Poem of the Week and Weekly Geek Photo Journal - Thursday

Thursday

I feel like I'm not getting much reading done this week, have hardly made any progress with either of the books I'm reading as my evenings have been fairly full. So today we are journeying with a poem again. And this time we are split between a Caribbean Island and dreary London.

I've included a copy of the poem below to make this also squish in with my poem of the week. I love the way this poem shows how home stays with you no matter where you end up in the world.

Island Man

Morning

and island man wakes upto the sound of blue surf

in his head

the steady breaking and wombing

wild seabirds

and fishermen pushing out to

the sun surfacing defiantly

from the east

of his small emerald island

he always comes back groggily groggily

Comes back to sands

of a grey metallic soar

to surge of wheels

to dull North Circular roar

muffling muffling

his crumpled pillow waves

island man heaves himself

Another London day

Poem of the Week: Salome - Carol Ann Duffy

I picked this poem this week as it's one of my favorite poems to study with my class. I always lte them study a few of Duffy's angsty poems before getting to this, I love seeing the realisation on their faces that this isn't a poem about one night stands.

The voice rumbles on in a gossipy tone, bragging about the conquest of the night before, and the language works well to lead the reader into a false sense of security.

Duffy's collection The World's Wife is my all time favorite poetry book.

Salome
I’d done it before
(and doubtless I’ll do it again,
sooner or later)
woke up with a head on the pillow beside me – whose? –
what did it matter?

Good-looking, of course, dark hair, rather matted;
the reddish beard several shades lighter;
with very deep lines around the eyes,
from pain, I’d guess, maybe laughter;
and a beautiful crimson mouth that obviously knew
how to flatter…
which I kissed…
Colder than pewter.
Strange. What was his name? Peter?

Simon? Andrew? John? I knew I’d feel better
for tea, dry toast, no butter,
so rang for the maid.
And, indeed, her innocent clatter
of cups and plates,
her clearing of clutter,
her regional patter,
were just what I needed –
hungover and wrecked as I was from a night on the batter.

Never again!
I needed to clean up my act,
get fitter,
cut out the booze and the fags and the sex.
Yes. And as for the latter,
it was time to turf out the blighter,
the beater or biter,
who’d come like a lamb to the slaughter
to Salome’s bed.

In the mirror, I saw my eyes glitter.
I flung back the sticky red sheets,
and there, like I said – and ain’t life a bitch –
was his head on a platter.

For last weeks poem see here

Poem of the Week: A Paper Bag - Atwood

I always both loved and struggled with poetry. Very rarely could I read an poem and just get it, which frustrated me considerably, but I loved reading or being taught about poems, its like being given a key to a maze, once the door is open I can go and discover many different things that I couldn't see at first glance.


I've been reading a lot of poetry with the older pupils at school, lots of Simon Armitage and Carol Ann Duffy as well as a selection of poetry from all different cultures. What this has made me realsie is how little poetry I have read since leaving university, so I'm planning to start trying to read a selection of poetry each week and I aim to put my favorite on here so hopefully others can enjoy and maybe comment.


So this week I've been looking at Margaret Atwoods' poems and this one instantly caught my attention.

The Paper Bag.

I make my head, as I used to,

out of a paper bag,

pull it down to the collarbone,

draw eyes around my eyes

with purple and green

spikes to show surprise,

a thumb-shaped nose,

a mouth around my mouth,

penciled by touch, then coloured in

flat red.

With this new head, the body now

stretched like a stocking and exhausted could

dance again; if I made a

tongue I could sing.

An old sheet and it's Halloween ;

but why is it worse or more

frightening, this pinface

head of square hair and no chin?

Like an idiot, it has no past

and is always entering the future

through its slots of eyes, purblind

and groping with its thick smile,

a tentacle of perpetual joy.

Paper head, I prefer you

because of your emptiness;

from within you any

word could still be said.

With you I could have

more than one skin,

a blank interior, a repertoire

of untold stories,

a fresh beginning.

Margaret Atwood.

This poem grabbed me as I immediately had an image of a child, feeling unloved, unwanted, perhaps bulllied just desiring to be someone else. To wipe out who they where and be given a fresh chance or a new start.