All entries for August 2009
August 07, 2009
All the Twenty–Ones: The Wolf, Poetry Review and Aldeburgh Poetry Festival
Writing about web page http://www.thepoetrytrust.org/news/21st-aldeburgh-poetry-festival-programme-now-available/
A lot of 21-themed happenings are happening. Yesterday I returned from the Poetry Society in London having
howled my poems to help launch the 21st issue of "The Wolf", a wonderful and truly international magazine of contemporary poetry edited by James Byrne.
James Byrne is the real thing - an incisive, classy editor who is also a wonderfully-gifted poet; and it was an honour to read alongside two other poets I admire - Paul Stubbs and Valeria Melchioretto.
I felt a bit of a popinjay - because as I began reading, jolly music started to rise from the streets and pubs outside; so I changed my set of poems to chime better with those noises off.
Showmanship of this type is something I always feel guilty about after the event, but sometimes it's necessary for the moment and in the moment.
The new "Poetry Review" is striking as it builds to Volume 100. The editor Fiona Sampson has kindly given a good home to another of my long poems (long poems are tricky to publish and I've been lucky so far).
This one's written in an invented 'coming of age' stanza of 21 lines (there are six pages of them). The poem's called 'The Circling Game'. It's another Romany tale, utterly subverted, and goes to one or two dark places before - yes, I was as surprised as anybody else - closing with what can only be described as a happy if nervy ending.
The UK's leading annual international celebration of contemporary poetry has revealed its programme. The Aldeburgh Festival's 21st birthday will be an inspiring weekend of readings, discussions, workshops, craft talks, exhibitions, open mic plus Wonderful Beast theatre company’s celebration of Adrian Mitchell and so much more. Full programme, illustrated by my pal and esteemed Warwick colleague Peter Blegvad, is available here
I'm delighted to be doing several things for the festival this year - a day-long 'Workshop of the World; a blind criticism with the excellent Pascale Petit; a reading in the Jubilee Hall with Maureen Duffy and Ciaran Berry at which I'll be reading from and launching a new pamphlet from Nine Arches Press called 'The Night of the Day'; a craft talk about the poetry and birdsong in which I'll be mixing and matching a lot of bird calls with the music of poems; and an exchange with the brilliant Richard Price about 'What is Worth Preserving in Poetry' (any comments appreciated on what is worth preserving are welcome and will be credited!).
A festival such as Aldeburgh is more than the sum of its events. I'll be looking forward to meeting a lot of old
friends among the poets and the audience. I am a great fan of Britten, bookshops and bleak beaches.
There's a magical fish and chip shop in town and I intend to attempt to host a poets' picnic on the beach or, if it rains, the Larkinesque beach shelters.
Anybody who reads this blog and wants to meet up for this informal, non-ticketed and bring-your-own-chips attempted picnic event, let me know. Audience or programmed poets both.
I'm sure Benjamin Britten and George Crabbe would have approved. Maybe not Peter Grimes though.
David Morley
07 Aug 2009 10:57
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Tags: Poetry Prose The Practice Of Poetry Warwick Prize For Writing
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August 04, 2009
Cowper's Tame Hares
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| Here lies, whom hound did ne’er pursue, |
| Nor swifter greyhound follow, |
| Whose foot ne’er tainted morning dew, |
| Nor ear heard huntsman’s hallo’, |
| Old Tiney, surliest of his kind, |
| Who, nurs’d with tender care, |
| And to domestic bounds confin’d, |
| Was still a wild Jack-hare. |
| Though duly from my hand he took |
| His pittance ev’ry night, |
| He did it with a jealous look, |
| And, when he could, would bite. |
| His diet was of wheaten bread, |
| And milk, and oats, and straw, |
| Thistles, or lettuces instead, |
| With sand to scour his maw. |
| On twigs of hawthorn he regal’d, |
| On pippins’ russet peel ; |
| And, when his juicy salads fail’d, |
| Slic’d carrot pleas’d him well. |
| A Turkey carpet was his lawn, |
| Whereon he lov’d to bound, |
| To skip and gambol like a fawn, |
| And swing his rump around. |
| His frisking was at evening hours, |
| For when he lost his fear ; |
| But most before approaching show’rs, |
| Or when a storm drew near. |
| Eight years and five round rolling moons |
| He thus saw steal away, |
| Dozing out all his idle noons, |
| And ev’ry night at play. |
| I kept him for his humour’ sake, |
| For he would oft beguile |
| My heart of thoughts that made it ache, |
| And force me to a smile. |
| But now, beneath this walnut-shade |
| He finds his long, last home, |
| And waits in snug concealment laid, |
| ‘Till gentler Puss shall come. |
| He, still more aged, feels the shocks |
| From which no care can save, |
| And, partner once of Tiney’s box, |
| Must soon partake his grave. |
David Morley
04 Aug 2009 20:54
| Tags: Poetry The Practice Of Poetry
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