The Return of Spoken Word Poetry on Something For The Weekend, Sir?

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. Leonard Cohen

Frustrated at my lack of success in gathering poets to record their work then post it here each Friday saw me 'lifting' spoken word poetry off YouTube. I couldn't arouse the interest of poets to join what I saw as a spoken word relay so I turned instead to YouTube. That worked well enough for a while but still left me feeling dissatisfied. Then, with the third mutation this site has seen, I started posting YouTube videos of the music I liked which I thought might be interesting to others. However, once a passion has been kindled then doused time takes its time but eventually, time rekindles the flame. The flame is again burning bright. Poetry is a thing I love. Spoken Word Poetry is a passion of mine. I stopped posting the spoken word a little over a year ago. I hope it will return here as soon as possible. There is a glimmer of a possibility it might. 

I would also like to continue with this site's 'Poetry Book of the Year' award. It seems a little pretentious somehow yet feels right. 'Something For The Weekend, Sir?" is hardly cutting edge and certainly not a universally accepted voice on poetry. I would like it to be but to that end, we would have to work hard. I feel unable to do full justice to such a concept. I find it easy to write about art, novels and music but not so poetry. I know I love it, increasingly so, yet still, those words dazzle me. With Roger Stevens and Michael Leigh my co-administrators of this site I thought perhaps we could field a team of adjudicators who could judge what they thought to be the best poetry book of the year but I think we require another, a female I think to add balance. That still seems insufficient numbers to form a judging panel. I am also unsure as to how to make the judging function. For example, I may read a book by Barry Hill which I think is brilliant. Do I then send my copy to one of the adjudicators to read? That would be a long process if the book has to be forwarded 4 or 5 times.

I am hoping that when Janet comes on board, no pressure intended, she will kick-start the relay so that it runs for a good while on the fuel she may supply with the contacts she knows. When that surge runs its natural course I again hope that what has been started will have gained notice so that others will join to continue the process. I am hoping.

.
.
All poems are copyright of the poet. Permission for this poet to post their work here has been granted by blog owner. All rights remain with the individual poet and their respective publisher.

The Fall

World Poetry Day

Today it is World Poetry Day. World Poetry Day was started by Unesco in 1999. The concept behind the day is to support “the oral tradition of poetry recitals” in other words Spoken Word poetry. Rather than consigning spoken word poetry to the annals of history, World Poetry Day celebrates poetry in all its forms including literary and oral. Today champions poetry. Today is a day to celebrate the beauty of poetry but especially spoken word, be it a live recital or recorded.

. . All poems are copyright of the poet. Permission for this poet to post their work here has been granted by blog owner. All rights remain with the individual poet and their respective publisher.

Poetry Book of the Year

Again, like the ebb and flow of the tide or the fatal fall of the watchmaker's timepiece, Alice Oswald mesmerises me once more with her recently published book of poetry. I am like a rabbit captured in her headlights unable to fully understand the words that cascade and fall off the page and yet remain smitten.  Is it any wonder she is now the Professor of Poetry at Oxford? I don't have the ability or talent to do justice to her most recent collection, "Nobody". All the same, it captivates me, it turns my head and like another Alice, she leads me by the hand down the hole where she reveals to me a world, my world, our world, the world of nature, the natural world and our relationship to it.

Yet another wonderful, wonderful collection of poems. As with Bowie, The Beatles, Captain Beefheart, The Fall and Kate Bush, I so want the magic to continue beyond this moment. But what do I know? I am "Nobody."

.
.
All poems are copyright of the poet. Permission for this poet to post their work here has been granted by blog owner. All rights remain with the individual poet and their respective publisher.

Jennifer K Dick

My new book LILITH: A Novel in Fragments will be out later this month with CORRUPT PRESS. I hope you will all keep an eye on the webpage for sales, and will help me set up readings in Europe and in the states in 2019-2020! Very excited about this book, and my forthcoming poetry collection THAT WHICH I TOUCH HAS NO NAME which should be out from Eyewear, London in 2020 (a year behind schedule, but therefore VERY much looked forward to, too!)

https://www.corruptpress.com/books/lilith.shtml

Joni Mitchell

.

Johnny Cash

With grateful thanks to Barbara Pellegatta and YouTube

  .

Laurie Anderson

.
.

Joan Baez

.

Bjork

.