PLANESPOTTING FROM A GARDEN CHAIR

I feel 'with it' using my new plane-finder app,
useless on cloudy days, of course, but I can track
the noise at least and even estimate the heights,
better when the sky is clear blue, open highway;

Dublin to Amsterdam, Manchester to Dubai,
Charles de Gaulle to LAX, Heathrow-Seattle,
some streaming vapour, some silver-winged, Haggard-like,
people going to and coming from, heading home

to loved ones maybe, to no one, en route for work,
holidays, window-seaters looking down to earth:
Is that a guy lying on a garden lounger
playing with an iPad, looking up at our plane?

NEW POETRY - ENGLISH STREET BY DAMIAN SMYTH

English Street
by
Damian Smyth

Templar Poetry 2018

https://templarpoetry.com

https://templarpoetry.com/collections/new-collections-pamphlets/products/english-street

(Please, whatever I say and whatever extracts I choose to highlight, please follow the links above and buy a copy of the book from Templar. £10. That's it, with a bit of p&p. Enjoy these words.) 

This collection of seventy poems demands concentration. The poems blend seemingly straightforward details and observations with layers of complexity and deep-thinking. The comprehensive notes section at the back is testament to thorough research into a wide range of subjects.

Many opening lines are subtle and not-so-subtle hooks into the bodies of the poems. You read and have little choice but to dig in.

Take these openers from The Big Wind In The Barony:

It’s all about simply describing what happens:
A wind so strong it blew the teeth off a saw…

Or these lines from The Woodgrange Parleys:

It was our John said it was hard to believe
That someone who couldn’t even get his words out
Could have so many opinions on so many things
He knew bugger all about.

Or these lines from The Home Front On Church Street:

After we’d lobbed the duck eggs,
Over the hedge, onto the oul fellas
At the War Memorial – sound effects
Of translucence popping, cries –
We took off over the fields.

You see what I mean. You have to read on. There’s no choice.

Two poems in particular struck a chord with me, a big fan of cowboy pictures. The Ballykinlar Visitors:

Matinees in the Grand: dime-a-dozen westerns
With ranches, tipis, holsters, reservations,
Tomahawks; rednecks with lariats, steers
And Stetsons, kids our age and nice wives….

And The Burial At Ornans: Courbet In Chapeltown which draws on and from the classic western, The Searchers.

But there is so much going in here with specific locations, historical episodes, tragedy, comedy and humanity. Most of us look at scenery and even our own neighbourhoods and not see much of interest. Damian Smyth has an eye for details that he weaves into tremendously powerful poetry. Lines and images linger.

I am away on holiday soon and this book will be a companion. I will use the peace and quiet to read the poems again, dig deep, absorb and reflect in the sun (hopefully) on a lounger. I have much to learn about writing but also about reading. This is both a challenging and enlightening collection, but it needs, nay deserves, as I said at the beginning, concentration.

As I read through, I will add occasional thoughts on some of the poems. The Old Course Identities is a very funny take on names and nicknames:

Which may explain why Shite-the-Sixpence's own mother
Called him Shite-the-Sixpence all her life so when he died
It was only his birth certificate vouched for the headstone:
'James Robert' it declares but no one knows who he was.

The Rathkeltair Primer is about what we know and don't know, what we learn and what we don't learn, what we can and can't be bothered to take in from the world around us:

I never learned the name of a single shrub
Or could tell one tree in the wood from another.

Going on to say:

And thought that fish were brown and white
Like bread and people and C&C lemonade.

(Cantrell & Cochrane lemonade, a popular brand back in the day.)

Congratulations too to Templar Poetry (check out via the web address above) for a beautifully produced volume

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COLIN DARDIS - THE X OF Y - POETRY

I haven't had the opportunity to read the first collection of poetry by Colin Dardis, The X of Y, but from many Facebook and Twitter posts and a general understanding off his passion for poetry and other issues, I have much faith in him as a writer and ambassador. I point you in his direction.

Here's a link to who he is and what he's about.

http://www.colindardispoet.co.uk

Good luck with the book, Colin.

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MY FATHER - MEMOIR - UPDATE

I am writing a memoir about my father's disappearance. In 1960, he left our Belfast home, his wife and seven young children and pretty much vanished. The next we heard of him was when we were told he had died at 57 in Chapman, London in 1982. Apart from many questions, we were left with the mystery of 22 'missing' years.

A couple of years ago, after a conversation with Damian Smyth, Head of Literature & Drama at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, I received a grant to help cover expenses in researching and writing the story of my father's life.

Over time, it became clear to me that this wasn't just about my father. This was about my mother, the rest of my family and me. And so the story expanded.

In tandem with the memoir, I scribbled together a collection of thoughts and memories in loose poetic form, a collection published by Lapwing (Belfast) called Feathers Ruffled. In retrospect, I jumped the gun and published these pieces without proper editorial advice. But, published they are and I'm sorry if I have irritated some people who have supported me thus far.

The memoir is still in production and a select few have had sight of extracts. Some feedback has been good and helpful. A couple of contacts have yet to reply.

On the advice of a reliable contact, I got in touch with a professional editorial expert with a view to entering into a contract to get the manuscript in shape. The editor was kind enough, after extracts submitted, to respond with three pages of free advice, an extraordinary generous act that has driven me on to produce in a very short time thousands of words on my family's history.

I have reviewed and rewritten a substantial amount of material and feel the flow in is the right direction.

This is a writing project that requires time and not my impatience to get published. The manuscript will be finished and edited professionally. Then, it's a question of who believes in it enough to publish it as a book.

Finally, for those who have not heard it, I was a guest recently on BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live with the Reverend Richard Coles, Aasmah Mir and J P Devlin, invited to talk about this story. Here's the link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09rwtg8

Keep the faith.

RIP PETE

For Pete Hardy

You were a whirlwind,
a man of Jesus,
solid devotion,
no doubts, none at all,
'kids like us' you'd say,
'kids like us' such fun.
We shook hands, had hugs,
yes, those bear-man hugs,
teacher, believer,
a family man,
husband and soul mate,
full of life, belief,
certainty, no doubts,
the end of this life
is a beginning
but you knew that stuff,
all through the darkness,
you saw the bright light
of everlasting
joy, comfort and peace.

Thank you Pete, thank you,
for references,
wise words and stories,
a storyteller,
memorable man.

Rest in peace.

WRITING A MEMOIR - INDEPENDENT ADVICE

John Cushnan 1925 - 1982

Over the past year or so, I have been researching and writing a memoir about my family, the core of the story concerning my father who left us in 1960. He never came back home to Belfast. He died at 57 in Clapham, London in 1982. Amongst other things, he left a mystery of 22 'missing' years.

There have been a number of drafts of the manuscript and the latest is well underway after I contacted a professional editor, recommended by someone I trust.

I have yet to fully commit to a firm contract with the editor but already she has provided me with a generous amount of notes and guidance based on some sample chapters I sent. This guidance and steer is proving invaluable in reshaping the narrative and in drawing my attention to dimensions that I had not considered.

She has suggested areas to dig into to strengthen the general background to the story - describing locations, people, living and working conditions in much more depth that I had planned. But it makes perfect sense to (although these are not her words to me) fully analyse the who, what, when, where and why as each of the story's characters takes centre stage.

The advice not to worry about trying to write the perfect book is sound. "Write down everything you want to say, everything you remember, even if you think it might be irrelevant. Don't worry about shaping the story too much or about going off on tangents. The revision and editing process will trim away the fat and suggest what's relevant." 

There's much more in several pages of notes but it is helping enormously. And for now, it is free!

This advice coupled with comments from another independent source is worth its weight in gold. (I am waiting for a third independent response.)

Onward.


If anyone reading this has knowledge of Clapham in the 1960s/1970s, who frequented the Rose & Crown pub (landlord Jim Nicholson), the Royal British Legion Club (Victoria Rise) or who knew John Kelly, aka John Cushnan who lived in Orlando Road, please get in touch via joecushnan@aol.com

QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN BOOKING A RESTAURANT

After many years as a customer 'servant' in retail management with a little dabble in hospitality and tourism, I understand delivering service from a business's perspective and receiving service as a customer.

I know what service standards should be in theory and the difficulties, sometimes, of putting it into practice.

I think I know what turns customers on and off. I certainly know what turns me on and off. There are shops, restaurants and cafes that will never see another penny piece from me ever for various reasons.

Let me focus in on booking a table in a restaurant.  Here are questions I intend to ask at the time of my phone call:

What is your policy on service charges and tipping? (I loathe pressured or expected tipping, enforced service charges and waiting staff's faces changing from grin to grim if I decide not to leave a gratuity. By the way, it's a reason I pause whenever I consider a trip to the US. The vile and vicious tipping culture is a real bummer brought on by tight-fisted employers. It spreads beyond America with even a 'tips box' becoming a fixture in some establishments.) I will evaluate my decision based on whatever the policy is.

Do you have eardrum-busting music blaring out of the ceiling? (I detest the noise of screeching divas screaming for the highest note just below the white noise of a dog whistle while I am trying to have a conversation.  It is distracting, annoying and totally unnecessary and, no, it does not add any pleasant atmosphere whatsoever. In addition, it is unseemly to have bleeding ears when in company.) If the answer to this question is yes, then it's thanks but no thanks.

Do you allow dogs? (I'm not a dog person and I find the whole notion of dogs in restaurants abhorrent.) If the answer to this question is yes, then it's thanks but no thanks.

Do you allow customers to vape at their tables? (I have seen a few examples where this appears to be acceptable in pubs. I saw somebody vaping in a Belfast bar and another in a Chester pub. Noooooo.) If the answer to this question is yes, then it's thanks but no thanks.

At the time of this phone call, do you already have bookings for cackling hen parties or rowdy stag parties? If the answer to this question is yes, then it's thanks but no thanks, although they are unlikely to admit to the prospect of either or both.

Do you have tables underneath heaters that broil customers as they eat or under air-conditioning units that would freeze the orbs off brass monkeys? Er, you don't allow monkeys and dogs, do you? If the answer to this question is yes, then it's thanks but no thanks.

Booking a restaurant, for me anyway, has become a complicated business...... as you can tell.