Wow! I woke up at 4.00 am yesterday morning and couldn't get back to sleep. About 20 minutes later I was sitting in our sitting room, wrapped in a blanket, a reading light on and Kate Tempest's book - Let Them Eat Chaos in my hands. I finished reading the book about 2 and a half hours later. Wow! So I was in good company. Tempest's eight voices - the narrator plus Emily, Jenn, Pete, Zoe, Bradley, joined me in that dark and disturbing hour where the poem is set at 4.18. That hour when we wake shadowed by our fears and anxieties. Joined me in a south London suburb - although mine significantly west of Tempest's - I guess. I enjoyed best the presentation of these 7 personas. She depicts their different lives, one wealthy bored and restless, another - Pete, drunk or wasted on drugs fumbling his way home after a long night. Another voice comes home after a night shift as a carer. They are believable. Their anxieties and situations are realistic - perhaps she draws on her own experiences. What I found quite difficult were the global concerns she addresses such as: capitalism, gentrification, celebrity culture, political corruption and global warming - I borrowed this list from the Guardian review. It's difficult addressing any one of these issues properly in any genre, but in poetry and all of them together is quite a challenge. Earnest - yes, heart felt - probably. But it's difficult to listen to a rant or a sermon. But it is Kate Tempest herself that really shines through the book and the performance. I've attached it above. She's young, she's from south east London, she's incredibly articulate and her poetry and personality radiates a hard, fierce love. Here's a link to the Guardian review and one from Dave Coats
Bone Tomahawk I watched this film late one night when my wife was a way for the weekend, and I didn't know how to end the day. This was an impressive film. For the most part this is a conventional Western. Set in the mid-west in a little town called Bright Hope. It begins with an attack on the small town by a group of savage cave dwellers. They are presented to us as a mysterious species human. There's the killing a young stable boy and the abduction of two or three townspeople including a deputy sheriff - Nick and the doctor's wife, Samantha, played by Lili Simmons. When her injured husband Arthur - played by Patrick Wilson finds out about her abduction he immediately starts out to get her back. So a small posse - made up of Sheriff Hunt - Kurt Russell, John Brooder played by Matthew Fox and Chicory - Richard Jenkins, - sets out on a five day trek across scrub land and desert to bring her and the others back. Despite the conventional plot - of white woman and innocents, abducted by strangers - it is the writing that really appealed to me. The dialogue and the attention to character and the development of the relationships between the posse that really made this film special. From Arthur's simple Christian faith and single minded determination to rescue his wife, Brooder the fearless, maverick gunslinger, the Sheriff - plain speaking, responsible and honourable, and finally Chicory - an old deputy - his dead pan humour, he's completely loyal and determined to do the right thing. There is a quiet, natural and unassuming quality to the writing that really impressed me. Apparently the writer / director rejected all attempts by studios to accept the film on the basis of changing the script. All praise therefore goes to S. Craig Zahler for his uncompromising position.
However visually the film contains probably the most shocking act of on screen violence I've ever seen. Thankfully it is only one short scene lasting 20 seconds. But it continues to be disturbing every time I think about it. This is where the second film genre takes over - briefly yet successfully for being so brief. Horror. Finally what struck me was the ending. The survivors of this encounter with unspeakable horror are the most unlikely characters. This is a film that should have gained - given its great character actors and first class acting - a much wider audience. Kurt Russell is incredible I think. Anyway if you don't believe me read this review of the film in the Daily Telegraph I still couldn't end the day after watching this and stayed up a further 2 hours. I might post to this blog the results of that experience if I have time.
I've been enjoying reading Falling Awake by Alice Oswald. I think this latest collection is absolutely outstanding. I've only read the first half a dozen poems and I'm completely hooked.
The book won the Costa poetry prize for 2016. And it was short listed for the T. S. Eliot prize. I remember when she won the T. S. Eliot prize for her book Dart. I was totally mesmerised by it. This collection is doing something similar. Oswald is a nature poet. She's brutal and elemental in her depiction of her Dartmoor surroundings. She pays close attention to detail. She brings the reader up close to her subject. We are present with her at dawn, a dead swan or badger. On one level their is a mindful presence about the experience of reading. Or are we kneeling in reverence at her subjects. Her writing is accessible - and yet she is not comforting. There is a music in her language but the song is not easy.
Welcome to my 2017. I'm one of about 50 poets who have been invited to read a poem at The Troubadour on Monday 20 February. It is always a dynamic and interesting evening with a wide range of poets and poetry. It would be great if you came along. The theme of the evening is weather. So you better come prepared.
Click here or on the picture Stormy Weather by Frederick Varley above for more details.
