Poetry Live

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

[Update Sept 2, 2017] I am not well at the moment but no worries. Going into hospital soon, but hoping for a short stay and back soon. Meanwhile, I hope you will enjoy browsing the blog/s anyway. You can, of course find poems via the search field in the top right hand corner.]

[Update  March 25, 2017]: Well, the poetry evening is  done and dusted. Not a lot of people came but we enjoyed ourselves and it raised a tidy sum for Prostate Cancer UK. (I have been living with prostate cancer since 2011 during which time hormone therapy has prevented it from becoming aggressive.) There's nothing quite like live poetry.) Everyone seemed to appreciate my choice of gay-interest and general poems and we all got on well during the break which was really nice as some people had only just met for the first time. The arts are meant firstly to entertain and secondly to offer food for thought. Feedback suggests the evening was a success on both counts.

For me, personally, it was hard work but a labour of love so I'm glad I went ahead with it despite being a bag of nerves...which, thankfully, steadied once I got started. This year marks sixty years of getting my poetry into print, given that my first published poem appeared in my school magazine summer 1957.]

I did not have the confidence to read in public for years. However, after a few years of occasionally performing Open Mics at Farrago Poetry evenings in London, I found the self-confidence to accept invitations to give readings around the UK (2003-2014). Only weeks after a reading in 2014, I had a bad fall and have spent much of the last two years learning to walk again. I can get out and about quite well now with the aid of a walking stick, for which I am truly thankful as my left ankle had sustained a complicated fracture and I was warned I might never walk again. Oh, but I love walking and am stubborn enough to defy any harbingers of doom. Even so, I did not expect to give another poetry reading.

Now, this first poem appeared in Visions of the Mind, Spotlight Poets (Forward Press) in 1998 and subsequently in my first collection,  Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001. It is an early piece, written in the summer of 1976 during which I gave an impromptu reading of it in Trafalgar Square to a friend (and several appreciative passers-by who paused to listen.) 

POETRY LIVE

Words

to music, out of words

let the sun rise

in the eyes of that ragged-eared mongrel

curled on George’s doorstep

tongue lolling stupidly

nostrils a-smoke

Words

to music, out of words

let carnival hot dogs

substitute for garden scents,

make easier the stink

of slop-outs in

the gutter

Words

out of choc-smeared mouths

in Bank Holiday sunshine;

kids in glad rags spilling

on the streets like bin bags;

shirtsleeves copper

getting chatty

Poetry

Copyright R. N. Taber 1998; 2017

I never dreamt that 30+ years on I would be reading a selection of my poems there, this time to a global audience via web stream as my contribution to Sir Antony Gormley’s ‘live’ sculpture project, One and Other (2009) sponsored by Sky Arts. To view, click on:

https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223131109/http://www.oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T    [NB: Sept 19, 2019 - The British Library confirmed today that he video is no longer available as it was incompatible with a new IT system, However, it still exists and BL hope to reinstate it and make it available to the public again at some future date.] RNT

Among Slaves

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Here in the West, we often take our freedom for granted; (relative) freedom of speech, (relative) freedom of movement, the (relative) freedom to protest and more all come under the general heading, Democracy.

We have only to look at recent events in the Far East and North Africa to understand that we should never take any freedoms for granted.

The poem is a kenning. It last appeared on the blog in 2009, and if anyone is interested in hearing me read it, just click on the link below which will take you to my (very) informal poetry reading on the 4^th plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square, July 14^th 2009. I included Among Slaves (without alternative title) among other poems as my contribution to sculptor Antony Gormley’s One and Other ‘living sculpture’ project. However, I should warn you that it lasts an hour. [The entire web stream showing all 2,400 people doing their ‘own thing’ for an hour (each) on the plinth is now archived in the British Library; to access all 100 days 24/7  simply remove Roger_T from the end of the link.]:

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T [NB.Sept 19, 2019: Today, the British Library confirmed that the link blow to the 4th plinth reading in 1999 is no longer available as the video is incompatible with an updated IT system. However, I am assured that the video still exists, and B L hope to make it available to the public again one day. Fingers crossed, and watch this space.] RNT

AMONG SLAVES

I am that breath of wind in the hair

inviting the human spirit to confess

its foibles, rise above its troubles,

show the world what it’s made of

though its back forced against a wall,

those vultures, prejudice and fear,

homing in to pick clean the bones of

fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers

lured by false witness here

I am that first kiss of rain on the face,

drawing on the human spirit to open

its heart as a flower its petals to the sky,

lend its beauty to the eye so we do not

pass by but pause to reflect on the how

and why of its being, and ours, reasons

to deny the vultures a victory, let nature

tell a story bitter-sweet of humanity’s

attempts to compete

I am that first angry tug at the sleeve

urging the human spirit to turn away

from its prejudices and fears, confront

our lesser selves head-on and expose

them for what they are, though it test us

the more by far...take people as we find,

respecting their privacy, acknowledging

their integrity, learning from a natural

ingenuity to survive

Among slaves of time, I am eyes and ears

who call me Freedom and wipe my tears

[From: Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]