Tuesday 31 July 2018

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.

Thursday 12 July 2018

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.