Wordle of Blog

From the website:

"...Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends..."

This is mine for my blog. 

See Wordle.

Retrospective - Roots and its Influence.

One of my poems that I just read again and liked, and would like to share with you.

 Bird Eating Teacher (From Up North)

By Tricky McDee

Ee din't like to say,

What ee'd ad for is breakfas that mornin',

buh t'was obvious,

when ee open is mouth n was yawnin'.

Ee mus' av bin at

the bird's nest tha sat in gutter,

for as ee spoke,

blue feathers came out in flutter.

A good teacher,

well spoken, quite clear and decent,

But overshadowed

By the animal eatin' incident.

Still, good is good,

N tis ard to find fine teacher,

so bought him cat,

N ee promise not to eat er.

All was well,

till they left on a ship for Africa

To catch parrots

N to live appily ever after.

My Words Uncloy the Senses

WARNING: the fourth paragraph is a bit graphic and some viewers may want to skip down the page.

Uncloying - what the frig does that mean? It's not a proper word. I was struggling with a poem on  a blog and came a cross it. This is one of the things that makes me regurgitate poems and spit them out instead of swallowing anew.

Poets like to make up words but often get carried away with it. A strong image isn't made stronger with a made up word. Why make up words - when there is a gap or for the enjoyment. I have to say I am as guilty as the targets who I spit these darts. 

 I wanted to leave in what I had written to show how diametrically opposite I can think. I have completely changed my mind tonight about both the above things.

First of all, uncloying is a great word. At least it sounds like a great word. In the phrase 'uncloying my senses' it gives a really strong image of a physical action. If I am uncloying then my senses must have previously been cloyed. My senses obviously refers to my eyes, ears, mouth and nose. To uncloy them all must mean to extract something. So here we have the image of me pulling at stuff that has being seeping out of all the pores and holes. All I can think of is a mixture of nasal slime and eye sleep; my hand physically pulling at the goo as it becomes 'uncloyed' from my face.

Secondly I love made up words. I live for made up words -Jabberwocky and the poetry collection called Oh Fabjous Day are some of my favourites.

And to demonstrate that I want to share another poem of mine with you:

The boy who brings nonsense words to school

I am Ronald and I truly rule.

Why  - because I bring nonsense words to school.

I answer “Yuzai!” to the register

And shout “nweep” when I get out of my chair.

“Quilly boo,” for any History answer

Makes Mr Johnson pull out all his hair.

I say that 2x2 is fourpoop

And 3x2 is brix.

Then London is in Frag-u-stuff

And Australia – Outertrix

At lunch when I asked for Squidgytoot

Miss Mulltree gave a funny look

So then I just said beep beep boop

Miss Mulltree said she’s ‘just the cook.’

After dinner I read Jabberwocky

And Mr Johnson gave me lots of praise

Said ‘was the first lesson I’d done properly

In days and days and days.’

I nodded muttering “pwezishaa,”

And went to tidy the library books.

Which I did with Alicia quietly.

Only silence really sucks.

So I started shouting “Jubjeree,”

And danced around the room.

But Mr Johnson called the headteacher,

Who said I’d be going home very soon.

I whistled and cried “da da daa,”

But it was the last thing that I said.

As mum came and brought the doctor

And they took me home to bed.

 This makes me giggle every time I read it.  

Collaboration with JPS

This is a project that I have been working on with Jonny over the last year. It has a scratch title of 'Gnarly Watkins in Love'. Its the first page but still needs colour and polish. Watch this space.

Too Long to Warrant the Effort

It gets like that sometimes doesn't it? Whether it’s the gym, cooking proper meals, cleaning the windows or visiting your Nan. You leave it so long that it starts to eat away at your thoughts when you've got a few minutes for leisure. I don't mean evening TV leisure. Those minutes on a Saturday when you've got the shopping done and done a few minor jobs around the house. You find you've finished earlier than you planned, so you get the paper, make a cup of tea, maybe take a rich tea biscuit or two and sit down at the kitchen table and expel that sigh of the 'at ease'. You take that first sip and into your mind it nags. You should be doing it. For me it always has my mother’s voice. For me it is writing.

Okay so it has been months and months. There has obviously been good reason. Not just that Pacific, Boardwalk Empire and Breaking Bad are damn good series that deserved taking up my precious time. But the thing about time is that it warps ideas and memories. When the voice comes: You should be writing, I always answer back but it’s not a simple thing. Thing is - it is a simple thing. Writing is just putting some words on paper. 

That's what I did this week - I just put some words on paper. I want to share them with you. Not because it is what I warrant as good. But rather to exemplify the idea of the first step can be easy. 

I tried to respond to a competition but missed the deadline last Sunday due to a full work load. Excuses excuses my mother is saying and as per usual she is probably right. The basic brief was to write a marine or Qatar's sea history related poem. This is what I have got:

Twenty-seventh day at sea,

Five dead,

Sun above

Smacks sense

From head squashed

Next to head, 

With dilapidated bodies

And broken spirits

I step from the mass

With my Siad 

Holding my tether

Over the side

And fall through the divide,

The slither of surface

Splitting worlds.

A barrage of bubbles

Stream up my body

And bounce off my nose

And upward into hell

I descend in hope

Trumpeting;
An ear-thumping,

White animal.

Take me from this sea!

That's it - unfinished. I won't over analyse it but the things that sing out to me that need addressing are the opening line, and the second half of the third stanza. I don't even know what the white animal reference was all about. The poem is based on the life of the nineteenth century pearl diver. An incredibly hard life that often ended in an early death if not craziness due to the bends. 

On a second foot I believe in responding to with I am thinking and feeling inside and in between writing the above I also came up with the following. It is not good or cute but it is fun. 

Big fat mamma

Big fat mamma

You aint having a piece of me

You aint really any no-one

Big fat mamma

Big fat mamma

You aint got a heart

And you aint got no caring

Big at mamma

Big fat mamma

You think if yo self

And y've got nutting sparing

Big fat mamma

Big fat mamma

Your mouth runs away with yer

Using up words that you've stolen

Big fat mamma

Big fat mamma

Your tongue is twisted

Your words are hard

They make people blister

They hit people hard

Big fat mamma

Big fat mamma

She's a big fat mamma

She's a big fat mamma

Manchester

This month saw the publication of a poem that I first wrote about 7 or 8 years ago. It is called Manchester and has been published on the Manchester Libraries website: Manchester Lit List and it can be found here.

The poem was first written as an entry to a BBC radio competition. The winning poem was to be transcribed on the side of a new building that was being erected in Piccadily Gardens. The poem that won was quite bland but the competition involved writing a 50 syllable poem based around the subject of Manchester.

This version is a result of the well used adage to review and edit your own work repeatedly. This is its sixth or seventh revised draft and one that I am quite happy with, particularly as it provoked a response: one person questioning the blue swagger. Personally I was pleased with balance I got in the two stanzas reflecting the two epochs of the city's life. I took my inspiration from a book called Manchester, England by Dave Haslam. A book that I can well recommend.

Manchester

Back then, working class wise,
Cloth capped and carrying,
Transatlantic textile treasure,
King of the world was I.

But now, august architecture tram laced,
Dance crazed capital of culture,
Theatre thronged, gallery graced,
Northern prince with red and blue swagger.

Les Murry - Poet Genius and Football Commentator?

I thought I was an atheist until I came across Les Murry. I then thought that he had to be a god in being both a football commentator in Oz as well as a fantastic poet. Then I realised there were two Les Murrys in Oz. This left how wonderful and accessible I find Les Murry.

To begin with Murry uses colour so that the images blossom in your mind. He is the sort of poet that is both dexterous without needing to create puzzles. His writing works on many levels but for me the first and most important level is the simplest. I like to get something out of a poem on the first reading. Yes I love to reread and reread poems getting more each time but the first read matters to me. I dis-guard books within 100 pages if it is not pulling me in, I turn the television over if I am not swayed by characters dialogue, I've left the cinema before the end of a film.

Take Murry's poem performance dealing with a single night. He uses the metaphor of a firework display to compare to a night out. I can see the rocket that 'wriggled up and shot/ darkness with a parasol of brilliants' and further the 'para-flares spot-welding heaven' is a wonderful panoramic image in one line.

Murry uses colour simply but effectively. How do you describe glowing embers? In Late Summer Fires he talks about red-black wounds.

My ember photograph  from the summer in Czech.

How do you capture the baking heat that leads to drought in Australia? He talks of the light in the 'white of the drought'.

I think Murry appeals to my visual learning style. Maybe it's that he doesn't try to be cryptic in his message. I get it when I read it. I don't need to decipher it through ten readings. I don't have a literary background in my education (an A-level in Eccles doesn't really count for squat) and don't have peerless peers to debate denouement and subtlety. Have a look - Les Murry is one of the most accessible poets around today.

Read him here at: http://www.lesmurray.org/pm_pf.htm