Another ground-breaking moment in public exhibitionism. I was reading with Mike Stocks for the National Poetry Association of Scotland this week and I had that devil-may-care attitude which in some people (I am one of them) is nurtured by sheer exhaustion. So I decided to read the companion poem to my How (Not) to Get Your Poetry Published. It does not appear inside that little volume, but it is certainly a kind of offshoot. It is titled The Poetry Submission Carol and belongs to the ‘unsuitable’ genre.
This work of art has not yet seen the light of print, although Martin Parker thinks he will use it in Lighten Up Online in the Summer, once he has got my latest set of adjustments, which he doesn’t yet know about.
You see this poem follows the pattern of that memorable ditty ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’, although in my case, it starts “The first time I tried it / I sent my poetry / To Picador (Paterson. D.)”
Those perceptive readers amongst you will note that this carol (like most carols) is actually supposed to be carolled i.e. sung. So I decided to sing it. During my rehearsal at home, I discovered (predicably) that although it looked okay on paper, it didn’t totally sing okay. I had to change bits. Now it is much better, and towards the end, it is deeply and darkly satisfying to anyone who has ever experienced a smidgeon of bitterness towards uncaring poetry publishers. All it requires is a person who can sing.
About thirty years ago I could sing a bit — and not too badly, provided a few other people were singing along. But when you don’t do this kind of thing for decades, the voice crumbles. Still, I decided to go for it, and sang all thirteen (sic) verses with gusto. There was even a wee element of people merrily joining in with the last line.
So there we go. My reputation as a serious poet one stage further down the tubes. And now they know I can’t sing…
Mike wisely did not try to warble. However, he read masterfully. He is an expert sonneteer, who can turn that form to almost any end. There are poems in his sonnet collection Folly which make you laugh. The one he referred to as his ‘signature poem’ makes me cry. And the unpublished one about breasts, written when he was twenty-four, was a tour de force.