Poet Josephine Corcoran reminds us that on 1 November Places of Poetry will become a read only site. Up until 1 November, you have the opportunity to pin a poem to the Places of Poetry map. You can find Josephine’s post here, https://josephinecorcoran.org/2019/10/27/last-few-days-to-pin-a-poem-to-the-places-of-poetry-map/.
You can find my poem “The Poet On The Hill” on Places of Poetry here, https://www.placesofpoetry.org.uk/poem/23368/.
Kevin
As someone who was born in the city of Liverpool, I was delighted to learn that Liverpool’s Allerton Oak has been crowned Tree of the Year.
The BBC reports that the tree predates the Norman Conquest of 1066, and legend has it that a medieval court was held under it’s spreading branches. You can read the BBC article here, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-50141031.
I am a lover of all trees and, in particular oaks. You can find my poem “The Girl and the Oak” here, https://kmorrispoet.com/2016/01/03/the-girl-and-the-oak/.
Is the young woman who knocks on the door
At just gone midnight
In heels, and oh so
Short dress, (and we all know what she is there for),
A slave
Even if she be paid?
And what of the lady who cleans the floor?
The well paid “whore”
Receives much more.
If both be paid,
Who then is the slave?
The midnight visitor may
Have a pimp to pay
But ’tis by no
Means always so.
Yet, if the man has no idea
Whether she comes out of fear
Is he a slave master
Complicit in a disaster?
But what of the cleaner brutalised by a boyfriend
Who all her money does spend
On drink,
Although she be paid
Do you not think
That she also is a slave?
Last night
I went to bed with Emily Brontë.
What can a modest man say?
We scaled passions great heights,
And, in the midst of our delight
She lost her tights.
Then, on my way
Back over the moor
I saw
Nelly Dean
Who said, with a gleam
In her eye
“Thrushcross Grange is nigh.
Will you come back with me
For tea?”.
But I made reply,
“No, not I
For, if you take a look
None of this is in Emily’s book …!”.
Walking home
Alone
At night
I see the passing street light.
I find
Neither fear nor delight
In the churchyard just
Left behind,
Merely dust
And fallen leaves.
In youth
I played
And little thought on the truth
That ’twas a passing stage.
Now, in middle-age
Compliments are still paid
To me by young women,
Though my hair is thinning,
And I spend most of my time
In rhyme.
I was delighted to learn that one of my poems, (a limerick) was read during a recent broadcast of Vancouver Co-Op Radio’s The World Poetry Reading Series. The gentleman who read it, Victor did, I think do an excellent job of doing so.
To listen to my poem being read please visit this link, http://www.coopradio.org/content/world-poetry-caf%C3%A9-61.
Please note, the reading takes place approximately 10-12 minutes into the podcast.
Kevin
Last night I was somewhere
Called nowhere
For there
I stood
In the dark wood
Of dreams,
Wherein
Virtue and sin
Are merely seeming,
For we are dreaming.
‘Tis a fine
Line
Twixt the living and the dead.
The head,
So full of thought
Is, suddenly, nought
And many
Men
Creep
Away In sleep.
To some death is the final despair,
The never ending nightmare
For None can escape
Death’s suffocating cape.
Yet, if we know not that we are dead
Why dread
The final dreamless sleep,
The dust,
Into which we all must
One day, creep?
A spirited defence of the use of the word “said”, for which I have considerable sympathy, https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/10/literary-value-ten-cent-word-maura-roan-mckeegan.html.
Whilst it is, of course, good practice to use alternative words for “said” where appropriate, in many instances this simple, 4 letter word is the best choice for writers.
As always, I would be interested in the views of my readers.
Kevin
Back in 2016, Oxford University announced that it would not bow to the demands of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign, and the statue of Cecil Rhodes would remain, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-35435805.
The Rhodes scholarship enables students to benefit from funds left in the will of the late Cecil Rhodes, irrespective of skin colour. However, the Rhodes Must Fall campaign contend that Rhodes was an “imperialist” and a “racist” and his statue has no place on the campus of Oriel College, Oxford.
I smiled with wry humour when I learned that radical students at Manchester University are objecting to the erection of a statue of Gandhi on the grounds that he described black people as “savages” and “dirty (amongst other offensive terms of abuse), https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/17/manchester-council-urged-reject-mahatma-gandhi-statue-racism.
Let me be crystal clear. I did not smile at the offensive words used by Gandhi. Racism is wrong and should be condemned in the strongest possible manner. We all share a common humanity and skin colour does not define the value of a person, as value inheres in us all by virtue of our common humanity. Why then the reason for my wry smile? If Gandi can be attacked, who, then deserves a statue erected in their name? Please, someone show me the individual (living or dead) who is so saintly that they deserve a statue.
Both Rhodes and Gandhi where products of their time as, indeed are we all. In times to come those of us (including myself) who enjoy eating meat may be viewed by posterity as uncivilised, cruel individuals who predated on the inocent animal kingdom. Who, then will erect a statue to one of the meat eaters of today, irrespective of their charitable deeds, literary talent or whatever?
Will the vegetarians of today (or the future) be considered worthy of statues? What about the non meat eater who is a serial adulterer and treats his wives with utter contempt. If he is a great artist will his poor treatment of his wife be overlooked and a statue be erected in his name? Or will the policers of morals jump up and down and say “over my dead body”?
As Hamlet remarks, “treat every man after his desert, and who shall scape whipping”. I answer few, if any of us, for we are all imperfect humans, living in a complex and imperfect world. So, no, Rhodes statue should not fall and those agitating for it to do so should find something more useful to do with their time.
Kevin
