poetry is dead. long live poetry

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poetry is dead. long live poetry

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Poems written on a course at the Poetry School in Lambeth. Why do people think poetry is boring? Was the question on everybody’s lips. Through a series of writing experiments we came up with some poems that aren’t even a little bit boring.

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Page 1: poetry is dead. long live poetry

poetry is dead. long live poetry

Page 2: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Poems written on a course at the Poetry School in Lambeth. Why do people think poetry

is boring? Was the question on everybody’s lips.

Through a series of writing experiments we came up with some poems that aren’t even a

little bit boring.

Poems by

Rebecca Perry

John Canfield

John Grant

Debbie Potts

&

Joseph Turrent

Page 3: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Cracker Joke poems

(get cracker, pull cracker, write poem based on joke/toy/both)

The cracker joke about the lost penguin

I don’t know who ever thought bowling was a good idea for a first date. Nothing else could so concisely reveal to yout the abnormal fatness of my fingers, the heaviness of my hand, my general distaste for being watched expectantly by individuals or crowds, and the strange shape of my feet. Right there, in those awful moments between the ball smacking down on the perfectly polished floor and the ball making contact with the pins, I feel like a penguin in the Sahara, waddling around in pointless circles, popping its wings in and out and expecting any moment to see snow in the distance, or an astronaut hanging in space like a bubble, trying to think of some memorable words for the radio.

RP

Page 4: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Jack Frost

after a Christmas cracker

Jack gets to work on his icicle

his furious peddle sends

a swirl of boreal pearls

spinning out in the aurora night

his performance stops traffic

tiny shards crust and foam the fields

paint their narcotic frieze on windows

oil the roads with an ominous grey veil

a lament for the bicycle

DP

Page 5: poetry is dead. long live poetry

written in answer to the Christmas cracker riddle: what do you get if you cross a chicken with a

cement mixer?

Cluck Cluck

Cross road to building site

Half built house

Is open to the sky.

We need you cries a working man

Climb up here, get inside.

I’ll turn it on

Enjoy the ride.

And now the two of you are mixed

Our glaring shortage can be fixed

I really could not be much gayer

You can be our new bricklayer

JG

Page 6: poetry is dead. long live poetry
Page 7: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Cracker Joke

Who invented fractions? Henry the 1/8th. Who invented factions? Henry the Eighth. Who had no contractions? Henry the Eighth's wives. Who had contradictions? Henry the Eighth. Who had perfect diction? 'Enry the 'ayf. Who's a work of fiction? Henry the Twenty-Eighth. Who bought the election? Henry the Water-geight. Who can take no action? Me. Pass, Henry the Eighth.

JC

Page 8: poetry is dead. long live poetry

NEEDLESSLY COMPLICATED RANDOM POEM GENERATION SYSTEM

PRODUCES BAD POEM

The complete thriller consists of six Eskimos,

printed with an eclipse of Michael Jackson.

Show all the thrillers to Dracula

and ask him or her to select one

Michael Jackson from any one thriller.

Show the other five eclipses to Dracula,

asking him or her to say whether the Eskimo

appears on those eclipses.

Take all the thrillers on which Dracula

says the Eskimo appears, add together

the top left-hand twilight Eskimo of each

eclipse and Strictly Come Dancing

is the Eskimo that Dracula selected.

JT

Page 9: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Poems written from someone else’s experiences

(get a partner, ask them their concerns, get detail/colour, write poem as them)

Stag night, hen night

Best suits white dress

Relatives friends and a big cake

Goodbye to them all

As we came to the south

For suburban seclusion with garden.

A bouncing bundle of energy

Came into our happy lives

But we had not time or energy

and he grew restless and bored

it was cruel to keep him

so we let him go

and now he is happy

we are guilty and sad

JG

Page 10: poetry is dead. long live poetry
Page 11: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Joe on a train You’re on the train and a sort of half-sleep makes the other passengers multiply, split, refract and kaleidoscope into million versions of themselves and they are floating all around you, in the yellow of the train lights, the purple of the seats, the ink of the windows. And the pink baby in the pram suddenly becomes your baby, a hundred times over, and suddenly you are a baby, too, and you float around together in this new world, and you want to give something to everyone’s story. You know in that moment that every life should have at least one line dedicated to it – not just the tombstone at the end that you don’t even know about – but something NOW, when the fuzzy world locks back into position and rights itself.

RP

Page 12: poetry is dead. long live poetry

ON THE OCCASION OF THE UP-AND-COMING POET

REBECCA PERRY’S PROMOTIONAL APPEARANCE

ON A REGIONAL BBC RADIO STATION

When participating in three-way conference calls,

the trick is not to appear too keen. Especially

when your host is a daytime radio presenter,

and the phone line has wrapped itself

around Suffolk’s little finger…

So to all the drivers of cabs in Ipswich

town centre, sick to the back teeth of reveries

for all the brass bands you ever loved and lost,

stop for a moment, and listen.

They brought me to your radios

that I might convey my enthusiasm

– but not too much! –

for poetry.

JT

Page 13: poetry is dead. long live poetry

The Art of Procrastination If I do not read the page, if I fail to grasp the pen, if I leave the laptop off, if I smoke a cigarette or make another cup of tea, if I do not dot the i's, if I leave the book unbound, if I let the deadline pass for ordering my gown, if I do not book the train or tell you where to be and when, if I smoke a cigarette, or squeeze another 'swift one' in, if I close my eyes too long, if I let the seconds pass, then you and I will freeze the frame to stay just as we are.

JC

Page 14: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Journal keeping

(keep a Journal for a few weeks, based around certain times/certain information, write a

poem from the resulting material)

All the Sad Movies

In the forrest, in spring,

the graves are green

and broken - graves for

dogs, warrior’s graves,

graves of men and women,

a trilogy of children. Flowers,

a single flower, nests, a

broken doll, pyjamas, a spring

of reds, a winter of dark.

Sarah and Lilya 4eva.

In winter, the snow in the

forrest is a peppermint

beach – perfect and bright

as steel. In winter, colour

is broken. The striped deer

are gone, the magnolias

are gone. The cuckoo is

finding heaven.

Page 15: poetry is dead. long live poetry

In the fall, the trees are

scissor hands. On the trees,

in red, Leon et Maude.

In a perfect world,

in summer, the hunter and

the deer are 50/50.

In a perfect world Sarah

and Lilya are 4eva.

In a perfect world,

all dogs go to heaven.

When a dog goes to heaven

the stars are green.

RP

Page 16: poetry is dead. long live poetry
Page 17: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Cigarette Roulette

I bought this on Tuesday, it’s leather and fabric.

Do you want a cappuccino or not?

I could eat again; do you think they serve salad?

My dad had gay taste, so we watched Chicago a lot.

Never listen to a tramp, always a taxi driver.

Words cannot express how pissed off I am.

That’s a great story; you should put it in your memoirs.

Do not sleep with someone because you can.

I can read Grazia and the FT, how’s that for diverse?

The reason I’m more spaced is, they’ve upped the dosage.

Page 18: poetry is dead. long live poetry

The colour of those seats: it’s like the seventies vomited.

If you had any sense, you’d go straight to Norwich.

How long have I known you? This is the worst you’ve been,

have you got any cash? Take it out and give it to me

Are you smoking, or are you leaving?

because I need to get a taxi.

JC

Page 19: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Encounters with nature

Day

Day

Day

Early morning. Fog. Fox

a streak of red almost under my wheels

Day

Day

Early morning. Frost. First of the year.

Small birds fighting it with song.

A streak of red in the sky.

Day

Early morning. Fox.

Caught by somebody’s wheels.

A streak of red on the road.

Day

Day.

JG

Page 20: poetry is dead. long live poetry

THE WORLD IS ENDING

NOV 9 2012

10:30

in my 10 year old sisters class

emo children

awaken to love

and outside my window

time is circular

I’m still awake

its cold in November

I uploaded a video of me singing

I was bored though

love blesses your day

before the end

the dark world’s ending

every ending

definitely beloved

JT

And more at http://sparrowytribes.wordpress.com/

Page 21: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Group Journal poem

(written after listening to everyone read out their journals)

AT YOUR LOCAL WALMART

soaring debt maims toddler IN THE WINDOW time is

4 day trees scissor sculpting austerity PROTEST

under Australian ECLIPSE on the face of Adele

offers amnesty to God in Syria as cabinet

RESHUFFLE green stars during phone SEX UP the

dosage when Beeb says probe curb MOOB at SEALs

more than flirting over looming fiscal cliff

DP

Page 22: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Amalgum poem

There is snow in the forest

Birds are fighting the frost

They are illegal immigrants

Before the alarm went off

Do not sleep

The General is guilty of sex crimes

Knocked down Wiggo

With scissor hands

A two year old in the back seat

Somebody’s wheels

I need a taxi.

The world is ending

You deserve to die

I’ll only do it if I can’t do it in the bedroom

When dogs go to heaven

There’s an Australian eclipse

I’d go straight to Norwich

JG

Page 23: poetry is dead. long live poetry

THE MORNINGS

On the beach, a trilogy of children

and the melancholy aftertaste

of peppermint.

Repeating day

after day

after day.

Like in Hitchcock’s saddest movie,

godless birds of prey will gorge

themselves on 70s-patterned

graves.

Repeating day

after day

after day.

Rudderless Syrian rebels

seek witnesses

in the waves.

Repeating day

after day

after day.

Page 24: poetry is dead. long live poetry

The parking gaffes of cab drivers

and their two-year old

abductees.

Repeating day

after day

after day.

In the mornings, Tory MPs

will clean the vomit

from their 70s-patterned

graves.

Repeating day

after day

after day.

JT

Page 25: poetry is dead. long live poetry

This November, every morning repeated: a streak of red from a fox, a tree, a head. We fought Timberwolves, shrouded in rain and snow, were left out of pocket by the crash effect of a comet. This November, everyone was Twerking, probing into emails that read like phone sex, read Grazia and the FT's press excess and saw the Seventh Seal publicly punished. This November we failed to reach unity, we slept with people just because we could, went to the edge of the looming fiscal cliff, saw every ending, definitely beloved. We saw the end was NYE, the stars burned greener in this winter of dark, this fog, this November.

JC

Page 26: poetry is dead. long live poetry
Page 27: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Anti-Poem

(inspired by an image of Nicanor Parra’s ‘Voy & Vuelvo’ or ‘Back in 5 minutes’ and written

in the anti-poetic style)

Everybody needs a break, if you've been stuck all day behind a shop-counter, behind the wheel, behind a computer, on the job, on your feet, on the payroll, on the cross, everybody, once in a while, needs to sit down, stand up, climb out, climb off, hang their head, hang the sign, hang it all and say I'll be back in five minutes.

JC

FYI

This train terminates at your local co-operative the driver will be back in five

drags of a Marlboro Light please give up your seat and take your

rubbish with you to the nearest cashpoint where there is NO EXIT

DP

Page 28: poetry is dead. long live poetry

I ride my bicycle side saddle

I am cross, plain cross

I need new potatoes, old carrots

My life is a mess

There are potholes in the road

The hill is steep

Supper is at seven thirty

I’ll be back in five minutes

Resurrected.

JG

Page 29: poetry is dead. long live poetry

I am bored, waiting You always spend 5 minutes in the bathroom, even if you’re just going for a piss, 5 minutes. The film’s on pause and I’m sitting in the dark on the sofa, picking at my socks, and the screen is frozen on someone about to speak, and I don’t know what you do in there. I can see your foot shadow in the strip of light at the bottom of the door, but you aren’t moving. You’re just standing still, distracted by something in your reflection or on the wall. I get bored really easily and this waiting doesn’t help anyone.

RP

NICANOR PARRA’S BAD DREAM #5: THE HOUSE PARTY

There’s shit music

in every room.

I keep saying things like:

back in five minutes.

But the minutes are stacking up

and the music’s still shit.

JT

Page 30: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Starring

(in no particular order)

John Grant

Had fun in school, did no work, variety of jobs, 4 years in

fringe theatre with Incubus, got a job as a groundsman. 35 years later

an OU degree re-awoke an interest in poetry, am trying to become a half

decent poet. Have done a few open mikes and been a tiny bit published.

Member of the Merton Poets.

Retiring Christmas 2012, married, 2 grown up children, one grandchild.

Page 31: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Joe Turrent

was born in 1983, and lives in South East London with his wife and daughter. He keeps a journal of

twitter poems on the blog www.sparrowytribes.wordpress.com

Page 32: poetry is dead. long live poetry

John Canfield

grew in Cornwall and currently lives and writes in North West London. He trained as an actor, but

due to a clerical error, currently works as an accounts administrator.

Page 33: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Debbie Potts

has a PhD in Viking Poetry. She works at Waterstones.

Page 34: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Rebecca Perry

Interests include and are limited to: cake, poetry, gin.

http://www.serenbooks.com/book/little-armoured/9781854116215

Page 35: poetry is dead. long live poetry

Emma Hammond (who wrote the course)

is an experimental poet from London. She has published two pamphlets and a full collection ‘tunth-

sk’. She likes disco dancing and the Situationists and lives with her daughter and cat in

Walthamstow.

Page 36: poetry is dead. long live poetry

FINIS