The lovely poet, Sharron Green has come up with these two beautiful pieces about September. They’re such a treat! And in really exciting styles…. Read on…
September – a troilet
Orange leaves are all aglow
Golden fields yield harvest grain
Roses relish one last show
Orange leaves are all aglow
Grey geese gather up and go
Blue skies switch to sulky rain
Orange leaves are all aglow
Golden fields yield harvest grain
Sharron Green 2020
September – a double acrostic
Sweet berrieS
Emerge wherE
Petals droP
The day’s heaT
Ebbs to thE
Moon’s bright beaM
Bonfire’s criB
Embers racE
Red leaves roaR
Sharron Green 2020
Aren’t these wonderful? So very clever. Thank you, Sharron.
Now tune in shortly for another interview! Yes, get queuing now!
We have a real delight for you in the talk show chair, Celine Hispiche. Yes The Celine.
Gosh September, where have you gone?! Has lockdown made you fly away so quickly? And why are you hot now?!
I always think of September as the start of the new year. I suppose this was because we always went back to school then.
Somehow I expect it to turn colder on the very first day. I suppose the prospect of going back to school immediately put a chill on things. The most boring of summers was still preferable to actually doing that.
Anyway, I’ve penned an acrostic poem as a tribute to September 2020.
September
Shed looks a bit of a state – but have you seen the price of them?!
Embracing the autumn air – as much as you can in 29 degrees!
Packing away summer bedding and clothes – only to get them back out again quickly!
There used to be proper autumns! Russet skies and leaves falling.
Embers of summer memories – holidays cancelled and overspending in Tesco!
Muted sounds as children go back to school – good bloody riddance!
Bollocks to this! I’ve got to wash out my face mask again!
Evening time and the sky darkens swiftly – an end to another day of being stuck indoors.
Remember when there were proper autumns?
What’s on Netflix?
Now, PL’s, if you have any less foul-mouthed recollections of September 2020, do send them in. My contact form is now working.
Thank you for watching, Poetry Lovers, and let’s hope October cools down a bit……. Tune in same time, same channel…..
Welcome back to the Poetry Basket Reviews. We’re blowing off the dust, and evicting Dobby from there! We’re also rehoming PB to this page.
Out of there at once, Dobby!
Most honoured today to have Jenny Mitchell’s wonderful debut collection Her Lost Language, in the review basket. A joint winner of the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize, Jenny has written work of raw emotion and poignancy.
The debut pamphlet, Her Lost Language, by the vibrant poet Jenny Mitchell, is a powerful read and unleashes voices that previously couldn’t be heard. Legacies of British transatlantic enslavement, and the Windrush generation are candidly voiced.
A joint winner of the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize, this welcome collection is neatly placed into two sections. There are vivid homages to enslaved ancestors and others previously unacknowledged. Yet, it’s real power is the moving voices and strong human emotions.. With good use of tenses and verse that work well.
My Five Times Great Grandmother was Enslaved is a very personal piece in a collection of personal pieces, drawing us in deeper, until we feel we’re at the point of no return.
Song for A Former Slave, Someone Thank the Tailor, Black Men Should Wear Colour and Blood the Seamstress – with the incredible first line ‘I’ll be the dress she never owned’, are raw emotions and memories and tributes told through clothes, and other things next to our skin. A simple concept that opens doors to the very different life that ancestors have had. Vivid and detailed, yet the emotions are all ours.
Emancipating Ancestors is a tribute to those who died on slave plantations and opens a whole new and poignant chapter of suffering and inhumane history. We are confronted with how human beings could be so cruel to each other.
A personal favourite is Missing Grandmother, who worked so hard but never appeared in a photograph, nor any foreground, unlike the men of the family. This says so very much for the women who worked so thanklessly to get them there. Becoming Queen, opens another window of a hard life not documented.
My Family Shares its Voices jumps out at the reader, the brutal grandfather and the secret burden women still have to carry.
Before the Silence tells us of a young girl, against a strict upbringing, who really had no choice nor opportunity. Plus the father’s cruel punishment. The tenses work very well in this piece.
The collection turns about with the account of immigrants coming to Britain and their encounter with a cold and hostile new land. This is reflected in the incredibly detailed Strange Land. We get closer to the poet with The Bride and a Veil, and the loss of a father, and the mother’s reflections. The air of loss and mourning are tangible.
One stanza tells so much, two are powerful.
The Mess They Made and Monica Darling expresses the decline and sheer pain of a loved one with dementia, and how a mother can deny their children.
Retreat Jamaica (1939), is a candid account in two stanza sections of a difficult birth, and an account of how men would walk away from the woman’s agony. Here, the poet really excels and we are taken on this road. Taking His Leave gives us insight into an upbringing in sheer hardship, and a Mother’s suffering. We are reminded of what once had to be hidden, and we wouldn’t dream of not sharing this journey.
In Eve’s Lost Daughter, the images genuinely shock and disturb us, and as we cross to English Fields there are other tales from the outside that bring us the painful realisation that women were truly helpless.
Incident and Her Lost Language are a fitting and sad climax. Uncomfortable and very true, yet such compulsive reading.
This collection will stay with you, and touch things that we in so many ways ignore, but you’d still read it again. A triumphant debut.
Hello PL’s Welcome back to the last part in the trilogy of films and fleapits.
I have penned something below. Now, don’t faint, but I have actually attempted to rhyme!
This is my frustrated tribute to the X Film. Who can tell me, in a certain era, they hadn’t had a shiver of anticipation at that tiny X sitting under a film title?!
Of course, once you become a legitimate age, the allure dims. But for most of us in early adolescence, it was all we dreamt of!
X Film
Oh X film, you’re brutal and unkind
Big girls getting in, hiding behind
So many young men, barely of age
There’s a girl from my class! This is an outrage
What goes on on that big screen?
While I stand out here cold and green?
That little X smugly sitting square
Under alluring bold titles there
While I’m watching Herbie at the Fleapit
Constantly stuck with an A certificate
I’m dreaming of those other four walls
Where usherettes smooth down their overalls
Before preparing the lighted ice cream tray
For people witnessing mysterious depravity
I storm off home in a frustrated stew
Before watching excerpts on Film ’72
HM 2020
Wasn’t that a hoot?! I think that’s the end of my current obsession, but never say never!
And today we are going to feature that ultra-talented musician, writer and poet, Lucy Lyrical.
(pandemonium. Several members of security write out their resignations)
Now settle down, PL’s, we don’t want to put off our lovely guest because here she is……….
( standing ovation as Lucy descends the lighted stairs)
Welcome to the show, Lucy! Take a seat……
Hello, good to be here (I think!)
Welcome, Lucy. May I say, I love that leather catsuit and matching boots. I can see my face in them!
Thank you. I do like to shine them up. I’ve brought some polishing kit with me, in fact.
Isn’t she the coolest chick in Carnaby Street, PL’s?!
(Whoops and cheers of agreement)
Such an honour to have you here, Lucy. Please fill us in on your varied and creative background
One of my first professional jobs was as a magician’s assistant but I soon got bored of being levitated. I’m a terrible show-off so always took what chances I could to step on stage. Singing, acting, comedy – although I admit my stand-up ‘career’ only lasted two performances. Stand-up is like extreme sport for performers, I think. It all became easier when I got a ukulele to hide behind.
I’ve always been a writer – you know the type. I put on plays as a kid, wrote poetry after a heartbreak, always carried a little note book to capture ideas. I wrote loads of short stories and some poetry and then everything changed for me when I met the magnificent Chip Martin of Starhaven Books who published my first novel Three Women
Ha ha! I was a magician’s assistant too! All I can remember was having to chase this bloke with a soft hammer! Must have been for kids! I didn’t get any levitation action! And Chip’s wonderful, isn’t he?! That’s such a great background and learning curve.
Now, Lucy, we all swooned over you at Soho Poets, when did music and poetry become a part of your life?
You’re too kind. The feeling’s mutual, Heather (blush )
My parents were actors and my grandmother and great-uncle had a music hall act so you could say it’s in the blood. I started writing songs as I was learning the ukulele and used to try and make people laugh by playing at parties.
Then I met Maggie Swampwino. A friend, Audrey, introduced us and suggested I go to Maggie’s studio – aka The Swamp – to record something. After the first tune was down, Maggie suggested we start a band. It was such a beautifully unlikely duo. Me thumping out the few chords I knew on a ukulele and Maggie, who in her own words ‘could get a tune out of a lawn mower’, doing all the clever stuff on a bouzouki. We did over 100 gigs together, mostly in London, Northampton and Glasgow.
After Maggie’s death I did question performing again, but it’s hard to stop. And I’ve had so much fun playing with other musicians, like George Simmonds, Ian Beetlestone, Matt King Smith and Lucy Gaster – although I haven’t heard any of them play a lawnmower yet!
Fascinating. And I’m very glad you didn’t stop!
So very bitter- sweet. I’m sorry to hear about Maggie, I would loved to have met her. These talented people just leave us sometimes.
I’ve loved your playing with the gorgeous Matt and the charming Lucy. You have a great rapport. Who have been your greatest influences?
I suppose here I should list the writers, songwriters and poets whose work I most admire. But that would be a long list and truthfully, when I read or hear something exceptional, it usually makes me question why I try when there’s no way I could be as good. However, the people who really have influenced me have been those who are making it happen and are the type to hold the ladder as you climb up too.
Celine Hispiche is one of those people. I’d still be playing in my bathroom if she hadn’t been so encouraging and given me so many opportunities.
Barnie from The Carlton Jugband has such an inspiring attitude – getting on stage with that band last year was something of a career highlight for me. Frankie Rafferty is another one whose own work is so good you want to be better. In all honesty, my writing is influenced and improved enormously by having worked with Chip Martin and by having a writing partner as good as Polly Bull.
Oh, Polly’s wonderful, isn’t she. And Chip Martin is an enigma. Then there’s the incredible Celine – so many supportive and talented people about.
Now, I love your novel Three Women, and it was very well received. Is there a second one on the horizon?
Now, that would be telling, wouldn’t it. Writers are notorious for talking about things before they’re finished…sometimes before they’re even started. So, I’ve decided to keep quiet on that front. But I promise you this, you’ll be the first to know when I’m ready to spill the beans.
Well, I’m at the edge of my seat here, my sweet! We can’t wait, can we, PL’s?! (rapturous agreement – whoops and hoots etc)
Do you want to tell us about your next project?
I’ve loved hearing my writing in other people’s mouths – I call Gary Dunnington my muse (not sure if he likes that!) and it’s been such a treat for me to hear a talented actor performing my work. Brings out a different side to the character and allows me to (almost) enjoy it as if I’m hearing it for the first time. So, I’ve created an experiment in short-attention span radio theatre called MINILOGUES.
Each short monologue is exactly 100 words long and I gave them to actors I admire, without direction, to see how they would approach the material. 10 actors, 100 words each, the Minilogues are available on http://spotifyhttp://anchor and and http://applypodcasts and many other places that you can find podcasts.
I’m planning a season two so if any writer wants to collaborate on this by a drafting a 100 word monologue, or any actor wants to tackle the challenge, they should get in touch. I intend to be one of those people who hold the ladder too.
(Standing ovation)
And you are, Lucy! That’s a wonderful project, and a great opportunity for actors and writers. We need people like you. I can’t wait to get tuning in!! Fantastic!!
(deafening applause)
Now, you’ve got to come up Soho tonight. I think Steed is coming!
I’m afraid I’m barred from all Soho pubs….Coach & Horses, French House…I think it was Steed’s umbrella, and – er drinking Soho dry…..
I may go home and polish my boots again.
(audience give a standing ovation)
I might give it a miss too, and watch The Avengers
Thank you so much for coming in, Lucy, a fascinating interview.
Hasn’t she been a wonderful guest?!
(Crowd go mad, have to be restrained)
(Lucy is smuggled out the building)
Lucy Lyrical has left the building!
Wasn’t that just wonderful, PL’s?! Thank you for tuning in. See you soon, same time, same channel……
Welome to part II of our cinema homage… Today, we feature the detailed memories from the lovely poet Trisha Broomfield, of a medium that we all grew up with. So many of us have experienced these things and feelings….
Cinematic Experience
The large sound of the wide screen,
Pearl and Dean,
ice cream,
Kia-Ora, small-stick straws,
ashtrays like eye sockets
on the backs of red-plush seats,
Revels or Treats,
and a man with a raincoat over his knees
putting his hand
on hers.
Trisha Broomfield
Wasn’t that amazing?! I love the description of the ashtrays and those tiny impractical straws for Kia-Ora! Thank you so much, Trisha!
I’ll be back Monday with an interview with the fabulous and amazing Lucy Lyrical!
Hello Poetry Lovers, how do you like my new look? Pretty glam, eh?
Now don’t faint but I’m actually going to share one of my own poems with you today. About an institution that shaped most of our lives, the cinema, or to some of us, the fleapit.
All the magic and wonder of celluloid unfolded for us in these rathole buildings. I remember the trailers were wonderous for me. I recall those better than the films! Anyway, this is The Fleapit – I hope you enjoy it.
Oh you fleapit, you!
I was under your spell,
especially when you showed Jack
Wild films.
And Ryan’s Daughter
And Carry On Henry
And Ring of Bright Water.
I loved your lack of balcony seats,
no airs and graces for you,
unlike the posh Embassy over the road.
Mind you, you didn’t half
show some crap –
The Magnificent Seven
Deadly Sins, wasn’t it?
You knew your time was up;
your rivals showing premium films,
being divided up into three cinemas.
You couldn’t compete, with your
lethargic lettering, wonkily displaying
Big Jake.
But like John Wayne, your star
had dimmed.
Along with your torn posters and cheap lollies.
No Kiora drink could save you now.
Goodbye and thanks.
I’m off to the multiplex.
Good luck with the Bingo,
then later on as a Turkish grocers.
HM 2017
Wasn’t that a hoot?! This is part one about our past cinemas, keep your eyes peeled for part two. Same time, same channel.
Hello, Poetry Lovers, I have taken you once more to Memory Corner, and this time the DeLorean car is set for 11th November 2018.
Who could forget such an occasion? An amazing commemoration indeed.
A great concept co-createdby the remarkable Anne Warrington, (on my right), this performance contained memories, poetry and songs from that poignant and tragic era.
On the far left, we have the clever poet, Greg Freeman, next to him is the late and talented Bob Sheed. Now I don’t know why Bob is taking my arm like that, as if he is going to take me to the nearest Cop shop, but I mean, bless him.
On my far right is the enigmatic and dapper Kevin Taggerty. We miss you, Kevin.
We had a magnificent cast, including Heather Montford, Greg Freeman, Madeline Smith and Robert Gillespie. All reading such poignant material. Sitting there at the back is the other creator, John Crook, who also did a magnificent job.
Above is the lovely Linda dressed as a Tommy, and I’m reading Jessie Pope’s The Call.
Thank you for this wonderful memory. I hope we all get together again.
The time machine has brought us back to the present, and I have to take the DeLorean into Kwik Fit so I’ll be bringing the Reliant next time.
