August 2009 Archives

Emily Dickinson is an American poet who in the latter half of the nineteenth century. She lead a largely reclusive life in her family home and was regarded as a strange, eccentric figure in their hometown of Amherst, Massacheusetts. Little did they know that all the time she was writing some of the most delicate and unusual poetry ever written. Here's her unique take on the summer:

The bee is not afraid of me,
I know the butterfly;
The pretty people in the woods
Receive me cordially.

The brooks laugh louder when I come,
The breezes madder play.
Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists?
Wherefore, O summer's day?

Emily Dickinson

Further proof that no-one tells stories better than Loudon Wainwright III: the not quite three minutes of OGM are alternating devastating and hilarious.

After yesterday's choice, I am in sore need of restoring my credibility, so I'll opt for the none-more-cool Lambchop.

Up With People is from their 2000 album Nixon, which is very much their creative peak, I reckon.

I saw the band live a couple of years later at the Journal Tyne Theatre and was thrilled at the fact that they jameed about 14 musicians onto what seemed like a very big stage.

No, honest. Mona, by Craig McLachlan (and his band Check 1-2!!!) is today's Song of the Day.

I realise that you should probably never pick Craig McLachlan - Neighbours' Henry Ramsay, of course - if you want people to respect your music blog.

But what can I say? This is catchy, I used to sing it all the time in the summer of 1990 and at least the song is by Bo Diddley (phew, some cred saved at the last there...) Mona was the B-side of Bo Diddley's seventh single Hey Bo Diddley! and was also covered by the Rolling Stones on their first album.

When recently confronted with the accusation that most poems are, well, a bit miserable, Linda France, wonderful poet in her own right, rose to the challenge and suggested this one. I'd never heard it before but it is lovely and summery and will (hopefully) get you through the miserable weather.

On a Perfect Day

.. I eat an artichoke in front
of the Charles Street Laundromat
and watch the clouds bloom
into white flowers out of
the building across the way.
The bright air moves on my face
like the touch of someone who loves me.
Far overhead a dart-shaped plane softens
through membranes of vacancy. A ship,
riding the bright glissade of the Hudson, slips
past the end of the street. Colette's vagabond
says the sun belongs to the lizard
that warms in its light. I own these moments
when my skin like a drumhead stretches on the frame
of my bones, then swells, a bellows filled
with sacred breath seared by this flame,
this happiness.

Jane Gentry
from A Garden in Kentucky, 1995

If you're searching for some summer reading inspiration you're in luck: the new batch of New Writing North book group books have been announced just in time for your holidays. So, pick the group closest to you, read the book and you'll be all set to join in come September!

Lucinda Williams is best known for her 1998 album Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, but you would be a fool - a fool, I tells ya - to ignore Passionate Kisses, from her 1998 debut LP.

Like quite a few songs on this blog, I first it heard it on the old Andy Kershaw show on Radio One. It is two-and-a-half minutes long, which is great, and pretty close to being pop perfection.

Williams has loads of great tunes worth checking out, but for a none-more-drawly bit of singing, I would also point to you to her duet with Steve Earle, You're Still Standing There.

There are certain songs that you find yourself singing along to even though you haven't got a clue what they mean; one of these is Cannonball by The Breeders.

The lead single from their 1993 album Last Splash - and NME's single of the year - Cannonball has a twisty bassline, some great guitar and then a great tune on top.

But they lyrics? "Spitting in a wishing well/Blown to hell crash/I'm the last splash." That would appear to be nonsense but I've still sung it at the top of my lungs many a time...

If you love reading and happen to be in Sunderland, make tonight the night you join a real book group! The group meets tonight (and usually the first Wednesday of every month) at Bar Justice at 6.00pm with reader in residence Laura Sandy. It's incredibly easy to join- read the book, turn up and get talking! All groups are informal and fun, the perfect combination of drinks, laughs, a bit of book discussion and the odd visit from an author. Tonight they are departing from the usual format and having a Summer Reads Party! Whether it's something you love, a classic that you think needs debunking or the book that got you into reading in the first place, bring it along and tell them about it. All washed down with delicious summer cocktails- what's not to like?

Bar Justice
47 West Sunniside
Sunderland
SR1 1BA
http://sunderlandbookgroup.wordpress.com/

Not only do I think this poem beautifully captures the way the sensory overload of a summer's day can stir half-forgotton memories, it also gets in a sneaky reference to my favourite poem in the world This is just to say by William Carlos Williams.

In The Tunnel of Summers

Moving from day into day,
I don't know how,
eating these plums now
this morning for breakfast,
tasting of childhood's
mouth-pucker tartness,
watching the broad light
seed in the fences,
honey of barley,
gold ocean, grasses,
as the tunnel of summers,
of nothing but summers,
opens again
in my traveling senses.

I am eight and eighteen and eighty
all the Augusts of my day.

Why should I be, I be
more than another?
Brown foot in sandal,
burnt palm on flaked clay,
flesh under waterfall
baubled in strong spray,
blood on the stubble
of fly-sweet hay.
Why not my mother's, my
grandmother's ankle
hurting as harvest hurts
thistle and animal?
A needle of burning;
why this way or that way?

They are already building the long straw cemetery
where my granddaughter's daughter has been born and buried.

Anne Stevenson