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Steve Page Dec 2019
Pub poetry is a form of performance poetry consisting of the shouted word which has developed in UK urban pubs, dating back to the 1940s and 50s. Words are typically yelled over ambient haphazard rhythms which are not especially chosen for the piece of poetry, rather the poetry is performed over the generic sound of empty bottles and part filled glasses and live samples of patron conversation that will be familiar to those frequenting hostelries around the UK.

Sometimes the audience will employ call and response devices to distract the poet, such as calls of "W##k-er!', with the traditional response of "F##k-You!" before the pub poet continues with his yelled out verse, often read from the beer stained back of an overdue envelope.

The pub poet usually appears on a chair or table, surrounded by immediate family or work mates cheering him on.

Invariably inebriated, the pub poet may not appear to make any sense to the uninitiated - but once you too have availed yourself of your 4th or 5th pint, the words become clearer and easier to appreciate.

No musicality is built into pub poems and pub poets generally perform without backing music, delivering chanted speech with pronounced modulation, broken-rhythmic accentuation and dramatic, though random, stylization of gestures, often resulting in the pub poet losing balance and sustaining a head injury thereby losing consciousness and bringing the evening's entertainment to a premature, but often welcome, end.

It is often noted that many pub poets are remarkably shy and retiring when sober.
Based on 'dub poet' wiki entry.  I simply took another look through a different lens.
sweet jesus
life is outrageous
listless alligators
try to upstage this
drift from forms
to formless sages
residual wages
furnishing your cages
threadbare leather workers
raid our refrigerators
rage is impulsive
sullen lisps and swollen lips
frame our faceless daughters
in their water glasses
houses of hunted howling
hourglasses
dreamcatchers and dancers
humongous lanterns
burning pages
place-mats
on your dinner tables
why do they feel so out of place
is it the way we are made
have you any
doubts about your origins
what is the worst
thing you’ve ever faced
are you exposed
to typos regularly
tokens of penmanship
and fraternity hazings
hostelries and banquets
growth is dependent
only on intangible quotients
TonyNoon Aug 30
The taxis bring them home quietly,
chasing the last daylight towards
the ring road as if it had no business
hanging around here after ten o’clock.

They have caroused safely in the sun
all day, in theme park public houses
where the music is never too loud
and the drinks are always temperate.

In boarded and bewildered hostelries
as the moon rises there is still a clinking
of glass and after midnight, I am told,
discarnate laughter raises spirits till dawn.


Tony Noon

— The End —