Poetry Workshop Radio 4

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012wcln#synopsis

It might not hit the headlines with the same lurid intensity as some of the more graphic and gratuitous horror films have done in the past but Radio 4's new series, which seems to be occasional, and hidden away in the quiet 4.30 Sunday afternoon slot, Poetry Workshop, promises to provide shudders and shivers as harrowing as any of the more mainstream chillers.
Ruth Padel goes to a local poetry workshop and takes part in their discussion of each other's poems. It is one of the cruellest and most difficult things anyone can be put through. Not only for the poet, most of who think that their work is worthy of such scrutiny, but also for the other poets whose turn it isn't, who have to find kind words to say about the poem in question before guardedly and as politely as possible suggesting a minor improvement that might be made in order to transform the lines into a classic.
Cringe by cringe one listens to the poet adopt one of the default poetry reading settings- e.g. soft and caressing, carefully enunciated, deeply in thrall, etc.- and deliver lines they wouldn't dare use with friends and family but seem to think fellow poets will be impressed by. They have worked hard and they do think this is what poetry should be like and so you can hardly blame them but then the precious devices have to be picked over and considered until everyone's been done and they all go home with the happy glow of having been fulfilled.
It really can be quite horrific and for my part I'd rather my poems remained utterly without merit rather than be bandaged and re-made by others into something they thought they liked a bit better. If I like my own poem that is all I need. If anybody else likes it, that's fine but it can't make me feel any better if I don't.
In this first programme, Ruth went to Exeter. I've heard worse poems than all of them but none of them did much for me. It was mostly the usual agony of the process that distracted from any enjoyment. Until the last poem by Rachel McCarthy which sounded promising so I looked her up afterwards. She's only got her own Wikipedia entry, books published and an Arts show on the radio. It's not surprising she came across quite well. Her poem was a different class.
The programme has a gory allure and a grim fascination. It might even have the same effect as a horror film in making it impossible to sleep afterwards. One keeps thinking you heard someone say, 'I really liked the metaphor about the sycamore tree.' There's going to be another one in October. I hope I don't miss it.

Danny Baker Desert Island Discs

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012wcl4

Worth a look.

Forget What Read

Having noted a few weeks ago that I'd hardly read any books, I now realize that I can remember hardly any of those that I have read. Remind me, what happens at the end of Atonement; what are the names of the characters in Birdsong; what was the difference between A Wild Sheep Chase and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle? But, most of all, remind me never to do Contemporary Fiction as a specialist subject on Mastermind.

I do remember quite well some of the books we read at school and wrote essays about and I do retain a general impression of what books were about and what certain writers are like. I can do you an impromptu lecture on The Woodlanders whenever you're ready and I'll outline some main points about Patrick Hamilton if required. But reading Revolutionary Road again after only a few years, it came almost as fresh off the page as when I'd first read it.

I'm always impressed by academics who seem to be able to talk about, and certainly know about, almost any writer you care to mention. Perhaps there's a special trick to that. But it's a minefield getting engaged in any discussion with them because it's only a matter of time before they take you off piste and I'm floundering like a complete illiterate.

There's nothing to be done about this, of course. It's not as if I actually need to remember any of this and nowadays I'll abandon a book at an early stage if I'm not enjoying it. It's for enjoyment, not self improvement, that I read books. Amateur in the real sense of 'for the love of it', not professional. It really doesn't matter but it does come as a bit of a scare when one wants to talk about a book you know you've read and you try to find it in your memory and there's nothing there. This Side of Paradise? Sure, let me see, now. No, I'm sorry, I can remember almost nothing about it.

There is a big advantage to this, which is I have quite a large collection of books that I can return to at any time and they'll be as good as new. That might come in useful, and occasionally has, when one knows there must be thousands of titles one ought to read but one simply doesn't know which of them to try.

Opera in the Park

Opera in the Park, Victoria Park, Portsmouth, 30 July

When, next winter, the burghers of Portsmouth are complaining that the council haven't cleared their icy pavements for three weeks they will have to bear in mind that popular classics were provided for free in the park on a summer evening and that money can only be spent once.

Opera Interludes are available for corporate events to add a bit of class to companies who either see themselves as 'top end' or want others to think so. It would be uncharitable to point out that these singers are appearing in the park in Portsmouth at the height of the season and not in Covent Garden because they are making an honest bob and dishing out the Verdi and Bizet with some gusto, which is sometimes necessary when the train line runs right behind the stage and the Guild Hall bells chime the hour midway through an aria. I didn't think the train went past until Act 2 of La Traviata. A properly sumptuous One Fine Day benefits from the whole orchestral setting rather than piano accompaniment and the delicate textures of Voi Che Sapete are lost in this simplified, common denominator setting of picnics and bring-your-own cheap booze. But let's not be churlish and miss the point with snooty remarks when it was all put on for free and offered great tunes to the masses, just like ought to happen more often in any utopian civilisation. Baritone David Stephenson took the highest honours with the necessary power to impose himself on the situation, John Pierce did us a worthy Nessun Dorma and a particularly good Largo al Factotum by David had him in among the audience before timing his arrival back on stage to answer a call on his mobile phone with, 'Figaro...Figaro, Figaro, Figaro'. Well done.

Naomi Harvey and Charlotte Stephenson did such things as the Flower Duet before leading a miniature Last Night of the Proms with Rule Britannia, Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory. I realize that Jerusalem is probably the only one of these that one should join in with but by now I think the others must just be ironic while still providing a damned good opportunity to sing.

I was in two minds whether to go but it was a pleasant evening and with the favourites having won the two big races at Goodwood for me, thought I'd better make a day of it. Then I come home to find that two more winners at Lingfield had given me four out of five on the day and doubled my earnings so I could, if necessary, tolerate another day like today.

Top 6 - Easy Listening

Don‘t be concerned, it will not harm you.

Val Doonican, Elusive Butterfly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FF0m-580B4

Max Bygraves, Fings Aint Wot They Used To Be, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg-Ycc-yKqY

Rolf Harris, The Court of King Caractacus, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3s0joFeajk

John Coltrane, Blue Train, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1GrP6thz-k
Just my sense of humour, 10 minutes of your life there is no need to waste.

The New Seekers, You Won’t Find Another Fool like Me, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lnO-517rEU

Darts, It’s Raining, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NhoXPT5tXY
Still perfect after all those years.

Last Draft

From the age of 50 onwards, as if following in the spirit of Larkin's The View, Green's poetry became increasingly morose and, although he kept on trying, it received even less critical acclaim than it had before.

-these lines taken from a future academic who resorted to me as his subject because all other poetry had been discussed to a standstill.

Last Draft

It’s no use. The past is now a spendthrift
friend, islands in a grey lagoon bereft
of such tricks as sorcery or witchcraft
or alchemy. It had promised a gift
of remembrance that, it said, you could lift
anything from, like that starburst festschrift
one very nearly wrote or Vermeer’s Delft
pictured after soft rain. But it was theft.

It never explained exactly how swift
it would be in making its move to shift
its ground and leave one derelict, adrift
upon a future that you were too daft
to see would leave you on a homespun raft
counting your good luck and whatever’s left.

Amy

I'm really sorry. I wasn't a fan. It wasn't my fault, I just didn't know enough about her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfC6CCtZjxk&feature=related

Never mind the celebrity tributes. This is a fine thing.