2 posts tagged “poetry”

Hi again

I started work last September as a 'Learning Support Assistant' in a local high school. Yesterday, as the title suggests, I sat in on an English Literature mock exam, to check that the cheeky buggers didn't cheat and to help with any problems that might crop up. It was the first time I'd been asked to fill this role. The dreaded words were spoken: 'You have one hour and 45 minutes to complete the paper. Pick up your pens. You may begin!'

Most of the room of 13 boys and one girl did nothing, just sat twiddling, tapping, slouching, sneering, grinning inanely. The girl wrote manically and eventually four or five of the lads had a go... the rest did barely anything. It affected me. I could have cried. Not at them, for them.

I've been in class with some of them over the last five months and, shame on me, thought they were mainly a pain in the arse: disruptive, uncooperative, sometimes even violent. But yesterday I felt sorry for them. I could always see their behaviour was a front, a cover for their insecurity, but as they sat silently, uncomfortably alone, they looked painfully lost. It was very poignant. They are 16 years old and English is their first language, though they can barely read The Beano or write a note for the milkman. There is little doubt that, in their ignorance, their parents have failed them. The school has failed them too despite the wonderful staff's best efforts. And so has the system.

As I walked between the desks I picked up a redundant 'Anthology' and began to read Ben Johnson's 'On my first sonne'. It's a fantastic poem and, being the father of a seven year-old boy, it has touched me deeply. An idea spontaneously sprung into my mind and I wrote this when I got home, using some of the original's language and form. I compared the pause before the exam to the one before the Battle of the Somme. The ages of many of the boys in both scenarios would be similar. Their immediate fates would be different - no-one normally faces death in an exam room - but the hopelessness of the two situations was what tied them together. Both are a tragic waste of young life.

On my first Somme

Fare well my boys, but how did we prepare thee

Without hope or sense to grasp the gravity?

Five years you were lent to us, the chance was brief

To engage you; now we daily share the bell’s relief.

Reluctant recruits! Soon the dreaded call will come:

‘Pick up your swords, the hour is marked – it has begun’.

Death’s face grins and sneers among the ordered rows,

Armed with feigned indifference to fend the blows

This day will rain. Now, truly, here doth lie

Ben Johnson’s best piece of poetry.

The greatest shame as I see them fall?

What I love they will never like at all.

Hi
What a day! I solved a personal dilemma and created a new art form, simultaneously (like when Michelangelo tried to hide the cracks in that ceiling): I wrote some words, more of a poem really, and couldn't come up with a melody. I tried and tried, even submerging myself in Mozart/Bach/Jeff Wayne for a while, but all to no avail. Then a thought hit me!

Why not have meaty drum loops and sparse musical accompaniment and simply 'talk' (yes, that's right!) the words over the top? I tried it - it works! No honest! It does. I experimented with it too, doubling up the last word or two of each line (as if there's a couple of other people with me, trying to finish off my sentence - you know, like your wife does), adding 'eerie' glissando strings; I even added oblique, even explicit, references to guns, drugs, racism, sexism, Princess Diana and violence, and even that couldn't spoil it: it just always works!. I tried it over the backing track of a well known song too, and that works also... it's foolproof. And if - for all art by its very nature is fallible - it seems to be going to all the wrong places, just say the magic word: Yo!... and it all, miraculously, gets back on track.

Now in a creative frenzy, I even came up with further, but more visual ways to add the expression that a melody usually gives to music: I've found that by shrugging your shoulders slightly and holding your fingers in a Mork from Ork 'Nanu nanu' configuration, many human emotions can be instantly and beautifully conveyed. When I do the video (which will be soon I hope, but I am still honing this part of the performance) you will be both moved and amazed.

I call it, rather unfortunately but also very anti-establishment-ly, 'Crap music': Creative reading and poetry - though I am prepared to split 60/40 on the rights to a better name if you can impress me.

For now, the first mix will have to suffice - I'm so excited, I cannot postpone its posting any longer. It's still laden with my old cultural references, of which many, due to my recent epiphany, are now extinct; eg: folky acoustic guitar, jazzy brushed drum loop, melodic double-bass, la-la-la singalong chorus, humour. Ignore all that though and you can see where this is heading. Don't anyone else try it - not without permission anyway - because it's mine and I'm going to patent it. Now, let it roll! And let me know what you think - Jazzy Al