Current work: nonfic and medical romance
Listening to: Brad Paisley
Reading: Penguin’s Poems for Life (dipping in and out – this is a wonderful anthology, a lovely indulgent birthday pressie from my best friend)
Most of the time, Sainsbury’s grocery delivery service is brilliant. The staff are lovely, the products are good quality, and I don’t get many substitutions. (And, oh bliss, I don’t have to waste the best part of two hours’ working time/drag grumpy children round the aisles.) But when it goes wrong... I think the number 9 must be quite near the number 1 on the keypad, because the checkout operator’s finger clearly slipped. Last year I was charged for 19 punnets of raspberries, when I had only one. Yesterday, I was charged for 19 bottles of detergent. I didn’t notice until I was unpacking, looked at the bill... and saw that it was about £75 higher than it should have been. Oops. Still, they were lovely and sorted it out as soon as I rang to explain what had happened.
The minutiae of life. This week, I’m clearly measuring my life in Fairy nonbio bottles rather than in coffee spoons.
Hmm. I have an audio CD of T S Eliot reading some of his poems – sadly Prufrock isn’t included, as I bet that would be really illuminating. The first time I heard him reading ‘The Waste Land’, it was as part of a superb exhibition in the British Library (when it was still housed in the British Museum) about quests. Pity it was some years after my A levels, as his rendition of ‘What the thunder said’ made the poem very much clearer for me.
If I had a time machine, I would love to go back and hear John Donne reading some of his poems. Particularly the Nocturnall Upon St Lucie’s Day and (ahem) a certain elegy. (Yeah, yeah. We all know how many times I sneak references to that one into my books.) I’d also like to hear the Wulf and Eadwacer poet (especially as I have a theory that the poet might’ve been female – this is the first English love poem, btw); and James Fenton reading ‘Nothing’ (this is one of my favourite modern poems – I also rate Wendy Cope very highly); and R. S. Thomas reading ‘Here’; and... No, I’ll stop being greedy.
If you could hear a poet reading his/her own works – which poet, and which poem?
That's so difficult but I like listening to Dylan Thomas and I'd have liked to hear Robert Frost I think.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on John Donne, that wouod be illuminating.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Nell with Frost.
ReplyDeleteBut I would be horribly afraid to be disappointed. I've heard authors with great books that do not have great reading voices. :-(
Then they should hirer me!! Ok that kind of defeats the object but I'd be happy (and slightly richer).
ReplyDeleteWould help if I could spell 'hire' grrrr
ReplyDeleteOh yes, Donne.
ReplyDeleteNell - mmm, 'Do not go gentle into that good night' would be fab.
ReplyDeleteBiddy - I knew you'd say that :o)
ReplyDeleteDonna - mm, there is that to it - so I guess the next best would be having someone else read it but be directed by the poet in terms of intonation. (You need a monotone for that bit of Eliot to make sense.)
ReplyDelete... someone with a lovely voice like our Biddy *g*
Doesn't matter if you can't spell, Bids. You still have a lovely reading voice. The stuff you did on OneWord was brilliant.
ReplyDeleteJan - I feel a need for lunch and poetry coming on...
ReplyDelete1. W H Davies, the tramp poet, reading his 'What is this life...' (once lived in my town and his derelict cottage still has a plaque next to the front door with the first two lines).
ReplyDelete2. Lacelles Abercrombie on wild daffodils (because it's spring!).
Gillie B x
Gillie, that's a lovely choice. (And how nice it is to discover I'm not the only person who's heard of Abercrombie. I went through a real fin-de-siecle poetry phase as a teen and really liked his.)
ReplyDeleteAnd of course it's spring. Blustery and teeming with rain :o)