Bard intent

Continuing his (frankly unmethodical) attempt to identify 'his' sponsored brick-in-the-wall of the renewed Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Mr Gnome was more than a little thrilled to encounter Malika Booker, the RSC's poet in residence.


Billeted in the Victorian reading room adjacent to the Swan auditorium, Ms Booker invites visitors to recall vivid memories from their experiences of the Stratford theatres: sights, textures, scents, emotions, highs, lows, drama and tedium.

All of which will be grist to her poetic mill over the months ahead.

Of course, this was as Pavlovian Kennomeat to Mr G's human companion who lost no time in reliving his first RST show way back in August 1967: All's Well That Ends Well, with a cast that included the extremely young Helen Mirren.

Wise Ms Booker limited him to the space of a medium-sized PostIt.

Mr Gnome wishes Malika great success.

(Ms Booker was not expecting Mr G's appearance. Consequently he considers her perfect choice of hat colour as particularly auspicious.)

Ian McMillan on Desert Island Discs

Robust cheers for the wise, witty and wonderful bard of Barnsley, Ian McMillan, subject of today's BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.

McMillan is, in my opinion, the real deal. A fine writer of prose and poetry, who cheerfully debunks rarefied notions of the literary arts being the province of the fortunate few. And he manages to be effortlessly funny along the way.

Ian's final disc was John Cage's '4 minutes 33 seconds' - the celebrated silent 'composition'. Which, naturally, I'd always dismissed as the pinnacle of pretentiousness. Ian has persuaded me otherwise. Helped by the sound of his stomach gently rumbling during the short extract...

Last Post

To mark the death of WW1 veterans Henry Allingham and Harry Patch, this morning Radio 4's Today programme broadcast a poem commissioned from new Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.

Last Post

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin
that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud…
but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood
run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
see lines and lines of British boys rewind
back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home-
mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers
not entering the story now
to die and die and die.
Dulce- No- Decorum- No- Pro patria mori.
You walk away.

You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
like all your mates do too-
Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert-
and light a cigarette.
There's coffee in the square,
warm French bread
and all those thousands dead
are shaking dried mud from their hair
and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,
a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released
from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.

You lean against a wall,
your several million lives still possible
and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.
You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.
If poetry could truly write it backwards,
then it would.

(This text will be removed as soon as it is no longer freely available via the BBC website.)

1609 + 400 = 2009 + 14/154

The dodgy mathematical statement above is inspired by the fact that BBC Radio 3 is today celebrating Sonnet Day, in recognition of the 400th anniversary of the publication of William Shakespeare's immortal collection of 154 fourteen-line poems.

During the course of today the station's output has been interspersed by readings of a varied selection (fourteen, natch) of the Bard's extraordinary reflections on love, loss, life, death - the whole big thing, in fact.

The reader is that tip-top, and very brainy, thesp Sir Ian McKellen.

Mr Gnome approves - and not only because he happens to be roughly the same height as a sonnet in a standard print setup.

So much so that he has issued a challenge to the Human Being (aka moi) to do a little more than to download these texts and recordings on to his computer.

Given that a poem is the only work of art that one can store on one's personal in-brain hard drive - the memory - I've decided to memorise all of the sonnets chosen for today's readings. And I've set myself the target of doing so by the end of 2009.

Fear not, one has no intention of inflicting impromptu readings on one's nearest and dearest - or on total strangers, for that matter.

To be truthful, I have a teensy bit of start on myself - somehow or other I already have Sonnets 18, 29, 60 and 116 under my belt. So, ten sonnets and 140 lines to go....

Duffy

Mr Gnome cheers lustily at the appointment of Carol Ann Duffy as Poet Laureate.

He feels no shame in admitting that his knowledge of Ms Duffy's ouevre is limited to one poem.

But what a poem - the much anthologised 'Prayer'.

The HB has committed it to memory - feel free to ask him for a recitation should you so wish.

Mr G would reproduce 'Prayer' here, were it not for the fact that his wish to introduce this great sonnet to his readers is exceeded in strength (only just) by his respect for the author's copyright.

Versed past the post

Cheltenham race course was the venue for Mr Gnome's epiphanic encounter with tip-toptasic troubadour Ian McMillan.

The almost shockingly gifted McMillan, accompained by his equally talented orchestra, was performing a selection of songs and verses at the Greenbelt Arts Festival.

Funny. Moving. Witty. Clever. Droll. Tuneful. Punchy. Wistful. Robust. Funny.

Ian McMillan celebrates the hidden stories of those whose stories are rarely told - and makes you laugh, think and, in my case, dash away the occasional manly tear.

Mr McMillan offered an improvised poem (to jauntily soulful accompaniment from the orchestra) based on three topics called out by members of the audience: 'myself', 'British summer weather' and, inevitably, 'gnome'.

The moving epic that emerged, Homerically, from Mr McMillan's lyre depicted Mr Gnome fleeing inclement weather across a wide vista encompassing the delights of both Ibiza and Cleethorpes.

A gnomapotheosis.

The applause was rapturous.

Hurrah for the magnificent Mr McMillan.

And, all you poets out there, Mr Gnome modestly acknowledges his ability to inspire, which is, I guess, a talent - to a Muse.

By the way, this event was sponsored by the Church Times.

Of man's first disobedience....

I know, yet another boost for the four-hundredth anniversary of the birth of John Milton.

Since the first of January it's been 'Milton this', 'Milton that' and 'Milton whatever'.

Yak, yak, yak. Radio, telly, cinema - not to mention the Paradise Lost tie-ins at Starbucks.... And those groovy specail issue stamps.

What? You missed the clamour? The frenzy has passed you by? Er, yes. Me too.

Not a whisper about the poet who, until relatively recently, was bracketed with Shakespeare as a national poet.

Sad?

I'm doing my bit, re-reading Paradise Lost over Easter, relishing the rolling beauthy of those amazing verse paragraphs.

And the birthday isn't until December. There's time....Good to see that some special events are taking place.

But where's that daring, risk-taking adaptation of Paradise Lost / Comus, Samson at the National Theatre?