And so we've come to the end of another year. It seems like only last week that I started writing this blog, but considering that I started in June this isn't such a dramatic opening to a post. With New Year's Eve upon us and the inevitable revelries about to start, I've decided to take some time out and reflect upon the year just gone. To try and sum it up in full is a task for someone better qualified than me, so I'll give my own perspective on what has made 2014 a truly eventful year.
The first big event this year was this blog being created. Anyone who's read my first post will know that I decided to start a blog due to being on a creative writing course at university, and that it seemed quite appropriate. You may also know that I was originally called something else, but that I had to change my name when I discovered that somebody else had taken it. I chose my current name due to a lot of my poetry having a recurring theme involving tigers. I know I haven't discussed this theme in detail this year, so expect more tiger poetry in the New Year, as well as more stuff to start arriving on the YouTube channel.
Two other big events I saw this year as the Tiger Poet were the centenary of Dylan Thomas and my trip to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Seeing a poet as famous as Dylan Thomas being celebrated for his poetry gave me an extra boost to get my own work out there. Despite the fact that the only thing I have in common with Thomas is being Welsh, the discussion of his poetry inspired me to increase my own output and to further my understanding of poetry.
Then there was the Edinburgh Fringe, where I was astounded by the sheer volume of creativity on display, and where I first saw performance poetry somewhere other than university. Aside from the music and theatre I also saw, it was Kevin P. Gilday is the Man Who Loved Beer which gave me first-hand experience of how spoken word is performed in a live setting. I have always noted how performance poets always seem to perform their work at the same pitch and with the same tone. In Gilday's case however, his delivery was entirely suitable to the subject matter, and now I realise that this point can be modified if the poet has a strong individual voice. Gilday certainly had that and I look forward to seeing some more spoken word in the future.
The big event in Wales this year was of course the NATO summit held at the Celtic Manor in Newport. It was perhaps the single biggest event to be held in Newport in living memory, and the arrival of Barack Obama caused more than a stir in South Wales. The first US president to visit Wales left the Welsh people somewhat star-struck, and he brought a three thousand strong entourage with him. The most important outcome of the summit was the ceasefire in Ukraine, which was announced by President Poroshenko on the Celtic Manor's lawn. However my main memory of the summit will be the Osprey V22 which flew over my house. Never before had Frynwys seen anything like it, and I doubt we'll be seeing much like it again.
For me personally, starting my third and final year at university has been a defining event of 2014. Soon my studies will be at an end, and I face the daunting prospect of graduating and going off into the big wide world of work. Quite what I intend to do beyond that is a mystery to me at the moment, but I intend to carry on with this blog and to bring you content on a regular basis. This year my output has been on and off at the best of times, but going forward I will make it my New Year's resolution to bring you new posts at least every week. In the last few months I've tried to keep a consistent schedule, but with the new year will come more new and exciting things.
So, that's it. The year is done and dusted. All I can say now is goodbye to 2014. It's been a fun year, but all eyes are now turning towards the clock for the countdown to the New Year. Hope you all enjoy the fireworks and I'll see you all in 2015.
Happy New Year everyone!
Wednesday 31 December 2014
Monday 29 December 2014
Half a Glass
I can't remember the last time
it was as sunny as this.
Whenever a roasting summer beckons
the downpour beats it
to the front of the queue.
The lush green fields have a slight
black tinge to them.
Even the sheep and cows look drab.
A group of strangers pass and smile.
Everyone seems happy today.
< They say that food feeds the mind.
as well as the stomach.
I'd beg to differ.
Thousands of sausage rolls cannot
fuel the hyperactive engine
behind my eyes.
Still people smile in my direction.
Maybe the sunshine has
brightened everyone up a bit.
Maybe the scent of summer
has made them cheerful.
A glance at a window reveals to me
the cause for their incessant jubilance.
The right lens of my glasses
is no longer there.
now the world is half bright, half dark.
Oh well.
(In case anyone was wondering, this poem was inspired by an incident at university where I walked round campus not knowing that one of my shades' lenses had popped out.)
it was as sunny as this.
Whenever a roasting summer beckons
the downpour beats it
to the front of the queue.
The lush green fields have a slight
black tinge to them.
Even the sheep and cows look drab.
A group of strangers pass and smile.
Everyone seems happy today.
< They say that food feeds the mind.
as well as the stomach.
I'd beg to differ.
Thousands of sausage rolls cannot
fuel the hyperactive engine
behind my eyes.
Still people smile in my direction.
Maybe the sunshine has
brightened everyone up a bit.
Maybe the scent of summer
has made them cheerful.
A glance at a window reveals to me
the cause for their incessant jubilance.
The right lens of my glasses
is no longer there.
now the world is half bright, half dark.
Oh well.
(In case anyone was wondering, this poem was inspired by an incident at university where I walked round campus not knowing that one of my shades' lenses had popped out.)
Sunday 28 December 2014
The Tiger Poet vs. Dark Souls
During my time at university, I've become more and more aware of the increasing quality of video games. Of the various titles I've been exposed to, none is as imaginative or as mind-bendingly difficult as Dark Souls. This From Software and Namco Bandai developed game adds a new definition to the world difficulty, as the player encounters formidable foes and challenges on their journey through the mythical world of Lordran. Since the finer technicalities of gaming are lost on me, I'll spend this post talking about how the narrative techniques of Dark Souls are some of the most accomplished I've ever seen in any medium.
The game opens with a prologue, rather like the prologues seen in Peter Jackson's adaptions of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. However, unlike those prologues, the prologue of Dark Souls relies on much less exposition. We learn of how the world was originally dominated by Everlasting Dragons, or the lighting of the First Flame, and of how four beings with powerful souls destroyed the dragons in an epic war. After this, the player is told of how the First Flame is in danger of going out and that the Age of Dark will soon begin.
The prologue immediately establishes the minimalist approach to storytelling employed by the game-makers. It's the game's most prominent cut scene, and gives us the small but necessary backstory. It also tells us that the player is cursed the Darksign, a condition which turns humans into un-dead zombies of sorts. The player's first mission is to escape from the Undead Asylum they were imprisoned in, and from there the player begins an adventure across a vast and hazardous world. The only way to discover the story is to deduce it from elusive clues scattered throughout the game.
What I find particularly inspired about this is the lack of explanation. Extraordinary things are encountered by the player throughout the game, but are even more awe-inspiring due to belonging in the unknown. Some would argue that the fear of the unknown is one of the oldest, most primal fears known to man, and they wouldn't be wrong. Several great adventure stories have played on this, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World and the great adventure classic King Kong. Combine this with the human urge to explore and such stories are as thrilling as they are unnerving.
The creatures in Dark Souls are one of the game's main strengths. The imagination of some of the bosses is terrific, especially with regards to Queelag, Ornstein and Smough, and Gravelord Nito. Each creature is designed with such precision and flair that the boss fights are immensely entertaining. Ornstein and Smough are probably the most difficult opponents gamers are ever going to encounter, while the final boss fight against Lord Gwyn is one that I would seriously consider wearing heavy armour for. Bosses aside, there are many creatures which would give you nightmares if they were real. I'm paying particular attention to the frog-like Basilisks, whose surreal appearance is terrifying when meeting them in dark places. Other creatures of note include the cackling Mimics, Harpies and giant cats which attack using forward rolls.
All of these things combined make Dark Souls one of the most immersive games I've ever seen. Although I've been watching others play it, I have played some of it myself and it's just as difficult as it looks. It's a game that forces you to use ingenuity and to learn from your mistakes. In my case, I made several mistakes of varying degrees of inanity, but in the end I learned enough from those mistakes to make it to the boss fight at the end of the section. I lost that fight, but I was more than pleased when a colleague of mine managed to defeat the final boss.
Rarely do I mention video games on this blog. Video games are not my area of expertise, so I'll leave the critical analysis to the gamers. However, I feel that Dark Souls is a perfect example of minimalist storytelling at its best. I can report that I have seen Dark Souls 2 which came out earlier this year, and it continues the difficulty and enigma from the first game in true Dark Souls fashion. If anyone reading this post still doubts me, play it and see for yourself. Also, when selecting your weapons, choose a sturdy shield and maybe a spear. You're probably going to need it.
The game opens with a prologue, rather like the prologues seen in Peter Jackson's adaptions of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. However, unlike those prologues, the prologue of Dark Souls relies on much less exposition. We learn of how the world was originally dominated by Everlasting Dragons, or the lighting of the First Flame, and of how four beings with powerful souls destroyed the dragons in an epic war. After this, the player is told of how the First Flame is in danger of going out and that the Age of Dark will soon begin.
The prologue immediately establishes the minimalist approach to storytelling employed by the game-makers. It's the game's most prominent cut scene, and gives us the small but necessary backstory. It also tells us that the player is cursed the Darksign, a condition which turns humans into un-dead zombies of sorts. The player's first mission is to escape from the Undead Asylum they were imprisoned in, and from there the player begins an adventure across a vast and hazardous world. The only way to discover the story is to deduce it from elusive clues scattered throughout the game.
What I find particularly inspired about this is the lack of explanation. Extraordinary things are encountered by the player throughout the game, but are even more awe-inspiring due to belonging in the unknown. Some would argue that the fear of the unknown is one of the oldest, most primal fears known to man, and they wouldn't be wrong. Several great adventure stories have played on this, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World and the great adventure classic King Kong. Combine this with the human urge to explore and such stories are as thrilling as they are unnerving.
The creatures in Dark Souls are one of the game's main strengths. The imagination of some of the bosses is terrific, especially with regards to Queelag, Ornstein and Smough, and Gravelord Nito. Each creature is designed with such precision and flair that the boss fights are immensely entertaining. Ornstein and Smough are probably the most difficult opponents gamers are ever going to encounter, while the final boss fight against Lord Gwyn is one that I would seriously consider wearing heavy armour for. Bosses aside, there are many creatures which would give you nightmares if they were real. I'm paying particular attention to the frog-like Basilisks, whose surreal appearance is terrifying when meeting them in dark places. Other creatures of note include the cackling Mimics, Harpies and giant cats which attack using forward rolls.
All of these things combined make Dark Souls one of the most immersive games I've ever seen. Although I've been watching others play it, I have played some of it myself and it's just as difficult as it looks. It's a game that forces you to use ingenuity and to learn from your mistakes. In my case, I made several mistakes of varying degrees of inanity, but in the end I learned enough from those mistakes to make it to the boss fight at the end of the section. I lost that fight, but I was more than pleased when a colleague of mine managed to defeat the final boss.
Rarely do I mention video games on this blog. Video games are not my area of expertise, so I'll leave the critical analysis to the gamers. However, I feel that Dark Souls is a perfect example of minimalist storytelling at its best. I can report that I have seen Dark Souls 2 which came out earlier this year, and it continues the difficulty and enigma from the first game in true Dark Souls fashion. If anyone reading this post still doubts me, play it and see for yourself. Also, when selecting your weapons, choose a sturdy shield and maybe a spear. You're probably going to need it.
Friday 26 December 2014
The Town I Forgot
There's a place that I keep forgetting,
a town in the hills from which iron and steel
ran down to the ports on rivers of coal.
Blaenavon they call it.
It clings to the walls of the valley,
a shadow of the glory days
when fumes rose from the steelworks
and the wheel of Big Pit kept turning.
Nan ruled the café on the high street.
Some say she ruled the whole town.
Certainly the best Welsh cakes
came from her kitchen.
Half my ancestry lived in this town,
in the shadow of the old mines,
the furnaces and the hills.
Some of them still do.
When it snows in Blaenavon
the streets are impassable.
A snowball to the eye never hurt anyone,
not with a cup of tea to look forward to.
I went back to the town I forgot.
Everyone still knows everyone else,
and the winds are cold
down the perpetual high street.
Houses I knew and visited
belong to someone else.
All the old faces are gone.
The others all shelter in the valleys.
Someday I will go back
to that town in the coal hills,
and see what they left behind.
(This is a poem is a tribute to the town of Blaneavon, where many generations of my family lived.)
a town in the hills from which iron and steel
ran down to the ports on rivers of coal.
Blaenavon they call it.
It clings to the walls of the valley,
a shadow of the glory days
when fumes rose from the steelworks
and the wheel of Big Pit kept turning.
Nan ruled the café on the high street.
Some say she ruled the whole town.
Certainly the best Welsh cakes
came from her kitchen.
Half my ancestry lived in this town,
in the shadow of the old mines,
the furnaces and the hills.
Some of them still do.
When it snows in Blaenavon
the streets are impassable.
A snowball to the eye never hurt anyone,
not with a cup of tea to look forward to.
I went back to the town I forgot.
Everyone still knows everyone else,
and the winds are cold
down the perpetual high street.
Houses I knew and visited
belong to someone else.
All the old faces are gone.
The others all shelter in the valleys.
Someday I will go back
to that town in the coal hills,
and see what they left behind.
(This is a poem is a tribute to the town of Blaneavon, where many generations of my family lived.)
Thursday 25 December 2014
The Tiger Poet vs. Christmas
It’s that time of year again. In many ways it’s arrived sooner that I thought, but it’s always great when it does. Out of all the times to be at home, Christmas is perhaps the best. Having just returned home from university, I’m relishing not having to worry about conserving money, and the festivities are currently at the forefront of my schedule. That doesn’t mean I couldn’t take time out to write this post, as even poets have something to say about Christmas. The best I can do is to share a little bit of what Christmas is like in my home village.
I know some readers have been wondering where exactly I live in South Wales, and I’m pleased to finally provide the answer. I live in Frynwys, a small village to the south of the Valleys. It has a few central features; the village hall, a pub and a small shop all within a few hundred yards of each other. As a result everyone goes to the same place for their milk. The streets in Frynwys are quite close together, meaning that you can’t walk a short distance without encountering give different sets of Christmas lights. People who live here tend to be somewhat competitive with their lights, with some houses trying to outdo each other with the elaborate decorations. It makes for a Christmas that’s brightly illuminated if nothing else.
My house has now been decked with bells of holly and such. Actually it’s been decked with tinsel and baubles; there aren’t any bells of holly. But there are quite a lot of lights and a few Christmas trees about the place. Tinsel which didn’t end up on the trees is now decorating the bannisters, the kitchen and the living room. The presents started arriving last week and there’s a fair few of them already. How many there’ll be on Christmas Day is still down to guesses (when is it not?), but I suspect there’ll be at least twice or three times as many as there are now.
The last time Frynwys saw a white Christmas was ten years ago in 2004. I learned this week that for it to truly be a white Christmas, snowflakes must be falling on the day, as well as snow being on the ground. From what the weather forecast has been saying recently, the chances of this happening are slim to put it mildly. Instead we’re getting rain, and lots of it. It’s mostly light drizzle at the moment, but when it’s like this for days on end it feels like you’re trapped in a particularly gloomy painting. The most recent forecast is claiming that it will be a lot dryer on Christmas Eve, but the last time I trusted the weather forecast my hopes were dashed and I had to go to school that day.
Aside from the weather and the decorations, the things that most people look forward to on Christmas Day are the presents. When I was asked what I wanted this year, it took me a while to provide an answer. I don’t know why, but the same innate excitement at the prospect of dozens of presents under the tree has slowly evaporated. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re an adult, but it’s not great, and this year I’m going to great lengths not to see any presents being placed under the tree. It’s proven slightly harder this year because new presents are appearing all the time, but I think I’ve marginally succeeded in steering clear of the tree this year.
Speaking of presents, I’ve bought a few for my family while I was away at university. They took a while to find, but I’m just hoping they’ll like them. One thing I’ve discovered since being a student is that time management is of the utmost importance. Because I’m the most unpunctual student there’s ever been, I ended up buying my presents at the last minute. Then again, I suppose since many people are doing this when Christmas comes around, maybe I’m not as monumentally late as I think.
I hope this has given you some idea of how Christmas is going for me at the moment. As this post is going out on the day itself, I hope everyone is well and that you all have a brilliant time.
Merry Christmas Everybody!
I know some readers have been wondering where exactly I live in South Wales, and I’m pleased to finally provide the answer. I live in Frynwys, a small village to the south of the Valleys. It has a few central features; the village hall, a pub and a small shop all within a few hundred yards of each other. As a result everyone goes to the same place for their milk. The streets in Frynwys are quite close together, meaning that you can’t walk a short distance without encountering give different sets of Christmas lights. People who live here tend to be somewhat competitive with their lights, with some houses trying to outdo each other with the elaborate decorations. It makes for a Christmas that’s brightly illuminated if nothing else.
My house has now been decked with bells of holly and such. Actually it’s been decked with tinsel and baubles; there aren’t any bells of holly. But there are quite a lot of lights and a few Christmas trees about the place. Tinsel which didn’t end up on the trees is now decorating the bannisters, the kitchen and the living room. The presents started arriving last week and there’s a fair few of them already. How many there’ll be on Christmas Day is still down to guesses (when is it not?), but I suspect there’ll be at least twice or three times as many as there are now.
The last time Frynwys saw a white Christmas was ten years ago in 2004. I learned this week that for it to truly be a white Christmas, snowflakes must be falling on the day, as well as snow being on the ground. From what the weather forecast has been saying recently, the chances of this happening are slim to put it mildly. Instead we’re getting rain, and lots of it. It’s mostly light drizzle at the moment, but when it’s like this for days on end it feels like you’re trapped in a particularly gloomy painting. The most recent forecast is claiming that it will be a lot dryer on Christmas Eve, but the last time I trusted the weather forecast my hopes were dashed and I had to go to school that day.
Aside from the weather and the decorations, the things that most people look forward to on Christmas Day are the presents. When I was asked what I wanted this year, it took me a while to provide an answer. I don’t know why, but the same innate excitement at the prospect of dozens of presents under the tree has slowly evaporated. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re an adult, but it’s not great, and this year I’m going to great lengths not to see any presents being placed under the tree. It’s proven slightly harder this year because new presents are appearing all the time, but I think I’ve marginally succeeded in steering clear of the tree this year.
Speaking of presents, I’ve bought a few for my family while I was away at university. They took a while to find, but I’m just hoping they’ll like them. One thing I’ve discovered since being a student is that time management is of the utmost importance. Because I’m the most unpunctual student there’s ever been, I ended up buying my presents at the last minute. Then again, I suppose since many people are doing this when Christmas comes around, maybe I’m not as monumentally late as I think.
I hope this has given you some idea of how Christmas is going for me at the moment. As this post is going out on the day itself, I hope everyone is well and that you all have a brilliant time.
Merry Christmas Everybody!
Tuesday 23 December 2014
Trailer for 'Kalua'
Hi. Hope everyone's having a great Christmas. With just a day to go until Christmas Eve, I thought I'd share with you some good news. A trailer for the audio version of 'Kalua' has been posted to the YouTube channel.
The actual recording will hopefully be up at some point before New Year's Eve, but if not it will be in early January 2015.
In the meantime, feel free to check out the trailer here: http://youtu.be/rL_izsJCGNs.
See you on Christmas Day.
The actual recording will hopefully be up at some point before New Year's Eve, but if not it will be in early January 2015.
In the meantime, feel free to check out the trailer here: http://youtu.be/rL_izsJCGNs.
See you on Christmas Day.
Sunday 21 December 2014
Christmas and New Year Updates
Hi everyone, just checking in before Santa gets here. Obviously my posts have become slightly sparser of late due to the festivities taking up quite a bit of my time. With this in mind, let me fill you in on what's happening on this blog during Christmas and New Year, and some of my plans for 2015.
For Christmas Day, I will devote a post to discussing Christmas itself. I know I've never talked in depth about my home village before, and in this post I'll describe how it looks at Christmas time, so this should be fun. There will also be a couple of poems, one on Boxing Day and another before the New Year.
Also, I intend to have the audio version of my poem 'Kalua' available on YouTube within the next week or two. I know I've kept saying it, but this time I mean it, and it will arrive when it arrives.
As for 2015, there's a lot happening there. I'm going to keep the poetry arriving at a fairly decent pace. Hopefully my posting won't be as infrequent as it has been this year, and I'll be writing some more articles about various topics, including the First World War, Ted Hughes and J. R. R. Tolkien. And there is still my Dark Souls article waiting in the wings.
So, that's a lot of stuff to take in, but stick around for my post on Christmas Day and we'll work from there.
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!
For Christmas Day, I will devote a post to discussing Christmas itself. I know I've never talked in depth about my home village before, and in this post I'll describe how it looks at Christmas time, so this should be fun. There will also be a couple of poems, one on Boxing Day and another before the New Year.
Also, I intend to have the audio version of my poem 'Kalua' available on YouTube within the next week or two. I know I've kept saying it, but this time I mean it, and it will arrive when it arrives.
As for 2015, there's a lot happening there. I'm going to keep the poetry arriving at a fairly decent pace. Hopefully my posting won't be as infrequent as it has been this year, and I'll be writing some more articles about various topics, including the First World War, Ted Hughes and J. R. R. Tolkien. And there is still my Dark Souls article waiting in the wings.
So, that's a lot of stuff to take in, but stick around for my post on Christmas Day and we'll work from there.
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!
Friday 12 December 2014
Their Last Bough
Trees don't make great hiding places.
Nobody seemed to have told us.
Perched on branches thick with leaves,
invisible to the mortal eye.
Nobody seemed to have told us
the teacher was on her way.
Invisible to the mortal eye,
we could be heard all the way to Bettws.
The teacher was on her way,
we knew the protocol for this.
We could be heard all the way to Bettws,
no wonder she caught us so easily.
We knew the protocol for this,
falling out of the branches one by one.
No wonder she caught us so easily
but our last man was still hidden.
Falling out of the branches one by one,
we were certainly going to die.
But our last man was still hidden,
before the bough gave way.
We were certainly going to die,
perched on branches thick with leaves
before the bough gave way.
Trees don't make great hiding places.
(This pantoum was inspired by a tree-climbing escapade I was involved in while at school.)
Nobody seemed to have told us.
Perched on branches thick with leaves,
invisible to the mortal eye.
Nobody seemed to have told us
the teacher was on her way.
Invisible to the mortal eye,
we could be heard all the way to Bettws.
The teacher was on her way,
we knew the protocol for this.
We could be heard all the way to Bettws,
no wonder she caught us so easily.
We knew the protocol for this,
falling out of the branches one by one.
No wonder she caught us so easily
but our last man was still hidden.
Falling out of the branches one by one,
we were certainly going to die.
But our last man was still hidden,
before the bough gave way.
We were certainly going to die,
perched on branches thick with leaves
before the bough gave way.
Trees don't make great hiding places.
(This pantoum was inspired by a tree-climbing escapade I was involved in while at school.)
Tuesday 9 December 2014
The Tiger Poet vs. Ghostwriters
Okay, so I admit this post has arrived somewhat quicker than usual, but it's on a subject I would like to address. The recent news that YouTube star Zoe Sugg's debut novel, Girl Online, may have been written by a ghostwriter has sparked debate about the practice of ghosting and the level of deception involved. I'm not going to talk much about Zoe Sugg's case in this post, but instead about the idea of ghosting in general and its place in the wider world of writing.
Ghosting has been in practice for the last century, and ghostwriters are still in demand to write books for politicians, celebrities and musicians. Most often a ghostwriter is used when the celebrity in question has an idea for a book but can't write it down, or because they are so busy that they have no time to write anything. In every bookstore is at least one celebrity autobiography which you can tell has been ghost-written on first reading. For writers who take the time and effort to research, write and assemble books, the fact that ghostwriters hardly receive any credit for their work can sometimes be contentious.
Publishers also have a hand in the ghosting trade at a managerial level. It may well be the case that some publishes choose ghostwriters to write books for marketable authors. Many of Tom Clancy's later works were written by other writers, no doubt to keep the brand going, even while Tom Clancy himself was still alive and mostly still at work. Therefore, ghostwriters have an active hand in whether or not a franchise will continue to be successful, even if the original author is still capable of continuing it themselves.
As someone who has written several manuscripts with fairly high word counts, I can attest to the fact that writing a book is no easy feat. It requires research, commitment, attention to detail, discipline, and above all else a lot of hard work. There is nothing inherently wrong about lacking these things; indeed, I myself can hardly talk about discipline when I have a tendency to be thoroughly careless. Therefore, ghostwriters can be incredibly helpful for someone who has fantastic ideas but has difficulty writing them down. However, the question of how much credit is awarded to ghostwriters is still an important issue.
It may appear to some that ghostwriters are completely deprived of any credit. I'd imagine that it can't be great to have written a hundred thousand word book and see it sold with someone else's name emblazoned on it. Still, it's all part of the job. Ghostwriters must go into a contract to write a book for somebody in the knowledge that they are unlikely to gain much credit for it unless they are revealed by the supposed author or the publisher. They also enter into it knowing that they will probably be paid a far lesser sum than the profits the 'author' will make from the sales. Whether or not the ghostwriters themselves will be satisfied by the deal is entirely up to them, but it certainly can't be easy to have written so much and be relatively unnoticed.
The issue of whether ghosting deceives readers is one that crops up from time to time. It's one thing if the ghostwriter is acknowledged in some form by the publishers, maybe at the beginning or the end of the book, but it's another when a publisher sticks just the supposed author's name on it to further the illusion of sole authorship. A total lack of acknowledgement is something which most people would not put up with unless they expressed an explicit desire not to be credited. In that sense, it is a form of deception on the publishers' part, but not on the part of the supposed author and the ghostwriter.
So, what does the acknowledgement of ghostwriters mean for the people like Zoe Sugg? This latest incident should make ghosting the main topic of debate for the next few days at least, and it has at the least inspired discussion. Ghostwriters are so often unnoticed in the literary world, so it's nice that their work is being talked about in the public sphere. If nothing else results from this, then that in itself makes the whole thing worthwhile.
Ghosting has been in practice for the last century, and ghostwriters are still in demand to write books for politicians, celebrities and musicians. Most often a ghostwriter is used when the celebrity in question has an idea for a book but can't write it down, or because they are so busy that they have no time to write anything. In every bookstore is at least one celebrity autobiography which you can tell has been ghost-written on first reading. For writers who take the time and effort to research, write and assemble books, the fact that ghostwriters hardly receive any credit for their work can sometimes be contentious.
Publishers also have a hand in the ghosting trade at a managerial level. It may well be the case that some publishes choose ghostwriters to write books for marketable authors. Many of Tom Clancy's later works were written by other writers, no doubt to keep the brand going, even while Tom Clancy himself was still alive and mostly still at work. Therefore, ghostwriters have an active hand in whether or not a franchise will continue to be successful, even if the original author is still capable of continuing it themselves.
As someone who has written several manuscripts with fairly high word counts, I can attest to the fact that writing a book is no easy feat. It requires research, commitment, attention to detail, discipline, and above all else a lot of hard work. There is nothing inherently wrong about lacking these things; indeed, I myself can hardly talk about discipline when I have a tendency to be thoroughly careless. Therefore, ghostwriters can be incredibly helpful for someone who has fantastic ideas but has difficulty writing them down. However, the question of how much credit is awarded to ghostwriters is still an important issue.
It may appear to some that ghostwriters are completely deprived of any credit. I'd imagine that it can't be great to have written a hundred thousand word book and see it sold with someone else's name emblazoned on it. Still, it's all part of the job. Ghostwriters must go into a contract to write a book for somebody in the knowledge that they are unlikely to gain much credit for it unless they are revealed by the supposed author or the publisher. They also enter into it knowing that they will probably be paid a far lesser sum than the profits the 'author' will make from the sales. Whether or not the ghostwriters themselves will be satisfied by the deal is entirely up to them, but it certainly can't be easy to have written so much and be relatively unnoticed.
The issue of whether ghosting deceives readers is one that crops up from time to time. It's one thing if the ghostwriter is acknowledged in some form by the publishers, maybe at the beginning or the end of the book, but it's another when a publisher sticks just the supposed author's name on it to further the illusion of sole authorship. A total lack of acknowledgement is something which most people would not put up with unless they expressed an explicit desire not to be credited. In that sense, it is a form of deception on the publishers' part, but not on the part of the supposed author and the ghostwriter.
So, what does the acknowledgement of ghostwriters mean for the people like Zoe Sugg? This latest incident should make ghosting the main topic of debate for the next few days at least, and it has at the least inspired discussion. Ghostwriters are so often unnoticed in the literary world, so it's nice that their work is being talked about in the public sphere. If nothing else results from this, then that in itself makes the whole thing worthwhile.
Sunday 7 December 2014
A Mink in Somerset
The old mink escaped the farm on Thursday
not knowing why he was there at all.
He wandered over grass and through hay
until he reached the river and without a glance
dived in, a black slither on azure glass.
Not one to go hungry he looked to eat,
and found none, confined with no way to pass.
The mallard did not see death till she was meat.
The daggers severed her thoughts from her heat.
Not to worry, her unused dreams would feed
another's, and fuel their endless hunger.
A once green bank becomes cloaked in seeds.
The predator once a prisoner sleeps,
hoards and fattens on bones of voles and geese.
(This sonnet was written earlier this year.)
not knowing why he was there at all.
He wandered over grass and through hay
until he reached the river and without a glance
dived in, a black slither on azure glass.
Not one to go hungry he looked to eat,
and found none, confined with no way to pass.
The mallard did not see death till she was meat.
The daggers severed her thoughts from her heat.
Not to worry, her unused dreams would feed
another's, and fuel their endless hunger.
A once green bank becomes cloaked in seeds.
The predator once a prisoner sleeps,
hoards and fattens on bones of voles and geese.
(This sonnet was written earlier this year.)
Monday 1 December 2014
March of the Jelly Babies
I wish I did not share this yellow bag
with all these other smiling moulds
of all the colours of the rainbow.
There's no elbow room
and I'm only small.
We sit here in our yellow prison,
waiting for the hand to find us,
snatch us from our homes and
tear our torso in two.
Then one clever baby in the bunch,
a red one with a smiley face, tells us
"I think I have an idea.
We shall rise up out of the yellow prison.
We shall abseil down the shelves and march
right up to the front counter
and seize the till with strength of numbers.
Next we shall march to the door and open it
and we shall march down the pavement
and the road, towards the supermarkets
and beyond."
(This is the sequel to 'Jelly Babies Have Ears'.)
with all these other smiling moulds
of all the colours of the rainbow.
There's no elbow room
and I'm only small.
We sit here in our yellow prison,
waiting for the hand to find us,
snatch us from our homes and
tear our torso in two.
Then one clever baby in the bunch,
a red one with a smiley face, tells us
"I think I have an idea.
We shall rise up out of the yellow prison.
We shall abseil down the shelves and march
right up to the front counter
and seize the till with strength of numbers.
Next we shall march to the door and open it
and we shall march down the pavement
and the road, towards the supermarkets
and beyond."
(This is the sequel to 'Jelly Babies Have Ears'.)
Monday 24 November 2014
Tiger Verse New Updates
Hi there. As you may or may not have noticed, this blog has been quiet over the last week or two. Because of this, I feel it my duty to inform you of what is coming over the next fortnight.
I'm still hard at work at university, and am currently writing poems for a collection which will form part of my final module grade. Of course I will still be publishing poetry on this blog, but not poems designated for the collection. Also a new recording of 'Never Eat Peas' is now up and can be viewed here: http://youtu.be/-mV4uZ3LeGA
In other news, I will still be writing articles covering different subjects. These subjects include fellow poets, films, television programmes and other things. Expect an article on my experiences with a certain popular video game soon.
All this and more will be up on Tiger Verse soon.
I'm still hard at work at university, and am currently writing poems for a collection which will form part of my final module grade. Of course I will still be publishing poetry on this blog, but not poems designated for the collection. Also a new recording of 'Never Eat Peas' is now up and can be viewed here: http://youtu.be/-mV4uZ3LeGA
In other news, I will still be writing articles covering different subjects. These subjects include fellow poets, films, television programmes and other things. Expect an article on my experiences with a certain popular video game soon.
All this and more will be up on Tiger Verse soon.
Monday 10 November 2014
Ol Doinyo Lengai
Smoke billows from the rim
of the colossal rumbling cauldron
of Ol Doinyo Lengai.
The endless plains below wither
from green into yellow,
from yellow into parched brown.
The herds leave, and the predators
linger in the emptiness.
The Mountain of God awakens.
Ash clouds the air,
engulfing every glimmer of sunlight.
The predators stare in bewilderment.
Starving lions gaze at the mountain
as it belches black lava.
It oozes down the smouldering slopes
and sets in clouds of steam.
Ash falls onto the savannah,
carnivores remain in the mountain's shadow
as the black clouds fall.
The sky above the cauldron clears,
rain breaks through.
It soaks the barren fields
and grass sprouts up
like hairs on never-ending skin.
The herds return to their pastures,
the lions feast on their new bounty,
and the Mountain of God
returns to its slumber.
(This poem was originally written for a collection I'm writing for my poetry module, but I decided to share it here as the collection is now heading in a different direction.)
of the colossal rumbling cauldron
of Ol Doinyo Lengai.
The endless plains below wither
from green into yellow,
from yellow into parched brown.
The herds leave, and the predators
linger in the emptiness.
The Mountain of God awakens.
Ash clouds the air,
engulfing every glimmer of sunlight.
The predators stare in bewilderment.
Starving lions gaze at the mountain
as it belches black lava.
It oozes down the smouldering slopes
and sets in clouds of steam.
Ash falls onto the savannah,
carnivores remain in the mountain's shadow
as the black clouds fall.
The sky above the cauldron clears,
rain breaks through.
It soaks the barren fields
and grass sprouts up
like hairs on never-ending skin.
The herds return to their pastures,
the lions feast on their new bounty,
and the Mountain of God
returns to its slumber.
(This poem was originally written for a collection I'm writing for my poetry module, but I decided to share it here as the collection is now heading in a different direction.)
Friday 17 October 2014
Jelly Babies Have Ears
I would like to tell you
how to stack the confectionary shelves
for the sale tomorrow.
We can't speak here though.
I think they might be listening
even now.
What are you talking about?
You mean the jelly babies again?
I've told you before, and I'll tell you
now, jelly babies are not animate.
They can't hear you.
What makes you so certain?
I've started hearing things you see,
in the night when no one's around,
I hear them whispering to each other.
I think they might know you know,
what happens to them in the end.
There's no denying they know.
Now you're being ridiculous.
They can't hear you!
They can't even see you!
I think you've had one too many
jelly babies yourself.
Now pack this nonsense in!
I told you to watch out.
They've opened their bags
and dragged you to the broom cupboard.
Next they see me, and their sugar coated hands
seized me by the nose.
They're cleverer than they look.
(This is a poem I wrote a while ago, and is one of two parts.)
how to stack the confectionary shelves
for the sale tomorrow.
We can't speak here though.
I think they might be listening
even now.
What are you talking about?
You mean the jelly babies again?
I've told you before, and I'll tell you
now, jelly babies are not animate.
They can't hear you.
What makes you so certain?
I've started hearing things you see,
in the night when no one's around,
I hear them whispering to each other.
I think they might know you know,
what happens to them in the end.
There's no denying they know.
Now you're being ridiculous.
They can't hear you!
They can't even see you!
I think you've had one too many
jelly babies yourself.
Now pack this nonsense in!
I told you to watch out.
They've opened their bags
and dragged you to the broom cupboard.
Next they see me, and their sugar coated hands
seized me by the nose.
They're cleverer than they look.
(This is a poem I wrote a while ago, and is one of two parts.)
Monday 13 October 2014
The Tiger Poet vs. Doctor Who
My first exposure to the global phenomenon that is Doctor Who was back in 2005. I had heard it mentioned in passing before, but the show's revival was the first time I ever watched an episode. I followed it on and off during the first two series, and saw hardly any of the third. In 2008, I watched The Fires of Pompeii, the second episode of the fourth series, and have stuck with it ever since.
There are enough articles about Doctor Who to warrant a planet-sized database, so what can mine bring to the table? Well, I can start with my impression of why it is such a cultural sensation. Much of its success can be traced back to infinite possibilities of travelling in the TARDIS. By having a time machine that can travel to any point in history and anywhere in the universe, the amount of stories that writers can tell is endless. As the main protagonist, the character of the Doctor is a source of endless fascination due to his alien quirkiness and sense of ethereal mystery. This combination served the show tremendously in its original run, and continues to work just as well today.
Of course, there are many facets to the success of Doctor Who, including the imaginative storylines, memorable monsters, and the ever-expanding list of great companions. To try and explain how each of them contributes to the show would span several blog posts. So, to shorten the subject somewhat, allow me to lay out my own thoughts on the series' current state and its future.
Currently Doctor Who is a stronger position that it ever has been, in no small part due to the efforts of executive producers Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat. However, both of these writers have sparked debate and in some cases controversy. Davies has been critics for the lack of visits to alien planets, constant use of deux-ex-machina endings, the embellishment of the Doctor as a saviour-figure, and persistent sentimentality. Moffat on the other hand has been charged with misogyny, homophobia and an over-reliance on complex story arcs that span several series. In general, most of the hatred from ardent fans seems to be directed at Moffat as of late, but why?
I have sometimes been involved in discussions about Doctor Who with various individuals. Most of them seem to dislike the way the show has gone after Moffat took control and Matt Smith became the Doctor. Re-watching some of Smith's episodes, I can see why to a certain extent. His first series was consistently good, apart from a finale that was too complex for its own good. In following series, flaws such as lack of development for supporting characters and the show trying too hard to be clever became more prominent, especially in the latter half of the seventh series.
One problem I've always had with the newer series is that the villains are often lacking in personality, or that there is sometimes no villain at all. Episodes such as The Big Bang, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe are testament to this. Even The Day of the Doctor, the fiftieth anniversary special, had this problem to a certain extent. The villains of Moffat's run, including the Silence, Madame Kovarian, the Great Intelligence and most recently Missy, are all good attempts at memorable villainy but are squandered by a lack of characterisation.
That last mention of Missy leads me nicely to the current series with Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. Some of my colleagues have been full of praise for the darker tone, the focus on character development and the variety of new monsters on display. Others have been quite insistent in their criticisms, specifically of the continued time travel complexity, the overuse of the phrase "most dangerous (inset noun here) in the universe" and the kid-friendly resolutions to most of the episodes. I agree with all of these points, good and bad, but any suggestion that Doctor Who is on its way out is a highly miscalculated one.
To test the quality of Doctor Who as it stands, we need to weight until the end of the eighth series so that we can judge it as a whole. With this in mind, I intend to start a Doctor Who tend (if that's what people call it), in which I analyse the newest episodes for the reader's cynical enjoyment. Until then, all I can look forward to are presentations, poetry, and continued university deadlines.
There are enough articles about Doctor Who to warrant a planet-sized database, so what can mine bring to the table? Well, I can start with my impression of why it is such a cultural sensation. Much of its success can be traced back to infinite possibilities of travelling in the TARDIS. By having a time machine that can travel to any point in history and anywhere in the universe, the amount of stories that writers can tell is endless. As the main protagonist, the character of the Doctor is a source of endless fascination due to his alien quirkiness and sense of ethereal mystery. This combination served the show tremendously in its original run, and continues to work just as well today.
Of course, there are many facets to the success of Doctor Who, including the imaginative storylines, memorable monsters, and the ever-expanding list of great companions. To try and explain how each of them contributes to the show would span several blog posts. So, to shorten the subject somewhat, allow me to lay out my own thoughts on the series' current state and its future.
Currently Doctor Who is a stronger position that it ever has been, in no small part due to the efforts of executive producers Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat. However, both of these writers have sparked debate and in some cases controversy. Davies has been critics for the lack of visits to alien planets, constant use of deux-ex-machina endings, the embellishment of the Doctor as a saviour-figure, and persistent sentimentality. Moffat on the other hand has been charged with misogyny, homophobia and an over-reliance on complex story arcs that span several series. In general, most of the hatred from ardent fans seems to be directed at Moffat as of late, but why?
I have sometimes been involved in discussions about Doctor Who with various individuals. Most of them seem to dislike the way the show has gone after Moffat took control and Matt Smith became the Doctor. Re-watching some of Smith's episodes, I can see why to a certain extent. His first series was consistently good, apart from a finale that was too complex for its own good. In following series, flaws such as lack of development for supporting characters and the show trying too hard to be clever became more prominent, especially in the latter half of the seventh series.
One problem I've always had with the newer series is that the villains are often lacking in personality, or that there is sometimes no villain at all. Episodes such as The Big Bang, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe are testament to this. Even The Day of the Doctor, the fiftieth anniversary special, had this problem to a certain extent. The villains of Moffat's run, including the Silence, Madame Kovarian, the Great Intelligence and most recently Missy, are all good attempts at memorable villainy but are squandered by a lack of characterisation.
That last mention of Missy leads me nicely to the current series with Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. Some of my colleagues have been full of praise for the darker tone, the focus on character development and the variety of new monsters on display. Others have been quite insistent in their criticisms, specifically of the continued time travel complexity, the overuse of the phrase "most dangerous (inset noun here) in the universe" and the kid-friendly resolutions to most of the episodes. I agree with all of these points, good and bad, but any suggestion that Doctor Who is on its way out is a highly miscalculated one.
To test the quality of Doctor Who as it stands, we need to weight until the end of the eighth series so that we can judge it as a whole. With this in mind, I intend to start a Doctor Who tend (if that's what people call it), in which I analyse the newest episodes for the reader's cynical enjoyment. Until then, all I can look forward to are presentations, poetry, and continued university deadlines.
Sunday 5 October 2014
University Updates
As readers of the poem I posted yesterday may or may not have guessed, I've been back at university for a fortnight. A lot can happen in a fortnight, and as luck would have it, a fair amount did happen. Fresher's Week aside, I've been settling back into the routine of seminars and lectures, which will be more intensive now I'm in my final year.
At my first seminar this week, I was told that I'll have to visit several public events where writers of all sorts will be speaking. I was given a list of possibilities, ranging from the Cheltenham Literature Festival to performance poetry nights in Bristol. The second seminar dealt with poetry, and it turns out I'm expected to produce a collection of the stuff. My last seminar was one for writing a novel. I'll have to write a large portion of this novel over the next year.
Life at university isn't getting any easier in third year. I discovered the other day that I already have an essay due in for the end of the month, along with a study of some event programs and at least a thousand words of a novel due for next week. For a village hermit like me, living in a different place is a very strange but rewarding experience, but all this added work has somewhat lessened my enjoyment of it.
So, how will the new workload affect this blog? Well seeing as I'm an amateur poet, I'll be reporting on my progress throughout the poetry section of the course in the coming months. Maybe I'll do some features on any writing events I go to and possibly include some excerpts from work in progress on my novel writing module. I also think this would be a good opportunity to introduce you to a few of my contemporaries who are undertaking similar challenges.
It's quite different to the quiet, almost sleep-inducing idleness of my village, but it will do. I'll see you all again very soon, possibly with another poem or too. Oh, and tigers will definitely be involved.
At my first seminar this week, I was told that I'll have to visit several public events where writers of all sorts will be speaking. I was given a list of possibilities, ranging from the Cheltenham Literature Festival to performance poetry nights in Bristol. The second seminar dealt with poetry, and it turns out I'm expected to produce a collection of the stuff. My last seminar was one for writing a novel. I'll have to write a large portion of this novel over the next year.
Life at university isn't getting any easier in third year. I discovered the other day that I already have an essay due in for the end of the month, along with a study of some event programs and at least a thousand words of a novel due for next week. For a village hermit like me, living in a different place is a very strange but rewarding experience, but all this added work has somewhat lessened my enjoyment of it.
So, how will the new workload affect this blog? Well seeing as I'm an amateur poet, I'll be reporting on my progress throughout the poetry section of the course in the coming months. Maybe I'll do some features on any writing events I go to and possibly include some excerpts from work in progress on my novel writing module. I also think this would be a good opportunity to introduce you to a few of my contemporaries who are undertaking similar challenges.
It's quite different to the quiet, almost sleep-inducing idleness of my village, but it will do. I'll see you all again very soon, possibly with another poem or too. Oh, and tigers will definitely be involved.
Saturday 4 October 2014
The Long Grey Road
Hello? Are you there?
Yes of course I'm here.
Where are you?
At home. What's the matter?
Well, I appear to be lost.
Could you direct me to the station?
Okay, sit comfortably, and I'll begin.
Isn't it a bit strange
that the road you wish to follow
is grey and not yellow.
For some reason I always imagined
crossing the road as a placid exercise.
How untrue.
Maybe a couple of turns to the left
will soften the journey a bit?
Untrue.
Passing the great sanctuary on the left,
the old doors have sheltered thousands.
Turning past the larder on the corner
used by everyone in twenty miles.
I wonder how it's never empty.
Still, I digress.
It should be just around here.
If not on the right or on the left,
then further away, beyond your reach.
Or maybe it will be close.
We can never know,
yet we strive to reach it.
Travelling this long grey road,
it seems you will never get there.
It will twist and turn countless times.
Yet somehow you know
you will reach it.
Or will you.
The Tiger Poet
Yes of course I'm here.
Where are you?
At home. What's the matter?
Well, I appear to be lost.
Could you direct me to the station?
Okay, sit comfortably, and I'll begin.
Isn't it a bit strange
that the road you wish to follow
is grey and not yellow.
For some reason I always imagined
crossing the road as a placid exercise.
How untrue.
Maybe a couple of turns to the left
will soften the journey a bit?
Untrue.
Passing the great sanctuary on the left,
the old doors have sheltered thousands.
Turning past the larder on the corner
used by everyone in twenty miles.
I wonder how it's never empty.
Still, I digress.
It should be just around here.
If not on the right or on the left,
then further away, beyond your reach.
Or maybe it will be close.
We can never know,
yet we strive to reach it.
Travelling this long grey road,
it seems you will never get there.
It will twist and turn countless times.
Yet somehow you know
you will reach it.
Or will you.
The Tiger Poet
Sunday 14 September 2014
The Tiger Poet vs. NATO
Finally, something happened in my village. Well, actually it happened in Newport and Cardiff, but they're just an hour down the road from me so it's close enough.
It is of course no secret that the 2014 NATO summit was held at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport a week and a half ago over the course of two days. In that time all sorts of things happened. Even before the summit began, mile after mile of metal fencing, now called the "Ring of Steel", was put up around the Celtic Manor and stretched back all the way to Cardiff Castle. Security and police forces were drafted in across the UK to ensure that the first serving US President to visit Wales had a safe and pleasant trip. Sixty six world leaders turned up for the summit, along with the biggest show of military might Wales has seen in a long while.
I wasn't aware that NATO was coming to Wales until I heard about it on the news. I saw the Ring of Steel when I went past the Celtic Manor on my way to Edinburgh, and by the time I returned the security presence was being felt across Newport. Shortly before the summit was due to start, I had a close encounter with US security forces when an Osprey V22 flew over my house. It was probably searching for potential assassins or bombs and the like, but it was a clear indicator that the US Air Force has never visited South Wales before.
Thursday arrived, and so too did Barack Obama with David Cameron and the rest of NATO. Quite what Obama made of Wales wasn't initially clear, but when he visited Mount Pleasant Primary School in Rogerstone he greeted the children by saying "bore da". I never thought I'd see the day. Then the summit began in earnest, with items on the agenda including the fighting in Ukraine, the crisis in Iraq and various other things. On the Friday evening it was over, and the world leaders all went home again.
Now what was I doing during all of this you might ask? Well, I'm ashamed to admit that I slept through the flypast of the Red Arrows and military aircraft on the Friday morning. I did however manage to go and see HMS Duncan and the other ships docked in Roath Basin in Cardiff Bay. Although they weren't the biggest ships in the world, HMS Duncan reached the height of some of the nearby apartment buildings. The fencing and the constant police presence added to the feeling that something extremely important was occurring in the Welsh capital.
Whether the NATO summit will have any lasting benefits for Wales remains to be seen. Certainly Obama seemed impressed by the Welsh people, and it looked like the other world leaders were too. Then there was the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, announcing to the world on the lawn of the Celtic Manor that a ceasefire had been reached in Ukraine. It gave the impression that the summit had actually achieved something, although fighting is currently continuing in the country.
It would be tempting to discuss the issues faced by NATO, such as the situation in Iraq, the fighting in Syria, and the conflict in Ukraine. It would also be tempting to examine how effective NATO has been in achieving its aims. While from my point of view, NATO appears to be making ground on these problems, the situations they are faced with are far too complex for simple military action to set right. I say this, but then I wouldn't know what the correct answer to these challenges would be. I'll leave those questions to the political commentators.
So, there we are. Something finally happened in South Wales, and it just happened to be NATO who decided to drop in. I doubt I'll have a lot to talk about following this, but expect a poem or two in the next few days.
It is of course no secret that the 2014 NATO summit was held at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport a week and a half ago over the course of two days. In that time all sorts of things happened. Even before the summit began, mile after mile of metal fencing, now called the "Ring of Steel", was put up around the Celtic Manor and stretched back all the way to Cardiff Castle. Security and police forces were drafted in across the UK to ensure that the first serving US President to visit Wales had a safe and pleasant trip. Sixty six world leaders turned up for the summit, along with the biggest show of military might Wales has seen in a long while.
I wasn't aware that NATO was coming to Wales until I heard about it on the news. I saw the Ring of Steel when I went past the Celtic Manor on my way to Edinburgh, and by the time I returned the security presence was being felt across Newport. Shortly before the summit was due to start, I had a close encounter with US security forces when an Osprey V22 flew over my house. It was probably searching for potential assassins or bombs and the like, but it was a clear indicator that the US Air Force has never visited South Wales before.
Thursday arrived, and so too did Barack Obama with David Cameron and the rest of NATO. Quite what Obama made of Wales wasn't initially clear, but when he visited Mount Pleasant Primary School in Rogerstone he greeted the children by saying "bore da". I never thought I'd see the day. Then the summit began in earnest, with items on the agenda including the fighting in Ukraine, the crisis in Iraq and various other things. On the Friday evening it was over, and the world leaders all went home again.
Now what was I doing during all of this you might ask? Well, I'm ashamed to admit that I slept through the flypast of the Red Arrows and military aircraft on the Friday morning. I did however manage to go and see HMS Duncan and the other ships docked in Roath Basin in Cardiff Bay. Although they weren't the biggest ships in the world, HMS Duncan reached the height of some of the nearby apartment buildings. The fencing and the constant police presence added to the feeling that something extremely important was occurring in the Welsh capital.
Whether the NATO summit will have any lasting benefits for Wales remains to be seen. Certainly Obama seemed impressed by the Welsh people, and it looked like the other world leaders were too. Then there was the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, announcing to the world on the lawn of the Celtic Manor that a ceasefire had been reached in Ukraine. It gave the impression that the summit had actually achieved something, although fighting is currently continuing in the country.
It would be tempting to discuss the issues faced by NATO, such as the situation in Iraq, the fighting in Syria, and the conflict in Ukraine. It would also be tempting to examine how effective NATO has been in achieving its aims. While from my point of view, NATO appears to be making ground on these problems, the situations they are faced with are far too complex for simple military action to set right. I say this, but then I wouldn't know what the correct answer to these challenges would be. I'll leave those questions to the political commentators.
So, there we are. Something finally happened in South Wales, and it just happened to be NATO who decided to drop in. I doubt I'll have a lot to talk about following this, but expect a poem or two in the next few days.
Friday 5 September 2014
Return from Edinburgh
It's been two weeks since I returned from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and now that I've had some time to reflect I feel I ought to share my verdict of it.
First off, I must say that it was insane; that is, in the best possible way. It's one thing reading that there's three thousand or more shows going on, but it's another to be on the Royal Mile when everybody's out and flyering as if there's a flyer shortage. Literally every taste is catered for; comedy, theatre, spoken word, cabaret, the list is comprehensively endless. The shows I saw were certainly indicative of the variety on display.
One such show, Janis Joplin: Full Tilt was a musical detailing in the space of an hour the life and death of the famous singer. It blended some of Joplin's hits together with acted segments and archived recordings of Joplin to produce a fantastic show with no fault in the musical department. Especially impressive was how Angela Darcy's voice was identical to Joplin's, so that it was almost impossible to spot the difference. I didn't know anything about Janis Joplin before, so this show actually proved educational for me. For that alone, I think it was brilliant.
Kevin P. Gilday is the Man Who Loved Beer was a completely different affair. This was the first time I'd seen spoken word in action outside university, and my verdict is somewhat conflicted. It detailed Gilday's relationship with beer and the effects it had on his everyday life. Compared to what I've seen of spoken word in the past, it was skilfully done and Gilday's Glaswegian tones definitely added to it. However, I feel that most spoken word artists tend to use the same pace and tone of delivery when reciting their poems. Gilday was no exception, although in this case I think it was suited to the material.
The other show I ended up seeing was a performance by Out of the Blue. This a-cappella group is made up of Oxford undergraduates, and appeared on that TV talent contest that everybody seems to love back in 2011. They performed a selection of songs, including their cover of a Shakira song that went viral, and they were better singers than I was expecting. They even managed a bit of improvisation with a member of the audience during a couple of songs. The hilarious enthusiasm with which they carried the performance made them an act worth seeing twice - which unfortunately I didn't.
To say that these shows represent the tip of the iceberg is devaluing icebergs. The whole of Edinburgh is packed to the brim with shows during the Fringe, each one of them vying for an audience and a review or two. Some have questioned the quality of the Fringe in recent years, but if the shows I saw are anything to go by, then the question of quality is somewhat irrelevant. The Fringe is designed to enable artists to try new things, and all of these shows were great in their own right.
I must also mention my visits to a few other places in Edinburgh. I took a tour of HMY Britannia, which is hardly your average cruise ship. I had expected the Britannia to be fifteen hundred tons of wealth on water, but it was much less ostentatious than that. It reminded me of my grandmother's house, albeit with narwhal tusks and whale ribs in the main dining room. The overall feel was of a ship designed to act as a floating country house, which was apparently the Queen's original intention.
The other place I visited was Edinburgh Zoo. The zoo is famous for its giant pandas, but I didn't see them because the female, Tian Tian, was pregnant and the enclosure had been closed as a result. I did see several other animals though, including a pair of jaguars roaring at each other, rhinos enjoying their lunch and penguins sunbathing just before a thunderstorm arrived. The zoo seems good enough, with decent and spacious enclosures for the animals to run around in. However , judging by the way one of the jaguars was calling for food, and the bare pen the tigers sleep in, it still has some small room for improvement.
When I look back on my visit to Edinburgh, the city seems like one of the better places I've visited; that's to say it's one of the few places I've visited in recent years. The place is brimming with culture, vibrancy and warmth, and nowhere is this more apparent than during the Fringe. I highly recommend that if you must go to one of the Edinburgh festivals, surely it must be this one.
First off, I must say that it was insane; that is, in the best possible way. It's one thing reading that there's three thousand or more shows going on, but it's another to be on the Royal Mile when everybody's out and flyering as if there's a flyer shortage. Literally every taste is catered for; comedy, theatre, spoken word, cabaret, the list is comprehensively endless. The shows I saw were certainly indicative of the variety on display.
One such show, Janis Joplin: Full Tilt was a musical detailing in the space of an hour the life and death of the famous singer. It blended some of Joplin's hits together with acted segments and archived recordings of Joplin to produce a fantastic show with no fault in the musical department. Especially impressive was how Angela Darcy's voice was identical to Joplin's, so that it was almost impossible to spot the difference. I didn't know anything about Janis Joplin before, so this show actually proved educational for me. For that alone, I think it was brilliant.
Kevin P. Gilday is the Man Who Loved Beer was a completely different affair. This was the first time I'd seen spoken word in action outside university, and my verdict is somewhat conflicted. It detailed Gilday's relationship with beer and the effects it had on his everyday life. Compared to what I've seen of spoken word in the past, it was skilfully done and Gilday's Glaswegian tones definitely added to it. However, I feel that most spoken word artists tend to use the same pace and tone of delivery when reciting their poems. Gilday was no exception, although in this case I think it was suited to the material.
The other show I ended up seeing was a performance by Out of the Blue. This a-cappella group is made up of Oxford undergraduates, and appeared on that TV talent contest that everybody seems to love back in 2011. They performed a selection of songs, including their cover of a Shakira song that went viral, and they were better singers than I was expecting. They even managed a bit of improvisation with a member of the audience during a couple of songs. The hilarious enthusiasm with which they carried the performance made them an act worth seeing twice - which unfortunately I didn't.
To say that these shows represent the tip of the iceberg is devaluing icebergs. The whole of Edinburgh is packed to the brim with shows during the Fringe, each one of them vying for an audience and a review or two. Some have questioned the quality of the Fringe in recent years, but if the shows I saw are anything to go by, then the question of quality is somewhat irrelevant. The Fringe is designed to enable artists to try new things, and all of these shows were great in their own right.
I must also mention my visits to a few other places in Edinburgh. I took a tour of HMY Britannia, which is hardly your average cruise ship. I had expected the Britannia to be fifteen hundred tons of wealth on water, but it was much less ostentatious than that. It reminded me of my grandmother's house, albeit with narwhal tusks and whale ribs in the main dining room. The overall feel was of a ship designed to act as a floating country house, which was apparently the Queen's original intention.
The other place I visited was Edinburgh Zoo. The zoo is famous for its giant pandas, but I didn't see them because the female, Tian Tian, was pregnant and the enclosure had been closed as a result. I did see several other animals though, including a pair of jaguars roaring at each other, rhinos enjoying their lunch and penguins sunbathing just before a thunderstorm arrived. The zoo seems good enough, with decent and spacious enclosures for the animals to run around in. However , judging by the way one of the jaguars was calling for food, and the bare pen the tigers sleep in, it still has some small room for improvement.
When I look back on my visit to Edinburgh, the city seems like one of the better places I've visited; that's to say it's one of the few places I've visited in recent years. The place is brimming with culture, vibrancy and warmth, and nowhere is this more apparent than during the Fringe. I highly recommend that if you must go to one of the Edinburgh festivals, surely it must be this one.
Thursday 14 August 2014
The Tiger Poet vs. Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Although the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow may have somewhat stolen the limelight from Edinburgh this year, the city is currently right in the middle of its annual Festival Fringe. Thousands of shows are being performed across the whole of the city, ranging from dramatic theatre to student comedy. I myself am going up to Edinburgh this week to partake in some of the madness, and possibly to see a show or two. At the moment though I'm wondering what else Scotland's capital city has to offer the unsuspecting Welshman who doesn't travel much these days.
Certainly it has no shortage of places to stay, if you're planning to stay in the city like me. Unfortunately August is one of the most expensive times of the year when looking to rent a flat or an apartment in Edinburgh. I found this out after scouring the web for places to stay. Anything that costs a thousand pounds was out of my price range, and so I've settled for an apartment in the centre that was going relatively cheep. I haven't yet seen the apartment, but I'm fairly confident that it'll be good enough to last the week.
This will not only be the first time I've been to the Edinburgh Fringe, but also the first time I've been to Edinburgh. I was in Scotland two years ago when I visited Lochgoilhead and passed through Glasgow, but didn't get a chance to stop in the city. I didn't get much of an impression of Glasgow from what little I saw of it, but by spending a week in Edinburgh I will get a full and informed experience of the city this time. It will no doubt be very busy, with most of the tourists there to see the acts performing as part of the Fringe or for the Edinburgh International Festival and Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Either way, it's sure to be hectic.
The Fringe itself is the largest arts festival anywhere in the world. Over three thousand shows are being performed in nearly three hundred venues across the city, making this the prime location for aspiring performers to get noticed and to find success. Many of the shows at the Fringe are brand new productions in search of a review, but a lot of already established acts have performed in Edinburgh including the likes of John Bishop and Alan Davies. I suspect that I'll get to see a lot of the new shows while I'm there, and it'll be nice to see what the new generation of creative people bring to the stage.
As I understand it, Edinburgh is quite a bit bigger than my village, and so I'm not sure I'm going to navigate the city without getting lost at some point. There must be maps on the high street to help me with this, but if all else fails I'll just walk into the nearest bookstore and buy an atlas. Hopefully I'll get to see some of the other sights, such as the castle and those famous pandas everyone keeps mentioning.
All in all I'm still not sure what to expect of the Fringe. It certainly is a big step up from going to the town centre, but I've got a fair idea of where to go once I get there. With all these shows to choose from, a laugh or two is guaranteed at least. Come the weekend, I'll see for myself.
If I survive I'll see you in Edinburgh.
Certainly it has no shortage of places to stay, if you're planning to stay in the city like me. Unfortunately August is one of the most expensive times of the year when looking to rent a flat or an apartment in Edinburgh. I found this out after scouring the web for places to stay. Anything that costs a thousand pounds was out of my price range, and so I've settled for an apartment in the centre that was going relatively cheep. I haven't yet seen the apartment, but I'm fairly confident that it'll be good enough to last the week.
This will not only be the first time I've been to the Edinburgh Fringe, but also the first time I've been to Edinburgh. I was in Scotland two years ago when I visited Lochgoilhead and passed through Glasgow, but didn't get a chance to stop in the city. I didn't get much of an impression of Glasgow from what little I saw of it, but by spending a week in Edinburgh I will get a full and informed experience of the city this time. It will no doubt be very busy, with most of the tourists there to see the acts performing as part of the Fringe or for the Edinburgh International Festival and Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Either way, it's sure to be hectic.
The Fringe itself is the largest arts festival anywhere in the world. Over three thousand shows are being performed in nearly three hundred venues across the city, making this the prime location for aspiring performers to get noticed and to find success. Many of the shows at the Fringe are brand new productions in search of a review, but a lot of already established acts have performed in Edinburgh including the likes of John Bishop and Alan Davies. I suspect that I'll get to see a lot of the new shows while I'm there, and it'll be nice to see what the new generation of creative people bring to the stage.
As I understand it, Edinburgh is quite a bit bigger than my village, and so I'm not sure I'm going to navigate the city without getting lost at some point. There must be maps on the high street to help me with this, but if all else fails I'll just walk into the nearest bookstore and buy an atlas. Hopefully I'll get to see some of the other sights, such as the castle and those famous pandas everyone keeps mentioning.
All in all I'm still not sure what to expect of the Fringe. It certainly is a big step up from going to the town centre, but I've got a fair idea of where to go once I get there. With all these shows to choose from, a laugh or two is guaranteed at least. Come the weekend, I'll see for myself.
If I survive I'll see you in Edinburgh.
Saturday 2 August 2014
Guardian of the Sacred Forest
I am master of this realm,
the grass is my royal guard,
the sal trees are my sentinels,
my stripes are my regalia,
with tooth and claw.
Langurs and peacocks I loathe,
but chital are always my servants
from dawn to dusk.
They serve all the great hunters.
So do the sambar, the boar
and the Barasingha.
This is my domain,
my forest,
my kingdom.
So long as I remain
its guardian ghost
all creatures large and small
shall heed my morning call.
The Tiger Poet
(This poem was written at Siginawa Jungle Lodge at Kanha National Park in India. The name Singinawa means "Protector of the Sacred Forest".)
the grass is my royal guard,
the sal trees are my sentinels,
my stripes are my regalia,
with tooth and claw.
Langurs and peacocks I loathe,
but chital are always my servants
from dawn to dusk.
They serve all the great hunters.
So do the sambar, the boar
and the Barasingha.
This is my domain,
my forest,
my kingdom.
So long as I remain
its guardian ghost
all creatures large and small
shall heed my morning call.
The Tiger Poet
(This poem was written at Siginawa Jungle Lodge at Kanha National Park in India. The name Singinawa means "Protector of the Sacred Forest".)
Friday 25 July 2014
The Tiger Poet vs. Dylan Thomas
In several posts on this blog I've often mentioned that my home village is so small that nothing much happens in it. However, if you're Welsh I doubt you've been able to escape from the centenary of this country's most famous poet.
The celebrations surrounding the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dylan Thomas have been nothing if not plentiful. Tributes to the famously exuberant and colourful storyteller have included Benjamin Zephaniah's mission to modernise Under Milk Wood with a cast made up of the residents of Town Hill, a bronze statue of the poet being erected near his house in Swansea, and a drama film shown on BBC One Wales about Thomas's untimely death. To many, Thomas is a defining figure of Welsh poetry and a symbol of Welsh culture, who was just as much renowned for his private life as for his verse.
When it comes to discussing Dylan Thomas, there is always mention of how distinctly Welsh his poetry is. I experienced this first hand during one of my creative writing seminars at university. In a poetry seminar we looked at Thomas's 'Do not go gentle into that good night' as an example of a perfect villanelle. When we were asked to write our own villanelle, I felt it my absolute duty as a Welshman to live up to Thomas's legacy and produce a poem that was just as powerful. I won't put the result up on this blog unless there's a demand for it, but I'll say that id didn't work as well as I hoped, and here's my question. How does my poetry compare to Thomas's?
I'm aware that comparing myself to Dylan Thomas is like comparing a house cat to a lion. In trying to determine common threads between our writing, I'm struck by how I don't measure up to Thomas's energetic poetic voice. Thomas writes about things that are characteristic of Welsh society, such as the tight-knit communities where everybody knows each other and the eccentricities of ordinary people. I write about tigers mostly, but I also write about India, animals in unusual situations, and all kinds of abstract things which poets as far back as the Augustan Age were talking about. In practice, although we share the same Welsh heritage, Thomas's poetry and my poetry couldn't be more different.
There are occasions when I've written about Wales or written in my native voice. Recently, on the advice of a poetry lecturer, I've been writing poems about domestic situations and events from my own childhood. I haven't tried this in a conscious effort to emulate Thomas, but a meagre similarity can be drawn in my new poems' fixation on the Welsh landscape and his own work. In one such poem, 'Wimberries', I attempted to recreate a childhood tale set in the landscape surrounding Blaenavon, in a similar vein to Thomas's depiction of his own childhood in A Child's Christmas in Wales, but really the similarities are not many.
Thomas was writing in a very different era to the one I'm writing in now. He was subject to the hardships of trying to raise a family, sustain both them and himself, and finding time to write poetry in the midst of these pressures, as well as contending with his ever-famous alcoholism. I haven't experienced any of those things, and I wonder sometimes if I had been born back then, would I have been subjected to any of Thomas's rigours?
Of course, I'm speculating way too much and punching far above my feeble weight, but in comparing my poetic efforts to those of arguably the greatest Welsh poet, I hope I can shed some light on how my own work has room to develop. As a fledgling writer, I can't hope of matching the likes of Dylan Thomas, but by seeing what worked for him, I might find something that will work for me.
Anyways, Happy Centenary Dylan Thomas!
Saturday 19 July 2014
Kalua
His father was a king,
his grandfather too,
and his great grandfather greater still.
The tiger cub hid in the thickets,
waiting for Mother to return
from her hunt in the meadows.
Would it be a chital, a sambar deer,
or a langur monkey?
Monkeys were his favourite.
Mother and Brother,
the only familiar things
in a perilous forest.
Monitor lizards and peacocks
startled him at first.
When he grew bigger
they fled as he approached.
His teeth and claws became blades,
and his prey's hide was no longer tough.
He sharpened his claws for battle
and flexed his tail and whiskers,
his eyes fixed on Father's domain.
Father had ruled the forest
with scars to remind others
of those who dared contest him.
His son refined his weaponry,
and his roar, but in his heart
he was still a cub.
Father and Son met on the ridge,
silhouetted in the amber glare.
Son emerged with scars of his own,
to remind him of Father's supremacy.
Maybe the forest beyond the meadows
would have a kingdom waiting for him.
The Tiger Poet
(This poem is a tribute to the tiger known as Kalua, the Prince of Bandhavgarh, who I encountered four years ago. A reading will be available on my YouTube channel soon.)
his grandfather too,
and his great grandfather greater still.
The tiger cub hid in the thickets,
waiting for Mother to return
from her hunt in the meadows.
Would it be a chital, a sambar deer,
or a langur monkey?
Monkeys were his favourite.
Mother and Brother,
the only familiar things
in a perilous forest.
Monitor lizards and peacocks
startled him at first.
When he grew bigger
they fled as he approached.
His teeth and claws became blades,
and his prey's hide was no longer tough.
He sharpened his claws for battle
and flexed his tail and whiskers,
his eyes fixed on Father's domain.
Father had ruled the forest
with scars to remind others
of those who dared contest him.
His son refined his weaponry,
and his roar, but in his heart
he was still a cub.
Father and Son met on the ridge,
silhouetted in the amber glare.
Son emerged with scars of his own,
to remind him of Father's supremacy.
Maybe the forest beyond the meadows
would have a kingdom waiting for him.
The Tiger Poet
(This poem is a tribute to the tiger known as Kalua, the Prince of Bandhavgarh, who I encountered four years ago. A reading will be available on my YouTube channel soon.)
Sunday 6 July 2014
Tiger Verse Update
Hello. The Tiger Poet here.
I'm aware that this blog has hardly been updated since my last post. I'm working on several poems, one of which has been published on my YouTube channel, and I'm still waiting for something to happen in this impossibly dull village.
Also, I have to address the change of name. I like to go by a moniker, and my last one turned out to have been used by someone else. Hopefully you'll prefer this one.
When something happens, I'll let you know. In the meantime, check out my poem 'Guardian of the Sacred Forest' at this link http://youtu.be/THeV49pBnOM
Will be back soon.
I'm aware that this blog has hardly been updated since my last post. I'm working on several poems, one of which has been published on my YouTube channel, and I'm still waiting for something to happen in this impossibly dull village.
Also, I have to address the change of name. I like to go by a moniker, and my last one turned out to have been used by someone else. Hopefully you'll prefer this one.
When something happens, I'll let you know. In the meantime, check out my poem 'Guardian of the Sacred Forest' at this link http://youtu.be/THeV49pBnOM
Will be back soon.
Sunday 8 June 2014
Never Eat Peas
When I say never eat peas
I don't mean never eat them with cheese,
I don't mean never eat them with fleas,
I mean never eat peas full stop.
They're small green round things
that don't even have strings
and look nothing like rings.
They just hop about the place
jumping over your plates
as though they know how to elaborate
assimilate and plan an escape.
I'm aware that peas can't rap,
but that doesn't mean they can't sing
when hit by a fork or a hot water spring.
They don't go with chips or beans.
What does the word pea even mean?
In short I can safely conclude,
peas are no good for me or you
or anyone else for that matter.
I'd much prefer cod and batter.
Now it's time to end these horrendous rhymes
and finish this as the clock of doom chimes.
Never eat peas.
The Tiger Poet
I don't mean never eat them with cheese,
I don't mean never eat them with fleas,
I mean never eat peas full stop.
They're small green round things
that don't even have strings
and look nothing like rings.
They just hop about the place
jumping over your plates
as though they know how to elaborate
assimilate and plan an escape.
I'm aware that peas can't rap,
but that doesn't mean they can't sing
when hit by a fork or a hot water spring.
They don't go with chips or beans.
What does the word pea even mean?
In short I can safely conclude,
peas are no good for me or you
or anyone else for that matter.
I'd much prefer cod and batter.
Now it's time to end these horrendous rhymes
and finish this as the clock of doom chimes.
Never eat peas.
The Tiger Poet
Wednesday 4 June 2014
Introducing the Tiger Poet
Hi. I'm the Tiger Poet and welcome to my blog.
I call myself an amateur poet, although amateur is probably an inaccurate description. A poet who is just about getting by would be better. I come from a small village in South Wales, which is so small it's pretty much just a couple of houses in a valley. As a result, nothing much happens where I'm from, but if something does I'll let you know.
Of course the main thing you'll find here is poetry. I tried writing poetry when I was in school, but my teacher told me that my writing style would be better suited to advertising billboards in car parks. I believed her at the time, but now I'm giving it another try seeing as I'm at university where poetry is fashionable. I'm going to try and get the first of my efforts posted here in the next week or two, and we'll see if my teacher was right.
Basically, if this sounds like your sort of thing, feel free to stick around. You never know, might be half good. Ok. Over and out.
I call myself an amateur poet, although amateur is probably an inaccurate description. A poet who is just about getting by would be better. I come from a small village in South Wales, which is so small it's pretty much just a couple of houses in a valley. As a result, nothing much happens where I'm from, but if something does I'll let you know.
Of course the main thing you'll find here is poetry. I tried writing poetry when I was in school, but my teacher told me that my writing style would be better suited to advertising billboards in car parks. I believed her at the time, but now I'm giving it another try seeing as I'm at university where poetry is fashionable. I'm going to try and get the first of my efforts posted here in the next week or two, and we'll see if my teacher was right.
Basically, if this sounds like your sort of thing, feel free to stick around. You never know, might be half good. Ok. Over and out.
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