Maylis Besserie : Scattered Love

Maylis Besserie’s first novel based on the life of Samuel Beckett was awarded the Prix Goncourt. She is fortunate to have as her translator Clíona Ní Ríordáin, a lecturer in Irish Literature at the University of Notre Dame. Set in the nursing home, the Résidence Tier Temps, where Beckett spent the last few months of his life, her book was an elegant and compassionate account of Beckett’s life and work. The only fault I could find with it was the English title Yell, Sam, If You Still Can; why not call the The Third Age, as in the original French?

Rosemary Tonks : The Bloater

Rosemary Tonks was an intriguing woman and now seems to be becoming something of a cult figure. Born in 1928 she published stories for children while still in her teens. In the 1960’s she was involved in a collaboration with Delia Derbyshire in the BBC Radiophonic workshop. Derbyshire had studied music and mathematics at Cambridge, and after she was refused a job at Decca, ‘we don’t employ women’ she went to the BBC and did some radical work there. Rosemary Tonks, who by the 1960’s was an avant-garde poet, joined with her in a program called Sono-Montage. This was described as ‘An experiment in combining spoken poetry with electronically produced sounds.’

obsequious

I was walking through the streets of Maldon, a small country town, at a folk festival. A group of Morris Dancers with jingling bells, another group of guitarists lustiiy singing Click go the Shears, but who was this man seated on a stool with a very old style typewriter on a small table in front of him?

Of course I asked, and found he was the Psychic Poet. For a small sum and a word of one’s own choosing he would craft a poem in ten minutes. How could I resist?

obsequious was my word (a young friend had said to me earlier in the week that he thought it was a rather good word) I then had to give a definition. I said,’ Excessively polite, fawning even.’

This is what he came up with. I thought it was rather good.

obsequious

too many words

salted with politeness

rushing in with tongues wagging

& hands full of words too

expressions

in action

tailoring in full colour

with the breeze of over acting

in total control

of their friendliness

enough of them

cruising into our vein

of the night

we just want quiet time

together

gordon donaldson maldon 5th november 2023

insta:psychic poet

John Carey : A Little History of Poetry

If music is sound organised in a particular way, poetry is a way of organising language. It is language made special, so that it will be remembered and valued.

John Burnside: The Night Ferry

W.S. Merwin 1927-2019

 

The great W.S. Merwin died on March 15 at the age of 91.  His best-known poem perhaps is For The Anniversary Of My Death:

Ash on an old man’s sleeve…….