A Poet's Blog: Roger N.Taber shares his thoughts & poems...

Thoughts and observations by English poet Roger N. Taber, a retired librarian and poet-novelist.- "Ethnicity, Religion, Gender, Sexuality ... these are but parts of a whole. It is the whole that counts." RNT [NB While I have no wish to create a social network, I will always reply to critical emails about my poetry. Contact: rogertab@aol.com].

Name:
Location: London, United Kingdom

Sadly, a bad fall in 2012 has left me with a mobility problem, and being diagnosed with prostate cancer the same year hasn't helped, but I get out and about with my trusty walking stick as much as I can, take each day as it comes and try to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life. Many of my poems reflect the need to nurture a positive-thinking mindset whatever life throws at us.

Sunday, 9 October 2016

Pictures in an Exhibition

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

A reader from Switzerland has emailed me to ask - as people often do - why a poet writes fiction. Well, there is poetry of a kind in fiction too. I needed to try my hand at writing novels, partly because I knew I would enjoy it (as I did) and partly because i suspected it would bring me closer to an understanding of human nature...as it has; as, indeed, do all the arts, each in their own way. Take fiction; it is not all about plot, but creating characters, good and bad. The writer needs to explore the various interrelationships of mind, body and spirit. Hopefully, this has also made me a better poet... but that, of course, is up to you, my readers, to decide.

Most of my novels - published and unpublished - remain in serial form on my fiction blog. Each serial is preceded by a separate synopsis post. It wa my original intention that as each complete novel  would be published to Google Play in e-format and removed from the blog. but a number of readers have emailed to say they cannot access Google Play. For this reason, I will be publishing my gay-interest crime novel 'Blasphemy' to the blog again while continuing to make it available on Google Play. All my novels on the blog are listed at:

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/news-updates-fiction.html 

It seemed a good idea to publish today's poem here (see below) at the same time as answering a number of queries about publishing my novels (and poetry collections) as e-books to Google Play over the next few years, thereby, making those that have only ever been on sale in the UK available to readers worldwide. UK sales were not too discouraging; first (and only) print runs sold quite well. Even so, I am definitely more of a poet than a novelist, although I enjoy writing fiction, and sheer enjoyment has to be as good a motivation as any.  [Few publishers have shown much interest in my fiction and not all those serialised on the blog have been published in print form; copyright to each, though, remains exclusively mine.]

A librarian in public libraries most of my working life, it would both amuse and sadden me to see hot-blooded heterosexual readers hovering  near the counter until no one else was waiting before presenting any gay-interest items (a novel,  DVD, biography of a gay icon etc.) to be issued or discharged. Many libraries have now installed issue/discharge machines that will spare them any such embarrassment. Yet, why be embarrassed?  Imagination is an Open House. I can only put it down to human nature’s preoccupation with a ‘guilt by association’ ethos and habitual inclination to jump to conclusions.

I wrote this poem while thinking about writing my first novel, ‘Dog Roses; a Gay Man’s Rites of Passage.’ The book was never published except on the blog. No publishers were interested, but that did not matter. By the time I had finished writing it, I realised why I had so needed to write it in the first place. Putting aside aspirations of fame and fortune (just as well) I needed to stop thinking about exploring human nature through fiction as with poetry, and just get on with it, give it my best shot. I have no regrets; it provided no less as rewarding an experience as poetry but via different routes and from different angles. (As for so much as a hint of talent, well, that’s something else altogether…and up to you to form your own opinions.)

I used to regret not being able to paint, draw, compose or play music... until it came home to me how all the arts share a common source; the writer, composer, painter, whatever. needs must get as close to human nature as any gardener or farmer to the very soil we feed and which, in turn, feeds us. How far the analogy can be carried, of course, depend as much on the nature of the soil or genre as that of any of us reaping its rewards; reader, listener, observer, all have no less a part to play than whomsoever's hands planting whatsoever seeds.

This poem is a villanelle.

PICTURES IN AN EXHIBITION

Exploring the human condition,
its good, bad and ugly
life forces stranger than fiction

Any flaws demanding attention,
(for all a subtle simplicity)
exploring the human condition

Nature, its greater contribution
side-lined by humanity;
life forces stranger than fiction

Exposed, a common retribution
(reasoning a moral propriety)
exploring the human condition

Satirised, a political observation
of this life’s tragicomedy;
life forces stranger than fiction

Society, pictures in an exhibition
for whomsoever cares to see;
exploring the human condition,
life forces stranger than fiction

Copyright R. N. Taber 1997; 2016






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Saturday, 1 February 2014

Tell-Tale Mind


How many of us, I wonder, show ourselves to others as we really are rather than whom we would like them to think we are? Many people seem to think I am a strong person and very self-confident. Yet, nothing could be further than the truth. I portray a fictionalized version of myself in which I believe, because I have never quite managed to work out what it is about my real self that I can believe in.

Sometimes, when we are discussing mutual friends or colleagues with other friends and colleagues, even members of our own family with other members of the family, we are not infrequently surprised by what we hear and may even wonder if we are talking about the same person. I guess we present a different persona to different people. Yet, those personae are all the same person. So are we, I wonder, all caught up in our own fictions?

I have kept faith with my sexuality since I came out as an openly gay person many years ago, and am certainly not ashamed of being gay. At the same time, all those formative years of having to lie because being gay was a criminal offence have left their mark. In those days, I had to create an alternative persona in order to survive. On the one hand, there was the conscientious if not very bright schoolboy; on the other, there was the shy, scared teenager struggling to come to terms with an awakening sexuality and finding ways of satisfying it that would have shocked just about everyone I knew. I’d cruise for sex and love-hate every minute of it. I was like a good-bad character in a novel. My life, for years was a split reality. Even now, years on, no one knows or will ever know how much so or just how much of that split personality remains.

Oh, I am no Jekyll and Hyde, but if someone were to ask, ‘Will the real Roger Taber stand up please,’ it would be a motley collection of characters that step out of the storybook that is my life.

This poem is a villanelle.

TELL-TALE MIND 

I’d show the world what I would be
(as if make-believe pays)
but the mind, it tells tales on me

Terrified, as I confront adversity,
a sailor on angry waves,
I’d show the world what I would be

‘Be brave, go free,’ love told me,
quick to learn its ways,
but the mind, it tells tales on me

From nature, I take my humanity
(lost in a temporal maze);
I’d show the world what I would be

I have kept faith with my sexuality,
(mastering its ways)
but the mind, it tells tales on me

The heart, it seeks refuge in poetry
(from its nightmares);
I’d show the world what I would be,
but the mind, it tells tales on me

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009; 2011


[Note: Yes, I know I’ve been oversimplifying in my preamble and not saying anything original, but readers often ask what lies behind a poem, what prompted me to write it in the first place. Besides, I am writing a blog, not an essay on the human psyche.]

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Monday, 25 February 2013

O, Cervantes

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

Since the 1970s, pressure of work on the average person has at least doubled; fewer staff and the common misconception by (too many) managers that just about anyone can be replaced by a computer has been a major contributory factor. Only ten years earlier, my teachers at school had been telling us how wonderful the 1980s would be once machines were doing the lion’s share of the work we were paid full-time wages for part-time hours. [Whatever happened to the Golden Age of Leisure we were promised?]

Oh, but show me a windmill!

O, CERVANTES

One commuter rises
at seven, has to run for the train
at eight after ritual peck
on doorstep, and warning the kids
not to be late for school

Arrives for work wearily,
re-sorts any post meticulously,
checks with a secretary
about what’s worth knowing
on the grapevine

Another day done,
breaks for tea well-deserved,
our hero heads home,
packed like a helpless veal calf
on the continental run

Turns a brassy yale
at about half-six most days,
picking at supper
by seven ten, sends screaming kids
to do their homework

Starts to tell the wife
about his own work, and then...
(Damn, the mobile again!)
A smoke, glass of red, some soap TV,
(pity about the ulcer, scary.)

No outstanding bills, and never
a thing about windmills

Copyright R. N. Taber 1999; 2013

[Note: An earlier but only slightly different version of today’s poem was written in 1972; it appeared in Poetry Monthly (1999) that has since closed down and iAll in One Day, Poetry Now (Forward Press) 2001 prior to my first major collection,  Love And Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001;]

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Thursday, 5 April 2012

Heroes OR Imagination, a (Free) Ticket to Ride

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

Now, I  dare say we are all heroes, each in our own way, if only for just for getting on with the business of everyday living. 

We all need heroes to inspire us, and where we can’t find any to tick our particular boxes, the chances are we'll invent them.

HEROES or  IMAGINATION, A (FREE) TICKET TO RIDE

Every morning I’d watch them
run for the train,
catch it with seconds to spare
then relax in my seat,
wondering just who they were
and if they were lovers
or friends, maybe neighbours
but, no, there was more
to the way they ran for the train
than met the eye,
the reason why easy to tell
because their faces
were alive, not like those others
I saw every morning
on the 6.15 to a bread factory
that could even have given
bodies in a mortuary a good run
for their money

Always late, never out of breath,
leaping aboard,
straight into fantasies I’d weave
around them;
no ordinary pair (yes, definitely
a pair, I was sure)
they would be living the high life,
burning the candle
at both ends, night after night,
(so always late)
then they’d fall into bed, take sex
for a heady trip…
heading for the surreal, shades
of a looking-glass war
while ordinary folks like me just
don’t have the bottle
(or the money) it takes for drugs
so we’ll play safe

Divine looks, designer gear, it was
too much to bear
each morning on the way to work
where I don’t want to be
so all the more reason to enjoy
my little fantasy…
about heroes of the 6.15 who were
always late,
their brief (like gods) to make
their own fate,
have the world turn on such beauty
it did not deserve,
making an open declaration of sorts
about a politics of heart,
body and soul that even the worst
of temporal measures
fail to have put down, rogue traders
going for the jugular

One day, they just missed the train;
no heroes after all, only human

[From: On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]

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