The one where he brings poetry month to a close with a poem ...

I want to bring poetry month to a close with – guess what – a poem. Predictable, no?

But which one? And by which poet?

Then I decided that it should be one of my own. (Because frankly, dear reader, it’s all about me.)

But which one? So many to choose from.

It needs to have already been published – so if anyone “steals” it the impact is minimal. (Who am I kidding? Impact. We’re talking about poetry, dude.)

Do we want funny? Moving? Sweet? (Scratch that. I don’t do sweet.) Hard-hitting? Thought-provoking? Political? Or one about a royal wedding?

Just messing with you. Don’t do weddings either.

Then this poem popped into my head. Probably because I visited the source of it yesterday with the wee fella and the pup.

The photograph is of a sculpture made by one of Scotland’s best kept secrets – the super talented Ronnie Rae. Go HERE  for more details.

Ronnie was opening an exhibition in the gardens of Holyrood in Edinburgh in May 2006 – right by the palace and the Scottish Parliament building. All sorts of dignitaries were in attendance and Ronnie asked the Makar Press Poets (Sheila Templeton, Rowena M. Love, Jim Hughes and moi) to mark the occasion with a few poems.

He has some pieces on permanent exhibition in Rozelle Park, Ayr just a couple of miles from my home. So I dragged the wee fella along for a visit. (He was totally unimpressed. Thought his dad was a weirdo, staring at a clump of hewn stone.) He was eight-ish at the time and said those immortal words "I can't believe you are actually my dad."

The picture above shows one of the pieces and the one that got the words flowing for me. It’s called Golgotha Madonna and the statue allowed me to shift away from a lifetime of hyperbole and brainwashing and ceremony and think about the human story. This was a real-life woman whose only son was being horribly punished – tortured and crucified. As a parent, you can’t begin to imagine the pain she was in.

Like with anything else in life you are rarely aware of the impact you have. Until the kind and the brave point it out to you. Jim Hughes had a quiet word in my ear after the event. "This poem,’ he said, "Really moved me. I sat in the quiet and thought about your words and Jesus’ mother in Golgotha and I don’t mind telling you I couldn't stop crying."

That’s the power of poetry, people.

Anywho, time to let the words speak for themselves and to thank you for allowing me this indulgence throughout the poetry month of April. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

Golgotha Madonna

Her head shelters under the bridge

of a concrete arm.

Lower limbs crushed in silent squat

as if

the simple act of standing

would push up the sky,

make the stars fall

and drown in our oceans.

As if

the simple act of standing

would colour the world

gray with lack.

As if

all she needs

is my touch.

My blessing.

Guest Blog: Morgan Kenney

Time for another dose of clever folks talking about poetry.

Today it's the turn of my good friend, Morgan Kenney.

I met Morgan about 15 years ago at a writers' conference. I had written about 6 poems and half a dozen chapters of a novel. He had the good grace to listen to my witterings, uninterrupted for what must have felt like hours.

Later on I learned he had forgotten more about poetry than I will ever know.

But something in me sparked the teacher in him and he became a huge influence in the burgeoning of any talent I possess. Before I met Morgan I enjoyed words. Over the years he has taught me to love and appreciate language.

I asked him if he would guest on this here blog. His task - to talk about what poetry meant to him. This is what he had to say ...

Language liberated humanity from the cave. Poetry liberated language from basic meaning, led us to explore inner space, enabled us to express intangible experience and feelings.

Poets are tuned to the magic of spoken sound, to the creative possibility of the combination of words into surprising and revealing images, to potential rhythm.

Poetry is jewel-words, multi-faceted, casting multi-coloured light on experience.

Poetry is elastic words, stretching into unsuspected areas of meaning; suggesting there is more than seems to be there; tempting daring interpretation.

Poetry is stimulating words that force us to reconsider set-pattern reactions, to allow new revelations to wash over our accepted reality, leaving us with new insights and a sharpened vision.

Poetry is sound … a song of life … a magical combination of sound into lush melody … words that sing with the crystal beauty of sparkling vowels, the soul of music …a combination of sharp vowels and long, soothing vowels … sounds positioned carefully so that they blend harmoniously or contrast dramatically.

Poetry is rhythm … words ordered artfully to produce a flow of rhythm that is relevant to the meaning.

Poetry is pattern … pattern in sound … pattern in shape … pattern in order of words … fresh pattern in the combination and mixture of words.

Poetry is influence … an attempt to describe and explain the individuality of the senses and thought … an attempt to kick-start the imagination of others … to heighten the sensitivity of others’ perception … to make a haunting impact of suggestion, a fugitive impression that defies analysis, description …  to produce moments of bright satisfaction.

Poetry cannot correct the problems of the world, but it can suggest there is a truth that lies beyond our individual realities; a truth that encompasses a greater universe than the one limited by our senses; a multi-levelled truth to be investigated, enjoyed and treasured.

  

A view from the man with the red pen ....

Now another special edition of May Contain Nuts for Poetry Month.

Alan MacGlas is publications editor of New Voices Press, the main publishing imprint of the Federation of Writers (Scotland) (details available at www.writersfederation.org.uk) and of Sawmill, the special imprint of the Scottish Association of Writers (details available at www.sawriters.org.uk).

 

He likes to put on his special editor face and pretend he's all curmudgeonly when he's actually very charming and as witty as the Witmeister living in Wit House, Wit Avenue, Cleverclogsville.

He says he's not touting for business, but if anyone wants to hire him he can be reached through either site.

Without any further ado, here's what the big man with the red pen has to say ...

There are questions that people often ask me at parties, such as, “Who are you?” and “How did you get in?” and “Would you please leave?”  The answers are never easy.  Sitting on the kerb with my feet in the gutter after being thrown out of a party is a moment that lends itself to contemplation of the deeper meanings and revelations of life.  It is a moment when I might, if I could, look up at the stars, and wonder at such calm beauty in the midst of the chaos and cacophony of eighties music still drifting out of the premises from which I have just been defenestrated.  But I can see no stars; for the inscrutable laws of the universe decree that it will always be raining at such moments, and I am aware only that my shoes, so elegant in the illusions of dry daylight, are rapidly assuming the guise and weight of gum-saturated cardboard around my feet in the gurgling effluent.  Instead, certain bitter realizations come to me, about life, failure, and the manifest pairing thereof within my corpus.  I do not complain.  Failure is the stuff of art.  Look at Vincent Van Gogh.  Look at Andrew Lloyd Webber.  I am intimately acquainted with failure.  I know failure from the inside and the out.  That’s why I am such a perfect editor.

To prove my credentials, I offer you the following five words: “I am a editor.”

To this, I hear your immediate riposte: “That’s only four words, and one of them is incorrect.”

So you think you’re an editor?  You think that’s how easy it is?  You think there’s room in this gutter for two, with the sodden dead leaves piling up against your obstant feet?  Think twice, madam, think thrice, sir, before venturing into the cloacal (note from MM – yeah, I had to look it up too) torrent.  And here’s why.

Re-examine my sentence.  The information you were afforded prior to reading it was that there were five words.  If you can count only four, then obviously one is missing; but why assume an error?  The mere fact that I am drawing it to your attention shows that I was fully aware of the omission, and presumably had ample time to mend it.  Therefore the omission was deliberate; in which case, you, as editor, must assume that I, the creative artist, had a purpose.  Now you have work to do, for it is not the business of artists to explain their purposes; it is their business only to create art.  It is for you, the viewer, listener or reader, to deduce the artist’s purpose, if any, or to construct, create or realize it, if the artist so bids.  In this particular case, deduction is possible.  The place of the missing word is indicated by the fault between ‘a’ and ‘editor’.  What kind of word goes between an article and a noun?  Usually, an adjective.  In this case, since the article is ‘a’, the adjective must begin with a consonant.  There are twenty-one consonants to choose from, but let us suppose it is F, for fun.  So reconstruct the sentence.  It now reads: “I am a f… editor.”  So far, so good.  Now, clearly it is an adjective that signals its presence by its absence.  What sort of adjective would that be?  One that is despised or even taboo in common speech… And so on.

That preceding paragraph has taken more than two hundred words to explain to you just one example, in the examination of a single, small, banal and superfluous sentence, of what it takes to be an editor.  I am faced with the task of deconstructing and interpreting thousands upon thousands of such sentences, in prose and poetry scribbled by the talented and the differently talented, the hopeful and hopeless multitudes of literary Scotland, all of whom will receive my approval as no more than rightful recognition of their genius, or my modest suggestions for revision as the jealous ravings of an arrogant brick-brained philistine.  Ecce vivus editori.  You still want to join me in the gutter?  Bring a bottle.

Oh, the f-word… Freelance.

© Alan MacGlas 2011