5 favorite Les Barker poems

Subject: Folklore: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: bradfordian
Date: 04 Feb 12 - 08:13 AM

Voicemail
Shipping Forecast
Cosmo, the fairly accurate knife thrower
Any news of the Iceberg?
Hard Cheese of Old England
Amnesia
The Lonely Little Lemming
Custard Creams
Sparky's Magic Contraceptive
Sloop John A
Guide Cats For The Blind
Breaking Wind Suddenly
Cutty Wren
Dashunds with erections.........

Alright, I'd better stop there..........

so what's your 5 favourite Les Barker Poems

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 04 Feb 12 - 09:15 AM

So hard to narrow it down!

How about adding the "Three Bears"?

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: Acorn4
Date: 04 Feb 12 - 11:30 AM

The Church of the (W)holly Undecided.
Mark the Herald Angel
Desiderata
The Law of Unclear Physics
Amnesia

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 04 Feb 12 - 11:41 AM

I like the one about him not being able to find his invisibility cloak...

For US 'catters, Les Barker performs in folk clubs and his act is standing there reciting incredibly his funny poems. Absolutely hilarious.

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 04 Feb 12 - 11:59 AM

There's also "History Man" for a more sober one.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Feb 12 - 01:06 PM

"For US 'catters, Les Barker performs in folk clubs and his act is standing there reciting incredibly his funny poems. Absolutely hilarious."
I do not find his parodies very funny and find his poems variable, some are quite funny and others mildly amusing, but then humour is a very subjective matter,I do not find them hilarious at all.
now John Foreman is someone I find a spontaneous quick witted hilarious entertainer.

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Feb 12 - 01:59 PM

Invisibility cloak... that must be a more recent one. I only remember him not being able to find his camoflage net...

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 04 Feb 12 - 02:44 PM

I think a few US Catters have heard Les, because he's toured there (though he's had some visa problems on account of having criticised some of the Government's policies and actions...).

I can't narrow the choice down to 5 - I agree with all of Bradfordian's choices, to start with!

Kitty

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: vectis
Date: 04 Feb 12 - 03:34 PM

Have you got any news of the iceberg.
Guide cats

Oh! to Hell with it!

Most of them

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: bradfordian
Date: 04 Feb 12 - 04:18 PM

An Infinite Number of Occasional Tables
Desiderata
Ben Kenobi
Heavy Plant Crossing
The Weakest Link

Les has a couple of his poems on his website.
Here
And if you want some reminders, there are also some
Audio samples

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: GUEST,Tinker from Chicago
Date: 05 Feb 12 - 12:16 AM

Doesn't anyone but me like the one about the homing phoenix?

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: GUEST,AEOLA
Date: 05 Feb 12 - 10:17 AM

I love them all, my main problem is that when I read them out they don't sound half as funny!! Maybe that's ''the good soldier's'' problem??

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: Crowhugger
Date: 05 Feb 12 - 10:46 AM

What vectis said.

I'm probably not the only Canadian who discovered him thanks to CBC radio. I don't qite recall which show, maybe Definitely Not the Opera or Richardson's Roundup. Or could've back in the days of Eclectic Circus.

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: bradfordian
Date: 05 Feb 12 - 01:19 PM

There is indeed a poem called "I can't find my invisibility cloak" as well as "I can't find my camoflarge net"

OK, 5 more (last Time!)

The Lost Elephants of Denbigh
Send In The Cones
Je Ne Sais Quoi
My husband has no porridge in him
The Ballad of Cosmo McGrew

Timing, intonation, innocence? and a sprinkling of good old SoH.
Of course Les' material won't appeal to everyone. For them as does, enjoy!

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: Roughyed
Date: 06 Feb 12 - 01:17 AM

Spot the Zebra
There is a Rose in Lower Crumpsall
The Altrincham Line
Time Travel
Self Assessment

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Feb 12 - 06:13 AM

Spot of the Antarctic

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: G-Force
Date: 06 Feb 12 - 01:33 PM

I particularly like the book titles: The Hound of Music, The Twa Corgis, The Extraterrierestrial ... the list goes on.

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: GUEST,Joe Whittaker
Date: 15 Feb 26 - 12:46 PM

With the agreement of Tiffany Hore the Director of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at London's Cecil Sharp House the VWML has agreed to eb a libarary of deposit for any of the A5 sized booklets which Les Barker produced and used on his live appearances. Please donate any you have either the actual booklets or photocopies of them if,like me , you cherish the originals and wish to keep them. There were some 70 produced so hopefully we can achieve at least one complete set to be held at the VWML in perpetuity. Thanks and safe passage

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: Sol
Date: 16 Feb 26 - 08:53 AM

Les was a lyrical genius.
Top two of my many favourites are "Deja vu" & "Any News Of The Icebeg"

Apart from his witty stuff, he did this amazing work ....
(From Reddit)
"Les Barker (1947–2023) was an acclaimed British poet and humorist who learned Welsh after moving to North Wales, winning the Welsh Learner of the Year award in 2008. He produced, translated, and performed poetry in Welsh, and in 2010 published an updated English translation of Daniel Owen's Welsh classic novel Enoc Huws."

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Feb 26 - 11:58 AM

The guy was a definite genius. I has the pleasure of seeing him performing solo and with The Mrs Ackroyd Band a few times.

My personal favourite has always been occasional table. There was also a serious one that really moved me but for the life of me I cannot remember what it was!

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: Sol
Date: 16 Feb 26 - 12:10 PM

I think I know the serious one you mean, Dave. I saw him perform about a year before he died. He did that one serious song and I remember it was about war and was very poignant.

Meantime ...
Deja Vu

Subject: RE: 5 favorite Les Barker poems
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 16 Feb 26 - 01:59 PM

I didn’t see Les often in his later years but our friendship went way back to well before he gave up the day job.

I still have a couple of his early books - somewhere! I also had the pleasure of recording, editing and mastering his (first?) live record “Dogalogues” and, unlike many people, can claim to have been ignored by Mrs Ackroyd who accompanied Les everywhere except perhaps the curry shop we occasionally visited after our regular Saturday night hangout.

As for favourite poems, that’s dfficult, but how about the relatively recent (serious) one - The Fraudster.

Subject: Lyr: REMEMBRANCE - (Les Barker)
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 16 Feb 26 - 04:54 PM

DtG ^^^ maybe

“Remembrance” Les Barker

I want to share with each of you
a dream I had one night :
I dreamed I saw a monument,
an arch of purest white,
the purest, whitest arch
atop the longest marble wall ;
I saw as I drew closer
that it bore no words at all.

I heard a sound behind me ;
as I turned, I caught my breath :
a hooded figure stood there,
and I knew that it was Death.
“Do you like my marble sculpture ?
Let me tell you what it’s for ;
it’s just one more memorial
to those who die in war.”

“It’s just one more memorial,
like those in every town :
Once a year, you honour them ;
you stand with heads bowed down
in remembrance of the sacrifice
of those who won’t come back
from Passchendaele, Gallipolli,
Afghanistan, Iraq…”

“You see,” he said, “this monument ;
as yet, it bears no text :
a monument remembering
the war that’s coming next.
You’ll come here, and you’ll read the names,
and touch the ones you know ;
if ever you remembered…
you would never let them go.”

“Look beside the wall ;
see, there’s a mason standing by
to carve the names of sons and daughters
gone away to die.
If ever you remembered,
he’d not carve ‘Lest We Forget’…
if ever you remembered ;
but you’ve not remembered yet.”

I woke and Death was gone ;
and there, I vowed that very night
that I would build the monument,
the arch of purest white,
the purest, whitest arch
atop the longest marble wall :
and strive for all my life to see
it bears no names at all.

posted on a Jake Thackray forum
https://jakethackray.com/forums/topic/a-different-remembrance/