The Bat Detector by Elizabeth Barrett

So readers I have been procrastinating furiously in an attempt to justify the slow rate of job applications and as a result have started a promotions company, http://www.myspace.com/erranttentacles

The inspiration for this is that the past few Northern Oak gigs I have D.I.Y.ed and so I've decided to give myself a more professional air rather than just 'Can I book your venue for my band please?' and organise some more events while I'm at it.

As well as metal concerts, I have been thinking about organising poetry/spoken word events. For not only would I like to see more of them but it would give me an excuse to get off my arse and write more so I can perform myself. Now I have managed to hunt down 'The Inky' and I've found out about the organisation that produces it (Signposts just off division street) and also discovered the Poetry Business, both of which I am planning to go down and have a chat with at some point soon.

This research has reminded me though of last poet I paid to see perform. She was my teacher for a writing poetry module I signed up for in first year of university. Elizabeth Barrett. I'm not sure if it's a fit of nostalgia or something else but I wouldd like to see her again and ask her how she is. A quick trawl of the internet has not turned up much.

When I went to see her perform, it was during a Sheffield 'Off The Shelf' festival. I *think* it was 2006 either way it was definitely my second academic year. She was reading from her book 'The Bat Detector' which was interpersed with some music by a friend. I turned up in good time to buy a copy of the book and get a seat. While waiting for it to start she actually came up to me and confessed she was suprised that I was there, I told her I wanted to experience the book which she'd mentioned a number of times during the course for which she thanked me and signed my copy.

The title poem from the book is a particularly good one
http://www.wreckingballpress.com/html/barrett.php

It's a brilliant piece to read aloud as Barrett has put a lot of care into the sound. I know that she personally has no interest in technology so lines such as list resistor, capacitor and circuit board, are clearly there only because she likes how they roll off the tongue.

After the scene has been set with the explanation of the detector, Barrett goes on to explore the nature of communication. Revealing to us how much his attempts to understand the bats is damaging what little he had with his family.

When I first read the poem I had thought that the situation and account here was fictional but it became all the more piercing and poignant hearing it live. As she talked about this period in her life and I had to accept it as a piece of her past and once reality.

The final lines
You are adjusting your volume control, turning
down the sound of me, wailing on long wave -
pitching my 20kHz calls down the stairs.
are not only clever plays on what has gone before but an additional sign of desperation as she attempts to speak with him in his own terms.

---

When I saw her live the thing that struck me most about her performance, was that she ran through an entire chapter of the book but skipped out the first poem. It was about her [then] husband discovering empty contraceptive pill packets in the bin and realising that she was cheating on him. I still wonder why she would be bold enough to put it in print but not prepared to read it to an audience.

Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

So we Northern Oak types were in the peaks last weekend working on a music video for Bloodstock unsigned. I fully expect it to be damned embarassing but at least it means you will all be able to have a good laugh!

While having lunch in a pub, Chris told Rich that he had no decorum (which in all honesty our Northern Bloke doesn't!) and then commented on it being a very satisfying word. Well the word makes me think of this war poem which I have dug out.

http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html

Poems can have a number of purposes but some of the best are those that can paint a scene so vividly that you can see it clearly with your mind's eye.

Immediately Owen frames the scene for us by picking out all the little details; the state of the men, that they are missing shoes and the calibre of shells being used. The verbs are also chosen to dramatic effect; they 'curse' through the mud and the fatigue is so great and intoxicating that they are left 'drunk' on it.

The second stanza is the most graphic. As we see soldiers go through the motions of protecting themselves from gas, only to appreciate the horror as one man does not get his mask on in time. The first and only mention of colour is the green of the mask's visor and it consumes both the narrator's and our view of the scene. Forcing us into some terrifying otherworld as the soldier who plunges at him now and again in his nightmares. We wonder if we might see him in our own at night.

The actual language itself deserves a special mention, not for the imagery but the way it sounds. Say aloud to yourself

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud / Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,

Feel the way your mouth contorts as you say the two lines. There is no pleasant way to say them, you are forced into exhaling harsh sounds which mirror the vulgar imagery of the poem.

It all combines to make us believe him completely, that the claim it is 'sweet and right to die for your country' is a lie.

To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell

Time for something light hearted me thinks. After last nights post I ended up having a rather intense dream where I was a Seargent in charge of a dimly lit submarine during a war, a field day for Freud I am sure...

http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/coy.htm

One of my all time favourite films is 2046. Tony Leung is one sexy beast and if I ever become as handsome and dashing to women as he is, I could easily imagine myself whispering into a young girls ear with a roguish smile,

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.

However that is perhaps the only vaguely charming line within the poem and no matter how finely I attire myself I will never be the sort of man to woo women in bars.

Our cassanova Marvell carries off the poem in clunky rhyming couplets and what worries me is that this might have actually worked upon his object of affection! Although a big part of that is my ongoing angst against predictable rhyming. Also, though he tries to pass himself off as a noble soul by assuring her he would devote years to the praise of each of her parts, his other phrases he uses are some the least romantic possible!

I mean how can you read the lines,

My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow

and not think of the man's 'marrow'? My GCSE English teacher certainly struggled and so quickly passed over these lines. This is nothing compared to his threat in the second stanza, that should he not be allowed to take her virginity then the maggots will do so when she dies!

Gentlemen (or ladies of that inclination), if any of you find a woman upon which the line, "Can I eat you out before the maggots do?" works I will bow to your courage while wondering what manner of being you have just pulled.

The poem is good fun but really not one I'd recommend for winning a girl's affections...

Astronaut: A Short History of Nearly Nothing by Amanda Palmer

http://whokilledamandapalmer.com/song.php?track=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O6GqCwjh-k

I know that Amanda Palmer put out a companion to her album. So I am sure if we paid the pennies we could grab her explanation of the song and see some witty asides from Neil Gaiman. However you are reading my blog, so you will be getting my thoughts upon it for free!

The song starts by posing a question. Taking the voice of the Astonaut's lover, Amanda asks if it is enough to have some love? Then declares that she is still not getting what she wants as if it's an answer. No, it is not enough. However the entirety of the song is about how missing the astronaut has become their existence, how they are prepared to live their their life as an afterthought. They may not be getting want they want, they may not be happy now but there was time so perfect that it justifies the wait. Surely that kind of love, no matter how small, is enough?

The line that sticks out the most for me is "I want to touch the back of your right arm". I imagine there is a specific story behind why she wants to touch them there but for me it captures a key aspect of relationships; the little things. Those mannerisms which your learn over time and can't help but find cute, being able to tell what is on their mind or maybe just a certain smile. That simply being able to touch their arm or embrace them can be enough.

The final verse, where Amanda's voice becomes barely audible, she proposes that the lover left behind is left exploring as deep and dark a void as the astronaut. I think the metaphor is clear enough.

Right now for me though, it raises the question of how a life should be lived. The astronaut had career and ambition, which we accept and applaud and yet we deem the lover who stayed at home an afterthought. They both found themselves alone in the emptiness, is it really justified to differentiate them?

I had been on a path to being my own form of astronaut in my chosen industry. It has left its mark, the nodes of my neural network have strengthened so that the business words roll more easily off my tongue and the ideas and values lurk in my consciousness (There is a bit for £@#%ing me L.E.B.). If I were to truly succeed, I would have had to commit myself completely to the company. Now my development along that trajectory is at a standstill I wonder, am I still heading to that void? Am I in one now?

I wish you could remind me who I was / because every day I'm a little further off

Mirror by Sylvia Plath

http://www.sylviaplathforum.com/mirror.html

This poem always makes me think that there are some pains I will never truly appreciate having been born to the house of man. I can't say I've ever been a fan of the mirror but Plath gives it an insidious sense of villiany, like the vile friend that we continue to trust no matter how much it hurts us.

I have to question though, who the true liar is? Yes we can gaze into the inverted pool of the mirror and see every spot, line and the barely visible scar but that is not how we see each other. We look at each other beneath the streaming sunlight, in the semi-darkness of pubs and venues and in drunken capers beneath the moonlight. At which point do we really see the 'truths' of the mirror? Psychology has certainly found no evidence of this in our memories.

It's why I hate photographs, they never look true.

The final line of the poem is incredibly vivd, like some hag rising from the dark depths where only the angler fish and other obscene lightless creature reside, opening its maw of scattered remaining teeth to swallow some poor beautiful woman whole.

Pig Destroyer - One Funeral Too Many

All star-crossed and starry eyed innocence pulled away by maturity's tide,
loneliness as the void into which all this warped obsession is cast,
shyness as the dam denying the river its ultimate purpose,
deafened by all the silent laughter under the whispered promises,
which rusted down to jagged lies anyway,
stab me again my sweet little murderer.

Whatever you may may think of grindcore and Pig Destroyer, JR Hayes is a damned poet and if I become anywhere near as good a lyricist as him I will be a very happy man.

Leading from the Shakespeare, quote he deftly leads us through a maelstrom of emotions in such dazzling, succint lines. Each metaphor so provocative, my favourite being shyness as a dam. How many romances never unfurled their petals because neither party had to courage to utter three words to the other? The thought of jagged lies hanging in the pregnant pauses between couples, like minature swords of Damocles threatening to destroy everything, is so stark and beautiful.

The final line is not just some visceral hook, its the admission that as much pain as it causes him he would do it again.

If you did not listen out then all of this would be lost in the song that is not even a minute and desperately needs better recording and production. It is certainly an arguement for why Hayes should include more spoken word in PxDx or do seperate readings. However it wouldn't capture the violence of the emotions. some things need to stream out in a fit of rage. It's what they are.

Some things are meant to last 3 years and 3 months, others 54 seconds.

Twitter Haiku 4/3/10

Transmitters Sluggish.
Synapses bow at the sides,
filled with junk hormones.


M. Collins 2010, tweeted on http://twitter.com/ThereIsNoEnd