poem – Page 66 – don't confuse the narrator

TIL, bcc and other TLAs

I know that many of us grew up before email existed and we never had to worry about accidentally revealing other people’s email addresses, but I get very cross with people who forward and re-forward messages and don’t use the bcc field.

There was one message sent to me last year that particularly annoyed me. It came from a ‘friend’ who had previously laughed when I’d commented on his lack of professionalism. I think there were around a hundred people on the distribution list, including information contacts for ski-resorts and children’s schools, as well as a number of names I recognised.

The message – and the number of ‘reply to all’ follow ups – caught me at a bad moment and I wrote an irate reply to the sender, demanding to be removed from his contacts list.
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London poetry

Tomorrow, the South Bank Poetry Magazine launches issue 11, the ‘London Poems Anthology’, with prize-winning, commended and short-listed poems from the inaugural South Bank Poetry Competition judged by Niall O’Sullivan. The event is at the Poetry Café in Betterton Street and will include readings of some of the poems.

In the meantime, for those who won’t be there, here’s a London poem. Coincidentally, the original notes were taken when I was going to the award ceremony of the Barnet Poetry Prize a few years ago.

Towards High Barnet

We’re moled and burrowing
through London’s longest stretch
of tunnelling dark, until East Finchley
where sudden sunlight dazzles us.
A shock of daffodils tousles the embankment.
Ivy-drab drapes a dull brick wall
beyond which, an old man digs for victory
against perennial weeds in his allotment.

red wellingtons on a grey day

The poem I posted on Thor’s Day last week has never been quite what I wanted it to be.

The original notes are for a bullet-point poem with the things children love about rain contrasted with the things that it means to an adult – leaking window frames, wet washing draped everywhere, rising damp and higher prices at the green grocer’s.

It was intended to end up with the (adult) narrator adding a pair of red wellingtons to her shopping list. (As the photo suggests, I’m a great believer in bright boots and umbrellas for grey days.)
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notes for a poem

Bonfire smoke mixes with drizzle.
From beyond the olive grove,
the stink of pigs rises defiant.

end of the season

The lack of rain meant that most vegetable plots didn’t do very well this year, but there is still a tangle of tomato vines straggling alongside next door’s pig sty.

Seeing the plants reminded me of a line from this piece, which, to judge from the pumpkins, was probably written in late September. It was published in South Bank Poetry Magazine back in summer 2009, so I shall resist the temptation to start tweaking it now.
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