NaPoWriMo 19

Two poems written, one redrafted, and almost all of my books marked for work. A very productive evening indeed. This is my nineteenth poem for National Poetry Writing Month, and brings me right back on schedule.

William Harvey
(an erasure poem adapted from Aubrey's Brief Lives*)

He made dissections of loss before a bullet
from a great gun made dead amongst the dead
men.

And he awoke upon himself for warmth
after high sun, or wind, had made his age
another thing.

And he would sit on the lead roof.

NaPoWriMo 16

This one may be a day late, but since the aim is to produce 30 poems in 30 days, I still have time to catch up. For those of you wondering why only a few poems have made it onto here, it's because I'm selfishly hoarding the rest, revealing only short samples on Facebook and Twitter.

Here's today's effort:

Damnito Memoriae

 They put their chisels to her name,
and in a chattering of bronze
on bronze, she turned to crumbs of stone.

The Nile yawned and stretched, spine-like,
as the nation woke from a dream
remembered in uneasy frescoes,

as a sentence with the nouns torn out.

NaPoWriMo day 14

I used Jo Bell's writing prompt today, which was to write a laudation telling everyone how great I am. It doesn't have a title yet, but here it is:

When the bad wolf burst a lung,
I whistled, and the brick house fell;
we ate ham for the next three days.

When I clap, there is thunder; when I shout,
the wind is torn in two.

When Armstrong landed on the moon,
he found me sat on a deckchair;
I offered him a cup of tea.

When I clap, there is thunder; when I shout,
the sun spits tongues of flame.

When Odysseus sailed past the sirens
with blood-stained rope around his chest,
I waved at him and kept on dancing.

When I clap, there is thunder; when I shout,
the tides stand still.

When Jesus walked upon the water,
I was doing handstands on the waves
and pulling faces at St. Peter.

When I clap, there is thunder; when I shout,
the constellations blink.

When I went to the crossroads one night,
the devil brought me his guitar
and asked me for an autograph.

When I clap, there is thunder; when I shout,
the old gods tremble.

When I whisper, there is silence; when I stop,
the poem ends.

For Mongo (NaPoWriMo day 9)

I was at Twycross zoo yesterday and saw a bald chimpanzee called Mongo. This poem was written with him and the other chimps in mind.

Bald, and stretched across the ledge like pink rope,
he tents his eyes in the crook of his arm.
Each movement is a little too familiar.

These chimps are us in our most honest moments:
the ones that always jump the last two steps;
the ones that give the cat a French accent;
the ones that pee with the door left open;
the ones that stick to the couch in their pants,
the TV loud, the window on the latch.

Text Book Poetry 1

I decided to have a go at found poetry, using text books as source material. This one has been adapted from page 254 of The Archaeology Course Book, by Grant, Gorin and Fleming (Routledge: Abingdon, 2005)

Serce Limani, Turkey. c. AD 1024
 
Pieces from the ends of the ship,
the broken and the raw glass
represent the process, the millions
of pieces. Rim sherds.

The keel was laid down, and planks bent.
Many hull planks cut from a single log
between the building of the wrecks

Scholars tell us there was conflict,
a cycle, ever-increasing.

Book Review: 'Clovenhoof' by Heide Goody and Iain Grant

In the early 21st Century, petty office politics, management bullshit, and bureaucracy. Despite the way many people might feel about these things, Satan does not thrive on them. He loses his position as Lord of Hell, and is retired to live in Sutton Coldfield, North Birmingham.

This is the Premise of Clovenhoof, the debut novel of Heide Goody and Iain Grant, co-founders of Birmingham's Pigeon Park Press. Although it takes the novel a few chapters to warm up to the thrust of the main plot, the characters are immediately likeable. Satan's new friends and neighbours, Nerys and Ben, lean very slightly towards stereotype but in comic writing this sort of exaggerated characterisation works well, especially when there is so much more going on with them beyond our first impressions. Satan himself is endearingly befuddled by his new life, and he leans more towards chaos and mischief than downright malevolence. Even before the plot reaches full swing, the characters start to develop in believable, interesting ways as they face the challenges of modern life in their own unique manners.

It is this character development which binds the novel together through its episodic opening chapters. The first part of the book reads like a sitcom, but it is a very good sitcom with characters that you genuinely care about and situations which lend themselves to the book's sense of humour, which is anarchic and irreverent, but still warm and even comforting.

The novel is punctuated by scenes from the celestial boardroom, where a committee of angels and saints discuss the administrative issues facing Heaven and Hell. The portrayals of Saints Peter, Paul, Francis of Assisi, and Joan of Arc are perfect for the tone of the book. God, however, is notably absent from these meetings, which are chaired by the Archangel Michael.

The characterisation of Michael embodies some of the contradictions facing Christianity in the modern age; on one hand, he is suavely dressed, smooth spoken and virtuous, but on the other, he is inflexible, old fashioned and priggish. His attitude to towards female preachers, for example, is less than supportive. These sorts of contrasts are explored in other parts of the book, and it is tempting to see them, combined with God's non-attendance of the board meetings, as an allegory of the way religion can be hijacked to suit various opinions and political agendas.  This is not to say the book is anti-Christian: Joan of Arc and a female vicar called Evelyn come out of the story very well. If this all sounds a bit heavy for a light comedy, it doesn't feel it in practice.

Neither does the novel draw exclusively from Christianity for its source material. The Qur'an and various apocryphal texts also play a part in filling out the Heavenly Host and the demonology of Hell. In all, Clovenhoof is a very well researched novel with likeable characters and a strong undercurrent of warm comedy (one of the more difficult genres to do well). I was lucky enough to download it for free, but even if that offer has expired, it would make a great addition to anybody's digital library.