Christmas Updates

Hello again! Sorry for the lateness of this post. I have taken up a seasonal job for the time being, and things are mad as you can probably imagine, especially since Christmas is now in full swing. Now that it's Christmas Day I can take a moment to reflect on what's happened in the year, and what's going to happen next year.

Of course, I'm still working on my Mametz Wood project. Some of you may have seen the small preview I posted a while back, and I'm using that as the basis for the completed work. It's taken much longer than I originally estimated, but I'm much nearer to a concrete plan than I have been for some time. There's also great stuff currently happening on the YouTube channel, with almost all of the old videos remastered and a few new ones thrown in for good measure. My next few challenges in that department will include remastering 'Flying Hare', recording 'The Bear of Mysore', and potentially recording something relating to 'Defenders of the Realm'. That last one may be a bit ambitious, but we'll see.

I've also got more poems headed the way of the blog, and hopefully the next Frynwys Features will be here soon. Speaking of which, Frynwys is looking at its most festive today, despite the fact that there's a thick fog outside at the moment. The village hall has got a lot of lights on it, and the Christmas tree in the park is positively smothered in tinsel. I will say that despite the council's limited budget, they sure know how to save it for Christmas. In case you were wondering, I had a good few socks as presents this year, so when the inevitable blizzard arrives in March I won't have a problem with keeping my toes warm.

There will be plenty of things, poetry-related and otherwise, to look forward to when next year rolls around, but for now, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas! See you in the New Year!

Abyss

He sits in the abyss,
the price of his ways.
A would-be conqueror
now a shivering wretch.

His prison is vast, cavernous,
pits tunnels, molten furnaces,
frozen hollows, rancid streams,
cavities crawling with pestilence.
Things unseen by mortal eyes
stalk the tunnels,
forge new fissures.

The first to see this place,
he repents his mistakes
and all they cost him.
Familial faces drift from memory
along with their disdain
when their son, wrapped in chains,
cast into a rent in the earth,
disappeared from the world.

The demons hunt him underground.
He takes shelter in wretched crevices,
repents and regrets, begs for mercy
from those he betrayed
and those who followed him.

The cold, the fire, the torment
eventually convince him;

Repentance has a sour tang,

vengeance tastes succulent.

Peace

I've felt more responsibility writing this poem than most, and with good reason. To mark the centenary of the Armistice of 1918, here is a poem dedicated to all those who fought and died in the First World War.

Peace

What is left when the guns fall silent?
Broken land, churned and scarred
by machines of destruction,
now a cradle of lost souls.

The missing soldiers rest here,
those who vanished in the gun-smoke,
the shellfire and shell-scream
enveloped by mists of eternity.

Time restores life to this land,
the trees and fields blossom
with leaves and birdsong,
memories forever enshrined.

Poppies bloom over the battlefield
soothing, healing, remembering,
holding every unknown warrior
in their timeless embrace.

Defenders of the Realm Act IV

(Read Act III here.)

The Welshmen sat in the cave aghast
at what bad luck had come to pass,
that they had slaughtered a whole tribe
of woodwoses in their home.

That one of their number escaped
was giving them all a headache,
and the thought of woodwose hatred
pressed forcefully on their minds,
a prospect they tried and failed
to forget and leave behind,
fruits of Aled's botched design.

They began the lengthy trek back
to the castle, open for attack
from the fierce dragon still at large
in the skies above the hills.

At last they reached the castle gates.
A small detail did indicate
the results of Aled's mistake,
namely smoke above the walls,
rising above the battlements
and billowing off the walls,
indicating fire galore.

It took them hours to douse the flames,
by which time Gethin was enraged
about leaving themselves open
to the wrath of dragon fire.

They gathered what servants remained
and they resolved to formulate
an effort to eliminate
the curse of the endless fire.
Gethin's grand plan did however
draw most of the servant's ire;
he had them all tied to pyres.

And so the waiting game began
with the only live bait to hand.
Gethin guessed the wyrm favourite
living prey which it could scorch.

Just as the afternoon ended,
chaos suddenly descended
as the servants, undefended
saw wild men upon the walls.
Woodwoses scaled the battlements
and descended down the walls,
to maim and slaughter them all.

The Welshmen returned from dinner
to find the charred courtyard littered
with bloody remnants of servants,
their assailants long since gone.

Gethin and Hywel cursed their luck,
then Fergal shot up, thunderstruck,
and said their luck was not yet up
as they still had some bait left,
in the form of dear old Burbage
sitting in the hall at rest,
his dinner yet to digest.

Burbage pleaded and protested,
but his case was uncontested
and they strung him up on the pyre
before sitting down to wait.

As sundown gave way to nightfall,
with a castle still to fight for,
Aled spotted it well before
it plummeted from the sky,
plummeted out of the blackness
of the dimly starlit sky
with the most bloodcurdling cry.

Burbage on his pyre stood no chance,
with no sword to hand or a lance.
The dragon snatched him off the pyre
like a bird skimming a lake.

And the friends charged out of hiding,
still at severe risk of dying,
with their focus firm on fighting,
fighting the ferocious drake,
aiming to cast it from the sky.
With the castle still at stake,
they charged headlong at the drake.

Nothing went according to plan,
but they stuck to the task at hand,
as they incurred many wounds
thanks to their fire-breathing foe.

Hywel was sideswiped by its tail,
flung by the enormous scaled flail,
into the gatehouse did he sail
with a crash of shattered stone.
Fergal was caught in the beast's flame,
his arms were charred to the bone.
Quite a mess the friends had sown.

As Gethin attacked with his bow
he tripped and fell into the moat,
leaving Aled the last defence
against the winged beast of flames.

He sprinted up to the ramparts,
protected by tattered armour
and although not the best archer,
grabbed Gethin's quiver and bow.
He ran up the nearest turret
and took aim with Gethin's bow,
aimed right down the dragon's throat.

The dragon flew at him headlong,
but his grip on the bow was strong.
Aled loosed the arrow just as
the beast swooped down upon him.

He fired two seconds too late,
be it by sheer fool's luck or fate,
the arrow became a checkmate
when it struck the dragon's throat,
with Aled loosing his bow hand
to the dying dragon's throat.
Then it fell into the moat.

And so it was a victory,
the tone was contradictory,
the slayers sat, mutilated
in the wreckage of the yard.

A messenger arrived later,
and his news was none the greater,
the prince who had been a traitor
had slayed King Richard the Third.
His Welsh soldiers with their polearms
had slayed King Richard the Third,
leaving the reward deferred.

Defenders of the Realm Act III

(Read Act II here.)

Come dawn and a threadbare breakfast,
the men set out to find the menace
and fix the problem at its source
before it could take flight again.

Having never trekked overland,
they were a lost and tired band,
with no navigators to hand
they reached the nearest village,
untouched by the dragon's fury,
free from its wanton pillage,
overrun with rat spillage.

At lunch Aled had a tipoff,
info he couldn't just write off,
about a cave in the green hills
where the wyrm had made his lair.

Telling the others of this news
and with not a moment to lose,
and no time to enjoy the views
they headed for the green hills,
following a sprightly stream
to the cave in the green hills
where they hoped to make their kill.

They reached the cave upon the hour,
its dark mouth ominous and dour,
but did not enter for terror
of the beast living within.

So they set about conspiring,
their strategic now firing,
and just as the friends were tiring
a thought entered Aled's head
which turned into a careful plan
certain to get them ahead,
but it filled Aled with dread.

They gathered firewood from the woods,
their servants helping where they could,
and laid it at the cave entrance
from one end to the other.

The wyrm must have been in slumber,
naive to the inbound lumber,
then its sleep was torn asunder
when Fergal torched the kindling,
the flames towering in a row,
air full of cinders sizzling,
choking all who dwelt within.

When the fires died and the smoke cleared
the four friends rose and drew near
to the mouth of the cave to see
the dragon's lifeless corpse.

Yet much to their amazement,
instead of the dragon's encasement
for them to win appraisement
were corpses on the floor,
corpses covered in long brown fur
strewn all about the cave floor,
a sight the friends all abhorred.

Aled had heard of these before,
the memory came to the fore.
They were woodwoses or wild men
from church engravings of yore.

While struggling to recognise
his accidental genocide,
Aled saw with his smoke-strained eyes
some footprints headed outside,
leading to the edge of the trees
where the lucky one could hide
and find others of his kind.

(Continued in Act IV here.)

Defenders of the Realm Act II

(Read Act I here.)

They arrived at the castle late,
a fortress frail and in dire straits
with foundations which were flaking
from attacks by the vile wyrm.

They met a man named Burbage,
who looked to Aled a durbage,
a man with no room for verbiage
who tended his mottled perm,
a butler minding the castle
tending to his half-arsed perm,
a man proud a dully firm.

The four friends set about their work,
snubbing Burbage's pompous smirk,
thinking how best to kill a beast
they had never seen before.

Gethin put archers on the walls,
Hywel guessed the dragon would fall
to some unjustly small axes
he bought from the smith next door.
Fergal brought in some trebuchets
to line the castle walls.
Aled just rolled his eyeballs.

They decided to get practice,
as they all did somewhat lack it
in any way of weaponry
or the forms of martial skill.

Gethin's archery went sideways,
he aimed as how one stargazes,
he hit two men in their faces
while his friends joined for the thrill,
joined for the thrill of shooting arrows
lined with finely trimmed quills,
and aimed at Burbage's frill.

Night fell over the Pennine hold,
and very soon the friends were told
that the dragon had been sighted
flying to the castle walls.

Gethin's archers were set aflame,
the dragon-fire put stone to shame,
and Fergal commenced his mad game
of flinging rocks at its hide,
rocks which hit everything
bar the dragon's armoured hide,
debris flying on all sides.

Then Hywel saw an opening,
charged through the wreckage smouldering
to clout the dragon with his axe
when it tried to eat him raw.

With a screech to deafen whistles,
like a cat caught in the thistles,
the beast took off like a missile
soaring up into the night,
leaving Hywel to boast and brag
for what was left of the night,
claiming he was proven right.

(Continued in Act III here.)

Defenders of the Realm Act I

Aled, Hywel, Fergal, Gethin,
three Welsh, one Irishman settling
in the village he arrived in,
farming in the fields of Wales.

Yet when a prince who claimed the throne
arrived on shores not far from home,
the four friends feared raiders would roam
with the likely threat of war,
the ever-present shadow which
often knocks upon men's doors,
threats which grew across the moors.

They hoped to make a run for it,
and have nothing to do with it.
King Richard would grant no permit
but would not drag them to war.

But just as they made their treaty,
messengers arrived discreetly
and set their stall to entreaty
any bold men to step forth,
as the King needed the aid of
Welshmen if they would step forth
to help with problems up north.

The four friends took their chance quickly,
and travelled across roads strictly
to a time-frame that would see them
meet his grace in the grand hall.

And so King Richard did meet them,
and quite quick to beseech them,
he needed all and each of them
to help a castle in thrall,
in thrall to a pesky dragon
which was tearing down the walls,
a beast with a lot of gall.

The King left them with instructions,
to which they had some compunctions,
that they must slay the great dragon
while he was fighting on the field.

If it was dead before victory,
the King promised no trickery,
he would reward them handsomely
once he returned home from the field,
returned with the head of Henry,
after winning on the field,
returned home with nought to yield.

(Continued in Act II here.)

Happy National Poetry Day + Mametz Wood Update

Once again it's National Poetry Day, and safe to say the poetry world is still as busy as ever. It's been a bit busier than usual on this blog as well, with two new poems in the last couple of weeks and a few more to come. The next installment of Frynwys Features is on it's way, as Frynwys has been a bit livelier of late, and I have a few other projects on the go as well. One project that I'm sorry to say has experienced a fair few delays has been my Mametz Wood project, but as something special for National Poetry Day, I thought I'd share with you some of the work in progress. The following is a draft of a poem which sets out the basis of the full poem I'm attempting to write. Hope you enjoy, and have some good poetry-related celebrations (if that stuff goes on and the like). See you again soon!

Mametz Wood First Draft

Ahead of the trenches
sits the wood itself.
A fortress of trees
on a small hill.
Coils of barbed wire
spiralling outwards,
carving up the mud.
Nest of machine guns
and snipers perched
atop the fire-steps
as sharp-sighted
as birds of prey,
hidden by the trees.

Gods of the Sundarbans

There is a place where three rivers
pour into the Bay of Bengal.
Merging in a vast forest,
they wind their way through
the soaking delta of the Sundarbans.

Mangroves line the creeks
with their rib-like roots.
By day otters swim in the waters,
deer quench their thirst while
macaques watch from the trees.

Night falls, turning the streams
into mirrors of moonlight.
They catch the reflection of a solitary tiger.
It lurks in its forest refuge,
guarded by the coast.

Men sometimes see the tiger at night
as they fish the mangroves
or gather kindling from the forest.
It can swim through creeks and rivers
to kill them on their boats.

The boats rest at the beaches tonight.
No one intrudes on the forest
lest the tiger should appear.
It spies the boats on the shore
and retreats into the shadows.

The Bear of Mysore

after Kenneth Anderson, Man-Eaters and Jungle Killers

The last light of day leaves the fields.
A blazing torch flickers through
the darkness on the road in Mysore.
A woodcutter on his way home
hears a snort somewhere ahead
and the crush of figs under heavy paws.

He approaches the noise through the trees
and spots a figure in the brush.
There is a flash of black fur
in the glare of the woodcutter's torch.
Long claws blunted on termite mounds
lunge out and the fire is gone.

The morning light reveals a corpse.
Red coils protruding from a stomach,
eyes and nose bitten out and ripped
from their vacant sockets,
and a bloody tapestry of muscle
where there was once a face.

Two Seas

Out in the hot wastes
sun swelters scorched sands,
sidewinders, beetles,
highways of the dunes.

Silhouettes in haze,
herds of elephants
weary and weathered
track down waterholes
one trek at a time.
Lions shadow them,
envying the chance
to snatch a young calf.

Fresh dew disperses
on the crested dunes,
white breakers rolling,
a mirage far west.

Slam Poetry on the Spot #2: Harry Baker - 'Paper People'

A while ago I posted my first Slam Poetry on the Spot analysis of Suli Breaks's poem 'I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate'. Since then, I've been building up to embarking on my second analysis of a poem from my Best of British Slam Poetry playlist, this time of one of British slam poetry's most terrific performers. The problem is that the poem of his that I've chosen to analyse is so ballistic that it takes a lot of time to take it in, both in watching the performance and reading the text. The good news now is that I've done it, so let's embark on the long awaited analysis of the poem 'Paper People' by spoken word artist and battle rapper Harry Baker.

Born in Ealing, West London, Harry Baker was raised as part of a Christian community, which is sometimes brought up in his poetry. He initially studied medicine, but switched mathematics alongside German at Bristol University. He has won several poetry slams, including the World Slam Poetry Competition in 2012, becoming its youngest winner. He has also performed in rap battles, had his first collection published in 2015, and is one half of the musical comedy duo Harry and Chris.

When it comes to alliteration, few poems use the technique as extensively as as expertly as Baker does in 'Paper People'. Immediately from the opening lines he dives straight into a tongue-twisting series of musings on what would happen were he to make some paper people. He sets out what he would use to make them, and goes on to describe a paper city which reflects the current state of society. He uses references to Kate and Pippa Middleton, and compares the media's coverage of modern day terrorism with the hysteria surrounding Jack the Ripper, giving the poem a topical feel. When he performs live, Baker spits out the words with rapid-fire pace, and how he does so without tripping on the words is testament to his skill as a performer. Also, while this is going on, he uses some brilliant wordplay to create gems like this one:

'We'd see the poppy paper rappers rap about their paper package

Or watch paper people carriers get stuck in paper traffic on the A4.'

As Baker reflects on his paper metropolis, he posits that a paper society would face the same problems as the real world, specifically corrupt politicians and divisive politics. The alliteration never lets up during this section, and Baker utilises some great rhymes to convey his grievances, which include the government ignoring poverty, greed, police brutality and many other things. I especially love the phrase 'origami army' and a line about how the government will ignore complaints about 'paper cuts'. Occasionally a refrain of 'A little paper me. And a little paper you' occurs. It's at this point that you start to wonder if Baker is making a thesis on the state of society, but the use of a paper population as a device through which to illustrate societal woes gives it a sharp comedic edge. The never-ending rhymes and constant alliteration add to Baker's wry critique and when performed live makes for a ballistic tour-de-force.

At this point the poem seems to be reaching a gloomy conclusion, with Baker lamenting on how the situation is never likely to change with governments remaining identical. However its here where he breaks from the previous tone with a simple declaration:

'I like people

'Cause when the situation's dire,

it is only ever people who are able to inspire.'

In this section the heavy alliteration used so masterfully dissipates and is used more sparingly. Baker affirms his belief in the power of ordinary people to be a force for good. To illustrate this he uses examples from his family, such as his grandparents, where he references his own Christian upbringing and brings in a bit of mathematics as a way of showing the scale of inspiration ordinary people can produce:

'Who every single day since I was born, have taken time out of their morning to pray for me.

That's 7892 days straight of someone checking I'm okay, and that's amazing.'

Baker goes on to list other examples of people able to inspire in dire situations, such as his aunt who organises plays with prisoners and persecuted Palestinians. Although the rhyme scheme is still in place, the alliteration which defines the rest of the poem does not pick up again until near the end. Baker brings his hypothesis of a paper society to a close by suggesting that although authority figures seem oblivious to the problems of the populace, the system does not need to remain the same. To make his point stick, Baker reiterates the same refrains he has used throughout the poem, and ends on another affirmation of his belief in people;

'There's a little paper me. And a little paper you.

And in a pop-up population people's problems pop up too,

But even if the whole world fell apart then we'd still make it through.

Because we're people'.

As an example of a literary technique being used to its maximum effect, 'Paper People' is flawless. Baker uses alliteration for all that it's worth, in the process creating a series of amusing multi-layered puns and turning a hypothetical paper metropolis into a commentary on the state of society. Like much of slam poetry, his assessment of society is scathing, but the final section where he affirms his belief in the power of ordinary people makes for an uplifting conclusion to a terrific poetic roller coaster. It's this, and the combination of technical prowess, phonetic wit and on-point observations that make this poem a masterful piece of work.

(Original Poem: Baker, Harry. Paper People)

Remastering Old Poem Videos

I'm sorry it's been very quiet here the last month or two, but once again I've managed to become distracted. This time the cause is related to my YouTube channel, and centers on video editions of some of my older poems.

When I first started uploading video versions of my poems to YouTube, I would read the poem and add audio of my reading to a video to create an audio/visual version of what was on the page. However, after a couple of tries at this I decided to opt for the silent format, whereby I would reproduce the text on the screen with the same pictures and music by no reading from me. Now looking back on those old videos, I've decided that this style doesn't really work for poetry, so I'm going through the list and remastering those old videos. Only my silent animal poems won't be remastered.

So far I have remastered versions of "Night of the Dhole", "Rudraprayag", "Kalua", "Ghosts of Sariska", "The Tiger and Me" and "Red Duke" up and running. There are many more still waiting to be finished, but I will have those up and running in due course. In the meantime, there's still a lot to look forward to over the next few weeks, including my analysis of Harry Baker's "Paper People", and an update on my long-gestating Mametz Wood project. All this and more will be on the way soon - he says.

Remnants

There sits a man by a lake in the cold valley,
hunched over, still, face as scarred as the old quarry
waiting for the wheel to turn, coal to flood back in.
Gone, those days, remnants of steel and masonry.

Snow settles, night draws in, freezes fireless furnace,
yet he sits by the lake, eyes the winding tower,
sits, waiting, hopes for the wheel to resume turning.
Black gold no more, the mine sleeps despite his yearning.

Frynwys Features #4: The Never Ending Winter

So it's safe to say a fair bit has happened in Frynwys since the last check-in. I find sometimes that to make up for my home village's lack of interesting distractions, I must leave a period of two to four months and store up any goings-on until the next installment. It's a bit like keeping a growing turkey in your freezer until Christmas, although if you tried to eat this one you'd end up with a keyboard and mouse for afters. Still, now that the sufficient standing time has passed, here's what's been going on in the village of late.

The first (and no doubt biggest) thing to mention is that Frynwys was recently caught out when the Beast from the East collided with Storm Emma over the south west. The entire village was snowed under for three days, with no one able to move their cars or make much headway through the drifts. But it did allow for some great sledging on some of the hills, and I saw several people making the most of it when I braved the blizzards myself. The ponds froze over, and by the time they began to thaw out, the snow on the road had mostly turned to brown slush thanks to grit. Like everywhere else in Wales, it took everyone a while to get moving again, and as a side effect the only shop in the village ran out of milk, which demonstrates the ability to make a cup of tea takes top priority during a snowstorm here.

Once the worst of the winter weather passed, we were still left with a bitter chill. Fortunately though, the first signs of spring started to appear, in the form of frogs crossing the road, and the emergence of daffodils. The fish are still in residence at the pond, much to the annoyance of the wildlife warden who I saw trying to catch some of them a few weeks back. It seems that the warden has a lot of things to worry about, as there have been teams of people in the nearby woods felling trees. Large sections of trees have been cordoned off with tape only to be chopped down the following day. I have no idea why they're doing it now, but it has only been the odd cluster so far, so hopefully Frynwys will not become deforested any time soon.

Another bit of good news is that there seem to be more dogs in the area than last year. Specifically I've seen a number of puppies being taken out on their first walks into the fields around the village, and they are an energetic bunch. So far I've seen golden retrievers, Cocker spaniels and at least one field spaniel out and about. It's nice to see so many new dog owners in the area and to see the puppies making sense of the world around them. Frynwys has always had a large percentage of dog owners, but in the last three years especially I've seen the number of dogs increase steadily. With so many spaniels in the area, the fish that were released into the pond are now ducking for cover every time one of them cannonballs into the water.

Now that summer has truly arrived in South Wales, it seems the people of Frynwys have been out and about enjoying the record-breaking temperatures. As someone who suffers from hay fever, the fact that I'm surrounded by trees and long grass is a constant source of irony and itchy eyes. In recent days I spotted a tractor in the biggest field cutting back the grass which releases much of the pollen, but the trees are still doing their bit in keeping noses running across the village. Many of my neighbours have been visiting the village park and the local pub, the Dormarch, especially since the start of the sunshine and the World Cup. Their investment in the tournament seems strange to me, especially since Wales were knocked out of the qualifying round, but it's nice to see people having something to enjoy given the never ending stream of bad news we usually get.

Anyhow, that concludes this installment of Frynwys Features. As always if anything else interesting happens in this quietest of quiet villages, I'll be sure to let you know.

The Tiger Poet vs. GDPR

The deadline for becoming compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is getting nearer, and as it does so I must confess I'm nowhere nearer to understanding what that means for this blog, or indeed for Blogger in general.

For those of you who are unaware, GDPR is replacing the Data Protection Act 1998, as enacted by EU legislation. It will cover all publishers in EU countries as well as publishers who deal with the EU. As a UK-based blogger using Google Blogger, I and many other people come under that heading. To date, Google has sent out a bunch of emails explaining in broad terms to publishers what the change of legislation means and what they are doing to comply with it. They also explain how individual publishers can take steps to comply, but in terms of guidlines for those using Blogger, the advice has been at best vague and at worst non-existent.

I have searched far and wide to find any statement from Google as to how bloggers using their platform can comply with GDPR. The best I have found so far has been a discussion on a Google Products forum where several bloggers are questioning how Google will help them prepare for when the legislation kicks in on May 25th 2018. Google's response so far has been to issue generic statements asserting their commitment to preparing for GDPR and suggesting that we read their privacy policy or consult a lawyer to find out our obligations. Far from reassuring advice.

So far I've constructed a privacy policy for use on this blog, but an unsure if it will meet with GDPR requirements. Really, this is a call for clarity more than anything else. If anyone out there is reading this post and works for Google, please let me and other bloggers know how we can make our blogs GDPR compliant and how Google will assist us in this. Hopefully making a privacy policy will go some way to achieving this, but unless Google gives us a clearer view of what to do, we may run the risk getting caught out by the new legislation. We need to process people's personal data responsibly and within the law, but if we don't know the rules of play then things will get quite complicated.

I appreciate this is not the usual kind of thing I cover on this blog, but with the deadline for GDPR fast approaching, I think it's something worth talking about. If anyone out there is also confused by what the regulations mean for them, be sure to get in touch with Google to make your concerns known. Thankfully, I've got more fun stuff coming up, so stay tuned and I'll see you all again soon with more poetry. 

NaPoWriMo Completed Again

Okay, so maybe not tomorrow (sorry about that), but here it is. That's the end of NaPoWriMo for this year. Once again I somehow managed to get to the end of April without the poems turning into a stream of incomprehensible free verse.

How do I think it went this year? Mostly the poems turned out okay. I'm thankful that this year I didn't have to rely on my old tropes as much (the tigers, anthropomorphic animals playing musical instruments, or the rolling fields of Frynwys) and tried new things. The month started on a good note with a poem about a confused cuckoo at Easter, and then a poem about poetic structure followed, which is probably my favourite one out of this year's bunch. I hadn't attempted a poem about writing a poem before, so it was nice to set out what my creative writing tutors taught me in verse.

Otherwise, this year's NaPoWriMo was fairly similar to last year's. The usual subjects appeared in the form of animals, the natural world, allusions to music and so on, and of course the tiger came back to finish the month off. There haven't been many breaks from what I usually write about, but I think I made up for it by trying new things with poetic form. Also I should probably do more of the site's prompts next year because I'm certain I didn't try enough of them this time. Still, on the whole this year's NaPoWriMo has been mostly a success.

If you stuck with it to the end I hope you enjoyed the poetic chaos. In regards to what's coming up, I have the next installment of Frynwys Features nearly ready to go, my analysis of Harry Baker's 'Paper People' and a couple of new poems as always, so look out for those over the next few weeks. And the best bit of is, we're just in time for the start of summer.

Goodbye NaPoWriMo 2018, and have a great summer everyone!

NaPoWriMo #30: Spectre of Bali

Even the smallest member
of the family stands tall.

The Queen of Bali,
of the mangroves and the grasslands,
she prowled the dense jungles,
sending deer and birds fleeing,
shrinking from her shadow,
as fierce and revered
as her Indian brothers.

Those from across the sea
came seeking her,
to pay her homage
with steel and lead,
with the teeth of snap-traps
and bullets to the skull.

Every part of her had use,
to the visitors and her neighbours.
Her teeth and claws warded off evil,
her skin adorned the hunters' den,
her whiskers made the sharpest poison.

Such reverence and torment
scattered her to the winds of history.
A museum forms her tomb,
her bones laid in state,
her skin with the stripes faded,
her skull with the bullet hole
decorating her forehead.

Out in the mangroves
the deer sometimes cower
at a passing feline shadow,
a spectre
from the forests of yesterday.

(So ladies and gentlemen, that's it. NaPoWriMo is over for another year. To anyone who's followed my journey through the challenge this year, thanks for sticking around and I'm pleased that we got through it again this year. To my fellow poets who took on the challenge this year, well done for sticking with it to the end! I'll have my full thoughts on how I think it went this time out tomorrow at the latest. Thanks once again, and until next year, goodbye NaPoWriMo!)

NaPoWriMo #29: Mesozoic Summer

In the Mesozoic forests
the summer lingers all year.
Ferns and conifers lush
and dripping with moisture,
the effect of a greenhouse planet.

The kings of the earth roam
unfettered.
Pteosaurus, leather-winged
masters of the sky
dart above the canopy
snatching dragonflies.

Coelurus, quick-footed, shrewd,
the nightmare of mammals
cowering under the leaf litter,
while a bullish Stegosuaurs
crashes through the underbrush,
its psychedelic plates
pulsating against the green.

Out on the plains, giants assert
their presence without effort.
Diplodocus steps shake the earth,
dainty heads on preposterous necks,
tails swishing like gargantuan eels.
They scan the forest edge for enemies,
the packs of therepods
lusting after the potential
of such a gigantic feast.

(This is a poem I've thought for a while about doing, and now I think I've found the right way to do it. Hard to believe I started twenty nine days ago but it seems we've gotten through NaPoWriMo for another year. Only one more to go, so I'll see you tomorrow when we're finishing NaPoWriMo in style!)

NaPoWriMo #28: Railbound Vision

The glass of a carriage window,
granting views of the passing countryside,
a blurred tapestry morphing
into cold concrete and metal
of the rain-drenched cityscape.

Many hours are passed
staring through this window,
the fields, trees and rivers
blending into daydreams
of snapshots from the past
and hopes for the future,
a crystal ball looking both ways.

Then the monotone announcer
tells no one in particular
that the train will be arriving at...
And the kaleidoscope vision
dissipates.

NaPoWriMo #27: Acacia Siesta

The savannah simmers in the heat of midday.
A single impala wanders the plains
keeping one eye fixed on a nearby tree,
the danger underneath it not hard to see.

Six lions rest in the acacia's shade,
the pride male watching the grassland haze.
All of this he fought for and won by force,
a cycle of violence runs it usual course.

The cats sleep easy with their hunger sated.
A night comes the hunt for which they've waited.
The buffalo huddle close, but they're unprepared,
the lions attack what no one else dares.

NaPoWriMo #26: Whitewall

Sitting in a whitewall room,
designed for your comfort,
to help you unwind,
also to assure anyone
looking through the online prism
that this room
is a quality place
to spend a few nights.

The blankness of the paint
sterilises the mind,
and the best hope of sanity
lies beyond the window pane,
yet all you can see is the rain.

The walls scream in silence
for a splash of splendour,
just a dash of colour
to give them some way
of expressing themselves,
yet the whitewall smothers the
into brushstroke uniformity.

NaPoWriMo #25: Hornet Warning

Caution: Do Not Disturb This Hornet Nest.
Contains Vicious Warrior Insects
Liable To Sting You To Death.
Orange, Yellow and Black Markings
Are Outline To Help
If You Ignore This First Warning.
Do Not Mix With Bees
Unless You Wish To Provide
A Giant Hornet Buffet.

(Today's poem comes from the daily prompt on the NaPoWriMo website, which asks participants to write a poem in the style of a warning label to myself. Since giant hornets are warning labels in and of themselves, I'm not sure how helpful this poem will be in helping people to avoid them, but we can hope. Now with five poems to go we're finally near the finish line. See you tomorrow with the next poem!)

NaPoWriMo #24: Chilling on the Water

They know a lot them ducks,
about where it's best to retire
when the need for rest takes over.

A mallard, who works every day
on the weir-torn river in town,
dabbles on an oval lake

designed by gardeners
imitating nature's haphazard
perfection.

He mingles with the swans and geese,
scoffs at the moorhens
as they patrol the reed.

The moorhens return the gesture.

His family sit on the banks,
five fuzzy brown ducklings
and their speckled mother.

The ducklings learn to swim
in an uncertain straight line,
the first of many lessons

while their father tries to sleep
on the water, and is dive-bombed
over and over by a hooligan chaffinch.

At day's end, they sit and watch
the swans argue over who shall chase
an unsuspecting coot.

NaPoWriMo #23: Madness and Rage

Is it anger? Is it ineptitude?
Is it unpreparedness?
Is it all of the above?

Rage, a force from the unknown,
arrives unbidden,
devastates all before it
when let loose.

Madness feeds Rage,
nurtures it like rain
on a wilting dandelion,
till it bursts forth
and blooms
into a frothing cataclysm.

NaPoWriMo #22: The House with No Name

It sits on the hill
as an empty skeleton,
its residents vanished,
the mortgage no more,
who knows if it ever had one?

Now it's a monument
to something unknown and untold,
a vestige
from when trams
rolled up and down
the coal-choked hills.

The decrepit door
allows whispers
to cross the silent threshold.
The tumbledown walls
long surrendered to the moss.
Somewhere in that ruin
the chipping of pickaxes
resonates in the dark.

NaPoWriMo #21: Battle

Every once in a while the fields rumble
when cuirasses and greaves clatter on the march
and sword and shield rattle in unision
while a robin sings his tune in the thickets,
unaware of the great king's defiant speech,
fuel for the brave and the petrified
should there be any breaks in the line
when the enemy advances in formation
like driver ants marching in a column,
arrows buttering up their impeding obstacle
before steel rings against steel
and dying scream blends with battle cry.

NaPoWriMo #20: Moonlight Chase

Howling on the wind,
the settlers shiver at the sound.
The great hunters of the woods
gather on this moonlit night.

The elder wolves know the ritual,
passed down through the ages
from one pack leader to the next,
scouring the frozen forest for prey.

The settlers seek comfort
in preemptive solutions
and set out with spear and flame
to drive their monsters out.

They come for the pack that night
but the wolves melt into the trees,
shades as old as the winter chill
and man's eternal, abstract foe.

NaPoWriMo #19: Sunshine Garden

The sunshine outside the window,
the trees growing new leaves,
the grass growing taller.

The puddle at the bottom
of the garden drying up,
sparrows and blackbirds

darting through the branches.
Somewhere in the distance
someone hammers nails

into a fence, the latest
apprentice carpenter
to appear in the village.

(Today's poem is inspired by the daily prompt from the NaPoWriMo website, which today was to write a paragraph describing a story, the scene outside your window or directions from place to place, and then either erase words to create a poem or use some of the words to form a new poem. I took this prompt and used it to describe what my garden in Frynwys looks like in the current weather.)

NaPoWriMo #18: Agama

The old agama lizard stretches
on the ground under his rock,
his smouldering red scales
morph into freezing blue
as they descend from head to tail.

A curious flash of colour
in the grassland greens and yellows,
the agama crawls onto his throne,
a dot amidst the flat vastness
with a perfect panoramic view.

Very few animals visit him.
The crew of vultures overhead
seem confused by his patterns,
and a passing serval with radar ears
only gives him a passing glance.

Such are the days for the old agama,
to sit and be marvelled at
by his numerous neighbours
like a gem in a reptilian jewellers,
watching the herds follow the rain.

NaPoWriMo #17: Cold Blooded Beat

Midday sun
bathes a rock,
like an oasis,
a daily fuel stop
for sluggish snakes
and sleepwalking lizards.
The cold
festers at night,
their blood
permeated with it,
so they sit
on the rocks
facing the glare,
wait for the heat
to rise and ferment,
all the while
their ancient hearts
thump, thump, thump
like starting engines
under simmering skin
and emerald scales.

NaPoWriMo #16: Urban Dweller

A furnace of concrete, petrol and cash,
city stream from the boiling streets
float above the blank-faced office towers.

To dwell on the hectic trading streets,
the city denizen must be astute,
as sharp as a swallow
at the turn of the season.

Sidestepping slow shoppers,
snapping up cut-price showstoppers,
drinking at the trendiest coffee shops

because all their friends go to them,
the watering holes of hollow insight
and futile strategies for the future
along with some rest from the tide.

Dodging traffic when crossing the road,
catching buses and trains on the go,
working indoors in the heat of day,

at the end of a chain of production,
heading finished articles to satisfy
the insatiable yet indecisive demand,
then walking home under the orange glare

when the street lights come out to play.

NaPoWriMo #15: Overgrown

In a jungle of a garden,
with a shed constricted by ivy,
a patio draped in moss,
a lawn resembling a green porcupine,

a lost fox makes its den
in what was a compost heap,
much to the dismay
of the resident slow-worm.

He tried to evict his housemate
but his size did not help matters.
To this day no one knows
if he moved out or not.

Still the garden grow,s
still the fox's abode,
till gardeners arrive, tools in hand,
to break the ivy's hold.

NaPoWriMo #14: Sparrowhawk

A silhouette
amorphous,

from a distance
resembles its prey.

In the branches
a silent jet fighter,

songbirds beware
of lethal eyes

and the talons
which follow them.

NaPoWriMo #13: The Waking Weta

In the hollowed-out trunk
of a long dead tree,
the dead frost of winter
makes the old bark freeze.


A weta, king of crickets,
lets the frost take hold.
Sleeping, frozen in state,
a guest of the cold.


Spring disperses winter,
frees the weta's jaws.
Awake with new hunger,
time to hunt once more.

NaPoWriMo #12: Freedom and Reunion

The free circus tiger lives in the Sal forest, cloaked in a veil of thickets. He is used to the distant burble of jeep engines carrying visitors into his domain, yet when one stops in front of him as he rests under the shadow of a ghost tree, he sees a face emerge from the formless mists of the past, one which broke the collar and wrecked the chain.

The big cat runs

an old friend now tangible,

danger approaching.

(Yes, it's the return of the tiger poem, surprisingly one of the main staples of Tiger Verse. Today's poem is partially inspired by a prompt from the NaPoWriMo website to write a haibun poem - a Japanese form utilising a combination of prose and haiku. I'd also like to give a shout-out to fellow NaPoWriMoist Sam Allen for reminding me of these prompts as I had forgotten about them of late. You can check out Sam's own haibun poem here. Almost half way now, see you with the next poem!)

NaPoWriMo #11: V8 Melody

The last wail of a dying breed,
a thunderous eight cylinder bellow
facilitated by perpetual ignition,
by the constant cranking of pistons
and the onslaught of fresh oil.

Yet the habitat of the V8 diminished.
The roads it roamed in ancient times
now infested by silent hybrids
and lifeless, whirring batteries,
imitations of the age of oil.

Perhaps it was inevitable.
To survive by guzzling and burning
fuel till the fumes choked the sky,
the eight pistons rattled along
until their sustenance evaporated.

On a few isolated country roads,
a distant roar can be heard
by those who stop and listen
for a rising and falling vibrato,
the final note of the melody.

NaPoWriMo #10: Melancholic Afternoon

When the sky is clogged with clouds,
when the roads are empty
and the houses steadfastly silent,
and the fields rain-drenched,
dotted by rouge magpies and jays,
melancholy takes over.

When the goldfinches vanish,
when cats shelter under hedges
and the mist settles on the hillside,
and the gloom of dusk arrives
heralded by the drone of airliners,
melancholy takes over.

NaPoWriMo #9: Sapling

A sapling
sits
in stream-fed
soil.
It takes
its time growing,

overshadowed
by her sisters
thirty years
ahead.

A young birch
watches the forst
transform
through spring
to winter
without

a whisper.
She endures frost,
summer heat,
dripping sap

from insect-inflicted
wounds,
stripes of survival.

A hundred years on,
the forest shrinks
to a grove,
but the birch
still stands,
observing.

NaPoWriMo #8: Buzzing Under the Influence

The nectar-sozzled bumblebee
buzzing in a daydream bliss,
reverses out of a flower
speckled with pollen.

He stumbles about the petals,
nearly tumbles into the weeds,
but rights his wings in time
before colliding with the soil,
and burbles home
to what he thinks is his beehive.

NaPoWriMo #7: Waters of Oblivion

Shoreline, aquamarine and stained
with fossilised bones and mangled driftwood.
Scavenging crabs mingle
in the oasis of rotting fish.
Balding gulls and ocean-going vultures
perch on the prize,
a skeletal whale carcass putrefying the sand.

The surf boils over along stove rocks.
Out in the depths beyond the reef,
beyond the boundary of bleach-white coral
the sharks blend into the gloom.
Where pallid sunlight is extinguished
beats with no need for sight
wait to rise from their domain.

NaPoWriMo #6: Extinction

'Oh the woes of being endangered!'

said the last Dodo in Mauritius, having lost sight of her neighbours.

The long-accepted dodo virtue of courage turned out to be misguided.
Such useless bravery
against the indifference of man.

Madame Dodo first suspected there was an issue
when the pigs and monkeys
moved in,
and the fertile oasis fit for flightless birds was soon sold out of fruit.
To be pursued by the sea-faring primates
was just the icing
on the calamitous cake.

Now the dodo sits, placid, on the beach,
cursing her pigeon cousins and their flight feathers.

(Today's poem was partly inspired by a prompt from the NaPoWriMo website, which suggested playing around with uncomfortable line breaks. We're a sixth of the way through the challenge, but so far so good. See you all with the next poem tomorrow!)

NaPoWriMo #5: The Lost Starling

The starling sat in the weathered oak tree
without the chirping voices of his flock.
Lost and confused and very late for tea,
he thought he might find them down by the docks.
He asked every bird on the waterfront,
from seagulls to terns to the grey heron.
After a while the starling took a punt
and followed the canal to the barrens.
There he found his flock, bristling in a tree.
When dusk fell, the starlings began to sing
and took to the air in a fluent stream,
dancing as the sun was slowly dimming.
Darkness fell and a half moon ascended,
the lost starling's search had at last ended.

NaPoWriMo #4: Lillith

Escape was the beginning
of one last chase through the trees.

Those who thought they owned her
laid traps and cages in the woods.

She was made to roam the undergrowth,
such tricks she perceived and ignored.

Then those with live rounds
chased her with a blunt strategy.

He fate was sealed by what evolution
programmed, her high noon arrived

in a lifeless caravan park, besieged,
framed by excuses of safety first.

(This poem is based on the case of Lillith the Lynx, who was shot and killed under orders from Ceredigion county council after escaping from her enclosure at Borth Wild Animal Kingdom.)

NaPoWriMo #3: Amphibian Night Commute

When the rain falls on the marsh,
it falls with the force of avalanches.

A frog out of water,
out in the torrential downpour,
commuting to the lake of flies
where pond-skates dance in chaos.

Her spawn clings to the lilies,
beer-frothing into being.
Limbs sprouting like roses
waiting to overflow.

The mother frog hops across tarmac,
glistening skin in the streetlight,
basking in the gift of amphibian life
as rain hammers the road.

She hops across front lawns
into the undergrowth of fronds.
Cats notwithstanding
she reaches the pond before dawn.

NaPoWriMo #2: Rhythm and Verse and All Things Worse

So we start a new poem,
a stream of verse,
and with a rhyme scheme we begin to converse.

But how about going with the flow,
less of a structure and more of a never-ending discourse?
'Yes,' said the Poet-in-Chief, 'That's a good idea.'
But how many lines, what sort of syllabic construct should we use?

'It doesn't matter really,'

said

the Poet

-in-

Chief.

'Oh look at that, you've got the tense mixed up again.
Pick one for the next stanza and stick with it.'

Here goes a present tense poem,
tricky, but I'll try and hold 'em.
All those phrases, hundreds of them,
waiting to be placed in line.
Not a place for feeble writing,
you can try or go down fighting,
without additional lighting,
you can write some Allan Poe,
write Edgar Allan Poe meters,
the type would-be poets know,
such wondrous verse with the flow.

What about the villanelle, my old friend?
When free verse leads your meter astray,
can this tremendous form make amends?

Dylan Thomas knew, this was his trend,
he knew the power the form could convey,
what about the villanelle, my old friend?

Perhaps the sonnet could clear this mess up?
The form of love, strife, effective verse.
Good old Shakespeare used them in his line-up,
he had over a hundred in his purse
to be used when love or grief would beckon
and all his inner thoughts came spilling out,
though there are many scholars who reckon
they're not sure who he was talking about.
Yet it's handy for writing poetry quick,
the sonnet's short, rhymes and has great rhythm.
It's concise, lyrical, short and succinct,
a wonderful, potent algorithm.
Yet I wonder if we're viewing this wrong?
Let's try another form to end this song.

When all's said and done, verse is the worst,
so many meters and forms to rehearse.
Still, you can use any form or none at all
when you ride down the poetry waterfall.

NaPoWriMo #1: The Easter Cuckoo

The peace of spring settles on a pond,

calm descends like fresh rainfall,

and so too does the gaze of a cuckoo

upon an unguarded duck's nest.

Mrs. Cuckoo, an experienced hustler,

took out a deposit on the vacant nest.

One egg would cover the cost,

and she'd be reimbursed in time.

The Tufted duck hardly noticed

her eggs now numbered three.

Even with her sun-glow eyes,

she overlooked the imposter in her brood.

Three days before Easter, the imposter hatched.

He set about his morbid task

and turned on his nest-mates,

rolling them like pebble-skinned boulders

into the waters of the pond.

And so the portly cuckoo chick stat

in front of a species-blind duck,

demanding food from his foster mother,

a prize for his brazen crimes.

But his foster siblings were in luck,

they were found by a concerned Mallard duck.

He took them into his nest,

and reversed the cuckoo's curse.

They hatched amongst the mallard's clutch.

He told the tufted ducklings the woeful truth,

and they knew where to go when they heard

an alarm-clock call from across the pond.

The ducklings set out swimming, their first of many,

across the still waters to reclaim their nest.

The cuckoo chick was feasting on pond-weed,

and failed to spot the results of his blind-spot.

The quacking and flurry of feathers did not stop

until the ducklings forced their foster brother

across the grass and into the hedgerow,

where he waited for the return of his true guardian.

And so the ducklings greeted their confused mother,

harmony restored by the edge of the pond,

while the Easter cuckoo bides her time,

waiting for another nest to be left unguarded. 

(And we're off! Seeing as it's Easter Sunday, what better way to celebrate than with a poem about eggs. Not all of the poems this month will be of this length, but now it's started I must keep up the momentum. See you all tomorrow with the next installment!)

NaPoWriMo Returns

Ah, it's that time of year again I see. As many of you in the poetry community are probably aware, National Poetry Writing Month has come around once more. This has become something of a tradition on this blog. For those unfamiliar with NaPoWriMo, the premise is very simple; write a poem a day during the month of April, from the 1st to the 30th. These poems can be based off prompts provided by the NaPoWriMo website, or you can use your own prompts and improvise poems on a daily basis.

The first time I attempted NaPoWriMo, back in 2015, I made it to day eighteen before crashing out. Due to having a busy schedule I didn't attempt it in 2016, but last year I not only took part in NaPoWriMo but somehow managed to reach the end. I'm hoping to replicate that run this year. Finding inspiration for unique poems on a daily basis is the most challenging aspect of it for me, but I'm more hopeful this time given the successful run last year.

To all of you poets out there about to take on the challenge, I wish you the best of luck. It will be tough at times no doubt; by day fifteen there is some relief in passing the half-way stage, but there isn't a better challenge out there to help aspiring poets write poetry. It remains to be seen what poetic concoctions I will end up with this time, but if this sounds like your kind of thing, join me as I plunge headfirst and keyboard-first into NaPoWriMo 2018!

Hell's Daffodils

A short time ago in a valley of snow
lived a man on a bike with nowhere to go.
He wanted to ride on the valley roads
but in his garden a flower started to grow.

A daffodil was sprouting despite the cold,
and it grew much faster than a blob of mould.
The man watched it bloom next to a garden gnome.
while the blizzard still threatened to bury his home.

A strange thing happened in the flowerbed;
two daffodils sprouted their bright yellow heads
next to the first above the settling snow,
but it was never foreseen how many would grow.

Ten times ten times ten the daffs all emerged,
before the man knew it the flowers converged
on his small house with strangling roots and stems,
at twelve feet tall, all of the daffs followed this trend.

The man was trapped in a nest of roots.
He remembered when he saw those fresh young shoots,
their brand new petals, their sumptuous glow.
Now he panicked as they burst in through the window.

And so it was that the man met his end
in the worst snowstorm he could comprehend.
When the blizzard cleared the house was still there,
entombed in the tendrils of the daffodils' snare.

Happy World Poetry Day!

Hi guys. Once again it's World Poetry Day and poets across the world are no doubt celebrating with verse and all that goes with it. Meanwhile I'm aware that there has not been much poetry on this blog at late, but I can tell you that a new poem, rather ominously titled 'Hell's Daffodils', is nearing completion, so keep an eye out for it in the next couple of days.

In other news, Frynwys has recovered from the recent snowstorms and apart from a couple of smatterings on some of the hills, it seems that spring is finally on its way. The next installment of Frynwys Features is half done, so hopefully it won't be much of  wait before that gets posted. Also on the subject of things in a queue, the next installment of Slam Poetry on the Spot, focusing on slam champion Harry Baker, is getting underway. I'll try not to take as much time writing it as I did with the first one, so keep an eye out for that.

Other than that, it's pretty much business as usual at Tiger Verse. I have a few ideas for new features on this blog, and I'll let you know what they are when I have a more concrete template to share. I can't say too much of what 'Hell's Daffodils' will entail, other than it's exactly what it sounds like; mildly amusing insanity. It's a shame it's not quite ready for World Poetry Day, but it'll be worth the wait I'm sure.

Enjoy all the verse out there, and see you again soon!

Happy St. David's Day!

So it's St. David's Day here in Wales, and for the first time in about ten years it's snowing. There's a red warning in place from the Met Office for most of Wales, and I can tell you that Frynwys is snowed under. My plan of action is to wait for it to pass, but judging by the forecast it appears I won't be going anywhere until Sunday at least. To pass the time, here's some updates on what will be occurring on this blog in the near future.

For those of you who've recently joined us, I release the first installment of Slam Poetry on the Spot yesterday, analysing a poem by Suli Breaks. It took me a while to get that article together after numerous delays, so it's a relief to have it finished. Next up in the frame is Grand Slam poetry champion Harry Baker, so look out for that (I can't put a specific date on when that will come out, but hopefully I won't do a George R. R. Martin and take six years to write it). In a similar vein, I'm working on the next installment of Frynwys Features, and judging by the whiteout going on at the moment I suspect there will be more than a few new developments.

Poetry wise, I've got a couple of new poems close to being finished, one of which was meant to be for today but didn't make it in time. With a few adjustments it should be posted in the next couple of days. On that note, the animal poems (especially the tiger themed ones) have not gone anywhere, so expect a few more of those as we head into March. Otherwise, it's pretty much business as usual here. I'm going to try and keep things fairly consistent and post more often, because it's been a long wait between posts at times. Hopefully I can shorten the waiting times and all will be well in the world of verse.

Anyways, those are the updates as they stand. So wrap up warm if you're going out, enjoy those Welsh cakes if you're not and look out for slumbering dragons if you're doing both!

Slam Poetry on the Spot #1: Suli Breaks - 'I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate'

I've often mentioned slam poetry on this blog, but until recently I haven't examined it much. On my YouTube channel is a playlist consisting of what I consider to be some of the best slam poets in the British slam scene. In this new and hopefully ongoing feature, I'll be analysing the poets and some of their work to see how slam poetry works and how it fits in to the wider poetry spectrum. Kicking off the proceedings is spoken word artist Suli Breaks and his absolutely terrific spoken word poem 'I will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate'.

Darryll Suliaman Amaoko, better known by his stage name Suli Breaks, was born in London and first performed poetry in 2008. Since then he has gone on to become one of the most influential spoken word artists operating in Britain.  'I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate' was released on his YouTube channel back in 2013, and having watched and listened to it a couple of times now, I can tell you it's a tremendous piece of work.

The poem starts off with Breaks conveying a conversation between a mother and her son after a parent's evening. The son is falling behind in his studies and asks his mother why he needs to study subjects he won't use in later life. The mother replies with the oft-repeated mantra of parents that he needs the grades to get a good degree which in turn will lead to a good job. She adds that she never had the same opportunity at her age. The son replies with an armour-piercing response:

"But you were born a long time ago, weren't you Mum?"

With this one line, Breaks brilliantly encapsulates the first part of his argument, which is that the rules of the societal game have changed for the younger generation. The mother ignores the question, but Breaks explains that it is because she doesn't know any better other than what the teachers and society has instilled in her. In the last part of this first section, Breaks notes that the child in question has a very sharp mind, but is instead labelled as problematic due to his individuality, which the education system works very hard to erase.

With this set-up, Breaks then launches into the meat of his argument against the current education model in Britain. This is where Breaks hits his stride, and the message he delivers is brilliantly illustrated by his versatility with words. He wastes no time in taking the education system to task for its emphasis on memorising facts and figures ahead of exams, asking why such a rigid system is used to test a group of individuals who have varying skills. Breaks then launches his next assault on society in general, and its hypocrisy in regards to subjects. He includes in this abortion, wealth and social inequality, charity and greed, and the disparity between the importance placed on education and its increasing cost. He uses a mixture of word play and great rhyming to convey this message. The line which struck me the is most is as follows:

"Parents that say they want "educated" kids/
but constantly marvel at how rich Richard Branson is.".

Throughout all of this, Breaks uses a refrain at the end of each train of thought; "Huh, the irony", to convey the internal contradictions of the education system promoting equality but treats individuals far from equally. He then proceeds to argue that the current system of education doesn't prepare its students for surviving in the outside world, and that the results children get at the end of education often define them to their prospective employers. An interesting situation Breaks illustrates is a pretentious English teacher dismissing a student's work for being too 'informal' before going on to reference Shakespeare, only to be told by the kid that Shakespeare was regarded as an early "innovator of slang'. Pervading all of this is a sense of such severe contradiction between the aims of education and the outcome, where some students are left feeling undervalued due to a low grade despite it not amounting to much in the wider workplace.

Breaks brings his thesis to a stirring conclusion where he dedicates the piece to those who found their future outside the world of education and academics. Those he includes in his dedication include those with followings on social media, unemployed university graduates, "shop assistants, cleaners and cashiers with bigger dreams", as well as self-employed entrepreneurs. To this Breaks pledges that no matter the number or the grade, they will never let an exam result decide their fate, and thus the title is dropped at the end of the poem. It's a strong message for anyone struggling with education in school, university or anywhere else, and by the end of the poem Breaks has succeeded in explaining his position while performing poetic acrobatics.

Ultimately, "I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate' sets the bar pretty high as far as performance and slam poetry goes. Not only is it impressive as a feat of rhythmic and poetic sophistication, but in using these techniques to convey an argument and break it down through each stanza, Breaks demonstrates his complete mastery of the format. The use of refrains and a consistent rhyming structure add to the musicality of the piece, which only enhances the point Breaks is trying to convey. A lot of the slam poets on my list demonstrate such ability, but the potency of Breaks's argument combined with his brilliant choice of words and structuring make this poem one of the best I have heard in recent years.

(Original Poem: Breaks, Suli. I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate)

In Defence of Hollie McNish

It seems that the literary world is on entertainingly dismissive form again. I've talked about spoken word poetry a couple of times on this blog, and how my personal opinion is that while it can sometimes be too serious and on-the-nose in conveying social messages, the poets themselves are brilliant at what they do. So you can imagine my interest in seeing an article in PN Review apparently about the effect of spoken word on modern poetry, but in reality a critique of the work of Hollie McNish.

I do not claim to be familiar with Hollie McNish's work, but I did include her poem 'Embarrassed' in my Best of British Slam Poetry playlist on my YouTube channel. That poem is a great example of versatility in wordplay and rhyme to convey a social double standard. However, it seems that McNish's poetry has riled up the PN Review's reviewer, but the reasoning used to justify her criticism was something that was so hilarious I had to talk about it.

I should note before starting that McNish has already responded to the article in question, and since she hasn't named the author of the article in her response I will not do so either. She addressed the author's specific complaints, but I will address the overarching themes of the article which is the death of modern poetry via amateurism and ignorance.

The first thing to address about the PN Review article is the utter contempt for modern forms of poetry displayed by the author. In the first half of the article the author decries the current trend of posting poetry on social media and it's supposed 'dumbing-down' effect. The author attributes this to a desire for instant gratification from young poets. Of course there are a lot of problems with social media, especially its ill-defined rules and regulations, and the narcissim that often comes with sharing your whole life online, but in the right circumstances social media can be a useful tool. I see nothing wrong with poets sharing their material on social media platforms (technically I myself fall under that heading), as it helps to spread poetry to a wider audience than the establishment would seem to prefer.

The author goes on to bring Hollie McNish into the conversation along with Kate Tempest as poets who gained recognition online before being picked up by publishers. What follows is a critical mauling of McNish on the grounds of too much honesty, "slapdash" use of words, "faux-humility", insufficient education regarding the poetry canon, refuge in audacity, vanity, insulting her audience through use of a false working-class persona, and to top it all off the author accuses McNish of luring in her audience to purchase and consume deliberately bad poetry.

Several problems with this article. The first is that the author assumes the level of McNish's intelligence and education. She criticises McNish for lacking a literary mind, to the point that she uses the word 'mind' in quotation marks, and decries her ignorance of the greats of the poetry scene; Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Larkin etc, claiming that poets like McNish are pretending that they are the first to address taboo subjects in their work. Making assumptions about people's education and intelligence is not only childish in the extreme and equivalent to name-calling, it adds nothing to the author's critique of McNish's work, and she ends up reviewing the artist's personality rather than her poetry. Also, while a lot of reading is essential to the development of the individual poet, influences are not limited to the wider backlog of the poetry canon. Influences can come from anywhere, be it the literary or the visual arts, and to suggest otherwise resembles blinkered-vision.

On to the more amusing subject of elitism; the author notes that poetry can no longer be accused of being elitist due to poetry publications being afraid to critique amateur poets. She then asserts that we expect our doctors, hairdressers and athletes to be the best of the best (which in itself is a fair point), but to equate the live-saving and psychically demanding work of doctors and athletes with writing poetry is a bit unfair. The author goes on to accuse McNish of being a "warrior" intend on leading an "invasion" of poetry by amateur on the basis of equal opportunities.

This situation strikes me as somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy. There has long been a concerted effort to introduce poetry to the masses, which is essential if the art form is to thrive, and yet someone like McNish who is doing just that is criticised by a reviewer on the grounds of leading an amateur "invasion". Engaging new audiences with poetry is key to its survival, no matter what form it comes in. To disregard spoken word artists like McNish on the basis of their "amateurish" style is a bit like a classical music reviewer dismissing rock music on the grounds of "too much noise". Different styles and forms of poetry carry equal merit; just because McNish is not as polished or refined as the Wordsworths and Coleridges of this world does not lessen her value to poetry as the PN Review's writer seems to imply. To see a reviewer so frightened of poetry reaching new audiences is as amusing as it is ridiculous.

Another problem in the article is the claim that McNish is somehow attempting to bring poetry down to its base level by tricking her audiences under the pretense of representing the working class. This is a serious accusation to level at a poet, and although it is true that this kind of faux working-class persona can be problematic, I have not seen enough of McNish's work to comment on the validity of this criticism. What I can comment on is the suggestion that McNish is out to con her audience. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion; there are many who enjoy McNish's work, and others who don't, but to continually suggest that an audience has been tricked into liking her poetry seems like a concerted effort to discredit her as an artist, turning the article into a hit-piece rather than a straightforward review.

The reviewer also accuses McNish of "faux-humility", whereby she protects herself from accusations of substandard poetry by admitting her own flaws, resulting in praise from critics for writing honest poetry. Self-deprecation is an old tool of stand-up comedians used to endear them to their audiences, and I think its use in spoken word poetry is not necessarily a bad thing. If a poet exposes their flaws and shares their early poetic efforts before moving on to their current work (which is presumably of a higher standard) then it shows the progression of the artist. Anyone looking to take up poetry can see that an experience poet like McNish had to learn their craft, thereby creating a connection between the artist and the audience.

There are many other things in this article which trouble me, such as the reviewer's pretentious assertion that McNish's work would have enraged Schopenhauer (a long since deceased person who's opinion we can't claim to know), suggesting that publishers push her work because they feel it is all that working-class audiences deserve, and continually inferring that McNish lacks the education, the influences and the mindset to produce worthwhile poetry. The one that makes me laugh however is the suggestion that poets have a job. Not a job with a fixed hourly salary, but a moral obligation to "safeguard language" and to continually strive to make it memorable as a defence of "civilised values". The reviewer suggests that no one should be encouraged to listen to artists such as McNish because their work is based on "what I think", thereby making it irrelevant.

Firstly, poets are not obliged to do anything. If a poet takes their work that seriously, thinking that poetry is some kind of barometer of the state of civilisation, good for them. However, I'd like to think that poets write because they enjoy the act of writing, instead of striving to uphold some abstract company mission statement. As such, it is not my, McNish's or any poet's job to do anything unless they choose to. To ascribe this mission to all poets is obtuse in the extreme. And thus the assassination of Hollie McNish and her poetry is concluded with the suggestion that audiences should not be encouraged to listen to her work. It may have escaped the reviewer's attention, but each poet writes from their individual perspective, which is no less legitimate or worthy of reading than the next poet. It goes back to my earlier point of if the audience enjoys something, who are you to tell them they only reason they like it is because they've somehow been played?

The reviewer concludes her article by imploring a resurgence of intelligence thought, and that we can start by not celebrating "amateurism and ignorance in our poetry". For a piece in the professional poetry outlet which PN Review is, I am surprised to see such amateurism in critiquing a poet and her work and such a blatant underestimation of the intelligence of spoken word audiences. For what it's worth, all I have left to say is this; Hollie McNish is free to write whatever she wants, just as audiences and critics are free to like or dislike her work, and loftier poets are free to write what they want and to adhere to a higher mission if they wish. After all, poetry is subjective and it's beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

(Check out Hollie's own response to PN Review here. Alternatively have a read of the original article here. In the meantime stay tuned for more good stuff coming soon!)

Jumbo's Lament

I sit with my keeper in the dark
of my den, guzzling the whisky
he brings for me most nights.

When the toothache and memories
overtake me, I smash the cage
they made to contain my strength.

King of the Elephants they call me,
not my lineage of birth-right,
the first of my kind to see these shores.

Man has always been there
at the centre of my memory,
when they riddled my mother with spears,

snatched me from the grasslands,
when they chained and jailed me,
dragged their prize across the sea.

Then I met him.
A man unlike the others,
the first to see me for myself.

A man who sat apart from his herd,
who swore to protect and nourish me,
our first taste of friendship.

He dredged the disease from my skin,
guided me as my masters set me to work
carrying their children on my back.

Pain endures through the night.
It wakes me from my sleep,
from dreams of grass and acacia trees,

yet he is always there, whisky in hand,
to sooth the pain away,
his and mine, night after night after night.

(This poem was inspired by the recent David Attenborough documentary on Jumbo the Elephant, entitled "Attenborough and the Giant Elephant". There is also a video version of this poem available on my YouTube channel.) 

Belated Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody! Sorry I haven't been posting anything since last autumn; it's been a busy few months. I managed to get myself a Christmas temporary job over the festive period in the grand old town of Cardiff, so I've had to push back most of my poetry projects until now.

Thankfully, now that my real world job has eased up a bit, I can let you guys know what's going to be happening on this blog in the foreseeable future. In the immediate future I have a couple of poems which have been completed and are almost ready to be posted, along with an article about Hollie McNish and her recent troubles with a certain literary magazine. Aside to that, I'm also still working hard on my analysis of Suli Breaks' poem 'I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate', and I hope to have that posted as soon as possible.

As for Frynwys, the village is as quiet as ever, although like those of you living in the UK, we've experienced a bit of snowfall during January, and at times the areas on my usual walk looked like something out of The Polar Express. Not that we have a railway line here, but if you added one in then you have the idea of how much snow was on the ground.

Anyways, here's to another great year of poetry and everyday adventures, and I'll see you all again soon.