Monday 12 March 2012

The working poet's week

So I'm still trying to find my rythmn for the working week now I'm a professional poet and performer although I seem to have lots to do and can be busy most of the day. I'm learning lots and one of my favourite days so far was playing apprentice to AF Harrold's Poetry Sorcerer in a school in Dunstable last week. Enormous fun to shout at children and see them create some wonderful lines after Ashley's wise, funny and stimulating prompting.

One of the things that is top of my "To Do" list is learning the poems for my new show which will be premiered at Wenlock Poetry Festival is just over ONE MONTH'S TIME! (Sorry for my terrified capitals there!)

The show is called Poetry Jukebox and is based on a newspaper article last year called "30 classic poems everyone should know". I'm taking it upon myself to learn the poems and the audience will get to choose which of them they want to hear and the order in which they will be performed. Easy eh!

So today has been the first day of a new regime to start leaning them in earnest! The poems I've looked at are: So We'll go more a roving (Byron); I hear America singing (Whitman); Poor Old Lady (Anon); Funeral Blues (Auden) and Crossing the Bar (Tennyson).

My father passed away a few months ago so Funeral Blues has obvioulsy provoked a few emotions as I read and rehearsed it. It's also stimulated an original poem which I print below. It's in the style of a triplet poem. This is a poem with three stanzas of three lines, each line three words long. I like this economy of words and the poem seems very like a haiku or senyru; briefly exploring a single thought.

Berst wishes and keep writin' and recitin'

Mark

In Stillness

Make my heart
part roadside shrine
to their memory,

tended with flowers
until the sting
is full drawn.

Let them shine
and burn forever;
still bringing love.

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