After some vile weather last night, the sun is out in Aldeburgh and there are egrets on the wing across the marshes between here and Thorpeness, the next village along the coast. I'll be reporting on the day's events and sights later however back to yesterday evening...

One of the other sessions I caught was the exchange between Peter Blegvad and Albert Goldbarth on the role of time in poetry. Was it 'the grand metaphysical imponderable' for poets. Discussing such issues as whether time was cyclical or flowed like an arrow – citing poets and philosophies from around the world – Goldbarth and Blegvad treated the audience to a fast and furious foray into one of the key issues poets have struggled with throughout the ages. Although if you accept the argument that time is cyclical, then we'll all be revisiting this topic at another festival in a few millennia's time.

After several audience participation questions – one of which revealed that the younger half of the audience felt they had all the time in the world, whereas it was tempus fugit – and grab every pleasure while you still can, preferably right this instant – for the older half, the conversation moved off into the realms of Albert Golbarth's 'memory car' mnemonic for helping to stimulate memory. Memory car??? If you want to remember fish, think of the fins of a 1950s era Cadillac.

We were also treated to such nuggets from Blegvad as time comprising "a beginning, muddle and end," "imagination is like a muscle, it will increase with exercise" and "time is abolished by a god metaphor". Goldman countered with the idea that "when you open a book, the author lives again" before going to explain that the old 4-frame cartoon strip has the same structure as a sonnet or setsina. This final point may seem a little obscure but as both Blegvad and Goldbarth explained – before time's arrow ran its course and the session ended – both poetry and comic strips can only provide the framework, leaving it to the reader to fill in the gaps, whereas with short stories and novels, the author does most of this for you. As Blegvad summed it up "poets leave everything out – they telescope narrative time – and leave you to write the story in your head."

All in all, a fascinating and thought provoking session – if only there had been more time to explore it further, which is where we came in...

And so the Festival got off to a cracking start with homemade cakes and tea in the Cinema Gallery, which this year is hosting an exhibition of some of photographs of festival performers taken over the years by Peter Everard Smith.

Then it was on to the first of the Festival's six Close Readings – this is one of the hidden gems of the Aldeburgh Festival: one poet reading and scrutinising one of their favourite poems. This year, the first reading was by Tom Paulin looking at the WB Yeats poem In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz. Of course we're biased when it comes to the Close Readings as they are sponsored by Ink Sweat & Tears! Later that evening, Paulin was the headline act in the first of the festival's three-handed readings (along with Richard Price and Pascale Petit) when he read poems covering such diverse topics as the Rev Ian Paisley and the cleaning fluid Swarfega. For those of us who have previously only seen him on Late Review on TV, Paulin's performance and is poetry were an eye-opener.

And finally it was time for the Poetry Quiz, complete which such favourites as Who is the Groucho Marxist Poet? - the Spin that Poet Rap - and The Mystery Voice. For those of you who missed it, the answer to the tie-break question was Pascale Petit. The quizmasters were MC Dean Parkin and Grandmaster Mikey Michael Laskey. There was probably less blatant cheating than last ear – perhaps a spirit of friendly collaboration between teams would be a better term?

Here some more pictures, starting with the celebration cakes (all homemade)...



Here's the reception – that's Peter Everard Smith way at the back of the shot talking to Katrina Naomi (my camera is not as big as his).



And finally, our two quizmasters for the evening.

More from the Aldeburgh festival front. We've sung happy birthday – eaten cake – and have  full evening ahead – including the notorious festival quiz. Last night I actually overheard someone complaining that there had been cheating at last year's quiz. To think, poets cheat to win prizes. More pictures to follow.

More news from the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival... Last night (Thursday) saw the official launch reception (great wine and nibbles btw) at the Peter Pears Gallery. This was a 3-in-1 event as it also included a preview of Peter Blegvad's Poetic Polydidsia & Other Pictures – Peter is The Poetry Trust's commissioned illustrator for 2009. And, the official book launch of Herbert "Bertie" Lomas' new collection A Casual Knack of Living – Bertie also gave a short reading of some selected pieces, including a poem written as a challenge to find words that rhyme with 'turd' – there's an awful lot of them, although some are a little absurd. Here are some random pix from the reception...



Poetry Trust director Naomi Jaffa welcoming everyone.



Some of Peter Blegvad's illustrations



Herbert Lomas signing copies of his latest collection.



The reception – poet Pascale Petit among others pictured



Poet and all-round Poetry Trust creative whiz Dean Parkin



Poet and festival founder Michael Laskey, among others

appleful for home
swinging a tote in each hand
fall Farmers Market


Yorkie off the leash
garden party commotion
the first guest to leave


tall brown grass bending
toward the row of apple trees
late afternoon winds


What's the big fuss?
two jays and just one acorn
first frost


* Neal Whitman is a member of various haiku societies in the US. His haiku has been chosen for Simply Haiku, Bear Creek Haiku and Geppo. The online journal Getting Something Read regularly features his seasonal haiku. He also teaches (gratis only) a workshop Haiku for Anyone, for Everyone.

* Here's a new haiga – Rectory/The Goddess of Puzzles – by one our regular contributors Ed Baker.

Here's a link to the latest edition of The Poetry Trust's Stuff e-newsletter – TPT are the people behind this weekend's Aldeburgh Poetry Festival

www.thepoetrytrust.org/stuff/category/november-2009/

Visit To Lincolnshire

    About this time last week
    I was laying down a pencil
    going through the little rituals
    of finishing a poem.
    Mine include a walk,
    so I’d grabbed a coat
    and I was on the street,
    left for the river path
    or over the old bridge,
    it could have been right,
    it could have been dark,
    but that’s not the point,
    for in this town and sometime city
    the streets keep the hours
    I need them to keep,
    shaping their mood to my own.
    About this time today
    I’m in a cottage, thatch and all,
    two miles from a village,
    ten miles from the town,
    miles from any sense of space.
    South are fields of Rape, keep out.
    West are fields of Rape, keep out.
    North is an electric fence, keep out.
    East is a Private Estate.
    The track outside is hedged and straight,
    sure that I want the village road,
    a tight little road of corners and banks
    where it’s not safe to walk.
    It’s not safe to walk
    and I’ve started to feel trapped.
    surrounded by space and Out and Off,
    there’s no one in sight but I feel control
    tugging my forelock and forcing me down.
    I’d leave but I’d said I’d stay the week
    they needed a break, I’d feed the cats,
    write in peace, the perfect place,
    three days to go, in only four hours,
    it’s three days to go.


* Terry Quinn says "I'm a medical engineer in a hospital by day and present a weekly arts show on Preston FM which takes up my evenings. Well, except when football needs to be watched in a proper football ground."

Because the Twitter account we use – @ChristianUncut – is a mixture of business and pleasure, to make it simpler to follow us, we are will be adding the #IS&T hash-tag to all our poetry and prose related postings. And if you don't know or care what hash-tags are, don't worry, you can live without them.

And, talking of Twitter – don't forget that from the end of this week Charles Christian will be blogging and tweeting on the 21st Aldebugh Poetry Festival, which takes place in Suffolk (England) on 6-to-8 November. We'll be blogging here on Ink Sweat but tweeting to @thepoetrytrust

Madness Letters

 

Dream Catcher

 

Elisabeth was bored so I made

a dream catcher out of her old knickers.

Never heard a scream sound like sickness.

It was time to give up smoking dope anyway

and since she left it keeps the flies

from dancing on my eyelashes.

 

‘When the hurly-burly’s done…’

 

Elisabeth calls me, ‘I’m bored

of being a stuck-up bitch!’

I cough. From the swing in my garden

the clouds over the allotment

look like three witches fighting

over who gets to sleep with the sun.

I kick the phone into the pond.

Tell the cat on the fence to kill something. 

 

Evolution

 

Elisabeth is long gone, she doesn’t call

any more. I wonder if she still brushes

her teeth after sex. Once, we tried to alleviate

her boredom by getting freaky in a tree

but I kept dropping the bananas.

 

Giddy up

 

Elisabeth is on my mind each time

I feel boredom on my shoulders

like giving a fat child a piggy-back.

I write her name in ketchup on

the fridge, then lick it off.

Doctor’s appointment Tuesday.

 

Lady Dangerous

 

Elisabeth called! ‘Did I leave my diary

under your bed?’ I stuttered apologies

like a dog choking on a plastic bag;

the pages I didn’t burn I taped to my

mirror, all that melancholy bitterness

and hatred for men, especially male poets.

I wonder if she has ever chipped away

the Hughes from the Plath stone…

 

Last Orders

 

Elisabeth stood in the doorway

dripping with rain – I was so bored

I invited her in. We ate chicken.

We danced the funky chicken with

bellies full of chicken. We both kinda

missed the way we frighten each other.

 

Almost There

 

Elisabeth turns to me after the sweat

has dried and our pillows have tangled,

‘What happened to that nasty dream catcher?’

I pinch her cute little nose, pull a funny face,

keep her distracted. When she’s in the bathroom

I dismantle the shrine in my wardrobe.

 

Nightmares

 

Elisabeth doesn’t get bored any more.

I don’t get bored any more; we don’t

get bored together – it sounds like

laughter before it reaches high pitch,

a gasp, a wheeze, a phlegmy gargle…

At night her bra moves across the floor,

whimpers to go out for a wee.

 

Pretending to be Happy

 

Elisabeth says I’m so crazy she’ll never

get bored of me; I am constantly creating

weird situations. She wants to have crazy

babies with me. When she pops to the shop

for cider and crackers, I fall to my knees

and pray to the light-bulb. Sometimes

craziness is a choice, then it takes over

and changes colour, constantly, like a British

summer sky or a pair of white boxer shorts.

Today I am grey with exhaustion.

 

Doomed

 

The tablets worked. And the cannabis

is well out of my system – I can’t tell her

I’m better now, she’d get bored of me.

 

If she catches me watching a documentary

on rural architecture, I leap into the air

and declare war on the curtains.

 

If she catches me reading a book

on the industrial revolution, I jump up

screaming, ‘Grapefruit promises, it’s dirty

time! Quick, grab the spade!’

 

Beyond Good and Evil

 

It gets easier, you just let go. Let go,

listen to the singing colours. Make her happy.

Loneliness is worse, no one to grin and make me soup.

It’s quite comfortable, this kaleidoscope…

 

I smile, lick my moustache and close my eyes

like Nietzsche playing the piano with sticky fingers.


* Bobby Parker lives in Kidderminster (England) has poems published in Agenda, Obsessed With Pipework, Fire, Iota, Rain Dog, Cauldron, The Coffee House, Curlew, Krax, Weyfarers, Purple Patch and Urban District Writers. He also now publishes the Last Chance Before Bath-time series of chapbooks.