So once again it is Friday. This day happens on a regular basis, but it is gone before you know it. I have a whole weekend ahead of me to think of poems for an assignment. I need one ripe with plenty of words, words that look good in any combination, words easy to use but rich in flavour. (Do excuse me I've been watching Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers).
Firstly, I thought about using Night Mail by WH Auden but I cannot induce doggerel, so I'll need another. DON'T EVER SUGGEST WORDSWORTH TO ME! What do we do when we are seeking inspiration and wandering the videoblogosphere? We go to the friend of the procrastinator; You Tube. You're lucky, it's not chicken olympics this time but something utterly terrifying; OLD RADIO SPEAKING!
Haunting bellowing tones. W.B Yeats' recordings incite fear at the very thought. I wouldn't sound so scary reading out a poem, but their voices bellow over vale and yonder, drenched in sadness and woe.
I can't type any more I'm trying to find videos of Nancy Mitford speaking quaintly on the eccentricities of her life. BRB etc.
So I am sat here practicing modelled reading; that is to expressively read aloud. I'm using one of my own poems to practice. I am also googling red Ford Mondeos. All will become clear. It made me think though, think of all the useless things I look up on a daily basis. Aside from the Morrissey videos and make up tutorials I found myself keying the letters c-h-i-c-k-e-n-o-l-y-m-p-i-c-s. Yep, that's right. CHICKEN OLYMPICS. What an earth is going on there? Do you even want to know? (There was a slightly humorous advert with a chicken doing a triple jump.) The worst part of this is, I couldn't even find the Happy Egg Company advert where I saw it. What I did find was someone videoing chickens in a race.
Here you are, my pleasure etc.
Well the strange thing is, I could have thought about these chickens all day. I could have looked up breeds of chicken. I could have looked for another word to describe the chicken's feathers? pelt? who cares? How they pecked angrily around nonchalantly crossing the finishing line. Think up a half rhyme for Usian Bolt. What for exactly? I don't know but it gives me something to talk about here. So if I think of these things on average 468 times a day, what else do I do?
Eventually, I found an image of a red mondeo. It isn't even that exciting.
An Apology to the Great Red Shark
It served me
well
travelled
for fifty
thousand miles.
Was spacious
bright;
The Great Red
Shark.
Bumper
cracked,
dented
wing, but.
But I’m sorry
it just had
to go.
Be replaced
with
something
so cool
so old.
At the time of writing this, I was well and truly in the throes of love for William Carlos Williams. Something about tangible everyday object you say? YES please I say. When I asked @timkeypoet what his favourite poem was he told me it was 'This Is Just To Say'. It is safe to say I am now in throes of writerly admiration for Tim Key.
