Tag: poet

Advice for undergraduates re-submitting work for this semester’s poetry module, by Emma Purshouse


By Robert Garnham

Advice for undergraduates re-submitting work for this semester’s poetry module

If you see a cliché kill it dead.
Don’t use rhyme for rhyme’s sake, red.

Steer clear of obscure abstraction,
it will drive your lecturer to distraction.

Want to piss of him or her?
Then use a t’will, a t’was, a t’were.

All good things in moderation
applies in particular to alliteration

which when wildly wielded will
wind one up and make one ill.

At this point I’ll interject,
that it should only be used for deliberate effect.

As for rhythm don’t get me started
Please, avoid extra long lines which jut out miles further than the rest of the poem, these lines probably should be split and parted.

Oh and never say the same thing twice.
Don’t be an oxymoron all your life.

No tormented soul or bleeding heart,
this makes my nervous twitching start.

Show me, show me, please don’t tell.
Follow this advice and all will be well.

Emma’s first novel Dogged is now available to buy from Ignite Books.                                              https://ignitebooks.co.uk/products-page/emma-purshouses-books/

 

Tuesday, by Hugh Maxwell


By Robert Garnham

Tuesday

In the depths of the ocean he found it, he did, he did.
Golden hero from the deepest sea he came.
Warbled and wriggled, it did, it did,
And rejoiced at the light of day.

On a cushion of mandrakes he brought it, he did, he did,
And offered it to her on her throne all fey.
Placed it on her head, she did, she did,
And they danced with the moon till day.

Hugh is in his late sixties and lives in St Leonards on Sea

 

Tango, by Trevor Alexander


By Robert Garnham

Tango

You’ve heard of policemen out walking their beat,
while wearing those shiny black boots on their feet,
a slow measured march as they come down your street,
but now what if that beat was a tango?

They’d shimmy and slide to a rhythm so hip,
while lookin’ so cool the kids wouldn’t give lip;
watch out for the sergeant and give him the slip,
because he’d want to switch to fandango.

The neighbourhood hoodlums in bovver-boot shoes
come round every week to pass on the bad news,
and make you an offer that you can’t refuse
‘cause the boss man is channelling Brando.

If you’ve got the chutzpah, decide not to pay,
I’m sorry to say they won’t just go away,
because if you’re late they’ll be round the next day
to break both your legs with a Kango.

The coppers are useless, say their hands are tied,
there’s nowt they can do until somebody’s died,
and not even then ‘cause they’re all alibied
in a place where the rest of the gang go.

The gang leader hangs with the rest of his crew,
till the squad comes around and they’re all dressed in blue,
‘cause somebody squealed so that all he could do
is to scarper and hide in Durango.

 

Forever and an Hour, by Patricia Walsh


By Robert Garnham

Forever and an Hour

Recommending some films on back of experience,
watching same under pain of repetition,
burning poetry in a ghost of an existence
nothing comes close to having the rights.

Handling pressure, the better through the fakes,
die-hard cartoons bounce back on themselves
the smell of chocolate wafts through the confines
reading into a cough turgid with indifference.

Death, dropping slow, reads all with due care.
The academic disposal weeds out the hour
poetic gems tweaked out of other existence
some rarity of form calls for recognition.

Government fakes weigh down the reserved,
raw literature in its thousands decreed,
taking pictures of monuments capturing souls,
jealously committing to a lover in-box.

Incidental hatred, poured in the kitchen,
an omnibus realised, taken seriously, never.
Fed on this horror of worthy exclusion,
sleeping for preferment is a righteous burn.

Reading into another book like there was no choice,
cursed from adolescence to live like a freak,
falling from love and its lowly citizens
hoarding the experiential until further notice.

Patricia Walsh was born in the parish of Mourneabbey, in north Co Cork,and educated at University College Cork, graduating with an MA in Archaeology. Her poetry has been published in Stony Thursday; Southword; Narrator International; Trouvaille Review; Strukturrus; Seventh Quarry; Vox Galvia; The Quarryman; Brickplight, The Literatus, and Otherwise Engaged. She has already published a chapbook, titled Continuity Errors in 2010, and a novel, The Quest for Lost Éire, in 2014. A second collection of poetry, titled Citizens Arrest, was published online by Libretto in 2020. A further collection of poetry, titled Outstanding Balance, is scheduled for publication in late 2021. She was the featured poet in the inaugural edition of Fishbowl Magazine, and a further novel, In The Days of Ford Cortina will be published in late 2021.

 

Trial by Poetry, by Oscar Windsor-Smith


By Robert Garnham

Trial By Poetry

My first time at a formal workshop:
Comes the question of poetic voice and
I’m soon stumped.
Worrying.
It seems I’m not one person
for long enough to tie-down
a single stable output;
flibbertigibbet:
north/south, east/west
mongrel that I am;
a middler;
a literal mediocrity…

But then again,
the middle may provide
firm footing
for a bridge
between divergent minds.

And what’s so wrong with that?

Oscar Windsor-Smith lives in Hertfordshire, UK. He has fooled enough editors to get fiction, creative non-fiction and non-fiction published in diverse places, in print and online, and has occasionally been falsely accused of poetry. By jammy luck he has been a finalist/shortlistee in various international competitions. He graduated from the Birkbeck, University of London BA in creative writing in 2018.
—
Oscar Windsor-Smith – Writer

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oscar.windsorsmith

LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/in/oscarwindsorsmith/

Blog: http://oscarwindsor-smith.blogspot.com/

Twitter: @OscarWindsor

 

Precitive Text, by Nigel Lloyd


By Robert Garnham

Predictive Text

I am not really a fanbelt of that predictive text
It’s giving meat loads of grief
I would steal a manuel on how to correct it
If only I was a thief.

I’ve spoken to the staff at the phone shop
Who Canterbury help me with my plight
At one point I threw the phone at them
Saying “take bacon your pile of shite”.

I know I am getting on a bit
And technology is not my thing
But I need a phone that when someone needs me
The bugger will vibrate and ringworm.

The mobiles now are very light
Where as my old phone’s made of stone
I don’t have a camera or any apps
I only use it as a phonebox.

Everything’s typed out in full
No abbreviations or emoji face
Every full stop and comma
Is in the right placebo.

Should I invest in a hands free kitten
For when I am out on the road?
I feel like going back to a more reliable system
Good old morsel code.

Nigel Lloyd lives in rural Donegal and has had poems published in several magazines
From Crannog to Progressive Rock Magazine, he also had a poem featured on
BBC Radio Ulster Soundscapes programme and was a finalist in the
Bring your Limericks to Limerick competition 2018 and a finalist in
The Piano Academy of Ireland Limerick competition 2021.

www.nigellloydpoet.com

 

I Used to Smoke, by Rodney Wood


By Robert Garnham

I USED TO SMOKE

before, during and after a break, while smelling jasmine, feeding penguins,
on buses, trains, the top of church towers, in domes, at home, police stations,
prisons, crematoriums, sanatoriums, sci-fi conventions or the birth of a nation,

before, during and after sex, when wearing spandex, carrying a briefcase,
having an enema, practising yoga, in cinemas, open spaces, hiding places,
deep space, being chased, playing bass, being embraced or holding an ace,

before, during and after bugger all, measuring rainfall, drinking highballs,
at football grounds, suburbs, inner cities, digging up the grave of Andy Warhol,
in jail, under sail, playing pinball, crawling, at shopping malls or concert halls,

before, during and after a meal, when kneeling, playing with myself, watching TV,
walking, talking on my mobile, blinking, in bookshops, outside Westminster Abbey,
being filthy, looking at pornography, dancing to Bowie, having a pee or drinking tea,

before, during and after flying, when saying goodbye, beneath the London Eye,
when sitting on the loo, pruning roses, blowing a balloon under a mackerel sky,
riding a bike, circumscribing a lake or rafting down the Thames in the middle of July,

before, during and after a cigarette I had to have a cigarette.

 

Ultimate Bathroom Experience, by Kevin Higgins


By Robert Garnham

Ultimate Bathroom Experience

The bathrooms of Late Capitalism differ
from the bathrooms of feudalism
and the bathrooms of the industrial revolution
in that they exist.
No more throwing it
out into the street
in the hope of hitting the neighbour
you argued with yesterday.

As you depart
the bathrooms of Late Capitalism
the attendant tries to sell you
bottles of your own widdle, jars
of what you worked so hard
to make, labelled Organic.
When they succeed
you feel like you came away
with a great bargain.

The perfect skin cream
for the Father’s Day market
to help them stop withering
in the face of Late Capitalism;
a dressing to drizzle
on your favourite salad
to stop it wilting
in the light of
Late Capitalism; the perfect
pep me up

days you’ve visited the doctor
and been told: Madam,
it’s Late Capitalism.
But, tragically,
not terminal.
On your way out
kindly swipe your card
on the relevant part
of the receptionist
and continue to the exit.

Kevin Higgins is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway. He has published five full collections of poems: The Boy With No Face (2005), Time Gentlemen, Please (2008), Frightening New Furniture (2010), The Ghost In The Lobby (2014), & Sex and Death at Merlin Park Hospital (2019). His poems also feature in Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010) and in The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe May 2014). Kevin was satirist-in-residence with the alternative literature website The Bogman’s Cannon 2015-16. 2016 – The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins was published by NuaScéalta in 2016. The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed was published by Culture Matters (UK) also in 2016. Song of Songs 2:0 – New & Selected Poems was published by Salmon in Spring 2017. Kevin is a highly experienced workshop facilitator and several of his students have gone on to achieve publication success. He has facilitated poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre and taught Creative Writing at Galway Technical Institute for the past fifteen years. Kevin is the Creative Writing Director for the NUI Galway International Summer School and also teaches on the NUIG BA Creative Writing Connect programme. His poems have been praised by, among others, Tony Blair’s biographer John Rentoul, Observer columnist Nick Cohen, writer and activist Eamonn McCann, historian Ruth Dudley Edwards, and Sunday Independent columnist Gene Kerrigan; and have been quoted in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Times (London), Hot Press magazine, The Daily Mirror and on The Vincent Browne Show, and read aloud by Ken Loach at a political meeting in London. He has published topical political poems in publications as various as The New European, The Morning Star, Dissent Magazine (USA), Village Magazine (Ireland), & Harry’s Place. The Stinging Fly magazine has described Kevin as “likely the most widely read living poet in Ireland”. One of Kevin’s poems features in A Galway Epiphany, the final instalment of Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series of novels which is just published. His work has been broadcast on RTE Radio, Lyric FM, and BBC Radio 4. His book The Colour Yellow & The Number 19: Negative Thoughts That Helped One Man Mostly Retain His Sanity During 2020 is just published by Nuascealta. Kevin’s sixth full poetry collection, Ecstatic, will be published by Salmon.

 

Five Limericks, by Mark Totterdell


By Robert Garnham

FIVE LIMERICKS

When Rick, a young workman from Limerick,
Started strimming, they yelled ‘watch that strimmer, Rick!’
When he slipped off the bank
Of the Shannon, and sank,
Then they cried ‘what a shame you’re no swimmer, Rick!’

If pigeon that’s sly does a sly coo,
And pigeon that’s shy does a shy coo,
Does a pigeon that strives
To coo 5-7-5s
From the top of a tree do a high coo?

This limerick’s started so well,
I could just carry on. What the hell,
If I reach line nineteen
With repeats, it will mean
That I’ve written a damn villanelle!

A talented poet called Nina
Attempted to write a sestina.
Her end-words were ‘bum’,
‘Bugger’, ‘bollocks’ and ‘cum’,
And then two that were somewhat obscener.

There was a young poet from Cheam
Whose limericks ran out of steam.
After four lines had passed
He just couldn’t be arsed…

Mark Totterdell’s poems have appeared widely in magazines and have occasionally won prizes. His collections are This Patter of Traces (Oversteps Books, 2014) and Mapping (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2018).

 

Evolution of a Complaint, by Roisin Bugler


By Robert Garnham

Evolution of a Complaint

Neanderthal man enters the cave
throws another carcass of deer
at Neanderthal woman’s feet.
Grunts and gesticulates towards fire.
Woman sighs loudly
throws arms up in exasperation
sets about preparation.

Always the same old meat.
He never cleans up the bones.
Not once has he covered the piss corner with dirt.
Same old charcoal for decorating the wall.
A bit of help with the babies would be nice.
He’s always out hunting with the guys.

I’d kill for a bit of mammoth
or red ochre
or a sleep on
Why can’t he just evolve and become a man?

Róisín Bugler is working on her TBW (to be written) pile.  She was the winner of Strokestown Percy French prize for Witty Verse and runner up in the Padraig Colum International Gathering competition both 2019.