICATED RANDOM POEM GENERATION SYSTEM PRODUCES BAD POEM
The complete thriller consists of six Eskimos, printed with an eclipse of Michael Jackson. Show all the thrillers to Dracula and ask him or her to select one Michael Jackson from any one thriller.
Show the other five eclipses to Dracula, asking him or her to say whether the Eskimo appears on those eclipses.
Take all the thrillers on which Dracula says the Eskimo appears, add together the top left-hand twilight Eskimo of each eclipse and Strictly Come Dancing is the Eskimo that Dracula selected.
JT
Poems written from someone else’s experiences (get a partner, ask them their concerns, get detail/colour, write poem as them)
Stag night, hen night Best suits white dress Relatives friends and a big cake
Goodbye to them all As we came to the south For suburban seclusion with garden.
A bouncing bundle of energy Came into our happy lives But we had not time or energy and he grew restless and bored
it was cruel to keep him so we let him go and now he is happy we are guilty and sad
JG
Joe on a train You’re on the train and a sort of half-sleep makes the other passengers multiply, split, refract and kaleidoscope into million versions of themselves and they are floating all around you, in the yellow of the train lights, the purple of the seats, the ink of the windows. And the pink baby in the pram suddenly becomes your baby, a hundred times over, and suddenly you are a baby, too, and you float around together in this new world, and you want to give something to everyone’s story. You know in that moment that every life should have at least one line dedicated to it – not just the tombstone at the end that you don’t even know about – but something NOW, when the fuzzy world locks back into position and rights itself.
RP
ON THE OCCASION OF THE UP-AND-COMING POET REBECCA PERRY’S PROMOTIONAL APPEARANCE ON A REGIONAL BBC RADIO STATION
When participating in three-way conference calls, the trick is not to appear too keen. Especially when your host is a daytime radio presenter, and the phone line has wrapped itself around Suffolk’s little finger…
So to all the drivers of cabs in Ipswich town centre, sick to the back teeth of reveries for all the brass bands you ever loved and lost, stop for a moment, and listen.
They brought me to your radios that I might convey my enthusiasm – but not too much! – for poetry.
JT
The Art of Procrastination
If I do not read the page, if I fail to grasp the pen, if I leave the laptop off, if I smoke a cigarette or make another cup of tea, if I do not dot the i's, if I leave the book unbound, if I let the deadline pass for ordering my gown, if I do not book the train or tell you where to be and when, if I smoke a cigarette, or squeeze another 'swift one' in, if I close my eyes too long, if I let the seconds pass, then you and I will freeze the frame to stay just as we are.
JC
Journal keeping (keep a Journal for a few weeks, based around certain times/certain information, write a poem from the resulting material)
All the Sad Movies
In the forrest, in spring, the graves are green and broken - graves for dogs, warrior’s graves, graves of men and women, a trilogy of children. Flowers,
a single flower, nests, a broken doll, pyjamas, a spring of reds, a winter of dark. Sarah and Lilya 4eva.
In winter, the snow in the forrest is a peppermint beach – perfect and bright as steel. In winter, colour is broken. The striped deer are gone, the magnolias are gone. The cuckoo is finding heaven.
In the fall, the trees are scissor hands. On the trees, in red, Leon et Maude.
In a perfect world, in summer, the hunter and the deer are 50/50. In a perfect world Sarah and Lilya are 4eva. In a perfect world, all dogs go to heaven. When a dog goes to heaven the stars are green.
RP
Cigarette Roulette
I bought this on Tuesday, it’s leather and fabric.
Do you want a cappuccino or not?
I could eat again; do you think they serve salad?
My dad had gay taste, so we watched Chicago a lot.
Never listen to a tramp, always a taxi driver.
Words cannot express how pissed off I am.
That’s a great story; you should put it in your memoirs.
Do not sleep with someone because you can.
I can read Grazia and the FT, how’s that for diverse?
The reason I’m more spaced is, they’ve upped the dosage.
The colour of those seats: it’s like the seventies vomited.
If you had any sense, you’d go straight to Norwich.
How long have I known you? This is the worst you’ve been,
have you got any cash? Take it out and give it to me
Are you smoking, or are you leaving?
because I need to get a taxi.
JC
Encounters with nature Day
Day
Day
Early morning. Fog. Fox a streak of red almost under my wheels
Day
Day
Early morning. Frost. First of the year. Small birds fighting it with song. A streak of red in the sky.
Day
Early morning. Fox. Caught by somebody’s wheels. A streak of red on the road.
Day
Day.
JG
THE WORLD IS ENDING NOV 9 2012 10:30
in my 10 year old sisters class emo children awaken to love and outside my window time is circular I’m still awake its cold in November I uploaded a video of me singing I was bored though love blesses your day before the end the dark world’s ending every ending definitely beloved
JT And more at http://sparrowytribes.wordpress.com/
Group Journal poem (written after listening to everyone read out their journals)
AT YOUR LOCAL WALMART
soaring debt maims toddler IN THE WINDOW time is 4 day trees scissor sculpting austerity PROTEST under Australian ECLIPSE on the face of Adele offers amnesty to God in Syria as cabinet RESHUFFLE green stars during phone SEX UP the dosage when Beeb says probe curb MOOB at SEALs more than flirting over looming fiscal cliff
DP
Amalgum poem
There is snow in the forest Birds are fighting the frost They are illegal immigrants Before the alarm went off Do not sleep
The General is guilty of sex crimes Knocked down Wiggo With scissor hands A two year old in the back seat Somebody’s wheels I need a taxi.
The world is ending You deserve to die I’ll only do it if I can’t do it in the bedroom When dogs go to heaven There’s an Australian eclipse I’d go straight to Norwich
JG
THE MORNINGS
On the beach, a trilogy of children and the melancholy aftertaste of peppermint.
Repeating day after day after day.
Like in Hitchcock’s saddest movie, godless birds of prey will gorge themselves on 70s-patterned graves.
Repeating day after day after day.
Rudderless Syrian rebels seek witnesses in the waves.
Repeating day after day after day.
The parking gaffes of cab drivers and their two-year old abductees.
Repeating day after day after day.
In the mornings, Tory MPs will clean the vomit from their 70s-patterned graves.
Repeating day after day after day.
JT
This November, every morning repeated: a streak of red from a fox, a tree, a head. We fought Timberwolves, shrouded in rain and snow, were left out of pocket by the crash effect of a comet. This November, everyone was Twerking, probing into emails that read like phone sex, read Grazia and the FT's press excess and saw the Seventh Seal publicly punished. This November we failed to reach unity, we slept with people just because we could, went to the edge of the looming fiscal cliff, saw every ending, definitely beloved. We saw the end was NYE, the stars burned greener in this winter of dark, this fog, this November.
JC
Anti-Poem (inspired by an image of Nicanor Parra’s ‘Voy & Vuelvo’ or ‘Back in 5 minutes’ and written in the anti-poetic style)
Everybody needs a break, if you've been stuck all day behind a shop-counter, behind the wheel, behind a computer, on the job, on your feet, on the payroll, on the cross, everybody, once in a while, needs to sit down, stand up, climb out, climb off, hang their head, hang the sign, hang it all and say I'll be back in five minutes.
JC
FYI
This train terminates at your local co-operative the driver will be back in five drags of a Marlboro Light please give up your seat and take your rubbish with you to the nearest cashpoint where there is NO EXIT
DP
I ride my bicycle side saddle I am cross, plain cross I need new potatoes, old carrots My life is a mess There are potholes in the road The hill is steep Supper is at seven thirty I’ll be back in five minutes Resurrected.
JG
I am bored, waiting You always spend 5 minutes in the bathroom, even if you’re just going for a piss, 5 minutes. The film’s on pause and I’m sitting in the dark on the sofa, picking at my socks, and the screen is frozen on someone about to speak, and I don’t know what you do in there. I can see your foot shadow in the strip of light at the bottom of the door, but you aren’t moving. You’re just standing still, distracted by something in your reflection or on the wall. I get bored really easily and this waiting doesn’t help anyone.
RP
NICANOR PARRA’S BAD DREAM #5: THE HOUSE PARTY
There’s shit music in every room.
I keep saying things like: back in five minutes.
But the minutes are stacking up and the music’s still shit.
JT
Starring (in no particular order)
John Grant Had fun in school, did no work, variety of jobs, 4 years in fringe theatre with Incubus, got a job as a groundsman. 35 years later an OU degree re-awoke an interest in poetry, am trying to become a half decent poet. Have done a few open mikes and been a tiny bit published. Member of the Merton Poets. Retiring Christmas 2012, married, 2 grown up children, one grandchild.
Joe Turrent was born in 1983, and lives in South East London with his wife and daughter. He keeps a journal of twitter poems on the blog www.sparrowytribes.wordpress.com
John Canfield grew in Cornwall and currently lives and writes in North West London. He trained as an actor, but due to a clerical error, currently works as an accounts administrator.
Debbie Potts has a PhD in Viking Poetry. She works at Waterstones.
Rebecca Perry Interests include and are limited to: cake, poetry, gin. http://www.serenbooks.com/book/little-armoured/9781854116215
Emma Hammond (who wrote the course) is an experimental poet from London. She has published two pamphlets and a full collection ‘tunthsk’. She likes disco dancing and the Situationists and lives with her daughter and cat in Walthamstow.
FINIS