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Books about poetry.

~ Stephen McGlennon ~ Leave a comment

Every now and again I’m going to post about books that have been significant to me on this wee journey. I say wee journey, I’ve been noodling and doodling with poetry most of my life. Lately I’ve become a bit less insecure about showing it to anyone. I dunno. It’s not that I care less about what people think these days. I do care about what people think. Experience has taught me that no matter what anyone does there will be those that enjoy it and those who do not and that’s fine. I’m not here to please everyone. I’m not here to annoy anyone either but somehow I manage to do this without effort or intention.

The Ode Less Travelled, Stephen Fry

This is probably the most important book about poetry that I have. It teaches Meter and form and gives wonderful examples and explanations. It’s been with me since it’s publication in 2005 and I have gone through it and it’s exercises many, many times. I still run through it and keep it nearby as reference book. I will never learn how to create a Sestina or a Villanelle without some form of ready reckoner.

And of course it’s Beloved Stephen Fry. Frequently referred to as an intellectual for the masses (occasionally this is pejorative) he is a performer, comedian, writer and wit that I do admire although he has said a few things over the years that I would be at variance with. If he had been my English teacher I imagine I’d have done a lot better than I did in my exams back in the late 20th century,

Awakenings

~ Stephen McGlennon ~ Leave a comment

Each morning

I lumber downstairs to

Bathe

Hot water sprays

From the showerhead onto me.

Unawake head.

Soap

Slips through my hands onto

The wet floor

I pick it

Up from the floor then

I

Begin to clean

Last night’s nightmares from myself

Sluicing off the

Sweat

That built up in my sleep.

A new day.

OOOOHHH, SO EDGY!

~ Stephen McGlennon ~ Leave a comment

Ooh look at me, aren’t I edgy as fuck

I’ll even use swear words when I’m rhyming

That’ll ruffle feathers won’t it? Fuck yeah!

My poetry is just too real for you.

You wouldn’t really get it anyway

Because it’s far too sophisticated

It’s not misogynistic or racist

It’s satire, you mouth-breathing philistine.

So it isn’t before you get started

And adolescent insecure tantrum.

It’s sophisticated poetry

Not an immature cry for attention.

If I’d known better

~ Stephen McGlennon ~ Leave a comment

If I’d known better I’d have done better

But I didn’t so I did what I did

Many things I regret by all measure

And many things I wish I hadn’t said.

And then I started to pay attention

And asking questions about things I doubt

Realising my lived experience

Isn’t now and never was the default.

These days I believe I’m doing better

There’s so much work that still needs to be done

This journey has hairpins and blind corners

It never ends but look how far I’ve come.

Pindaric Ode

~ Stephen McGlennon ~ Leave a comment

Strophe.

I’m going to attempt a Pindaric Ode.

I think I’m being rather ambitious.

It mightn’t be good but I’m on the road.

Mastery of form is among my wishes.

Antistrophe

But what on earth am I trying this for

I’m no poet, my doggerel is dreadful

There is no desire to be published here

It’s just that I think words are very cool.

Epode

Because that’s all that really matters isn’t it?

A love of words put together with grace

Perhaps a dash of comedy or wit

I am learning these things at my own pace

Get your chops.

~ Stephen McGlennon ~ Leave a comment

Theory doesn’t limit you, it frees you.

Strive for good craft and the art will surely come

The rules were put in place for a reason

You cannot break a rule that is unkown.

Ignoring convention is well and good

Because being rebellious is cool

A two fingered salute to convention

Signposting that you are too cool for school.

But you’ll get left behind by the grafters

Who chisel at the coalface of their art

Never seeking plaudits or ovations

Preferring good craft over being smart.

Belfast.

~ Stephen McGlennon ~ Leave a comment

In this weeks class we were prompted to write and epistle or a letter, an excellent example of which is Letter to N.Y. by ELizabeth Bishop. Mine ended up being essentially a list of people and things from Belfast.

(I really did try to make it as evenly split between the genders as I could. I recently bought “The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry”. It fetes thirty-one men and FOUR women. That cannot be right.

Anyway.

Belfast

Dia duit, fair faa ye, how’s she cuttin’?

What about ye, how’s the form, are ye well?

Ar mhaith leat cupán tae, céad míle fáilte.

I hiddy say I think yer luckin’ well.

Belfast baps, soda farls fresh off the griddle.

Paddy pizza, seaweed dulce, yellow man.

Sweet fifteens, Irish stew, Mars Bar sandwich.

Bushmills whiskey, malted loaf, Paris bun.

George Campbell, Keith Drury, Terry Bradley.

Muriel Grant, Doris Blair, Deborah Brown.

Jack Morrow, Ian Knox, Alex Monteith.

Sarah Longley, Noreen Rice, Jean Osbourne.

James Galway, Gary Moore, Van Morrison.

The Undertones, Phil Coulter, Therapy.

The Answer, Snow Patrol, The Four of Us.

Rigid Digits, The Divine Comedy.

Paul Muldoon, John Hewitt, Seamus Heaney.

Derek Mahon, Chris Agee, James Simmons.

Colette Bryce, Ruth Carr, Sinead Morrisey.

Leontia Flynn, Maureen Boyle, Kate Newman.

John Hewitt, Duke of York, The Pavillion.

The Sunflower, The Deers Head, Lavery”s.

Woodworkers, Madden’s Bar, or The Garrick.

Kelly’s Cellars, Whites Tavern or McHughs.

You bring me back to earth when I get notions 

And pick me up again when I am sad.

Belfast is so full of contradictions.

You’re a home for the blesséd and the damned.

Progressive Answering Machine

~ Stephen McGlennon ~ Leave a comment

Toxic masculinity, we have learned

Demands impossible standards of men

and has a co-morbid fear of commitment

We see this now. We want to do better.

We want to be better. We listened.

We understand now. We know what to do.

We now realise that we aren’t good enough

We need to go and become good enough

Before we could possibly commit to anything.

We’re out trying to become wonderfully woke

Fantastically feminist and perfectly progressive.

We’ll get back to you once we’ve decided we’ve got there.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPP…

Starts and beginnings 3: Ekphrastic poetry

~ Stephen McGlennon ~ Leave a comment

This week we are tackling poetry about other forms of art. A great example is Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats. Here’s my offering.

The Persistance of Memory. 

Salvador Dali.

I don’t understand what I’m looking at

But it has me completely in its thrall.

A clock draped over the branch of a tree.

Another one is melting down a wall.

Is that your face in the middle of this?

I see an eye, a nose and a moustache.

Off in the distance a cliff and a beach.

A shore where the real and the surreal clash

I don’t understand what I’m looking at.

But know that I’m completely mesmerised.

You have awoken something inside me

And I walk away from this energised.