THE POEMS OF HAMISH SHEANEY

Comedy poems -

Buy this book from www.feedaread.com

The Poems Of Hamish Sheaney : Remastered & Expanded

By Joe Cushnan

In 2012, I published a book called Hamish Sheaney: The Nearly-Man of Irish Literature. The book began with this disclaimer: Hamish Sheaney may not exist, so it might have been necessary to invent him. Hamish Sheaney might be Joe Cushnan or Joe Cushnan might be Hamish Sheaney. They are never seen in the same room together, but more often than not they are in the same room. Shirt collar, shoe size, dental records and preference for Mini-Cheddars are purely coincidental. The book is still available from www.feedaread.com and via Amazon Kindle. It contains a short biography of Hamish as well as lists of his failed screenplays, literary influences and proverbial wisdom (whizz dumb) quotations. This updated book is a remastered (regurgitated?) and expanded version that concentrates on the nearly-man’s specific biographical and observational poetry, and it leaves out the “and other funny stuff”. So as not to short-change anyone too much, other poems and witty gems have been discovered in a holdall in Hamish’s shed. They are printed here for the first time. Granny Sheaney also makes an appearance with her terse views on life and poetry. Unlike my other books of fun verse - Juggling Jelly, The Chuckle Files, Boxset (Without A Box), etc, this collection is a bit more adult in parts.

ISBN: 9781785100727

Total Pages: 99

Published: 17 September 2014

Price: £5.99

A LOT OF POETS ARE SNOBS.......

A lot of poets are snobs,
too much up their arse in their jobs,
they turn up their noses
at some verses and proses,
when really, they should shut their gobs.

NOISE

This is my comfort world,

my land of chirp and swoosh,


of rustle, hiss, moo and hoot,


of screech, quack and caw.





This is the terrain


of gush, snap, crackle, fizz and splash,


of click-clack, tick-tock, swish and ping,

of splish, squish, squash, ding and clang.





These are the sounds of my shape,

my clank and tinkle, my chomp and sizzle,


my snuffle, whack, thwack and gurgle,


the pitter-patter atchoo of my boom-bang self.

BOOK A POET!

Here is a gallery of my books of funny poems mainly for children but suitable for kids of all ages.

All available via http://www.feedaread.com/ & some from Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles, etc

If you would like to book me to perform the poems in an interactive, entertaining way in schools, libraries, book club meetings, book events, business morale workshops, etc, please contact my booking agent:

Shelley Lee on 01535 656015 ext: 206 or email on shelley@caboodlebooks.co.uk

or me directly joecushnan@aol.com

PERFORMANCE

One hour of reading a selection of poems, some requiring audience participation, and a question and answer session about poetry, reading and writing.

WORKSHOPS IN SCHOOLS & BUSINESSES

One hour (or for business workshops longer) sessions of no more than 25 people and no less than 5 to explore the joys of creative writing, working together to bring poetry ideas to life, performing work written on the day, and a talk from me on why I write, where my ideas come from and how to produce a book at next to no cost.

Businesses may have a need from time to time to find ways to boost morale.  Team working through creative writing is a fun way to get minds refreshed away from the job for a couple of hours.  When fresh minds return to the workplace, a fresh start is possible.

LIBRARY EVENTS

One hour or a little longer for families to spend some creative writing and reading time together, to write poems of any kind together, to express thoughts and feelings, to bring back memories, to write silly poems, funny poems, to read them to the audience together and to enjoy a love of words together.

The event - an evening session, perhaps - would begin with a talk by me on why I write, where my ideas come from and how to produce a book at next to no cost.

GENERAL

There are so many ways to enjoy poetry and so many ways to use and share it.  

Shelley Lee on 01535 656015 ext: 206 or email on shelley@caboodlebooks.co.uk

or me directly joecushnan@aol.com

GOOD REEF

Constance the contortionist

on a gig up in Kircaldy*

was performing all her usual tricks

with her supple rubber body.

But halfway through proceedings,

in a flash of memory lapse,

a leg went left instead of right

and the act veered toward collapse.

One wrong move and what came next

just added to the rot,

for Constance left the stage that night

rolled up in a knot.

(*Some will know but others might not – it’s pronounced Kircaudy)

ESCAPE FROM CALCUTRAZ (OFFICE BOREDOM)

This fun poem was written during a very boring stage in my young life when I was an office clerk - sometimes time dragged and imagination headed towards the surreal.  One day I stared at a calculator and...........


0, 1 and 9
decided on the plan
to make the great escape
but they needed helping hands.

3, 6 and 8
were happy to connive
and they managed to convince
2, 4 and 5.

After much discussion,
with a serious harangue,
7 with reluctance
joined the numbers gang

In the office lunch hour
from a crack under the plus,
the digits made their getaway
minus any fuss.

NO ORDINARY POEM

Just published - available via http://www.feedaread.com/

A few years ago, Marks and Spencer ran some breathy, sexy TV ads.  This poem is based on that idea.

NO ORDINARY POEM

(After Marks & Spencer TV ads)

This is no ordinary poem,

this is a word-filled, playfully written piece,

with delicious mouth-feel and tongue-tingle,

rich with hyphens and a splash-dash of onomatopoeia,

lavished with this poet’s delicate brain-juice,

the creative offal of my heart,

topped with the sour-cream of emotions,

pan-fried in the heat of my passion

grilled for mysteries and meaning

before being stir-fried in the jabber-wok .

No, this is no ordinary poem,

this is a Hamish Sheaney poem.

PIZZA EXPIRED

There he was,
a lonely, depressed pizza base,
the last base in the place,
not chosen for eat-in or takeaway,
the last base at the end of a busy day,
unnecessary, unwanted, unloved,
his only option, he sighed and sagged,
as he lay all alone on the kitchen shelf,
was to end it all and top himself.

CELEBRITY BOOKS AT CHRISTMAS

Christmas is coming,
and do you know how I know,
celeb books are being flogged
on nearly every TV show.

All the starry listers,
from A right through to Zed
hope we'll spend our cash and hang 
on every word we've read.

Some reinvent their childhoods
to get the sympathy buy,
some fill 300 pages
with a mix of truth and lie.

Some get confused assuming
that we really give a toss
about shallow lives and woe-is-me
amid glittery showbiz gloss.

Amongst the crud and crappy books,
a few seem worth a read
but only when the price is right
will I pay them any heed.

Here's my plan to be selective,
with the kiss and tell and quirks,
I'll wait for the bargain season,
in January at The Works.

COOKY

This poem appears in my book "Fun With Words, Fun With Rhyme" which in turn appears in my book Boxset (Without A Box) Of Funny Poems - available here http://www.feedaread.com/

Always keen to receive invitations to schools, libraries, book clubs, reading events, etc joecushnan@aol.com

COOKY

The chef he cooked a stew on the coldest winter’s day,

The chef he cooked a stew he called a cassoulet,

The chef he cooked a stew with lots of ingredients,

All sorts of stuff that sounded weird not making any sense.

He peeled things, he chopped things, he mashed as best he could,

He was careless and fearless about preparing fancy food.

The chef he cooked a stew with vegetables and fruits,

The chef he cooked a stew with underpants and boots,

The chef he cooked a stew with nuts and bolts and screws,

A tub of lard, a tin of paint and a pair of ballet shoes.

He whirred it, he stirred it, he shook it very hard,

Then placed it in a sunny spot outside in the yard. 

The chef he cooked a stew, he added salt and pepper,

The chef he cooked a stew and threw in Granny’s slipper,

The chef he cooked a stew with lamb and pork and beef,

Rocks and stones and old tin cans to break a diner’s teef.

He plopped it, he slopped it, he spilled some on the floor,

He splashed the cat, the cat said drat and scurried out the door.

The chef he cooked a stew and it was time to serve his guests

The chef he cooked a stew and hoped they’d be impressed,

The chef he cooked a stew and they all thought it was pretty grim,

They chased him out of town and that’s the last they saw of him.

Boxset (Without A Box) Of Funny Poems

By Joe Cushnan

This boxset (without a box) of funny poems brings together my three collections of fun verse for kids of all ages. Here, in one handy volume, Juggling Jelly, The Chuckle Files and Fun With Words, Fun With Rhyme. I love poetry. Sometimes I don't understand it but other times I get it, learn from it, am entertained by it and, occasionally and wonderfully, I laugh out loud at it. I want to excite people about having fun with words and rhyme. Apart from sharing these fun poems, I want it to be a book of encouragement to promote a lifelong love of books, bookshops and libraries. I would love to come to your school, reading group, book festival to share my enthusiasm....and a few poems.

ISBN: 9781785100482

Total Pages: 293

Published: 12 September 2014

Price: £7.99

WASPISH

How much is that wasp in the window?

Not the one not making a sound,

Not the one crawling round on the floor,

Yes, THAT one buzzing around.

I’ve always wanted a wasp

As an alternative household pet

But up ‘til now I’ve not seen the one

That I’ve really wanted to get.

How much is that wasp in the window?

I’ve got the money to pay,

Hey, quick close the door, oh no,

Too late he’s getting away.

Now I’m sad the wasp in the window

Has gone, I’m suffering from shock

But I’ll pop back tomorrow morning

When you’ve got some new wasps in stock.

From this book - available here http://www.feedaread.com/books/Boxset-Without-A-Box-Of-Funny-Poems.aspx

PATRICK RIDDELL ON MODERN (1979) POETRY

Covers of two of Patrick Riddell's books

Patrick Riddell was a columnist on the old Sunday News newspaper in Northern Ireland.  He was noteworthy for his strong opinions (curmudgeon?) on all kinds of subjects.  When I get round to it, I'll seek out his work as a columnist and try to piece together a biography.  There is very little material available online but I'm sure Belfast libraries might have archive on him, old copies of the Sunday News, etc.

In September 1979, I read a column (I did not keep the cutting) and I sent him a letter disagreeing with his condemnation of modern poetry.

This is his reply, dated 8 October 1979.  It was sent from his home in Lisburn.

"Forgive the delay in acknowledging your interesting letter of 22 September.  I have been away from home for quite a while.  Letters addressed to me by readers of my column are forward to me at this address by the Sunday News, so, as I was absent and have only now come back, there has been what a pedantic relative of mine always called a hiatus.

You say that poetry reflects the attitudes, moods, emotions, etc, etc of generations and that the poetry you enjoy chronicles events and experiences of your lifetime.  Very well, but what kind of an argument is that?

The poetry of today reflects, in Britain, the events and experiences of a decadent country and degenerate people.  The English particularly believe themselves to be not only different but superior to all other races.  All empires throughout the history of humankind have declined and their people seemed to have declined with them.  The English, however, are convinced that they have escaped this fate, despite the fact that they are idle, greedy and dishonest.  The world, they think, owes them a living by virtue of their English nationality.  All through industry, the "workers" will not work.

So, the poetry of today, in my view, reflects slovenliness, false-thinking, and arrogance.  There is no music in it to touch the human heart, nothing in it to remain in the memory.  I heard Robert Donat years ago, when he was very ill from asthma and unable to act, speaking Shakespeare's sonnets.  He had recorded many of them and the BBC transmitted them from London.  In his spoken commentary, he mentioned a Lancashire working-class woman as saying wistfully - "Eee, 'e's such a comfort is Shakespeare."  Show me the comfort of today's poetry, please.  

And is poetry advanced by printing the personal "I" in lower-case "i"?  No.  These clever-clever boys, the little boys of today, leave me unmoved.  There are decadent periods in the history of every nation.  England went through one in the 1890s.  Is it argued that she couldn't possibly be decadent now?

Take, as an example of the pseudo, the fact that John Williams, the classical guitarist, always wears, whatever the place and the occasion, a shabby and dirty-looking sweater.  Why?  To sow his intellectual superiority, of course.  Does it do this?  It does not.  It shows his childishness, his commonplace level.

Thank you for writing to me."

So, make of that what you will.  I was (still am) impressed that he took the time to write back with a full response

A couple of years ago, I invented a character called Hamish Sheaney, the nearly-man of Irish literature, taking rural, agricultural and classical themes to feed ideas for funny poems.

The character's name is, of course, similar to a certain beloved poet and the comedic ideas have connections to some of his areas of interest.

But there it ends.  This was not an attempt to create an intellectual spoof of the great man, but to find a hook on to which I could hang amusement and entertainment.

A few of the original poems caught the eye of a BBC Radio Ulster producer and, subsequently, I did a couple of spots on a Radio Ulster magazine show.  Listener reaction was generally good.  The producer said: "Hamish is a great invention."  On the flip side, I got a very terse response from someone who commented: "What a waste of time."  Both comments might be right!

Now, I have looked back at the "old stuff" and amended several poems, as well as adding more.

The paperback is available here: http://www.feedaread.com/search/books.aspx?keywords=Hamish

The Poems Of Hamish Sheaney : Remastered & Expanded

By Joe Cushnan

In 2012, I published a book called Hamish Sheaney: The Nearly-Man of Irish Literature. The book began with this disclaimer: Hamish Sheaney may not exist, so it might have been necessary to invent him. Hamish Sheaney might be Joe Cushnan or Joe Cushnan might be Hamish Sheaney. They are never seen in the same room together, but more often than not they are in the same room. Shirt collar, shoe size, dental records and preference for Mini-Cheddars are purely coincidental. The book is still available from www.feedaread.com and via Amazon Kindle. It contains a short biography of Hamish as well as lists of his failed screenplays, literary influences and proverbial wisdom (whizz dumb) quotations. This updated book is a remastered (regurgitated?) and expanded version that concentrates on the nearly-man’s specific biographical and observational poetry, and it leaves out the “and other funny stuff”. So as not to short-change anyone too much, other poems and witty gems have been discovered in a holdall in Hamish’s shed. They are printed here for the first time. Granny Sheaney also makes an appearance with her terse views on life and poetry. Unlike my other books of fun verse - Juggling Jelly, The Chuckle Files, Boxset (Without A Box), etc, this collection is a bit more adult in parts.

ISBN: 9781785100727

Total Pages: 99

Published: 17 September 2014

BUZZ

Outside my window, the buzzsaw-man's buzzsaw
is sounding like a giant hornet,
a continuous, pauseless noise of dread,
and I am searching for a gigantic newspaper to roll up -
with a swift swish-swat, I will kill it and him stone dead.

MINOR INCIDENT BETWEEN MY MOTHER AND THE REVEREND IAN PAISLEY

This happened sometime in the early 1970s in our Belfast living room.


In an uncharacteristic burst of anger,
my mother once took off her slipper,
concentrated hard, took careful aim
and let fly at the television set.

On impact, the vase on top wobbled,
we kids tranced between gasp and cough,
and the reason for mother's missile -
Ian Paisley shouting his mouth off.

BITTER ABOUT LITTER

A while ago, I wrote this poem about litter:

Hey you,

Yes you,

You who tossed away

The carrier bag,

The cigarette end,

The leaflet,

The receipt,

The free newspaper,

The can,

The bottle,

The sausage roll wrapper,

Pick up your litter, scruff,

Or I’ll flush you

down the crapper.

I'm just back from a walk in a beautiful country park and I took a note of these items, discarded along the way:

crisp packet,

Aero chocolate wrapper

plastic water bottle

Coca-Cola bottle

coffee cup

leaflet

another Coca-Cola bottle

tissues

Polo mint wrapper

water bottle label

another water bottle label

yet another water bottle label

handkerchief

train ticket

J-cloth

receipt

chewing gun wrapper

plastic carrier bag

plastic bread bag

cellophane salad bag

chocolate eclair sweet wrapper

I refer you to the last three lines of the poem above.

SQUIRRELS

Clumber Park, 12 September 2014


Squirrel bouncing along, bushy-tailed, full of freedom,
mini-leaps on the grass beneath a tree, stops, looks,
then seems to enter a hurdle race, jumping over invisible barriers,
before bounding onto a sawn-off tree trunk, treating it
like an old school gym horse, full of freedom and enjoying it.

NO LONGER NEAT

Like badly drawn freehand straightish lines 

on a near-blue page furred with white gauze,
the black cables wobble in the wind 

against the cloud wisp movements in the sky.
Crow claws clamp birds to this floating therapy, 

arousing buzzes in their feet, and they wait, 

lower, higher, lower, higher, lower, higher, low, high, low, high.........


Below, something etch-a-sketches a winding path in ragwort, a thread-stream
in amongst the yellow carpet and a radar hawk homes in on a new treat.
Above the impending kill, above the cables, a fighter jet rips across the silence
and a mess of crows splatters the heavens, a sky no longer neat.

CLUMBER PARK HAIKUS

hanging between plants,
frosted-white cobweb cradles,
soon to disappear


ducks, swans, crows giving
it full-belt, quack, yodel, caw,
pow-wow on the lake


a couple debate
algae floating on water,
he gives up, she wins

AMAZON, WATERSTONES, FOYLES - FUN WITH WORDS, FUN WITH RHYME

Fun With Words, Fun With Rhyme

By Joe Cushnan

I love poetry. Sometimes I don’t understand it but other times I get it, learn from it, am entertained by it and, occasionally and wonderfully, I laugh out loud at it. This book is called Fun With Words, Fun With Rhyme and, apart from sharing some new funny poems, I want it to be a book of encouragement to promote a lifelong love of books, bookshops and libraries. The poems can be read quietly or performed by and to enthusiastic, interactive audiences. There are those who, for whatever reason, have the ability but have not had the active encouragement to come back to the language and give it a great big hug. We can all do it. We can all write poems. We can be serious or funny, serious and funny, whatever we want to be. Our poems don’t have to be literary masterpieces, don’t have to be hifalutin, Nobel Prize nuggets of genius – although, if they are, good for us. The joy is in having a go, playing with words, playing with rhyme…..and having fun. Start with “the fat cat sat on the mat” or wherever you like. But, have a go. Like my old friend John, tear poems out of newspapers and magazines. Keep them in your pockets to read later or to give to others. Read poems out loud whenever you can to poetry groups, school classes, at parties – to yourself!

ISBN: 9781784079581

Total Pages: 101

Published: 12 August 2014

Buy it here:

AMAZON

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fun-Words-Rhyme-Joe-Cushnan/dp/1784079588/ref=sr_1_18?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410187169&sr=1-18&keywords=Joe+Cushnan

WATERSTONES

http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/joe+cushnan/fun+with+words2c+fun+with+rhyme/11313790/

FOYLES

http://www.foyles.co.uk/witem/fiction-poetry/fun-with-words-fun-with-rhyme,cushnan-joe-9781784079581

The book will appear on most major sites soon.