Poem of the Week: 'Baby Song'

Another poem by Thom Gunn, the American poet whose poem, 'Blackie, the Electric Rembrandt', I posted a couple of months ago...

A first person narrative from the point of view of a newborn baby, it argues passionately that, now it has been born, and left the comfort of the womb, things can only get worse...

'Baby Song' by Thom Gunn

From the private ease of Mother's womb
I fall into the lighted room.

Why don't they simply put me back
Where it is warm amd wet and black?

But one thing follows on another.
Things were different inside Mother.

Padded and jolly I would ride
The perfect comfort of her inside.

They tuck me in a rustling bed -
I lie there, raging, small, and red.

I may sleep soon, I may forget,
But I won't forget that I regret.

A rain of blood poured round her womb,
But all time roars outside this room.

Recommended Reading: The Wasp Factory

Iain Banks is one of my very favourite authors, and the writer of whom I have read the most books. He is very 'readable', whilst also managing to write in a fascinating, compelling and original way. [And for those of you who like Sci-Fi, he even writes Science Fiction under a slightly different name, Iain M. Banks, which my wife tells me is fantastic too!] Click here to visit the author's own website.

The Wasp Factory is his first, shortest and, I guess, weirdest book - and, like some other novels I've recommended to you recently, is found on many an 'A' Level English Literature syllabus. (In fact, I taught it myself to some former George Mitchell students who studied 'A' Level with me in their spare time.) It is not a comfortable read, but it is pretty impossible to put down, and throws the reader into the strangest and most sinister of fantasy worlds imaginable. Best of all, it has an ending to beat almost any novel around. Just what is Frank's deepest, darkest secret of all?

If you want to read the opening to the novel, click here. Here are a few other extracts from the novel, to give you a taste of Frank's weird world:

I wanted to kill Blyth there and then; the hiding he got from his father, my dad's brother James, was not enough as far as I was concerned, not for what he'd done to Eric, my brother. Eric was inconsolable, desperate with grief because he had made the thing Blyth had used to destroy our beloved pets...

I hadn't said anything to anybody, even Eric, about what I wanted to do to Blyth. I was wise in my childishness even then, at the tender age of five, when most children are forever telling their parents and friends that they hate them and they wish they were dead. I kept quiet.

* * * * * *

My brother Paul was five when I killed him. I was eight. It was over two years after I had subtracted Blyth with an adder that I found an opportunity to get rid of Paul. Not that I bore him any personal ill-will; it was simply that I knew he couldn't stay...

I always got on well with Paul. Perhaps because I knew from an early age that he was not long for this world, I tried to make his time in it as pleasant as possible, and thus ended up treating him far better than most young boys treat their younger brothers.

* * * * * *

I killed little Esmerelda because I felt I owed it to myself and the world in general. I had, after all, accounted for two male children and thus done womankind something of a statistical favour. If I really had the courage of my convictions, I reasoned, I ought to redress the balance at least slightly. My cousin was simply the easiest and most obvious target.

Again, I bore her no personal ill-will. Children aren't real people, in the sense that they are not small males and females but a separate species which will (probably) grow into one or the other in due time. Younger children in particular, before the insidious and evil influence of society and their parents have properly got to them, are sexlessly open and hence perfectly likeable.

* * * * * *

That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again.

It was just a stage I was going through.

Poem of the Week: 'The Road Not Taken'

Featured in the Robin Williams film, Dead Poets Society, this poem by Robert Frost carries a powerful message about life. What sort of person do you want to be? Someone who follows everyone else, only treading safely where others have trodden before? Or someone with the courage and strength to be yourself and take a different direction to those around you? Give in to peer pressure and society, or ignore it all and have a unique, fresh and original life?

'The Road Not Taken'
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Recommended Reading: Enduring Love

Recently made into a film starring Daniel Craig (the new Bond) and Rhys Ifans (Hugh Grant's Welsh flatmate from Notting Hill), this is a novel about obsession, love and the murky borders between sanity and madness. It features arrogant and egocentric Joe Rose, whose comfortable existence with his girlfriend, Clarissa, is shaken to its foundation by the interference of obsessive stalker, Jed Parry. When the police refuse to listen to Joe, he has no choice but to get hold of a revolver and deal with the matter himself...

Most famous of all is the extraordinary opening chapter, where all the central characters meet by chance in the countryside as they try desperately to rescue a man and his grandson from their hot air balloon as it gets carried away from the ground by accident:

The beginning is simple to mark. We were in sunlight under a turkey oak, partly protected from a strong, gusty wind. I was kneeling on the grass with a corkscrew in my hand, and Clarissa was passing me the bottle--a 1987 Daumas Gassac. This was the moment, this was the pinprick on the time map: I was stretching out my hand, and as the cool neck and the black foil touched my palm, we heard a man's shout. We turned to look across the field and saw the danger. Next thing, I was running toward it. The transformation was absolute: I don't recall dropping the corkscrew, or getting to my feet, or making a decision, or hearing the caution Clarissa called after me. What idiocy, to be racing into this story and its labyrinths, sprinting away from our happiness among the fresh spring grasses by the oak. There was the shout again, and a child's cry, enfeebled by the wind that roared in the tall trees along the hedgerows. I ran faster. And there, suddenly, from different points around the field, four other men were converging on the scene, running like me.

I see us from two hundred feet up, through the eyes of the buzzard we had watched earlier, soaring, circling, and dipping in the tumult of currents: five men running silently toward the center of a hundred-acre field. I approached from the southeast, with the wind at my back. About two hundred yards to my left two men ran side by side. They were farm laborers who had been repairing the fence along the field's southern edge where it skirts the road. The same distance beyond them was the motorist, John Logan, whose car was banked on the grass verge with its door, or doors, wide open. Knowing what I know now, it's odd to evoke the figure of Jed Parry directly ahead of me, emerging from a line of beeches on the far side of the field a quarter of a mile away, running into the wind. To the buzzard, Parry and I were tiny forms, our white shirts brilliant against the green, rushing toward each other like lovers, innocent of the grief this entanglement would bring. The encounter that would unhinge us was minutes away, its enormity disguised from us not only by the barrier of time but by the colossus in the center of the field, which drew us in with the power of a terrible ratio that set fabulous magnitude against the puny human distress at its base.

Want to read more? Click here to continue reading the opening chapter...

A funny poem - Daddy Fell into the Pond

Everyone grumbled. The sky was grey.
We had nothing to do and nothing to say.
We were nearing the end of a dismal day,
And then there seemed to be nothing beyond,
Then Daddy fell into the pond!
And everyone's face grew merry and bright,
And Timothy danced for sheer delight.
"Give me the camera, quick, oh quick!
He's crawling out of the duckweed!" Click!
Then the gardener suddenly slapped his knee,
And doubled up, shaking silently,
And the ducks all quacked as if they were daft,
And it sounded as if the old drake laughed.
Oh, there wasn't a thing that didn't respond
When Daddy Fell into the pond!

Alfred Noyes

I found this poem on a website (click here) This Website has loads of famous poems from romance to comedy to limericks to love poetry plus more.

I chose this poem because loads of people like funny poems and this is a funny poem.
If you think this poem is good go to the website and there is loads more poetry by famous poets including Alfred Noyes. Also if you like any sort of poetry go to this website.

Huseyin 8M

Poem of the Week: 'Jabberwocky'

I hope that many of you are familiar with this poem already; but, for those of you who are not, enjoy your trip into the wild and wonderful world of Carroll's JABBERWOCK. Above all, look how he manages to tell a terrific story and paint a powerful picture - but using mostly his own made-up words...

Personally, I think the poem is far more fun WITHOUT trying to find specific meanings for all the different words - as it seems to work ANYWAY. However, if you are desperate to try and work out exactly what it all means, you might want to look at the wikipedia entry on the poem here. Alternatively, and far more fun, have a look at some of the parodies and, especially, the TRANSLATIONS of the poem on the following site, by clicking here.

And the poem? Here it is:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!'

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought--

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'

He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

Recommended Reading: Like Water For Chocolate

The setting for this irresistible story is Mexico. Tita is the youngest daughter of the De la Garza family, and as such it is her duty to stay at home and look after her mother - the formidable matriarch, Mama Elena - until her death. Forbidden to marry, Tita has to stand by and watch her childhood sweetheart, Pedro, marry her older sister, Rosaura.

Tita’s domain is the kitchen. From the womb, she has responded to the smells and sensations of Mexican cooking. Her relationship with the food she cooks is very special – even magical. When Tita is happy, those who eat her meals are filled with contentment and well being. But when Tita is sad, woe betide those who taste her food.

Each chapter in this unusual book begins with a new month and a different recipe, interweaving the preparation of the food with the events in Tita’s life. If you’re looking for something to spice up your reading, you’ll find this book as addictive and pleasurable as the chocolate in the title. Expect a sensual, unpredictable, and on occasions, explosive read that will make your nostrils twitch and your mouth water in anticipation. You may not look at the preparation of food in the same light ever again!

Here are the opening paragraphs. If you want to read the whole first chapter, click here:

Take care to chop the onion fine. To keep from crying when you chop it (which is so annoying!), I suggest you place a little bit on your head. The trouble with crying over an onion is that once the chopping gets you started and the tears begin to well up, the next thing you know you just can’t stop. I don’t know whether that’s ever happened to you, but I have to confess it’s happened to me, many times. Mama used to say it was because I was especially sensitive to onions, like my great-aunt, Tita.

Tita was so sensitive to onions, any time they were being chopped, they say she would just cry and cry; when she was still in my great-grandmother’s belly her sobs were so loud that even Nacha, the cook, who was half-deaf, could hear them easily. Once her wailing got so violent that it brought on an early labor. And before my great-grandmother could let out a word or even a whimper, Tita made her entrance in this world prematurely, right there on the kitchen table amid the smells of simmering noodle soup, thyme, bay leaves, and cilantro, steamed milk, garlic, and, of course, onion.

Recommended Reading: To Kill a Mockingbird

Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus--three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial of a young black man accused of raping a white woman. Though her story explores big themes, Harper Lee chooses to tell it through the eyes of a child. The result is a tough and tender novel of race, class, justice, and the pain of growing up.

A common feature of GCSE English courses, and one of the most famous American novels ever written, To Kill a Mockingbird is compelling from the outset - but it really does become impossible to put down once the court case begins. Highly recommended.

Here is an extract:

WHEN HE WAS nearly thirteen my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right-angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn't have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt.

When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.

I said if he wanted to take a broad view of the thing, it really began with Andrew Jackson. If General Jackson hadn't run the Creeks up the creek, Simon Finch would never have paddled up the Alabama, and where would we be if he hadn't? We were far too old to settle an argument with a fist-fight, so we consulted Atticus. Our father said we were both right.

Poem of the Week: 'Books Make Good Pets'

Books make good pets
by John Agard

Books make good pets
and don't need
going to the vet

You don't have to keep
them on a lead
or throw them a stick.
They'll wag their tails
when you flick
their dog-eared pages.

Books make good pets
and don't need
going to the vet.

One curious look sets
them purring
on the cushion of your eyes
as if to say dear browser
you've picked me up before
and thrown me aside
but I have more than nine lives
and no need to keep twiddling
that piece of string.

Books make good pets
and don't need
going to the vet.

They'll burrow their way
through the dust of your mind
nibble at old ideas
to let in the new
and you don't have to empty
any droppings on a tray.
No thank you.

Books make good pets
and don't need
going to the vet.

They'll hibernate
in the shell of their covers
and patiently wait
as long as centuries
to be rediscovered
in their own good time
when some reader rolls them over
on their cracked spine.

Books make good pets
and don't need going
to the vet.

They're easier to care
than tropical parakeets
and sometime come in pairs
but they prefer to breed
in stacks and piles.
You don't have to feed
them sunflower seed
and just about anywhere
will serve as a nesting site
and from the perch of a shelf
they'll help you take flight
among the branches of yourself.

Books make good pets
and don't need
going to the vet.

They're as colourful as goldfish
in all their stillness
and believe me this is no whim
books can glow and swim

in the bowl of your imagination.

* * * *

John Agard was born in 1949. He came to England from British Guiana in 1977, and, since then, has held some of the most important jobs in poetry, and won some of the most important poetry awards. He lives in Brighton now, with his partner, the poet, Grace Nichols. The poem above celebrates BOOKS and READING - so no surprise why I love it so much. But Agard has also written books of poetry about two other school subjects: Maths (Einstein, the Girl who hated Maths) and Science (Hello H2O). To show that I am not TOTALLY obsessed with English, here is a poem by Agard about Photosynthesis:

When sunlight dances
on the tips
of leaves

and plants for joy
open their lips
and drink it in

and the breeze
makes a violin
of every tree

and even weeds
one by one
cry out for a kiss

of light and carbon -
a sheer spree of green.
Is this what they mean

by photosynthesis?

Poem of the Week: Sunny Prestatyn

One of the most popular of all English poets, Philip Larkin has come to represent all that is cynical, sarcastic and pessimistic about the English way of life. I was going to post his poem, 'This Be The Verse', but I shied away from publishing the f*** word on the blog: instead, you will have to click here to read that damning indictment of the human species. Alternatively, I have decided to share with you this slice of Larkinian misanthropy: 'Sunny Prestatyn', a poem about a billboard poster for a sunny, Welsh resort - which has been subjected to so much graffiti its message has been lost. In Larkin's view, we might all wish to find our own Sunny Prestatyn, but what we will inevitably be faced with is something far more grim: or, in other words, life is rubbish...and then you die. I promise to post a more cheerful poem next week! :)

'Sunny Prestatyn'
by Philip Larkin

Come to Sunny Prestatyn
Laughed the girl on the poster,
Kneeling up on the sand
In tautened white satin.
Behind her, a hunk of coast, a
Hotel with palms
Seemed to expand from her thighs and
Spread breast-lifting arms.

She was slapped up one day in March.
A couple of weeks, and her face
Was snaggle-toothed and boss-eyed;
Huge tits and a fissured crotch
Were scored well in, and the space
Between her legs held scrawls
That set her fairly astride
A tuberous cock and balls

Autographed Titch Thomas, while
Someone had used a knife
Or something to stab right through
The moustached lips of her smile.
She was too good for this life.
Very soon, a great transverse tear
Left only a hand and some blue.
Now Fight Cancer is there.

Recommended Reading: The Handmaid's Tale

In the world of the near future, who will control women's bodies?

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are only valued if their ovaries are viable.

Offred can remember the days before, when she lived and made love with her husband Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now....

Have any of you ever heard of 1984? It is a terrifying novel by George Orwell about a horrible futuristic world where everyone's every move and thought is controlled by the government. Scary stuff! The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Attwood, however, is even more scary - and made all the more so by how convincing and believable this nightmarish vision is.

Here is a brief extract from the novel:

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that were formerly played there; the hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone. A balcony ran around the room, for the spectators, and I thought I could smell, faintly like an afterimage, the pungent scent of sweat, shot through with the sweet taint of chewing gum and perfume from the watching girls, felt-skirted as I knew from pictures, later in miniskirts, then pants, then in one earring, spiky green-streaked hair. Dances would have been held there; the music lingered, a palimpsest of unheard sound, style upon style, an undercurrent of drums, a forlorn wail, garlands made of tissue-paper flowers, cardboard devils, a revolving ball of mirrors, powdering the dancers with a snow of light.

There was old sex in the room and loneliness, and expectation, of something without a shape or name. I remember that yearning, for something that was always about to happen and was never the same as the hands that were on us there and then, in the small of the back, or out back, in the parking lot, or in the television room with the sound turned down and only the pictures flickering over lifting flesh.

We yearned for the future. How did we learn it, that talent for insatiability? It was in the air; and it was still in the air, an afterthought, as we tried to sleep, in the army cots that had been set up in rows, with spaces between so we could not talk. We had flannelette sheets, like children's, and army-issue blankets, old ones that still said U.S. We folded our clothes neatly and laid them on the stools at the ends of the beds. The lights were turned down but not out. Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrolled; they had electric cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts.

No guns though, even they could not be trusted with guns. Guns were for the guards, specially picked from the Angels. The guards weren't allowed inside the building except when called, and we weren't allowed out, except for our walks, twice daily, two by two around the football field, which was enclosed now by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. The Angels stood outside it with their backs to us. They were objects of fear to us, but of something else as well. If only they would look. If only we could talk to them. Something could be exchanged, we thought, some deal made, some tradeoff, we still had our bodies. That was our fantasy.

We learned to whisper almost without sound. In the semidarkness we could stretch out our arms, when the Aunts weren't looking, and touch each other's hands across space. We learned to lip-read, our heads flat on the beds, turned sideways, watching each other's mouths. In this way we exchanged names, from bed to bed:

Alma. Janine. Dolores. Moira. June.