Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 31 May 08 - 02:30 PM Don Firth, Don Firth? I'm afraid, unless you wish to click the link, Little Hawk, you'll have to wait till next Saturday for your next bit of nightingale. |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Don Firth Date: 31 May 08 - 02:12 PM Don't Panic! This just in! Walkaboutsverse has just been identified as Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Sussex. The dead swans lay in the stagnant pool.Recognize the style? Don Firth |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Little Hawk Date: 31 May 08 - 02:01 PM My God....what untrammelled brilliance! The true flower of English poetry at last blooms again, its almost forgotten lyrical grandeurs springing fresh anew in a bold new hand, the splendour of the past renewed with fullsome promise and verve! How did I overlook this thread so long???? More, WAV! Give us more! |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Amos Date: 31 May 08 - 01:18 PM Hmmmmm. A |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 31 May 08 - 12:58 PM Music to my ears, Amos! |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Amos Date: 31 May 08 - 11:59 AM For poetic overtones and insight, sensitivity of metaphor, delicacy of rhythm and tone, Mister Wav surpasses any single-celled poet ever heard. A |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 31 May 08 - 09:19 AM "There is a strange fascination with these (WAV) threads. It's like putting your tongue into an aching tooth - you know you'll regret it but you do it just the same" (S&R)...I'm a 100% sure, Stu!, that my tooth-aches (and it's been a while) have derived from leaving bits of food in the gaps; accordingly, when we get one, we simply make sure the area is now clear, and keep tongue and all away from the trauma. |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 31 May 08 - 06:25 AM THE WEEKLY WALKABOUT, E.G. (From my life's work which, yes, in terms of versification, "finished" at the end of 2002 - however, I'm sure some of you will be thrilled to know that, in another vein, it contiues, as I am know learning to mimic my "Chants from Walkabouts" (a CD) on the tenor-recorder/English-flute, and have already done recorder intro's to two of them at folk clubs, here in NE England. (To Catspaw - please kinkly keep that kind of language in the kittie-litter.) Poem 112 of 230: FROM AN ECCLES FLAT - SPRING 2000 The bedroom window's southerly views Contained allotters paying their dues - All kinds of veg. brought to fruition, And youngsters receiving tuition; Starlings and sparrows I'd often see - On a roof or a nearby tree; And, in a distant poplar perched high, The large twiggy nest of a magpie; In spring, daisies would yellow the floor - Matched by Forsythias, grown next door; Behind terraces, a moony crest - The Dome of the new Trafford complex; And the moon itself, in the right spot, Would light the night's clouds up quite a lot. The kitchen window's northerly views Included an agent selling news; A butcher struggling with position - Much sunlight aimed at his nutrition; And a popular English chippie - Mashed peas and red sauce on top, for me; White gulls dotting a sombre grey sky, Plus light- and large-aircraft flying by; Walkers and traffic would make a roar - At peak travel hours all the more; Handsomely-set skies toward the west As the day's sun took its nightly rest; And a bucket-pond and ivy plot, That, on a shoestring, I loved a lot. From walkaboutsverse.741.com |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Jack Blandiver Date: 30 May 08 - 02:15 PM Can I just repeat that without Spaw's hissy-fits getting in the way... Seriously, WAV, and out of genuine curiousity. You refer to this as your life's work, does this mean it's finished? By which I mean - are you still writing? And are is your walkabout at an end? |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Dave Hanson Date: 30 May 08 - 08:45 AM Hey Spaw, he/she has got skin like rhinoceros hide, ya can't insult him/her. eric |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: catspaw49 Date: 30 May 08 - 07:18 AM Ya' know, I was barely aware of this dude as a 'Catter but much to my chagrin and for reasons that I can't figure, I seem to have read a lot of his crappola in the past couple of days. WAV........You're a fuckin' numbnuts Man. I hope this IS your life's work and that you have now finished it completely. If I thought it would guarantee that you would not plague anyone else with your drool laden drivel, I would happily go underwater and fuck fish. Do you have any unexpressed thoughts? Hmmmm.....Skip that. I guess you wouldn't because nothing you post shows any form of sane thought process. Spaw |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Jack Blandiver Date: 30 May 08 - 07:02 AM WAV - You refer this this as your life's work, does this mean it's finished? By which I mean - are you still writing? And are your travels at an end? |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: s&r Date: 30 May 08 - 04:03 AM There is a strange fascination with these (WAV) threads. It's like putting your tongue into an aching tooth - you know you'll regret it but you do it just the same Stu |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 26 May 08 - 04:52 AM Thanks, Amos - I just had breakfast; speaking of which, Sedayne, I did as you do and froze some stotties( because I still had a sliced loaf to get through), before slicing them down the middle for grilling, before peanut-butter and jam - delicious. |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Amos Date: 25 May 08 - 11:24 PM An itch is also symptomatic of a scab ready to release its toxic suppuration to the open air, when it is scratched, thus, just possibly, bringing about a cure of a serious infection. A |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 25 May 08 - 04:39 PM I don't like horse racing, which I find cruel (see poem #146 HORSES FOR COURSES?, if you wish), but I remember hearing on the news, in Australia, of a race meeting where a horse called Itchy Feet was indeed scratched. |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Amos Date: 25 May 08 - 04:13 PM That's the idea. A |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 25 May 08 - 01:36 PM That's true: there is very little negativity on myspace, plenty of "thanks for the ad", and the odd "I like your space" or suchlike. Friends are really, mostly, Links, of course, and perhaps users think that if they put something negative they will be deleted and lose out. And such things are, of course, subjective: neither of the above lines from Mr. Smith or Amos do anything for me - save cause an itch. |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: GUEST,Sedayne (Astray) Date: 25 May 08 - 12:34 PM go through my myspace Comments if you wish Myspace is interesting on all sorts of levels as maybe the only place entirely devoid of actual criticism, negative or otherwise. It seems to operate on a level of mass sycophancy in which every exchange is reduced to the most superficial honk if only by way of giving to get back. A similar thing existed on ebay until the rules regarding feedback were changed, now things are a bit more honest. On YouTube, for whatever reason, the comments are always honest, and all the more valuable because of that. I have a policy of leaving all comments on my YouTube films, positive or negative - in fact, the more colourful the better really. One would, therefore, advise caution in attaching any sort of critical significance to ones Myspace Comments, unless one needs that level of superficial flattery by way of a personal fix, which is, of course entirely possible, otherwise, I dare say, Myspace would be quite the phenomenon that it is. The quantitative element is the most worrying; I've always believed that less is more, and as that great poet Mark E. Smith once wrote: there are five people in the world, the rest are paste. |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Amos Date: 25 May 08 - 11:12 AM Irony is a strange element. It evaporates in an excess of light, and likewise shrivels in an excess of dark. A |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 25 May 08 - 05:08 AM It's definitely wrong to say "no-one", Amos - go through my myspace Comments if you wish, or read what Amos had to say about FOLLOWING THE SUN, above. |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Amos Date: 24 May 08 - 09:25 PM Good of you. No-one wants that. A |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 24 May 08 - 05:43 PM To Amos: in my Blurb I mentioned that some of my poems are didactic and that, accordingly, the style is direct - I didn't want folks scratching their heads over oblique imagery. |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Amos Date: 24 May 08 - 03:28 PM The problem here is not one of form, but one of function. A |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 24 May 08 - 02:23 PM "Why not find out about the topic before you close your mind?" (Darowyn)...I said in that poem above "I returned AGAIN" to free-verse poetry - in other words, I have given it a fair go already, thanks, Darowyn; but I, as with many, like metre and/or rhyme, and poetry was kept within that framework for centuries, before the likes of Ezra Pound decided to break it; no doubt some global publishers like free-verse because they can easily translate it to other languages. |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Darowyn Date: 24 May 08 - 07:43 AM No. Often they are the true crafts people. Taking the more exposed road, where the depth of thought and the beauty of phrasing are not covered up by conventions of form and bent into shape by rhyme schemes. Doggerel is easy- look in any greetings card. Why not find out about the topic before you close your mind? Read this, and the rest of the series too. Cheers Dave |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 24 May 08 - 04:42 AM So you don't think the free-versifiers are the real Vogons of the poetry world? |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Don Firth Date: 23 May 08 - 08:49 PM It is unfortunate that WAV doesn't have a clue as to where his towel is. Don Firth |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Amos Date: 23 May 08 - 07:39 PM I did not know Ezra Pound, personally; but you, sir, are no Ezra Pound. He never published anything that would not pass as poetry, no matter how desperate he was. A |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Amos Date: 23 May 08 - 06:33 PM I hasten to add this preface to the above excerpt, to make clear which Captain I am talking about: "Listening to it (Vogon verses) is an experience similar to torture as demonstrated when Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect are forced to listen to the Vogon captain's poetry prior to being thrown out of an airlock...". That is the Captain I placed in a class with WAV and McGonagle. Not the esteemed Captain Bird. A |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 23 May 08 - 04:38 PM So tell me brothers grim - what are your thoughts on Ezra Pound and the free-verse poets...here's mine... Poem 148 of 230: AUDIENCE LOST I returned, again, To what they pen - The free-verse poets: Deep prose in sets... I could read, again, Of Mice and Men. From walkaboutsverse.741.com |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Amos Date: 23 May 08 - 03:03 PM I think the Vogons deserve a place int his thread. They have walked a great deal more scattered realms than WAV, and thought far more scattered thoughts, incredible though it may seem. Here: Oh freddled gruntbuggly, Thy micturations are to me As plurdled gabbleblotchits On a lurgid bee. Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes And hooptiously drangle me With crinkly binglewurgles, For I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, See if I don't![1] I am sure the Captain is right up there in the running with WAV and McGonagle. And don't start with me about not liking his language. There is such a thing as too much provincial bone-headedness, you know, at least on other threads... A a |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Don Firth Date: 23 May 08 - 02:56 PM The Vogons have landed!! The Vogons have landed!! CLICKY Don Firth |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 23 May 08 - 02:17 PM It rhymes with "road," thanks Captain...and I swear to God some have liked that piece when I've sung it at folk-clubs. |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: The Sandman Date: 23 May 08 - 02:15 PM or even Betjeman at his worst [sitting on a loo in camden town].only estate agents have abodes, |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: The Sandman Date: 23 May 08 - 02:12 PM stop going on about abodes its really mcgonagle ish,or even pooterish. |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 23 May 08 - 01:41 PM THE WEEKLY WALKABOUTS, E.G. (A tad early this time, as I'm off to the Hexham Gathering tomorrow.) Poem-come-song 111 of 230: THE MERSEY AT DIDSBURY - SPRING 2000 Took bus one-four-three, From Piccadilly, Along Oxford Road; Passed the old uni's, Those shops with saris, And my first abode. At Didsbury Village, The Old Parsonage Looked neat, and gave sound, As I walked the way, At about midday, To a Mersey mound. From atop this bank, No longer a blank Was the strong river, Nor the wide fairways - Where I'd filled two days, Twelve years earlier. I then headed back, On Stenner Woods' track (Hearing more birdsong, And seeing mossed stumps Plus well-layered clumps), To a human throng. This throng was viewing - Justly pursuing - The smart Rock Gardens, Sloped on Fletcher Moss, Which I, too, did cross, Before homeward wends. From walkaboutsverse.741.com |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 18 May 08 - 05:43 PM Back to the guitar, methinks...(Yayaya)...for me, it's the tenor-recorder/English-flute and keyboards, but I'm tempted by the bell lyre..? |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: GUEST,yayaya Date: 17 May 08 - 08:16 PM OK, I was wrong to generalise from the particular. The wider point still stands, though. I just wish certain people would spend a whole lot more time on their own creative efforts and a whole lot less time denigrating the efforts of others. This forum'd be a nicer place if they did. (That said, I realise I've just totally "fed" 'em by contributing here. Doh!) Back to the guitar, methinks... |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Amos Date: 17 May 08 - 07:48 PM Yaya: Sorry, that is just BS. I was glad for Ruth's remark, although I do not know her, and my comment to WAV was genuine, as well as an effort to soften the edge of my earlier harsher remarks. A |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: GUEST,yayaya Date: 17 May 08 - 07:26 PM See how people begin to back away when faced with your, ahem, "support", Ruth! A lesson there, perhaps? |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Amos Date: 17 May 08 - 06:22 PM That one actually has a couple of genuinely good lines in it, WAV. |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 17 May 08 - 07:55 AM So much for the Gem of the Day, folks!..now here's the next... WEEKLY WALKABOUT, E.G. Poem 113 of 230: FOLLOWING THE SUN - SPRING 2000 Having moved, by buses, up the hill from Salford to Bury (To be within walk of new work, again), These stimuli surround between my abode and the factory As I follow the sun - its wax, its wane: Walking toward work and the rising sun, a morning chorus Rides the crisp breezy air of hill-farmland, While gravel, of road and path, beneath my plonked feet crunches, And P.V.C. flaps loose of its hay-stand. Bumble bees, tree sparrows and robins bob along the hedgerows, Squirrels and hares hop ahead on my route; And on a weather-wrapped reservoir - glassy, or dulled by blows - Glide mute- and whooper-swans, ducks, geese and coot; Horses, goats, sheep and cattle laze and graze on fields of green - Fields they, in turn, feed, helping make hay; And, above, swifts and herons sometimes grace the aerial scene - A scene framed by a moorland chain of grey. Slugs - some rusty, others pitch-black - slither on a clayey path, That slopes sharply beside the reservoir; And a whitegood on green-grass (a horse trough, once a human bath) Amuses me as I view from afar; As does Peel Monument, atop a distant Holecombe mount - By which an uncle and I once took lunch; Disturbed nettles - brushed in such distraction - make their bulwarks count, And a shed-side arbour demands a hunch. One time, three sheep-dogs determined me lost, and rounded me up; Oftentimes, the Metro. tram rattles by; And, sometimes, a horse will urge me make handy a grassy cup, Or nudge for a scratch down its back and thigh; On cooler mornings, the dew on grasses soaks my joggers through, But beautifies clumps of whimsy grass-heads; And, already proceeding on his routine of chores to do, A farmer strong-hoses out the cowsheds. Caravan-people leave their grouping to walk the well-worn track, And milk- and mail-vans squeeze tightly by; Antique farm-machines rust away in a grassed ramshackle-stack, And pigeons startle from their grassy lie; In sun, fishing-people and bathers dot the reservoir's shore, And, in shade, ferns the sides of path and stream; Near gates, manure fills the air and makes stepping a chore, But elsewhere the views are a poet's dream. Magpies, near horses, bop around - perhaps for aroused worms; Laburnums sprung yellow, and hawthorns white, Pleasingly, in nature, border the fields of farming-firms, And help enclose this Radcliffe rural site; Plus, as I meander home from a day's factory toil, The sun, when it sets in a clear sky, Forms a large amber ball, behind a converted cotton-mill - Signalling another day almost by. From walkaboutsverse.741.com |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Amos Date: 16 May 08 - 03:46 PM From yahoo, on his progenitor: ""McGonagall is obviously not the best poet, but he is actually very popular these days," said Alex Dove, a specialist at Lyon and Turnbull auction house in the Scottish capital which was selling the poems. The works, many of them signed, deal with topics ranging from women's suffrage and the burning of a theatre in Aberdeen. If the collection goes for its estimated price it would be in the same league as first edition copies of Harry Potter books signed by author J. K. Rowling, according to The Daily Telegraph newspaper. The poet -- full name William Topaz McGonagall -- was nicknamed the "The Tayside Tragedian" in his home city of Dundee, where laughing locals would throw fruit and vegetables at him. Critics have awarded him the "world's worst" label because of the crashing lack of subtlety in terms of rhyme, imagery, vocabulary or repetition. His most famous poem is about the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879, in which 75 people died: "So the train mov'd slowly along the Bridge of Tay, "Until it was about midway, "Then the central girders with a crash gave way, "And down went the train and passengers into the Tay." " Sigh. A |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Ruth Archer Date: 12 May 08 - 05:01 AM Amos, you SO need to publish. Absolute brilliance. |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 12 May 08 - 04:45 AM That, then, CB, is another thing we disagree on - I'm an English repat. / you're an English expat. No doubt there are things we do agree on - the English concertina has a beautiful homely timbre, e.g. |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Stu Date: 12 May 08 - 04:42 AM I was more impressed with the ability to get the words 'glimmereth', 'encrusted' and 'spume' into one sentence. Even after reading it the Severn bore was not what sprang immediately to mind. Have you ever tried writing for greetings cards? |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: The Sandman Date: 11 May 08 - 12:07 PM he reminds me of someone perhaps,William Topaz Mcgonagle or Cumberland Clark |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: WalkaboutsVerse Date: 11 May 08 - 11:11 AM Language, Stigweard, language!..it's Sunday and an important one at that. But, yes, 'tis a nice line...you ever seen or surfed the Severn bore? |
Subject: RE: Walkaboutsverse From: Stu Date: 11 May 08 - 10:53 AM "Where glimmereth the spume-encrusted Severn in her magisterial splendour..." This is a fucking brilliant line. |
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