In a warm ward, gently you slip away
but what an empty space when you are gone.
The press, in love with easy stories, paves
the way with clichés comfortable, stable, critical, awaiting the volcano of lament.
You outlived Thatcher and her legacy,
and, safely distanced by a sea of years
from words like communist and terrorist,
we all bow down to your integrity.
The barbed wire of apartheid has been cut.
There are some who will pay respect,
omitting to admit allegiances
to groups that wanted you to swing.
But you have taught us not to cling to grudges.
You shaped our youth, hungover misfits.
In a town square, begging signatures,
posters for AA gigs on boarded houses,
hosting SWAPO speakers on the floor
amongst the Merrydown and Rizzla papers,
debating dropouts, Trots and battered miners.
While the blood of Soweto stained the earth,
we learned about Rivonia, and laws
that thinly masked white fear; you learned
to cradle sanity in concrete walls.
Events outside were somehow dripped to you:
Your mother’s death, the raid on Lillesleaf farm,
and Winnie’s punishments. Your greater
suffering shrank our suffering down,
though still significant and somehow linked.
Exposed to labour, torture, hunger
you led inmates to fight with dignity.
For every clenched fist holds the bigger fight.
The world rejoiced the moment you walked free.
Small step, big step, holding Winnie’s hand,
a simple act amidst complexities
which you well understood, sought to pick through,
to wash the language of resistance clean,
while dreams of family life were swept away.
Now illness is your final prison, but your love
and legacy have been released and grow
upon the fertile soils of hope and peace.
We raise a fist and let Mandela free.
I can’t remember now when the first time he appeared was, but it was obviously some time after he had died.
He comes all the time now. I sit there, in my toll booth at the end of the Kingsway tunnel, handing out change, over and over, and he appears, out of nowhere. I don’t even jump anymore. He says, ‘What are you doing with your life, Lauren?’ I say, ‘Leave me alone, John,’ and he vanishes.
It’s particularly cold and wet tonight. There are two kinds of drivers on nights like these. The ones that all wrapped up in their car, cosy and cheery, just thinking about that nice cup of tea at the end of their journey. They have a smile for you. Then there’s the grumpy ones, annoyed at the world, the rain, everything. They’re especially annoyed at having to pay in order to get through that ‘stinking tunnel’. It’s after they drive off that John appears.
It’s two years now since my older brother left us. He had been sick for so long that, well, he wasn’t in pain anymore, and I guess that’s something. He had said to me that he couldn’t remember what it was like to not be in pain. To not hurt all over every single day. He wanted it to be over.
But when it happened, everything fell apart.
I was in the middle of writing my dissertation at the time. It was something like three weeks before it was due in. From Brooks to Moss: How Party Girls Changed Fashion. I was granted an extension, obviously, but every word I’d written seemed so superficial, ridiculous. The musings of a silly ignorant girl who went to university to drink and, well…
I thought about going back at one point. Maybe study medicine. See if I could save lives, stop someone else going through the pain I was living with. But I’m not clever enough, definitely not rich enough. So I got this job. It’s boring, but it pays the bills. Plus, I work a lot of nights. It’s quieter, and I don’t have to come up with excuses not to see people, because they know I’m working. I just can’t face it. Going out, getting pissed, getting laid. What’s it all for? Nothing. If I’m going to drink I’d rather have a nice malt, neat, by myself in the quiet and the dark where I can appreciate it.
‘What are you doing with your life, Lauren?’
‘Leave me alone, John,’ I say, rubbing the tears out of my eyes.
‘No, not tonight.’
What? That’s new. I dry my eyes with the back of my sleeve and look at him, in the corner of my booth, smiling. He looks exactly the same as he always did. Well, the same as he always did, before. I’m hallucinating. I’ve lost it. I pick up my phone and stare at it. A distraction. That’s what I need to clear my head.
‘That’s not going to make me go away, Lauren,’ John says. ‘Besides, no-one ever texts you or anything now anyway.’
‘Wh-what do you want?’ I stammer, the screen blurring through my tears.
‘Ah, first night memories,’ he says, leaning back laughing. ‘Are we going to go through it all again, or do you remember it as fondly as I do?’
I put my head in my hands and can feel my breath getting quicker. I feel sick. This can’t be real. It isn’t happening.
‘Come on, Lauren,’ John says, pleadingly. ‘Please don’t be like that. I thought you’d gotten used to my visits by now. I thought if you could get used to me, you would talk to me. You’d started to seem so flippant about it and –’
‘Shut up!’ I yell. ‘You’re not here! You’re dead!’
‘Yes, I am,’ John says. ‘I’m dead. My life’s over, done, finito. Everything I had, everything I was, everything I wanted, gone. Just like that. And you’re here wasting the time you have.’
‘You’re not here, this isn’t real,’ I whisper to myself, over and over. I rub my eyes with the back of my hand. I look in the corner of the booth and John’s still there grinning widely. ‘What do you want?’ I ask, slowly.
‘I want my little sister to live her life. I want her to stop sitting about in the dark. I want her to stop avoiding everything and everyone,’ John says, quietly.
‘I’m doing OK,’ I say.
John laughs ruefully. ‘Do you know what’s at the other end of that tunnel?’ he asks, nodding towards the small window.
‘’Course I do,’ I say. ‘Liverpool.’
‘No, Lauren,’ he says. ‘At the end of that tunnel is the world. What are you doing with your life, Lauren?’ he asks. ‘What are you doing with your life?’
‘I get by,’ I say.
‘Nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing at all,’ John says, as if I hadn’t said anything. ‘You’re throwing it away living in a box at the end of a tunnel. But that tunnel could take you somewhere, if you would just let it. Come on, Lauren. When you got this job you told Mum and Dad it was temporary. You just needed some time and then you’d go back to university. Fashion, medicine, whatever. Fuck’s sake, no-one even cares if you want to work in here for the rest of your life, but you don’t. You’re miserable. People only want you to be happy. What happened to your dreams, Lauren? Why have you given up?’
‘When you got sick,’ I stammer, tears streaming down my face.
‘When I got sick, I died,’ John says. ‘You didn’t.’
I look up at him. My big brother. How he was, before. Strong. Always taking care of me. ‘I have responsibilities,’ I mutter.
‘No, you don’t,’ he says, laughing. ‘What? Mum and Dad have each other. Their only worry is you. You rent your house. You and Tom split up last week.’
‘How do you know about that?’ I ask.
‘All seeing, all knowing,’ he says, tapping his temple. ‘Comes with the transparent complexion.’
I frown at him. ‘You haven’t changed,’ I say.
‘No, neither have you,’ he replies. ‘That’s the problem.’
‘Are you real?’ I ask.
John just smiles at me and reaches out his hand. ‘Come on, kid, this is your last chance. I don’t think they’ll let me come again.’
I glance out of the tiny window at the cars passing through the tunnel. Everyone’s going somewhere, and he’s right. I’m going nowhere.
‘No-one’s been to my booth for ages,’ I say, confused.
‘Don’t worry about them,’ John says. ‘They don’t need you anymore.’
He reaches out, and I take his hand. It’s cold but surprisingly solid. He gently pulls me up and then we’re in the tunnel, passing over cars as if they aren’t even there. I can see a light ahead, but it’s not the light my brother went through two years ago.
I cling a little tighter to his hand. He smiles at me, and says, ‘There I was thinking you wanted me to go away.’ And he laughs and I laugh. I hear him whisper ‘You’re going to be fine’ in my ear before I realise that it’s daylight and I’m walking into John Moores Uni, for the first time in forever, my nails embedded deep in my palm.
Can you please tell Ink Pantry about your journey as a performance poet?
I’d always written ever since I was a child. My first poem was published in the ‘Brownie Magazine’ when I was about six or seven. I remember the excitement of seeing my name in print, of feeling that something I’d done was valued.
I’ve only been performing my poetry for just over ten years. A work colleague knew I wrote and asked me to read at a charity event he was putting on. He was very persuasive, and I said yes. I was sick with nerves the first time I read, it was almost like an out of body experience. However, the audience laughed at the punch line and that was me hooked. That’s the best sort of buzz for me, making someone laugh.
From there someone asked me to perform somewhere else, and so I did. And that just seemed to keep happening.
Have you any advice for budding poetry slammers? How do you prepare for a slam?
Don’t take slams too seriously in terms of the winning and losing. They are very subjective. I’ve gone out in the first round with the same poem that I’ve also won a slam with. In my opinion, it’s best to treat slams as a chance to showcase for three minutes, six if you’re lucky, and nine if you’re very lucky. Plus, it’s a superb way to network and meet other poets. The poetry scene is lovely and supportive in my experience. I always prepare for slams by putting in the work to rehearse my pieces over and over. I also time my work, including anything I want to say about the poem. Slams have strict time limits for the rounds, so you need to get it right.
What do you care about? What themes keep cropping up in your writing?
I care about people and how they live. I like to write in character a lot. I love to experiment with voice. Homelessness is a recurring theme in my work, and the creation of an underclass in this society. The outsider is a constant source of fascination for me, as are the people and dialect of the Black Country which is where I’m from.
You received Arts Council Funding for your one-woman performance poetry play. What was it about and what inspired you to create it?
I was inspired to write my first one-woman show by watching Jeremy Kyle and thinking it was like some kind of horrible bear baiting phenomenon. I started to see parallels between that TV show and the traditional Punch and Judy show, so I ended up taking the characters from Punch and Judy and creating a performance piece where they were telling their stories as people might do on the Jeremy Kyle type of TV show. It was called ‘The Professor Vyle Show’. It had poetry, puppets, quick changes, Burberry punch hats, a blow up doll, a full size Punch and Judy booth. It was a mad show, but really fun to do.
Where did you do your MA in Creative Writing? Please tell us about your experience during this time and what you gained from it. Do you think it is worthwhile for a writer to complete an MA and for what reasons?
I did my MA at Manchester Met. I did the novel route though, not poetry. I enjoyed a lot of the experience. It was a good way to network and a good way of making myself write to a deadline. I guess it depends on the individual whether this type of course is relevant. I’m not sure if it’s helped me in my performance career as such. I sometimes teach as a visiting lecturer in universities so maybe I wouldn’t get that type of work without having done the MA.
Who inspires you as a poet?
All sorts of people. This changes on a regular basis. Originally I was inspired by a book of poetry that my Granddad wrote. Everybody used to look at it with such respect. I never really knew him as he died when I was still very little, but I felt the sense of pride when family members talked about his book (I’m not even sure anybody except me read it). Roger McGough inspired me when I was at school. That was the first poetry I came across other than my granddad’s.
I’m currently into Liz Berry in a big way. I think she’s given people permission to write beautifully using dialect. There are so many brilliant performers who I love to watch and learn from. I love Holly McNish, Jonny Fluffypunk, and Brenda Read-Brown. There are also people who I enjoy working with like Heather Wastie who I’ve done a few bits and pieces with over the years.
Can you tell us about the Write On project?
That was a schools project run by Writing West Midlands. Now much of their work with young people is done through the Spark Young Writers’ groups. They run lots of them across the West Midlands region. I run the group in Stoke-on-Trent. I love it. We get up to twenty youngsters turn up and write their socks off for two hours once a month on a Saturday. Great fun.
You write for children. Have you any advice for writers who are new to this genre?
Listen to what children tell you about what they like. I sometimes ask children for subjects and then write poems to order. Get gigs reading to children so that you can see what works and what doesn’t. There aren’t many places to send work that you write for kids. ‘Caterpillar Magazine’ in Ireland is beautiful, and I’ve had a couple of poems in there in the past. Go and see some children’s poets in action, you can learn a lot from what others do.
Tell us about one of the best days of your life.
I’ve lived on a narrow boat for the past eight years. One of the best days ever was when we went to fetch it after having moved heaven and earth to have pulled off that dream. We didn’t know anything about boating. It was a fantastic learning curve.
What is your creative space like?
I don’t have one particular space really. I move about a lot and write wherever I am. I just take my notebook and pen or my computer with me in a bag. I’ll write on buses and trains. I’ll write in pubs. The day before yesterday I worked on a bench by the river in Bewdley (the library was shut!).
What is it about poetry that you love?
The sounds, the puzzling through when you’re trying to make a poem work, the joy when the poem gets a response when you perform it. The fact that there truly are poems for everybody. The diversity. The fact they can make you think, laugh, cry. The intimate connection between reader and writer. Wow, I’m bigging it up here! I’ve just read all that back, but I do genuinely believe those things.
What is next for you? Have you any plans?
I’ve just completed a rather long project, so I’m in poetry free fall at the moment. No plans. None. I’m open to offers. 😉
Click on the link above to listen to Mike’s phone interview. Towards the end, he kindly performs one of his poems.
Firstly, Mike, many congratulations on being awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Education from the MMU. You are very passionate about promoting reading to young people. What kind of things have you done to promote reading?
I was a librarian for fifteen years and I focused on young people. I believe reading is a way out for lots of young people, especially working class kids who never have a voice, and I think that once they get the bug of reading, they learn to communicate better, and ultimately, as a fourteen year old kid, your head is pretty fucked up as it is, so if you can’t communicate, it doesn’t help much, does it? The more we read, the more we learn to communicate, and also, we all know the smartest kids read. It’s a crusade to get schools, education and parents to be aware of just how important it is. It’s not about getting a sticker on a chart, it’s about their major development, and the more they read, the smarter and happier they are, and that’s why there has been a crusade about it.
So I do lots of different things. I work with about ten thousand kids a year in schools. That’s why I got a Doctorate more than anything else. I do events where I do live poetry to young people, conferences, book awards, ceremonies, and I still do bits and pieces with libraries, when I get the time. I still think libraries are probably one of the most important institutions in the UK.
Can you tell us about your journey as a performance poet? When did you first realise that you loved poetry?
I first realised I liked poetry when I started talking and I loved the rhythm of language and the feel it gave me, the sound of words in my mouth, saying weird words and being addicted to words and discovering words. This highly influenced me in music as well. I was brought up in a house with six kids. I was second youngest, so I had big brothers and sisters who were into Tamla Motown, Punk, Bowie. From a very early age I was spoon fed Bowie lyrics, a lot of Tamla Motown stuff, Billie Paul, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross and the Supremes and The Stranglers. I was influenced by these people whilst reading poems from school. One of the first poems that I read that made me realise that poetry talks about the other side was ‘Timothy Winters’ by Charles Causley which is about a scruffy kid, a trampy kid, basically, and I saw a lot of myself in Timothy. I loved the simplicity of poetry, how it was laid out. It didn’t take ages to read. It looked good on the page. It sounded good. It was moving. I thought the people who were doing it were cool. Most of the stuff we read as children were poems. Most of the stuff we read as we are learning how to speak are poems. Think about Bear Hunt. Think about Michael Rosen. Think about The Tiger Who Came To Tea. All those things are incredibly poetic. I wasn’t a great fan of reading big fat books, to be honest. I’d avoid them like the plague, so I thought a poem was perfect, so I’d read poems and I’d just find it a lot easier and a lot more fulfilling. You can get as much from a haiku as much as you can from a 500 page novel. So that was the beginning, more than anything else, and I’d start writing my own lyrics and words.
There’s a bit of a bad press about poetry, sometimes, isn’t there, about it being inaccessible and snobby, but it’s not really like that, is it?
I find a lot of poetry is inaccessible. I find the most successful poets are inaccessible, but also there is a whole gamut of poets that are very accessible. So, I started reading them and I started reading more poetry, and I went for a GCSE thing doing World War stuff, and just kept poetry very close to me. Then I discovered that a lot of these artists like Ian Dury, like David Bowie, were spoken word. They were talking for a lot of the songs. Just take the music away, and it’s a poem. Then the whole Liverpool thing and the Lennon thing. Music has always been there in the background, as an influence.
Very similar with John Cooper Clarke, through music. I came across Johnny through the punk scene, and things like that, and punk was brilliant for me because it gave me an opportunity to be the upstart I was already, and justifiably. I had a label to tag it to. Then I started performing things on my own, in my bedroom, reading things. When I first became a librarian, I was qualified and set up a Homeworks centre in Manchester for really rough kids, immigrants in a lot of cases; Asian, Irish, Jamaican, African. I would get them looking at poetry. I’d use poetry for everything. So what I’d do is look at one that they were studying, then I would read one of mine, but not tell them it was mine, and they would always prefer mine. So slowly but surely I gained a confidence to start reading it out. So I actually started reading stuff out in about 1994. I started doing slams pretty quickly. I went over to America and competed in some slams. I got a bit of a reputation in New York for my performance, in the Nuyorican Poetry Café, and my confidence, slowly but surely, grew and grew. I started to do more over here. I started being asked to do my own shows. Then I started publishing. Then I stopped being a librarian, and decided to make this my job, and it has been now for fifteen years.
Did you perform with New Order, Iggy Pop and Patti Smith?
I did, yeah. That was the St. Anthony thing. I wrote a poem for Tony Wilson when he died. I didn’t realise it would take on such momentum. A classical composer called Joe D’Dell heard it, love it, wanted to put some music to it, put some music to it, New Order heard it, loved it, invited me round to his house, and said ‘listen, we’ll go to New York to do it’. A gig for Philip Glass. He said would you like to do this and come with us, and do this, I said ‘yeah!’ and he goes ‘We got a backing singer, Iggy Pop and New Order’. New Order became mates pretty quickly. Heroes to mates. That’s the thing about star quality, I’ve found. Real stars stop being stars after ten minutes. They start to become your mates. So from that, I met Philip Glass. He loved what I did and invited me round, and I’ve been mates with Philip ever since. I’ve done gigs with him, stayed over in New York with his family. Lovely man. Supposed to be over there next week, with him, to do a festival in Carmel, but the forest fires burned down in so many spots, now, it’s deserted. So, I did other stuff with Patti Smith and the National. Oh, it was unbelievable. I sit back and think about it sometimes, and I think ‘how the fuck did that happen?!’ I still work with Phillip and he still champions what I do, and loves what I do, so I just feel very honoured and very lucky.
I like Morrissey and The Smiths. What is your favourite Morrissey lyric? (Mine is the one about the double decker bus!)
Well, I was mates with Morrissey as a kid. I grew up with all The Smiths. I worked with Johnny in Stolen From Ivors in a Saturday job. My brother worked with Mike at St. Kent’s Irish club, collecting pots. I still know Mike really well. I still speak to him on a regular basis and do stuff with him. I worked with Morrissey’s Dad in a hospital. One day, he turned round to me and said ‘have a word with my fella, he’s just like you, you know. Sits in his room and reads poems all the time’. So Morrissey came in for me to have a word with him. Keep in mind I’m five years younger than him, so that’s 17-22. It was just the beginning of The Smiths, as well. So, I love Smiths’ lyrics. It was my wedding dance; There Is a Light That Never Goes Out. I also did a programme for Radio 4 called Soul Music, about that actual tune. Check it out. I think it’s still online. They take a track every week and they look closely at the track and the effect it has on people. There Is a Light That Never Goes Out is massive, isn’t it? I love the lyrics to Girlfriend in a Coma, as well. I think they’re absolutely brilliant. I can’t fail Morrissey with his lyrics. I love the fact that sometimes they are pretty shit and they don’t work, but I actually like that, because he doesn’t care. He’s not looking for the perfect rhyme. I saw Morrissey in New York a couple of years ago, which was great because they were on with The Cortinas, another Manchester outfit.
But music is still important with me, that’s why I still do a lot of work with musicians and bands. I went to Edinburgh with a musical thing I put to poetry. I’ve got my own quartet (Cassia) that I work with on a regular basis. I’m doing Cerys Matthews’ Good Life festival. We’re doing that with Max Richter, a modern classical composer. Music is still really important to me. That’s the direction in which I’m going, making music and doing poetry, side by side. I like it that way.
What is the first thing you would change about the world as it is now?
I’d make everyone vegetarian, even though I have a bit of fish every now and again. That’s only through doctor’s orders, more than anything. God. Light questions!….I’d make everyone socialist, basically. I would ban capitalism.
Go back to bartering?!
Yes, I barter poems. I’ve had tradesmen in my house, plumbers and stuff, and said ‘listen, I’m a poet; do you want to trade or…’ and one person had taken it up.
I hate money. It’s a dirty thing. It brings the nastiness out in us. Yeah, I’d turn the world socialist, I think.
You have been working with John Cooper Clarke, who is coming to our home town of Nantwich, soon, with your good self, which we all can’t wait for. Can you tell us of a funny moment that you’ve had with him, as you’ve done over 500 gigs with him, haven’t you?
Yeah, over six years now. Toured America as well. Good bits were when we arrived in New York and Noel Gallagher came out to greet us. That was good, was fun. Funny bits are daily. They really are. They happen on a daily basis.
So you have a great working relationship with him?
He’s my mate. He champions me. He’s said lots of nice things on radio stations about me. Well, he’s had me with him for six years now, so he must like me in some kind of way. He took me to America with him. Did America. I love the guy. If I stopped working with him in the morning, it wouldn’t bother me. I’ve spent an awful lot of time with him and shared a lot of personal, private things with each other. I mean, there’s things about Johnny I know that nobody knows. There’s things about me that Johnny knows that no one knows. He’s a very bright man. Very intelligent man. He’s very switched on and aware. He’s very good with young people and understands them very well. His daughter’s only 22. He’s still in touch with young people and what trends are. He’s a great reader.
You read a lot as well, Mike, don’t you?
Yeah, only because I haven’t got many friends! It’s a treat for me, reading.
It’s having the time to read, I suppose, isn’t it?
You’ve got to make the time to read.
I’ve got a question from Kev Milsom, one of the elves at InkPantryTowers!: The passion for your native Manchester shines through in your poetry. Could you describe how you have sought to inspire young Mancunian poets with your words – also, could you share some thoughts on the Manchester creative scene and how you would like to see it expand & develop in the future?
It comes through in my poems, a sense of deep Northern pride. It’s not just Manchester. I love Northern cities. I’m in Liverpool at the moment dropping my daughter off at university. I’m excited because the amount of times I’ve spent here as a kid. I compare Mancs to Scousers all the time. They are very similar. But the Manc lads are better looking! The poetry scene in Manchester is bustling. We’ve got a brilliant organisation called Young Identity, which runs out of Contact, which picks up all the young poets and gives them a voice, basically. We’ve got Bad Language, which is a great night run by a kid called Fat Rowland. Common Word are still in Manchester doing loads. Peter Kalu is working really hard to keep the importance of the written word and poetry. I just try and give as much opportunity for young people to work with me and gig with me. We’ve got something on for the Manchester Food and Drink’s festival, the night before National Poetry Day. We’ve got a young poet and a couple of other poets. It’s just the opportunity for them to do that sort of thing. Another thing is, I’m rarely here, though. Most of my work is away from Manchester, which is a good thing in a way, as you can become too part of a scene, I think.
…and it’s inspiring, I suppose, to be away, because you get to see different parts of life and people…
Yeah. I’m a fellow of the University of Westminster, so I’m down there a lot, doing bits in London, playing around with poems and stuff.
I’ve got a question from Inky elf Shannon Milsom: She’d like to ask who were your childhood heroes? Who or what inspired you from a young age?
I’ve got football heroes. I still love football, but reading; I started off with Roald Dahl. He was my hero. He was a massive influence. Milligan. He was jokey and funny. My Mam brought me to see him. I got into Spike Milligan really young. A lot of his stuff is about mental health and the nature of man. Charles Causley. Some of the classic poets. Then the war poets. All of them. It was great last year as the BBC did a series on them. Music. The lyrical music of The Beatles, The Smiths, Punk, The Sex Pistols, The Buzzcocks, Echo and the Bunnymen. I was reading all sorts of stuff at the time; Gerald Durell, and just enjoying it, more than anything else.
What’s next for you? What plans have you got?
I’m doing a lot of work with the quartet, so I hope to have some poems with classical music. I’ve just worked with a couple of mates on a piece called Men’s Mourning, which was featured on Radio 4 last year. I did that up in Edinburgh, which went down really well, so I’m looking at ideas to do things with that. I’m looking at work with the Stroke Association. I had a stroke about a year ago and I was working with the Stroke Association at the time, weirdly enough, but they’ve got a choir, and I wanted to see how a choir and the spoken word works, so I’m interested in doing that at the moment. Do you know, Debbie, I play. I play around and see what comes out of it, and if something good comes out of it, I like it, and if something bad, well, nothing bad comes out of playing around, does it?
You want a poem, don’t you? My son lives in New Zealand. He moved there about 18 months ago. He’s only 23. It’s great because you haven’t got the brain ache of a wayward son hanging around you all the time, but sometimes you really miss him, so this is called:
I Truly Miss My Son Today
I truly miss my son today
I need to hear his name spoken aloud
I scream till I’m raucous when I’m at home alone
I sing whisper it when I’m stood in a crowd
We’ve not fallen out
We’re just miles apart
Makes me feel lost, lonely and astray
My heart slow bleeds as my soul departs
And I truly miss my son today
I’m gonna hold that boy in these two loving arms
I’m gonna tell that boy just how his Father feels
How I’d walk across Europe and Asia in bare feet
Swim naked through the South China Sea
For a moment of his beauty
For a instance of his grace
For a second of his cheeky Northern charm
And I’ll tell him things I’ve never told him before
When I hold my boy in these two loving arms
Mike: So, what do you guys do? Have you got a webpage? Do you do publications, how does it work?
Deborah: What happened was that some fellow students were doing a creative writing course with The Open University, and we thought; how can we promote our work? So we had Berenice Smith, who was, and still is, a graphic designer from Cambridge, and then we had Alyson Duncan, from Motherwell, who is a whizz on the internet. So we set up our own publishing company. We’ve got two anthologies out there with students’ work in them. What we do is promote new writers. We put poems that people send in, on the website, and do interviews…
Mike: So some of you are coming down on the night in Nantwich (John Cooper Clarke and Mike Garry perform at the Words and Music Festival at the Civic on the 15th October)
Deborah: Yes, definitely. There are loads of us going. There’s quite a good poet scene happening in Nantwich. We are all going to enter the poetry slam at the Railway pub on the Sunday, so that should be interesting, and nerve wracking!
Mike: Yeah, I can imagine!
Deborah: Thanks ever so much for doing this, Mike. It’s a fantastic privilege, it really is.
Mike: You’re very welcome. Come over and say hello on the night.
Deborah: Definitely. We can’t wait for you both to come down. Thanks Mike. You’re a legend!
“Lemons. Lemons everywhere. Yellow, curved, with those odd little nubs on either end. Nothing but lemons, an endless sea of them stretching from here to eternity. To be honest, I’m starting to get a bit sick of them. Now and again, just once, I’d like to see something different. Like an apple, or a banana. But no, it’s just lemons. That’s all we ever get around here.”
Malcolm stared at the words he’d just typed. Gibberish, absolute gibberish. As if the Bard would ever deign to come up with such trash. He tore the paper from the typewriter, fed a new sheet behind the ribbon and started again.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was one of those times somewhere in the middle that could be better but could be worse, like a rainy Tuesday afternoon.”
No, that still wasn’t right. Malcolm glanced over at his neighbour, an elderly chimp with the odd patch of grey in his fur, whose page was already overflowing with references to ghosts, daggers and witches. Still, his spelling was pretty atrocious. Malcolm took pride in his spelling.
But if he didn’t start channelling some Shakespeare soon, there’d be no peanuts for him tonight.
Malcolm concentrated, meditating on the collective sound of a thousand typewriter keys tapping out their staccato rhythms. His fingers flexed.
“Maria, I’ve just met a girl named Maria. And suddenly I’ve found how wonderful a sound can be…”
Oh no. Not again. Even the lemons were better than this second rate musical.
Why was he struggling so? Just the other week he’d dashed off three scenes from Coriolanus without a second thought. He tore out the defiled paper, screwing it into a ball and tossing it amongst the growing pile of rejects around his desk.
“Jim, I’m taking a break.”
The greying chimp didn’t reply, lost in the flow of dialogue and dreaming up arcane spells for his three witches. Malcolm didn’t try for witches any more. The last one had ended up with red shoes, green skin and an army of dogs with wings that she set on innocent Kansas farm girls.
He headed to the kitchen for a cup of tea. It was stone cold. He didn’t care. Anything to get away from the stench of failure emanating from his desk – unless that was the banana sandwich he’d lost last month, of course. The cleaners certainly weren’t that thorough these days.
“Hey, Malcolm. How’s it going?”
Malcolm looked up. “Hey, Cyril,” he said. “Could be worse, you know.”
Cyril, a spider monkey from Accounting, was the sort to remember everything you said and repeat it later in the annual budget meeting. All the typists in this section were terrified of him – there were rumours of more cutbacks. Once there were supposed to have been a million monkeys in the typing pool – now less than a tenth of that number remained, though they were told they were the best in the company. Malcolm wondered if the best had merely taken the opportunity to join the space program. NASA were always looking for new test pilots.
“Isn’t your PDR due soon, Malcolm?”
The dratted performance development review. Malcolm suppressed a shudder. He was dreading this – a meeting with his line manager to discuss his output. A few months ago he’d been producing a page of prose a day. Lately he hadn’t managed much more than a few stage directions in weeks, Coriolanus aside. But he was damned if he’d give those accountancy bastards the satisfaction of watching him squirm.
“This afternoon, actually,” he breezed, trying to sound casual.
“Best be off,” Cyril grinned, showing more teeth than pleasure. “I’m stocktaking the peanuts again. After all, we can’t let our hard workers go unpaid, can we?”
Malcolm smiled, dropped the empty teacup back in the sink and headed back to his desk.
“The PDR’s the thing,” he typed, “to prick the conscience of the king.”
Damned performance reviews. They were all he could think of now. He added another ball of screwed up paper to the pile below and started again.
“To be, or not to be, that is not really a question. My kingdom for a hearse! Cry havoc, and let dogs bring the slippers of war. To sleep, purchase a dream. Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards. A plaque on both your houses, stating Roy Waz Ere! Bill Stickers is innocent! I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas…”
Gibberish! Sheer gibberish! Malcolm shivered at the thought of meeting his boss, a four hundred pound gorilla in a suit slightly too small for him. Approximately half a pound of that weight was made up of brain, and that might be overestimating it. But that was how the company worked – put the good workers at the bottom, and promote the bad ones to management, where they couldn’t get in the way too much.
Malcolm returned to the typewriter, dashing out a quick sonnet that seemed determined to focus on a young girl from Nantucket. The Bard was being particularly unhelpful today. It was a relief to escape from work for a half hour at lunch time.
Bananas again. And not fresh ones. More budget cutbacks.
As Malcolm threw aside the final bruised banana skin, he felt a large hand upon his shoulder. “It’s time, Malcolm.”
“Yes, boss. Coming, boss.”
They headed for the trees. Lowly typists such as Malcolm had to make do with cubicles, but management had their own trees, a miniature jungle of foliage in which to work. Malcolm found it strange that sunlight and greenery were considered essential for the upper echelons but a distraction for their underlings. Still, this was no time to philosophise about business management. He had the dreaded review to survive.
The gorilla took up home on a sturdy spot near the trunk and gestured to a nearby branch. “Let’s get right to the point. Malcolm, I’ve been looking at your output for the last month or so. I’m very disappointed. There was a time once when we could afford to slack off; a million monkeys all typing for eternity, how could we not get the job done? But with all these cutbacks – I’m going to have to let some of you go. Tell me why it shouldn’t be you.”
Malcolm decided not to mention the wife and six children back home. That wasn’t really what the boss meant, after all. “I’m just going through a dry spell, sir. You know I’ve always been a top worker in the past. I can do it again.”
“Malcolm, Malcolm. I’m worried about you.” The gorilla’s cold, dark eyes suggested otherwise. “I’m afraid you might have burned out. Sure, you’ve managed some great stuff. That page of TitusAndronicus – brilliant work. You’ve inserted long-missing lines into six different scenes of Romeo and Juliet. But lately – I think something’s cracked.”
To his horror, Malcolm saw the gorilla smooth out a crumbled piece of paper.
“Yes, we’ve been checking your reject pile. Paper’s valuable stuff, Malcolm. It doesn’t grow on trees. Now what’s all this about lemons?”
“Sorry, sir.”
The gorilla growled. “I don’t want apologies, grunt. I want explanations. Why lemons? What work of Shakespeare ever mentioned lemons?”
“Uh… sonnet number 56 mentions pomegranates… I think…”
“Shall I compare thee to a fruitcake, Malcolm? Lemons and pomegranates! Next you’ll be wittering on about rainy Tuesdays. Oh, wait. You did.” He unrolled another sheet. Malcolm looked down at the ground and wondered whether a fall from this height could be fatal. Perhaps if he aimed carefully and landed head first…
“Truth is, though, Malcolm, I’m short staffed. When the company first started this project we had all the funds you could want. Now no-one is interested in Shakespeare. Look… you’re a good worker. I think you just need a change of scenery. I’m transferring you to the Meyer department.”
Malcolm gasped. “Not the Twilight series!” he wailed. “It’s utter dross!”
The gorilla smiled evilly. “I know. Keep on writing this codswallop, Malcolm, and no-one will ever notice. You might even improve it.”
Malcolm headed back to his desk, collected his few possessions, and headed off down the corridor. It felt like a punishment. Perhaps it was a punishment. But if a million monkeys on a million typewriters couldn’t produce the works of Shakespeare, perhaps something a little easier might be worth a try.
He sat at a new typewriter, threaded a new ribbon, and fed in a new sheet of paper.
“Vampire Edward and his bride Bella sat at the abacus, flicking beads back and forth. ‘One! Ah! Ah! Ah!’ chortled Edward. ‘Two! Ah! Ah! Ah!’ joined in Bella. And there were no lemons or pomegranates in the room. No, sir.”
Malcolm sighed. Utter, utter dross. He carefully took the paper out and added it to the out tray for the printers. He could only hope it would pass as good enough.
“And if, by chance, I have offended,” he thought to himself, “who gives a monkey’s?”
Can you please tell Ink Pantry about your journey as a musician?
I’ve been absorbed by music for as long as I can remember. I had piano lessons from age six, then guitar from a couple of years later. I was enthralled by the pop music I heard at the time (late 60s/70s) and also by the folkier stuff that the likes of Bob Dylan and Paul Simon were writing, especially their lyrics.
I’d say I got music from my father, who was a great violinist, though never a pro, and words from my mother.
I got a big break and publishing deal when I was sixteen, but I took a while to get going from there; I think the ’80s were a funny decade in that most of the music I liked was seriously out of fashion. I started getting busy, both as a writer and as a producer, in the early ’90s.
I wrote songs for – and with – some well known acts (Fairport Convention, Paul Young, Clare Teal, Lindisfarne) and I also met Thea Gilmore, whose work I’ve been heavily involved in since 1998 and several of whose hits I’ve co-written.
My work has also appeared on hit movie soundtracks, and a song I co-wrote was used by BBC TV as the lynchpin of their coverage of the 2012 Olympics.
I have released five solo albums and last year my song ‘I Hope I Always’ was heavily played on Radio 2.
Neil Gaiman has praised your solo work, calling it ‘literate, melodic and quirky’. Wow! What do you like to read and do you like poetry?
Neil came to see me at The Jazz Cafe in London a few years back… We’ve become friends and he’s very supportive. Yes, I do read a lot; I’m big on fiction and I always have a novel on the go. A lot of contemporary fiction, anything with a clear voice and decent characterisation, but I’m up for most things. I kind of take a lot of time choosing what to read and, having done that, I never abandon a book, even if I don’t love it I feel I’ve made a deal with it and always finish it.
Poetry wise, yes, I adore poetry and go to it a lot.
Where to start… For the range of his body of work and constant brilliance I’d say William Butler Yeats is the man. When I was on tour in the US a few years back I bought a Robert Frost anthology and lived and breathed it for a month; it was incredible to read his words when, in some cases we were passing through the places he wrote about.
I also love Louis MacNiece who I think is very overlooked, but truth be told I’m a bit of a sucker for rhyme so I can also always find a reason to visit the 19th century boys: John Keats, Alfred Tennyson etc. Also, Edna St Vincent Millay.
Contemporary wise I like Paul Farley, Don Paterson, Leonitia Flynn, Luke Wright… there’s so much!
Is there a recurring theme in your work? What do you care about the most?
I wouldn’t say a recurring theme, no. What I care about is writing it the way I see it and connecting with people. Finding something new, random or magical in the everyday.
I’m not an apolitical person; I do have songs which touch on social issues and to a degree political situations, but they are relatively few and far between. I think there’s a line which lyrics quickly cross over and become polemic or sloganeering, so I tread carefully.
As the years go by I hope I may have become a better writer, but I definitely think I’ve become a better editor. I’m quicker to rein myself in; I’m less interested in playing with words and more in working with them. Basically trying to say it with less, but reach people more.
Tell us about your creative process.
Every time is so different. With me there is no routine, it tends to be a pretty organic process. If I’m writing alone I probably start with either a title, or a sense of what the song is going to be about, its mood and atmosphere. When I have a few key lines in place I’ll try to concentrate on the tune, see where that leads me. And when the music starts to feel settled I’ll revisit the lyrics and flesh them out… by that time I’ve probably become a lot clearer about what I want to say.
What do you think is the most important element in song writing?
It’s the union between words and music, how the two can set each other alight. There are certain writers – Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, say – who stand up beautifully on the page, but for the most part song lyrics are there to be sung, not read.
I’m very interested in the alchemy through which a rise or fall in the melody, or a nuance in a human voice, suddenly brings resonance to a phrase that may not look that special on the page.
Can you share with us a couple of examples of your own lyrics and walk us through the ideas behind them?
FROM ‘I HOPE I ALWAYS’
‘I hope I always have your number
I hope I always have your trust.
While there’s a you and there’s a me
I hope there’ll always be an “us”’
A lot of people took this to be a romantic love song, but I actually had my elder (then only) son in mind when I wrote these opening lines. The title was clearly taking me somewhere, and I wanted to open with a very tangible image (phone number) then follow it with a more abstract, emotional concept (trust). I’d been reading a piece about a parent estranged from their kid and it reminded me how there are no givens about how relationships evolve as years pass.
The song developed into what people have called a secular prayer for self improvement, and I’ve been moved by the volume of people who’ve told me it resonated with them in profound, sometimes turbulent times in their lives. ‘I Hope I Always’ is the only song of mine to be published as a poem, in a recent PanMcMillan anthology – though I must say I still consider it a song.
FROM ‘BUILT FOR STORMS’
‘Word up, Nostradamus
Glory God on high
Thank you for the music
Shame about the sky.
Me, you and fickle fate
Here we go again
Two blue umbrellas
Seven kinds of rain.
Shout out, Captain Noah
The band are back together
From Galveston to Goa
There’ll be trigger happy weather.
Go tell it on the mountain
Pater Noster, Kyrie
Namaste om shanti
Gabba gabba hey.’
I wanted to ‘go scattergun’, to convey a sense of mayhem. Personal turbulence in a relationship, global unrest – maybe both. I also wanted the phrases to bounce off each other, so I alternated iconic names with doom laden overtones with more hopeful affirmations; I alternated biblical prayer and Buddhist incantation with references from pop culture.
I was trying to evoke the way that, in desperate situations, solutions, paths, and thoughts don’t appear logically or sequentially. I was after capturing the randomness and fear, but hope is also in there. The chorus linking these verses is:
‘Call me when you’re ready, I’ll hold steady,
I will be the fire that warms.
Anyone can shine when the forecast’s fine
But baby we were built for storms.’
This chorus appears three times: the instinct of the head and heart for survival gets to affirm itself repeatedly amidst the madness.
Who inspires you lyrically?
I’m not sure! I like Paul Westerberg a lot, have spent a long time identifying with his work;
but there isn’t any writer who specifically makes me put pen to paper. It’s more everyday living, people I hang out with and observe, trying to clock those moments and little events which resonate and which an entire day can turn on. I store up thoughts and odd phrases which jump out of conversations.
Tell us about one of the best days of your life.
That’s a hard one. I’ve been lucky and there are a lot of contenders! It’s tempting to go to the day my son was born, or say my honeymoon in Mexico, which was full of astounding days, but I’d probably also go for a day in October 2004 when Thea Gilmore and I had just landed in the US to tour as special guests on tour for Joan Baez. We had the most staggeringly beautiful three-hour road trip across New England; I’ve never seen colours like the sassafras, dogwood, and sugar maple on that day.
Then we arrived at the theatre in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Joan and her band chatted to us over dinner and she told us that the last time she played the theatre in question was with Bob Dylan on the opening night of the Rolling Thunder revue. I love Joan and everything she stands for… suddenly the air felt heavy with history and ghosts and everything felt a little transcendental (OK, so we were a bit jet lagged too!). We had an incredible show that night, got a standing ovation, and I guess it doesn’t get much better.
What’s your creative space like?
As well as a songwriter I’m a producer and sometimes a touring musician, not to mention a husband and a father of two boys under ten; so my life is not quiet.
I think when you’re young you have so much space in your life but you don’t realise it. Getting older and busier you need to learn how to navigate to the (internal) place where creatively things can start happening, and get there pretty quickly.
So to me it’s more about staying open and alert, paying attention to what’s going on around you, rather than necessarily a physical space. We do have a room at the top of the house which is kind of set out for writing, with a couple of nice old acoustic guitars, a bookcase, and two Buddhas, and I’ve done a lot of stuff up there. But I’m storing ideas all the time. I write in studios, in hotels. I actually wrote an entire lyric for a song that’ll be on my new album in the back of a cab travelling across Manchester.
Have you any advice for any budding lyricists?
Write every day.
If you call yourself a writer it’s kind of your duty.
Doesn’t matter if you produce nothing of worth, the process still kind of keeps you open and in touch with the part of your brain that reacts to ideas.
If you want it badly enough you’ll make time.
What is next for you? What are your plans?
I have a new solo album nearly finished, hopefully for Spring 2017 release. I hope you get to hear it!
I made a record with a Welsh band called Songdog, which is getting a lot of national radio play, and I’m just finishing producing Thea Gilmore’s new album.
Food is my Biggest Sin Food is my biggest sin. Whenever we fight, food always wins. Food is a big part of life. You don’t eat when you’re a girlfriend, but eat loads as a wife! Then as you grow, you become a mum, and you realise you have quite a mum tum. From munching on kids’ leftover food, and finishing chocolate when in the mood! Cheese and crackers, leftover cream cakes, the delicious coffee cake your Mum in law makes! Trifle from your Mum, pie from your Dad, to leave this food would be quite mad. But the weight comes on as years go by, and you start to wonder why! So you go back and try to lose weight, with what Slimming World and Weight Watchers make. But you can’t beat your Mum’s Sunday roast! Washed down with a drink from the dinner time toast! Talking of toast, are you marmalade or jam? Or do you have toasties with cheese and ham? Yum Yorkshire puddings that make Toad in the Hole. The quickest way to reach my soul! I feel quite hungry talking about food. The fight continues, but I always lose! Cakes Cakes, cream cakes, chocolate cake, lemon drizzle cake. Any of these, my day will make! Nice and soft, moist to the taste, and it all comes from making a paste! I wish I had the talent to bake. I can’t even do the ready to bake make! I am partial to a Manchester or strawberry tart! Cakes are definitely the way to my heart! Just wish that cakes would help you lose weight, instead of making your clothes sizes more great! As you can see I like my cakes. One day I’ll invent a cake to make you lose weight!
Ice Cream Snugburys is a local ice cream shop, with so many flavours, it will make your eyes pop! Caramel, toffee, honeycomb and mint, are just a few to start a print! Vanilla, chocolate, raspberry ripple too, so many to choose from, what to do!! Rum and raisin, orange and passion fruit. These flavours never follow suit! I feel I’ve died and gone to heaven, especially when you try the meringue lemon! Clotted cream, pistachio and Oreo cookie, or even try the White Mountain, if you feel lucky! So many flavours, I just can’t choose, but whichever you pick, you just can’t lose. Deliciousness itself doesn’t come close. All these flavours just melt in your mouth!
Biscuits! Cookies, bourbons and custard creams No matter what biscuit, I’m living the dream! Crispy pink wafers, a nice hobnob, dunked in coffee, or tea, it does the job! Yes, I’m a dunker, whether it’s coffee or tea, Just dunk it once, it’s enough for me! Chocolate chip, ginger nut, malted milk, smooth as silk! Put it all in so I can only mumble. That’s the way the cookie crumbles!
Sweet Shop I love looking through old school sweets! Whenever I see them, I know I’m in for a treat! Bonbons, Sherbet Lemons and Sherbet Trips! Licking the sweet goodness off my lips! Sugar coated jellies making lips tingle, Getting a great selection when ready to mingle! Black Jacks, Fruit Salad, Drumsticks and Whams! Soft juicy sweets filled with fruity jams! Melody Pops, Irn Bru chews, Love Hearts and Swizzle Sticks, sweets of pink and blue! A kid in a sweet shop what shall we do!!
Bloom Café Have a seat at Café Bloom, in a relaxed atmosphere and cosy room! Whether you drink coffee or tea, come and have a drink with me! Peppermint, earl grey, latte or mocha, for drinks galore you can’t get hotter! A bite to eat, a slice of cake, a coke, some juice, or a nice milkshake! Come drink with us – take a break!
Café de Paris Come to Café de Paris Qui mon qui!! For a quiet drink, be it latte or tea! Hot chocolate, snacks, cakes galore, After one visit, you’ll just want more! Café de Paris. Paris holds the key to your heart. Romance and drinks together, as one part! Aroma of tea, coffee, croissants, freshly baked! Come join us in the Paris of Nantwich, we want you to partake!
