March 2013:
This month we had 14 poets and audience members including the brilliantly macabre Dermot Glennon and THREE (count ‘em) fantabulous newcomers: Ben, Danny and Liam.
The only negative feedback was Dermot (sporter of the incredibly chic three year old Sainsbury’s carrier bag filing system) chastising himself for being late but it happens to the best of us (ie me, a LOT)!
The positive feedback was: quality poems and poets, good atmosphere, very friendly and good poets, great night and new faces, great night especially the lovely hosts, short on numbers but long on talent, good to have newbies, good mixture of styles and topics, warmer than last time, good mix of talented people, fab simple fecking fab, another good night, great variety and fantastic.
Review is about Write Out Loud - Middleton on 24 Mar 2013 (event)
It pointedly points to the nonsensical and reflects the shallow can can be shown in everyone if not careful.
The poet and their poetry is only good if people value it. Publication and winning things might be nice, but ultimately prove little. In these things people take themselves too seriously and allow ego to do what ego does.
People - everyone should from time to time remind themselves...what got them into poetry in the first place.
It's usually the love of words and it usually comes from a very genuine place.
The other thing that springs to mind is the importance of listening to the poetry of others. The ultimate service you do each and every poet is to listen to them and truly hear. The ultimate disservice is to not listen or go through the motions.
You can never listen to much.
Best
Chris
Comment is about ....of words or people (blog)
Original item by Dave Bradley
Hi Harry, Laura - thx for reading and the feedback - appreciated.
Glad it worked for you and you found something in the poem of merit.
I agree with those Stanza marking out the poem and the turn-around Harry. I think that might be the best part of the piece.
Quote
The alarming thing is that so many working class people are becoming convinced that the system is being milked and so-unfortunately-the majority of genuine deservers are being punished for the `sins` of the few.
Quote
Alarming is correct. But I don't think it is a case of the majority being punished for the sins of the few - though the few do exists and are sinful. I think it is more a case of using the recession and the perceived need for austerity as an excuse to wage class warfare.
I see the article below as getting it pretty much spot-on - have a look it might be of interest;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/25/tories-shrink-state-wont-say-publicly
Quote
The present `dependancy` situation was caused by finacial liberation and the consequent moves towards globalisation and significant switch towards financial -rather than industrial - earnings.
Quote
A lot of truth here Harry and as a trade unionist and someone who worked at the coalface, I dare say you know a lot more about the nature of these events first hand than I do.
David Starkey - as right wing and strange a historian as he is said;
Of the reliance on the financial sector - that we were ridiculously overly reliant upon it - accounting for 25% of the economy. And that we don't make enough things that people want. That the problem of this relates to no added value and an economy being too reliant on something dependent itself on perceived value.
I think you might feel the same in this regard. It certainly looks to be a significant problem with our economy.
Quote
I think the squeeze on welfare will go further under whatever government (thanks to the bankers who (ineptly but lucratively) couldn`t even keep the booze-up in their own brewery going.
Unquote
Indeed.
Quote
With the exception of a certain percentage near the bottom, I agree with you that the pensioners generally are doing quite well, thankyou. However the politicians are runningout of money to bribe the electorate with so no one is going to be safe for the next decade or so
Unquote
I suspect you're right. The pensioners and universal benefits have been safe and are safe for now due to a very misguided Conservative manifesto pledge. What I would say is that whilst pensioners will probably take a hit at some point; due to their power as a lobby group and because of their voting numbers/turnout at elections, they will not be touched in anywhere near the way that other groups will. very unfair, but since when did fair mean anything in politics as in life?
Of course I do not mean to attack pensioners myself. I make a clear distinction between, the national state pension and how low that is and how poor pensioners on the lowest incomes are (the state pension should be much higher) and the fact that the removal of universal pensioners benefits to those on middle incomes and above has not even been considered.
We can all take our political positions of course, and I have offered too much of mine - outside of the poem. But think tanks and their ilk, they try to ensure a fundamentally dishonest political climate, via their use of the language of marketing/advertising. I think I object to that most of all - the dishonesty.
Hey Laura
Yea I wanted to go for the jugular and hit hard, but I wanted to do it with the language of think tanks. I didn't want to just state a political opinion...and was trying to make it very much a poem and use poetic language.
Quote
We’ve made you healthy by perception
:D
Unquote
Yes - the idea that by relabeling something you change what it actually is. Like massaging figures for the likes of league tables - it's just so fundamentally dishonest. Also I wanted to get across the idea that we're also dealing with an ideology here, an ideology willing to do awful things and justify them through the use of creative language. The kind of language where they almost seek to insulate themselves from the despicable nature of their own actions.
Quote
I like to use their terminology too in some of my rants. Am working on one at the moment tentatively titled 'Black is White', about the humungous lies that spew out of their mouths on a daily basis.
Quote
I'll look forward to hearing/reading it - some of the terms banded about these days are positively Orwellian. Over-used term or not, as someone whose favourite author is George Orwell, who has read 1984 more than half a dozen times, I do think in this case the point is legitimate. Of course it applies to all parties across the political divide.
Politics these days is all about think tanks and spin - which reminds me of that great manipulator Richard Nixon. In trying to escape an accusation he once said;
I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Policies these days often come with the same duplicity loaded into their language.
Best
Chris
Comment is about Think TANK! (blog)
Original item by Chris Co
How many of you would want copies? If I mass buy there is a discount.
Comment is about Stockport WoL Poetry Anthology (blog)
Original item by Stockport WoL
Cheers Win for the support. Keep those blogs coming I always read em !
Comment is about Winston Plowes (poet profile)
Original item by Winston Plowes
I guess you better had!
Like this one, short and sweet!!
Comment is about Snowy Window (blog)
Original item by Lynn Dye
Thanks Steve and Hugh. New experiences always inspire me. But I couldn't show her the poem, she'd be terrified of me again!
Comment is about My son's first love (blog)
Original item by Cathy Crabb
Nesting time
comes in
the Spring
wild birds
gather in
Easter eggs
the mad
March hare
eats them
on his
side of
the bed.
Comment is about Nesting (blog)
Original item by Katy Megan
tony sheridan
Mon 25th Mar 2013 11:42
tony sheridan
Mon 25th Mar 2013 11:37
I've read this a few times. Well put together. Well done Laura.
Comment is about Synaesthetic Symphony (blog)
Original item by Laura Taylor
Excellent Chris - a political and poetic rant! Takes some doing that. Think this line is killer
We’ve made you healthy by perception
:D
I like to use their terminology too in some of my rants. Am working on one at the moment tentatively titled 'Black is White', about the humungous lies that spew out of their mouths on a daily basis.
Comment is about Think TANK! (blog)
Original item by Chris Co
Thanks Francine :)
I was very pleasantly surprised to be approached by Indre, and enjoyed responding to her thought-provoking questions.
Given that English is not her first language either, I think this article is very well-written.
Comment is about Indre interviews Laura Taylor for World Poetry Day (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
This looks excellent - proper fancy going to this
Comment is about Peake to perform Shelley's Peterloo poem in Manchester (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Thanks Harry for your note on Synaesthetic Symphony.
The pointillism is just another technique is all and I kind of liked how it contrasted with cubist.
It's not a painting btw, the pic was done in pastels :)
Comment is about Harry O`N eill (poet profile)
Original item by Harry O`N eill
Thanks Harry
The pointillism is just another technique is all and I kind of liked how it contrasted with cubist.
It's not a painting btw, the pic was done in pastels :)
Comment is about Synaesthetic Symphony (blog)
Original item by Laura Taylor
Great stuff Tommy. Liked words and pic. :-)
Comment is about Is (blog)
Original item by Tommy Carroll
Chris,
Timely poem, witty and ironical. Stanzas two, three, and four point the turn-around exactly.
The alarming thing is that so many working class people are becoming convinced that the system is being milked and so-unfortunately-the majority of genuine deservers are being punished for the `sins` of the few.
The present `dependancy` situation was caused by finacial liberation and the consequent moves towards globalisation and significant switch towards financial -rather than industrial - earnings. Folk are not daft and people forced on to the dole by this process could discern the stupidity of working at a low paid job for a pittance more a week (would their detractors?...I dont think so)
I think the squeeze on welfare will go further under whatever government (thanks to the bankers who (ineptly but lucratively) couldn`t even keep the booze-up in their own brewery going.
With the exception of a certain percentage near the bottom, I agree with you that the pensioners generally are doing quite well, thankyou. However the politicians are runningout of money to bribe the electorate with so no one is going to be safe for the next decade or so
Remember the crazy credit-card boom of recent memory? (ah, happy days!)
Comment is about Think TANK! (blog)
Original item by Chris Co
Hi Anthony
Hope you are well.
I received Turbulence13 the other day.
lovely to see 2 of your poems in there
always good to see quality writing
Win
Comment is about Antony Owen (poet profile)
Original item by Antony Owen
Sun 24th Mar 2013 19:03
Dear Chris,
thanks for the comment and will see you on Tuesday.Forgot how to use the Facebook to put this poem up.'Spirits New Haven' is a fine poem.
Best Steve
Comment is about Chris Co (poet profile)
Original item by Chris Co
Thank you so much for such kind and thorough feedback Chris.
Really appreciated.
David
Comment is about IMPATIENT SPRINGTIME (blog)
Original item by David Subacchi
It sounds like he's the one who needs a clear out Katy - never cede your wardrobe space!
I can feel the bubbles of your excitement rising up. I like it.
Comment is about Nesting (blog)
Original item by Katy Megan
<Deleted User> (10062)
Sun 24th Mar 2013 17:06
Nice. This is a really great piece :)
Comment is about A Curry Sir.. (blog)
Original item by Hazel Connelly
Hey Dave, just to say I don't think it matters that this tax does not affect you personally. I think anyone who cares about society (if that word and your fellow man is to mean anything these days) should care about equity and all that means.
This tax does not effect me either, but like a lot of other such things that do not affect me; I'll voice opinions, sign petitions and do what I can, where I can - we all need to.
I've very much enjoyed hearing you read this.
Best
Chris
Comment is about Bedroom Tax (blog)
Original item by Dave Bradley
Thx for the comment on my latest Dave - appreciated.
Best
Chris
Comment is about Dave Bradley (poet profile)
Original item by Dave Bradley
Very powerful - social commentary as it should and needs to be voiced.
Best
Chris
Comment is about Mid-Summary Murders (blog)
Original item by stephen smith
This has a lovely flow to it David, a flow that has an essence and movement that is beautifully reflective of the subject matter.
Like the compound rhyme of springtime - shore line.
Your imagery is excellent - watercolour sky ensures the rest of the poem has a dreamy impressionistic feel to it.
Especially so with what follows and;
gentle white tipped
blue waves with breezes
White tipped - makes me think of the tip of the painters brush.
I didn't so much 'think' of the time of the year as 'feel it'. The way you do on a Sunny day when the clouds roll out the way :)
teasing us to put away
colder morning memories
That's a nice way of considering what weather does for our mood. Sadness, depression even are well-known to be exacerbated by dark and gloomy weather. Weather has rightly become used in analogies to suggest difficult times, from dark doom laden skies to impending storm clouds. And spring weather does indeed hint or 'tease' as to what is to come. Good weather, your poem hints at better times too, spring being that time for hope and renewal.
urging the shedding of
woollen scarves and the
lengthening of dog leads.
This too has a feeling of the painted rather than literal about it.
A lovely poem - great images - very enjoyable.
My best
Chris
Comment is about IMPATIENT SPRINGTIME (blog)
Original item by David Subacchi
Such sentiments are always topical, and need to be expressed in all arenas. This is thought-provoking, major ideas reading in an easy, accessible way. The repetition is very effective, always refocussing the main theme of the title..
Comment is about Middle Eastern Man (blog)
Original item by Noetic-fret!
Very thoughtful. And skillful. Reads even more coherently in the personalized version above, clearly separating the conversationalists. I hope readers move over.
Comment is about Is (blog)
Original item by Tommy Carroll
JC - I'm thinking of writing a poem in the
Elizabethan style (otter be good) title:
"To His Koi - fishless" -
when I need a change from the demanding dexterity of this present post!
Comment is about SPLIT INFINITY (blog)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
Shelley at his doggerel-driven best...
Comment is about Peake to perform Shelley's Peterloo poem in Manchester (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Love it! Too funny!
Now record it :-D
Comment is about click click click (blog)
Original item by Shoeless Carole
Thank you lovely ladies for reading and sharing in my joyous experience!
Kisses to you!
Comment is about What Billy Collins taught me about my first ever poetry reading… (blog)
Enjoyed seeing these again, Thomas. Great performance at the Bar Des Arts last Tuesday. A touch of the medieval minstrel!
Comment is about Set from March's "Pop Up Poetry" (blog)
Original item by Marnanel Thurman
Hey Dave, Jon and Stella Thx for reading and for the feedback - appreciated. Glad it seems to have worked and people have liked something of it.
I wanted to go for the jugular with this one as opposed to deal in implications. I also wanted to to frame the issue in the semantics and pointed terminology that think tanks apply when trying to sell their wares to political parties.
They don't acknowledge a problem, but they provide a solution ;) A benefit impoverishes via dependence or reliance. To have those benefits cut is not to have them cut, is for those people to be incentivised and entitled to work. We ignore the fact that most disabled people who don't work generally do not do so because they aren't able to do so.
Hey Dave - Mmmm in terms of figure, well it depends upon where you get your figures. But in relative terms it would be possible to argue that the richest have been hit less than the middle class over a greater period of time. But I take the point. Certainly the middle class have been greatly protected from austerity if we make the comparison with poor people in society.
I agree about every government minister having the graph, unfortunately I think they know only too well what they are choosing to do - I don't think my poem would help (sadly).
Hey John - I was trying to think in terms of their language. Glad you liked that line. Looking back it is very much what could be expected from Oliver Reeder from The Thick of It. I could imagine Malcolm Tucker saying something like, 'yea, let's run with that fucker' lol.
You have to laugh otherwise you'd cry.
Hey Stella - adversely affected, ain't that the truth. I'm gonna rant a bit now - please forgive. But this is some of the feeling behind this poem and others I have wrote of late.
---------------------------------------------
We hear about welfare all the time don't we, the welfare bill being too high and unsustainable. Usually it is a scare story that leaps from welfare straight into unemployment. Scapegoat the unemployed as lazy and feckless and you're on your way to a political mandate to reforming welfare as a whole without any real debate.
First of all welfare, since when did we start with the American terminology convenient catch-all term? For the 'political right', it allows them to talk about one enormous cost, and use that figure to hammer the poorest in society, using as they do unemployment as the way in.
Once you make welfare look like little nothing more than unemployment, and you make unemployment look like little more than the lazy and the feckless - you have your mandate for "reform" (sic). Reform allows you back to work slave wage programs, it allows you to mandate jobseekers (fuckin job seekers - that word itself is a think tank semantic load of shit). Jeezzzz by saying job seekers it sounds positively breezy. Hey would you rather have fewer job seekers. by jove, no! Job seekers, positive people, let's have more! The more the better Haha j/k of course, but this is the language that I most object to, it's this marketing language that allows the promotion of appalling policies via smoke and mirrors.
Welfare reform allows you to reduce money for the disabled without winning any argument for such reductions.
It has been shown in multiple studies that when you ask people in the street; how much does unemployment represents as part of the welfare bill? They tend to come back with figures ranging from 60% down to lows of around 40%. Unemployment actually represent less than 3% of the entire welfare bill!
Do you know what costs between 40-50% of the entire welfare bill? Something that is absolutely untouched and is not facing any austerity reforms at all? Universal Pensioners provisions. And why wont the political right, Cameron's conDEM government touch this? Because he needs the vote of pensioners, from the center to the right. They represent a powerful force in lobbying, in Tory constituencies and they tend to vote in great numbers. For this reason we have universal provision to the well off and the rich. We have winter fuel repayments to all. 100K a year or millions of year, no matter how much money you have coming in - you still get a free buss pass, television licence and winter fuel payments. Peter Stringfellow gets winter fuel repayments! We are giving away obscene amounts of money in universal provision that cannot be afforded. Meanwhile we are doing the most appalling things in other areas - such as the policy to sanction those seeking employment - the thing that leaves people destitute, without any money at all and looking for food at foodbanks, with friends/neighbours or looking in bins.
Everywhere you look think tanks and special interest committees/policy groups are thinking outside the box...promoting the marketing language that justifies the most disgraceful and ethically unfair policies imaginable.
We are seeing the economics of recession being used to forward the ulterior agenda of class warfare. People in government keep talking about not being able to afford this or that. What a society can afford is nearly always about political will and choice.
We hear that there will have to be cut-backs. 10 libraries are to close in Liverpool. Yet they have just paid 50 million pounds into a PFI scheme to gain - one central library.
We have the bedroom tax on social housing, rather than a mansion tax. We choose to give a 50% rebate on second homes - whilst taxing an extra bedroom. This is a political choice - plain and simple! It is supposed to be unfair to have to pay full council tax on a second home; why? A second home is a luxury, if you can't afford to pay the full amount on a second home, er, don't buy a second home.
We choose or rather Pickles chooses that we can spend 5.5 billion - I did say billion! To upgrade Liverpool waterfront - again via a PFI scheme. At the same time the council has cut the provision for free school uniforms for those struggling the most. Pickles says the PFI scheme will generate a much needed 9,000 homes. 9,000 homes - what overlooking Liverpool waterfront? Who is he trying to kid, they wont be homes, they'll be plush apartments and second homes for the rich! They will all be sold off for huge gains for the private investor. Meanwhile via the wonga - way of borrowing money we the tax payer will foot the bill.
And take one look at Kirkdale, Huyton, Anfield etc - areas in dire need of real regeneration - what are they getting? Mmmm Nawr they can have cuts and they can deal with the surroundings they have. Can you see any of the families there being offered the Pickles waterfront homes?
No 50p rate of tax - but going back to pensioners, the ones on low incomes have one of the lowest pensions in western Europe. Do they get an increase to help improve their lot? Of course not but the well-off and rich pensioners can keep all their freebies. If your an ex pat from the Wirral living in Portugal or Spain - you too still get the winter fuel payment. At the same time on the Wirral - Moreton just closed a day center that was a major lifeline to adults with learning difficulties. But don't worry - their tears, like their needs - don't matter!
An estimated 90/120 billion lost to the economy every year via tax avoidance, 15.6 billion lost to the economy from tax fraud (more of a middle class crime generally). Benefit fraud which is a non stop ongoing conversation on radio, in the newspapers and on tv runs at 1% and accounts only for 1.2 billion lost to the economy as a whole.
But don't mention any of this, forget it.
We can always get a think tank together to do something about the burden of the poor and needy. And entitle them with incentives ;)
sorry for waffling...
Best
Chris
Comment is about Think TANK! (blog)
Original item by Chris Co
It's said that I'm guilty of many any "ism"
(Most frequently people say, 'plagiarim')
But these I refute;
Though I'll not dispute
I'm happy confessing to onanism.
Comment is about SPLIT INFINITY (blog)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
JC - see comment on your post of "Paint It Beige" - but isn't "guage" (shown) actually "gauge" (to ascertain). I assume it's a case of "the moving finger writ and having writ..").
Cheers.
Comment is about John Coopey (poet profile)
Original item by John Coopey
A righter shade of pale!! More inspired parallel universe wordplay from a reliable source.
Comment is about Paint It Beige (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Harry - Perhaps I should write - "Equality can mean preference". Claims for "equality" often seem cloaked demands for having your cake and eating it too. The word itself requires constant vigilance if it is not to be distorted in a world that uses and abuses the English language "to suit" an agenda.
Comment is about SPLIT INFINITY (blog)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
Dave,
A neat reminder that we`re supposed to be doin` the lovin` while we`re doin` the rest of it.
I like the `what` why` and `where`.
Comment is about ....of words or people (blog)
Original item by Dave Bradley
Imaginatively, powerfully, and feelingly factual in the most true sense of that word when it is used literally.
I suppose any nightmarish resurrection of a modern Jewish extermination dictatorship would use enforced sterilisation, vascetomy, and abortion to `achieve` their ends. (The Nazis actually did it with the mentally defectives) A very timely reminder of what man is capable of.
Comment is about Humanity Lost (blog)
Original item by Simon Austin
M.C.
Unusual choice of rhymes. they work through
stressing the rest of it in the right way.
The whole thing reminds me of Shakespeare`s
words about keeping the road as well as any man
(something like that)
It seems to me that fourth line is self -defeating of the whole idea.
Still like it though.
Comment is about SPLIT INFINITY (blog)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
How sad he didn`t electrocute himself and end
it with a fitting finale!
(I mean, there might have been jagged flash electric connections to all those middle fingers sticking out and the whole thing could have ended in a mass suicide gig)
Those guys were only fiddling with the genre.
Piffle!
Comment is about THE BIRD (blog)
Original item by Rodney Wood
Laura,
nice `art commenting on art` piece.
Unusual for yours I was able to follow it all the way through
I like `a cubist took the curves to task` Got the translucency in the sabled brush marks, but don`t think the pointillism works (it spoils it a bit)
Very good poem...(and painting (save for the colours)
Comment is about Synaesthetic Symphony (blog)
Original item by Laura Taylor
Steve
Like the `diminishing to distance` and the paradox in stanza three.
And a fine last two lines.
Comment is about Ambulances (blog)
Original item by STEVE RUDD
Steve,
the profusion of anti-springtime words in this :(Coarse, comic,cracked,fallacies,glaze?, moaning, grim, etc; etc;) make me wonder if the `Lyre` ending the second stanza is mis-spelt.
Comment is about Valentine Rooks (blog)
Original item by STEVE RUDD
TOMMY,(I noted this before bronchitis no2 hit)
So you won`t give the pope the Falklands back as an enthronement gesture.
But think what poetry would lose if it lost the word (and speculation)of `Limbo`.
(Your last four lines would be a very moving conclusion to a poem about those one hundred and fifty-odd thousand British womb-dwellers who were clinically and chemically `induced` into eternity last year)
But no sweat - our pensions are safe - we are replacing them down here with all those little foreign womb -dwellers who managed to `make it` and grew up to immigrate here and work for us.
Comment is about Christianity and other myths (blog)
Original item by Tommy Carroll
so found a fun thing on the internet that translated the poem into gangsta rap :)
click click click
Thursdizzle 13th January 2011 7:16 pm (first posted Wednesdizzle 12th January 2011 11:53 pm)
entry picture
Ouch
That was a funky-ass big-ass house
Came down up tha sky
And up in tha end it fell on me
Just mah sparkly Nikes ta show
I straight-up done been so wicked
A lil' hoe now is bustin
I be a gangsta yo, but y'all knew dat n' mah sparkly shoes,
Clickin her heels n' feelin fine
Biatch be thinkin I be dead yo, but
In dis invisibilitizzle of middle age
I be enjoyin tha privacy
And tha pleasure of knowing
I don’t need sparkly shoes
Because there is 'no place' like homie
Comment is about click click click (blog)
Original item by Shoeless Carole
Thank you for your comments - the poem is based on the photograph itself taken by an SS Soldier, which had 'The last jew in Vinnitsa' scrawled on the back.
It is believed that the town of Vinnitsa, of some 28,000 people (mostly Jewish) was completely eradicated by the Nazi's in the summer of 1941.
The man knelt infront of the mass grave is believed to be the very last of those executed, which I felt was a very powerful and desperately horrifying image, hence the inspiration for the poem.
Thank you again for your comments.
Comment is about Humanity Lost (blog)
Original item by Simon Austin
Chris Co
Mon 25th Mar 2013 19:36
Thx for reading and feedback on my latest - appreciated.
Left a long windy comment on the blog hehe
Best
Chris
Comment is about Laura Taylor (poet profile)
Original item by Laura Taylor