A poem a week for 2012 - a record of a year in the life of...

Carol-Ann Duffy ‏ @young_laureate

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so i'm teaching a workshop at roedean school tomorrow. 

have to say working with private school kids is soooo much better than comprehensives

THE DANGERS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING, PART THREE...

The above tweet from the Poet Laureate brought to mind that old cherry - should holders of public offices maybe think before biting the hand that feeds them???

...With apologies to 100 years of Laureates and others                                        ...not Grantchester, I grant ya.

The church bell strikes the hour of three;

Village Sunday life lingers on

As old habits hold tenuously

And generations act as one.

Harmonious discords collide

With differences cast aside

And dust settles on common ground.

Reviews discussed; opinions formed.

'No one reads poetry anymore!'

Stagg's article adorns the floor.

'He says that woman's lost her touch...'

'I never liked her verses much. 

Linguistic gymnastics; too condensed,

I liked that fellow Betjeman...

Bombs over Slough. Images in rhyme.'

Says mother adding in her chimes.

'A royal degree in rhetoric:

Parliament decrees the Laureate.

Their deeds and praises for to sing,

Versifiers and minstrels garnering

Prosaic images on feats -

Olympiads and Jubilees,

- What's left of Britain's monarchy...

Well-penned with such dexterity...'

'And now constricted syllables,'

(Sighs wistfully) 'Hardly summoned 

By bells! ... 'Nor poetry in motion,'

'Or painting fears in other nations!'

To tune of youthful generations

From Gorbals rises constellations. 

From ivory tower the world's wife tweets 

Raptures in laurels - condescensions, 

And teens waiting on tenterhooks

for glimpse of Agard, one-legged, wry

For Nichols'  breathless hurricanes 

And immense, fearful imagery,

And lesser presence sits in wings
In dyslogistic solipsisms.

Comprehensively she 'blatters', 

Slashes at life;  dancing whispers.

Cheap stillettoes, echo through years
Clattering by on cobbled streets.
Ghosts of gritty tongue twisters  

in drizzling rain, discarded, weep.

Lost spooling shadows cast their spell,

Over tumbling lexis, and cartwheel 

Verbs and syntax, heavenward soar  

But at cathedral steps they fall

- Dismissively, defensively.

Darkly despair the clubs they sought

While beating institution doors, 

With playful para-rhythmic mores, 

So prosaically, parodying

Whose reflection now?.... The weather 

Polishes the silver fields ahead 

As weakened winter sun descends

And drawing evening sounds are heard 

- Faint owls hushing the floating woods.

And tea and honey sandwiches

Defy daily thoughts of labour 

And the world's sorrows slumber as

Grandchildren's voices, heard in the 

Back lane, tracing wheel tracks over.

Memories of empire; vain images

Of sea fever. And topic turns 

Once more Inclined to tastes and styles, 

In rhyme and verse, that we who live 

By honest dreams, defend the bad 

...Against the worse.

BH March 12th 2012 

 The Telegraph – January 9^th, 2012: Carol Ann Duffy – 

Is this really the best she can do?

Post script from Norbert J. Hetherington:

Twit - dedicated to the ultimate CAD

your poetry in Andrew’s motion

was a comprehensive success

like warming her pubic curls

whilst polishing a Royal crest­ 

(a Hippocrates test)