A place where I'll post up some thoughts and ideas - especially on literature in education, children's literature in general, poetry, reading, writing, teaching and thoughts on current affairs.
Friday 31 October 2014
New poem: Museum
We were on holiday in the country and just
outside a village we were going through we
saw a sign that said, ‘The World’s Best
Museum’. I said that I thought it strange that
if it was the ‘world’s best museum’ we hadn’t
heard of it. And anyway, why would it be
here? That made everyone angry, and they
said that there must be something wrong with
me to be put such a downer on everything.
So I said, fair enough, let’s go. We went down
several country lanes and over one of those
level crossings that everyone worries about
and got to a house that stood on its own
next to some woods. The sign outside just
said, ‘Museum’. It didn’t say what it was a
museum of. There were no lights on and it
was just beginning to get dark, so I said that
I didn’t think anyone was in but the others
said there may be and that was me putting
a downer on things again. So we knocked on
the door and quite quickly a woman came out
and asked us if we had come for the wood. We
said that we hadn’t. We had come for the
museum. She looked a bit puzzled for a moment
so I said,‘The sign. The Museum.’
‘Ah yes, the Museum,’ she said, ‘the Museum.’
She said to follow her through the house and
out the back. In the garden there were some
sheds and she said, ‘There you go.’
We moved forward, a bit hesitantly, and went
up to the first shed. I pulled at the door and it
came open after a strong tug. Inside it was
dark, so we gathered around the doorway and
looked in. I could make out a sign on a shelf at
the back of the hut. It said, ‘What do you reckon?’
The little one said, ‘What does it say?’
I said, ‘“What do you reckon?”’
She said, ‘I don’t know.”
I said, ‘I don’t know either.’
Then the woman from the Museum said,
‘What do you reckon?’
And I said, ‘Do you mean, what do I reckon
with “What do you reckon?” or do you
just mean, “What do you reckon?’
She looked at me and said, ‘What do
you reckon?’
The little one said that she didn’t like
it. I said that it looked like there were
more sheds we could go in but the others
said that there wasn’t much point.
I said that this time it wasn’t me putting
a downer on things.
They said, ‘Never mind that.’
The little one said, ‘We don’t have to
go through the level crossing on the way
back, do we?’
Thursday 30 October 2014
New Poem: Garden Centre
I was in this garden centre and an announcement
came over the tannoy that we weren’t allowed to
pick any of the fruit off the fruit trees. There was a
woman there who was standing next to a tree and
one of the guys who served in garden centre asked
her if she wanted an apple off the tree he was
looking after. She said no. She asked me if I wanted
one. I said no. Then the voice came over the tannoy
and said, ‘Oi, you two, you’ve ruined everything.
You, the woman, you’re supposed to have taken an
apple off the man there. And then you were supposed
to have offered it to the man there.’ The woman
shrugged and walked off. I picked up a pot of
lavender and went to pay for it.
Wednesday 29 October 2014
Diversity in children's books
Shoot me down on this one but here goes: I very much enjoyed the Guardian's page on diversity in children's books. We need as much information circulating about these. I also think there is an urgency about this with a resurgent right focussing as it does on what they call 'immigration' linked to a general xenophobia. So what is 'diversity'? This is where I think there is a serious discussion to be had. Diversity must mean more than 'black' or more than 'black and Asian'. This is to do favours to everyone. Of course 'people of colour' have experienced (and are still experiencing) in the most recent period serious prejudice, discrimination, violence, intentional and institutional racism.
However, 'diversity' as a term should not be a 'cover' or an alternative for dealing with these issues of racism. If we (or anyone else) is going to use the term 'diversity' then that's what it should be: a reflection on how in a given space (let's say 'UK" for the moment) we are diverse. Diversity has to encompass every possible sense of the ways in which we are diverse.
Now to the egocentric part of that. I am what, (I gather from my own children from what they've been told at school), is being termed 'ethnically Jewish or jewish'. I can live with that. So how is that part of diversity being reflected in lists of 'diversity'. I find that inevitably, 'ethnic jewishness' mostly gets to be defined in terms of the Holocaust. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm very much in favour of the Holocaust being treated in children's books. But the Holocaust is ultimately not a 'Jewish question' it's a humanity question. It wasn't actually caused by Jews. Admittedly, it has become a matter of enormous concern to Jews - of course - but apart from experts, it isn't necessarily how we lead our lives. So, yes, a big welcome to books about the Holocaust but in terms of diversity, it's a bit offbeam to say that that is a 'sufficient' description.
So, what in terms of 'diversity' am I talking about? Well, for several centuries Jews have lived in Britain being diverse themselves, arriving from very different parts of the world, speaking different languages, eating different foods etc etc….and in terms of children's daily lives, doing a wide variety of things. I know of one tiny part of that - i.e. a way of going on of highly politicised 'Ostjuden' (Jews from Eastern Europe) who arrived in Britain at the end of the 19th century retaining, as my children tell me, some ethnic markers, whilst participating in many of the institutions of the locality or country - in my case London. Though I'm touched by the Holocaust through my father's side of the family and have indeed written about it a good few times, particularly when thinking about racism, resistance and persecution, this hasn't been the only or the main definer of my life.
So this is a very longwinded way of saying that 'diversity' should reflect ways in which people lead their lives. I didn't mean this to apply just to a reflection on 'ethnic Jews' but to all members of all communities. That's to say, it's the "normality of difference" that needs to be celebrated and not just a people's moments of injustice and persecution, no matter how powerful and necessary these are too.
Again, of course, many people of African origin have said this in relation to the slave trade. I hear, for example, that of course this has to be recorded, documented, marked, but in terms of lives lived now, it's not what is going on. As I say, diversity is a slightly different matter, it is about the 'normality of difference'.
I suspect that in the coming months and years we will have to struggle as much for this 'normality of difference' as we do for the reminders about persecution and injustice. Not 'instead of' or 'more than' or 'less than' - but 'as well as'.
However, 'diversity' as a term should not be a 'cover' or an alternative for dealing with these issues of racism. If we (or anyone else) is going to use the term 'diversity' then that's what it should be: a reflection on how in a given space (let's say 'UK" for the moment) we are diverse. Diversity has to encompass every possible sense of the ways in which we are diverse.
Now to the egocentric part of that. I am what, (I gather from my own children from what they've been told at school), is being termed 'ethnically Jewish or jewish'. I can live with that. So how is that part of diversity being reflected in lists of 'diversity'. I find that inevitably, 'ethnic jewishness' mostly gets to be defined in terms of the Holocaust. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm very much in favour of the Holocaust being treated in children's books. But the Holocaust is ultimately not a 'Jewish question' it's a humanity question. It wasn't actually caused by Jews. Admittedly, it has become a matter of enormous concern to Jews - of course - but apart from experts, it isn't necessarily how we lead our lives. So, yes, a big welcome to books about the Holocaust but in terms of diversity, it's a bit offbeam to say that that is a 'sufficient' description.
So, what in terms of 'diversity' am I talking about? Well, for several centuries Jews have lived in Britain being diverse themselves, arriving from very different parts of the world, speaking different languages, eating different foods etc etc….and in terms of children's daily lives, doing a wide variety of things. I know of one tiny part of that - i.e. a way of going on of highly politicised 'Ostjuden' (Jews from Eastern Europe) who arrived in Britain at the end of the 19th century retaining, as my children tell me, some ethnic markers, whilst participating in many of the institutions of the locality or country - in my case London. Though I'm touched by the Holocaust through my father's side of the family and have indeed written about it a good few times, particularly when thinking about racism, resistance and persecution, this hasn't been the only or the main definer of my life.
So this is a very longwinded way of saying that 'diversity' should reflect ways in which people lead their lives. I didn't mean this to apply just to a reflection on 'ethnic Jews' but to all members of all communities. That's to say, it's the "normality of difference" that needs to be celebrated and not just a people's moments of injustice and persecution, no matter how powerful and necessary these are too.
Again, of course, many people of African origin have said this in relation to the slave trade. I hear, for example, that of course this has to be recorded, documented, marked, but in terms of lives lived now, it's not what is going on. As I say, diversity is a slightly different matter, it is about the 'normality of difference'.
I suspect that in the coming months and years we will have to struggle as much for this 'normality of difference' as we do for the reminders about persecution and injustice. Not 'instead of' or 'more than' or 'less than' - but 'as well as'.
New poem: Deer
We were on a road between two towns and a sign
came up by the side of the road. `It was a picture
of a stag. I’ve always understood that this means
that as you’re driving along a stag could jump out
on to the road. You could hit a stag. Or a stag could
hit you. And maybe the stag would be with other
deer. They could all hit your car. First the stag would
hit it - voom. And then the others - voom voom voom.
We looked into the woods to see if we could see
any. It was raining, so we reckoned that they would
be sheltering under the trees. Or lying under the
bracken. It was autumn so everything was turning
yellow, brown and dark green. If the stag and deer
were in there, they’d be hard to see. If they came
out and did that voom voom voom thing, you wouldn’t
get much notice. In between the woods, there were
open parts, clearings. There was gorse. Again, no
deer. A few cows. A few ponies. Then it was back to
woods: silver birch, oak, beech. As we came round a
corner, I looked again into the woods and saw
something which for a moment looked like a group
or herd of something - a bit grey, a bit brown. Not
deer though. It was jackets. They were hanging from
the trees. Maybe twenty or thirty of them. Damp from
the rain, so they were still. Not that there was any
wind.
Sunday 26 October 2014
New poem: Brooch
Sometime after my father died, my step-mother came
over with a small plastic pot. One of the things in it was
a brass brooch of a miner’s lamp. I had never seen it
before. I went online to see what it was. I found out
that they were sold by the miners’ union during and
after the General Strike of 1926. It was to help the
miners’ families who were starving. I remembered from
when I was a boy, my father saying that he could
remember the General Strike from when he was 7.
Something about a type-writer being thrown over a wall.
He hadn’t ever mentioned the brooch. It must have
been his mother’s. He didn’t know his father. He was
in the US. He, his sister and his mother didn’t live
near any pits and coalfields. They lived in Whitechapel,
in east London. In a house with 6 or 7 others. He said
he shared a bedroom with his Uncle Sam. They didn’t
talk to each other he said. Sam had spoiled a cap my father
had been bought on Petticoat Lane. I asked him who
turned the bedroom light out? Neither of us, he said. They
had candles, not lights. I remember his mother. He called
her ‘Ma’. I didn’t know then that she had had a baby who
died. Or that her father and mother came from Poland. I
don’t know if anyone in the house knew any miners. My
father said that sometimes sailors used to come to the
house. He remembered a sailor who came from Jamaica.
Saturday 25 October 2014
New poem: Chair
I was in the barber. When the barber had finished
cutting my hair, I got up and looked down at the
metal plate where my feet were, it was the metal
plate joined to the chair I had been sitting in. The
writing on the plate, said, ‘UTOPIA’. I put my jacket
on and stood at the bus stop. I wondered if I had
just been sitting in Utopia. Was that where I was?
Had I just had a moment in part of a perfect
society? I thought about what it had just been like.
Someone was cutting my hair. He comes from
Turkey. He used scissors. He also cut my beard.
He did that with an electric beard-trimmer. He
also blew some hot wet air into my face. It came
from a hot wet air machine. When it was all over
I gave him some money. Then I saw the sign on
the chair. So far, this didn’t sound like Utopia. Not
like a whole vision of the best possible society. I
was just sitting in a chair and someone was cutting
bits of hair off my head. Unless that’s what Utopia
is: people sitting in chairs having their hair cut.
And their face steamed. Then getting up and
standing at the bus stop. Actually, there were
some other things. They gave me a cup of coffee.
The young man who made it was learning
English. And learning how to cut hair. And there
were some newspapers on the table before I had
my haircut. I read them. And there were some other
people there. We talked a bit. That was before the
haircut. And, like I said, after the haircut, I waited
at the bus stop. Not for long. A bus came along
pretty soon.
Friday 24 October 2014
New poem: Bread
I opened up a packet of bread the other day,
took out a slice and as I put the butter on I
noticed that there was a hair in the bread. Not
on the slice. It was in the bread. It wasn’t
very long. I didn’t fancy eating it, so I put the
slice back in the packet and put the packet
in the bin. In the morning, I was looking around
for something to eat for breakfast, and I didn’t
have anything in, so I thought, ah, maybe I
could fish that loaf out of the bin, pull the
slice with the hair in it out of the packet and
maybe eat one of the other slices. So I got
it out the bin, opened up the packet and the slice
that had the hair in was on the top. Now
it had several hairs. I looked closely at it and
I could see that the hair was growing out of the
bread. This wasn’t mould. I know what that hairy
mould looks like. This was hair. It was a browny
colour with little blonde touches. I put it back in
the bin and went off to work. When I came back
from work, I got the packet out again and
sure enough, it had grown more hair. Now there
was enough hair to make it look like it was the top
of someone’s head. All growing out of one slice.
It even had a parting. Then, without knowing
why, I picked up this slice with the hair on it
and started to eat it. I was right about the hair.
It was hair. The bread had changed though. It
didn’t really taste like bread. More like something
made out of walnut. I ate it and pulled the hair out
of my mouth. It wasn’t really hairy. More furry than
hairy.
Thursday 23 October 2014
New poem: Trains
I noticed that there have been some improvements
at the station I use: streamlining of services.
A couple of years ago they figured out that we don’t
need indicator boards which tell you of every single
station the trains go to. All they needed to do was
put up the names of the last station on the line. This
meant that getting a train became an interesting kind
of guesswork. Would the train to Bigtown stop at
Littletown? Or would the train to Redtown be the
right one for Littletown? It was great. You could stand
on the wrong platform at the right time. Or the right
platform at the wrong time. Or the wrong platform at
the wrong time.
Then, they figured out that the indicator board thing
was a luxury. So they did away with them. Now, You
arrive at the station and guess which train might be
yours. Sometimes, you can wait on one platform, a
train comes in on another. You think it might be yours.
You dash along your platform, down the stairs, along
a tunnel, up some stairs on to the other platform, the
train is leaving. You dash back down the stairs, along
the tunnel, up the stairs, back to the platform you were
on in the first place.
Other people get up in the morning and think, I wonder
where I’ll go today? They head to the station and just get
on any train that looks like a train they might want to get
on.
New poem: Cucumber
There was a cucumber in the lost property office.
It was found near the ticket barrier at the station.
No one came in to say it was theirs. The cucumber
sat on the shelf. It started to go soft. But still no
one came. Then it started to flatten out and go
mushy. The skin stayed more or less the same.
A bit wrinkly but still like a cucumber skin.Inside
the cucumber became goo. It was smelling quite
strong. A fruity earthy smell. After a bit more time,
it started going dark grey. And fruit flies flew around it.
Then, about six months after the cucumber was
put in the lost property office, a man came in and
said, ‘Have you got a cucumber?’
The lost property office assistant said, ‘I’ll have
a look in the book.’
He got the book out and it said, ‘Cucumber.’
‘Can I ask you where you think you lost the
cucumber?’ he said.
The man said, ‘No, I’m sorry. I got on the train,
got off the train and went home. When I got home
I looked in my bag and the cucumber was gone.’
‘Can you tell me which station you got on at, and
which station you got off at?’
‘Well, my problem is that I got on and off at quite
a few stations that day,’ said the man, ‘and I can’t
remember them all. You see I deliver stuff for
people.’
‘Do you deliver cucumbers?’ said the assistant.
‘No,’ said the man, ‘the cucumber was for me
to eat.’
‘Can you describe the cucumber?’ said the
assistant.
‘It was green,’ said the man.
‘If I said to you,’ said the assistant, ‘that this
cucumber was found at a ticket barrier, do you
think you could tell me which ticket barrier that
might have been? You see we have to make sure
that people don’t come in here and claim things
that don’t belong to them. You might come in
here and say that you lost a gold watch. I can’t
hand you a gold watch, just because you say
you lost one.’
‘I haven’t lost a gold watch,’ said the man.
‘I didn’t say that you did,’ said the assistant.
‘I lost a cucumber,’ said the man.
‘So you say,’ said the assistant.
‘Can I ask you if anyone has come in here and
handed in a cucumber?’ said the man.
‘I can tell you that someone has indeed come in
here and handed in a cucumber.’
‘That’ll be mine,’ said the man.
‘No,’ said the assistant, ‘what you don’t know is
whether many people have come in here
and handed in cucumbers, in which case we
would have the problem of finding out which of
the many cucumbers belongs to you.’
‘Have many people come in here and handed
in cucumbers?’ said the man.
‘No,’ said the assistant.
‘Well, that one lone cucumber must be mine,’
said the man.
‘Not necessarily,’ said the assistant, ‘someone
else could have lost a cucumber and it’s their
cucumber that was handed in.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said the man, ‘I didn’t think of that.’
‘Well,’ said the assistant, ‘if you can’t think
where you might have left the cucumber, I’m
afraid I can’t give you the cucumber that we’ve
got here in the lost property office.’
‘OK, fair enough,’ said the man, ‘thanks very
much for your help.’
New poem: Flats
Some new flats are going up near me. They’re
overlooking a car park. I don’t mean a car park
for the flats. It’s the big car park for the shopping
centre. The idea is that people who live in flats
like overlooking. So there are flats overlooking
the sea, overlooking rivers, overlooking canals,
overlooking railway lines. Now there are flats
overlooking car parks. They say that it’ll give
people something to do: they think that people in
the flats will be able to stand on their balconies
and watch people parking their cars. Or watch
people coming back to the car park, getting
into their cars and then driving off. The aim is to
build bigger car parks so that more people will
park their cars and then they’ll build more flats
overlooking the car parks and this will build up a
sense of being part of something big and
interesting - like parking cars. And car parks.
Wednesday 22 October 2014
New Poem: Exam Marking
Here at NormCheck, we are looking closely at the principles
of exam marking. We regret that many people are under the
mistaken impression that exams serve the purpose of enabling
individuals amass a specific amount of knowledge in an
important field relevant to what will be that person’s life beyond
and after the exam. We work very hard to eliminate as much
‘usefulness’ from the exam system as we can. We are also
extremely vigilant in eliminating what progressives have called
‘transferrable skills’. In the world outside the classroom, it may
well be the case that people’s ability to interpret data in unexpected
ways, to invent new ways of doing things, to know how to
investigate something unfamiliar, to co-operate with colleagues
and strangers - are all useful but that’s of no concern of ours.
At NormCheck we are putting a great deal of effort into ensuring
that education - that’s to say exams - are solely concerned with
core facts. Luckily, at the Department for Instruction, we have
people who know what these core facts are. They have all studied
eitherPPE, pure economics or law - and, thankfully, all had some
experience of a private education.
So, to recap, he exams themselves are not for the purpose of the
individual to acquire and retain anything useful. They are solely
for the purpose of us to grade, select and segregate people. This
is why exams aren’t tests of what people know on a given day. They
are a means by which we can draw a line across a group of people
and say, all of you above that line are a success, all of you below
that line are a fail. What we do at NormCheck is move the line.
That’s our job. Each year, we meet up, have an extremely nice
lunch and spend the afternoon working out where we’ll put the line.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with whether this or that pupil
knows anything or not. It is entirely to do with where we decide to
put the line. This depends on such things as what the Secretary of
State at the Department for Instruction thinks, which itself is usually
dependent on what the Daily Mail thinks.
New Poem: Examz Inc. - or why it's important to have exams that prevent you from remembering anything
Here at Examz Inc., we’ve been doing some blue sky thinking
about Projectile Vomiting (PV) . Here’s the definition: “vomiting that
is sudden and so vigorous that the vomit is forcefully projected
to a distance”. We’ve commissioned an extensive study on the
application of PV principles in the assessment field. First reports
suggest that we have a lot to learn from this important work. In PV,
it’s essentially a matter of w.g.i.c.s.o. - what goes in, comes straight
out. It’s the most efficient system known to man of the ‘return’ principle.
Almost nothing is wasted. Our researchers applied this principle to
fact-consumption and fact-delivery.
about Projectile Vomiting (PV) . Here’s the definition: “vomiting that
is sudden and so vigorous that the vomit is forcefully projected
to a distance”. We’ve commissioned an extensive study on the
application of PV principles in the assessment field. First reports
suggest that we have a lot to learn from this important work. In PV,
it’s essentially a matter of w.g.i.c.s.o. - what goes in, comes straight
out. It’s the most efficient system known to man of the ‘return’ principle.
Almost nothing is wasted. Our researchers applied this principle to
fact-consumption and fact-delivery.
What would be the most efficient PV replication in the education field?
It turns out that for many years we’ve been nearly there, but not there.
Schools and exam boards have been content with what in the field of
physiology would be, say, spitting out, dribbling and slow vomiting.
In all these cases, there is a lack of efficiency: slow return, inefficient
delivery - and more importantly - a persistent danger of residue,: small
amounts remain inside the person.
If we apply PV to the education situation, we bolt teaching to instruction
and not waste time with any activity that might obstruct PV-type delivery.
So, quite clearly, the best known system of PV delivery in the assessment
field are lengthy exams in which there are only right and wrong answers
and uncomfortable seating arrangements.
Preparation for PV delivery exams should consist of PV delivery practice,
once a week. For four days of the week, the instructor instructs
with the PV material, that is to say, the consumption side. Day five is
PV day, with all-day instruction on how to eliminate repetition, hesitation,
deviation, discussion, co-operation, investigation, invention, interpretation
and compassion followed by a two hour PV exam. Research suggests that
when PV is applied, it is the most efficient way of guaranteeing that pupils
retain as little as possible of what they have consumed. This is part of the new
Empowerment Agenda much favoured by the new Department for Instruction,
who argue that PV style learning is the world’s most proven method of
enabling disadvantaged children to fail exams.
It turns out that for many years we’ve been nearly there, but not there.
Schools and exam boards have been content with what in the field of
physiology would be, say, spitting out, dribbling and slow vomiting.
In all these cases, there is a lack of efficiency: slow return, inefficient
delivery - and more importantly - a persistent danger of residue,: small
amounts remain inside the person.
If we apply PV to the education situation, we bolt teaching to instruction
and not waste time with any activity that might obstruct PV-type delivery.
So, quite clearly, the best known system of PV delivery in the assessment
field are lengthy exams in which there are only right and wrong answers
and uncomfortable seating arrangements.
Preparation for PV delivery exams should consist of PV delivery practice,
once a week. For four days of the week, the instructor instructs
with the PV material, that is to say, the consumption side. Day five is
PV day, with all-day instruction on how to eliminate repetition, hesitation,
deviation, discussion, co-operation, investigation, invention, interpretation
and compassion followed by a two hour PV exam. Research suggests that
when PV is applied, it is the most efficient way of guaranteeing that pupils
retain as little as possible of what they have consumed. This is part of the new
Empowerment Agenda much favoured by the new Department for Instruction,
who argue that PV style learning is the world’s most proven method of
enabling disadvantaged children to fail exams.
New poem: Exams
A lot of time is being wasted in schools trying
to teach a whole lot of unnecessary stuff. The
point of schools is to pass exams. Exams are
tests in who can write fast. Or put another way,
exams find out who can write slowly. That’s
what they’re for. So, instead of wasting loads
of time muddling this up with writing answers
to questions that no one cares about, school
can concentrate on the business of learning to
write fast. And of course, it’s not just about
writing fast. It’s about writing fast for over an
hour. In hard exams it can be for two hours.
And when I say ‘writing’ this has to be writing
by hand. This is really important. I’m out and
about in the real world, and all the successful
people I meet spend several hours every day
writing fast by hand. So my school of the future
will be full of children writing fast by hand.
And, here’s the innovation: they won’t be
thinking at the same time. To be really fast,
they’ll be copying. In front of them will be iPads
or laptops, with a lot of writing up on screen.
It can be anything, ads for soft drinks, poems
that celebrate a well-known fast food,
instructions for self-assembly wardrobes...and
the children will be copying these. Teachers -
or teaching assistants, or assistants to teaching
assistants can come round and if a child is
slowing down, they can give them a little nudge
to remind them to speed up.
Then at the end of the year, when the child’s fate
is to be decided, the big exam will discover who
can really write fast, who can write not-so-fast,
who writes slowly and who writes really, really
slowly.
Tuesday 21 October 2014
New poem: Parrot
We were at the zoo when I heard a parrot
say, ‘I could have been Prime Minister.’ I
told the others to carry on to the Reptile
Room and I went up to the parrot and said,
‘When was this?’
The parrot said, ‘1957.’
‘Which party?’
‘I can’t say,’ it said.
‘Did you have a lot of support?’ I said.
‘Oh yes.’
‘So it didn’t turn out good for you?’
‘Not sure I had the charisma,’ it said.
‘Really? You seem very lively.’
‘That’s very kind but it’s not what people
said at the time,’ it said.
‘How about policies?’ I said, ‘did people
think you had good policies?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Can you tell me any of them?’
I said.
‘I’m really sorry, no I can’t.’
‘Shame,’ I said, ‘I would have liked that.’
‘Ah, well, you’ll have to just take it
from me that they sounded really good at
the time.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘shame all the same.’
‘Well,’ it said, sounding a bit irritated, ‘you
can’t expect me to remember everything.
Some of us can only remember, “Who’s
a pretty boy?”’
‘And there’s one I knew who used to say
“Shut your face”,’ I said.
‘I don’t know that one,’ it said.
Monday 20 October 2014
New Poem: Messages
The king’s idea was that there should be a messenger
service all over his kingdom. Whoever wanted to send
a message would hire one of the king’s messengers.
There would be a fee for this of 100 crowns a year which
would be paid straight to the king, into his coffers to pay
for wars. For a hundred crowns you could hire a
messenger any time you liked. The king announced that
the messenger service had begun. Twenty messengers
waited in the yard outside the king’s palace. Nothing
happened. Nothing happened for several days. The
leading messenger went to see the king.
‘I don’t think this messenger thing is going to work,’ he
said. ‘Anyone wanting to send a message- apart from you,
sir - is going to have to come here first.’
‘Yes,’ said the king, ‘that’s why it’s a good idea.’
‘No, sir,’ said the chief messenger, ‘you see by the time the
person wanting to send a message has come here, they
might just as well as have sent someone from where they
are.’
‘That’s a good point,’ said the king.
‘Might I suggest that the messengers do routes?’said the
chief messenger.
‘Go on,’ said the king.
‘One of us does route A to B. One of us does route C to D.
Another does route E-F and so on. People who want
messages sent come to the messenger point in A or C or E
and so on.’
And that’s what happened. The people who wanted to send
messages came to the messenger points and the messengers
ran the routes. It became very popular. The money rolled in.
The king waged wars. Everyone was happy. The messenger
system got more popular. The messengers worked very hard
running between the messenger points. Some days, they didn’t
have time to eat. They said that the king had to take on more
messengers. He said he couldn’t do that as he needed more
soldiers. The messenger service stopped being so good. One
day it was because some message-senders gave their
messages to the messenger but the messenger never arrived.
No one knew what happened to him. He just disappeared.
Some said that he dropped dead because he hadn’t eaten for
a month. Some said that he met someone on the way and
decided to stay with her for the rest of his life. Someone said
that he stopped off at a theatre, stole a wig, a false beard and
a magician’s cloak and was now touring the country doing
conjuring tricks. Another day it was because the messenger
had so many messages to remember that he muddled them up:
someone who was supposed to have got a message saying
that he loved her more than the night-sky loves the stars, ended
up getting threatened with having her legs broken for not paying
her rent. A birthday greeting went to someone who was dead.
One day, one of the message points was full of people wanting
to send messages but there was no messenger to take them.
The people ended up telling their messages to each other. At
least four people ended up getting married as a result but for the
rest it was a disaster. In the end the chief messenger went to see
the king.
‘The message system is not working,’ he said,‘you haven’t got
enough messengers.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ said the king.‘It’s not “not enough
messengers”, it’s “too many messages”. Yack, yack, yack,’ said
the king, ‘that’s all you do. What’s the weather like where you are?
How’s Auntie? How’s the little one? Did you see so-and-so last
night? What are you wearing? Where are you? I’m on the chariot
on the way to the sea, where are you? On and on and on and on.’
‘But you’re still collecting the hundred crowns off people,’ said the
chief messenger.
‘Of course, I am,’ said the king, ‘I’ve got wars to do.’
Sunday 19 October 2014
New Poem: Bins
I said to the dustman, ‘You’re taking my stuff.’
‘Yep,’ he said.
I said, ‘Everything in this bin matters.’
He said, ‘C’mon pal, we’re on a tight turnaround here,’
I said, ‘You’re taking my stuff.’
He called to his mates, ‘We’ve got one here.’
I said,‘That’s my past you’re taking.’
He said, ‘Uh-huh.’
I said, ‘I haven’t got any other past. I can’t go out and
buy someone else’s past and pretend it’s mine. All
the stuff in here happened to me.’
He said, ‘Am I taking it or not?’
I said, ‘Why are you asking me? This is all much
bigger than a yes/no thing. It’s about identity. And
culture.’
‘And bins,’ he said.
‘We are what we throw away,’ I said, ‘and you’re
a cog in a machine that is cutting us down to
size. The machine doesn’t want us to know who
we are. And the way it’s doing this is to cut us
off from our pasts. It’s not your fault,’ I said, ‘you
have to earn a living, but you’ve become a tool
in their hands.’
He said, ‘I’ll just do next door’s. If you change your mind
in the meantime, I’ll come back and get yours. ‘
Saturday 18 October 2014
New Poem: Pizza
We ordered in a pizza and when it came
we talked about how we'd divvy it up.
He said that because I didn't eat as much
as him, I should have less. I said OK but
it wasn't much less than him and after all
it was me who had bought the pizza. He said
that was besides the point. This was about
eating not paying.
I said, 'Is it?'
So he said, 'How about thinking in eighths?'
I said, 'Go on, I can run with that.'
He said, 'How does five eighths and three
eighths sound to you?'
I said that I thought I was hungrier than three
eighths, and he said but 'hungrier' would be
four-eighths.
I said, 'What's wrong with that?'
And he said, 'Four eighths is the same as a half.'
I said, 'Is it?'
He said, 'Well let's talk sixteenths, how about
I have nine-sixteenths and you have seven?'
'Does that add up to the whole pizza?' I said.
'Yes, it does,' he said.
'Well then that sounds a bit more like the way
me and you eat pizza,' I said, ‘yes, you probably
eat one sixteenth more than I do.'
'Two,' he said.
'Two what?' I said.
'Two sixteenths,' he said, 'which is the same as
one eighth.’
‘Is it?' I said, 'why have you gone back to eighths?'
'Because that's how you do the divvying up,' he
said.
'Fair enough,' I said, 'so let's carve it up.'
I went over to the drawer and looked for the big
knife we use to cut up pizzas and it took me a
moment or two because it had got caught under one
of those strainer spoons you can buy in France.
When I came back, he was breaking chunks off the
pizza and eating them.
'Have you divvied it up into sixteenths?' I said.
'No,' he said, 'I was getting hungry so I've started
already.'
I looked at him.
'Great, you've got the pizza knife,' he said, 'do you
want to divvy it up into sixteenths, or shall I?'
I said, 'Hang on a mo. If you've started on it already,
doesn't that affect the way the divvying up works? I
mean…I mean…'
'No, he said, 'it's just the same.'
we talked about how we'd divvy it up.
He said that because I didn't eat as much
as him, I should have less. I said OK but
it wasn't much less than him and after all
it was me who had bought the pizza. He said
that was besides the point. This was about
eating not paying.
I said, 'Is it?'
So he said, 'How about thinking in eighths?'
I said, 'Go on, I can run with that.'
He said, 'How does five eighths and three
eighths sound to you?'
I said that I thought I was hungrier than three
eighths, and he said but 'hungrier' would be
four-eighths.
I said, 'What's wrong with that?'
And he said, 'Four eighths is the same as a half.'
I said, 'Is it?'
He said, 'Well let's talk sixteenths, how about
I have nine-sixteenths and you have seven?'
'Does that add up to the whole pizza?' I said.
'Yes, it does,' he said.
'Well then that sounds a bit more like the way
me and you eat pizza,' I said, ‘yes, you probably
eat one sixteenth more than I do.'
'Two,' he said.
'Two what?' I said.
'Two sixteenths,' he said, 'which is the same as
one eighth.’
‘Is it?' I said, 'why have you gone back to eighths?'
'Because that's how you do the divvying up,' he
said.
'Fair enough,' I said, 'so let's carve it up.'
I went over to the drawer and looked for the big
knife we use to cut up pizzas and it took me a
moment or two because it had got caught under one
of those strainer spoons you can buy in France.
When I came back, he was breaking chunks off the
pizza and eating them.
'Have you divvied it up into sixteenths?' I said.
'No,' he said, 'I was getting hungry so I've started
already.'
I looked at him.
'Great, you've got the pizza knife,' he said, 'do you
want to divvy it up into sixteenths, or shall I?'
I said, 'Hang on a mo. If you've started on it already,
doesn't that affect the way the divvying up works? I
mean…I mean…'
'No, he said, 'it's just the same.'
Eulenspiegel rides again: funny, subversive stories for reading aloud
If you're looking about for a funny, subversive book to read aloud or share with your children, I'm going to unashamedly recommend one of mine. They are re-tellings of the German 'Till Eulenspiegel' stories. They are about a comic, trickster figure of peasant origins who plays tricks on those 'above' him in society, artisans, landowners, dukes and university professors (!). They date from the late fifteenth, early sixteenth centuries. As full of life as Chaucer and Robin Hood. I've adapted them, retold them and put them in a 'frame' of my brother and I getting bored on a trip to Germany when we were boys and being given some 'medicine' to stop us being 'naughty'. Here's how it's billed in the Walker Books online catalogue
Till Owlyglass (Till Eulenspiegel) is a boy who was special from the day he was baptised three times. But not in a good way. Not in a way his parents liked. He was always in trouble for his rudeness and practical jokes, and grew up to be the most outrageous trickster in Germany. Everyone told storie…
WALKER.CO.UK
New Poem: Questions
I was at Euston Station. An elderly woman came
up to me and started talking to me. She had an
accent. Could have been German. Or Portugese.
She asked me if she could ask me some questions.
She showed me a picture of herself in a polythene
see-through bag. I didn’t look very closely at it but
I thought I saw the word ‘Marketing’. My train was
delayed so I said, OK. She said that it was to improve
the service. I said, OK and she rummaged around in
her bag and took out a clip board. On the clip board
there was a list of questions.
She said, ‘Are you travelling today?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Are you travelling for business, leisure or family
reasons?’
I said, ‘Family reasons.’
She said, ‘Do you ride a horse?’
I said, ‘No.’
She said, ‘When a piece of bread is smaller than
the slot in the toaster, then, assuming you turn off
the toaster for health and safety reasons do you
a) stick a knife in the bread and hook it out?
b) pick up the toaster, turn it over and shake
it out? c) leave it in there?
I said, ‘’b’) I turn the toaster over.’
She said, ‘Do you travel First Class or Second Class?
I said, ‘Usually Second Class, but at the weekends I might
upgrade.’
She said, ‘Do you think the world political situation
would be improved if a) the Roman Empire came back b)
people stopped eating processed meat, c) politicians drank
more water?
I said, ‘I don’t think any of those. Can I say ‘None’?
She said, ‘I’m the one asking the questions.’
I said, ‘I know.’
She said, ‘I’ll take that as a)’
I said, ‘The Roman Empire one?’
She said, ‘Yes.’
I said, ‘The Romans didn’t have trains.’
She said, ‘If they did, they would have made them
run on time.’
I said, ‘Except towards the end. You know, when they
were leaving here and going back to Rome.The trains
wouldn’t have been on time then.’
She said, ‘I’ve made a note of that.’
I said, ‘Thanks.’
She said, ‘On a scale of ten do you think the following
would improve the service:
‘Giving customers flat-pack self-assembly furniture to
construct on their journeys?’ 10 for definitely, Zero for
not at all.”
‘Nine,’ I said.
On a scale of ten, do you think customers should be
supplied with the magazine, ‘Dairy Cow News’?
I said, ‘Nine’.
She said, ‘Why?’
I said, ‘Because when I was about ten years old I
developed a fascination with dairy cows. I could tell
the difference between a Dairy Shorthorn and an
Ayrshire. I think having a free copy of ‘Dairy Cow
News’ would be of great interest.’
She said, ‘The survey is complete. We give all the
people we interview a small gift. You have a choice.
Would you like a pen, a notebook, a tomato, a
holiday in Florida or a baby?’
I said, ‘I’ll take the tomato.’
up to me and started talking to me. She had an
accent. Could have been German. Or Portugese.
She asked me if she could ask me some questions.
She showed me a picture of herself in a polythene
see-through bag. I didn’t look very closely at it but
I thought I saw the word ‘Marketing’. My train was
delayed so I said, OK. She said that it was to improve
the service. I said, OK and she rummaged around in
her bag and took out a clip board. On the clip board
there was a list of questions.
She said, ‘Are you travelling today?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Are you travelling for business, leisure or family
reasons?’
I said, ‘Family reasons.’
She said, ‘Do you ride a horse?’
I said, ‘No.’
She said, ‘When a piece of bread is smaller than
the slot in the toaster, then, assuming you turn off
the toaster for health and safety reasons do you
a) stick a knife in the bread and hook it out?
b) pick up the toaster, turn it over and shake
it out? c) leave it in there?
I said, ‘’b’) I turn the toaster over.’
She said, ‘Do you travel First Class or Second Class?
I said, ‘Usually Second Class, but at the weekends I might
upgrade.’
She said, ‘Do you think the world political situation
would be improved if a) the Roman Empire came back b)
people stopped eating processed meat, c) politicians drank
more water?
I said, ‘I don’t think any of those. Can I say ‘None’?
She said, ‘I’m the one asking the questions.’
I said, ‘I know.’
She said, ‘I’ll take that as a)’
I said, ‘The Roman Empire one?’
She said, ‘Yes.’
I said, ‘The Romans didn’t have trains.’
She said, ‘If they did, they would have made them
run on time.’
I said, ‘Except towards the end. You know, when they
were leaving here and going back to Rome.The trains
wouldn’t have been on time then.’
She said, ‘I’ve made a note of that.’
I said, ‘Thanks.’
She said, ‘On a scale of ten do you think the following
would improve the service:
‘Giving customers flat-pack self-assembly furniture to
construct on their journeys?’ 10 for definitely, Zero for
not at all.”
‘Nine,’ I said.
On a scale of ten, do you think customers should be
supplied with the magazine, ‘Dairy Cow News’?
I said, ‘Nine’.
She said, ‘Why?’
I said, ‘Because when I was about ten years old I
developed a fascination with dairy cows. I could tell
the difference between a Dairy Shorthorn and an
Ayrshire. I think having a free copy of ‘Dairy Cow
News’ would be of great interest.’
She said, ‘The survey is complete. We give all the
people we interview a small gift. You have a choice.
Would you like a pen, a notebook, a tomato, a
holiday in Florida or a baby?’
I said, ‘I’ll take the tomato.’
Thursday 16 October 2014
I had a dream Miliband said this...
"Tonight I want to tell you about a hoax. It’s a hoax invented by the Tories, aided and abetted by almost every news outlet. The hoax is called ‘austerity’ and it goes like this: we in the Labour government caused a terrible crisis for the whole population. We did that by borrowing too much money. The solution to this crisis is for everyone who earns a living from salaries and salaries alone, to have less money in their pockets; any form of service run by the government should be either cut or sold off.
Why is this a hoax?
It wasn’t Labour who caused the crisis. Whatever way we describe that crisis, it was caused by people who make a living out of lending money. They gambled with billions and trillions - and lost.
Then: austerity. Austerity says that the way out of the difficulties is to make the least well off in society worse off, and to make the services that they enjoy disappear - or become a means by which people can make a profit. Meanwhile, the richest people in society have at the very least stayed being very, very rich, or for them to become richer.
So, let’s be clear: this thing called ‘austerity’ has been a way in which rich people have stayed rich or got richer, while poor people have stayed poor or got poorer.
But all we hear is that the ‘economy’ is getting better. So we say, what does this mean? Surely what they saying is that the system is running just nicely for those with money. For all the people who earn money from wages and salaries only, it’s not very nice at all. This business of ‘getting better’ is really the business of ‘getting worse’!
So...what is to be done?
At the heart of everything is how do we make sure that everyone in society gets the goods and services they need. This government says that happens thanks to the market. But hang on, it was the market - the money market bit - which destroyed billions and trillions of money, which has had the knock-on effect of making poor people poorer.
Then again, when the market takes over public services, what happens is that billions that could be used for those services goes off into the pockets of the business people who run the services and often back to the people who run the money markets. More for the rich, less for the poor yet again.
So, what we’ve got to do, is start with all the basic utilities and services and take them into public control. This doesn’t mean that I or my colleagues in the Labour Party run them and get very rich in the process. It means that we have to find a way in which you run them for your benefit. It means that instead of politicians in Westminster doing it all, it means that the people who work in all those industries and institutions that provide the utilities and public services must have a way of taking part in running them. At the same time, the people who use those utilities and services must have a way of joining in that too.
This means a new kind of voting and elections. Not just this old business of voting for politicians who work hand in glove with the super-rich making sure that they stay super-rich. It means extending democracy into running the things we need. There’s been a lot of talk about Westminster being distant. That’s true. But it won’t be solved by sticking some other people into Westminster who for half a second seem a bit more chummy. It can only be solved by getting everyone involved in running the utilities and services we need.
Whenever people talk about this sort of thing, wiseacres chip in and tell us that what’ll happen is that all the rich people will take money out of the country and all the rich people abroad won’t lend us any.
Excuse me if this gives me a reason to laugh: it would be hard to imagine a situation in which more rich people’s money could fly out of the country than what happened in 2008. When we let the money markets do what they want, they do that sort of thing anyway!
Then, if you have elected us to do these things, we would be elected to have power over the banks. You the people would have given us the power to control what happens to the money in the banks. What’s more, just like the kind of democracy running the utilities and services, we could have something similar running the banks. As for money from abroad, well, that would all depend on whether this country can make things and service things in a way that people here and abroad find useful.
But I’m running ahead of myself.
Let’s just stick to the things we can do first. Let’s remind ourselves what we mean when we say ‘wealth’. To listen to the Tories talk, you’d think wealth is something that rich people earn by being terribly clever or terribly wise. No, wealth is something else altogether. Wealth is the combined power of our minds and bodies. Or put another way, wealth is what we are capable of when we can put our minds and bodies together to make the things we need and to carry out the services we need. At the moment, wherever I go, I see millions of people using their minds and bodies - yes - but over and over again, the result is that very rich people make off with a vast portion of the money made by all that work. Billions of that money is not used in order to improve the standard of living of the majority of people, nor is it used to make goods and services more and more useful for every single one of us.
So, we’ve got to move towards a society where we get this ‘wealth’ thing right.
That’s all I’ve got time for just now. In the meantime, I hope that as many of you as possible will work on ways in which you can defend the services you need, and your standard of living. Only when you all do that, will you have the will and the power to run them yourselves."
Why is this a hoax?
It wasn’t Labour who caused the crisis. Whatever way we describe that crisis, it was caused by people who make a living out of lending money. They gambled with billions and trillions - and lost.
Then: austerity. Austerity says that the way out of the difficulties is to make the least well off in society worse off, and to make the services that they enjoy disappear - or become a means by which people can make a profit. Meanwhile, the richest people in society have at the very least stayed being very, very rich, or for them to become richer.
So, let’s be clear: this thing called ‘austerity’ has been a way in which rich people have stayed rich or got richer, while poor people have stayed poor or got poorer.
But all we hear is that the ‘economy’ is getting better. So we say, what does this mean? Surely what they saying is that the system is running just nicely for those with money. For all the people who earn money from wages and salaries only, it’s not very nice at all. This business of ‘getting better’ is really the business of ‘getting worse’!
So...what is to be done?
At the heart of everything is how do we make sure that everyone in society gets the goods and services they need. This government says that happens thanks to the market. But hang on, it was the market - the money market bit - which destroyed billions and trillions of money, which has had the knock-on effect of making poor people poorer.
Then again, when the market takes over public services, what happens is that billions that could be used for those services goes off into the pockets of the business people who run the services and often back to the people who run the money markets. More for the rich, less for the poor yet again.
So, what we’ve got to do, is start with all the basic utilities and services and take them into public control. This doesn’t mean that I or my colleagues in the Labour Party run them and get very rich in the process. It means that we have to find a way in which you run them for your benefit. It means that instead of politicians in Westminster doing it all, it means that the people who work in all those industries and institutions that provide the utilities and public services must have a way of taking part in running them. At the same time, the people who use those utilities and services must have a way of joining in that too.
This means a new kind of voting and elections. Not just this old business of voting for politicians who work hand in glove with the super-rich making sure that they stay super-rich. It means extending democracy into running the things we need. There’s been a lot of talk about Westminster being distant. That’s true. But it won’t be solved by sticking some other people into Westminster who for half a second seem a bit more chummy. It can only be solved by getting everyone involved in running the utilities and services we need.
Whenever people talk about this sort of thing, wiseacres chip in and tell us that what’ll happen is that all the rich people will take money out of the country and all the rich people abroad won’t lend us any.
Excuse me if this gives me a reason to laugh: it would be hard to imagine a situation in which more rich people’s money could fly out of the country than what happened in 2008. When we let the money markets do what they want, they do that sort of thing anyway!
Then, if you have elected us to do these things, we would be elected to have power over the banks. You the people would have given us the power to control what happens to the money in the banks. What’s more, just like the kind of democracy running the utilities and services, we could have something similar running the banks. As for money from abroad, well, that would all depend on whether this country can make things and service things in a way that people here and abroad find useful.
But I’m running ahead of myself.
Let’s just stick to the things we can do first. Let’s remind ourselves what we mean when we say ‘wealth’. To listen to the Tories talk, you’d think wealth is something that rich people earn by being terribly clever or terribly wise. No, wealth is something else altogether. Wealth is the combined power of our minds and bodies. Or put another way, wealth is what we are capable of when we can put our minds and bodies together to make the things we need and to carry out the services we need. At the moment, wherever I go, I see millions of people using their minds and bodies - yes - but over and over again, the result is that very rich people make off with a vast portion of the money made by all that work. Billions of that money is not used in order to improve the standard of living of the majority of people, nor is it used to make goods and services more and more useful for every single one of us.
So, we’ve got to move towards a society where we get this ‘wealth’ thing right.
That’s all I’ve got time for just now. In the meantime, I hope that as many of you as possible will work on ways in which you can defend the services you need, and your standard of living. Only when you all do that, will you have the will and the power to run them yourselves."
New Poem: Hand Dryer
It was late and before going home I thought
I’d nip into a cafe for a cup of tea and a
sandwich. I found one down an alley near
the station. They had run out of pretty nearly
everything but I got a tomato sandwich
and before I ate it, I went to the toilet.
I washed my hands and turned on the
hand dryer. What came out was a pretty
poor flow of air. Coming out in short bursts.
And it wasn’t very warm. And actually, it was
a bit damp. I was just about to leave the toilet
when I heard a cough. It seemed very near.
Like from behind the wall. Or in the wall. As
the cough came out, a bit more of the dryer
blew air. Then stopped. I thought that was
odd and I looked more closely at the dryer.
I touched it and it wobbled. So I got hold of it
shook it. I don’t think I pulled it but it came
away in my hands. I had the whole dryer in
my hands. On the other side of the dryer, in
the hole left in the wall, was a man. His face,
that is. The man’s face. He was standing
behind the wall, or in the wall, with his face
behind the dryer. All I could see of him was
his face. I said, ‘Did you just...’ And before
I could finish, he said, ‘Yep, that was me.’
Wednesday 15 October 2014
New Poem: Ticket
I once had a job at a cinema and I had to check
people’s tickets. I was standing at the barrier one
Sunday and people were coming through all the
time with their tickets when a woman came up
with a piece of paper and handed it to me. I could
see straightaway that it wasn’t a ticket. The tickets
were all on white pieces of paper and her bit of
paper was light green.
I said, ‘I’m sorry, but this isn’t a ticket.’
She said, ‘I don’t think you’ve looked at it.’
I said, ‘I don’t need to look at it, it’s green.’
‘Look at it,’ she said.
‘OK, I’ll look at it,’ I said.
It was folded over. I opened it up. On it was
written, ‘This could be a ticket.’
I said, ‘This isn’t a ticket.’
She said, ‘Read it.’
I said, ‘I have read it.’
‘No, read it out loud,’ she said.
I read it out loud: ‘This could be a ticket.’
‘There you are,’ she said.
‘No it isn’t, ‘there you are’.’ All it says, is ‘This
could be a ticket’. It doesn’t say that it is a ticket.’
‘That’s because that would be a lie. Obviously,’
she said.
‘Right,’ I said, ‘It isn’t a ticket. Look there are
people waiting to come in,’
‘No, no,’ she said, ‘the point is, it could be a
ticket.’
I said, ‘Yes, yes, it could be, but it isn’t.’
‘But what it says there is that it’s possible.
It’s not impossible. There is a chance that it
could be.’
‘I’m supposed to let you in, on the
off chance that this is a ticket?’ I said.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘you don’t want to be in the
situation where it really was a ticket and you didn’t
let me in. You’d be in all sorts of trouble.
Lawyers, police, stories in the papers.’
I looked at her. I looked round to see if my
manager was there. She wasn’t.
I said, ‘OK, go in.’
Tuesday 14 October 2014
2 articles/interviews with me about poetry in schools
These are two articles by Daniel Xerri interviewing me about poetry in schools. They have just been published in the peer-reviewed journals New Review of Children's Literature and Librarianship, and Arts Education Policy Review. The first article focuses on teachers' attitudes toward poetry:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13614541.2014.929439#.VD045eflcZw
The second article discusses poetry's place in the curriculum:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10632913.2014.948346#.VD05IeflcZw
Given that they are both published by Taylor & Francis, please note that the articles are only accessible via subscription, usually an institutional one.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13614541.2014.929439#.VD045eflcZw
The second article discusses poetry's place in the curriculum:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10632913.2014.948346#.VD05IeflcZw
Given that they are both published by Taylor & Francis, please note that the articles are only accessible via subscription, usually an institutional one.
Monday 13 October 2014
New poem: Wasps
I was playing by a river in France when
an old lady came past and the boy I was
with said that was the Wasp Lady. I asked
him why she was called the Wasp Lady
and he said that she gets rid of wasps’
nests. I asked him how she does that. He
said that she had a special way. ‘What
sort of special way?’ I said. He laughed
and said that he wasn’t supposed to say.
I said, ‘Why aren’t you supposed to say?’
He said that the people in the village
didn’t want children to go about saying it.
I said, ‘How does she do it? How does
she get rid of wasps’ nests?’ He said that
she stands by the wasps’ nest and sings.
‘That’s it?’ I said. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Then
what happens?’ I said. He then said it
wasn’t really singing. It was more like a
single note. She stands by the nest
trying to sing this note. It’s not like any
singing you ever hear, he said. ‘Like
what?’ I said and he just laughed. We
went on mucking about in the river and
I said, ‘What does this singing thing do?’
He said that if she gets it right, people
say that it makes the wasps eat the queen.
I said,‘That wouldn’t get rid of the nest.’
He said that it would. If the queen goes,
all the rest die off after a few days. If
there are no new eggs, there are no new
wasps, that’s the end of the nest. ‘Do they
sting the queen?’ I said. ‘I don’t know,’ he
said, ‘I think they just eat her. They hear
the singing and start to eat her.’
If they say, 'The poor are the problem', let's say, 'Briefing 38'
Let's keep going on about it: "Briefing 38".
If anyone asks us, why are the NHS workers or the teachers etc etc on strike?
let's say 'Briefing 38'.
If people say, it's immigrants' fault that wages are too low,
let's say, 'Briefing 38',
if people say, that it's benefit scroungers who are costing the nation too much,
let's say, 'Briefing 38'.
If people say, that this or that group of people are a 'social problem',
let's say 'Briefing 38' - that's the 'social problem'.'
If they say, 'What's "Briefing 38"?'
we can say,
'The richest fifth of the nation's got £5970 billion;
the poorest has got £57 billion.
Never mind "Grand Theft Auto"…
this is Auto Grand Theft -
the rich automatically thieving from the poor…'
'The richest fifth of the nation's got £5970 billion;
the poorest has got £57 billion.
Never mind "Grand Theft Auto"…
this is Auto Grand Theft -
the rich automatically thieving from the poor…'
In support of the striking NHS workers
These are the hands
That touch us first
Feel your head
Find the pulse
And make your bed.
These are the hands
That tap your back
Test the skin
Hold your arm
Wheel the bin
Change the bulb
Fix the drip
Pour the jug
Replace your hip.
These are the hands
That fill the bath
Mop the floor
Flick the switch
Soothe the sore
Burn the swabs
Give us a jab
Throw out sharps
Design the lab.
And these are the hands
That stop the leaks
Empty the pan
Wipe the pipes
Carry the can
Clamp the veins
Make the cast
Log the dose
And touch us last
Sunday 12 October 2014
New Poem: Worms
If you put a tent up on long grass and you
leave the tent with its groundsheet down
on the grass for about three weeks, the
grass starts to rot. When you take up the
groundsheet, you find the grass has gone
yellow and smells. Worms seem to like it
and sometimes you find clusters of them
wiggling about together. One holiday we
were on the Welsh borders and our tents
were up for four weeks. We took them
down when it was time to go home and
there was a cluster of worms just where I
had been lying. I went over and had a look
at them. As I walked round them, I could
see that they had clustered together in the
shape of the bus routes near where we
lived. I called my friend over and said,
‘Here look at this, it’s the bus map.’ He
said, ‘Oh yeah.’ He looked at it closely
and then he noticed something: ‘There’s
no 43. The 43 is missing.’ He was right.
‘The map would be no good without the
43,’ he said. ‘The 43 is a really useful
route. The 43 goes all the way down the
Holloway Road.’
No, Tristram, no
Three points re Tristram Hunt's speech on schools:
1. Hunt has announced plans for local school commissioners who would oversee all types of state-funded schools."
1. Hunt has announced plans for local school commissioners who would oversee all types of state-funded schools."
What is this? Who are these? Who appoints them? What do they do? Why are they better than having local councils? Why are they better than what would be my preference: local council governance with teacher, governor, parent and pupil representation?
2. He has talked up Singapore's education system. Singapore is a very different society, Tristram. The education systems we make, Tristram, are a mixture of being both a reflection of the kind of society we have and the kind of society that education makes. Simple question, Tristram: do you want to live in a society like Singapore?
3. Hunt has talked of the virtue of taking 'oaths'…what does the swearing of oaths do? Well, Tristram Hunt would know about oaths, because he's an MP. MPs swear oaths. So if oaths are a good idea, Tristram would know just how successful MP oath-swearing has been…over, let's say, the last twenty years…On a scale of one to ten, Tristram, how successful has MP oath-swearing been in giving us MPs who are not corrupt, venal and greedy?
2. He has talked up Singapore's education system. Singapore is a very different society, Tristram. The education systems we make, Tristram, are a mixture of being both a reflection of the kind of society we have and the kind of society that education makes. Simple question, Tristram: do you want to live in a society like Singapore?
3. Hunt has talked of the virtue of taking 'oaths'…what does the swearing of oaths do? Well, Tristram Hunt would know about oaths, because he's an MP. MPs swear oaths. So if oaths are a good idea, Tristram would know just how successful MP oath-swearing has been…over, let's say, the last twenty years…On a scale of one to ten, Tristram, how successful has MP oath-swearing been in giving us MPs who are not corrupt, venal and greedy?
New Poem: Gloves
My aunt didn’t have pets but she looked
after two gloves. Indoors, it was no big
deal, we hardly noticed that she sat with
the gloves beside her on the sofa. You’d
sometimes see her patting them or
stroking them. They had their own chair
at the table. When she came to the door
to say goodbye she nearly always had
them sitting folded over her arm. It really
was no big deal. The only time it was
more of a thing was when she came over
to our place. She brought the gloves with
her in a cat basket. When she arrived, she
put the basket down on the floor and slid
the gloves out of the cat basket. They were
with her all the time she was at our house,
then when she went home she eased the
gloves back into the cat basket. The basket
was always on the seat beside her in the
car. As she drove off, we waved to her. I
think there was once or twice I waved to
the gloves.
Saturday 11 October 2014
New Poem: Dog
When I was a kid, we had a dog that
could wee bubbles. You didn’t have to
feed it anything special - not soapy water
or anything like that. What would happen
is that he just got into a certain kind of
mood and you’d see him wandering about
for a bit, he’d walk round in a circle and
then he would stand very still for a bit
and the bubbles would come out. You
could never tell when he would decide
to do it and you couldn’t make him do it.
It was just when he felt like it. I told my
friends that he could do it but they didn’t
believe me. Then they would come
over and I would say, ‘Jack, wee bubbles!’
but he never would. And even if one of them
came over for sleepovers, he wouldn’t do it.
So none of them believed me when I said
that he did.
New Poem: Hospital
When I was in hospital, once I started to get
better they would let me get up and walk
about. I used to walk out of my ward, and
down the corridors. Bit by bit I was getting
stronger. One time I got to the end of one
corridor I hadn’t walked down before and
there was a ward in front of me. I was
feeling a bit bored so I thought I would
just pop in and have a look. I noticed
that it was very quiet. For a moment I
wondered if everyone in the ward had
died. It was all so still. Instead of walking
out - which is what I should have done -
I went further into the ward. The beds
were all where they normally are, all
along the walls, some with drips or
machines of some kind. None of the
beds were empty but instead of people
in them there were chess pieces. Not
ordinary chess pieces. Human size ones.
They just lay in the beds. Not moving.
Or making any sound. Pawns, knights,
kings, queens and the rest. I thought
that I would be able to figure out some
kind of order to it: kings and queens in
some kind of special beds, or maybe the
pawns would be the nurses or the cleaners
but no, it was nothing like that. It was
just that there were all the different chess
pieces in the beds. Though now I think
about it, I don’t remember seeing a
bishop. There should have been four.
But I don’t remember there being even
one of them.
Saturday 4 October 2014
New Poem: Curtains
There was a kind of curtain or drape. Well,
two actually. I was wearing a jumper and
pushed myself through the gap between
the two curtains. There had been times when
people wanted to keep the two curtains
closed. They had sewn velcro all down the
edges of the curtains. As I pushed through,
I was attacked by the velcro. It grabbed my
jumper, down the sleeves and across my
chest. I lifted my arm and pulled it down again
quickly but the velcro stuck. The curtain
swelled up around me and into my face. I
turned round and the curtain wrapped me up.
The velcro sealed me in. I wrenched my head
back. The curtain folded over my face. I
felt my feet taking off from the floor. I lay
in mid-air and waited for someone to come
and help me. I thought, if I lie very still, I’ll
be able to breathe through the curtain that
was lying across my mouth. My arms were
tight next to my sides. The less I move, I
thought, the less I’ll need to breathe. I
listened.
Thursday 2 October 2014
New Poem: Running Away
I was in the High Street, late. Just the
street lights. The department store
that isn’t there anymore was up ahead.
One of the doors opened. Someone
came out. And then someone else.
They were naked. And smooth.
Then another one. And another. All
of them naked and smooth. Soon there
were ten or eleven of them. None of
them had hair. Or shoes. And they
weren’t walking. Or running. More like...
sliding. Their arms didn’t bend. Or their
legs. The street lights shone on their
backs. Their faces didn’t move. They
didn’t speak. They had no eyes.
street lights. The department store
that isn’t there anymore was up ahead.
One of the doors opened. Someone
came out. And then someone else.
They were naked. And smooth.
Then another one. And another. All
of them naked and smooth. Soon there
were ten or eleven of them. None of
them had hair. Or shoes. And they
weren’t walking. Or running. More like...
sliding. Their arms didn’t bend. Or their
legs. The street lights shone on their
backs. Their faces didn’t move. They
didn’t speak. They had no eyes.
New Poem: White Paint
We turned up in the yard because there
was an ad in the paper. There was a man
there who asked us if we had ever done any
painting before. I said yes. He sent me to
the top of a ladder and on to a plank. It was
high up, under the roof. There was no ceiling.
I had to paint what was the underside of the
roof. There were three of us up there. It was an
empty factory, or a hangar. Our plank was about
seven feet under the roof so we had to paint
above our heads. The man said it was best not
to look down.
It was a hot day, the sun shining on to the roof
outside. It wasn’t just that it was hot doing painting.
The roof was hot. The man said we were toshers.
Just put it on. And get it done. As the paint went on,
the heat made it fume. I could feel it spread out
under my face, into the spaces behind my eyes. It
made me smile. Thick cream paint.
I looked across to the other guys. They were
toshing. I smiled. They smiled. One of them laughed.
Don’t look down, he said. I’m not sure he said
it to me. He may have it said to the other guy. I nodded.
He nodded. There was a day at the beach. The
sand was a million fragments of glass, each
pointing towards my eyes. There was a link between
my eyes and being sick. You could look at
the brightness for so long that it flowed into your
stomach. Light waves making sick waves.
There was a presentation day once and
everyone was told to go on to the platform, shake
hands and get off the platform as quickly as
possible but this boy Jeff, got up there and waved.
He waved to his mates and they all cheered. And
that had been wrong. Jeff was wrong. He had done
a wrong thing. Jeff was wrong to have done that.
The paint was white. The smile was more like a grin
now. Like I had to pull my lips back to make room
for the fumes in my face.
The roof moved. The paint was white. The waves
reached my legs. Milk into a bucket from the cow.
Thick with bubbles. You could paint with milk.
Warm milk with cream. And it’s cream that makes
butter. Shaking it up till it gets thicker. It’s the
shaking that makes it thick.
I had to kneel down. I knelt down. I looked
across to the other guys. One of them was standing.
He had stopped painting. He was standing. I said,
‘Whooo.’ He said, ‘Yeahh.’ I said, ‘I’m kneeling.’ Then
he knelt down too. I said, ‘I’m going to lie down
now. I’m going to lie down.’ I lay down on the plank.
He lay down on the plank too. I looked at the other
guy. He was pressing on. ‘He’s good,’ I said.
He said, ‘Don’t shut your eyes.’ I shut my eyes.