In The Poetry

‘The Meaning of Life’ is about Yorkshire dialect poetry and the fact that it’s not meant to be able to carry very big meanings, and it’s also complete nonsense. Unless you read it very carefully.

The Meaning of Life

(A Yorkshire Dialect Rhapsody)

From under’t canal like a watter-filled cellar
coming up like a pitman from a double’un, [...]

‘For Me’ is about when I first started running writing workshops. It always seemed to me that half-way through the workshop, somebody would say “For me, if it doesn’t rhyme, it’s not a poem”, and I thought, right:

For me

For me,
if it’s not got rockers
it’s not a chair.
It’s just a pile of sticks,
and you [...]

‘Tempest Avenue’. I still live there, and nothing much has changed in this poem – Mr Ford’s retired, Mr Lawley’s next door, my mother lives down the street. My son is now sixteen, but everything else is true.

It is 5 am, and I am standing
in the half light bedroom
holding our son. He [...]

‘Ted Hughes is Elvis Presley ‘ is about the fact that I thought that towards the end of his life, Ted Hughes became a bit of a star in that Elvis Presley way, and also I thought I’ve never seen Ted and Elvis in the same room, and perhaps they are the same person.

Ted Hughes [...]