Like most people who have ever listened to Desert Island Discs I have collected and changed my selection many times over. A few constants have been Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street, Pie Jesu from Faure’s Requiem and the aria Ebben? Ne andrò lontana from Catalini’s La Wally.

I, also, always have a spoken word track which got me to thinking today what would be my Desert Island Poems. Today they are:

1. Dart by Alice Oswald

2. The Four Quartets by TS Eliot

3. The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin

4. The Wasteland by TS Eliot

5. A Treatise of Civil Power by Geoffrey Hill

6. Teach Yourself Mapmaking by Jane Routh

7. A Sea Chantey by Derek Walcott

8. Turning into Whitby by Sarah Hymas

Last week I organised an alternative to Guy Fawkes Bonfire Night. I had asked ( on posters, email and facebook ) for a poem that would celebrate the night/stars/dark or even fireworks. That was my big mistake.

I started the evening at 7-45pm, introduced the first poet and sat down to doodle and make a few notes on the next poet up. I was somewhat surprised when the first person finished their poem and sat down.

I introduced the next poet and sat down to doodle and make notes. She read her poem and left the stage.

You can see where this is going.

By 8pm 5 poets had got up and sat down. So, the lesson is – you sometimes get what you ask for. I should have asked that people include in their 6 or 7 minute slot one ( or more ) poem to do with the theme.

In the next few weeks I’m hosting an event at a local Arts’ Space. I’ve started the Facebook and email notifications and am now considering the flyers and posters.

In the last two events that I’ve organised I’ve spent upwards of £50 on the things and as far as I can tell there has only been one person who has looked at them and as a result come to the evening.

So, is there a point in not only spending the money but also the time going round to libraries, galleries and shops and spending, sometimes, frustrating hours persuading people to take them or take them for consideration by them upstairs.

On top of that - the event is supposed to be Free Entry but that means I finish up well out of pocket. So, I have to embarrass myself by asking for donations from people on the way out.

The answer, for me, is that it is not worth it but I’m still going to have to do it on the off chance that this time the effort will pay off. People expect a poster. It’s just one of those things.

music at poetry events

There’s been about an hour of readings at the poetry event and just when you’re thinking of a break and a drink the mc announces that they’ll finish off the first half with some music. On comes someone with a guitar and proceeds to rearrange the microphone, adjust the seat, explains what the song is about, tunes the guitar, has a drink of something, tunes the guitar again and then sings some song that is unintelligible. Then does this again after that first song and the next.

The average length of time for each poet has been seven minutes. The musician is on for fifteen. And they’ll do it at the close of the second half as well.

If I want to listen to music I’ll go to a concert, folk club, jazz club or whatever. I go to a poetry event to listen to poetry. If the event needs something else to liven it up then there’s something wrong with it in the first place. I can’t ever remember going to a concert of any sort and them stopping so that a poet can come on and read a few poems.

notebooks

The passing of a pocket notebook and the beginning of another is a ceremonial occasion. The old book is laid gently in the bottom drawer with its predecessors. A slight tear is allowable before turning to its successor.

But what successor? Choosing a notebook is not a simple matter. It has to be slim, small enough for the pocket but not so small that it can’t be used to write complete lines. Or lost. It needs to be hard backed, there’s nothing worse in a notebook than creases on a page. It needs another requirement which will be touched upon later.

I have a basket full of notebooks untouched. Bought in a surge of excitement in a bookshop or stationers and which on return home prove to be totally, or frustratingly almost, unusable for any variety of reasons.

Over the years I have come to treat with disdain some of those offered in even well known stores. What, on earth, is the point of those pocket notebooks with spiral metal hoops that are guaranteed to get tangled with normal stuff found in your pocket and dragged out to fall over the floor just as you need to jot something down.

The colour of the notebook is totally irrelevant to whether they are fit for purpose. I’ve had blue, green, black. If it glowed in the dark, I wouldn’t care.

The best notebook I’ve ever had was from a shop in Windermere. A small second hand bookshop whose owner’s mother made them as a sideline. Just that one notebook. I’ve ordered another since but it wasn’t the same.

Obviously, I have Moleskin that goes in the rucksack. The one with the blank pages, elastic band and opens front ways not side. But, surprisingly, it is just too big to fit in a pocket. And for all its virtues that too has one major design fault, one that it shares with every other notebook I have bought or considered buying.

And this is the other requirement mentioned above. Consider what you need a notebook for. It’s not for looking at or for tearing its pages out for bookmarks. You need it for making notes. But no notebook has a slot for a pencil or pen. It’s absurd. The one from Windermere had a space between the spine and the pages into which I could slip a small pen, but that was by accident.

As an aside – the best small pen I’ve found is by Zebra. It’s telescopic and slim. When the case is pushed into itself it is perfect for positioning into the makeshift holder I’ve made on the spine of a notebook. I got it from the bookshop in Carnforth.

The makeshift spine looks awful but it works. Glue a suitable material across the spine of your notebook and it becomes part of the book rather than sticking out.

Joy of joys. I’ve just found a Moleskin that’s small enough. No place for pen. Yet.

Covers

When I’m in a bookshop trawling through the poetry section trying to decide what to buy and I don’t know the poet’s name there are a number of factors which will persuade me to purchase this book rather than that one.

Partly it’s the front cover, partly it’s the size – will it fit into my pocket, partly it’s the title and mostly it’s the bit on the back.

The bit that supposed to attract me. Which is why I can’t understand why so many of these back covers are so poor. I’m not interested in endorsements from well known poets – they could be their best mates for all I know, a picture of the poet is irrelevant and the descriptions of the type of poetry inside usually make my eyes glaze over within the first sentence.

How many ‘he sees things as they should be seen’, ‘an appreciation of the physical world’, ‘unusual personal shadows’. ‘new spaces through language’ need to be written. They are interchangeable.

And worst of all are the ones that make me actually put the book back on the shelf without further thought as in ‘This book is groundbreaking’. As if.

Ironically the type of publisher that makes me open a book in the bookshop ( which is surely the point ) is Faber and Faber who put nothing on the back and only the author’s name and the title on the front.

Korova launch flyer