Oct 2014
I heard this woman speak
from Derek Jarman's desk,
she spoke and half asleep
I woke to feel her rhythmic
words oblique to all I knew
as poetry.
This place a poem
I can’t write, she said, I’ll
listen to the wind instead
and turn my thoughts to
that poor badger on the road.
I stopped the car I was alone,
I snapped it three times
with my phone and now
it lies here on his desk,
three shots of this dead thing,
its dark blue pool of blood
that spills half on the road
half on the grass, from deep
inside its side it’s dead,
and really still,
and still
it has a such beauty,
still.
from Derek Jarman's desk,
she spoke and half asleep
I woke to feel her rhythmic
words oblique to all I knew
as poetry.
This place a poem
I can’t write, she said, I’ll
listen to the wind instead
and turn my thoughts to
that poor badger on the road.
I stopped the car I was alone,
I snapped it three times
with my phone and now
it lies here on his desk,
three shots of this dead thing,
its dark blue pool of blood
that spills half on the road
half on the grass, from deep
inside its side it’s dead,
and really still,
and still
it has a such beauty,
still.
This is not a joke but a serious conjunction of thoughts. I’ve been mesmerised since earlier this week by the sound and rhythms of Kate Tempest. I heard her poem More Than a Desert and was (as they say) blown away. It suddenly hit me what a unique poetic voice she has. And then a drawing of a dead badger appears and I was thinking and rhyming like Kate. The poem needs to be read exactly as she would read it - few poetic pauses with the voice falling away at the end of what might be a stanza or verse.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04k7vqk
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/galleries/p027nl5p
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04k7vqk
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/galleries/p027nl5p
