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Grace by Roger Robinson – Poem of the week?

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One of the great pleasures of living in Stockholm is the series of Evenings with International Writers organised by our rather wonderful Kulturhuset. A couple of months ago, Linton Kwesi Johnson was here and yesterday, we had a visit from another British poet with his roots in the Caribbean, Roger Robinson.

I’d never heard of him but DuCool has been a fan for several years and has read A Portable Paradise, his volume of poems which won him the very prestigious T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize in 2019. Fredrik, my Jazz Neighbour, and some of his librarian friends were also there in the large and very appreciative audience.

This is not a review of the evening. I’d just like to draw your attention to one of the poems that Roger read aloud: Grace. It’s about the nursing staff on the ward where his son, who was born prematurely, hovered between life and death.

I talked about the poem with Fredrik on the Metro back to Bagarmossen after the show. Both of us had been almost moved me to tears. But real men don’t cry about a poem, do they? Heavens Above!

In the comments below is Roger reading Grace. I hope you like it.

Has anyone else here read A Portable Paradise or listened to any of Roger’s albums?
Are there any other poets who you would like to recommend?

Now I’m going to set the cat among the pigeons…
Read about culture in 2024 and you see an awful lot of numbers.

“Top of the NY Times Best-Seller List! Four million copies sold!!”
“96,00O attendees at the Melbourne Concert.”
“All tickets for UK Tour sold out in 10 minutes.”

But what impresses me is a how a work of art can, away from all the sound and fury of the marketing people, quite out of the blue, speak directly and personally to us.

Here’s Roger Robinson, a poet who I knew nothing about, reading a poem which made an immediate and lasting impression on me.

A poem, a song, a photograph, a novel, a painting, a saxophone solo, a piece of sculpture, a movie …Suddenly zzzziiiiiinnnng! It’s hit the spot.

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Comments

  2. In recent(ish) memory, two poems have made me stop.

    This one by Galway Kinnell was lucky I was close to the pffice parking:
    If I die before you
    which is all but certain
    then in the moment
    before you will see me
    become someone dead
    in a transformation
    as quick as a shooting star’s
    I will cross over into you
    and ask you to carry
    not only your own memories
    but mine too until you
    too lie down and erase us
    both together into oblivion.

    The other was Clive James’ Japanese Maple: https://www.clivejames.com/japanese-maple.html

    • A beautifully constructed sonnet! It’s not often I read one of those.

      The final two lines are excellent: a couplet that ties it all together very succinctly.

      Sewer Robot mentions Dennis Bovell in his Creation Revel thread. Here he is providing a little poetic nostalgia in the company of the most elegant man in popular music: Linton Kwesi Johnson.

      And by way of total contrast, here’s Roger Robinson again.

      Paradise

      And now, reading a poem that is not about death!

      The City Kids see the Sea

        • You’ll be pleased to hear, @Sewer Robot, that on Thursday evening, once he’d done his “academic” interview , there was an intermission and then he did a concert with a German DJ called Disrupt. And great fun it was too.

          View post on imgur.com

          He invited the audience up onto the stage and turned the literary salon into a sweaty reggae club.

          View post on imgur.com

          He’d make a superb Poet Laureate!

  4. As we’ve had a poem by Clive James, it’s worth remembering that he was a lyricist as well as a poet and worked together with Pete Atkin,

    https://www.clivejames.com/lyrics.html

    “But the easiest way to read all the lyrics written up until the time when we resumed work around the turn of the millennium is to click through to the Pete Atkin website. ”

    https://www.peteatkin.com/pa.htm

    Pete’s website is a treat: packed with all sorts of goodies.

    I hadn’t realised they actually had toured together.

  6. And the only poet of whom the majority have a positive opinion, though I’m guessing people ticked the ‘No idea’ option for most of the others rather than being outright hostile to them and their works.

  7. Chat says.
    In yonder room, a wicker hamper lies,
    A vessel vast, where secrets softly hide.
    Its woven strands, a tapestry of art,
    Concealing treasures, veiled from every part.

    Within its bounds, a trove of mysteries,
    A labyrinth of items, rich with histories.
    From linens fine to victuals bounteous,
    This hamper bears a load so wondrous.

    O, wickered vessel, sturdy and grand,
    Thy purpose noble, serving at command.
    A container vast, where clutter finds repose,
    In woven arms, the chaos gently slows.

    As Shakespeare penned in days of yore,
    This hamper’s tale, a saga to explore.
    A silent witness to life’s fleeting scene,
    In wickered elegance, a world serene.

    Hampers ahoy.

  10. Roger Robinson’s Dis Side Ah Town is an excellent album. I especially like the title track and Ashes To Fire. Dog Heart City is good too.

    Can’t be talking poetry and pop without mentioning Jim Carroll. I used to play his album Catholic Boy to death as a teenager, loved The Basketball Diaries and quite liked his book of poetry Living At The Movies (which earned him a Pulitzer Prize nomination at the age of 22). His last album, Pools Of Mercury, was a mix of spoken poetry and rock songs. I didn’t like it. Sadly, none of his recordings lived up to the promise of Catholic Boy.
    Here he is giving it a bit of poetry at the start of his song Lorraine from his album Dry Dreams.

    .

    • Yikes!! How do you know about all this wonderful stuff, @Tiggerlion?

      You really are a walking encyclopedia of popular music knowledge. I feel like a rather tatty, worse-for-wear, often illegible small notebook by comparison

      I doff my hat to you.

      Thanks heavens for Google. I now know her real name.

      Miss Lou. a.k.a, Louise Bennett-Coverley.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Bennett-Coverley

      Her life story is an incredible read. She went to RADA!

      Here she is being interviewed.

      What a discovery!

        • I like that that song (apart from being excellent) is true. It mentions a few of his friends who he also writes about in The Basketball Diaries. For example, seeing Bobby look like an old man due to leukemia had a massive impact on him, Eddie was his best friend and Herbie did indeed push Tony off the Boys Club roof.
          The song’s been covered a few times, notably by John Cale and Carroll’s ex, Patti Smith.

          PS. That’s a great album cover, Annie Leibovitz’s photo of Jim and his parents,

    • It certainly does @retropath2! I’d never heard of that.

      What a magnificently motley crew of artists! Jon Anderson, Marc Almond, Cliff Richard, Colin Blunstone, Captain Sensible and …Donovan. (As we all know Donovan invented poetry, so it’s only right he should be involved.)

      Betjeman’s popularity should assure him a place in any Top 20 of British poets.

      The album is on Spotify.

      AllMusic Review
      Sound of Poetry Review by Dave Thompson
      A two-CD release for a pair of albums that British DJ/songwriter Mike Read put together around his love of the poems of Sir John Betjeman, Sound of Poetry features the Knight’s words, Read’s music, and a host of guest vocalists that ranges from Marc Almond and Cliff Richard to Jon Anderson, Don McLean, and even Captain Sensible. Add Steve Harley, Gene Pitney, Leo Sayer, Colin Blunstone, Donovan, and Alvin Stardust to the brew, a hit single by David Essex, and even some George Martin orchestration, and you are looking at an incredibly ambitious and beautifully realized collection, not to mention one of those extraordinarily rare moments when pop sensibility and poetic beauty truly come together. Yes there are some moments that border on the saccharine, but there are also some incredibly stirring pieces too, highlighted by Almond’s so-emotive rendering of “Narcissus” and Blunstone’s characteristically lovelorn “In Memory.” Thirty songs do make for a somewhat overstuffed feast, which is presumably why the two albums were originally released separately. It must also be said that disc two is considerably weaker than its twin, both in terms of performers and poems. But the overall package is an unexpected joy regardless.

      https://www.allmusic.com/album/sound-of-poetry-mw0000799154

  14. As regards music, we all know how the internet can enable even a rather niche artist to reach a far broader audience internationally. (Youtube, Bandcamp, TikTok, Insta, Facebook,Spotify) An NPR Tiny Desk session will always have a long- effect effect. I still return to old favourites like Stile Antico. An Early Music choir standing around Ye Tinye Deske!

    A Scottish folk singer can find new fans in Tasmania. A Finnish kantele player can become big in Japan. A dark-metal band from Quebec can build up a following in France. They’ve nothing Toulouse!

    So, how is the internet boosting an interest in poetry? A quick Google revealed some interesting resources.

    The Readpoetry site, for example. I stumbled across it when I wanted to know more about Irish poets.

    https://www.readpoetry.com/irish-poets/
    Several names there who I have never heard of!

    https://www.readpoetry.com/

    I like their mission statement.

    “Read Poetry is a safe space to explore identity, diversity, and empowerment, providing a familiar but current look into the human experience. It is an online community where we celebrate poetry around the world and encourage readers to discover poetry that speaks to them.

    With poets like Amanda Lovelace, Courtney Peppernell, Iain S. Thomas, and Rupi Kaur bringing their work to Instagram and other digital mediums, we saw a need to centralize the poetry community into a supportive space where they can share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences and engage in self-care.

    We hope you find a soft place to land.”

    All their poets are new names to me. I’ve no idea how good they are but I like the fact that there is a forum for them.

    https://www.readpoetry.com/poets/

    We’ve talked about Roger Robinson and LKJ,, so this blogspot from the British Library on Black British poets in performance should be of interest.

    https://blogs.bl.uk/sound-and-vision/2020/10/using-your-eyes-as-a-pen-black-british-poetry-in-performance.html

    There are some mini interviews, starting with Anthony Joseph who is already an AW favourite.

    I suspect that libraries and publishers are good places to go forraging for tasty poetic morsels on line.

    Here’s a Tiny Desk session where Fred Again (you may just have heard of him!) samples a poem, Love in the time of Undeath.

    https://guante.info/2023/04/21/april2023/

    Here’s the original poem.

    https://guante.info/2018/11/09/new-video-love-in-the-time-of-undeath-via-button-poetry/

      • As a taster, try his cast on Charlotte Mew’s The Farmer’s Bride, written in 1912, including some rustic language.

        https://planetradio.co.uk/podcasts/frank-skinner-poetry-podcast/id-2150536/play/

        Three summers since I chose a maid,
        Too young maybe—but more’s to do
        At harvest-time than bide and woo.
        When us was wed she turned afraid
        Of love and me and all things human;
        Like the shut of a winter’s day
        Her smile went out, and ’twadn’t a woman—
        More like a little frightened fay.
        One night, in the Fall, she runned away.

        “Out ’mong the sheep, her be,” they said,
        ’Should properly have been abed;
        But sure enough she wadn’t there
        Lying awake with her wide brown stare.
        So over seven-acre field and up-along across the down
        We chased her, flying like a hare
        Before our lanterns. To Church-Town
        All in a shiver and a scare
        We caught her, fetched her home at last
        And turned the key upon her, fast.

        She does the work about the house
        As well as most, but like a mouse:
        Happy enough to chat and play
        With birds and rabbits and such as they,
        So long as men-folk keep away.
        “Not near, not near!” her eyes beseech
        When one of us comes within reach.
        The women say that beasts in stall
        Look round like children at her call.
        I’ve hardly heard her speak at all.

        Shy as a leveret, swift as he,
        Straight and slight as a young larch tree,
        Sweet as the first wild violets, she,
        To her wild self. But what to me?

        The short days shorten and the oaks are brown,
        The blue smoke rises to the low grey sky,
        One leaf in the still air falls slowly down,
        A magpie’s spotted feathers lie
        On the black earth spread white with rime,
        The berries redden up to Christmas-time.
        What’s Christmas-time without there be
        Some other in the house than we!

        She sleeps up in the attic there
        Alone, poor maid. ’Tis but a stair
        Betwixt us. Oh! my God! the down,
        The soft young down of her, the brown,
        The brown of her—her eyes, her hair, her hair!

  15. LKJ was influenced by the Jamaican post Claude McKay whose powers were at a peak more than a century ago. He liked sonnets but didn’t do much romance. You can see where LKJ got some of his ire from.

    To The White Fiends (1922)

    by Claude McKay (1889–1948)

    Think you I am not fiend and savage too?
    Think you I could not arm me with a gun
    And shoot down ten of you for every one
    Of my black brothers murdered, burnt by you?
    Be not deceived, for every deed you do
    I could match – out-match: am I not Africa’s son,
    Black of that black land where black deeds are done?
    But the Almighty from the darkness drew
    My soul and said: Even thou shalt be a light
    Awhile to burn on the benighted earth,
    Thy dusky face I set among the white
    For thee to prove thyself of highest worth;
    Before the world is swallowed up in night,
    To show thy little lamp: go forth, go forth!

  16. A few Irish poets now, pLease!

    I don”t know so many. Van Morrison and many others would not forgive me if I didn’t mention Patrick Kavanagh who wrote the poem which became the song Raglan Road.

    And Mike Scott would want the magnificent W.B. Yeats. The Waterboys have done a whole album of his poems; An appointment with Mr Yeats.

  18. Calling the Sage of Spånga!!

    If it hadn’t been for the fact that @DuCo01 was a big fan of Roger Robinson, I’d never have even known about the gig.

    So now, Duke, I am now very curious to know:

    What are your favourite poems/ tracks by Rog`?

    And of course, if there ar any other poets who you would like to draw our attention to …..

    Here’s another poem that RR read on Thursday: A Portable Paradise.

    It was the very last poem that he wrote for the book of the same name. He spoke very amusingly about how his “hater friend” had badgered him to write it. ( That’s the pal he can always rely on to be devil’s advocate about anything he writes and he stressed how important it is for a writer to have someone they trust who dares to be brutally honest about a new work).

    Many people have told him what they think the “portable paradise” is. He just smiles and agrees with all of them.

    Here’s a wee film about RR from the Edinburgh Book Festival.

    • You are far too kind @Vulpes Vulpes!! Thread of the morning, perhaps?

      But I’ll certainly agree about the delight of seeing the AW hivemind at work, contributing with such enormous variety and great vigour, and that this what we keep the place going for.

      I just remembered that Van Morrison mentions the poets John Donne, Walt Whitman. Yeats and Omar Khayyam in this fine song.

  20. I’d never heard this gem before. It just got posted by Clive on the Mastermind thread but it most certainly belongs here too.

    A poem about a real local hero, somebody that many, many people cared deeply about! That’s how poetry should be!

    Here’s some background to how it all came about.

    https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/tony-wilson-tribute-poetry-devotion-9806430

    Yesterday evening at Bio Reflexen I saw the remarkable We are all Strangers. It’s a very hallucogenic, mysterious, phantasmagoric film and when we all left the cinema the square was misty and very film noir.

    As I began to walk home, as I passed the pizzeria, I saw a creature skulking through the shadows, A fox! It was a sudden, powerful brief encounter. For a few seconds he stopped to look at me. He knew a kindred soul when he saw one.

    He rummages through the bins for some left-over kebab. I forage other AW threads to find titbits that will get me one step nearer to Corsair Chicken Paradise.

    At home, I remembered this splendid poem by Ted Hughes.

  21. Sometimes my late father would surprise me by reciting a large chunk of poetry that he’d learn by heart in his school days. Back in the 1930s, East Ham Grammar School (or whatever his school was called) was doing a fine job of putting poetry on the map.

    Anyway, I was pleased to read this quote by Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage:

    “The poems we learn when we’re young stay with us for the rest of our lives. They become embedded in our thinking, and when we bring them to mind, or to our lips, they remind us who we are as people, and the things we believe in. We call it learning by heart, and I think such learning can only make our hearts bigger and stronger.” Simon Armitage, Poet Laureate

    It’s from the Poetry Society’s home page.

    https://poetrysociety.org.uk/education/poetry-by-heart/

    They have a competition called Poetry by Heart to encourage kids learn by heart.

    “Poetry By Heart is a national poetry speaking competition for schools in England. It is open to young people in Key Stages 2-5. Pupils choose a poem, learn it by heart, and perform it.

    The Poetry Society is part of a consortium of poetry organisations supporting the delivery of Poetry By Heart. In 2023 and 2024, we are sending poets into schools in Bradford, Hull, Luton, Manchester, Rochdale and Walsall to support pupils in learning and performing a poem.”

    Poets visiting Manchester schools? I wonder if that bad boy of punk poetry, JCC, will be sent out to any schools or if any of the young talents will chose to memorise one of his works. That would set the cat among the poetry pigeons.

    The Poetry Society website is well worth a browse. All kinds of interesting goodies. Like National Poetry Day.

    https://poetrysociety.org.uk/education/national-poetry-day/

    The US equivalent is the Poetry Foundation whose website is an excellent global resource.

    For example, this page on Poetry and the Civil Rights Movement.

    https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/146367/poetry-and-the-civil-rights-movement

    Here’s a reading of one of the poems mentioned: Miz Rosa Rides Da Bus by Angela Jackson.

  22. H.P. Lovecraft set to music! I wasn’t expecting that.

    I stumbled across Norwegian composer, Magnus Paus, while researching who had set Yeats’s poems to music. He’s a big name in Norway.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Paus

    Here’s Paus’s adaptation of Yeats’s Stolen Child.

    We’ve had several English poems set to music. But Mike Scott isn’t the only one rise to the challenge of setting a classic poem to music.

    Time to call in @Locust and enjoy some Swedish poetry.

    Swedish rockers, Mando Diao, made a major change of direction when they set the poems of Gustav Fröding (1860- 1911) to music. They are also from the very picturesque region of Värmland where he was born and felt a special affinity for his work.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustaf_Fr%C3%B6ding

    to music.

    Here is one of the songs with English subtitles. It’s a beauty and transcends the language barrier,

    And now Värmland’s most famous musical export: the Queen of Swedish Jazz with a Fröding song.

    A question for you, Locust.

    Are there any other Swedish poems set to music that we ought to know about?

    With a bit of luck we can get some of the Afterword to sign up for Swedish lessons!

  23. @Tiggerlion mentioned Charlotte Mary Mew who is the subject of one of Frank Skinner’s Poetry Podcasts.

    One of her poems turns up on this album: The Dark Pastoral – Songs and Poetry from World War One. Those WW1 poets are still widely read.

    “The Dark Pastoral: Songs and Poetry from World War I Review by Stephen Eddins

    The purpose behind this album is demonstrating the more resigned, elegiac reactions to the First World War among British poets and composers. It includes both musical setting of poems, performed by tenor Andrew Kennedy and pianist Julius Drake, as well as actor Simon Russell Beale reading poetry. The collection includes works by both well-known and obscure artists. Among the poets are Rupert Brooke, A.E. Housman, James Joyce, and Thomas Hardy, as well as Edward Thomas, Charlotte Mary Mew, Edmund Blunden, and Vera May Brittain.”

    “The songs by Goossens, though, are in a class by themselves; they are so strikingly original and musically strong that they make the listener sit up in wonder at his inventiveness and imagination. ”

    You can read the full review on AllMusic.

    https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-dark-pastoral-songs-and-poetry-from-world-war-i-mw0001400993

    Here’s a remarkable, horrifying poem by Wilfred Owen.

  24. When I was at grammar school, doing my English O Levels back in the mists of time, the First World War poets were part of what we studied. Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke, Robert Graves and Wilfred Owen in particular.
    Only very vaguely recalled now, unfortunately, but they made a deep impression at the time.

  25. No William Blake yet?

    This song by Benjamin Britten is quite superb.

    And Patti Smith, a poet herself, is a great fan of Blake. She tells a very amusing story here.

    She’s so wonderfully herself!

      • Thanks @Pencilsqueezer. I will do that!

        They do sound interesting.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundwalk_Collective

        “Since their foundation, Soundwalk Collective have collaborated with numerous musicians including American singer, songwriter and poet Patti Smith, Ethiopian Jazz musician Mulatu Astatke, American photographer Nan Goldin, French-Swiss film director Jean-Luc Godard, minimalist composer, Philip Glass, film director, Abel Ferrera, and French pop singer and actor, Charlotte Gainsbourg.”

        That is a pretty impressive list!

        Foraging around to find artists singing songs by Burns, I chanced upon Concerto Caledonia who sound right up my street.

        https://concal.org/

        “Concerto Caledonia brings to life the classical and traditional music of Scotland’s history. The group’s sixteen albums include Robert Burns songs in their original versions, classical symphonies from Fife, and the unique sound of 18th-century Scottish-Italian crossover. The Nathaniel Gow’s Dance Band project took Scottish country dances of the late 18th century to ceilidh nights in Glasgow basements and elegant balls in Edinburgh’s Assembly Rooms, and as far afield as Helsinki and Adelaide.”

        The fact that they have worked with the wonderful Alisdair Roberts and the excellent Iona Fife just increases my interest. And there’s a theorbo too!

        Iona is a hoot!

        I bet The Cheshire Cat knows about them!

        !8th century dance band music!

      • Magnificent indeed @Mike_H.

        William Blake and Jazz are a marriage made in heaven. I didn’t know that Westbrook had set the Jerusalem Hitmaker’s poems to music.

        Superb singing by Phil Minton and that violin solo by Billy Thompson is breathtaking.

        And then that choir! Gradually building up the atmosphere in such a very restrained, under-stated way.

  26. Has anyone mentioned Marianne Faithfull’s most recent album, She Walks In Beauty, yet? I have a lot of time for Marianne Faithfull. Broken English is the best rock album by a solo British female artist, Truth Bitter Truth one of my favourite songs, both her versions of Sister Morphine are excellent, and I admire that she goes and does all weirdy stuff like Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht and Noël Coward, and that she collaborates with interesting collaborators, like Damon and Jarvis. And Warren Ellis on She Walks In Beauty, an album of poems set to music. Poems by the likes of Byron, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Wordsworth. I don’t particularly like the album, but that matters not one jot, she can do what she likes, she can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned.

    • I hate to contradict you, @Gary, but I’ve just listened to a few poems from she walks in beauty and I sat there spellbound. And quite delighted.

      Warren Ellis’s music is wonderfully understated and adds greatly to the atmosphere. And Marianne reads the poems beautifully. A bit of a greatest hits collection for me: I know the Keats poems from my sixth form days and it was a pleasure to see them again.

      So thanks a lot, for putting that on our poetic map.

  27. The contents of this thread seeped over onto my Facebook. With one very positive result. My Jazz Neighbour, Fredrik informed me that John Cooper Clarke is playing Stockholm in October. So @DuCool01 and I now have tickets to see him. The Duke saw JCC 40 years ago back in the days when he was a regular at the Hacienda. I’ve never seen “the bargain basement Baudelaire”.

    Here’s a documentary. He has some very distinguished fans.

    And a very amusing interview.

    https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/may/29/john-cooper-clarke-punk-poet-interview

    “He tells me how he and Evie met, on Friday 13 November, and how they bonded over Baudelaire. “I had this translation of Les Fleurs du Mal. I love Charles Baudelaire. Him and Shakespeare are the only people I think are better than me. I swear to Christ, I think I’m better than every fucker. When I finally met the wife, languages were her thing. So I said, ‘Is that a good translation?’ And she said, ‘I couldn’t imagine a better translation.'” And that was that. ”

    His influences.

    On the OGWT with the Invisible Girls

    He claims he met the Dalai Lama at Glastonbury.

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