Wednesday 16 October 2013

Cumbrian Adventures

Yesterday we visited William Wordsworth, Robert Southey and Basil Bunting, driving around the Lake District. After the plunging landscape of North Wales, I thought nothing could impress me, but my God. I've never been to Lake Windemere before, but I was gobsmacked. I never realised we had anything so stunning in the UK. Sadly we did not have time in our schedule to visit the Pencil Museum.

Obviously I knew who Wordsworth was before we arrived, but I didn't know Southey or Bunting. Bunting's grave was in a Quaker burial ground, where - in keeping with the principles of Quakerism - all the gravestones are of a uniform size and shape, so no one is raised above anyone else. By contrast, the graves in Southey's churchyard were all huge exercises in morbid ostentation, festooned with cherubs and laurels and big enough to kill a toddler.

Bunting was a conscientious objector during the First World War and spent time in Wormwood Scrubs. He believed that poetry was meant to be performed. He died in 1985.

Robert Southey was a supporter of the French Revolution who grew more conservative as he aged and was eventually embraced by the Tory establishment, becoming Poet Laureate in 1813. He was the first person to write down the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears. He died in 1843.

Here are sample poems by Southey and Bunting - if you like 'em, I really recommend you check both guys out a bit more deeply.

I Suggest (by Basil Bunting)

1. Compose aloud; poetry is a sound.
2. Vary rhythm enough to stir the emotion you want but not so as to lose impetus.
3. Use spoken words and syntax.
4. Fear adjective; they bleed nouns. Hate the passive.
5. Jettison ornament gaily but keep shape

Put your poem away till you forget it, then:
6. Cut out every word you dare.
7. Do it again a week later, and again.

Never explain - your reader is as smart as you.


Sonnet I (by Robert Southey - one of his piece on the slave trade)

Hold your mad hands! for ever on your plain
Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood?
For ever must your Nigers tainted flood
Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain?
Hold your mad hands! what daemon prompts to rear
The arm of Slaughter? on your savage shore
Can hell-sprung Glory claim the feast of gore,
With laurels water'd by the widow's tear
Wreathing his helmet crown? lift high the spear!
And like the desolating whirlwinds sweep,
Plunge ye yon bark of anguish in the deep;
For the pale fiend, cold-hearted Commerce there
Breathes his gold-gender'd pestilence afar,
And calls to share the prey his kindred Daemon War.

pictures

Thought I'd just throw up a selection of pictures from the last few days, including some beautiful Wales and Cumbria countryside, some performance shots and other randoms. Thanks again to all keeping up with us/coming to see us/looking after us












Bombing around the valleys


Sunday was a long day. We’d been sat up the night before, looking at potential routes around Wales.  After several hours we came up with a route that’d score some good grave and we went to bed feeling pretty chuffed, having got postcodes for every location.

Our first grave was Henry Vaughan’s. We entered the postcode, drove to it, but it led us to a totally different church in the valleys. Not ideal. It took us half an hour of running round the graveyard to realize our mistake, before tacking across the country roads, waving phones in the air, desperately trying to get some signal so we could work out where we’d gone wrong.

It turns out that we were 40 minutes away from the churchyard we were looking for. As we bombed our way over and bundled out of the car, we saw a vicar walking out of the graveyard. We asked whether Henry Vaughan was buried there and got a very dry
‘Yes. He hasn’t moved yet.’

It might be the ridiculous nature of this trip and the lack of sleep, but we were really, really deliriously happy to have found him. It was like we’d really kept the faith and soldiered through. It felt (weirdly) like we’d achieved something.

After that we had to get a move on to get to Shropshire. We were visiting the grave of A E Housman. We listened to a load of comedy routines and passed round some haribo. During the drive we also discussed which kind of grave we’d like the most. None of us are overly keen on dying, but we had some ideas.

1. A death mask of your face, massively increased in size, where people could walk through the mouth.

2. A stone tablet/table, that would ensure virility for anyone copulating on top of it. Basically, if you create a legend around your gravestone, you know that it stays relevant.

3. I kind of like the family vault/mausoleum idea. A huge block of stone – one size for all the family.

As with most of these conversations, we ended with the same conclusion: we really, really don’t want to die. Then we put some music back on.

After getting to A E Housman’s grave in Shropshire – or at least getting to the scaffolding that surrounded it, we had some lunch and headed on. We were off back into Wales to go and visit the grave of Gelert – a dog from Welsh legend. It was probably the most beautiful location we’ve visited so far – and his grave was huge. Supposedly, two stones were buried into the ground – one at Gelert’s head and one at his tail, to show how huge it was. I’m pretty sure he was bigger than Mixy, to be honest.

That evening we performed in Tremeirchion in North Wales, to a wicked bunch of people – they were really warm and kind and tolerant of wild-eyed, slightly manic poets. We each wrote a piece for the audience during the break, based upon their suggestions. I was given the following words

Yoga
Badger
Yoghurt
Salubrious
Bendigedig (a welsh word meaning ‘fantastic’)

Feel free to have a go yourself – I’ll put my attempt up later tonight/early tomorrow.

After a long day on the road, we were given apple pie, whiskey and beds to sleep in by several very kind audience members. I can’t say this enough -  we are SO SO lucky to be meeting so many kind people on this tour.  Only a few days left, but it’s already made me think a lot about my own life. The examples of kindness I’ve seen have been more moving than the gravestones.

Anyway, better get moving. Thanks for reading.

Sunday 13 October 2013

life is one big road with a lot of signs... signs signs signs

It's been a mad first week and we're now half way through the tour.
Today we left Oxford at 8.30am and are on route to Wales. We have a few graves to see then a gig in north wales tonight that we're all looking forward to.
I've never been to Wales before so it'll be a nice adventure. I hear it's mainly mountains.
Did you catch us on BBC news? I'm pretty happy with it, that was the day I last blogged where we popped over to the isle of wight then missed our return ferry after Mark practicing his race car driving. Tim is also doing driving shifts now, I have a licence but am not insured on the car so I'm mainly talking bubbles, freestyling over beats for entertainment and smoking roll ups.
Just wanted to say a big thank you to all who've put us up, fed us, booked us, came to see us, tollerated and supported us so far. We've met some great people.
We also met the great, great, great grandson of poet John Clare, Josh Clare at our gig in Cambridge. Here's a pic of us together plus a few randoms of the ferry we missed, the view from the ferry we didn't miss and sone performance shots of Mark and Tim




Saturday 12 October 2013

Respite

We're recovering in Peterborough after an epic few days rattling across the UK visiting dead poets and meeting new friends.

On Wednesday we barrelled over to the Isle of Wight in search of AC Swinburne. We were very worried we might miss our ferry so we raced across the island, ('raced' might be an exaggeration, given the number of buses and farm vehicles we got stuck behind, but still - we did our damnedest) found the little churchyard, and dashed about it calling 'have you found it? I can't see it?' like participants in a particularly macabre Crystal Maze.

We didn't find it. Gutted. The churchyard was maybe 20 metres across, but we couldn't see it. Eventually we had to abandon the search and sped back across the island, only to see our ferry pulling away from the dock.

Missing our ferry made us an hour late for our trip up to Somerset for Siegfried Sassoon's grave. I never knew much about his life, but he seems like an incredible character. Acts of suicidal valour, a packed sex life, and the middle name 'Loraine'. What a sweet dude.

In the evening, we performed to Canadian students at Castle Herstmonceaux in East Sussex. Again, we only just made it in time, blundering on stage to a ridiculously warm reception. The BBC were there filming us, so I'm glad we got away with it! The castle itself was stunning - it even had a moat!

I'll post more when I get the chance. At the moment it's go go go. I'm having such a time.

Tuesday 8 October 2013

this is dead

You're gonna have to excuse the inevitable spelling mistakes and bad gramma to follow.

So, this tour has been pretty lively. Different is an understatement. So far, It's day 4, 6:39am and we're looking to head for the isle of white. I've never been but hear it's nice. I also hear going and coming back in one day 'can't be done' so we'll see about that. We had a debate yesterday and nearly decided against attempting the trip as it's a very busy day already (getting up at 6:39 is not usually how I roll) but the feeling was, if we don't even attempt it... well we'd be massive wastemen. So let's go.
So far we've done 4 gigs and visited... 7? About 7 graves. Which is nice. A lot more to come over the next week.
We're performing and staying in a castle tonight which we're all pretty excited about. That is if we don't get stuck on the isle of white.
If I've worked out how to do this on my phone, you'll see three attached pics.
One of Mark taking a piss near the river taw, one of Tim standing, waiting to steal dirt from a graveyard, and one of Mark and Tim walking through the moors  (I don't fuck with 'selfies')
We'll keep you in the loop with our survival



Tuesday

Lest these posts descend into smug back-slapping about our lovely gigs and lovely hosts (the gigs and hosts have genuinely been really lovely, by the way - we're having such a time) I want to give a heads up to some of the shit parts of the tour.

Today we spent over an hour hiking through drizzle to find Betjeman's grave. The car now smells completely on-theme: a mix of corpse-rot and crotch odour and someone trying to cremate a wet schnauzer. After searching in vain on the bleak moor yesterday, I now have blood blisters on my feet.

On Monday night, workmen were digging up the road outside the pub with some of the most crazily massive, heavy duty machinery I've ever seen. And they kept bringing new vehicles (topped with flashing orange lights) till around 3 in the morning. I got eff all sleep, and I now feel like I'm staggering through a kind of waking dream full of tombstones and bright lights and the occasional screamed poem.

My new poem about the famous St Bernard from San Diego, a dog called 'Bum', died on its arse. Apparently, saying the word 'bum' two dozen times doesn't count as entertainment! Honestly!

We are less than a quarter of the way through, and tomorrow morning, we have to be up at 6am to attempt our assault on the Isle Of Wight, where AC Swinburne lies buried. If we miss a ferry or take a wrong turn or can't find the graveyard, we're screwed for the whole day. Everything is on a schedule with about five minutes of wriggle room. And we'll have had 5 hours sleep.

If we survive tomorrow, we're ending the day in a haunted castle near Spike Milligan's grave. Along the way, we're taking in Seigfried Sassoon, and I'll be reciting poetry by some of the poets we've visited so far (like Hardy and Day-Lewis) to Mark and Mixy from the backseat of the car, like an annoying, smelly uncle.

I'll leave you with one of my favourite Sassoon poems, 'Base Details':

IF I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath, 
  I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base, 
And speed glum heroes up the line to death. 
  You’d see me with my puffy petulant face, 
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,        
  Reading the Roll of Honour. ‘Poor young chap,’ 
I’d say—‘I used to know his father well; 
  Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’ 
And when the war is done and youth stone dead, 
I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.

Monday



On Monday we trekked out onto Dartmoor to hunt for Ted Hughes’ memorial stone. Its exact location was kept secret for several years, partly – so the story goes – for fear that Sylvia Plath supporters might deface it, and partly – again, so I’ve read – to prevent it ‘becoming a shrine for Hughes fans’.

Which is kind of crazy. Surely the function of a memorial is so that the living can remember and appreciate the deceased? We’re not talking about Heinrich Himmler here – ‘Hughes fans’, I should have thought, are likely to do nothing more than gaze pensively at the stone for sixty seconds, look around at the bleak majesty of Dartmoor, glance again at the stone, let out a little semi-aspirated sigh then hike back the way they came.

Anyway, the dizzying series of feints and mysteries worked. We didn’t manage to find the stone – the guides we read said you need strong boots and a compass, and that you need to let someone know you’re attempting the walk so they can report you missing if you don’t come back. Mixy thought he saw some tombs in the middle of the moorland, but after we stomped through an ocean of dry ferns to reach them, it turned out they were just sewage grates.

Undeterred, we found a pleasant spot beside the River Taw – beside and into which Hughes’ ashes were scattered – and wrote poems for 15 minutes. We were sitting beside a little weir – on one side, the river was ridged like a thumbprint. It bunched in bubbling clusters of black pearls as it reached the rocks, creaming round the swerve of the bank, collecting as yellowish foam. The poem I wrote was dreadful, portentous guff.

We stopped in at Exeter University to do a performance to about a dozen members of the Theology Society. We set up in one corner of the busy Ram Bar. It was kind of weird, you guys! But also really fun.

In the evening we went to Launceston to see Charles Causley. We stayed in a brilliant pub called The White Horse, who very kindly put us up - in gorgeous rooms - and gave us dinner, breakfast, and drinks all evening. It was another intimate one - maybe a dozen or so people - but again, really fun! We sat around a big table and me, Mixy and Mark took it in turns to do poems while the other two took commissions from the crowd and wrote speed poems over by the pool table. We also had Charles Causley poems read to us.

My favourite was 'By St Thomas Water', set in the churchyard where his grave now stands. We crossed the little stone bridge over a stream, and Mixy laughed at a woman who was standing alone beneath a brolly, quacking loudly at the ducks. Here's an extract:

By St. Thomas Water
Where the river is thin
We looked for a jam-jar
To catch the quick fish in.
Through St Thomas Church-yard
Jessie and I ran
The day we took the jam-pot
Off the dead man.

On the scuffed tombstone
The grey flowers fell,
Cracked was the water,
Silent the shell.
The snake for an emblem
Swirled on the slab,
Across the beach of sky the sun
Crawled like a crab.

I wrote a poem for a woman whose daughter had spent 5 hours in A&E that weekend after ingesting poisonous mushrooms. Also the patrons began competing to see who could come up with the dirtiest limerick.

Hunting down graves is hard work, you guys! As and when we have wifi, we'll keep you updated as we continue. Thanks to everyone who has come so far!

Sunday 6 October 2013

Death and the Poet

For me, death is usually a bedfellow of insomnia. (hi, I'm Tim by the way - me, Mark and Mixy will be contributing posts and poems through our journey round poets' graves) I'm staring up at the bluish, blurry ceiling (life without my spectacles on is like being continually underwater) and I imagine my heart stopping, and all my memories vanishing, and the acres upon endless acres of unbeing that await me and everyone I love.

It's a pretty horrible situation, isn't it? And given the inevitability and permanence and totality of death, it's not surprising that most poets have felt their strings of shrewd and pretty words rather inadequate by comparison. As Larkin puts it in 'Aubade':

Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,   
Making all thought impossible but how   
And where and when I shall myself die. 

Or Betjeman, in the cheerily-titled 'Loneliness':

And, though you tell me I shall die,
You say not how or when or why.

So many poets chew on death, like a terrier with a rat in its jaws, but the more they gnash, the more death is there, real and indomitable and basically insoluble.

When we started discussing this tour, I was up for it because I was desperate for an excuse to get out on the road and gig. I love performing, and I wanted more practice, to earn some performance karma and challenge myself and have fun. The death thing was just a gimmick, an excuse.

It's past midnight on a Sunday now. We just did our first gig, our launch show, in Bristol, at the Leftbank. It was fun, slapdash, challenging, and raucous. We tried some new material, some of which worked, some of which didn't. We performed with some great local poets (thank you so much Al Cummins, Stef Mo, Richard Harris and Anna Freeman). I got heckled by a drunk guy who seemed to be trying to give me advice on the best way to murder someone. A weird thing to yell across a crowded pub during a poetry gig, granted, but pleasingly on-theme!

Knowing death is real and unstoppable and utterly dreadful, what can we, three semi-talented novelty poets, possibly teach the world that is of any use whatsoever? If greats like Betjeman and Larkin basically covered their heads with their hands and said 'oh Christ, I'm doomed', what chance have we got?

I don't know if staring at slabs of stone and patches of soil will help us with that. I just feel like, thinking about death might be important. If we come up with any insights along the way, I'll share them with you. If you have any thoughts, please do share them with us. Maybe we can figure this out together.

And, you know. If we can't, who cares? Soon we'll all be dead and there'll be no 'us' to even recognise there ever was a problem.